MDF

3 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

@MDF I've already converted it, and we are part way through the installation of the 4.1x Scenario and accompanying Map Package, so it may not be required.

Thanks.  Let me know if you need anything from me.

BadgerDog, I just saw your message.  The scenario used a customized map (I added some roads and structures; removed some of the vegetation, and probably other changes I can't remember).  I'll look for the map file tonight and upload it if I can.

10 hours ago, Bond_Villian said:

https://youtu.be/eT_EDc3lU6I

 

Gracias.

21 hours ago, Rotareneg said:

Here's the AAR: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hOG1OCLUrfkjXofbWEKt_3XBTSWW4RRp

Got it.  Thanks.

How did the REFORGER '85 mission go?  Could someone post the AAR file?  Thanks.

On 1/20/2019 at 7:52 AM, Mirzayev said:

Mission 1 is, in my opinion, one of the hardest missions in Camp Hornfelt. 

I think this is pretty close to a metaphysical certainty.  I've actually tried it multiplayer at least twice, and we still lost badly.

FWIW, all tanks in "Tanks! Again" have default ammo loadouts, except for T-90, which has been altered to carry just two Refleks.

For more on this, see articles here:

Direct Fire Planning, part 1

Direct Fire Planning, part 2

Engagement Area Development – A Guide for Tank Platoon Leaders in Cavalry Squadrons

10 minutes ago, Gibsonm said:

To me multi-crew drives you to numerous sub channels in TS so that crew briefs, etc. don't overlap.

Just use a whisper list with the other crewmember.  Everyone stays in the same channel.

Best practice would be to pick a "wingman" prior to the mission, somewith with whom you have multicrewed previously and are familiar.  When your vehicle is destroyed, you jump into his, and vice versa.

2 minutes ago, Colebrook said:

Yes, if you have only 1 vehicle per player. But this has big problems :1- You need to know in advance the number of players joining,2- when you die you are out of the game( you also can multicrew, but usually is a bad idea)

I like this kind of missions, it is in fact how we play in kanium, we could even go further and play with blind tanks(no magical TC identifying targets at 4km) like in TTP,but i think the majority prefer  the current mission style. Maybe we should do a poll?

Well, it doesn't have to be a strict 1:1 player/vehicle ratio at all times.  You could start out with a company of 10-14 tanks.  Since TGIF usually has about 8-9 players per side, the people who like having multiple vehicles can have two, and people like me can have just one.  As vehicles are destroyed, you can take a vehicle from a player who had two to start with, or you can multicrew.  (I don't think multicrewing is a bad idea.  Maybe we just need to run a short  (like 10 minutes) multicrew training mission before the main mission starts so that people can get more experience with it.)

17 minutes ago, Colebrook said:

Gibsonm and Paladin, the reason players focus on a single vehicle  and keep the others behind is because AI is too bad compared to a human player, so i dont think reducing the number of units or playing with enemy map contacts is going to solve this. Unrealistic?, yes, but  also  is very unrealistic loose all your AI plt in seconds because they cant take a proper hull down position.

Having said that, i have not problem playing smaller missions or with eny map contacts on, is a bit diferent mission style but i enjoy the same.

I agree that the issue is with the AI.  But wouldn't that issue largely be fixed if the missions had much smaller forces, and you only have to control a single vehicle at a time?

23 minutes ago, Splash said:

It's easy to see how one style of gameplay does not mesh well with another. I hope the thread doesn't turn into an argument over which is better. I know which style I prefer, and if I were to get involved, these videos are a valuable resource.

There's no need to argue.  Some people (myself included) prefer smaller-scale missions, in which a player controls only a single vehicle (or even has other human crew members).  Others prefer to control a large force and play predominantly from the map view (RTS style).  I suppose there are even some people who like to control multiple vehicles and mostly hop from vehicle to vehicle in the first-person views (mixed style). And gibsonm seems to be agreeable to controlling a larger force if "enemy map updates" are enabled.  These are matters of opinion and there is no right answer.

The issue with TGIF, IMHO, is that it consists almost exclusively of missions with large forces in relation to the attendance level and, therefore caters almost exclusively to the RTS- or mixed-style crowd.  Participants like me are obligated to play in a manner not to our liking.  It's not clear to me that most or all TGIF attendees actually prefer the RTS or mixed play style.  I was hoping to foster a discussion about this on the TGIF thread in order to answer this question, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

11 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

Thanks for today.

 

I'm afraid I've reached my limit of playing roughly a Company of gear with no enemy map updates.

 

I see no point in jumping from vehicle to vehicle just to see the one you were just in (or about to jump into) die.

 

I know some other players hide three vehicles in the Platoon and only fight one at a time, but to me that is not the simulation, but just an attempt to turn it into some sort of first person shooter. All that does is further embarrass / frustrate the person trying to manage the entire group.

 

...

 

This was a source of continuing frustration for me as well, and one of the main reasons I stopped attending TGIF.  I did create several missions to try to reduce the vehicle:player ratio (FEBA Madness, Peredovoy Otryag '83, and REFORGER '85) but these only get played once per year, and thus do little to shift the TGIF repertoire.

Maybe it makes sense to conduct a poll?  Or Put up a list of all the missions and allow people to vote for the ones they want to play?

I don't mean to slag the organizers, and I hope this is taken as constructive criticism.

(Edited to clarify that my preference is for smaller missions with "enemy map updates" off.) 

4 minutes ago, TSe419E said:

Here is mine.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MCx2xAeyRCwbrnZC6MBp8-ZEI4-qyIOd/view?usp=sharing

 

 

Thanks!

2 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

Not quiet.

 

Some of us had a Leo Platoon and a Marder Platoon (with accompanying dismounts).

 

I can send you an AAR when I get back to my main machine (traveling at the moment).

 

On reflection, I should amend my earlier statement.  In this mission, two 'waves" might spawn in temporal proximity, giving that side a preponderance of force which (I'd hoped) it would use to press the attack.  If/when that happens, one or more players could be saddled with a larger number of vehicles.

Looking forward to the AAR file.  Thanks!

18 minutes ago, Colebrook said:

It was a good mission, lots of shooting and no crashes. I didnt save the aar.

I structured this mission so that players hopefully would only have to control 1, maybe 2, vehicles at a time.  Did it work out this way?  

On 2/9/2018 at 8:54 PM, Volcano said:

9 FEB scenario:

 

REFORGER '85 v.09 (cap zones)

 

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:

• Draft? Yes.

 

NOTES:

• Avoid studying the enemy's side; only gather intel from the briefing and exposed enemy unit icons (enemy intel), and briefly looking over both sides to figure out which one you want to CO. Anything beyond that ruins the fog of war element.
• To avoid passwords, open the scenario in Network Session as HOST and choose the side you want to play and go to planning phase. You may briefly look at both sides like this to see which side you want to play or CO on. As CO, once you choose a side, go to that side and create your plan.
• Remember to play within the TGIF House Rules and SB.com community rules.

REFORGER '85 v.09 (cap zones).zip

How did this mission turn out?  Could someone post the AAR file?  Thanks.

8 hours ago, daskal said:

 

Aaaaand....a $7 billion carrier air wing slides off into the Pacific.

2 hours ago, smg13 said:

1. The possibility for the AI to fire by mistake on same-side units. (Maybe this is already possible?). It could be set up in the mission editor with a probability % of happening. This will force player to plan tactics considering the need to minimize the possibility of friendly units crossing the field of fire of other friendly units... I am sure this is very important in RL tactics. Also, there is a bit of a "cheat" where you can wait to get the "identified" call from the gunner to know what you are firing on... maybe add the ability to allow the gunner to proceed firing after a "fire" order from the TC even when he can't identify the target? If the TC is able to order "fire" on unidentified targets it weight heavily on the TC (player) to take responsibility of knowing what he is firing on.

I would love to see this improvement to the information environment as well.  The immediate obstacle is (I suspect) that the simulation does not perform detection (e.g., line-of-sight ) checks between units that are friendly or neutral towards one another, in order to conserve computing resources.  And this would explain the occasional AI fratricide -- it occurs not because the victim was misidentified, but because a unit generally has no conception of the whereabouts of friendlies/neutrals.  (The main exception to this ignorance would be that platoon members know where the platoon leader is in order to maintain position in formation.)  This is all semi-educated guesswork on my part.

On ‎12‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 8:10 PM, inexus said:

But...even with the latest version out now (4.023) the performance is atrocious. I run it on a I7-5820K@4.4ghz with an overclocked 1080TI. It uses my GPU with around 30-40% and on a single CPU core (so the other 5 are just mostly idle). I get around 25fps. The graphic details are very low compared to anything else being released these days. 

 

You do best in spending money on the highest clocked CPU you can find to run SBPro. 

I just built a powerful gaming PC: i7-8700K @ 4.8GHz, GeForce 1080 Ti, 32GB DDR4-3200 RAM, 2 x Samsung 960 EVO SSD.

Running SB in 1440p, fullscreen mode, terrain detail sliders set to 80, graphics settings set to default values.

Testing using the detailed Fulda map, which can run very slow in places.

In commander's unbuttoned view, get between 40-60+ FPS.  Roughly the same in GPS day sight view with narrow FOV when looking at cluttered terrain.  Drops to 30-40 FPS when looking at same terrain in day sight/wide FOV.  Using GPS FLIR channel/narrow FOV in same terrain, drops to 25-35 FPS, and drops to 20-30 FPS in FLIR/wide FOV. 

However, I will say that in unbuttoned or F8 view, the terrain definitely looks a bit nicer in 1440p than it did in 1080.

19 hours ago, Ssnake said:

...

If we were to start from scratch we'd do a lot of things differently (and would make fresh, new mistakes in the process, no doubt). But rewriting Steel Beasts from scratch, while possible in principle, incurs a ton of other risks that we would discover only very late in the process. We have therefore rejected that option as less desirable.

Because I sometimes fantasize that I win the lottery and am in a position to fund such an endeavor . . . . how much do you think it would cost for a complete ground-up rewrite of SB?  

20 hours ago, wildbillkelsoe said:

I cetainly will dip my toe into multiplayer once I replay this another 10-15 times with consistent results. Looking forward to try your MP content.

 

I am also working Camp Hornfelt as I need to refine my tactics and get into grips with how to maximise a platoon use tactically.

I think that if you can consistently kill at least 1-2 enemy in Tanks! Again before dying, you're ready for multiplayer.  The weekly TGIF game is fairly casual in nature.  As long as you can operate the vehicle and are familiar with the map interface basics (plotting routes and BPs; creating and sending graphics), you're good to go.

As others have pointed out, the first Camp Hornfelt mission is by far the hardest.  I've actually multiplayered it several times and lost each one.  So the mission series is an odd progression.  You shouldn't feel that you need to master Hornfelt 1 and then finish that series before you're ready for online play.

17 hours ago, wildbillkelsoe said:

... This, I hope, shall not be your last in scenarios. 

I made this one in (IIRC) 2014. Since then, I've made only multiplayer missions because that is my preferred mode of play.

Glad my mission has inspired you so much.  "Tanks! Again" seems to have made a big impact on the SB community.  It makes the dozens of hours of scripting and obsessive route plotting worth it.  

On 11/16/2017 at 3:00 PM, Rotareneg said:

Another issue that's probably making it easier than intended is that BRDM-2 AT's are currently broken and cannot guide their missiles.

 

Just played it through and won on single player, I liked the atypical objective of just finding where they are defending instead of the more common "KILL EVERYTHING!" Also, I forgot how different SB plays when the observer position is disabled, maybe some day they'll get that working for multiplayer sessions too.

 

Oh, and one last thing: issues like the map updates changing are why I don't like password protected scenarios, it just means when they inevitably break due to some future update, they can't be fixed by anyone but the original creator who might not be around any more.

Sorry, just saw this post.

BRDM-2 ATs play an important part in the REDFOR security zone in this mission.  So if they're broken, that would definitely make things easier.  One day I'll get around to updating this mission, and I'll post it unpassworded.  There is one very big surprise in the mission that I wanted to keep close to the vest.  Also, the F8 view is...well, let's just say it's a pet peeve of mine and I wanted to force people to use the TC unbuttoned view.