New Campaign in Design: Task Force Panther

[ChrisND]

No problem Steiner, I tend to be post short messages, which shouldn't be mistaken as anger.

Unfortunately I have to make the personalities officer-centric, as opposed to NCOs included as well, because 1: There's too many NCOs and 2: the game doesn't model the NCOs as leaders.

[ChrisND]

Crap. I just found out that CMSF randomly changes the names of the leaders. Imported campaign units names will be changed randomly. :mad:

[Webwing]

Really?! I never noticed that!

But I think in game during the campaign they will be the same all the way. I remember from Taki's AARs. Have you tested that?

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[ChrisND]

Originally posted by Webwing:

But I think in game during the campaign they will be the same all the way. I remember from Taki's AARs. Have you tested that?

-

I got my names for leaders from the core units file. When I loaded up the first scenario and imported the units, the names were different.

Just to be clear, I do not mean the Unit's title (like 1st Squad). I am referring to the names of the officers/squad leaders themselves

[Webwing]

I got that.

In Taki's AAR he used the names of the officers and followed then throughout the campaign.

So it might be during the editing process but once you start playing the campaign the names will be always the same.

This might not help you at all of course. I imagine you wanted to refer to them in your briefing by name.

Am I right?

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[ChrisND]

Originally posted by Webwing:

I got that.

In Taki's AAR he used the names of the officers and followed then throughout the campaign.

So it might be during the editing process but once you start playing the campaign the names will be always the same.

This might not help you at all of course. I imagine you wanted to refer to them in your briefing by name.

Am I right?

-

Yep. We'll see what happens when the campaign gets strung together... fingers crossed.

[Cpl Steiner]

I'm almost 99% sure that once you've finished editing the names remain fixed. My 9 year old has a habit of looking over my shoulder whilst I'm playing and reading out the names of squad leaders etc. as I click on units, and it was he that made me realise that the game didn't randomly assign them - which I thought was pretty cool!

[the Fighting Seabee]

I can't wait to play it!

Btw Normal Dude, you can use anything you want from any scenarios. I think my UAV tactical map can be made much nicer and more realistic looking. Glad you liked it though. I'm looking forward to this campaign, but I still need to finish bardosy's campaign, and I want to replay Webwings campaign. Baaah! work, school, women, moving... they are all taking my battle time away .

[ChrisND]

Cool.

[ChrisND]

Work continues. I am likely going to make the campaign longer than six missions, and semi-dynamic: same scenarios, but with consequences for failing previous ones. This way you can halt and cease fire if you don't want to take excessive casualties, but it may come back to bite you in later scenarios.

[ChrisND]

The campaign is also going to incorporate standing orders. These are standards that the player will be held to in each mission (unless told otherwise), separately from the mission objectives. If you fail enough standing orders, you can lose a mission if you got most/all of the objectives. it's likely that the player will not be able to meet all orders in every scenario... just try not to fail too many of them.

[ChrisND]

The campaign is now 9 missions long. It is also highly likely that the Marines module will be out before this is released, so you can expect the new equipment to be integrated into the campaign. I am planning on using the Marine squads to simulate Special Forces Alpha Teams.

Preview of first mission. Seabee inspired me to make Predator UAV pics, which is what you see in the corner pic. That's based off the real UAV display.

[Zipuli]

You got me interested there

Zip

[Webwing]

Normal Dude,

This is looking great! Love the graphics!!!! :cool:

Looking forward to it!

Keep us informed on your progress.

-

[handihoc]

Yep, looks like another stunning campaign to look forward to. And with the Marines module in sight - God help me, how am I going to cope? And I'm nowhere near retirement age!!!

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:

The campaign is also going to incorporate standing orders. These are standards that the player will be held to in each mission (unless told otherwise), separately from the mission objectives. If you fail enough standing orders, you can lose a mission if you got most/all of the objectives. it's likely that the player will not be able to meet all orders in every scenario... just try not to fail too many of them.

Normal Dude,

Make sure you get the thresholds for "condition" and "ammo" the right way round. I think they work the opposite way to the casualty threshold.

Looking forward to playing this.

[the Fighting Seabee]

Can't wait man!

[ChrisND]

Thanks for the words everyone. Works continues! I estimate the campaign is about 60% complete. The PDF, 30 pages, is more or less complete (most of that is briefings supplements that have big pictures). All of the maps are in one stage of construction or another. I always aim for highly detailed and unique maps, so it takes me as long as a week to complete a single map. Here are two

maps under construction. One is mostly finished.

This is a faithful recreation of the city center of Aleppo:

This is a chunk of a town called Tall 'Aran, 8.9 km southeast of Aleppo airport:

I am currently designing each scenario as if it were a stand-alone. After they are all completed, they will be combined as a separate campaign and rebalanced. This way, every scenario will be released as a single mission at the same time the campaign is.

One mission will be released, fully playable, within the week as a preview.

[ May 19, 2008, 02:20 AM: Message edited by: Normal Dude ]

[Combatintman]

Normal Dude - great maps - however 'German Consolate' should read 'German Consulate'. Luckily this won't take ages to fix!

[ChrisND]

Yes - I caught that after I posted and knew someone here would catch it.

[ChrisND]

Update - the end is in sight! All maps and scenarios have been created, the main task left is to balance and playtest.

Also, I have decided what my next campaign shall be - a tribute to M1 Tank Platoon:

[Paper Tiger]

M1 Tank Platoon - sweet - one of my favourite Amiga games. No game before or since has ever given me the feel of being there like that one. I remember completing the training missions where you're safe and nobody fires back at at you and then moving to my first 'real' combat mission and I was SO tense and nervous while playing it. The gunfire I was hearing and nervously searching for turned out to be that of my own forces firing on the enemy. Yet it turned out to be really easy. Good luck making that.

BTW, I've usually found playtesting and balancing to be the longest part of developing a new mission. But yes, it is nice when the maps are all finished.

[ChrisND]

Originally posted by Paper Tiger:

M1 Tank Platoon - sweet - one of my favourite Amiga games. No game before or since has ever given me the feel of being there like that one. I remember completing the training missions where you're safe and nobody fires back at at you and then moving to my first 'real' combat mission and I was SO tense and nervous while playing it. The gunfire I was hearing and nervously searching for turned out to be that of my own forces firing on the enemy. Yet it turned out to be really easy. Good luck making that.

I still play it to this day. And on Elite I still get my ass kicked.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Looks great… I can’t wait to see it all published…

I am sure you have tested this… but just in case…

I have played around with some very big scenarios… I discovered that when using 4km by 4km maps and large numbers of units, by which I mean 2-3 companies on each side, the game crashes. It crashes when loading.

I discovered that the likely reason is that in Windows XP there is a “single application” RAM limit of 2GB. So even if a Windows XP user has more than 2GB RAM it will not help.

I have set my own limit for map size to 2.5km by 2.5km then that problem does not seem to rear its gully head.

I hope to do some Battle for the Ukraine 2008 scenarios after the UK module is out… CMX2 handles high intensity warfare very well… but I have learnt that CMX2 is very demanding of some systems.

CMSF, and even more CMX2 will be around for 7-8 years to come so it is right that it should be so demanding of current systems…

Greatly looking forward to your campaign…

Stunning… .

All the best,

Kip.

[ChrisND]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

Hi,

Looks great… I can’t wait to see it all published…

I am sure you have tested this… but just in case…

I have played around with some very big scenarios… I discovered that when using 4km by 4km maps and large numbers of units, by which I mean 2-3 companies on each side, the game crashes. It crashes when loading.

I discovered that the likely reason is that in Windows XP there is a “single application” RAM limit of 2GB. So even if a Windows XP user has more than 2GB RAM it will not help.

I have set my own limit for map size to 2.5km by 2.5km then that problem does not seem to rear its gully head.

I've not encountered this so far.