IICptMillerII

This. At the root of it, all anyone is asking for is an update. Some are more eloquent than others however. @Thewood1 the reason BFC is reserved when it comes to posting updates like this is simple; they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. during the Spring there was not a lot of information coming out and a lot of folks got upset by that. Then Steve posted his Summer updates, and there was considerable backlash to it, both here and on other websites. This kind of behavior is not new. When Final Blitzkrieg came out, a good number of the new threads in the game forum were people complaining that FB was just a reskin of CMBN and other such nonsense. This is what people are talking about when they say that customers can be a burden. The internet compounds that issue. The 2% of morons and agitators have the loudest voices, spewing their extreme and ridiculous garbage. This in turn polarizes the rest of the active and contributing public, resulting in the exchanges you see here in this thread. People are talking past one another because each side is speaking to their expectation of what the other side is supposedly saying, instead of talking directly. There is a lot more that can be said about this phenomenon, and parallels to current political climates. However I think it best that is all avoided. The fact is, BFC has learned over the years that posting frequent updates opens them up to more of these polarizing discords, and it simply isn't worth the trouble for them. I honestly cannot blame them, and would likely do the same in their shoes. However, I also think that BFC is smart enough to recognize this whole dynamic, and should post updates anyways and simply ignore the riffraff. Like it or not, this is the reality of dealing with groups of people, whether it be business or other. Sometimes, you just have to accept that monkey's will throw poop, and carry on regardless. To be clear @Thewood1, I agree with a lot of what you are saying, and I wish BFC would just give a small update regardless of the inevitable blowback. See this is what I would consider to be an overreaction. I understand your frustrations, I really do. But you're shooting yourself in the foot here. You are denying yourself a product that you know is good (based on previous CM games) because of your frustrations with BFC for not releasing more frequent updates about a title that isn't even out yet. The fact is, if you are interested in the Eastern Front and want a tactical simulator of it, then you should get Red Thunder. I would urge you to look past the few dead, unsightly trees and see the whole forest on this one. Yes. In fact, there are a large number of people who feel exactly that. Unfortunately, everywhere else in the "grogsphere" of wargaming websites, whenever Combat Mission comes up there is always a heated debate that follows. Many people have many reasons for disliking BFC and refusing to buy CM. Personally, I think most of the reasons are absurd and I do not agree with the sentiments. But the fact remains that there is a significant portion of wargamers out there who for one reason or another are allergic to CM and BFC. For what its worth, I personally wish we got an update from BFC. Not an update on a specific release date, but letting us know that it'll be a bit longer would be nice. I understand that this is unlikely and why, and I'll likely just have to settle back into my hibernation until SF2 finally drops.

Looks pretty good! I see you beat me to it. I put 3rd ID together a few months ago but didn't get a chance to upload them: I don't want to steal your thunder so I won't bother uploading these. I do however have the 82nd Airborne done, as well as a generic multicam uniform without unit insignia as well. Hopefully I'll get a chance to upload them soon.

Some (ahistorical) Ostruppen on the Eastern Front:

Looks great @IanL! This will be a day one mod for me, as I am a huge fan of your NATO symbols for the modern CM titles. Those infantry models look great too.

In my opinion the latest portrait in the UI looks fantastic. No complaints from me. You better have this mod ready for SF2s release

These look fantastic! If I may provide some constructive criticism, I think the black balaclava on the heads with the black (presumably ISIS) flag as a background could use a little tweaking. As it is, the flag and balaclava blend a bit too much to my eye. Still though, these are really good. Another reason to be excited for SF2, as if there weren't enough already!

No rush intended! You may want to look into concept art for video games, such as the older Medal of Honor games or the first Company of Heroes. You might be able to find some good portraits in there. Though I have to say, the ones you have shown off in this thread are pretty amazing, so whatever your source is keep using it!

I really hope we get a vehicle pack for the modern titles at some point that adds engineering vehicles. At the least, mine rollers/plows for Abrams and T series tanks. Would love to see more complex vehicles as well, such as a MICLIC launcher, but I think that is much more of a stretch.

@DerKommissar I can see your screenshots just fine.

I actually think the older versions look great as well, but the new ones are very nice. I definitely think you're going in the right direction and would be more than happy to use the new portraits as they are now. I know the rabbit hole of tweaking all too well, so I appreciate how much time and effort you must have put into these. The Soviet backgrounds really fit well with the UI in your example. Very much looking forward to these!

Careful, there are a few here who are going to take this seriously! For what it's worth, I'm a big fan of your business model. Yeah, it's not the most flashy, and deadlines are more vague than most of us (including the developers) would like, but the end product is far superior to anything else out there, in my humble opinion. The fact that you keep all games operating on the same engine is worth the price of admission and hassle alone. Hopping between CMSF1 and the modern titles is more than enough to convince me of that. I'm glad I only have to chose which front/era I want to indulge in, instead of having to chose which features I can't live without.

I think calling a cease-fire and withdrawing is exactly the right move here. Enemy positions and strength were established enough to inform a larger, better equipped force to come in and conduct a proper attack. The losses suffered were unfortunate, but pretty unavoidable. On the whole it appears you were able to keep the majority of your force alive. Speaking of a better equipped force conducting an attack, is there any interest for a follow-up AAR? Could be interesting to see a properly equipped OpFor attack. Maybe even juice the OpFor a bit by giving them good training and morale in the editor to make things more interesting. At the very least it would let all of us see more toys in SF2, and it would likely be very explosive!

The splash screen for the CMFI installer is actually something I would love to get a full sized print of. Can't find it at the moment, but it's the drawing/painting of a GI holding an M1 facing away from the viewer. I think its a great image.

Completely agree. I love that all of the games run on the same updated engine. The benefits of this are massive, and surely outweigh the cost of upgrades at the least. I know it gets mentioned occasionally, and to my knowledge we do not have an official statement from BFC at this point, but I think the reality is this; It has taken a decade to get from Shock Force 1 to here. If they started working on CMx3 now, it would take another 10 years for them to "catch up" to where they are now. That, or they would focus on entirely new time periods/fronts. Either of those two options are not very appealing to me. I suspect BFC may have similar concerns as well. Point is, I think we are going to be seeing upgrades to CMx2 for the far foreseeable future, and I wouldn't consider CMx3 to be on the table at this point. I think the best way to answer your concern is this: anything you can currently do in CMBS, or the WWII titles in the editor, you will be able to do in CMSF2. If there is something you cannot do in the v4 engine game editors, then you will likely either have to improvise a new way to get the same effect, or you may be out of luck. Aside from trying to replicate what you can do in CMSF into CM v4 editors, the only real thing you can do is wait for SF2 to come out. All that said, I am under the impression that we will be getting more features, not less with SF2. If, worst case scenario you do lose the ability to recreate some of the improvised things you've come up with in the old editor, I would still argue that the new editor is a much better product overall. The improvement in performance alone is worth the upgrade in my opinion. For clarification: in the SF1 editor it begins to lag pretty badly once the map size gets larger than ~1.5x1.5km, making it a real pain to work with. This doesn't mean you cannot make maps larger than ~1.5x1.5km, it just means it becomes a bit clunky and tedious. This problem is not in the modern engine. There are plenty of other improvements to the editor as well, but this strikes me as a major one.

Ahh ok I understand what you are saying @Mord Looking forward to seeing the new icons you make @Bil Hardenberger, but not in the official AAR of course.

There will be additional units, such as MANPADs and the like, but all of these units already have icons made for them in CMBS. It should just be a simple task of copying and pasting icons and names. Should be relatively easy, after all that's part of the reason they're bringing CMSF up to current engine standards.

I can't tag IanL in this thread because he is the opponent (OPSEC strikes again) but he has a great NATO floating icon set for CMSF1 and CMBS. Because the icon graphics and file structure in CMSF2 should be similar to CMBS, it should be very easy to port the icons into CMSF2 when it releases. That said, I recall Bil having his own icon set for CMSF1, and for the same reasons I think they should be easy to import into CMSF2.

I think I remember reading about it in the engine manual. Unfortunately I don’t have access to the engine manual right now, but I’m sure someone interested could check. Ahh ok I didn’t know that. Never played CMx1

I thought dead vehicles did block traffic? I know they don’t block friendly line of sight or fires, but I thought that in order to move past a destroyed vehicle another vehicle has to slowly merge through the destroyed one, simulating the hulk being pushed out of the way.

Inverse square law. 1/d^2 where d is distance, or in our case percentage to completion. You get closer and closer to 0 (100%=0 in this case) but never quite get there. Uh oh, my nerdy power levels have been revealed!

Looks great MikeyD!

Luckily for you I still have a copy of the first version of the board, which does include the Turks.

Agreed. Never thought I would be oggling a T-62. Yet here I am, fascinated by a gif of that very tank. Bil might be a wizard... Looks like things are starting to heat up! (Edit: Just realized what an embarrassing pun that was )