Not sure what I paid for

[superwoz]

I was excited for the release of 3.0 but now I'm not sure what I received. I had my Vid Card dialed in to stop the flashing/ blinking of soldiers and vehicles. That has now returned and some strange actions of my AT crews not deploying, then walking away when they have not been order to move.

I was ready to load troops on AFVs and run them into battle but I am still not able to. I played the demo of RT so I was expecting to do the same with this new engine. Are the 3.0 engines not created equal?

Has anyone figured out how to deploy or find the ammo dumps?

[Frankster65]

Why not try reading the manual. You know there is a manual, right?

[MikeyD]

Ammo dumps are the vehicle acquireables. If you've selected 'Dismounted' for vehicle status the trucks disappear and the ammo boxes remain. Ammo dumps only appear at the 2(?) highest difficulty settings, below that the truck ammo gets distributed among the troops. If you have troops near ammo dumps they should be able to 'borrow' ammo from it while firing without needing to acquire but nearby troops will be able to 'acquire' like with a truck.

CMBN and CMFI did not get eastern-Europe-style tank riding. Its not tactically applicable to these theaters and would have involved perhaps 400 individual vehicles (between the two title) being individually hand-worked to accept passengers. A herculean task for something that never occurred in combat.

You do get AA artillery shooting at aircraft, a very nice framerate jump on big maps, and the BIG thing is hit decals, which is a literal game-changer.

[womble]

You do get AA artillery shooting at aircraft, a very nice framerate jump on big maps, and the BIG thing is hit decals, which is a literal game-changer.

The biggest potential game-changer (that you won't see the benefit of as yet) is the availability of triggers in the AI plans. Will need folks to start modifying old scenarios and QB map AIs, or produce new ones, though.

Some people like the command lines (you'll probably have to toggle those on).

[montanaza]

How do we toggle them on? Alt something?

[Fizou]

In game, down by the cease fire and other options there is a hot key display. All alt combinations are listed there.

[montanaza]

great, thanks mate

[Michael Emrys]

...the BIG thing is hit decals, which is a literal game-changer.

Huh? Don't get me wrong, I like hit decals and I'm glad to have them. But game changing??? Isn't that just a teensy bit over the top?

:confused:

Michael

[A Canadian Cat]

Huh? Don't get me wrong, I like hit decals and I'm glad to have them. But game changing??? Isn't that just a teensy bit over the top?

I would use the phrase "game immersion changer" my self. I am surprised how much I really like having them - I for one did not really thing I would care about it much but there ya go I do...

[womble]

Huh? Don't get me wrong, I like hit decals and I'm glad to have them. But game changing??? Isn't that just a teensy bit over the top?

:confused:

Michael

I would think they make it even easier to tell where whateveritwasthatkilledyour tank is hiding... so they change that a bit...

[Mord]

Huh? Don't get me wrong, I like hit decals and I'm glad to have them. But game changing??? Isn't that just a teensy bit over the top?

:confused:

Michael

LOL. Not for me! HDs were my #1 (never had in any version of CM) feature wish! But ian is right, maybe "game immersion changer" is the optimal term. Anyway, now it's gonna taken even longer to review a turn when something cool happens.

Mord.

[Darknight (DC)]

I like the decals....still want my Crocs and Wasps (but I know they're bound to show up in the "near"-ish future).

[hobo]

CMBN and CMFI did not get eastern-Europe-style tank riding. Its not tactically applicable to these theaters and would have involved perhaps 400 individual vehicles (between the two title) being individually hand-worked to accept passengers. A herculean task for something that never occurred in combat.

Umm, excuse me. Have you not seen Kelly's heros? There is no way to recreate this campaign without tank riders!!!!!

With that said, I would take flame weapons as a compromise.

[Holman]

The truly game-changing elements in 3.0 have to do with AI logic and scenario design, but those will develop over time.

[Michael Emrys]

CMBN and CMFI did not get eastern-Europe-style tank riding. Its not tactically applicable to these theaters....A herculean task for something that never occurred in combat.

I must demur here a little bit. Tank riding, even into the teeth of the enemy, was engaged in at least occasionally in Normandy by the Americans. Just finished reading George Wilson's memoir If You Survive, and in it he describes his platoon riding tanks of the 2nd. Armd. Div. during the Cobra breakout. Several points have to be considered before this is taken as proof of very much though. One is that it is seen through the eyes of one infantry platoon leader. Secondly, that his men of the 4th. Inf. Div. had had time to train together with the tankers and they were familiar with each other and had worked out the tactics they expected to use. Thirdly, this was an exploitation situation penetrating enemy formations that were already suffering loss and dislocation. They weren't riding into a setpiece battle against a well organized defense. But it did happen, and not only during Cobra as following passages in his narrative show.

So does tank riding belong in BN & FI? I'd say yes as soon as the necessary work can be fitted into BFC's schedule. Is there a danger that players will abuse this feature if it is included? Certainly. There are players who abuse everything in CM at one time or the other. Think of the players who insist on always having Tigers and/or Panthers in their lineup and wouldn't think of playing without them. So that is a trivial excuse for not including it. But I also expect that players who over-use this feature are going to notice high attrition rates among their tank riders. Thus a certain amount of self-correction is built right into the system.

Michael

[Holman]

Did Americans ride tanks into battle or just use them as road taxis?

I've heard of no episodes where American infantry intentionally rode tanks into enemy contact. (The only accounts I can recall describe troops scrambling to jump from tanks as they came unexpectedly under fire.) Of course there may be cases I've never heard about, but nothing I have read suggests that tank-riding in combat was widely practiced or trained for.

[MikeyD]

By the time the US had reached the Ruhr tanks were getting ladders and grab bars welded to the rear decks to accommodate mounted infantry. But we're talking events about 5-6-7 months distant from what was happening in Normandy. I'd like to see tank riders applied to the bulge game but am perfectly happy to not see it in Bocage country.

[Fizou]

Good post Emrys. There is obviously proof of tank riding occurring on the western and Italian theatres. I’m fine with the “to much work for an upgrade” but don’t buy it shouldn’t be added for historical reasons.

[Pak40]

By the time the US had reached the Ruhr tanks were getting ladders and grab bars welded to the rear decks to accommodate mounted infantry. But we're talking events about 5-6-7 months distant from what was happening in Normandy.

Yea, but this was purely for transport purposes, not battle tactics. I don't think anyone is arguing that G.I.s did not ride on tanks, just not into battle as the Russians did.

[Michael Emrys]

I've heard of no episodes where American infantry intentionally rode tanks into enemy contact.

Read Wilson's book. He will provide you with some instances.

...nothing I have read suggests that tank-riding in combat was widely practiced or trained for.

Of course it was not widespread. That was one of my points. But it was trained for in limited cases and practiced.

Whether BFC chooses to devote time to including it in the West is their call. But my point is that there is no historical reason for it to be absolutely forbidden.

Michael

[Vergeltungswaffe]

As a public service, remember why BFC posted tank riders aren't in BN and FI atm.

Originally Posted by Battlefront.com

Unfortunately the scope of work for tank riders was too massive to be included in a $10 Upgrade. Each model plus (IIRC) 2 LODs has to be hand tweaked by a 3D artist, hand coded by Charles, and tested for problems. There are always problems (guys sitting above the deck, into the turret, facing the wrong direction, using the wrong animations, etc.) because placing these hotspots is more art than science. The assuredness that a certain number of hotspots will need some tweak or several means the development cycle is repeated for a subset of the total number of changes. To give you some understanding of the process we go through...

From memory there is about 200 vehicle models between CMBN and CMFI. If we figure an average of 10 "hotspots" for soldiers per vehicle (some have more some have less), that's a total of 2000 hotspots that have to be created for the base models, times 3 to include the LODs. That means about 6000 hotspots have to be added, coded, tested, and tweaked before we're done. Knock the workload down by a small bit because there are a few models that are 100% the same between releases or nations (there's still some work to do, just not as much) and exclude the vehicles that don't need the feature at all. Oh, let's say 5000 hotspots. I dunno what each hotspot averages out to in terms of work, but 3 minutes each is probably very conservative. That means the cost of an Upgrade has to cover 250 hours of labor just for this one feature, plus the other features, plus the other testing, plus the sales related expenses, plus the "opportunity cost", plus our risk, plus profit.

[Mord]

Right now, I'd rather see that animation time put into gun movement.

Mord.