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Hello from Malaysia

F

Frankie Kam

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Frankie Kam here. Nearly half-decade old gamer. Started off with flight sims back in the good old late 1980s to 1990s. Spectrum Holobyte, Microprose, Dynamix, DiD, Digital Integration, etc. You know, the classics. I am the web master of the only surviving and active Digital Integration Tornado fansite in the world.

I first bought Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord in early the 2000s. Back then my PC was too slow and the during the Wego session, the "Computer thinking..." progress bar would take ever so long to complete. I then lost interest due to my perceived slowness of the game process (read: I was impatient). Over the years, however, I have picked up CMAK, CMBB and CMBFN. Only just started re-playing CMBB last week. Believe it or not. Getting used to the Wego and various CM commands. Gameplay rocks. The animated gif below is me roasting a T-34 with a flamethrower.

flamed.gif

Initially the CM games would stutter on my 64-bit Windows 10 (Intel i5) laptop. The game changer for me was when I realised that I needed to "hit Control-Alt-Delete | go to Task Manager | Apps | right-click, go to Details | select game's exe | set the Processor Affinity of the game to run on just CPU1" so that CMBB would run as smooth as silk. Also tried out Combat Mission: Battle for Normandy. Great graphics! I have seen the amount of mods for CM series and I am overwhelmed by the dedication, genius and generosity of the modding community.

I am an active member of Dogs Of War Virtual Unit and yes, I own a copy of Steel Beasts Pro PE 4.019. The two biggest wargaming game changers in 2000 for me were CMBO and the original Steel Beasts. I am also a war buff who likes to watch war movies and read non-fiction war books. Thank you for the opportunity to say hello to the few (and I am sure they are not few!) good men of thefewgoodmen.com. I am looking forward to getting to know the CM series more, and the community that swears by the series. ;-)

Cheers
Frankie Kam
 
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Welcome!
We have so many older games in common! Especially "Tornado"(Such a cool plane. Wish there had been a more modern flight sim of it) and "Steel Beasts".
Do you have CMBS? If so...let me know when you are ready for a PBEM :2charge:
 
Welcome to the Club Frankie Kam Good to have you with us plenty going on here, Here are some Links to the site just here to help you
The Few Good Men are welcoming you!....We are a friendly bunch more like Family...
You will find a lot of interesting people here, who are sharing your hobby and we are proud of being far more than just a platform for finding war-gaming opponents.

We recommend you read the following threads to get an impression of what our club is about and what it might be for you as well:


http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/
http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/ladder/
http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/forums/site-manual.25/
http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/forums/combat-mission-x2-world-war-two.160/


If you have any questions or need some help with the site, please feel free to contact our official welcome committee members Hedgehog or Shorker. We will be happy to assist you. Just click on the names in the members list or underneath the avatar picture and then on "Start A Conversation" or reply
 
Welcome!
Do you have CMBS? If so...let me know when you are ready for a PBEM :2charge:
Thanks for the offer Chris. I don't have Black Sea but I will keep your offer in mind. Btw, as far as modeling the Panavia Tornado is concerned, X-Trident's Tornado for X-Plane 10 is as good as it gets. Hedgehog, thanks for the links. That's an impressive number of messages and likes you have. I added one more like for you.
 
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Thanks for the offer Chris. I don't have Black Sea but I will keep your offer in mind. Btw, as far as modeling the Panavia Tornado is concerned, X-Trident's Tornado for X-Plane 10 is as good as it gets. Hedgehog, thanks for the links. That's an impressive number of messages and likes you have. I added one more like for you.
Is X-Trident's Tornado more of a flight sim? B/c thinking back, what I enjoyed the most about the earlier game wasn't the flight sim part. It was the whole mission planning of the game. It's like 80% of the game was in mission planning/waypoints/ wpn release points & altitude done prior to takeoff. Once in the cockpit, it was mainly focused on hitting waypoints correctly and on time. It was all about coordination...which is exactly how I imagined real missions for that plane to be about.
 
Hi Chris.

Yes, you are absolutely correct! X-Trident's Tornado is more of a flight sim than a combat flight sim.

These days, just modelling the avionics and flight mechanics of a complex fast jet like Tornado is enough to take up almost all the time of the developer. X-Trident has done a smashing job of modelling the Tornado (dual cockpit, with many buttons to push and levers to pull, mind you) and it is a joy to fly around in X-Plane 10. X-Trident's Tornado does have air-to-ground and air-to-air weapons and a more than basic delivery of said weapons, but that's it as far as combat is involved. No enemy fighters, AAA or SAM batteries hurling their agents of death against your fast jet. The harsh and hostile environment is missing. Missing too is a dynamic campaign.

Since 1993's classic Tornado DOS flight simulator, no other Tornado game/simulator for the PC has the full package of flight modelling + combat environment + mission planning. That's 24 years of vacuum! Digital Integration's Tornado pre-flight mission planner was the jewel in the crown. Then once you took off, the pucker factor was raised to insane levels. As your fast jet hurtled towards its target, you had to switch between cockpits, look out for fighters, avoid SAMs and AAA streaking towards you, keep one eye on the waypoints, keep another eye on your time-on-target progress. All this while flying on autopilot at 600 knots and at 200 feet (or less!) above ground. Granted, back then in the early 1990s, PC requirements were lower compared today's PCs. Being in an different era of programming and computer technology, DI's development team could not have modelled the plane to the high-fidelity levels that X-Trident have done. But they did a splendid job. The core of the game was written in, mind you, assembly language! DI's Tornado was the full package and the standard by which all future combat flight simulators would be judged.

Each time I take the game for a spin and fly Operation Desert Storm, I become John Peters (RAF pilot) and John Nichol (RAF navigator) all over again. Its flat-shaded polygon graphics are hopelessly outdated by now, but they do hold a special charm for me. Even today. There's no other game like it. If you have the time, do pay a visit to the website that Frankie built. ;-)
 
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I read somewhere that when the F-117 was in service it had (at the time) a sophisticated mission planning software they used before every mission to plan out everything. Even showed range circles for all know SAM/radar threats. I always wondered if the company that built that software program for the Air Force system ever saw/tried the one developed for the tornado game and used it as a baseline for building theirs? Probably not, but I always thought the game's mission planner would have been a great start!
 
Hello Frankie, welcome to THE FEW GOOD MEN!
Good to have you with us! :)

Joining this community was the right decision because Combat Mission is at it's best when played head to head (H2H)
- as you already know. ;)
 
Make sure you checkout a CMx2 title - plenty of good gaming there.
Flight Sims - I'm more a prop head than jet guy - il2 Sturmovik BOS/BOM and DCS WW2 - do like the F86 and Mig 15 in this series.
 
@Frankie Kam

Greetings and welcome to the site (Of GREATNESS and WONDERFULNESS), you're right there are more than a few good men on here (And No Zinzan is NOT one of them, he's just strange and occassionaly nice-ish :cool:).

Have a wander around, ask questions, make daft comments and most important - ENJOY
 
Hi Frankie Kam!!

Welcome Aboard!!

You will still find a lot of action here for CMBO, CMAK, and CMBB!!

All the best on the CM Battlefield!

Adio!
 
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