What happened to Shoot 'n Scoot (and other stuff)?

[Yggdrasill]

I'm sorry if this has been covered (of course it has) but I didn't find anything through searching.

What happened to good old Shoot 'n Scoot from the CM1 games? I really thought that was a useful command.

Also, CM1 showed firepower on the targeting command. That's gone.

Finally, the field manual omitted armor penetration data that was so helpful and interesting in the CMBB and other games.

[Ranger33]

You can do a Shoot 'n Scoot by using the "Pause" command combined with movement orders. You can even throw in the targeting arc on different points. It's a bit more complex but far more flexible and gives you a lot more control.

Someone had a pic on the CMSF forum of a vehicle given a series of waypoints around a building with just about every command thrown in to show off just how powerful the new system is. Anyone know where that post was?

[Mord]

Huntaar's tutorial. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=82035

Whatever happened to him?

Mord.

[YankeeDog]

I'm sorry if this has been covered (of course it has) but I didn't find anything through searching.

What happened to good old Shoot 'n Scoot from the CM1 games? I really thought that was a useful command.

Also, CM1 showed firepower on the targeting command. That's gone.

Finally, the field manual omitted armor penetration data that was so helpful and interesting in the CMBB and other games.

First part has been answered -- while the new method has a bit of a steeper learning curve than the old Shoot and Scoot command, it is far more flexible, giving the player command options that simply didn't exist in CMx1.

As to others:

Firepower rating:

Not really possible in CMx2. In CMx1, individual weapons were assigned an abstract "firepower rating," and the game actually used this rating to calculate suppression and casualties effects, so it was a fairly easy matter to just spit this number out for the player to see. There is no such number in the CMx2 game engine. Every bullet path is calculated, right down to individual rifle bullets. If a bullet's path flies near an enemy, there may be some suppression effect. If a bullet path intersects with the 3D model of an enemy soldier, it will probably wound or kill said enemy. There's a fundamental paradigm shift here from a table-based, numbers abstraction to an actual 3D simulation. Best you can do in CMx2 is look at the weapons your soldiers are carrying, the positions they are in, and try to make a rough estimate of their relative fire output. Kinda like a real life Squad Leader would, actually...

Armor penetration data:

Similar situation here to Firepower above. AFV armor plates are now actual 3D objects, not an abstracted table as in CMx1. Precise hit location is calculated and the terminal effects determined on the basis of various attributes of the projectile. So there are no "armor thickness" and "gun penetration" tables within the game engine that can simply be spit out to the player.

Average penetration tables probably would be useful especially for beginning players as a rough guide for what to expect from various weapons systems. Steve has intimated that he would like to get some sort of improved gun/armor information system in the game engine eventually. The work to add such a feature would definitely be non-trivial, though, and for now, though, other features have taken precedence.

Fortunately, for now, WWII gun/projectile penetration and armor thickness values these are pretty readily available on the web. You can even use the old CMx1 values as rough guide, if you like. Chris Hare's CM charts, which put all the CM data in easy to access spreadsheets, are available for download in the Scenario Depot.

[MikeyD]

I've often joked that the folks who demand penetration tables most tend to be the ones who need them least. They're already on the boards debating the behind-armor effects of explosive filler in US 57mm AP versus solid shot. What's another penetration table going to tell them?

[Erwin]

That's a funny observation and sadly probably true. But, I do wonder if the current system discourages new players who are not milpros.

Most of us have been trained by 10+ years of CM1 so we kinda know what to expect from our armor.