General discussion about CM:SF

[Battlefront.com]

Lots of questions. Forgive me if I don't get to all of them...

Civilians are much desired to include, but we're not going to be getting them in. For the kind of operation we are simulating they aren't extremely important. For Peace and Stability or Counter Insurgency ops they are critical. CM:SF isn't about either of those so we can get by without civilians. However, we do plan on being the first realistic simulation of civilians in a combat environment. Just not sure when we'll get to it

No Turkey and Israel involved in this game since you're in command of US forces only. For Modules we are looking to add other NATO nations. Turkey, although part of NATO, doesn't strike me as being a popular choice to focus on

Yes, the terrain of a large section of Syria is a real test of the new higher resolution terrain mesh. It is going to be a real mess to deal with from an infantry standpoint! The stuff around the Lebanese border is particularly nasty.

Syrian equipment will be realistically modeled. If they don't have it, or aren't likely to have it, they won't. The Syrians have had difficulties upgrading their equipment in recent years because the Soviet Union is no more and Russia seems to favor cash vs. credit A lot of smaller stuff has been coming in from China as a result. As one intelligence summary stated, it is unlikely that Syria will be making billion dollar deals like in the past. Small numbers of upgrades are, however, being conducted. One upgrade package for their aging T-72s actual came from Italy of all places. I have seen a little evidence of some T-80s, but I've also seen reports that the deal fell through and they don't actually have any. We'll be doing more research on this as time goes on. Like I said, if we think they have them in a way that warrants simulation (ex: we aren't simulating the handful of BMP-3s they acquired) it will be in the game.

The player is in command of a nebulous Task Force. In some situations it will be fairly large, in others you might find yourself only with a part of your force doing a fairly small and limited action. In others you'll work in conjunction with other forces that won't be available all the time. Some of these forces will be Attached to you directly, others will just be good neighbors of another task force.

Yes, the new Victory Conditions do include ROE (Rules of Engagement) considerations along with others. For example, we will be able to weigh victory for stuff like "get your convoy to x location by y time without taking more than z casualties". We can do this in a way that is not necessarily apparent to the player ahead of time, or it can be explicate. In other words, Victory Conditions in CMx2 are going to be nothing like what they were in CMx1. That's one of the reasons why we expect CMx2 to be far more interesting

Since helos are a common component of CAS, of course they will be included. However, if you don't have them assigned you don't get them. You can't just stop your attack and call up the chain to get something that isn't available just because you want it. Doesn't work that way in real life, shouldn't work that way in the game. Obviously in real life the commander can theoretically make a decision to abort a mission until such assets come into play, but that doesn't make for an exciting scenario. Though I can think of ways it could be. We'll just have to wait and see what we're able to do with stuff like that.

As for the Syrian Air Force... don't expect to see it. An outdated Israeli report figured its lifespan in minutes if just Israel were to go to war with it. Years of penny pinching and diversion of resources into the Army have left the Syrian Air Force quite incapable of playing any significant role in combat.

Steve

[Hortlund]

Im actually warming up to this game.

[Battlefront.com]

More screenshots will be released with the opening of the website and the release of the CGW article. However, we won't have much new stuff to show for a few months. Charles is deep into coding how these things work, not so much how they animate. For example, he spent the last week doing realistic trajectory and behavior for Javelin ATGM. This includes real time target tracking instead of the CMx1 "roll to see if you hit" system.

Fortunately the week of hard work will make TOW2, RPGs, and oher ATGM systems pieces of cake to enter. Like pretty much everything we are doing now a days, pick the most complicated thing and do that first to make sure the code takes as much into consideration as possible.

Steve

[stikkypixie]

What system are you guys running the test versions on?

[Ivan Drago]

Thanks for the answers Steve...too bad about a lack of modern Russian/Chinese equipment, but I guess my love of armored combat will be somewhat sated by Blue/Blue matchups

Especially when I can pit modern West Euro tanks against the Americans when the modules are released

Like I said, I can't wait to see more terrain details.

The soldiers and vehicles look amazing - I know they are something like 2000 polygons per soldier.

How many polygons will buildings have, comparatively? Maybe a stupid questions since there's a larger variety of building sizes now...

[JohnO]

What Stryker vehicles will there be? All of them, ie MGS, Mortars?

JohnO

[Battlefront.com]

We have PCs running at a couple GHz with fairly common video cards (nVidia and ATI). The real challenge for the hardware is yet to come. Having a couple of platoons worth of infantry and a couple of vehicles without any significant terrain is not a good test of the hardware strain We'll know more around the first of the year when we have a pretty good sized chunk of the graphical environment all set up.

Steve

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Fortunately the week of hard work will make TOW2, RPGs, and oher ATGM systems pieces of cake to enter. Like pretty much everything we are doing now a days, pick the most complicated thing and do that first to make sure the code takes as much into consideration as possible.

Steve

I think Im beginning to see the logic of the setting now. Will be very easy to "dumb everything down" for a ww2 setting after you get the 2007 setting to work.

I mean, if you've got an armor model that can handle reactive armor and modern two-punch ATGMs, then surely it can handle face hardened armor and a panzerfaust aswell.

[ October 08, 2005, 02:35 PM: Message edited by: Leutnant Hortlund ]

[MPK]

I'm as pleased as Punch;

With CMBB, I finally got the

Eastern Front game that I'd

been waiting years for...

CM:SF sounds like the Modern

Era game I've been waiting

years for...

I'll be playing both for years

to come, I have no doubt...

ATGMs! Helos! 12 flavours of MRE!

[Peter Cairns]

Given all the political difficulties that potential israeli military involvement, and the lack of Turkish support had on the run up to the war in Iraq, I would have expected them in.

They may not be seen as big players to many, but regionally they are extremely important, and what happens in Syria is sure as hell important to them as it's on their doorstep.

Still you can't have it all in on Day One.

Even without Civilians Flattening a village may well be frowned upon, so will "Collateral Damage" be part of the victory conditions, or will there be no penalty for "destroying the village in order to save it".

When it comes to the Map editor any more details yet, don't suppose there is any chance of it being compatable with digital data like the late versions of bryce, so that you can download real terrain.

Being able to use google maps would be nice too.

Peter.

[Hortlund]

Im having a hard time picturing a modern urban battle without civilians though. Especially considering how they are using civilians to hide behind in some areas of the world that are not too far away from Syria.

[Michael Dorosh]

Well, given the one-player aspect of the campaigns and the 1:1 scale, etc., I'm hoping that a feature will be using user-defined names for the soldiers in-game? Call it geeky if you like, but was a nice feature way back in Microprose's M-1 TANK PLATOON and believe it or not, it did effect in-game decisions in the course of the campaign; always hated to risk the veteran tank crew with the crackerjack tank gunner if you could send "the new guy" on a dangerous recce...

[hellfish]

I'd like to see that too Dorosh, but it sounds almost like you're gonna have an amalgamation of forces instead of a central core unit - at least that's the impression I'm getting. I could be wrong.

I like growing attached to my subordinates, especially when Specialist Somebody takes out three T-72s all by himself. That deserves a medal, even if in reality he'll have to wait a year or two to get it.

[juan_gigante]

Most important question of all. Will the CMBO shockwaves be in?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by juan_gigante:

Most important question of all. Will the CMBO shockwaves be in?

Yes, but they are now known as Shock Forces (™)

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, part of our thinking about the whole engine was "build for the complex, scale down for the simplistic". This is one reason why we couldn't make CMx1 into anything but WWII ETO. Everything we did was made to cater to WWII and that particular theater. So for CMx2 we chose a more complex environment so we wouldn't be surprised next year to find out on the second go around that we have serious shortcomings that require a lot of recoding work. Going from Javelin to PIAT is a piece of cake

A big goal of the CMx2 campaign system is to get that feeling of attachment to your guys. So yes, we do very much hope that 2 or 3 battles in you'll hesitate to do something that might see your favored unit or leader get whacked. You might not have your favorite leader available for every battle, and will certainly have units for only a few battles, but you will never know who will be with you in the next battle or not. So if you have LT Dorosh in battle one, and choose not to drive him over a known IED on purpose (hehe), you won't know if you get him back for the next battle, 10 battles in a row, or not for another 5 battles. Also, the timeframe of the campaign is short enough that what you lose is likely gone for much, if not all, of the campaign. It will kinda suck to get to Battle 10 with a single Humvee and 2 guys with load of brown in their drawers!

If you look back at the initial battles of OIF or of large scale Counter Insurgency ops (like Falujah) you'll see that civilians aren't a critical component overall. For certain things, absolutely, but not really for the tip of the spear operations. Since we're modeling the initial combat actions civilians aren't required any more than they are for WWII. Nobody has simulated civilians in any meaningful way yet in any case. We hoped to be the first, but we quickly realized that was one bite too many for us to chew for CM:SF. We still hope to be the first though!

Steve

[Ivan Drago]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Well, given the one-player aspect of the campaigns and the 1:1 scale, etc., I'm hoping that a feature will be using user-defined names for the soldiers in-game?

I second that this would be a cool little feature to add more personality.

Private Dubya here is being sent to investigate reports of suicide bombing 'evil doers'.

Note that Pvt. Dubya doesn't require the standard issue infantry helmet, as his skull armor is more then thick enough to offer sufficient protection.

[ October 08, 2005, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: Ivan Drago ]

[Scipio]

I was more surprised than disappointed about the setting. But well, why not?

Nice screenshots, BTW. What sand mod is it?

[Salkin]

I'm looking forward to this one big time !

With the graphics you have on display here, you are probably going to recruit alot of new fans from for instance the Operation Flashpoint crowd.

I don't care much about the setting I think you guys will do a great job, like always.

//Salkin

[aka_tom_w]

Hi Steve

Thanks for all the answers

Did anyone ask about Anti rockets from helo's??

I thought that big tanks and any armour on today's battlefield would be instantly smoked in the opening minutes of any US lead battle by missile's fired by helo's, thus bringing us back to the aformentioned "turkey shoot" . As in "This won't be just another turkey shoot for the US forces" .

"Since helos are a common component of CAS, of course they will be included. However, if you don't have them assigned you don't get them. You can't just stop your attack and call up the chain to get something that isn't available just because you want it. Doesn't work that way in real life, shouldn't work that way in the game. Obviously in real life the commander can theoretically make a decision to abort a mission until such assets come into play, but that doesn't make for an exciting scenario. Though I can think of ways it could be. We'll just have to wait and see what we're able to do with stuff like that."

I could be wrong by won't US air power completely dominate the battlefield in any such future battle or scenario? :confused:

Thanks

Just curious....

Of course I hope there will be a demo available for Mac OS X.

-tom w

[MartinEden]

Wow! what a great game Microprose M1 Tank Platoon was!

[Runyan99]

The player is in command of one of the more interesting missions - to slice through the center of the country and join up with other coalition forces around Damascus.

I'm a little suprised how narrow the focus of the game is. It's almost like releasing ONE CMx1 operation as a stand alone game, and then adding the QB and scenario editor features on top.

In any case, I'm glad to see that the release is going to move in a more realistic direction by addressing one of my biggest concerns, which is to take a company or battalion over miles and hours. Players who are forced to play a campaign type battle (rather than a CMx1 scenario game) will naturally be more conservative with their forces, resulting in greater 'realism' in results. I think that's a good design decision.

I've got an open mind about the modern setting, although I would have preferred an historical Arab-Israeli game.

Two question areas:

1) Why can't we play the campaign 2-player? That seems like quite a restriction. Playing the stock campaign head to head against another human would be about the first thing I would be interested in doing.

2) How is time handled in the game? How long are the turns? How long are the individual battles which make up the campaign? How much time does the entire campaign simulate?

[ October 08, 2005, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: Runyan99 ]

[hellfish]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

I could be wrong by won't US air power completely dominate the battlefield in any such future battle or scenario? :confused:

Thanks

Just curious....

-tom w

In OIF the US launched several helicopter raids on Iraqi forces. The first one, launched by the 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment, was a total disaster. A bunch of Iraqis with AKs and light anti-aircraft guns forced 31 of 32 aircraft to return with lots of holes in them and the 32nd aircraft was shot down and it's crew captured.

The next big raid was conducted by the 101st on the 14th Brigade of the Medina RG Division in the Karbala area. Official tally that I have shows that two attack helicopter battalions killed the following:

7 ADA Systems (could be 14.5mm AAA or SA-5 SAMs)

3 Artillery Systems (Gun tubes)

7 Maneuver Systems (BMPs, Tanks)

5 Radars

25 Vehicles/other weapon systems (technicals mostly)

That's two entire attack aviation battalions with the most advanced helicopters in the world in one night of action. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of death and destruction, does it?

Airpower requires time to work effectively. Don't expect aviation to decisively tip the balance of any fight. Keeping your T-72s in an urban environment will go a long way to reducing American airpower's effectiveness.

I think there was a quote from an Iraqi tank battalion commander in GW1 who said something like "We went into Kuwait with 30 tanks. After six weeks of air attacks we had 25 tanks. After five minutes against the M-1 Abrams I had no tanks."

Ground power is still where it's at. Just remember that Syrian T-72s are not the Asad Babyl tanks the Iraqis had.

[Mace]

Originally posted by Mike Churchmoor:

how many modern computer (non-rt) strategy games cover the modern warfare? TacOps, Steel Panthers II

Add Point of Attack 2 (which after quite a lot of patches isn't bad) and Decisive Action (which is more modern combat at an operational level).

Hmmm wonder if we can set up a Syrian campaign using Decisive Action at a higher level, and CM:SF at the tactical?

[M1A1TC]

This game is going to be the best!! Thanks Battlefront team, you have anwsered my prayers!!!

If you need photos of real M1 tanks, gear, whatever, let me know. I can also get you tank Technical Manual