tpr

Actually, I had that one figured out just couldn't figure out how to explain it. You did a succinct job of it. Thanks, twice.
 
Mord.

Never mind, found it (Input Processing: Pass on all input)! THANKS MAN!!!! I wish someone had told me that a long time ago! Awesome!
 
Mord.

Spinning can be stopped by simply setting "input processing" to "pass on all input". Yes everything what you do is also done in game but still makes things less nauseous and way easier so check your effect results.
Also when ending up in menu with enabled reshade and getting the flower power visuals simply deactivate it now with your hotkey and locate any ingame Combat Mission menu button with your cursor and click it. Your screen will become normal again, no biggie.

Hi everyone, after the release of Shock Force 2 even though i have not purchase it myself. I took the opportunity to come up with a story line for a would be campaign together with its first scenario. For now this is what I've prepared so far but I would like to expand it even further with richer story arc over this campaign and a backstory starting from the end of the Syria civil war leading toward the second US intervention into Syria.
Do let me know what you think of this campaign/scenario. 
Operation Resurgence
Ravaged by civil war the ruins left by the international proxy war in Syria barely allowed a weakened government in place consisting mostly of Assad loyalists. After overwhelming outcry from the international community over its treatments of civilians during and post civil war, the US and its NATO allies have now decided to launch a full blown campaign on the Assad regime in Syria beginning with the liberation of Rajo towards the city of Aleppo. What was once an international icon of a modern Islamic country has now turned into a hellish battleground since 2012 and would not end soon with he beginning of the second US intervention into Syria.
The 42nd Marines Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (LAV) lead by Lieutenant Colonel Rufus White are tasked with opening a front in Syria beginning with the highways of Rajo bordering Turkey, this would allow access to its neighboring provinces. Battle hardened from the war in Iraq, they were accustomed to the harsh climate and the brutal condition of a war torn country. 
 

The town of Rajo lies at the border of Turkey and is also an intersection between between other major cities.
 
Battle Plan

Rajo’s main two roads leading to the city of Aleppo.
 
Intel suggests a military presence in the surrounding villages in Rajo guarding the highways. Expect strong resistance coming from the southern region.  Securing the nearby houses would help in getting rid of any enemy while also providing cover fire over the highways for secure passage for the main army.
HQ has granted access to AV-8B Harrier from the nearby turkey airbase and would lend support to the bulk of this mission with much needed aerial firepower over the roads of Rajo. Lack of intel cannot confirm of any enemy anti air capabilities in the vicinity. Caution is advised.  
The main objective is to secure the highways to establish a forward base in Rajo and to open a front to the heart of Syria.
 
“The great revolution in the history of man, past, present and future, is the revolution
of those determined to be free.”
- John F. Kennedy (35th President of the United States)

 

That first video was hilarious. It reminded me of similar tests done using the king tiger 88 back-in-the-day.

I'm impressed. I've been looking forward to it for a long time, as I played CMSF more than anything else.
Despite what I knew from CMBS and CMBN I was quite surprised how differently some familiar scenarios play out. 'Ambush at Al Fubar' is an old favourite of mine and I actually found it quite difficult; gone is the ability of your troops to simply press on through fire, and urban fighting feels a lot nastier. The tendency for units to run for it when artillery falls makes some interesting situations; and the battlefield generally feels a lot more dangerous.
 
It's also very smooth on my Macbook Pro.
 
The frist time I heard the loading screen music a huge smile came across my face.

I did this in battle. It worked. I just need to leave the vehicles dismounted at the beginning otherwise the former crews return into their vehicles. The German ones look pretty identical to the Marines ones (there is just the minor German flag on the plate but this can easily be modified) Marines can mount and dismount all day without help 😀. Damn I love it.

 

Mission 2:
 

The first mission of the custom Rattenkrieg campaign utilizing the Stalingrad mod. All orders are given by interface, so this is suited as a learning resource for new players.
Enjoy!

😓😂
Well here is your secret, set your 3D model and 3D texture quality to balanced, you won´t notice much visual difference other than a considerable frame boost. Keep the rest.

It isn´t so important to do amd/nvidia settings but the lag you report is strange. What are your specs and what are your ingame settings? With all shown visual enhancements and mods in place I play my CM2 games on 40-70 fps depending on scenario size but even on my 5 year old crappy (even back then mediocre) notebook the CM2 games run pretty decent with 30 fps most of the time.

In my last video playthrough series Commander Carl Benton and Task Force Thunder successfully pushed towards Homs and in a fierce fight captured the city. But the war is far from being over and there are many more stories to tell. Back in my CMSF1 days I´v played a Syrian & Uncon campaign which I think was called Stepsons of Jihad and was impressed not only by the complete different playstyle and mindset required from you when being pitted against a technology and training-wise superior enemy, making the best out of ill-trained troops and obsolete equipment. It was also the fact that playing the Syrian side provided a complete new experience as you have to expect to bear high casualties and may use all means of asymetric warfare which stands in opposite what most coalition campaigns demand. This always made CMSF a special game for me as there are not many games out there that had the courage to depict authentic modern combat in its full spectrum. I decided that in the future I definitely will start a CMSF2 Syrian Forces campaign and again supplement this with a fictional story incorporating CMSF2´s background focusing on a Syrian general named Yusuf Auda.
This is 10 minutes of reading, no gameplay no special effects. Again you will see a story of war with little heroism and fanfare involved. In fact it is gritty and some may consider it depressing, so if you´re sensible to stuff like this better do not watch. Also keep in mind that although Yusuf Auda is a fictional character he comes with beliefs you may or may not share. Same goes for the mission briefings you may encounter. They have not the intent to start a political debate here or elsewhere. In my opinion being able to explore different perspectives is one thing that makes CMSF2 so great.
However it may take a while before I start. First I need to explore what Red vs Blue campaigns are available, how they perform in CMSF2, and perhaps see with what the modding and scenario design community will come up the next weeks. Also there was an inconsistency reported with the civilian density setting which I think is important for this campaign. Due to all of this the Syria campaign will be on hold and I perhaps first will start first a Marines playthrough also coming with a character. Due to CMSF2 I also neglected my university duties somewhat and need to focus back on that 🙂.

Seeing my sniper teams engaging enemy vehicles with decent success I was curious about their capabilities in that role and how everything works under the hood. I´ve made an experiments video:
Note: The Syrian vehicles in this test are basically made blind and this in no way represents the usual spotting abilities of the vehicles. They´re also set to immobilized (red engine, tracks) and to 50% crew quanity which also means that the casualty figures from penetrating hits in a real game scenario would be way higher, especially for crowded vehicles. I am a novice when it comes to the editor if there is a way to set enemy vehicles to being passive let me know.
Some of my observations:
Naturally it is hard to tell what effect your sniper fire will have on the vehicle. I´ve observed vehicles getting abandoned by the crew after one hit while others remained in (limited) operationality after 10. My conclusion is that it won´t usually result in quick knock-outs but in damaging vital parts like the engine or taking out crew members severely hampering the vehicle´s ability to perform its duties (mission kill).
In an engagement the tactical AI of the sniper team always keeps its role, threat, and effectiveness in mind. When not issuing manual target commands, the sniper would probably first engage infantry units, especially close ones, it then would proceed to engage vehicles. When the sniper then let´s say spots a BMP and a BTR with frontal facing he would take its own weapon effectiveness into consideration and engage the BTR because of the higher chance of causing penetrating damaging hits.
However the sniper is also able to take the facing of the vehicle into account and would prefer to engage a BMP with his back facing towards the sniper because a BMP and its explosive ordnance may pose an bigger threat to the sniper, thus highly likely is also a more important target than an BTR. There is also less risk involved to get spotted by such an vehicle although this is probably a side effect of the other AI priorities.
You can also observe that the penetration values raise with closer distance and at 400-500m frontal penetration of some vehicles became possible in the test. However never engage an BMP frontally from that close distance and wait for a better shot or reposition. Also do not stay too long in the same position or take to many shots in quick succession because this naturally rises the chance of discovery even by low-tech vehicles. Watch out for vehicles with sophisticated optical tech such as thermal vision. Taking a shot and quickly reposition may be a viable option in some cases. Moving vehicles especially low tech and high speeds are also good targets but don´t take it for granted that they don´t spot you, this is especially true again for high tech vehicles.
If you want your snipers to focus solely on anti-personnel duties and to not engage armored vehicles. You can achieve this by setting a tiny armor target arc for the sniper team, vice versa is also possible but with enemy infantry danger close the sniper team´s self preservation may take the upper hand.

Seeing my sniper teams engaging enemy vehicles with decent success I was curious about their capabilities in that role and how everything works under the hood. I´ve made an experiments video:
Note: The Syrian vehicles in this test are basically made blind and this in no way represents the usual spotting abilities of the vehicles. They´re also set to immobilized (red engine, tracks) and to 50% crew quanity which also means that the casualty figures from penetrating hits in a real game scenario would be way higher, especially for crowded vehicles. I am a novice when it comes to the editor if there is a way to set enemy vehicles to being passive let me know.
Some of my observations:
Naturally it is hard to tell what effect your sniper fire will have on the vehicle. I´ve observed vehicles getting abandoned by the crew after one hit while others remained in (limited) operationality after 10. My conclusion is that it won´t usually result in quick knock-outs but in damaging vital parts like the engine or taking out crew members severely hampering the vehicle´s ability to perform its duties (mission kill).
In an engagement the tactical AI of the sniper team always keeps its role, threat, and effectiveness in mind. When not issuing manual target commands, the sniper would probably first engage infantry units, especially close ones, it then would proceed to engage vehicles. When the sniper then let´s say spots a BMP and a BTR with frontal facing he would take its own weapon effectiveness into consideration and engage the BTR because of the higher chance of causing penetrating damaging hits.
However the sniper is also able to take the facing of the vehicle into account and would prefer to engage a BMP with his back facing towards the sniper because a BMP and its explosive ordnance may pose an bigger threat to the sniper, thus highly likely is also a more important target than an BTR. There is also less risk involved to get spotted by such an vehicle although this is probably a side effect of the other AI priorities.
You can also observe that the penetration values raise with closer distance and at 400-500m frontal penetration of some vehicles became possible in the test. However never engage an BMP frontally from that close distance and wait for a better shot or reposition. Also do not stay too long in the same position or take to many shots in quick succession because this naturally rises the chance of discovery even by low-tech vehicles. Watch out for vehicles with sophisticated optical tech such as thermal vision. Taking a shot and quickly reposition may be a viable option in some cases. Moving vehicles especially low tech and high speeds are also good targets but don´t take it for granted that they don´t spot you, this is especially true again for high tech vehicles.
If you want your snipers to focus solely on anti-personnel duties and to not engage armored vehicles. You can achieve this by setting a tiny armor target arc for the sniper team, vice versa is also possible but with enemy infantry danger close the sniper team´s self preservation may take the upper hand.

Can´t recall an instance where I´ve observed this in my CMSF2 playthroughs. From what I´ve seen the spotters will only take part in combat when being under immediate threat or when getting the "Target Light" or "Target" command issued. At greater ranges the target command also will only lead to the commitment of the sniper.
I placed vehicles including a juicy soft truck target in the background to bait the complete team including the M203 into action but still they maintained fire and only the sniper engaged. Also later on when the M82 Barrett sniper proceeds to engage the vehicles, his spotters kept proper fire discipline.

I like the idea and would love to see such an expansion.

I like the idea and would love to see such an expansion.

I´m already excited, there are so many conflicts and possibilites to cover with custom campaigns in CMSF2.

US Marines Corps:
 

Let´s start with the US Army:
 

Man, you're going to beat me to the punch.
Curse my lack of spare time during the holidays.

fun to see the differences in play style.  I had my M1s move up those ramps with one tank coming through the gap at the roadway.  let them destroy everything in sight, then pulled them all to the gap and move forward slowly again decimating anything that moved.  Strykers behind, arty dropping ahead  and eventually started dropping in infantry to secure the various objective locations.
Moving the Jav teams up is an interesting move I had not explored.

Havent seen them all but with the "Dutch" Forces CV90/35. Isn´t the CV90/35 (actually the CV90/40) effective range somewhere around 2,000mt. for ground and 4,000mt for air?
Thanks CR for the upload!
 
Red

UNCON Forces:
That is the last one. Enjoy!
Playlist of all Combat Mission faction showcases:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CC1AcZWzEw&list=PLlUX4ALH7zTPFvWgivlinGsZ3ja8lYtIz
I´m attaching the scenario files I´ve created to make these videos . Feel free to use, modify, upload, or do whatever you want with them without the need to give credit:
British Forces Showcase.btt
Canadian Forces Showcase.btt
Dutch Forces Showcase.btt
German Forces Showcase.btt
Syrian Forces Showcase.btt
UNCON Forces Showcase.btt
US Army Showcase.btt
USMC Showcase.btt

Syrian Forces: