sttp
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Posts posted by sttp
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Is it possible to pull a formation from let's say late 1943 into a scenario that takes place in early 1945 when that older type / composition no longer existed?
Historical accuracy is obviously not the goal here!
I'm new(ish) to scenario design and I've tried a couple of different things, but I guess I'm either missing something or it's just not possible?
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2 hours ago, Centurian52 said:
The Maple Feline gave better answers to your current set of questions than I was about to. But if you have further game engine questions I recommend checking out AR's youtube channel. He knows things about the engine that never occurred to me even after 15 years of playing the games.
Already subscribed!! Especially useful for me were the vids on mounting and dismounting and (especially) how to tell the blast command exactly which section you want blown up. Who knew?!?!
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These are some of the finer points of the engine for sure, but I don't have time for much testing these days, and I'm sure some of you already know the answers. Plus it could help other players. So...
1) Can satchels/explosives be used to clear forest brush and / or trees enough so that a vehicle can pass through?
(From limited observation, I think this answer is NO... though explosives CAN be used to clear wire, fences, house walls, hedges, bocage, and CMFI vineyard rows. (Seems like two vineyard rows per satchel, of approximately vehicle width.) Hedgehogs? Some bunker types? All enemy armor types or just most?
2) Can smallish flavor objects cause a vehicle to redirect or get hung up? i.e., will it seek to go around the flavor object in god knows what direction? Or does it depend on the precise vehicle and precise flavor object?
3) In tight city streets when needing to turn a vehicle (let's say 90 degrees), where exactly should the waypoints be placed in order to minimize the chance of it getting hung up? Several precise waypoints through the turn? Just 2 waypoints that are farther apart, and let auto-pathing figure it out? Something in between? Or does it depend on the particular vehicle, driver skill, MOVE vs SLOW, etc.?4) When sneaking a tank around buildings at larger angles from the bearing to target (to get a shot at side armor, for example), must our friendly tank be able to spot the CENTER of the enemy armor, or can it see and fire at "pieces" of that armor that hang out past the obstruction? (I think "pieces" can work -- seems like I get spotted that way! -- but it may just take significantly more time to spot? Other factors?)
-5) Bridge Bug related:
--Does move speed/type affect probability of bridge bug appearing?
--Does letting the waypoints "snap to" each end of the bridge mitigate the bridge bug?
--Does vehicle TYPE affect probability of the bridge bug?Yes, I despise the bridge bug. It just ruined another scenario. (Lost a Wolverine I shouldn't have on Umlaut's outstanding Tiger By The Tail.)
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Okay, I will try Photopea. Thanks!
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I'm trying to modify the floating icons but keep getting weird black borders around them. I suspect it's an alpha channel / bitmap format issue.
In another thread I saw reference to ImageMagic.
Are there other programs, 8 years later now, that can save in the proper bitmap format for these icons? (32-bit RGBA, correct?)
GIMP is what I typically use for most image editing and I've tried various settings in it, but... no luck so far.
Thanks for any help!!
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49 minutes ago, BFCElvis said:
Straight from the desk of @Ithikial_AU. Here ya go:
"... Battlefront wanted to marshal their resources towards ++redacted++. I mean I was shocked by the news at first, that ++redacted++ existed and that it was going in ++redacted++ thematic direction."Blueballed once again!
C'mon Battlefront, tell us already!!!!
In the meantime, really looking forward to this Battlepack.
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Well, the results are completely ambiguous and unhelpful.
Fire for Effect did arrive, but it seemed slower and less accurate than it should have been for a +1 forward observer in that fantastic position. It's CMFI's End of the Line, and he was up on that 4-story tower on the hill overlooking the entire battlefield.
My gut tells me the arty spotter needs to see the impact point, which would make it sorta parallel to how you can't target a building unless you can see its base, but I have no idea. Just my gut...
It might be fun to test... along with the 37 other things on my "To Be Tested In the Editor" list.
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No time to test, as turn is imminent....
For spotting rounds to be useful and "valid", does the artillery spotter need to be able to see the impact area on the ground?
Or is being able to see the explosion plume enough?
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There's probably a Youtube vid featuring all the Squad gun sounds. While that video is playing, use Audacity (or any other recording software that lets you see the waveform) to record your own PC's output as a lossless flac or wav file. Then chop that master file up into individual sounds. You can even combine sound files in various ratios, and this, along with Audacity's really nice onboard effects, can get you some very new and very impressive sounds.
However(!!)... Combat Mission sound files need to be mono and of a certain type and bit rate (which I forget at the moment), and this conversion is where you'll notice the degradation in audio quality. But the sounds could still be really good. I did a Band of Brothers / Saving Private Ryan gun sound mod this way, and some of the rifle sounds are fantastic. The Garand, especially, made those handful of hours 100% worth it.
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I'm starting to get back into CM in a big way recently, and want to be 100% clear on something: Assigning a target arc has no effect on that unit's spotting cycle or the probability of them seeing an enemy sooner, is that correct?
In other words, an arc is just a targeting restriction and does not tell a unit to focus more of their spotting 'energy' on a particular area?
That had been my understanding, but I've been questioning it recently, and it's clear from the Steam forums and Discord that even some experienced players think of the target arc as a sort of 'Focus Your Attention Here' kind of command.
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I think it's extremely likely that Steve is referring to CMx3. There is nothing else BFC could be doing -- no new module, no engine upgrade, not even a whole new title in the CMx2 series -- that would warrant that type of language.
Steve had talked about Charle's insane programming workload over the last xx months. Nothing in CMx2 would likely be taking that much programming time. Plus there is now defense contract money coming into BFC. The engine is showing its age, despite still providing most of use with many hours of fun, so it's reasonable to surmise that the wargamers on this forum are not the only ones pushing for advancements. Plus... a few things said only a week or two ago in the "Is CMBS Dead?" thread might've revealed more than some people desired or noticed?
It's fun to speculate about what the potential first CMx3 title would be.
To me, yes, Normandy (or at least France '44), makes the most sense. CMBN is the company's most popular and highest selling CMx2 title for a reason.
I am so, so ready to give BFC even more of my money!
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There's a lot of wishful thinking taking place in this thread from the small minority who want to see early WW2 content. How many times and ways do we need to hear BFC say that early war just isn't a wise use of their time and resources?
Would it be profitable? Probably. Would it be less profitable than other things they could be doing? Definitely.
The CMx2 engine is FOURTEEN YEARS OLD. At this point all new CM2 content feels like watching the same old play but with slightly different costumes and some upgraded props. It's a good and classic play, and I'll watch it as long as I must, but... it is the same old play.
Every minute that core BFC staff spend on CMx2 is a minute they could have been using to develop CMx3.
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Mine was put directly on the Desktop.
Might also try C:\Program Files (x86)\Battlefront\Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg.
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Just took a quick look through all the maps / scenarios / extracted campaign missions, and all I can say is... really nice job with the Downfall module. Those missions involving the bridge at Remagen look especially juicy. (And well done re: the bridge model.) Plus, with many scenarios, there are panzerfausts nearly everywhere. Should be absolute madness. Love it!
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6 hours ago, The_Capt said:
As to “dead or alive”. Well I think it will depend on CMx3 timelines. If the new engine release before the war in Ukraine is over then it makes less and less sense to retcon back to CMx2.
I am extremely curious about this language in particular!
Honestly when I first saw that everything CMx2 related was going to 50% off on Steam, a small part of me wondered if CMx3 was maybe on the horizon.... I dismissed that thought, but this has just made it resurface!
My wallet's right here, BFC, ready and waiting to throw more cash your way!
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Do we even know which current titles actually sell the best? Review numbers, the order the titles were released on Steam, tournament signups, etc., offer only a limited glimpse of the current situation, but apparently foregoing the release of the CMBS module is not going to be as financially damaging to BF as some seem to think.
I've been on these forums for years (though I only play the WW2 titles, so not the Black Sea or Shock Force forums), and from what I've gathered it seems the WW2 titles -- Normandy, especially -- are still the best sellers, no? But I've always had the impression that Black Sea is not that far behind it.
Which means that if Black Sea is "dead" (and I don't think it actually is, really) then it couldn't bode well for the rest of CM2.
Well past time for CM3!!
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Thanks for all your work, Paper Tiger. I'm looking forward to giving a couple of these missions a play!
Is anyone else having trouble getting to the individual missions / btt files? I can extract the campaign files just fine (using either the most updated version of Rokko's Uncam that I can find, or Mad Mike's tool), but the individual missions are not showing up in my scenario list even though the btt files are in the scenario folder... i.e., same procedure that's worked for so many other extracted campaigns.
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6 hours ago, Paper Tiger said:
I started work on Licornets this afternoon. This is one mission that REALLY needs 16 AI groups and I'm using almost all of them already. Combined with a variety of triggers, I can really make some effective AI counter moves if the player activates them.
Given the stellar quality of the original campaign, I am really looking forward to your new revisions! Like so many others, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. Happy holidays!
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There's an entire (rather ridiculous) thread on the Ukraine situation in the CMBS sub-forum. For the love of god can we please keep that stuff over there?
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My first six months with the Combat Mission WW2 titles were almost definitely the highlight of my PC gaming life... and I started gaming a long time ago, like the Doom and Falcon 3.0 days in the early 90s, with DOS bootdisks, etc., and there've been several addictions along the way. CM was the most almost out of control addicted it ever got.
In fact, I remember taking a secret trip / vacation when I first got CM (2014/15 for me) and locking myself in a hotel room for eight days just so that I could play it constantly and scratch that overwhelming itch. It was bliss! Hope it's that for you as well.
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1) Download Audacity.
2) Set Audacity up so that it's recording your own PC's output. (Plenty of tutorials on this online.)
3) Either play Squad or watch high quality Squad videos (or whatever original sound source you may choose).
4) Hit record in Audacity.
5) Stop the recording and save that large, raw file as a .wav file.
6) Cut the larger .wav file up into smaller individual gunshot sound segments.
7) Edit these new .wav files to remove clipping and to conform to CM requirements. (I'm not at my main PC at the moment, so don't remember these particular file characteristics off-hand. You can open one of the defaults to be sure. They are definitely mono though, not stereo, so there'll be a noticeable loss in sound quality at this step.)
Name these .wav file to match the CM sound files you want to replace.
9) Put your new wav files into your Z folder. No need to mess with or move the originals.
Tada!
This is all actually way less cumbersome than it may sound. Once you do it a few times it becomes almost routine. You can even combine sounds / tracks in Audacity and start messing with the program's default effects to get some really unique and high quality gun sounds. The one thing I will urge is that you should avoid clipping at all costs. There's a volume war going on with many downloadable sound packs, and to be honest, as much as I respect the time that people have put into them, many of those downloadable sounds just don't sound so great if you're playing with high quality headphones, for example.
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16 hours ago, WimO said:
I have spent many hours combing through each scenario to try to remove the jumping flavor objects. There is no easy solution.
Maybe this will help re: jumping flavor objects? Taken from a post I made a long time ago:
So, after lots of testing (by creating grids of 64 water spigots per 8x8 meter action square, lol), I've now made more sense of how to accurately place flavor objects and keep them where I want them. Or at least predict where they'll end up after a reload of the 3D environment. The logic is apparently pretty straightforward:
It seems that flavor objects just snap to the southwest corner of whichever 1 x 1 meter grid spot you place them on. So it's just that both grid coordinates are truncated, i.e. the decimal portion is just stripped away. A crate placed at, say, x=7.88 y=23.88, will just eventually migrate itself over to (7,23)... not to (8,24), even though (8,24) was much, much closer.
If there's already another flavor object at (7,23), the new object will replace it.
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5 minutes ago, Anonymous_Jonze said:
As a copywriter, I feel you. But to be honest, a lot of what ChatGPT writes is ****.
I can't refute that, and have definitely heard the same from several people. On the other hand, I was asking it questions about a narrow topic I happen to have a lot of expertise and experience in, and the bot's "knowledge" about it and ability to "explain" some esoteric concepts was really, really surprising... again, almost creepy.
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Can't edit my post, so I'll add:
I just asked it how to place buildings and hedgerows within the mission editor, and it answered perfectly and with surprising detail and speed.
I also asked it to recite the mission briefing for the US side in "Breaking the Line", and it listed it immediately.
Finally, I asked it to list each objective and the number of points associated with each for a certain mission, and again, it did it perfectly.
WHAT in the hell?!
Now I'm not saying the things I asked are particularly useful, but it's interesting to imagine what else it could do if pushed to its limits.
It's like I'm talking to Enterprise's computer in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Siri times 100!
Formation & timeline combinations
in CM2 Scenario and Mod Tips
Posted
Huh... seems to be working now(!!), but I swear that what Centurian suggested was one of the first things I tried. So I have a Ranger Battalion from '43 Italy working with a Ranger Battalion from '44, and something similar for early and late German motorized battalions.
Perhaps there was some other kind of limitation on the formations I'd originally chosen, or I screwed something up, but at least it's confirmation that conceptually it is possible.
Thanks gentlemen!