Grey_Fox

298 for BMP-2 vs 287 for a Bradley seems a bit out of order imo (with Bradley having FLIR optics and better armour).

Do White Phosphorous rounds cause and reduction in spotting capability for thermal sights in game?

Some people believe that they do but I've found no evidence in the manual or elsewhere on the forums to support that claim. Further I ran a simple test firing 2,940 WP rounds directly in front (and onto) a BM Oplot and at no point did they show any reduction in spotting capabilities through the barrage. Although I would expect that the sheer amount of shells exploding would have blocked vision.

Just off of a bit of gut instinct I ran the same tests with 294 152mm HE guns firing and the Oplots could again see through the barrage. This seems to reinforce the above and also point to maybe some missing modeling. The ideal result here would be for the absurd amount of dust, dirt, explosions, etc... to block the thermal sights of the vehicles.


And just to clarify I'm using more guns than you would ever see in-game (294) since if the game did in fact model some small loss of capability that loss should then be obviously apparent when the scale is so absurd.

And I've just finished the mission, got a major victory: 
 

I feel that Cold War is pitched rather higher than the other titles, so it might be the least noob-friendly CM Title. That being said:
 
US
The NTC campaign is fantastic, but it is not really a great tutorial to the game in general. The key lessons you should take away from the NTC campaign are how armour works in Cold War, and notably how to use terrain to divide the enemy and create favourable engagements.
This seems to be a common sticking point to players coming from CMSF and CMBS - if the M60A1s in the NTC campaign were Abrams, they could roll up to a ridge and take on the enemy battalion by themselves. If the M60s try that, they will be overwhelmed very quickly - every AT asset in the Soviet arsenal can penetrate an M60 frontally, including the BMP-1's 73mm low-velocity HEAT rounds. Like the real NTC, the intention is that you can learn by failing. The enemy is highly skilled and outnumbers you.

NTC is a really good introduction to Cold War, but I don't think it's a good "tutorial" as such.

The US campaign (especially the later one) is pitched to around the same level as most CM campaigns. It's therefore about as accessible as any of them really.
Soviets
The Tutorial missions do a very good jog of progressing you towards the campaign. I wish this kind of thing was standard in CM, because I think this would solve a lot of common sticking points ("What are 2 inch mortars good for?" and similar questions).

The first mission pair is the formal attack, and should teach you about the importance of mass and coordination with fires. Simple lessons, but core to the Soviet game.
The second mission pair is a doctrinal meeting engagement, and therefore is a much more fluid, complex situation. The same core ideas are present, but they have to be applied in less obvious situations.
The first mission of the Soviet campaign is brutal, but builds directly off the second training mission. The difference here is that the enemy is actively trying to win.

Thanks.
This is the first part of the second mission of Crossing the Dnieper: 
 

Thanks.
This is the first part of the second mission of Crossing the Dnieper: 
 

Thanks.
This is the first part of the second mission of Crossing the Dnieper: 
 

Did the first mission of Crossing the Dnieper:
It's fun, I really enjoy using Russian gear. The BMP3 is an amazing vehicle.
Made a couple of errors, probably the biggest being that I should have used the T90s as the base of fire element on the left hill and waited for the T72B3s to show up to act as the assault element, rather than the other way round.
There's one ridiculous bit about 2/3 of the way in where two Ukrainian T64BVs decide to charge into the center of my BMP company, but they get clapped without causing any damage.

Consumption taxes are favoured by many economists as they are less distortionary than income taxes. Greg Mankiw, author of probably the most used undergraduate intro to economics textbook, writes about it here in his blog: 
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/06/on-inequality.html
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/06/consumption-vs-income-taxation.html
But yeah, on their own consumption taxes are somewhat regressive. That doesn't mean that it isn't easy to make them progressive through something like Canada's GST credit: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/goods-services-tax-harmonized-sales-tax-gst-hst-credit.html
 

+1.  Interesting stuff.  Thanks for sharing the video. 

Did the first mission of Crossing the Dnieper:
It's fun, I really enjoy using Russian gear. The BMP3 is an amazing vehicle.
Made a couple of errors, probably the biggest being that I should have used the T90s as the base of fire element on the left hill and waited for the T72B3s to show up to act as the assault element, rather than the other way round.
There's one ridiculous bit about 2/3 of the way in where two Ukrainian T64BVs decide to charge into the center of my BMP company, but they get clapped without causing any damage.

Did the first mission of Crossing the Dnieper:
It's fun, I really enjoy using Russian gear. The BMP3 is an amazing vehicle.
Made a couple of errors, probably the biggest being that I should have used the T90s as the base of fire element on the left hill and waited for the T72B3s to show up to act as the assault element, rather than the other way round.
There's one ridiculous bit about 2/3 of the way in where two Ukrainian T64BVs decide to charge into the center of my BMP company, but they get clapped without causing any damage.

A good thought, but would be unusable for colour-blind people - at least without allowing things like this to be user-configurable or providing tooltips with additional information.

I played a game with a guy who was fully colour blind and he had to rely on tooltips and user-configurable positioning of items to figure out what certain things did as the main UI differentiator on their effects was colour-based

A good thought, but would be unusable for colour-blind people - at least without allowing things like this to be user-configurable or providing tooltips with additional information.

I played a game with a guy who was fully colour blind and he had to rely on tooltips and user-configurable positioning of items to figure out what certain things did as the main UI differentiator on their effects was colour-based

Since in the modern titles - CW, SF2 and BS - spotting to extremely important and technology driven, information on the spotting ability of the unit - especially vehicles - would be exceptionally useful.
The place for it would be on the Defenses Report panel under the armour rating where the info on smoke etc currently goes.
With a bit of remodelling the icons, I would think an indicator of the times zoom available (eg 3x or 10x) to the unit, IR, or Thermal optics would be great to know. It would allow players to get more into the technical details of the equipment and game, and get the game under control a little more.
Note I'm using names of the GUI panels from the CM manual so BFC can understand what I'm suggesting.
 

Livestreamed part of the first mission in the Soviet campaign: 
 

If you stack waypoints, the most recent one created is the one that will be selected if they are stacked. But yes, it is fiddly.
This is a bad short tutorial which I've just created. 
 

You can also move the waypoints on top of the units position and they won't move.

If you stack waypoints, the most recent one created is the one that will be selected if they are stacked. But yes, it is fiddly.
This is a bad short tutorial which I've just created. 
 

If you stack waypoints, the most recent one created is the one that will be selected if they are stacked. But yes, it is fiddly.
This is a bad short tutorial which I've just created. 
 

github!

Hi Battlefront o/.
Do you have any good news for your most devoted players about anything happening before Christmas? Something I can spend all my money on? 🎁💰 Or settle down to during Christmas break? 🎄

@BFCElvis

Do my eyes deceive me? Are people really comparing "kills per minute" in some hyper sterile lab test to actually argue whether or not a weapon of suppression is better than a different weapon of suppression? In a combined-arms game where individual weaponry is basically irrelevant unless you exclusively play tiny scenarios? Has anyone here actually gotten into combat and just sat completely stationary with a Bren and an MG42 firing at each other and just waited to see who would win? 
 
The Syrians aren't underdogs because the RPK is probably worse than the M249 or something and the Italians aren't underdogs because the Carcano is worse than a Garand, they're underdogs because they're basically at least a full generation behind at every level and can't even split squads
 
Do people here actually play this game, or do they just post about it?

This seems like a fun rabbit hole.
is not compatible with
Pick one or the other, you can't have both. I, for one, would love to have more historically accurate battles where the Germans had no tanks at all, could only have green/conscript troops while I had a gratuitous amount of artillery along with swarms of angry Typhoons and P-47s.

In addition, we don't know how Battlefront calculates QB points: there could be plenty of other factors at play which push the values in one direction or the other.

I appreciate the intent- but I would think it is best achieved via house rules rather than inflicting one opinion on everyone else. Playing with 0 rarity (ie. neither player can bring *any* unit with a rarity cost) is a good one, really mixes things up.