Gents,

Command Modern Naval Operations is set to release their first expansion pack. It will be a stand alone product, not requiring CMANO WOTY or a DLC for those already owning CMANO WOTY. There's no published release date, but does say to be released soon!



CMANO Northern Inferno

Northern Inferno is coming on October 22! : http://store.steampowered.com//app/397180

It's out. Downloading now!

Question:
Is it possible to set a specific/exact(!) course (for example: course 342°) and a specific speed (13kts) to a ship (or convoy)?

Yes. For the former you actually plot a course to a desired point (ie. select the point on the map), and the unit will make sure to continuously adjust its heading to get there. Remember, on a true spherical map, the shortest "great circle" path between two points is not one of constant heading!

Actual you can not give a unit a specific course.
Clicking on a point somewhere on the map with no indication which heading this point has regarding to the unit is not giving a unit a specific course. Its guessing that this could be approximate my desired course of the unit.

Thank you for your in-depth knowledge.

Second question:
Whats up with these error messages ( at 2:32 and 3:39) you get when you start the campaign Northern Inferno?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8s5eFdG7tQ

Here's the excuse given; my hard drive is supposedly too slow. However, MNO seems to be the only game that has ever found this 'deficiency' with my equipment. Other games just slow down if the physical equipment is somehow inadequate while MNO seems to explode.

P.s. I totally disabled my AV when starting the game. So, that was just another failed excuse for these bugs.

Regarding plotting an exact course for a ship (for example a self calculated intercept course against a moving target) i have t admit that there a workarounds to do so. For example calculate the long/lat endpoint from given bearing and given latitude/longitude start point and set the cursor on the calculated lat/long end point.

I wonder what that guy had used to draw some lines on the screen in the vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlq8suXqbh8 at 12:16 minute.

Yes, it is a work-around solution. However, the only honest and accurate answer is: Players cannot enter a specific course-heading for any unit.

They can only approximate the general direction via plotting the endpoint of the unit's path and no amount of song, dance, or evasion can change that fact.

I understand the developers need to keep the workload of the CPU as less as possible and not showing a calculated course-heading linked to the cursor since we are dealing here with an irregular 3d object (earth) and its not trivial to calculate that.

Herrman, are you planning to play another scenario from the campaign CMANO/NI on YT?

I think that other games are quite easily able to enter and maintain a specific course heading without overly taxing the processor. One such great game is Steam and Iron.

I was not planning to play any more NI scenarios, but Harpoon for Dummies takes viewer requests. We help all who ask. However, after the trying ordeal of playing the first one, I would ask why you feel I need to endure another water-boarding session?

Is there a scenario for which you would like to see an AAR? Is there something you would like to see that has not already been shown?

FailSafe was supposed to only cover 6 hours of game time. It took nearly five real life hours to play four game hours. Other scenarios have 72hr duration.

It might be better to wait until you have a computer with decent CPU power to ensure the frustration and even emotional distress reduced limit values when excessive compression is applied in that 72hr sessions.

I think the CMANO and Steam&Iron analogy is not very accurate.

I think that a quad-core I7 is quite respectable. 4gB RAM is still four times the base requirements, according to the official game specs. If the game requires more power or SSD, then it should be honest and state this prerequisite.

I've been on this excuse merry-go-round since the game's release. When I first reported bugs with v1.00, I was told that my dual-core 2gB RAM computer was not fast enough or had enough RAM, even though it exceeded the game specifications.

Then others with quad-core i7 fast computers and copious amounts (8gB) of RAM reported the same things. They were told that an SSD would be helpful.

Then others with fast computers, large amounts (16gB) of RAM, and SSDs were reporting the same problems. At this point, the blame was shifted to MicroSoft Windows. Supposedly, Windows had a memory management problem that only MNO, out of thousands of other games using Windows, could find.

Then users with uber-fast computers with octo-cores, 16gB RAM, SSD, top-line graphic cards (virtual supercomputers) reported problems, they were told that their crash problems only existed for top-end computers and that normal users would never see the problems.

So, you can see how the blame game came full circle. First, my computer wasn't powerful enough and, in the end, others' computers were 'too' powerful. There is always an excuse and it is never the fault of MNO.

And how is MNO and Steam not accurate? In Steam and Iron, a user can enter an exact course heading for his units to follow while this is not possible in MNO.

I have Northern Inferno installed on a SSD drive (Windows 10 boot up time: 7 seconds). I got the same crashes. Supposedly there is a patch out there that fixes the problem. I haven't tried it.

My PC basic specs are: i7 5th generation Quad Core Processor 3.40GHz; NVidia 980 GTX graphic card, 8 GB RAM, SSD HD. GTA V runs as smooth as silk - as does every single wargame I have installed on my PC.

After a while, both Command and Northern Inferno slow to a crawl. It is inexplicable. I'm pretty sure that the graphic card isn't used at all, given how jerky the program is every time you rotate the global map. Still, we are talking about a sheer computing power hundred of thousands of times the one who sent the first Space Shuttle into orbit.

And I wonder if they even bothered to check their own game before launching it. Most infamously, it was impossible to start it from Steam the day it was launched: it required an hotfix (after the usual attempts at denials: "Steam is the culprit!!" Yeah, sure...) Orders were missing (a window opens: "Unable to find ORDERS5.TXT" or something like that). Obtaining victory conditions in some scenarios gave you 0 points (??). You even had to battle against your own AI, which, even when you placed your units under manual control, every then and now took over and did something stupid.

Not to mention the miserable opponent AI: just think out of the loop, and the enemy goes into a tailspin. I suspect that Herman is right: there is no a true AI opponent, but a pre-programmed set of instructions which assume that you will play in a certain way. Basically, the AI is France in 1940. Just think like Manstein and Guderian and the enemy will deflate like a botched souffle.

I checked both Herman's video (You nuke Soviet Union and no one over there really pays attention?? Really??) and the tech forum at Matrix: a number of gamers reported the same problems I found in "Northern Inferno". The developers, IIUC, issued some patches. Again, I didn't try them. But, as usual, we paid for the privilege to be beta-testers.

And, if the developers felt the need to add six additional tutorials for the Command line of games, why are normal players required to buy Northern Inferno in order to use them? Just release them to regular Command in a patch. Matrix' World in Flames got four additional video tutorial via patches. There is no reason as why this didn't happened with Command.

You really should try the latest patch v1.09 Build 757.6, released at oct. 29, 2015.
Have heard good things about it.

Since its a niche game with , at best, 5000 sold units worldwide (mere presumption), the developergroup is small (could be only one guy)
and the test capabilities in terms of number of hardware configurations are very very very limited.
The software does mature with the user here. Every customer must be aware of it.


I would be interested in hearing whether a radar station considers terrain obstructions in this game or not?

Since I am a Matrix owner, I do not bother with Steam and know of no patch release beyond the official v1.09 NI release. It's not official until the publisher puts it out and Matrix has released nothing of the sort.

Are those the same 'good things' you heard about the initial release?



Even if this were true, the hardware configuration is no excuse for the scenarios that simply were not run through to completion even once. How else could they miss entire scenarios where there is no scoring, whatsoever? Or the scenario where the the planes could not land?



Yes, terrain obstructions are included with the calculations. In my video, I show my approach from behind land formations in order to avoid radar detection.

Thxs for the quick reply.

And to answer your question about the initial CMANO/NI release: the feedback of those who played without admin privileges was disastrous