Combat Mission Normandy - Operation Market Garden

[JudgeDredd]

Thanks both

I have to get patched first and I'm just waiting....ever....so....patiently  ^-^

[JudgeDredd]

I've just come across that rather infuriating feature...

The one where I have eyes on an enemy in the second floor of a house. They have eyes on me and are ripping me apart with their MG34. So I try to aim at them with the troops that have eyes on...and I can't because I can't see the base of the bloody house

aaaargh. 

[RyanE]

That one issue comes up and creates flame wars for a day and the dies down and is forgotten for a few months.  There is nothing the BFC can or will do about it.  They have said they really have no work around for it.

[JudgeDredd]

yeah...I know. that doesn't make it any less infuriating though

[RyanE]

I know I have rage quit because of it more than once.

It used to be much worse.  There were all kinds of issues with action spot to action spot around buildings and corners in CMSF.  There were huge issues on ridges and spotting to/from lower elevations.  There was immense frustration and my guess is BFC lost some long time customers over the flame wars around if it needed to be fixed.  Its one of those things where people seem to forget how under-developed CMSF was in its early forms.

But BFC put a lot of effort into fixing it in the later patches of CMSF and the instances that show up are still kind of rare.

[JudgeDredd]

Man - it is seriously annoying. My troops are heading towards the downward slope and getting cut to pieces with the MGs and I still can't aim. 

Maybe create flat maps if your spotting can't deal with undulations. 

[panzerde]

That is pretty much my CM pet peeve. It's right up there with how armor is handled in JTS's Squad Battles games for things that have contributed to my hair loss.

[Zonso]

Man - it is seriously annoying. My troops are heading towards the downward slope and getting cut to pieces with the MGs and I still can't aim. 

Maybe create flat maps if your spotting can't deal with undulations. 

Well before bursting a blood vessel, there is another option. ;) Place a couple of your units on over watch and when left to the TacAI, they will fire on those enemy units.

[Ubercat]

That is pretty much my CM pet peeve. It's right up there with how armor is handled in JTS's Squad Battles games for things that have contributed to my hair loss.

Not to derail the thread but what is your gripe with armor handling in Squad battles? I'm NOT a fan of SB myself, having given up on it years ago, but I'm still curious.

[Con]

Man - it is seriously annoying. My troops are heading towards the downward slope and getting cut to pieces with the MGs and I still can't aim. 

Maybe create flat maps if your spotting can't deal with undulations. 

Well before bursting a blood vessel, there is another option. ;) Place a couple of your units on over watch and when left to the TacAI, they will fire on those enemy units.

Yeah thats what I do as well and to encourage them I give a cover arc fire order that selects only the house they need to shoot on.  I find the TacAI works pretty well under those parameters and the light up and suppress the opposing troops effectively

Con

[panzerde]

That is pretty much my CM pet peeve. It's right up there with how armor is handled in JTS's Squad Battles games for things that have contributed to my hair loss.

Not to derail the thread but what is your gripe with armor handling in Squad battles? I'm NOT a fan of SB myself, having given up on it years ago, but I'm still curious.

Really two things:

   
• Armor is terribly underpowered in all of the SB games I've played. While this is most evident in the Modern titles, it's very true in the WW2 titles as well. The game mechanic is very skewed toward infantry. I think this is deliberate and I can kind of understand it, but it makes for some pretty unrealistic situations.
• I'm not a big fan of how weapon performance degrades dramatically over the course of a scenario. I think that mechanic doesn't reflect reality much at all across the timeframe of the scenarios. It might be slightly believable in the case of some infantry weapons, but the main gun of a tank?

Point 2 can be fixed by a mod, but the problem of underpowered armor is part of the game design. it tends to put me off playing the series.

[Ubercat]

That would explain why making any plans in that game always seemed pointless! "OK, we have to clear the stone building before the advance of the Reich can continue. Let's hit it with all of our infantry guns and MG's for a couple of turns. That should suppress them and let us move in for the kill."

12 turns later the enemy in the building are still alive and well and shooting back. The scenario is almost over and those guys soaked up everything I could throw at them until I finally threw in a desperate charge as time was running out. Then they shot up and disrupted everything that came at them. Lame!

[/derail]

[JudgeDredd]

Man - it is seriously annoying. My troops are heading towards the downward slope and getting cut to pieces with the MGs and I still can't aim. 

Maybe create flat maps if your spotting can't deal with undulations. 

Well before bursting a blood vessel, there is another option. ;) Place a couple of your units on over watch and when left to the TacAI, they will fire on those enemy units.

mmmm

Well, my troops were on a hunt order moving forward at first. One of the squads came under fire during the 1 minute pulse. During that minute, they didn't stop "hunting" and didn't fire back...so I took it that even the TacAI is hobbled by this.

I'm not sure what I did on the next couple of minutes. I do know on the last minute pulse I got them to run zig zag in the hope they could get to a place where they could see the base of the damned building.

So you are saying if I leave the squad that "can see" the enemy but which I cannot give a fire order to, they will open up on it...and that it's just the player that can't give the order?

If that's the case, I'm even more confused about the issue. If the TacAI can aim even though it cannot see the base, what mechanism is being used for the TacAI to be able to aim and fire that I'm not allowed?

Anyway - thanks for the suggestion. I will stop the squads that can see the enemy MG unit now and leave them with a firing arc and see if that works. If it does, it will indeed save a couple of blood vessels and some very rare hair.

Thanks

[Elvis]

I have pretty good success just letting the TacAI do the targeting and firing. I only run into an issue when they have a juicier target but not necessarily the one that I want at that time. Or, more importantly, using area fire.

My thing that I feel like I've seen 1,000 times, but can never duplicate when I want to report it as a bug, is a bit of the opposite. I wonder if anyone else sees it too. I often see friendly units firing at unseen enemy units. My guys will be moving along and all of a sudden they start firing and I'll wonder "who the hell are they shooting at?" Eventually the enemy units will appear but I've always thought that they should be spotted (by the player) as soon as they open fire. I don't know if anyone else sees this or has commented about it. I've tried to duplicate it a dozen times without success. Could just be end user error but I am curious if anyone else ever sees this.

[RyanE]

I have seen it plenty of times...at least once a game.  Just happened in Cats chasing Dogs.  I have always written it off as just the processing loop running a little slower than the graphics loop.  The enemy usually shows up a few seconds later.