Combat Mission Professional

[Lethaface]

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Ok I try that tomorrow it is now 9pm here. Thanks for your help. 

My pleasure

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, Artkin said:

Still, it shouldnt be happening either way. Can you see your neighbor across the street's back door? This is what I am talking about.

I can - which is handy as it is one of my rental properties  - however, the point it valid - I can only see two back doors of nine on the opposite side of my street.

[Artkin]

13 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

I can - which is handy as it is one of my rental properties  - however, the point it valid - I can only see two back doors of nine on the opposite side of my street.

..Only one of your rental properties? And thats before the double pension? 

2/9 isnt bad, I might have had a ratio similar to that of guys getting banged as they run through a doorway (from outside). 

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, Artkin said:

..Only one of your rental properties? And thats before the double pension? 

 

I might lose those if I'm wrong about the CMCW module though.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

13 hours ago, Bufo said:

Picture please of a building with a balcony where the men won't go out on the balcony itself, but cover in that direction through the windows.

@Lethaface beat me to it:

11 hours ago, Lethaface said:

face it to opposide sise, pause and than give cover arc towards balcony. Because they are paused they will not move but only turn.

 

 It's a trick discovered by @MOS:96B2P during countless hours of testing & experiments (I really don't just say stuff for the sake of it you know). 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[chuckdyke]

12 hours ago, Artkin said:

Can you see your neighbor across the street's back door?

I can live with it as the AI won't fire at only sound contacts. See it as area fire like we do when you have a strong sound contact in a building. Made me think I like it actually some more added realism. My whinge was I couldn't give a common sense order. The balcony is still a pest but at least I know my way around it.

[MOS:96B2P]

Reverse Wall Drill when trying to sneak into a building or if OpFor might be across the street:

1. Give team a circular Target Arc about the size of the building.

2. Slow team into the building & then to the desired floor.

3. Give desired floor waypoint a Target Arc out the reverse wall.¹

4. 2^nd turn give the team a permanent Pause³ order.

5. Give team a 32m, or smaller, 360^oTarget Arc² and consider Hide.

6. If/when ready to engage cancel Target Arc Pause & Hide.

Notes: 1)The team will have LOS out the forward wall of the building from the reverse wall.  This will also keep team from entering a balcony on forward wall.  2)A 360^oTarget Arc is used to prevent the OpFor from approaching outside a wedge arc. 3)Pause keeps team from moving to forward wall & entering balconies.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

[Rice]

I have CMPE, and after playing a lot of it, testing it, etc, I have come away most shocked with how feature complete and functional the convoy command is. I am absolutely surprised it was never put into Engine 4, and specifically, that there are so many rumors about how non-functional it is. I hope it comes in Engine 5. I wonder what prevented it from becoming a universal feature?

[Ultradave]

3 hours ago, Rice said:

I have CMPE, and after playing a lot of it, testing it, etc, I have come away most shocked with how feature complete and functional the convoy command is. I am absolutely surprised it was never put into Engine 4, and specifically, that there are so many rumors about how non-functional it is. I hope it comes in Engine 5. I wonder what prevented it from becoming a universal feature?

As a number of us had said before, when it was tested it only sorta, kinda worked. And the times it didn't or behaved weirdly were very annoying. And if it was annoying to beta testers who are pretty used to things going wonky along the way, then the users would have not liked it at all.  We pretty much universally declared it not ready for prime time because of that.

I have NO knowledge of anything to do with the pro edition, nor do almost any of us (beta testers) I think. Haven't seen it, don't know what's in it, not even a list of features. If  it works now, that would be awesome. I'd really like that as a feature. 

 

[domfluff]

4 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

As a number of us had said before, when it was tested it only sorta, kinda worked. And the times it didn't or behaved weirdly were very annoying. And if it was annoying to beta testers who are pretty used to things going wonky along the way, then the users would have not liked it at all.  We pretty much universally declared it not ready for prime time because of that.

Would you mind expanding on that? "Not working" and "behaving weirdly" aren't terribly precise, and I'd be curious to know what they actually mean.

[AlexUK]

4 hours ago, Rice said:

I have CMPE, and after playing a lot of it, testing it, etc, I have come away most shocked with how feature complete and functional the convoy command is. I am absolutely surprised it was never put into Engine 4, and specifically, that there are so many rumors about how non-functional it is. I hope it comes in Engine 5. I wonder what prevented it from becoming a universal feature?

Would be good to know what else on the 'list' above is actually in professional. 

[Ultradave]

8 hours ago, domfluff said:

Would you mind expanding on that? "Not working" and "behaving weirdly" aren't terribly precise, and I'd be curious to know what they actually mean.

It's been a while, but if I remember right, there were times when following units wouldn't follow the waypoints. Other times they would pause at waypoints, causing a huge traffic snarl (I'm thinking of a column moving onto the map, say, like scenario 2 in Kampfgruppe Peiper (a really handy place to have it work )

There were a variety of problems and they didn't happen all the time. It wasn't like you could chase down a bug because, for example, units *always* got confused at road intersections. It worked sometimes like a charm. Other times it was just a mess. I think Steve/Charles decided at the time they couldn't afford to spend more time and resources on it and postpone it to "later."  I'll try to go back and search but that was the general gist.

Dave

[domfluff]

Thank you, I appreciate that.

[Probus]

10 hours ago, Ultradave said:

I'd really like that as a feature. 

Ditto, my brother from another mother!

[Artkin]

I do believe the convoy feature to have limited scope in the CM games. Now, if engine 5 is talking performance upgrades, then you might want to consider a convoy feature, as these maps will start opening up finally.
As it is, on a 2x2km map I'll bring my trucks to the front and leave them. I put exit zones in my battles every now and then so sometimes I can ditch all of them. But sometimes they just remain there for the battle.

I certainly wouldn't convoy my combat vehicles, but a battalion of trucks carrying infantry on a huge map after we have improvements? That sounds reasonable to me!
This is all just food for thought.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Artkin

[chuckdyke]

1 hour ago, Artkin said:

convoy

It is not a big deal. If the terrain is dry a truck can negotiate terrain as well as a halftrack. Tutorial Battle for Normandy starts with three trucks. Study the move tools innovate and after trial and error I came up with a solution which doesn't take that long. Trucks follow infantry on large maps as they are mobile ammo dumps containing plenty of goodies. The driver can become a bazooka operator. Far better than leaving the truck behind. 

[Artkin]

5 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

It is not a big deal. If the terrain is dry a truck can negotiate terrain as well as a halftrack. Tutorial Battle for Normandy starts with three trucks. Study the move tools innovate and after trial and error I came up with a solution which doesn't take that long. Trucks follow infantry on large maps as they are mobile ammo dumps containing plenty of goodies. The driver can become a bazooka operator. Far better than leaving the truck behind. 

You want to try one of my scenarios? 

[chuckdyke]

5 hours ago, Artkin said:

You want to try one of my scenarios? 

Not for some time anyway. I still have many Campaigns to do. Thank you and happy gaming. 

[Ultradave]

11 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

It is not a big deal. If the terrain is dry a truck can negotiate terrain as well as a halftrack. Tutorial Battle for Normandy starts with three trucks. Study the move tools innovate and after trial and error I came up with a solution which doesn't take that long. Trucks follow infantry on large maps as they are mobile ammo dumps containing plenty of goodies. The driver can become a bazooka operator. Far better than leaving the truck behind. 

It's most useful in scenarios where your force starts in road march formation and has to navigate some twisty route to get out somewhere to deploy. As I mentioned, the second Peiper scenario is one that comes to mind right away. They end up being clickfests, compounded by the fact you have to click outside the setup zone, once, twice, maybe 3 times, and drag those waypoints back to where you want them to follow roads (or wait until turn 2 to do anything to avoid the waypoint dragging).

It's not as useful or needed once the action starts, although in some wide open scenarios (Russia, for example), it would be nice to have a formation keeping follow as you roll across the steppes.

Dave

[domfluff]

Yes. The convoy command clearly isn't the end-all of features, but there are firm use-cases for it, particularly on titles with larger maps like Cold War.

The dream would be for some more extensive formation movement options, which you'd imagine the convoy command could be the start of. Being able to spread a platoon and have them keep an approximate formation would be very handy for this kind of behind-lines busywork.

Neither convoy, nor a hypothetical formation move would be a combat order, obviously, but there are still many situations where that would improve things significantly.

[chuckdyke]

Tutorial of Battle for Normandy. Lost count how many times I returned to this one. Select all trucks plot the way points of the first truck on the road. The two trucks behind will have the same amount of waypoints but not on the road. it is just a matter of dragging and snapping the waypoints in concert with the first truck. I found this goes quick. You need some practice.  

Edited September 17, 2021 by chuckdyke

[domfluff]

You're not wrong, but the issue is mostly when you're scaling up to do longer road moves with complex movements, especially with battalion sized forces, on multi-kilometre maps.

It's still more than possible to do that manually, but the interface firmly does not scale to that kind of thing, so you're left with an awful lot of clicks to work through.

[Artkin]

Try moving a US mechanized battalion around on Magarch (CMFB master map).

[chuckdyke]

39 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Try moving a US mechanized battalion around on Magarch

The biggest I did was: "A War Without Mercy". I was a scenario in itself.