Volunteer tester for REDvsRED needed!

[Pandur]

anyone up for a Huge RED vs. RED Battle to test out.

my first half playthrough revealed that the player need less and worse tanks, and the enemy more man, that was corrected and the 2nd run was quiet good.

now its not too hard but you realy have to use the stuff you have.

my current problem is that i know the enemy setup quiet well and so its spoiled from the start. so i seek someone wich plays through it, better sooner than later and give me his feedback about the battle.

i would upload it to rapidshare than, wich i consider faster than mailing.

the system i use to play this battle;

CoreDuo E6400

currently just 1GbRAM

ATI HD3870

EDIT: you find 2 screens of the map in here->

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=72;t=000291

[Pandur]

maybe i should have posted this in the general part of the forums. everyone checking in here seems to be busy doing his own stuff or is already engaged in another scenario.

however, iam in my last playthrough. if this one is going well, and noone is up to test it, i release it anyways.

thanks

[birdstrike]

I'll give it a shot.

The size is perhaps a little intimidating

I'd say put it up for DL. I'm sure more people will try it out once it's available.

[Pandur]

many thanks, i just feel uncompftable to release such a big thing. its the 2nd map i did, but i couldnt get myself to do sometihng smaler this time

yesterday i wrote up a briefing, i hope its clear and you know what to do(spelling could be bit off ).

i tried to keep the force/location/enemy "nameless" to enable people to think up their own setting. i made up the town names, and you simply look for a warlord without name

one could take it as syrians vs uncons or with the new russian mods around you could have a russo-afghan style map.

one of the bigest problems i had in my playthroughs so far is something i cant do anything about.

"time"...the battle length is 120 turns plus 0-30 turns. the maximum time possible. looks like its not enough but iam not sure myself so far.

my current playthrough of the latest version is at turn 30, i have to see how it turns out now in the later stages.

heres the file-> http://rapidshare.com/files/100283563/-Red_StreamTESTupdate15.btt.html

PS.: if you should have problems with performance, i help it from time to time by looking of the board, calculating the turn without visuals and than watch the replay.

also i found it verry pratical to not look straight up noth, but position the camera allways a bit towards north-east or north-west, it helps FPS considerable if one needs it.

[birdstrike]

I gave the map a quick test run in RT. But framerate became unplayable after 30 minutes. My poor rig had reached its limit when the city fighting began. Will stick to WEGO now.

But I liked what I've seen so far. Will keep you updated.

Btw. there is a lone UAZ south of the main army in the staging area, you might want to check this.

[Pandur]

hehe, actually i wondered where it is comming from. there is nothing deleted in the unit section wich could have left it behind.

however i thought normaly you are short on transport and i kept it to keep someone going wich lost a jeep or a BMP.

in my curent game i already have a crew runing back to it, fetching it for a squad wich lost its BMP and needs to be somewhere far away pretty soon

i dont know what time zone you are in but if you restart the map in wego, you could get the updated version.

i plan to change;

- errors in the briefing;

- i think about giving the player back the 2nd spotter i had in there in the first version.

also another engineer platoon would help.

- the 3rd company of the battalion get removed, instead you get a SF company(veteran/crack mix) as reinforcements after 30-40 minutes.

that will be fun when the players have to manuver them into the city in their jeeps

but they will be of real use "in" the city.

so the mechs just get the cityfight "lite" and have to clear a entrance to get the SF guys in there. that keeps em fit for the rest.

- the sleepers you read about in the briefing, forgett them, i forgett that idea too.

the thing is, i thought the player would manage to take the city in 60 turns. well, i was a bit nastier than i thought and right now i am at about turn 60 and my 1st company is more or less depleated in therms of manpower, not all dead but many halfed. i just took the towncenter and prepare to take the mosque.

thats manageable in the end, but the sleepers would "awake" about 60turns +/-30turns into the scenario(max time possible). that would mean they could spawn right around you. thats too much, i intened them to apear when you are actually finished with the city and just have a company bored at the objectives.

if you didnt started by now; i change that at once and upload a new version for you. cant take longer than half an houer to an houer from now on.

deleting is easier than to add

[ March 18, 2008, 05:41 AM: Message edited by: Pandur ]

[Pandur]

http://rapidshare.com/files/100486546/-Red_StreamTESTupdate17.btt.html

took a bit longer than i though, but i tweaked a door or two in addition to the list above

[birdstrike]

I had had started WEGO in the previous version, but again, around 30 minutes into the battle, as soon as I reach the city with my first company the game almost comes to a standstill. During turn calculation, the timer skips 5 seconds and during review the units make little jumps instead of moving fluently. I guess it's not so much the graphics than the LOS calculations.

I will try again with the new version. Maybe I can play around with the graphics settings to get this to work.

Adding a second spotter is a good idea. I lost mine and was just thinking "darn, it would be good to have another one around."

Nevertheless, the first 30 minutes played out quite well.

---POSSIBLE SPOILERS---

I took it carefully, using the recon platoon and later the tanks to detect exposed enemy positions and neutralize them (I had quite some time while waiting for the artillery to arrive). I set up ATGM positions on the mountain south of the city to deal with the tanks on the far ridge, which worked quite well (nice placement of the sniper by btw ).

[Pandur]

yes this big maps/missions are quiet taxing. my system cant run it too when i look at the map when calculating, when fighting in the city.

as said, i look north-east or north west, never directly over the city up north. i can do that in orders phase but not while calculating the turn.

also for me, it start to lag from time to time, so the vehicles jump slightly, but when looking offborad the jumps are never biger than 1 second so it is tolerable here.

you saw the system i use to play it, in addition to that my game settings for that battle are;

1024x768

AA/Multisampling On

Terreain/Textures: Balanced/Balanced

Vsync: On

i have shadows off, also when i dont need FPS i dont use them, maybe that helps too.

Adding a second spotter is a good idea.

at first i thought its too much to have two, but this game i was sneaking the team around too much in the hills, the MG bunker in the south poped the guy with the radio equipment

also the mission takes quiet a bit longer than i expected wich justifies a 2nd team.

the 2nd FO team is the integrated one in the SF company now, so it arives as reinforcement.

good you put to use the weapons company, also the scouts have a 3-man ATGM team, i used that so far as first AT defense becouse my scouts are the first up there anyways.

nice placement of the sniper by btw

i really cant guess when players do what at what stage, so i have some moving enemies in the city, wich also take positions on their own, but in the end of the day iam a BIG friend of good old handplaced AI like in CMx1. so i can make sure they see there where i want em to see and arent seen from places i dont want em to be seen.

bonus of that is we are talking about the same battle, not different versions of it, also i somehow still like it becouse you can improove if you failed and dont get presented a totaly different setup the next try. you can try out whats working and whats not on something wich does not change everytime.

anyways, if you cant get this to run well on your system and its not endurable over the length of the scenario, just tell me. i dont force you to test it out. its important to have at least a bit of fun otherwhise it gets work and uncompftable, and i cant pay you for that

[Pandur]

speaking of hand placement, i just wanted to start a go with the new version. suddenly a bunker doesnt want to stay where i placed it long ago. it pops up in the blue setup zone(in the SE corner, facing south), luckilie with a unpractical facing so its not so bad that i need to change it at once.

you can sipmly turn around a BMP and shoot it. just the engineers start to bug out in their jeeps for a moment.

also i found out whos lone UAZ this is. i loaded a sniper team in it but it comes as reinfocements later. i need to bring in the jeep as reinforcements too as i cant get the snipers out of there anymore.

you will see both, but nothing is dangerouse in any ways so i keep this version and change it after the playthrough i just started.

[birdstrike]

Thanks, looking off the map really helped.

I used to look at an empty spot on the map, but that didn't really increase FPS.

Leaving the 3rd company out possibly also helped. It also makes the things less confusing at the beginning.

Things are going ALOT smoother now. Already reached the southern bridge with 2 BMP losses and a couple of infantry casualties. (I got a little impatient ).

I couple of things I noticed:

There suddenly appeared a red bunker in the south west corner of the staging area.

And some UAZ's assigned to Special Forces reinforcements are already on the map (they can drive around with an invisible crew )

[birdstrike]

Okay, bad timing, I see you already noticed the last two issues yourself.

[Pandur]

yesterday i made it up to turn 30 or 35 or so. i noticed SF has to arive 5 minutes earlier. i suffered a big time loss while waiting for the SF guys. i didnt sent the mech´s "into" the city this time.

i guess that means i have to bypass the city earlier.

right now i have rush houer on the street around the first bend. 2nd company is relocating to go in position to strike the norhtern part of the valley. 1st company is still around the south entrance covering until the whole SF company is in there(wich is on the road too right now), then they do the same as the 1st.

this is the first mission of this size i play in CMSF and it brings back some CMx1 memories. stuffed roads in restricted terrain combined with traffic jams, parked jeeps and transports everywhere.

the whole movement/look for the enemy part too, wich is a bit absent in the smaler scenarios.

is has the full logistic component you can get from this game, and that is big fun for me next to the tactical challenges

maybe i can do another 35 turns today, than i should know if i can do it in time or not.

[birdstrike]

I'm now at turn 37 and things are really working out nice now.

--- SPOILERS AHEAD---

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I decided to take a more offensive approach this time and wanted to reduce the downtime caused by the artillery delays. Therefore I used almost all the artillery for pre-planned strikes all over town, except for the mosque and the financial district. Most of it seemed to be rather ineffective, though.

Nevertheless, it caused enough supression that I managed to capture the southern bridge with A Company in only around 15 turns taking only a few losses.

Then I tried to move B CO around the western path directly to the norhtern bridge, but ran right into the ambush along the way. (One of the areas I had not covered by the artillery strike in the beginning). B CO took very high losses, about 2/3 of their BMPs and almost 2 platoons along with it. Enemy fire was incoming from almost everywhere, and I started to hit each anything with as much firepower as I had left.

Since I was not willing to take any further risks, I took the financial district under heavy fire as enemy units showed up. I set up MG posts and a BMP to keep a constant supressive fire on the buildings as I maneuvered the remants of B CO to the northern bridge and continued to push into town with A CO from the south.

(The buildings are still standing but a wall or two are missing, I hope I will not get too much penalty for that in the end.)

It was quite a desperate fight, but I managed to secure the area and could push on to the norhtern bridge, where I lost 2 more BMPs, but took the bridge without many infantry losses.

A CO was able to move north into the financial district without much opposition. (The engineers were quite handy here.) I lost only 1 BMP and a couple of infantry. Having left most of the BMPs and bringing along 2 T-65s helped alot to deal quickly with any opposition.

By turn 30 I had the town more or less under control except for the mosque compound which I'm currently tackling using the Special Forces which have just arrived.

While the SF is attacking the mosuqe, I'm planning to regroup A CO and move them to the southern village while the remants of B CO will secure the city and assist the SF.

Up to now, the scenario plays out very good. I'm confident that a decisive attack will give the player enough time to finish the map. Enemy resistance is quite effective, but not impossible to overcome. The city fighting was intense in some cases, frustrating in others (as it should be ). Close cooperation of infantry and armor paid off which tells me the map works as it should.

The east river ambush was an important lesson. At first I thought that there might be too many enemy units there, but I it was exactly as it should be. While it was a disaster and could have probably been avoided by a more careful approach, I was satisfied that despite the costs it gave me a big tactical advantage and helped me to avoid further losses with A CO. And it certainly was a thrilling incident.

[birdstrike]

A small update:

turn 51 now. Town is secured now. I'm combing the mosque for the last few remaining enemies units.

The attack on the mosque was very cool. I like the design of the compound. I used the SF teams to attack from 3 sides, blasting through the walls. One remarkable situation was when a squad was moving up a stairway when suddenly the first guy was shot by a sniper hiding in the floor above, who in turn got killed by the rest of the squad. Looked almost like in a movie

Just a thought, but if you ever want to release a "light" version of the map, I think the attack on the city and the mosque would make for a very cool down-sized scenario.

btw to give an impression of the intensity of the fight, here's an aftermath picture of the road where B CO was ambushed:

[birdstrike]

Not very sucessful... I admit...

Didn't reach the last village, game ended 8 minutes over time.

The road to the northern village took its time and toll.

I decided to go over the eastern ridge, which took me 2 attempts. Luckily I had some artillery left which helped me to get to the first line of trenches. Time was running out so I used massed armor to take position on the ridge. I could take the ridgem but I had some very high casualties. (I really would have needed that IFVs from B CO now ).

Nevertheless, I secured the ridge, began shelling the northern village and prepared to advance my infantry when the game suddenly called an end after 2h08mins.

Some final comments:

This is really a tough battle. Either I was lacking troops or time, or both,

Time is perhaps the biggest issue. Especially the long delays for the heavy artillery could become a problem when playing in Elite difficulty.

There were moments where the advance became an exercise in frustration. The defenses are sometimes so tight, there is no other way than either a frontal attack or to call in artillery and wait 10 minnutes before moving on.

Adding a grenade launcher platoon could help here to better (and more quickly) deal with some of the ambush positions.

To save time, the player might also find himself forced to use high risk attacks too often which, of course raises the number of casualties and makes it harder to keep up the pace later in the battle.

There is a huge amount of things on the enemy side which can kill your AFVs. I think it would help to have an additional tank platoon arrive sometime later during the battle to assist during the final assault on the northern village.

Most of the enemy points (1600) came from my high number of casualties while I got none for enemy casualties. This could need an adjustment.

[birdstrike]

Any news on this, Pandur?

Have you been able to play it through?

[Pandur]

i am sorry!

i got heavylie bogged down in RL crap, wich is now sorted out, and forgott about that thingy after a week of no PC gaming.

however to leave the scene like that isnt good at all so i had to come back. i still plan on releasing this mission, after all it took me quiet some time to get it to this point.

again, i apologize.

now i will read the posts i missed and look into the map again. i also have a more than cryptic sheet with a scetch dreawing of the map and the AI groups, i have to decrypt that for me first.

[Q]Have you been able to play it through?[/Q]

well, yes

but it was desaterous as i had to hurry quiet a bit. i fell pray to the ATGMs as i had no time to call light mortars on them.

i suffered a tactical defeat.

[Pandur]

Some final comments:

This is really a tough battle. Either I was lacking troops or time, or both,

Time is perhaps the biggest issue. Especially the long delays for the heavy artillery could become a problem when playing in Elite difficulty.

There were moments where the advance became an exercise in frustration. The defenses are sometimes so tight, there is no other way than either a frontal attack or to call in artillery and wait 10 minnutes before moving on.

yes, i see that the same way. but just 30-60 minutes more, a 3 houers time limit, would do the job. i also play in elite and the delays are really a force to be reconed. at quiet some moments everything was at a halt for me, as i couldnt close in as the arty took ages to arive.

Adding a grenade launcher platoon could help here to better (and more quickly) deal with some of the ambush positions.

funny that you say this, i had one in, but i took it out as it come without a ride. they are "per pedes"

they are constantly on the move and arive nowhere in time, i notice that in my early tries.

to give em a ride i would need to take a formation and delete everything but the HQ wich cant be deleted. what to do with the HQ wich shouldnt be there...so i took it out.

the game really needs "indipendent" trucks and/or jeeps. jeeps are already in, they just need to be made available indipendently.

To save time, the player might also find himself forced to use high risk attacks too often which, of course raises the number of casualties and makes it harder to keep up the pace later in the battle.

There is a huge amount of things on the enemy side which can kill your AFVs. I think it would help to have an additional tank platoon arrive sometime later during the battle to assist during the final assault on the northern village.

totaly right, the time limit is too tight.

and i dont know if the map would be playabe when i add even more units on the blue side.

however, a single tank platoon more would be helpfull, maybe ariving after 40 to 60 minutes or so.

while I got none for enemy casualties.

didnt i add a enemy casualty percentage for the blue side...hm!?

i have to look that up at once...

EDIT

Just a thought, but if you ever want to release a "light" version of the map, I think the attack on the city and the mosque would make for a very cool down-sized scenario.

hm, i also thought about that already. but i dont know what to do with the enemy tanks than. the ones comming and "covering" the city. if i cut off map some hundred meters behind the city they have no room to spawn. and i dont want em to be there already as the player needs to get a chance to put up at least some AT defense first.

[ April 21, 2008, 03:16 PM: Message edited by: Pandur ]

[birdstrike]

No problem, Pandur.

Concerning the grenade launchers, have you considered cramping them into a UAZ from the special forces guys or into one of the FOs? Or perhaps delet one of the ATGMs to put them in one of their BMP-1s?

To solve the artillery delay problem, some hints on the tactical map in the briefing could give the player the option to use pre-planned arty strikes against "suspected" enemy positions. I used all of the heavy artillery this way which sped things up considerabely in the beginning.

IIRC, I used pre planned strikes against the northern and southern bridge areas and the main road towards the financial district.

If you want to adapt the map to the reduced battle size, I'd say remove the tanks, ATGMs, the SF (maybe leave the engineers) and perhaps 1 platoon from each company. Maybe leave one tank for blue.

Give red fewer tanks to start with and reposition them somewhere in the city. Just a thought...

About the full battle size:

I was also thinking if the battle could be split up into 2 missions (1st attack city, 2nd proceed to norhtern village) essentially forming a small campaign. It should be possible to use the same map in both missions, but AFAIK any terrain damage is not carried over - I have to admit I'm still learning how to make a campaign, so I don't know if and how this can be done properly.

[Pandur]

Concerning the grenade launchers, have you considered cramping them into a UAZ from the special forces guys or into one of the FOs? Or perhaps delet one of the ATGMs to put them in one of their BMP-1s?

i never thought about making room in a "existing" force. that could be a idea.

i will look it up and see if i find something i didnt used.

the Delta Co could make room. if you sucessfully use the scouts ATGM in combination with the first tanks you have. you dont need that ATGM company actually. they have 2 BMP´s to spare.

a problem with the granade launcher platoons is that they have not so much ammo.

a GrL platoon comes with a HQ and 2 sections á 2 launchers. a single launcher has something like 80-130 granades if you give em "super" ammo loadout

that not much...if they finaly see something and start shooting, thats gone soon. so i have to look if i can get 2 GrL platoons into both BMP´s.

if not i probably send em as reinforcements and the BMPs act as taxi only. you would need em later to get the 2nd platoon some one and a half kilometers away.

To solve the artillery delay problem, some hints on the tactical map in the briefing could give the player the option to use pre-planned arty strikes against "suspected" enemy positions. I used all of the heavy artillery this way which sped things up considerabely in the beginning.

IIRC, I used pre planned strikes against the northern and southern bridge areas and the main road towards the financial district.

hm,

thats great too! i never thought about such a aproach. i could do something with the tactical map picture. i never used that so far but it works like the other pictures i guess.

If you want to adapt the map to the reduced battle size, I'd say remove the tanks, ATGMs, the SF (maybe leave the engineers) and perhaps 1 platoon from each company. Maybe leave one tank for blue.

Give red fewer tanks to start with and reposition them somewhere in the city. Just a thought...

About the full battle size:

I was also thinking if the battle could be split up into 2 missions (1st attack city, 2nd proceed to norhtern village) essentially forming a small campaign. It should be possible to use the same map in both missions, but AFAIK any terrain damage is not carried over - I have to admit I'm still learning how to make a campaign, so I don't know if and how this can be done properly.

"light" version;

somehow my heart bleeds when i think about cuting off the rest. i admit i also found that the first part would make a "big" battle of its own wich would be fun! i dont question that.

its a bit like books and movies made after books. the guy wich wrote the book isnt pleased at all that a big part of his book is gone for most people as they never read the book but saw the film

most probably i could think of doing this after getting this big baby out of the house. but i need a bit time to play the game again, i have save games for the campain i restarted with the latest patch, "armor attacks" wich is great, and i need to play "TF narwick" , "in search for a ghost", and ovcourse "Hasrabit" too, a REdvsRED goodie :cool:

full battle size;

i nearly had a 2 missions campain done, i scraped it, cant remember why. now that i think of it was fun. it played on the same map, so it would be similar...

however, its said in short words with a example again. id like it to be "one" book instead of part one and two.

it feels different, you need to "read" in again after the first battle. it shouldnt have 2 beginnings and 2 ends.

it´ll be a long day

[ April 23, 2008, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Pandur ]

[birdstrike]

I think the ammunition of the GLs is sufficient if they are primarily used to attack entrenched AT units (ATGMS and RCLs). Of course, if the player wastes their ammo on other units...

again, depending on how much help you want to give the player, perhaps a little hint in the briefing can clear that up, something like "we also attached some GLs to deal with ATGMS" or something like that?

[Pandur]

i played around with it and found out that i couldnt simply delete the ATGM company as i have the ATMG platoon and its Co HQ left. i cant delete both. since i cant even send em as reinforcements to never show up(max reinf time 60+ 0 to 30) i dont want em to sit around.

i tried a "transport" group. the HQ taxi i cant delete has a passange capacity of 3, the smalest unit i need to load has 4 man. means, i have the taxi around for nothing.

to load the rest of the GrL platoon i would need more than 4 pickups, thats 2 transport groups-> 2 HQ taxis

thats all pretty bad as i dont want them to be around if they cant be used at all or have nothing to do with the scene.

on top of that, i made some terrible mistake with the many UAZ´s that are around.

i sat some SF guys into the wrong jeeps and filled a jeep with guys wich shouldnt be in there.

since you cant see wich jeep belongs to wich formation its impossible to correct that.

so i did a radical change, SF Co got deleted(both engineer platoons are still in) and the 3rd Mech inf Co is back in action.

now you have no delay becouse they are all on map, you have 10 additional BMP1s instead of the many jeeps.

i added a platoon of T55MV :cool: to arive at turn 50 or 60 or so, that have to do.

last but not least i added a 3rd 83mm Mortar. so you have a additional module wich is rather "fast" in syrian terms. so the player can react to sudden changes a "bit" better.

i changed the briefing to reflect that, also i added a hint to the briefing to maybe use a pre planned strike.

however i wasnt sucessfull in doing a tactical pic so far. the map is so long i cant get it on a screen. in higher zoom lvl´s i dont see the map at all, no clue if that a bug.

iam a bit puzzeld what i could do as tactical picture.

[birdstrike]

Sounds good.

The additional BMPs and tanks will help the player to use an offensive gameplay, this will make it easier to keep the momentum of the attack especially after taking the city.

I would have liked to see the GLs, but the mortars are fair enough.

For the tactical picture:

If you can't see the map from higher elevation levels, you need to turn shadows, that should make it visible again.

[Pandur]

I would have liked to see the GLs

i would have liked em too! but the transport problem is a big one.

now that i think about it again, i could give them whatever pickups they need and add the HQ taxis as "knocked out" deco cars into the city, as the others.

so i dont have unnessesary units around, and they GrL platoon is in pickups, wich is not perfect but...ok.

If you can't see the map from higher elevation levels, you need to turn shadows,

on oder off!?

i have them off allways, i gona try to turn em on.