Thewood1

Just to put a quantitative point on it, Steve has posted around 65 times in the last week in the Ukraine thread. He's averaging about 10 posts a day in a topic that right now has nothing to do with the game. And no where else in at least a month, and maybe more. Its his company and his time to do with what he likes. But based on some of the counterpoints that communicating with people is exhausting, he either is doing heavy doses of uppers or he is completely exhausted. BFC has gone through this before. Back when CMSF 1 came out and was almost a disaster of a CM product for the first few months, Steve was spending all of his posting energy for weeks at a time prolifically debating the concept of the Stryker brigade in one thread. It finally hit a point where enough established players were vocally walking away that he shifted his comms from his Stryker tirades to addressing game issues.

Its only exhausting if don't like doing it. There are people that are happy to communicate with people all day and some of them are good at it. Steve obviously loves it based on how often he posts in the Ukraine thread. I would think taking half of his posting in that thread and focusing it on updating customers and prospects would be a good reinvestment.

For a wargaming company, Matrix/Slitherine does a pretty good job for a company its size. They get out ahead of releases pretty well. BFC does almost nothing outside its own forum. And even there its crickets most of the time. But compared to larger game companies, they all suck. Its about resources and motivation.

Exactly. The question was asked when CMFB was first announced. I imagine this would have made it easier for everyone. But the bed has been made so BFC has to sleep in it.

He said that in January. Has he said it more recently?

Well its not too early for news it it? So we actually have to wait until is late? There's not been a single world in almost a year. Just a simple...yeah, its not going to be 2023. That shouldn't be too hard.

The pattern has been that the "coming soon" section of the website and a blurb on Steam showed up a month or two before release. In a couple cases it was longer. I'm pretty sure we aren't seeing CMFB soon. There's also been zero chatter or news on the module that was supposed to be released at the same time. Not looking good for a soon release.

Yeah. I saw the 2023 list. Other than this thread there has been no mention of CMFB. Especially pointed is its not on Matrix's list of planned releases. They are usually 2-3 months ahead of a release if you follow the pattern of the other games for Matrix and Steam releases.

That comment about CMFB on Steam is over a year old. Has there been an official update?

You're first two sentences are contradictory. If you read it carefully, you can sus out what you getting at. But its not clear. Especially with your example.

You want tactical discussions? Try this. https://www.steelbeasts.com/topic/17301-the-story-of-a-merkava-company-co-on-october-7th/

General forum. Let them restart it with the same ground rules. Why put it here just because they couldn't behave themselves in the general forum? They can be knuckleheads anywhere. I'll point out I don't even bother going into the CMBS forum any more. Started reading that thread and immediately put CMBS aside hoping it would eventually peter out. No such luck.

I'll apply those tactical nuggets to my next game of CMSF.

Well there is urban warfare in other titles too. And CMSF has a lot more than urban warfare in it. Its like this forum was chosen at random. The game contain none of the countries, equipment, or country doctrines of the current war. And its 15 years difference in time lines. I think it was chosen because the OP and others saw this as a way to stir things up as much as possible. Go look at the General forum thread. How much tactical learning came out of that. In fact, there is almost no tactical combat taking place right now. Its mostly rockets, shelling, and special forces. Point out the tactical learnings from that general thread that required someone to reignite it in this forum?

I still don't understand the relevance to CMSF. Israel vs terrorists in 2023 compared to NATO vs Syria in 2008? Why not have the thread in CMBS? The technology is more relevant there. So why does it need to be discussed here? There are thousands of forums, including one in the General forum here.

Really? AFter moving the whole discussion to the General forum, someone decides they'll come in here and muck this up again?

I thought it was your imagination.

Probably the biggest issue for setting a hard limitation is the number of variables that play into performance. Unfortunately, players will push limits and then complain that the game isn't optimized. Its why we can't have nice things. I don't think setting artificial limits ion scenario building s the right way to go. With that said, official scenarios should have some kind of base performance on recommended specs or better. But expectations should be set that CM2 runs on outdated graphics libraries that might cause problems with newer GPUs and drivers...as we have seen.

I'm not disputing that at all. They'll take what labor they can. But stop announcing them in a roadmap a year ahead of time. But I think it now gives us a little insight into why they never come close to hitting their estimated roadmaps.

Is this the way to run a business? I appreciate volunteers building packs and scenarios, but BFC is getting paid and has put it on the official roadmap. As a former product manager, I'm a little concerned that BFC is putting stuff in formal road map discussions that they have little control over. BFC should stick to committing to stuff they control. Otherwise you end up putting immense pressure on volunteers from the community. As well as losing some credibility in not being able to control delivery.

Built a test scenario of plain terrain and one Soviet mech battalion and one US mech battalion. 6km vs 3km map, which seems to be max map size. No trees, no buildings, nothing but default grass. Using my i13/4090 laptop at full performance settings. Steam - 40 fps at start, around 30 on mass movement a couple turns in. Non-Steam - about the same, with what seemed like a little more variability. Thats also with no smoke and some dust. I'm not seeing a big difference between Steam and non-steam in a VERY small sample. But it again reflects that CM's performance plateaus with modern hardware. In comparison, Steel Beasts civilian version hits and stays at 60 FPS at max settings with the same rig on a 10km x 10km map with more than a battalion on the board. The SB scenario also has a lot of artillery and smoke happening. In fact, SB limits FPS to 60 so I have a lot of horse power left over. I compare to SB because it is of similar scale, handles the graphics better in the 3D world, and has to render a lot more detail. The main difference still seems to be CM depending on very old OpenGL libraries. I have to assume moving off of those old OpenGL libraries is a priority for any significant upgrade for CM.

If people are building huge scenarios and then complaining, they get what they deserve. But BFC needs to reign in scenario designers building large official scenarios that struggle on recommended specs. Also, even on empty maps, CMXX is not exactly smooth in how it draws and behaves.

I like that term.

I ran a small benchmark using Barkmann's Corner in CMBN on both Steam and BFC version. Saw almost no difference with the same settings and POV. I did this when CMBN first went to Steam. I got between 35 and 45 FPS at max settings on both runs. Laptop 3080 ti and an Intel 10980HK.

I think the power settings and lid/button settings are almost exactly the same as in Win7. Getting there might be different, but the UI is VERY similar.