Thewood1

It should be pointed out that almost every 3D game I play has the LOD issue. In some its more apparent than others. Steel Beasts has it, but at the highest settings it almost goes away. But at the highest settings, my old 1660 struggled. MS Flight Simulator has raging arguments on its forums about tree and building LODs in multiple ongoing threads. But some of the 3D games I play, while still having a few LOD issues, have found creative ways to hide it. Back when CMSF was being worked on, there were discussions about BFC's choice of sticking with older OpenGL graphics libraries. It was predicted by more than a few that these graphical and performance issues would eventually manifest themselves. And they have. But the issue is not unique to CM games. Its just starker because of the graphical engine choice and that way the game was developed. At one time, I used to dwell on it. But at this point, I would rather BFC spend their time finally getting modules out for some of the orphaned games.

I think people also forget that MBTs aren't the only enemy AFV on the battlefield. The Dragon is pretty handy for getting after BMPs.

The downside of Steel Beasts is the amount of time you spend planning your game/battle out. I spend twice as long giving orders, setting waypoints, and setting SOPs as I do in actually executing the battle. In SB, even though it executes at the individual vehicle and team level, you always need to be thinking about flanks, reserves, fuel, and ammo. As a company or battalion commander in SB you have to do all that planning because when the game starts, you have to have given proper orders or you'll run out of cycles to make decisions. In CM, I generally give a look at the map, plan a general strategy in my head. Then execute the plan five minutes at a time. I look at every unit and contact to make sure to set the orders after a turn runs. I end up being the brains of almost every unit in an attack.

Everything in SB is based off the waypoint. In fact, the units static position, or battle position, is really the same as a waypoint. You can combine all the same commands. The unique part is the battle position is not a hard static point. Based on the SOPs assigned to it's battle position, a unit is allowed to range a certain distance from the position to engage, hide, seek cover, move to a new position, call arty, etc. There is also a logic engine that allows you to branch to a new waypoint or position based on enemy, casualties, time, or player orders. I would love to have seen BFC take the order chains to one more level of SOPS and a simple logic engine at each waypoint.

When CMSF first came out, Steve was fairly clear that they were pushing CM2 to be a real-time game. CMSF 1.0 was really a real-time game with automatic pauses every 60 seconds. A number of us complained about the lack of the old hunt command, scoot & shoot, and hull down. Eventually hull down got put back in. The current hunt command is really the old "move to contact" command. The old hunt command allowed a unit to stop and fire at a detected enemy, then continue on to its next waypoint without intervention. That old hunt command was the equivalent of "fire on the halt". CM2, right now, has no "fire on the halt" capability. Tanks are always moving and firing. With all that said, the ability to chain commands together that eventually culminated with the current system after a few years, is far superior to CM1. And similar to Tacops, Steel Beasts has combinations of movement commands, formations, and tactics to create SOPs that dictate reaction to enemy contact. They range from stop and reverse, to fire a shot then reverse, to assault. And like Tacops, you can tell the unit to execute tasks , like unload passengers, fire at a spot, breach a minefield, etc. These can all be chained together. Even the default "TacAI" knows to look for cover after firing or seek another hull down position.

And that's exactly what it should be doing. The perspective I have on the M47 is it does what its designed to do. It replaces some very outdated missiles and recoilless guns. That's all the 1960's and early 1970's infantry teams had. It was meant to counter IFVs and make T-55s and T-62s evaluate infantry threats.

The thermal image for the operator was relatively low resolution and red on black. Not the green on black most people associate with thermal imaging. Its interesting watching it fly in Steel Beasts. It has the popping sound, is inaccurate, and has a hard time doing more than damaging and pissing off a T-62.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2A28_Grom

Thanks for posting that. I used the settings on my 2080 and it helped a lot. I have struggled with getting more and more powerful laptops with CM performance degrading as each got more advanced. This is the first time I have seen any improvement.

Its in the manual...page 59.

Never had a file that winrar can't open. And its free. Its the OG of compression. You do have to keep it updated.

Mine finally downloaded.

Yes, always disappointing on a 1Gb Fios line. I just downloaded the 4Gb database file for CMO in 4 minutes.

So it finally did something. I suspect it was waiting on the BFC servers. Now its saying 12 hours to download. I guess the ease of F&R downloading was an anomaly. edit: Down to four hours.

Why would I need to do that only a week after F&R was released?

I'm gettin zero response after clicking the button. Nothing, like its not seeing the click at all.

Is anyone else having issues with the downlad button on the share site. I select the windows file and hit download and nothing happens. Had no issues with F&R last week.

While its done makes a great banner. But maybe its done when they say it'll be done might be a better goal.

I also installed over an existing install with no issues. Played a couple scenarios without a problem.

I own this Osprey Elite title: https://ospreypublishing.com/armies-of-russia-039-s-war-in-ukraine It has some rundowns on both sides. Osprey alos has has a few books on the T-64, T-80, and a few other weapon systems with Ukrainian variants.

Downloaded in five minutes. That's a serious change from past downloads that got counted in days. I have the same ISP, router, and speed. Was told last time it was on my end. Guess it wasn't.

Might want to checkout the pre-order thread. Most of the news ends up in there.

I'm not saying your approach is flawed, but you seemed to think a dev spending time on a thread about bugs is somehow interfering with game development. My point is its an inherent part of game development. In fact, I think failing to do that is why a lot of things slip through for devs that don't do it. And to the point of Command releasing frequent patches, they are beta patches. There are people who seem obligated to use them and then complain they broke something. But even then, stable patches are released about every four months. As to numbers, think about this; Command has almost 20,000 separate units represented over 60 years under one engine. And on top of that, they cover the entire globe. And the kicker is they now have some limited 3D capability. Think about data entry on that. And The game was a part of actual defense simulation a few years before CM even thought about working with Slitherine. They started out with four people that included one dev. They ran that way for maybe five years. Now they seem to have just started hiring. Probably still less than six people. And the main dev is heavily and actively engaged on the forums in tracking down bugs and addressing requests. If you model works for your lifestyle stick with it. Again, denigrating a dev that lowers himself to actually work with their customers to track down bugs just doesn't see right.

But isn't that part of the game? Should developers not fix bug? I dread seeing a bug in any CM game mainly because I know its months/years away from being fixed. There are software and software game companies that are the same size as BFC with just as complex delivery systems that have a steady stream of patches and fixes going on.

https://www.wargamer.com/combat-mission/cold-war-release-date I assume they just aren't mentioning that the game is still on for April through BFC's store.