Thewood1

The entire point of this game is that not all crews are well trained or experienced. Thats why designers can set those specific parameters on every unit. They have significant impact on behavior under fire.

Just ran the CMRT scenario twice. Ran the Germans and Russians all the way across the maps at normal speed. There are about 50 vehicles on each side. Mostly I got them to avoid each other. Summary: Across two runs, One M3 scout car immobilized, two halftracks immobilized. Had two halftracks bog entering a wood line, but they quickly cleared. Not very statistically significant, but somewhat directional. That's less than 2% and all three immobilized were wheeled or halftrack offroad.

Well you say that, but my talent allowed me get out main skidder stuck in a hayfield just driving to the woods. The other driver immediately came over and said the ground in the center is always softer after a rain storm so have to skirt the woodline to avoid getting stuck. You would not know that without some experience. I'm not saying there's no problem, but I frequent the Steel Beast forums as a player. There are dozens of former and active tanks commanders and drivers. They all talk about getting stuck and throwing tracks.

In RL, in Steel Beasts, and in CM, inexperienced drivers should bog at higher rates that veteran drivers. I used to drive skidders, tractors, and bulldozers in the woods of Maine. I guy driving a skidder a few years compared to me with a month of experience is a world of difference in speed and knowledge of where not to drive a skidder.

Convoys and road marches have always been possible in CM. My main issue is just the number of clicks and the significant care needed in plotting each individual unit. The pauses really help in limiting bunch ups.

There are players that go on and on about wanting realism. But then anything close to realism smacks them in the face and suddenly its not fun any more. Recent spotting and bogging discussions are front of mind.

As far as optics go, its plausible that German optics from WW2 might actually be better than 60s era optics from a Soviet or US tank. If you jump in a T-64 in Steel Beasts, its almost impossible to see infantry 500m to the front if they are prone. Standing infantry can be seen if the gunner optics happen to be point right at the infantry. But all infantry is almost unspottable through vision blocks for driver and commander. And that's on a flat feature-less map.

I should also add that there are standard SOPs that can be assigned as you build the path that do all the setting of formation, speed, spacing etc. For example, if you choose a path to default to road movement, you can set the SOP as "March". This automatically sets slow, column, medium spacing. It also sets some of the reactions to incoming fire. All of these features are why you can play very large scenarios with battalions across 400 sq km maps. You build out detailed plans at the start for flanks and reserves so the player can focus mostly on a smaller set of units. You can still monitor and adjust those other units as needed, but lets you focus more on a smaller number of critical units. It also creates a cool FOW opportunity. You can lose comms with the flank units and know they will still try to follow the plan. I'm just putting this all out there to show that it can be done, has been done, and hopefully will one day come to CM.

I am pretty sure it was stated years ago that its just an alignment between the underlying firing logic and the rendering of the action. They run at different cycles and there is no reasonable way to fix it for all events. I would bet it happens a lot, but mostly at such a small deviation that players don't notice.

I have always liked how Steel Beasts does it for vehicles. Select the platoon/company leader. Select the destination with an option for direct path, use road, or use cover. Default is direct. Choose the formation...column for a road follow option. Default is line abreast. You can actually set default to column as the scenario default if you want. Set spacing as close, medium, far...default is medium. With close, road movement faster than slow can sometimes create jams. Set speed. Default is medium. You can optionally set SOPs if they spot enemy units, are direct fired upon, encounter artillery, etc. You can also set how the units deploy at the end of the path, as well as copy and paste the route to other units. You have to put a little thought into it, but the order system is fairly easy to use. But without SOPs and formations, CM would struggle with a similar approach. I should note that there is a special task force convoy function mentioned at 4:50 that I have not used. Just habit. The video is from a version 2-3 years ago. There have been a few significant changes since then. I would play a lot more CM if some of these basic functions were available.

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So why are you posting in the Red Thunder forum on Steam?

He seems to have it on Steam because he posts there.

This guy is all over this forum and Steam looking for help. He needs to read and pay attention a little.

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Trying be generous and interpret a weird rant... I assume he's complaining about micro-managing tanks on roads because BFC still thinks their base doesn't want a simple follow or group march command.

I'm always surprised at the low number of players that bring saves to discussions about bugs and issues. CM is built on saves. It saves EVERY turn.

If you can screen cap all of that, why not post the save?

There should be a sign that says X tactical game is not perfect and neither is reality on the webpage of every tactical game. CM, Steel Beasts, Graviteam, and even ARMA all can show spotting issues like this if you play them enough. Some more than other. BFC has stated in the past its just a function of the mechanics used in one of the more complex spotting algorithms in wargames. Its a balance between spotting cycles and computing power. "in CM they usually evolves into a 50:50 chance firefight." I sure would like to the stats on that. I have not seen it come up anywhere near that frequently. I think at most I might see it once a game. But I can't actually think of a time where it happened and I thought it was completely impossible. If someone were really convinced its this frequent, bring a save. You get one after every turn just save it and post it.

I had to go hunting for mine when I installed Downfall. It never showed up on my desktop.

While there is always some rose-colored glasses perspective, the launch of CMSF was kind of a mess. Just read the archives around 2007/2008. It took years to get some basic features back the CM2 players take for granted today. And those weren't features that were just nice to have. They are basic game features we take for granted today that were cut out in the transition from CM1 to CM2.

"I wish they'd bring it back." Ahhh, the mantra for long-term players in the transition from CM1 to CM2. In the first couple of years of CMSF probably half the threads were based on that phrase. For anyone that played CM1 and then skipped the first few years of CMSF, you'd be amazed at what was considered missing then was brought back in patches to CMSF. There were some dark times for a bit.

Might want to check the manual pages around 51/52.

AI doesn't pull stuff out of thin air. A number of my clients are working on AI-generated code and they are finding the AI algorithms are just recycling the same code available in open sources. It can just do it a little faster. AI can be a productivity tool. But its a very long way off from anything more than raising the floor on knowledge of for basic programming.

I have set up similar scenarios myself to sandbox stuff. I set up a series of terrain objectives as phase lines for the red side. The objectives get more points as the red team moves forward. I used a combination of occupy and touch depending on the type of objective. If I know a Blue strongpoint, I use occupy or destroy. Just use the phase line concept and scenario length as a way to force the time issue. It forces blue to make decisions around troop condition, holding terrain, and time. I know it sounds obvious, but scenario length is critical in this concept. Red has to decide on how many casualties its will trade as the point haul accelerates as they get closer to the exit. Again, the key concept here is balancing the phase line point acceleration against scenario length. Don't just give a lot of points for key terrain. They have to be given in the framework of making the red team keep pushing against the clock and distance. And forcing blue to always be evaluating if stalling red at a phase line is worth the losses. One concept that I played with was an objective that is literally a single line across the map. As red touches the objective, they get points. Use multiple lines and even a few terrain objectives that blue has to occupy for points can work. CM's objectives are relatively easy to use, but somewhat limited over scripting. But a little thinking on how a commander would approach both sides lets you use CM unit and terrain objectives to the fullest.