New features/feature ideas for CM for the next few years thread

[A Canadian Cat]

Go through their pockets and look for loose change.

Bonus points awarded. I suppose that is what our pixel troops do with the dead as well - except they are looking for loose amo.

[LukeFF]

I am happy to believe that even the "yellow silhouette" level of casualties are penalised on an average basis that assumes a decent chance of some basic first aid once the immediate danger (and adrenaline rush) has receded a little. To me, yellow base means superficial lacerations and contusions, bumps, bruises and minor sprains. The kind of thing that can happen on a sports field but the recipient can "walk off" after a little absorbent gauze and "magic sponge" is applied.

Absolutely

[LukeFF]

The morphine part was just a stupid sort of joke, what I really meant was that it makes sense there would be a gradient of lvl of injury from green through red and brown, and it wouldn't be unrealistic for a very small fraction of the barely red guys to become yellow and barely not red, after some very important first aid. Such as, pull the small piece of shrapnel out of the leg, patch it, shoot some morphine, pat him on the back, remind him they are all gonna die if he don't get up and help his friends. wouldn't 1/200 or more soldiers be able to get back up after treatment? In ww2 crazy life or death ****.

Edit to add

Red-base soldiers are those guys who are so badly wounded they are going to need extensive medical care before they can get back in the fight, and I'm fine with that.

This doesn't have to be the case. of course it does include those guys, but it can and does also incudes guys that arn't hurt that bad and might be back in the next mission. Some are just a little more hurt than yellow guys. You don't have to save the morphine for only the guys that are almost dying, you could give it to someone with just a flesh wound. Maybe the guy just needs a brace and he'll be ready to go (slowly)? or a brace and some morphine

Or maybe he just got knocked out/concussed hard and he just needs some smelling salts to wake up?

Let's just agree to disagree on this one.

[Macisle]

Yeah I gotta agree with Emrys. Any animation or video would be cool like once or twice then would be annoying. See the new X:COM for a great example of this. After several times you always x out of it and its an annoyance.

+1. Not needed.

[Michael Emrys]

...it wouldn't be unrealistic for a very small fraction of the barely red guys to become yellow and barely not red, after some very important first aid.

I am comfortable with assuming that the existing yellow casualties represent exactly that: minor flesh wounds that only need to have a dressing put on them to continue the fight. The red wounded are the more seriously injured that will require aid at an evac facility and that buddy aid is just sufficient to keep them alive until they get there. I don't see that anything needs to be changed in the code.

Michael

[Macisle]

Infantry that do NOT advance in single file.

+10!

I too, would like to see my pixeltroopen take better care of themselves in this regard.

[AlexUK]

OK, not a major one, but when plotting artillery strikes, it would be good to have a toggle to show TRP zones, as I currently have to do this manually. Also it would be handy for these zones to show up during setup too.

[Michael Emrys]

These have all come up before, but I think they can profit by being mentioned again.

1. Observer member of a sniper team will not fire his personal weapon unless the team has come under fire from a source within effective range of that weapon.

2. SMGs (or MPs) in a squad or team will tend not to fire at anyone more than 50-100 meters away.

Michael

[Kuderian]

My top 3;

Hexes not tiles ideally 1m x 1m.

Map contours toggle button.

Turrets blowing off and landing on people.

[Michael Emrys]

OK, not a major one, but when plotting artillery strikes, it would be good to have a toggle to show TRP zones, as I currently have to do this manually. Also it would be handy for these zones to show up during setup too.

I admit I don't think I grasp what you are getting at here. The TRP markers in my experience are always visible and I am reasonably sure it is the same for you, so I guess by "zone" you mean the distance from that marker where its effects can still be felt. But how do you make those visible?

Michael

[Baneman]

...

2. SMGs (or MPs) in a squad or team will tend not to fire at anyone more than 50-100 meters away.

Michael

Another +1 on this one.

In a recent QB, I was area firing a German half-squad at a location about 350m away. Within a few turns, they were out of 9mm ammo for the MP40.

So he fired it all off at 300m+ ? Seriously ?

[womble]

These have all come up before, but I think they can profit by being mentioned again.

1. Observer member of a sniper team will not fire his personal weapon unless the team has come under fire from a source within effective range of that weapon.

2. SMGs (or MPs) in a squad or team will tend not to fire at anyone more than 50-100 meters away.

Plus: Don't fire rifle grenades unless at a spotted target. You only have 4, and having to set a Target Light for teams with RGs is a micromanagement embuggerance. Oh, and don't fire the AT grenade first, just because you have it. Use HE at soft targets and save the HEAT grenade for hard targets.

[womble]

I admit I don't think I grasp what you are getting at here. The TRP markers in my experience are always visible and I am reasonably sure it is the same for you, so I guess by "zone" you mean the distance from that marker where its effects can still be felt. But how do you make those visible?

Michael

I do it by putting an observer waypoint on each TRP and plotting a 50m circular TA at each waypoint. Make sure you give the observer a "Pause" command so they don't go haring off onto the "TRP orienteering course"...

Also, they are, like mine markers technically visible, but they're a devil to find if they're on red dirt and you're red-green colour deficient, and it's no longer setup phase (so they've no icon).

[The Steppenwulf]

Being able to convert a game-in-progress (or just finished) into a new scenario.

There are lots of little bugs and improvements in CM2 generally that need to be addressed. One change that I would like to see in the scenario editor would be intel - there is no option for both sides to receive prior intel (only one side) which could prove to add an extra, as yet undervalued, aspect to CM2 scenarios.

However, as a one off feature that would bring the greatest innovative change to CM2, then I'd have to concur with Womble's point as quoted. I've put some thought into how this could be done practically:

The community needs a stand-alone function that decrypts the .bts file (the save file - not the scenario or PBEM file) data and creates a series of text documents with the particular game conditions, map details and feature locations, level of building damage, assets extant in game, their locations, current condition troop state etc... into an editable format.

Clearly this function would work at any stage of a PBEM once a .bts save file is created.

The same tool would allow such text data to be rebuilt into a new .bts file by encyption with the same algorithm. The only proviso - by reason of

protecting PBEM WEGO games - would be for the .bts decryption to require both passwords of the respective .ema file (Such information is held in the .bts file anyhow).

For those that don't realise how signficant this is. Such a function would allow (with permission of the 2 players) for a 3rd party (umpire) to introduce new units on map edges for reinforcement changes on the fly. This would facilitate the integration of CM2 onto a larger operational layer. It would also build in flexibility for all kind of similar desirabilities; dynamic weather conditions, supplies and yes persistent map damage.

I see no real programming or other difficulties in producing such a function and there is no doubt it would prove to be the most mod friendly and innovative function in CM yet - with one off scenario battles quickly rendered tame. Hell, I would even pay double extra for such a sea-change.

[A Canadian Cat]

The community needs a stand-alone function that decrypts the .bts file (the save file - not the scenario or PBEM file) data and creates a series of text documents ...

The same tool would allow such text data to be rebuilt into a new .bts file by encyption with the same algorithm. ...

For those that don't realise how signficant this is. Such a function would allow (with permission of the 2 players) for a 3rd party (umpire) to introduce new units on map edges for reinforcement changes on the fly. This would facilitate the integration of CM2 onto a larger operational layer. It would also build in flexibility for all kind of similar desirabilities; dynamic weather conditions, supplies and yes persistent map damage.

Oh, nicely phrased and good ideas. I too would like this kind of opening up for other people to create tooling, rules etc that could enhance the game play for everyone. Given that BFC has stated they will not create an operational layer and they seem reluctant to create other supporting tools, it would be really nice if they would invest some in adding hooks to allow the community to create more add on tooling.

I see no real programming or other difficulties in producing such a function and there is no doubt it would prove to be the most mod friendly and innovative function in CM yet - with one off scenario battles quickly rendered tame. Hell, I would even pay double extra for such a sea-change.

I would pay double too - we are probably in the minority but you could probably sell more people on 25% more for example:) Yeah, no difficulties but it is work and it is not a small amount. Lots of testing especially when you open up all that info for editing - some kind of testing needs to be done on all those outputs / inputs. I think this feature would be awesome but it is a big chunk of work that would take away from other things.

[womble]

- Please let me double-click a save or scenario name to start rather than having to go to the "Fight!" button. It's standard interface design that everyone uses in their other software.

[Edit: please forgive the blasphemous thought that people might actually use computers to do things other than fight CM battles... I'm sorry. Won't happen again.]

[AlexUK]

I admit I don't think I grasp what you are getting at here. The TRP markers in my experience are always visible and I am reasonably sure it is the same for you, so I guess by "zone" you mean the distance from that marker where its effects can still be felt. But how do you make those visible?

Michael

Yes Michael, it would be the area in which you can plot an artillery strike and benefit from the TRP, and would only show up on set up or when you are setting up a strike (e.g. a highlighted disc around the TRP point, like the cover arc highlighting).

I am having a go at the second Troina mission now and this would make things slightly less impossible (I will be well chuffed if I can get past this one, seems like there is a whole battalion of dug-in fanatics up there!!).

Even more cheekily, I have a question - if I et up an area fire, do I get the benefit of theTRP even if only the nearest edge of the area fire is within the radius of the TRP (up to now I thought that the centre of the planned strike had to be within the TRP 'zone' but now not so sure....)

[Bulletpoint]

I would like to see tanks driving through walls, trees and maybe even some houses.

Especially walls. They are already destructible, so would be easy to implement.

Also, being able to click multiple times to set an artillery target. Right now, you have to go through several clicks, then choose target, then if it doesn't choose the action square you were trying to hit, then you have to once again click the observer, click artillery tab, choose the battery...

[Sublime]

I do it by putting an observer waypoint on each TRP and plotting a 50m circular TA at each waypoint. Make sure you give the observer a "Pause" command so they don't go haring off onto the "TRP orienteering course"...

Also, they are, like mine markers technically visible, but they're a devil to find if they're on red dirt and you're red-green colour deficient, and it's no longer setup phase (so they've no icon).

Wow thats brilliant. I really gotta hand it to you on that one, TRPs are a bitch to find in all sorts of terrain once the game starts.

[Sublime]

Yes Michael, it would be the area in which you can plot an artillery strike and benefit from the TRP, and would only show up on set up or when you are setting up a strike (e.g. a highlighted disc around the TRP point, like the cover arc highlighting).

I am having a go at the second Troina mission now and this would make things slightly less impossible (I will be well chuffed if I can get past this one, seems like there is a whole battalion of dug-in fanatics up there!!).

Even more cheekily, I have a question - if I et up an area fire, do I get the benefit of theTRP even if only the nearest edge of the area fire is within the radius of the TRP (up to now I thought that the centre of the planned strike had to be within the TRP 'zone' but now not so sure....)

Artillery strikes get the benefit of the TRP within a certain short distance - 50m. Other targetting bonuses to tank accuracy on targets on the TRP, or even HMGs is the same AFAIK

[womble]

...if I et up an area fire, do I get the benefit of theTRP even if only the nearest edge of the area fire is within the radius of the TRP (up to now I thought that the centre of the planned strike had to be within the TRP 'zone' but now not so sure....)

When you get the benefit of a TRP, the mission details pane says so: "40m line TRP" or some such in the "Target" line of the mission summary. A quick test in FI 1.01 says you have to put the centre of the area within the TRP's 50m radius for it to count as a TRP mission. For linear barrages, it has to be the first point selected.

[JonS]

Wow thats brilliant. I really gotta hand it to you on that one, TRPs are a bitch to find in all sorts of terrain once the game starts.

Yeah, that is pretty clever

Regarding the (in)visibility of TRPs: I use a mod which has made all my TRPs white. I find them much easier to find after the setup phase like that. THe mod is here:

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=2011

There's ten different colours to chose from there. One of them is bound to work for you.

[womble]

- The ability to toggle auto-squad-rejoining when teams from the same squad end up in the same AS.

- Perhaps some of the real estate to either side of the interface could be used to display some/all of the current toggle states.

- the ability to change the colour definitions of UI elements such as target lines, movement lines, TRPs etc. from within the program, preferably without restarting (either the software entire, or the game you're playing).

[Andrew Kulin]

Two things I have not seen listed:

1. Ability for water to be at multiple elevations (even if it is only do-able for discontinuous water bodies such as ponds or lakes)
   
2. I have on a number of occasions accidentally either hit the red "End" button twice at the end of a movie turn, or stupidly thought I was still in movie mode (not planning mode) and hit the button bringing me to the save file (in PBEM, and with H2HH and Drop box running I don't want such a save file going out to my opponent). Only way to exit at this point is to kill the program in Task Manager and restart it, reload the turn. So either:
   1. 
      
   2. Add a pop-up screen - Are you sure you want to Save turn? Y/N?, or,
      
   3. Provide a Cancel Button or let hitting ESC key bounce you out of the save file mode; or,
      
   4. Provide two distinctly different coloured or looking "End" buttons depending what mode you are in (though that does not help if I accidentally double-click)
      

[A Canadian Cat]

Two things I have not seen listed:

Ability for water to be at multiple elevations (even if it is only do-able for discontinuous water bodies such as ponds or lakes)

Oh good one I totally forgot about that. I would add allowing for "flowing" rivers / streams. By that I mean I would like to have water from a higher elevation connect to water at a lower elevation to create a stream. Yeah, I am not holding my breath for that one but I would like it.

Add a pop-up screen - Are you sure you want to Save turn? Y/N?, or,

No, no, no. This is called "stopping the proceedings with idiocy". Yes, it is frustrating when this happens by accident but I can tell you now a stupid confirm dialog box popping up the 99% of the time you *meant* to press the big red button will piss you off. And if you can live with the interruption then think of people like me who get angry when they see those ridiculous dialog boxes. Not that it is actually my decision

Seriously, being tempted to add those dialog boxes is an indication that you have an user experience issue that should be addressed *before* you get to that point. In this case the issue is that people make a mistake regarding what mode they are in / there is button that is used for two purposes. Hang on you say the button is not used for two purposes just one "move to the next phase". Sure you can look at it that way but each of those next phases are quite different it would be just fine to have two separate buttons one for each job. Off the top of my head I would suggest: A power off VCR button to end the play back phase (stop is not really correct) and a save button for saving the turn.

Provide a Cancel Button or let hitting ESC key bounce you out of the save file mode; or,

Yes, that is a good idea. I would like a cancel button here that would put you back to command phase. There have been times that I pressed the big red button and was staring at the save screen thinking to my self "did I remember to so X with unit Y" and I wish I could go back and check.