Jump to content

sttp

Members
  • Posts

    291
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

Posts posted by sttp

  1. FYI, there are several VP units in my scenario "Return to Saint Jores," which Bootie and Rinaldi are currently playing and providing video DARs for (Rinaldi's been a bit busy, but hopefully he'll be getting his side of this underway soon...). I'll make it publicly available in the near future.

    Just watched DAR #1 on The Few Good Men's channel, and that's a really nice looking map. Interesting objectives, too. Look forward to giving it a go.

  2. Not sure about the language on the purchase page being "misleading"? I guess you could argue it could be a tiny bit more precise, but... seems clear enough? I suppose they could've explicitly stated "To get the 3.0 upgrade, you must purchase it separately for $10, but we've taken that $10 off the bundle price so that you're not paying more overall." Could be said a thousand different ways....

    I don't think you'll be disappointed by CMFI. It has a totally different 'feel' and flavor to it. It's my favorite of the three games, personally. The Niscemi Highway mission is a real standout, IMO, and Catch a Tiger is also on my Top 10 list. Keep of Majella was also very intense -- use your explosives wisely! -- and is also probably a pretty good prelude to the upcoming Bulge game. (Snowy environment, and there's a well-defended bridge you've got to get across....) Gosh, all this talk is making me wish I could have another "first time" with them. :lol: 

    Have fun with the new game.

     

  3. Yes I will look into that.

    Had no idea you were doing the sites as a kind of side thing, basically as charity. So thanks for that. Interestingly, a few weeks back I subscribed to receive updates when new scenarios are posted at TSD, so I now get a WordPress e-mail every time even an 'old' scenario is transferred from the repository to your site... and it's very obvious you're working your butt off to get all those files (several hundred, I guess) moved over. Will keep those facts in mind before offering suggestions or criticisms. :lol:

     

  4. All else being equal, if troops or tanks are left on their own, with just a 'bare' FACE command, are they just as likely to fire as if they'd been given an actual TARGET ARC? (I'm talking about a target inside the hypothetical arc, of course.)

    It seems like setting up a target arc would compel them to fire when they otherwise wouldn't, like with low probability hits or when it'd be less effective suppression, but... after a little bit of testing in the editor, I can't seem to tell much of a difference? Does that match other players' experiences?

    Has anyone done some kind of thorough testing on this?

  5. Real Nice to hear CM: Bulge; St. Vith to Elsenborn ridge, is almost here

    What will the game's official name be, actually? Just "Combat Mission: Battle of the Bulge"? The other titles in the CMx2 series seem like they wouldn't have been obvious/predictable, so... just wondering. I guess the answer will be just one more surprise. 

  6.  

    @sttp are  the men in question definitely WIA not KIA?

    Because looting only and buddy aid with or without looting are slightly different in my experience (apart from the aforementioned speed difference).

    Buddy aid is a matter of life and death and therefore is more urgent. Looting is not always a bonus and is less urgent.

    I think encumbrance and ammo supply also come into the equation when looting but not when buddy aiding.

    If a looter has full ammo and a rifle, they won't necessary pick up a SMG whereas if they are low on rifle ammo they are much more likely to pick it up.

    Also heavy weapons can only be picked up by the right heavy weapons team.

    I only realized the other day that different armies fighting on the same side can buddy aid and crucially loot each other....

     

     

    Yes, it was KIA x2, no wounded.

    I ultimately moved the survivors to a different action square, and then they did start grabbing their dead squadmates' equipment. Took about 1.5 turns.

    Womble said the action square to use is the one "where that outflung leg or arm is," and that turned out to be true in this case. It sure looked like those KIA's were a bit closer to my original AS, but I guess not.

    However... I feel like I've seen squad members move 2 or 3 AS's to help the wounded? Am I mis-remembering that? I guess it could be different for KIA vs. WIA, a crucial distinction that others above have mentioned.

     

  7. Or rather, are there ways to nudge or "encourage" a wounded soldier's remaining team members to start the medic process more quickly?

    I did a forum search on this, but surprisingly didn't have much luck. A few scattered remarks here and there....

    Obviously, I put/keep the hopefully medic-ing soldiers into the wounded soldiers' action spot.

    That part of the battlefield is now safe, well masked by terrain. I've tried pointing these teammates directly at the wounded (with a FACE command). I've also tried it via cover arc, so that they know their mission right now is to not be shooting.

    My remaining squad members really, really need to get those stens and especially the binoculars off of their fallen comrades. But it's been three turns now and they still won't initiate the medic process.

    Must the future medics be placed on the exact same action spot their team members were killed or injured from? Because the wounded are in the middle of four, about equidistant from each, and I don't remember precisely which one I had them assigned to back when the bullets were flying....

    II don't recall ever seeing any pixeltruppen so hesitant to help (err... pickpocket) their buddies.

    Ideas or suggestions?

     

  8. I'm starting to think the delay is somewhat caused by BFC wanting to do an overhaul of the website and the store. The battle pack for BN was due a long time ago and for sure it doesn't include any tech changes.

    I'm hoping for lots of news, Bulge AAR in the forum, releases and so on in the near future.

    I agree as to the cause of the Battle Pack delay, and I think maybe I saw someone (a 'someone' who I thought would probably know) hint at exactly that? Somewhere. I really don't want to be involved in mere rumors, though, so I'll try to find that reference. 

    Re: Bulge, yeah, it'd be great to at least get those AAR's going. But I guess BF will wait 'til a time when they feel they can do it right. I can definitely respect that. Unfortunately for them, it's probably one of those "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situations....

  9. I really like the way they're headed with the Scenario Depot and Proving Grounds, overall. The one big thing I don't like about those sites, though, is that there appears to be no search feature? (How could this be? I'm missing something really obvious, right?) 

    Anyway, what's your scenario's title? Normandy, Italy, or Red Thunder?

    I'd be happy to make yours the next one I play, so long as it's not too big. I'm a micro-manager, so don't have the patience to spend an hour between turns, LOL. Also, it could easily be a week or two before I could start. Due to the holiday, plus I'm only ~10 moves into CMFI's "Keep of Majella"... a beautiful map, BTW, so kudos to the scenario designer Kari Salo. (An added plus is that its snowy conditions are really getting me into a Bulge state of mind....)

    Oh, last thing: one of the problems right now with The Scenario Depot is that the BF Repository's files are still not all transferred over. So I've mostly still been downloading things from here. Not sure if that issue would be applicable to the Proving Grounds, but I suspect most people won't make the true switch in their minds until every file has been moved there.

     

  10. Ooooh. Cool stuff happening with milestones and signs. :) The 'legacy' milestones are still random (and region specific) but new additional town line signs don't rotate.

    Default non-random signs are... let me recall... Ardennes signs default to Bastogne area or Hemroulle, France to Metz or Remilly, Gemany to Aachen area or Monschau, Holland to Maastricht or Roemond. Plus there are [tagged] signs for fourteen additional specific towns that relate to the scenarios.

    Thus ends my impromptu Bulge PR campaign. I'll shut up 'til the website shows up.  ;)

    Sounds really cool!

    When you say "'til the website shows up," you mean the CMBulge forum that'll be here, I assume?

    Also, anyone have any idea about when Bulge's beta DAR/AAR may show up? (For CMRT, or maybe it was CMBS, the beta DAR showed up more than 6 months prior to release, IIRC.)

    Very excited about the two upcoming releases! These Combat Mission games are the most fun I've had on a PC in probably 10 years. No exaggeration. Got a buddy of mine interested in them too -- a former avid Men of War player (I could just never get into those), and now we're both lamenting all the fun we could've been having with these the last 4+ years... if only we'd known CM even existed. So, to those you right now working your butts off to get these titles out the door, all these questions have got to be a bit of a nuisance... but hopefully it's obvious that they're more a function of people's interest and appreciation rather than expectation or entitlement.

    Thanks.

     

  11. so a casualty from a 105he round at 65m would be "realistic"?

    I think it's probably realistic, yes. It's a low probability hit, but still, it will happen sometimes. My educated guess is that the likelihood of being hit probably works as an inverse square law, or perhaps an inverse cube law. Meaning at 2x the distance, there's one-fourth the chance of being hit. (Or one-eighth, under a cube law.)

    I remember doing a bunch of mortar / arty testing in the editor several months back, all on flat and empty maps, and the injury patterns and probabilities seemed pretty reasonable. I wish I could've been more scientific about it than I was, but... I simply lack the knowledge to do so.)

    Yes, every now and then there'd be a really odd, low-likelihood casualty. So now I tend to think of it like this: given enough trials, even unlikely things are very likely to happen.

     

  12. I left a comment over at The Scenario Depot also, but reading the scenario author'd briefing notes again, I see he's asked people to leave any comments here or to send them by email. This one is definitely worth the public praise / recommendation, IMO, so... here's what I said over there:

    I just finished this one, and can honestly say that this was the most fun I've ever had with any city or large town scenario. I usually shy away from that setting (since it seems like the game mechanics and animation weaknesses are most apparent there), but taking a chance on this one really paid off. Best of all, this apparently has 5 AI plans, so it should be extremely replayable. Thanks Umlaut.

  13. Hi everyone. Just wondering... any kind of consensus here about which stock scenarios tend to be the most difficult vs. which tend to be a little "easier"? Some days I want to delve deeply into a scenario where I really need to micro-manage everything -- victory there is much more satisfying -- but other days I don't have 15 minutes between turns and would prefer to be able to be a more hands-off commander, i.e., settle for 'what the hell, good enough' and just watch my AI troops duke it out.

    For the latter type of scenario, I guess I mean something like the Arnhem road bridge battle, where you can pretty much just do some basic positioning and then enjoy the chaos. It seems like 'Sticking it Out' may also fall into that category. (At least its first half. I haven't finished it though, so... you never know.) I suppose any defense-oriented scenario could be much more hands-off, but I was hoping not to limit myself to that.

    Knowing the forum veteran's opinions on this helps in terms of self-evaluation, too. If I get my butt kicked in a scenario that a bunch of you find to be pretty straightforward, I know I need to go re-examine something.

    It'd be good to hear people's opinions.

    Thanks.

    (Oh, BTW, I did do a forum search on this, but other than some scattered comments didn't have much luck. And FWIW I'm referring to all modules, playing against the AI.)

  14. Well, I guess someone's gotta say it.... a way to disable opening move arty for Quick Battles against the AI. Especially during meeting engagements. Please. I want the AI to have arty, but on the first move it really is such a downer. There's a reason so many PBM players agree to not do it. I realize this issue has like been a little controversial here, and that many folks think first move arty is realistic. But the fact that it is a little controversial is the perfect reason to make it an option.

  15. Turret facing command.

    Yep, there's a definite need to be able to control turret facing with something simpler and quicker than a bunch of manually-drawn target arcs. The arcs are especially cumbersome in real time mode. This issue is what I had in mind with my #10, the quick & easy 180 degree arcs. But a hypothetical new kind of FACE command, or 'simply' (haha) tweaking FACE's current behavior would work too. As is, though, FACE often feels more like a movement and positioning command than a true targeting command.

    Actually, during my first week or so with CMBN, I played under the impression that FACE controlled turret direction while the tank was on the move, but then controlled both turret and hull direction when the tank reached its last waypoint. And actually, I think it'd be awesome if FACE worked exactly like that. Opinions? But then what about when you have tanks pause at intermediate waypoints -- would it turn the hull too, or just the turret? Control hull direction via waypoint approach direction, or let this hypothetical new FACE command turn the hull, also, any time the tank stops?

    Interesting dilemma, and surely not easy for the developers to code for. There'd seemed to be an asymmetry somewhere no matter which way they tried to tackle it, because it'd have to work for both infantry and armor.

     

  16. IanL, I think you said you weren't sure what I meant by #3 on my list.

    What I meant by that is the ability to save the troop combos you tend to gravitate towards most often. For example, there's a certain "general purpose" troop + light armor +AT asset combo I seem to always put together in particular QB situations. (Like when I'm playing against the AI and have no idea what kinds of troops and machinery it'll be bringing to the battle, so I've gotta cover all bases.) I just tend to buy the same old stuff, QB after QB, with only minor changes here and there. Same thing with other QB battle types, like "Armor Only" or "Mechanized Infantry." So it'd be nice to be able to save a favorite troop / formation combo and somehow quickly load it into the "Activated Troops" screen during unit purchase.

    The second component of this -- and again, other members have mentioned the idea before -- is less important, but would still be nice: some way to control the troops order and organization when first deployed to the setup zone. In setup phase, the first thing I usually do is move all the units into their chain of command hierarchy. Like this:

     

    CM_Normandy_2015-10-08_20-11-24-25.thumb

     

    Am I the only geek here who does that?!? I had assumed many players do it? But if not... yeah, no use implementing it. But I find that laying my troops out like that really helps organize thoughts, develop a plan, and mentally inventory every single piece of equipment my troops have... basically just helps avoid overlooking anything important.

    So, part B of the idea is this: adding some feature that allows us to have to do that setup phase troop organizing only once. Once for each troop/equipment combo you've saved. And then, during setup, those troops could be dumped into the setup zone organized like so, instead of as a jumbled mess.

    Heck, maybe Battlefront could even create 10 or 20 preset combos themselves. ones that are easily selectable, and that use up exactly the number of points allowed for the various Quick Battle sizes. It might make CMBN less intimidating for first time users? The CMBN learning curve really is pretty steep, so every little added feature like this is a big help.

     

  17. An ALT-[key] hide GUI option would be nice

    An ALT-[key] to show/hide the terrain grid would be useful at times also.

    The show/hide terrain grid thing would be nice. If that were an insta-toggle, the graphic could even be made to be less subtle than with the grid mods, and therefore maybe make the land contours even more apparent. I feel like I read somewhere, though, that they've tried to implement that feature but that it was a huge resource hog? So... if not in CMx2.4 (seems unlikely it would be), maybe it could go on the CMx3.0 list instead.

     

  18. My number one wish: Adding something to help the player estimate landscape contours. Doesn't need to be a grid or contour lines, could be as simple as a shader system where lower terrain is rendered a bit darker. 

    Awesome idea. I use the gridded terrain to get a better sense of slopes, terrain cover, etc., but it does have its disadvantages. So I've often wished for some kind of "auto-generated topographical map" function. Even if just in the editor.

    Now that I think about it... seems like something maybe an ambitious modder/programmer could tackle? Not sure. I'd take a crack at it if I had the skills. I can envision something where you go to the map editor, pull up the elevation page, take a screenshot which shows each tile's elevation, stitch those all together (if needed, like for larger maps), and then assign different shades to those different heights. Great way to show slope and cover. It'd be so much easier to do if we could just pull all the map's elevation values out directly though -- like as a 2-dimensional array, I guess -- but I don't see any way that'd be possible?

    You've stimulated some interesting thought here. Precisely the point of these kinds of threads.

  19. I love this combat simulator. Adore it. So I'm wondering what the most requested possible tweaks/features for CMBN have been over these last four years? Things to go in the next big engine upgrade. I'm gonna list some of my ideas/requests, and many of these have been mentioned before, but others... maybe not? So what the heck, maybe it's time to initiate some constructive discussion on how these ideas can be expanded or modified? It seems like a lot of new players are showing up in the last year (including me), so it might be productive... as long as people don't turn it into something that sounds more like bug reports.

     

    ------------------------- MAJOR FEATURES / ADDITIONS (I guess they'd be major?) ------------------------------------

    These first two could be great for videos / screenshots. Video AAR's would require a ton less editing, and all would look better too.

    1) --- adding the option for a truly fullscreen video? Maybe another ALT-[whatever] toggle which hides the bottom UI and top Nav/Info Bar, and expands the scene vertically? Definitely mentioned here before.

    2) --- a way to instantly toggle off everything on the screen that's not part of the battle scene... i.e., no green soldier bases even when a unit is selected, and no red crosses popping up for new casualties... no nothing, except the battle. Maybe a single new hotkey (like ALT-V, for "video") could work? One press, all off; second press, it reverts back to the show/hide (trees / icons / paths / objectives / landmarks / vehicle hit text / command link) combo you just left. Alternatively, even just a couple more ALT-[whatever] shortcuts to individually toggle off the artificial elements we still must always see?
     
    3) -- At least the ability to save a few "favorite" unit formations/combos. If we really wanted to splurge, maybe edit and save their relative positions, too, for quick and easy deployment and organization. Hugely useful for big QB's. (Discussed here recently, but it'd be such a useful feature that I couldn't possibly neglect mentioning it.)
     
    4) --- (Something tells me this might be more difficult to program than it seems?) After the battle, the option to "review" even the units that have been destroyed or removed from the map. Or just any additional feature that could indicate or summarize the fate of every soldier you commanded. To me, the more stats the better. By squads and platoon, too... though at some point too much data in a 'game' really can start to turn people off. But maybe a slightly more detailed after action report screen? Percent of soldiers who are broken at the end of the battle? Good to know! (BTW, it'd be useful for video and screenshot purposes if the AAR displayed the QB map name on it.)
     
    ***I wouldn't dare put this one on a list like this, since I'm talking about things that are hopefully practical and reasonable. Still, it seems like it's the #1 CMBN feature request.(???) I'm referring to the ability to combine all 1-minute replay files into a single, huge replay of the entire battle. I'd probably pay an extra $100+ for that feature alone, frankly, but I do get where Battlefront's coming from on this. Not just the cost/benefit part, but that they're not even sure the CMBN core code could allow it.)

     

    ------------------------- 'MINOR' TWEAKS / FEATURES ------------------------------------

    (Maybe minor, maybe not? For all we know the addition of some seemingly "minor" feature would be an unimaginable nightmare for the programmers.)

    5) --- Please please please, an option to disable the "camera scrolls when mouse at edge of screen" behavior. ("When were those reinforcements coming? I'd better go read the mission briefing again... " [mouse cursor moves a millimeter below the Menus button] "WHOOPS, I guess instead I'll have to put my camera back into that perfect position it just darted away from....." If I could choose one single thing from this list, it'd probably be this. 

    6) --- Fixed cameras, customizable, which maintain their position and orientation with respect to the map. So, stuck looking down an important alleyway or terrain area. Maybe something like CTRL-SHIFT-[0-9] to set a fixed map camera, and ALT-SHIFT to switch your view back to it?

    7) --- maybe an additional "Toggle Floating Icons" option that gets rid off all enemy contacts except those that are currently known, identified and in sight? As it stands now, ALT-I (at least when playing in Veteran modetoggles between displaying ALL contacts (whether they're known or just suspected contacts)... vs. displaying only POSSIBLE contacts... vs. displaying NO CONTACTS at all -- all icons off. The 4th logical option there would be to display KNOWN and certain contacts only. With big battles, especially when you split squads into teams, all those floating question mark icons can really clutter up the screen. Displaying ALL contacts would remain the default though.

    8) --- a command & control link option where, for example, if you clicked on a squad, you'd get the same type of red command link lines we currently get, but maybe also something that shows the quality of each element in an entire comms chain all at once... i.e., a line from the squad to the platoon HQ, then another line from platoon HQ over to company HQ, and so on right on up. There are a lot of situations during the chaos of battle where this could be useful, especially in real time mode.

    9) --- In the editor, it'd be really nice to have the prices of units displayed, just like they're displayed when you purchase units for a QB.

    10) -- A way to instantly draw 180-degree target arcs. (And a way to make them visually less intrusive -- see #11.) So here's the kind of thing I have in mind: just as always, you could still click and drag to draw your arc manually... and you could still SHIFT-click to cover the whole 360 degrees.... but maybe also there could be an ALT-click option, which gives you an instant half-circle that's centered on and extends out to wherever your next mouse click is. Similar to and as easy as a quick FACE command, but still with all the important differences. These 180-degree, wide-as-possible arcs are needed so often. Again, especially useful in real time mode.

    11) ---- a way to tone down the visual display of the target arcs? Sometimes you need to keep a unit selected, and its arcs get in the way of other important things. Say your squad is traveling a curved path and you need to change the arc's orientation at a bunch of different waypoints, so now you've got 3 or more arcs on screen, with the entire map drowning in a sea of yellow or purple. Could there maybe be an option to display only the arcs' outline? Or even just temporarily toggle them off completely?  (Another ALT-[whatever] display option.)

    12) -- same thing with setup zones. Some way to soften or toggle them. Yeah, really minor. But that bright red or blue can be pretty intrusive during setup, right when I most need to see all the 'pure' terrain, and boy can it be an immersion killer. Maybe we could at least be allowed to softened/lighten the colors via mod?

    13) --- a TARGET HEAVY ARMOR ONLY command,  as discussed a few weeks ago. Say you want to ambush a Panzer with your last Sherman, and then your Sherman blows its cover just so that it can fire at a non-threat... like maybe a halftrack that has only a 30cal, but which is still considered 'armor' by the TARGET ARMOR ARC command.

    14) --- almost forgot... could there be a new movement command, something with a speed in between MOVE and QUICK? Maybe call it HUSTLE or something like that? QUICK seems to be  ~80% the speed of FAST, and the troops get tired quickly. Same thing with HUNT. And sure, MOVE has no stamina penalty, but it seems so... very... slow in comparison. Like there's too big of a gap between MOVE and QUICK? Probably discussed before....

     

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    I'm pretty sure that mentioning 14 possible feature requests is enough. And they are just that, nothing more -- feature requests. None of those things involve bugs or any serious shortcomings, and I hope any comments wouldn't devolve into that. I don't want this all to sound like I'm dissatisfied with CMBN in any significant way. Quite the opposite -- this is an astounding piece of software, IMO. Still, there are a thousand things that players and even Battlefront staff themselves would love to see added or tweaked.... yet we all know that development resources are finite. I just wanted to see if there's ever been any kind of forum unanimity on these kinds of feature requests, and to also float some ideas. Seems like we all share the common goal of trying to help turn what's already a great combat simulator into an even better one.

    Thanks.

     

×
×
  • Create New...