Normandy Bone

[Chad Harrison]

Quick follow ups...

I also assumed it was humor

But there have been plenty of *other* times when a comment just like that wasnt. Regardless, you have thick skin to be able to wade through all of it Steve.

Thanks for the reply on the scenarios. Looking forward to them greatly!

[Other Means]

Wait - can bridges be blow/knocked out with arty?

[Smaragdadler]

Lol. That gag was not even knew.

[Steiner14]

Nice bone! The pic looks very promising.

But what i miss is undergrowth among the trees. Will it be present and modelled?

[Steiner14]

Can brigdes be remotely detonated with the appropriate equipment?

[Sergei]

I think some of you are getting too excited about the bridges. Don't you think that since Steve made no mention of water, we might only get land overpass bridges? Let's flame about that for a moment.

Nice bone! The pic looks very promising.

But what i miss is undergrowth among the trees. Will it be present and modelled?

In CMx2 undergrowth can be handled separately from trees; eg. in CMSF you can combine trees with brush and tall grass or even both. Or rocky, brush and trees or... so, all in all, the capacity is already there.

[Sergei]

Can brigdes be remotely detonated with the appropriate equipment?

Going out on a limb, I think this shouldn't be very hard to implement by adjusting the IED code.

[JonS]

Going out on a limb, I think this shouldn't be very hard to implement by adjusting the IED code.

Is it worth the effort though?

Sappers try very hard to avoid blowing bridges while in contact with the enemy - too much can go wrong, and their task is to deny mobility rather than playing chicken with the enemy's lead forces.

Edit: Yes, I know all about the bridge at Son. The point is not that it - blowing bridges in the face of the enemy - never happened, but that it happened so rarely that it has at best marginal reason to be included. Besides, there's always the old CMx1 approach to wiring bridges if you really *must* play at Super Soldiers.

[bodkin]

Now I can see why BFC are so hesitant to throw bones. Every word of the blog is analysed to the nth degree with everyone's gaming wish list branching out from the slightest suggestion into discussion and questions on how the game will develop.

I think BFC should just post another bone that's extremely obscure like a picture of a pink elephant playing a cowbell, thereby causing the forums to descend into months of irrelevant gossip and to give them a chance to build the bloody game.

[Sergei]

Is it worth the effort though?

Sappers try very hard to avoid blowing bridges while in contact with the enemy - too much can go wrong, and their task is to deny mobility rather than playing chicken with the enemy's lead forces.

In most situations it's not so much about playing chicken, it's about whether you are able to pull the bridgehead defenders back before you have to destroy the bridge so they don't have to swim.

Edit: Yes, I know all about the bridge at Son. The point is not that it - blowing bridges in the face of the enemy - never happened, but that it happened so rarely that it has at best marginal reason to be included. Besides, there's always the old CMx1 approach to wiring bridges if you really *must* play at Super Soldiers.

And don't forget Ludendorff bridge either. But AFAOTCK (as far as others than Charles know) doing it the CMx1 way (target ground) could be harder to implement than using a mechanism already part of CMx2 engine.

[JonS]

In most situations it's not so much about playing chicken, it's about whether you are able to pull the bridgehead defenders back before you have to destroy the bridge so they don't have to swim.

You're describing a completely different tactical problem, namely whether the rearguard can break contact and move back across the river in reasonable order. If they fail, then the sappers are the ones left holding the baby.

Including the ability to blow bridges is, therefore, a disincentive to conducting a well planned retrograde movement, since the sappers can just pick up the slack.

IMO, ETC, OMGWTFBBQ, ZOMGWEREALLGONNADIERUNHIDE

[SlowMotion]

Wait - can bridges be blow/knocked out with arty?

And especially by air support.

Think about smaller bridges like this:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pontoon_bridge_Rhine_River_1945.jpg

[Götz von Berlichingen]

The trees are looking better, but im guessing still somewhat off the finished product?

They look more like the shadow mapped foliage - so I assume that you wont get the flat RPC views from above? More like a true 3D tree...

There is alot of great vegetation software around now - low polygon vs acceptably realistic looking etc...

Vehicle models are looking grand!

Would love to see some more building types (you can tell im an Architect)

Heck, I would even model anything for free...

[Michael Emrys]

And don't forget Ludendorff bridge either.

As well as the Nijmegen bridge.

I want to put in a word or two about the screenshot accompanying this bone. Since I was rather critical of the first screenshot released for CMBO, I want to say that things are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO X ∞ much better this time. I am particularly gratified that I am no longer obliged to make rude comments about Steve's artistry. I was raised to be a gentleman and insulting people does not come naturally to me.

Okay, you can all stop laughing now.

:D:D

There is one thing though that I would hope still might be improved, and that is that transition in the pic from cobblestones to grass ought to be sharper. What you see in the pic is not only an esthetically inaccurate depiction, but it might have tactical implications in that it makes it hard to judge by eye where one leaves off and the other begins, which could have serious effects on vehicle bogging.

Otherwise, it is just gorgeous.

Michael

[akd]

Is it worth the effort though?

Sappers try very hard to avoid blowing bridges while in contact with the enemy - too much can go wrong, and their task is to deny mobility rather than playing chicken with the enemy's lead forces.

Edit: Yes, I know all about the bridge at Son. The point is not that it - blowing bridges in the face of the enemy - never happened, but that it happened so rarely that it has at best marginal reason to be included. Besides, there's always the old CMx1 approach to wiring bridges if you really *must* play at Super Soldiers.

Actually, fights for bridges rigged or being rigged for demolition happened with some frequency, often because defenders were under unrealistic orders to keep bridges intact for retreating defending forces or (usually imaginary) counterattacks. Also, why would only cases of a bridge being successfully dropped in the middle of an attack (and there were many more than just Son) be relevant? What about cases were demolition was prevented because of aggressive action on the part of the attacker? Same problem with a different outcome.

[panzermartin]

Another thing..Will it be possible to make abstract underbrush effect near trees for imrpoved cover/concealment? The AI does a decent job putting men behind trunks BUT it will be nice to always know that your men inside woods will take full advantage of obstacles and not rely on the 1:1 soldier/trunk fit which isnt always reliable. I suspect this is already in game but not always evident.

[fabiovir]

Great news!! Very impressive for me, i still dream features like CMBO where you can assault the enemy position out ammo tossing hand granades and use rifle butt in the last attempt in the last turn to take the flags or obj.....will be this features (close combat and so on) in this (i hope) corner stone in the history of wargaming?

Thank you Battlefront.

[Battlefront.com]

Bodkin,

Now I can see why BFC are so hesitant to throw bones. Every word of the blog is analysed to the nth degree with everyone's gaming wish list branching out from the slightest suggestion into discussion and questions on how the game will develop.

Yup, that's exactly the case Then I have to spend significant time managing people's expectations, which is always a very tough thing to do because the expectations are (cumulatively) unrealistic for us to achieve. And then there's the pile on questions that have nothing to do with the bone itself. I'm going to have to ignore most of them because it's not the right place for talking about things like cover/concealment, hand to hand combat, or any other random topic of interest to individuals.

As I said earlier, there's two huge advances in the simulation of bridges over CMx1. Those are the ability to restrict unit traffic by weight and to allow travel underneath. These things offer major tactical possibilities to the game that were not present before. They were not easy to add, either, so we're quite happy with what we have as it is right now.

If we spend too much time on bridges we'll successfully create Combat Mission: Bridge to Nowhere Then, when people complain that there's too much bridgework going on and not enough game substance, we'll cancel it and claim credit for being responsive to your needs as wargamers while at the same time denying we ever were in favor of the idea in the first place. Then Charles and I will run for higher public office since that seems the right thing to do as a follow up

Seriously though... we can not afford to get tunnel vision on something like this. Bridges are important, true enough, but we've already got more functionality in CMx2 now than we ever had in CMx1. In our minds that's more than good enough for now.

As for bridge blowing...

We currently have no plans to put this in. It isn't as simple to add as people like to think it is, but that's pretty much the norm We've had plenty of debates about the realism of bridge blowing in the past, and in fact I found several long threads in the Archives covering the topic when I was double checking some stuff for my Blog entry.

The truth is that of the thousands and thousands of bridges crossed during the course of a tactical battle, an extremely small number of them were blown (or even attempted to be blown) during the tactical battle itself. I'd guess less than 0.01%. As most of you know, our philosophy since the very beginning is to not focus our attention on extreme "outliers" and instead focus our attention on core tactical situations. Because of this bridge blowing is a very low priority for us from a realism standpoint.

That being said, we do understand the fun of this from a "gamey" standpoint. At least a little. We do think that after a few battles where the guy on the other side blows the bridge in the first minute of the battle, thus denying you the bridge as if it never existed in the first place, will get old pretty quick. Still, sometimes people want something more for the concept of having it than for the actual use it will likely get. And that does matter to us, believe it or not.

However, considering all the things you guys want in the game, and where bridge blowing fits in the overall priority of user requests, it's very clear to us that bridge blowing is very far down that list. Therefore, we have no plans on putting it into CMx2 any time soon.

Steve

[Chainsaw]

I have no intresst in being able to blow bridges up, but I am intressted in having bridges blown up from "earlier" moments, in other words before the scenario begins.

So, will you have some placeholder or something that can look like a blown bridge? like the begining and the ends of the bridge still there and the rest have collapsed down. Or something similar to give scenario creators the option to do collapsed bridges betther then what we have in CMSF right now?

Cheers Thomas

[theFightingSeabee]

Thanks for the bone! It looks great (watch out for those grass grogs!). Now we want the whole skeleton!

[Echo]

Replayability is my #1 concern. Whether I decide to buy this or not depends on what is being done with the quick battles.

I'd like to hear more about that.

[dkchapuis]

Leto;1157161'] I think this game will be fatally flawed.

your use of the english language is fatally flawed

"im just saying"

[Andrew H.]

Johan Kleinbeeren is dead. He fell on his head.

[mkvi]

..........thank you, very cool....would it be possible to code more "freedom" into the game, imagine the young hauptman KNOWS the bridge SAYS it can't hold his 'sexy kitties' but he MUST TAKE BOLD ACTION...so he runs em across only to have the first 2 make it and the third CRASH through the bridge! - Part of the magic in this game is watching low probability events occur (or NOT occur )...100% probability kitty goes for a swim on an infantry only bridge, some blending of 'odds' at everything above that....MY CALL ON WHERE MY KITTIES GO....Freedom to do dumb things and or make mistakes or WIN BIG on a long shot will keep it interesting!

• Infantry only

• Infantry, wheeled, and light tracked vehicles

• Everybody allowed except heavy tanks

• Everybody allowed (EVERYBODY ALLOWED ON EVERYTHING but beware!)

[Battlefront.com]

There will be a lot of discussion about the new QB system when we've worked out the design kinks. We're almost ready to start coding it so sometime soon.

Andrew H,

Johan Kleinbeeren is dead. He fell on his head.

It's about darned time someone figured that out

Steve