A pat on the back to all the Modders and scenario designers.

[SgtMuhammed]

Having recently tried my hand at modding and having designed several scenarios I know the hard work and frustration that goes along with the reward. I just wanted to send out a thanks to all of you and to encourage those of you who might be interested to go ahead and give it a shot. You all make the community a much deeper experience and the game that much more enjoyable.

[Mishga]

Thanks, Sgt.

I am dabbling with some mods for Syrian infantry uniforms and it's not easy to come up with something realistic yet different enough to warrant a posting at cmmods.com and when I looked at the files for modding a vehicle my eyes almost popped out my head. So BIG cheer to all the modders for there expertise.

Scenario and campaign design is a frustrating thing at times but immensley rewarding if even one person enjoys what you have crafted. I am still a novice at it but hope to improve as I go on.

[M1A1TC]

Thanks It took me about 5-6 hours to do each mod

[SgtMuhammed]

Mishga,

Yes the vehicle .bmps are eyepopping. When I exploded the .brz file and finally looked at the vehicle file I was expecting to see nice orderly pictures, like a plan view. Silly me.

Even if you don't plan on modding I would advise everyone to look at the actual vehicle art. REALLY makes you appreciate what a lot of the people here have done.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Yeah, for real. I'm trying to do scenarios now, and I suck. None of it looks like it should, enemy units always reveal themselves immediately and there is no set-up period and I am having trouble with the elevation.

[Pandur]

Yeah, for real. I'm trying to do scenarios now, and I suck. None of it looks like it should, enemy units always reveal themselves immediately and there is no set-up period and I am having trouble with the elevation.

hehe, that sounds like my first try to do a mission in v1.01

it gets better though! especially the elevation tool is a hughe step forward from CMx1. if you get how it works for you its great.

[Clavicula_Nox]

I'm starting to figure out the elevation, but I'm not sure how to solve the problem of the AI coming out of their holes prematurely and firing off a few rounds. I give them hide commands, I try to block their LOS with buildings, I make the distance around 700m and still they come up and fire. Not quite sure what to do, but would it work better once I make an AI plan for them?

[Pandur]

Not quite sure what to do, but would it work better once I make an AI plan for them?

defenitely

but its easy, all AI you place is automaticly set to "group1". means you dont have to asign em as long as no group should move idependently from the others. this moving group would need to be "group2" as example.

you can set the AI to "cautious" "normal" and "active",...by default their normal.

i suggest you to do a search or some searches in the scenario design forums. there are quiet some topics on everything, more or less.

if you still have questions or cant find what you look for, just open a thread there.

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by Pandur:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Not quite sure what to do, but would it work better once I make an AI plan for them?

defenitely

but its easy, all AI you place is automaticly set to "group1". means you dont have to asign em as long as no group should move idependently from the others. this moving group would need to be "group2" as example.

you can set the AI to "cautious" "normal" and "active",...by default their normal.

i suggest you to do a search or some searches in the scenario design forums. there are quiet some topics on everything, more or less.

if you still have questions or cant find what you look for, just open a thread there. </font>

[Dragon67]

One huge credit to the designers- the editing AI is awesome and easy to use especially if you take the time to really skim hard the manual.

It is not hard to easily go from manual to map either if you have the shortcut to the manual on your main screen and all you need to do is hit Alt-Tab to minimize.

I have made a few scenarios. One way to add randomness and practice to tactics I like to do is create a canal that your force needs to go through to reach the battlefield. In the canal I place mud and that bogs and imobolizes some of the vehicles meaning you need to learn how to provide cover and move infantry without the firepower and speed of vehicles.

As for the AI- you can place destinations within the setup zone or outside of it and if you limit the destination by just painting a building- those units will generally stay in the building and not just stupidly lay down in the road next to it.

Take a hard look at the scenarios where the AI is doing what you like- then take a hard look at the AI settings.

Also, very important to look at how to create groups as well as being able to set them as targets- as well as setting terrain objectives.

As broad as that sounds- if you look at the manual as you go along- you can probably figure the whole thing out in about 90 minutes, that is how long it took me.

Finally- if you bought your game in the box- the booklet manual that came with it does not include the editor directions- that is the last section on the pdf manual.

The only thing I really struggled on was the parameter settings which I feel is lacking and limiting. While I think the parameter settings does provide for a lot of different things and variety- it also lacks something I appreciate- Death Match.

[ May 20, 2008, 11:23 PM: Message edited by: Dragon67 ]

[Dragon67]

Finaly, I don't know when I will add one of my scenarios to be downloaded.

I was thinking on planning one using a stryker unit(s) that I will immediately convert some units to Marines once that module is released just to be the first one to release a Marine scenario (see how sneaky I am ?).

[Clavicula_Nox]

You know something this game has taught me? I don't like Strykers. They seem big and bad ass, like they could take on the whole world, but they just get ripped to shreds and all of my pixel soldiers die forcing me to write useless microsoft word documents to their pixelated parents.

[Mishga]

In your set up phase you can paint a zone and give Hide or Ambush 150m orders, put the start time and finish time to a few minutes. This means the enemy play hidey for as long as you wish. Then after that you don't paint an order on the map but just change the AI settings for order 2 to active or ambush 1000m with Max Assault.

This tends to give the AI troops about 5 mins or however long you wish to hide them for then they pop up all guns blazing. Vehicles it won't work so well as they get spotted easily despite the hide order.

It's a little trick that you may find useful in planning your defence AI.

[Paper Tiger]

Dragon

"I was thinking on planning one using a stryker unit(s) that I will immediately convert some units to Marines once that module is released just to be the first one to release a Marine scenario (see how sneaky I am ?)."

Good luck with that. It's a nice idea but I think you're going to beaten by some of the beat testers who have almost certainly got something ready right now. They'll just be waiting for the module to be released and they'll have their missions posted before you've bought and paid for the module.

[Dragon67]

I can dream can't I ?