John Doe

I don’t think you could probably have C2 modeled more than it all ready is, ei moral effects and info sharing, in this type of game. That is in a game where you must control and therefor see everything there is no meaningful fog of war- friendlies can never be lost of the chain of command broken. Furthermore, if there was order delays or out right unresponsiveness there would be a lack of autonomy that would realistically be chalked up to initiative. There is a certain ambiguity in the category each units actions Fall into; is that squad retreating because their squad leader decided it so or because A commander ordered it? Even if we ignore these issues the situation remains muddled. A flare ordering a ‘retreat’ or a ‘rally’ or anything other than ‘enemy’ cannot be translated into game terms at all. Same with whistle commands such as ‘flank left’ ‘right side tuck in’ and ‘attack’ what would this allow for a “fully flushed out C2 system” It is sad because Efficiently commanding men is one of the most engaging and satisfying tasks one could have. Setting conditions and contingencies to all the people around oneself is crafting a system that can respond and react all while not losing Jim in the fog of war of communications. I am all for a more C2 restrictions but I am not sure myself how that would translate into combat mission. On the state of how CM is now, I think is comment sums up my views well: their really is not any reason to sweat C2 links unless you are using artillery imo. Anyway, Please excuse the errors, I wrote this while tired.

I would assume Hide in the article would be smart placement, engine off, and some improvised camouflage. I think the last bit is a little put of the scope of combat mission.

What about fighting on this?

Could be customizible by the senior designer, I would think.

I remember seeing a Real time contours map render but only now was a able to find it. Here it is: Example: https://contours.axismaps.com/#12/35.3577/138.7331 Code: https://github.com/axismaps/contours Any way I glad you guys like it. Though I am not a coder, I do hope putting up coded examples puts this suggestion in the relm of possibly. As for performance, You could run shading and contours on start then have it as an other layer to be always present or recalled on demand for each view respectively.

Terrain readability is crucial for assessment of and ease of planning for tactical options. Readable height differences can reveal a slight slope that could shelter your movement or be the cause of your troop’s deaths. Furthermore, the nature of a hills slope, convex or concave can to make or break your defense. Without getting down to ground level for all movements and positions the player is blind. To make the map convey information from the birds eye view several changes are proposed: first and principally, hill shading; secondly togglable contours, and lastly and not too important Hypsometric tints. This will go into what those things are, why it would be needed and why it should be considered for development. Hill shading. Both relief shading as well as shadows rendered. The reason to do this is quite apparent, no gully or ridges missed- I can pull out a pen and start planning operations right away! Now the picture is something I made Blender and if this where to make it into Combat Mission it would look like the examples bellow. Not only can you see generates good looking shading on the fly but the code is also provided. Implementing it in combat mission could be a worth while instatement as it provides great benefit too relatively little cost, code is provided and something similar is down with clouds in the game at the moment. Example: https://observablehq.com/@awoodruff/diy-hillshade Code: https://observablehq.com/@sahilchinoy/a-faster-hillshader Togglable contours. Have a button that turns on/off a contour overlay. Contours are at regular height interval with thicker index lines at a larger easily referenced variable. For example, every 25 meters and 150 meters for each respectively. This is to more easily show exact terrain shape in a easy and accurate manner. This though harder to implement. Hypsometric tints. A shader that tints ground texture to have gradient darker green to light yellow based on their evaluation. Hypsometric tints make subtle grades visible and provide a non-intrusive way to discriminate evaluations of different locations. Is this that ridge taller or shorter than this one?

I was going to make a list of things that Steve said as well, but you beat me too it. I didn't mean to be slanderous or panicking mongering- beaning counting is what I do so it is what I thought would be helpful. Furthermore, to clarify I meant that his response of calling it a consequence doesn't sit with with me not his counter measures to make sure it wasn't something on his end (which is much appreciated BTW). Something isn't right I feel, so I would like wait until the 'dust settles' with purchasing SF2 whether it is a just statistical bias or a problem with PayPal. With that said I am going to quite posting late night, because I do ambit though well meaning my post came off as anything but. Sincerest apologizes @Battlefront.com

Went through the thread, 33 results for those affected. (might have double counted someone so take with a grain of salt.) I don't know much about online payment methods and security but @Battlefront.com 's responds doesn't sit well with me. I think Ill hold off on buying the newest game for now.

Long time lurker here, this leaves me speechless its just 'whoa'. Do you have any plans to further this?

Does anyone know of any DAARs or AARs of such an event? I would love to read something like that, let alone be a part of such event.

Honestly I don't know if I want see formations in the game. It would over complicate things. A better system is one of Total War because the one the only formation I need is to seen pixel men advancing in lines not columns.

I would like to for forced rendering of subpixel objects. Ideally it would be for the things like tracer fire so you could see from across the map. I don't know how hard it is to do, but I know performance wise it is no problem at all.

I did learn the controls, and I believe I am pretty decent at the game, but I digress. So here is for the most review thing yet. I was looking for a new strategy for my brother and I to play. I was looking for realistic. Combat Misson stood out. The game isn't two forces sitting on a hill taking few pop shots and occasionally getting hit. If you mess up you can lose a whole squad in seconds. The every round a tracer is in my opinion the best thing art wise in the game. It highlights the great bullet drop and dynamics. The tanks and infantry react superbly under fire. Something I love is in this game is the lack of 'micro' but still being very much involved with the battle. As much as base the controls, fire and armor arcs are something that I wish were in every game for ambushes and defense. Spotting is great and have the fog of war on your own guys is better. Requesting fire support, seems hard (haven't actually successfuly done it, but it I think that was my fault). To say the least, I like every except the controls and a few things. For small things is there no unit collision? I feared way to often that one stray bullet would take four of my coexisting soldiers. I had men run through each other and even tanks. Sorry guys my my computer rebooted while writing this hence the arupt stop. So I have more to be posted on the weekend.

I would have to see there are any more option when a squad is selected. It slipped my mind, thanks!

Camera So for the camera it feels clunky and over compilated. I had press number keys, click and drag with the mouse to get the camera postioned where I wanted it. It took up a good portion of my time playing the game. Which is bad because I was playing real time. I realize I jumped to tell what I think should be done with out the why. The control scheme, first off, should never have you clicking. Clicking with the mouse should be reserved for commanding the men on the ground. I like the 'wasd', q&e and the keys to zoom, not any of the others so lose them. A big problem that had my first few battles was over acceleration. It prohibited fine control. There are many different camera modes currently, having two only would make it a hell of a lot easier to develop and refine. It less about generalization but to spealized cameras that are simple and easy to use. The second mode (of my suggestion) you can't actually issue orders due to the mouse mapped look system. So why have it? For those who want fine control when the turn is over, for zooming around the battlefield in a cinematic manner and those want to take screen shots. I feel that realism in games brings more complexity than it does depth. It also is an ambitious thing to strive for and often spreads the game to thin. A developer could make rudimentary arcade game with polish or a realistic one with little polish. The answer is aways the arcade game because it is better quality for the same time and money working on it. Alot of the realistic games are old or come from series that started a while ago. This is mainly because the higher the graphics the more the bar is raised quality wise for every thing else. That's the development side of why, but there is more. In short I believe there is a bigger market than one would think for realistic games. I would gladly carry on this topic in another thread. On with the review! Something that Call of Duty does it gives prompts to the player to do an action such as "press space to jump." However that is not what Combat Mission should have, it is good for some reasons: New players learning; showing friends when past the tutorial; and if you forget what one of the five buttons do in CoD. For combat mission hovering over something in the UI should give a description of it. Mainly for things of the nature of unit control and difficultly level. Seriously though, I have no clue which difficultly the highest. And for unit control it would be nice to have detailed info about it. The description could even fill the back boxes. I still would be answer replies about the camera.

It's isn't so much as the keys being counter intuitive, in fact I like them. Well, most of them; not flip a 180 and FoV. I mean that the default camera system should be mainly be controled by the mouse with the keyboard used by preference, not necessity. Most of the 'changes' I come up of with, are aimed at bringing new players in. Sadly, at the moment, it a great game hindered by it's interface, I don't think most rts players are willing to sit down and learn it. It does make for a great community. On the same note, fantastic comic you made! I believe I found three modes in the demo, I only really used two in the battles though. The idea for the rts mode would be put a squad in the center of your screen and zoom and change height or rotate around without them leaving the center of your focus. The camera would level out as you get closer to the ground. (I forgot to add up there). I would love to hear more input you may have. I completely agree that it is being at the men's perspective is one of the best parts the game. When playing, I would issue orders then postion myself with the forces fighting it out. I do know about the hotkeys but not the unassigned ones. It really sounds like something for veteran players, but hey choices are good! Things like wide mode I seldom used but being nitpicky about random keyblinds is not preticularly helpfull to anyone.

I will post more off/on when I have time.

BeforE I start, it is important to note that I am writing this based on my experience with the demo version and may be wrong about how I believe the game works. Please feel free to correct me. The camera is a very important part of an rts and I believe it is done poorly in combat mission. A more suiting camera control method would have two modes, rts and cinema. Rts mode would point sightly at the ground. The camera height would be for a point that rides over the ground. when rotated it would spin using this point as aneeded axis. When zoomed, using scroll wheel, the camera remain aimed at the point, but will pull in closer horizontaly and vericaly. It should stop at head height. The camera would control the same, (maybe with out strafing on the sides? Please share thoughts), I also enjoyed the keyboard controlls. The second mode should be a free flying camera. The movement would be a wasd, with the movement applied localy, means if you look down and press 'w' you go down. Scroll would be zoom and 'q' & 'e' would be up and down (In the world axises, not the camera's). The rotation would work as a first person shooter's. Both systems the movement would accelerate from a slow pace to top pace, for more control.