hellfish Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 The Army just released a new, free game. This one is a propaganda piece for the FCS systems. I'm still downloading it, but it looks like you're commanding an FCS armor company team in a notional land against a notional foe. Can't tell what the gameplay is like (RTS maybe?). Looks like you get plenty of unmanned systems to play with too. http://www.army.mil/fcs/f2c2/index.html I dumped it in here as it seems topical, we need an active alternative to the stupid peng thread and it's not really competition... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellfish Posted July 4, 2006 Author Share Posted July 4, 2006 OK I tried it. I really like it! Its mostly a scalable real-time map exercise, but at any time you can activate a unit's cameras to see what they see. I was scouting with my UAV and could switch between several thermal and optical modes, set waypoints, conduct my own recons and calls for fire, etc. It was pretty neat. Suprisingly detailed yet easy to use. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 yea, very cool game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PanzerMike Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 Fytinghellfish, are you the hellfish that also resides on the DD/HIP forum now and then ? "Paradox: please fix or do somefink" 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellfish Posted July 4, 2006 Author Share Posted July 4, 2006 Yes. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 Odd to think that every dime I pay in taxes from now until the day I die will be going to go towards paying for the development of that 'free' game. At least it won't be going for something truely stupid like trying to send a man to Mars ...Oh yeh, we're all financing that too. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nidan1 Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 Originally posted by MikeyD: Odd to think that every dime I pay in taxes from now until the day I die will be going to go towards paying for the development of that 'free' game. At least it won't be going for something truely stupid like trying to send a man to Mars ...Oh yeh, we're all financing that too. AND the Peng Challenge Thread is FREE, so no worries for you there. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirReal Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 After checking F2C2 out I can't say I'm impressed. It's more interesting as an example of US Army propaganda than as a computer game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robear Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 Odd to think that every dime I pay in taxes from now until the day I die will be going to go towards paying for the development of that 'free' game. Well, the Army designs all sorts of games. This is most likely an adaptation of an existing game that was modified for recruitment. Even if it's purpose-built, if it brings in people, it's worth the money. At least now you won't be worried any of your money will be going to any other things that bother you. Small price to lose all that frustration! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robear Posted July 5, 2006 Share Posted July 5, 2006 Well, I stand corrected. It looks from the SAIC website like an in-house developed advertising tool. So I'm guessing it comes from their marketing budget. I thought it was a system coming into deployment and hence developed under contract, but I see that's not the case. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huhr Posted July 6, 2006 Share Posted July 6, 2006 how is the gameplay? looks like the req's are quite steep 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huhr Posted July 30, 2006 Share Posted July 30, 2006 Hi, I downloaded the game and when I tried to install i came up with this dialogue box documents and settings\howard\local settings\temp\F2C2_.CAB verify that the file exists and that you can access it. not sure of why any help is appreciated 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sivodsi Posted July 31, 2006 Share Posted July 31, 2006 wow, asking for assistance for another game on this forum? You are asking for lockdown, huhr! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted July 31, 2006 Share Posted July 31, 2006 No problem mentioning the game, but yeah... let's try to keep it tied to CM:SF in some way FCS... some people would call it a Frigg'n Contractor Screwjob Look at the Land Warrior system and Stryker system itself. Both were supposed to be COTS (Consumer Off The Shelf) programs. But that doesn't make the big contractors any money, so they frig and frig with stuff until the things are extremely expensive at the very least and hardly COTS any more. This doesn't mean the end product is bad, but it often does. The recent demise of the XM-8 program is a great example of that. FCS might be another such program. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveS Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Just noticed the following article which might be of interest to some, if only that they get to see their forum remarks re-quoted F2C2 The article mentions the ethical problems of presenting too rosy-eyed a view of future warfare. One would think that 5 minutes of watching the news would temper that viewpoint, however, I have not noticed a discussion on CMSF about the implications of selling a commercial game which is meant to be realistic (apologies if you have done so). i.e. if the capabilities of the weapons as presented in the game are representative of real-life, how do you feel about how such a tool could be used by potential adversaries of US forces? In my opinion the more realistic the better for a variety of reasons, but I could imagine a similar article to the above in right-wing parts of the press questioning the ethics of a realistic simulator. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarquelne Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 One would think that 5 minutes of watching the news would temper that viewpoint,You're assuming people pay attention? The game looks interesting... though I'm not sure it's because of the play or just as - has been mentioned already - a work of advertisement/propaganda. Speaking of your tax $ at work: I read on the game's forum how to clean your registry file of the settings that keep the "game" eating CPU cycles even when you're not playing. Apparently F2C2 automatically installs distributed-computing software made to chew on certain US Navy ciphers. Something to do with "the Annapolis 12/02 playbook". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Ruddy Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Originally posted by SirReal: After checking F2C2 out I can't say I'm impressed. It's more interesting as an example of US Army propaganda than as a computer game. You're thinking of "America's Army"... :mad: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RSColonel_131st Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 Is there actually any 3d views in this, or all just map-down icons? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted November 27, 2006 Share Posted November 27, 2006 I am not sure my video card can handle this but gonna try anyway. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellfish Posted November 28, 2006 Author Share Posted November 28, 2006 There are very rudimentary 3D views. Shouldn't tax even a ten year old video card. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 Well it plays ok. The Sys requirements state 128MB card and my laptop doesnt have such an animal. Interesting game so far though. -Ray 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMC Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 They are still on their Us vs Them, Blue vs Red, force on force and the Reds have BMPs, BTRs, T-80s, 2S3s yada yada. New toys to face the same old threat. There's some lip service to insurgency but none of the scenarios focus on that or what the FCS can bring to that fight. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellfish Posted November 28, 2006 Author Share Posted November 28, 2006 I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Army is more interested in fighting tomorrows war with no casualties instead of today's war with fewer casualties. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMC Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 The FCS program was conceived well prior to this Iraqi adventure. It is firmly rooted in Cold War ideas about what the Army is supposed to do. FCS is still being designed around the worst case of MTW, Major Theater War. The assumption seems to be that if it can do that it can do all the less intensive missions too i.e. if it can handle the highest intensity on the spectrum then it is automatically full spectrum dominant. Iraq is viewed much the same way the great powers looked at WWI: it's an aberration and it won't happen again. So we don't need to spend a lot of time working on that. Plus, it doesn't lend itself to procurement of big ticket toys. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted November 28, 2006 Share Posted November 28, 2006 Originally posted by RMC: Iraq is viewed much the same way the great powers looked at WWI: it's an aberration and it won't happen again. So we don't need to spend a lot of time working on that. Plus, it doesn't lend itself to procurement of big ticket toys. Be curious to know how you justify this, considering that, inter alia, the French built the Maginot line in response to their experiences in WWI, and the Germans changed their entire theory of tactics, based on their experiences in WWI (i.e., Guderian's theories on mobile warfare, etc.). Granted, many of the responses to the experiences of WWI turned out to be, in hindsight, very wrong, but I'm having a hard time seeing any justification for the idea that the dominant schools of military theory reacted to WWI as an "abberation," that "won't happen again." Quite the contrary, most of the military theorists from the 20s an 30s that I have read spend a long time thinking about how to avoid, or at least win, a vicious WWI-style war of stationary fronts and attrition. As a result, we get a move towards new weapons and/or tactics in the 20s and 30s, such as the (ultimately disasterous) Maginot line, the Soviets' experimentation with theories of the Deep Operation and very large tank formations, German development of the so-called "Blitzkrieg" theory, Douhet's writings on air power, and specifically strategic bombing. . . and so on. Regards, YD 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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