IICptMillerII

*sigh* I do not think CM is perfect. I spent a long time pointing out the bad infantry behavior introduced with game engine 4. I even made a YouTube video about it. I then spent a few months testing new versions of the TacAI to iron out the issues. This whole devotion to find everything little thing wrong with CM contrarianism is obnoxious to the extreme and is not productive. It doesn’t help at all. If you think that there is an issue, prove it through tests. If other people do not think you are convincing, that is your fault, not theirs. And I literally just posted a save file of a replay showing that air burst artillery is effective. And I said I would look into the lorries being overly resilient, which may actually be a problem. I honestly do not get this contrarian bs. Get a better hobby.

I've mentioned in the past that I would love to see some improvements to the visual special effects (seeing T-72 turrets pop off for example) would be great. I also think that more and varied new animations would go a long way to making the game look a bit better as well. That said, I highly doubt we are going to see anything like that anytime soon. The graphics as they are are functional, which is how they are intended to be. BFC is a small team and have a lot going on, so they simply do not have the time to devote to beautification. My speculation at least.

One of the things that makes CM great in my opinion is the fact that you can do things correctly and still have it go wrong. It is a representation of reality that most games and sims have the hardest time portraying. There are lots of anecdotal examples out there of soldiers who are seemingly hit directly by a shell but suffer no injury as a result. In the 2nd episode of Band of Brothers for example, one of the soldiers survives 2 grenades that are right next to him in the trench. Point is, crazy stuff can happen, and CM represents that fairly well. I did do a quick test myself of airburst artillery (155mm and 120mm mortars) against infantry in trenches, and what I found was quite devastating. In just 30 seconds, the entire trench line that was taken under fire was smashed pretty heavily. I took the first mission of the US campaign from SF2 and gave myself a Paladin battery right from the get go. I've attached the replay here so you can check it for yourself if you would like. Berm Airburst Test 1.bts

Just as an FYI, artillery was not touched per the patch notes. I'll check out the save file you posted as well. This does sound like an excessively resilient truck. Could be a bug that no one has noticed before. Without seeing exactly what is going on it is hard to say specifically, but I can say that individual soldier's body armor (or lack thereof) is simulated. For example, US troops or Russian troops in Black Sea equipped with 'flak vests' are much more resilient to airburst. There is an additional 'cover save' for troops in trenches. Its also worth pointing out that these types of airburst rounds are best used against a specific target either in a building or a fighting position. For example, a sniper in a window or an ATGM team in a foxhole. These airburst rounds are more potent in the enclosed area of a room inside a structure, or when used to saturate a very specific piece of terrain, like the aforementioned foxhole position. Again, hard to say really what's going on without seeing it with all its context but it could be at least part of what you are seeing. Again, depends on the context, especially the type of building. Barns provide very little cover whereas a stone building (I think someone did a test and found that stone churches from CMBN offer the most protection across all the titles, though I could be misremembering) offers much more protection. Its also worth noting that even with modern fire control and munitions, no artillery officer expects or is expected to be able to literally rubble a city block. Buildings themselves are surprisingly resilient to explosives. It is a harsh reality of urban warfare.

It also massively expands the scope of the game with more content. The Germans get all their various branches, like luftwaffe field divisions, the Waffen SS, volksgrenadiers, the kreigsmarine, and even volkssturm with all their crazy weapons. The Soviets get a revised TO&E to be more accurate, as well as new vehicles like the SU-100 and new vehicle variants like the T-34 with extra armor for the battle of Berlin. And they get lend lease equipment now, including the valentine and Sherman tank as well as the well known US made halftrack and British made Bren carrier. The module is really a two for one. It adds more forces and extends the timeline, while also expanding on the base game.

Absolutely. They ended up killing something like half of the hostages, I think 150+ children because they literally blasted the school with thermobarics. Beslan came to mind earlier in this discussion but I refrained from mentioning it as to not derail the thread. Though it certainly is more relevant to the discussion now.

Yes granted, but my point is that the positioning of TC’s and I believe gunners has been tweaked in the past and it is still an issue. If you put an infantry squad in the open next to a halftrack with the gunner exposed, the gunner suffers very accurate incoming small arms fire whereas the infantry in the open do not suffer from the same accuracy of fire. I think that for whatever reason incoming small arms fire is hyper accurate when aimed at a TC. No idea why that would be the case but that is my perception. I don’t think that lowering the gunners of half tracks would drastically improve their survival odds. That said I wouldn’t be opposed to tweaking the animation/position.

I haven’t had a chance to look into these links as I’m currently traveling, but I am curious. Are the points you’ve made relevant to the German army of 2008 or today? Shock Force takes place in 2008, and represents the armies present from that time as well, not modern day.

Very much agree. Just to be clear I wasn’t trying to be snarky and kick up heated conversation, just pointing it out for context as to why the scenario is designed the way it is. Very fair point, and this does happen in reality pretty regularly. I just had to point it out for grog reasons.

Just so you know, bombing hospitals is generally considered to be a bad thing, if not a blatant war crime, regardless of what is actually in the hospital. CNN would have a field day... Extra-CM considerations aside, the F-18 is a Navy aircraft. While it’s possible for Army units to receive support from the Navy, they are far more likely to receive support from an Air Force aircraft such as an F-16, F-15E, or an A-10.

First off, let me say that I agree that halftrack gunners and tank commanders are too vulnerable. I’m of the opinion that it is a small arms accuracy issue in regards to TC’s as opposed to an animation issue. As others have correctly pointed out, the positioning of TC’s in turrets has been tweaked. I cannot speak to WWII German doctrine as to fighting mounted or not, I can speak to modern US doctrine. Stryker mounted infantry are meant to dismount and walk towards the point of expected contact, and many times they dismount as far as 10km away from expected contact. Bradley’s are slightly different, but the mech infantry are still meant to dismount prior to contact being made if the objective calls for it. @MOS:96B2P great resource you put together there! Looking forward to that campaign you’re working on as well.

Very good point. As to everyone saying “this objective would be avoided in real life” that’s simply untrue. First off, if every tough objective was avoided, there would be no battles. Second, and more relevant to CM, the battles that are happening are assumed to be important. As in, a higher commander has determined that despite the given complexities and downsides, the battle is still worth fighting. If the player really thinks the objective isn’t worth it, then just don’t play the scenario.

Good stuff!

Shock Force 2 is being shown off on Friday. This stream was about the features of CM: Professional. No idea what this is about, but smoke from destroyed vehicles goes in the same direction as smoke when the wind is strong enough. Literally saw this last night.

Definitely agree. Having a demo on Steam will go a long way to alleviate some potential flak from new and old players alike. I know there are a handful of people who used to play CM but stopped after having issues with upgrades and installs that are planning on making a return with CM on Steam. I suspect many of them will be put off by the initial price, but a demo will go a long way to mitigating that issue. Looking forward to watching that! There was a lot of great info in today's stream. It certainly sounds like things are going very well for BFC and are only going to improve, which is great news for the rest of us. Nice to hear something is going well despite the rest of the world going to hell.

I agree. While I do not think that you should have explicit fine control over every aspect and element of how your men fight the battle in CM, I do wish there was a way to designate some type of general ROE like you can in C:MO. It is somewhat possible to do this now by using the target arcs (mostly to restrict fires) but it would ease some admin burden on the player if there was a WRA window like the one in C:MO. That said, I would not hold your breath on this. It is not likely to be a feature anytime soon, if at all. It can certainly be annoying under certain circumstances, but by and large things still work the way they should, most of the time. As to the AT4/Javelin issue, I agree with @c3k; if there could be a tweak to the targeting logic to prevent the AT4 from being used on targets farther than 75m away, that would go a long way to alleviating this.

This is a great resource @Combatintman, thanks for posting it! I've used MILSketch a bit myself, but it runs pretty terribly and is just a pain to use in general. Glad that there is a decent alternative, well besides drawing it all by hand in photoshop. Is it possible to load your own image into the program to create graphics with, or are you restricted to the google maps view?

Well I heard a rumor that it is actually the newly formed Space Force in the US that is looking to model a Space Lobsters invasion. Would actually give them a purpose!

Same... Thank goodness for that! Its a pet peeve of mine when game developers use less than skilled YouTubers to show off a new game. Glad it was you behind the controls!

I heard that too, though it wasn't clear to me if this feature is only for the Pro version of the game or if it will make its way to the commercial version. I certainly hope it makes its way to the commercial version. I believe it was Steve himself.

This is very cool.

This has already been thoroughly debated, so I won't go into too much detail here. I'll acknowledge that near misses could probably cause a bit more damage to external subsystems like radio antennas and the like. However, the idea that HE artillery is enough to wipe out tanks is not true. To back this up, here is data from JRTC showing the average casualty assesment for the use of a given number of 152/155mm HE against various types of targets: As you can see, only 1 tank is expected to be destroyed, and that would still take on average 100+ shells.

I really hope they have someone playing who knows what the hell they're doing...

I use the GeForce overlay to take pictures, and it works perfectly. It also works for recording. All you have to do is set GeForce to allow desktop capture and you're good to go. If you do not have an Nvidia card it won't work though.

That’s what it sounds like to me as well. If you notice anything more though feel free to shoot me the save files.