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

[womble]

Couple from Poesel71 in another thread that I don't think I spotted en passant in this one:

- when the last man of a unit dies, have the icon flash for the usual "you've taken a casualty" time rather than just instantly vanishing. [i find it easy to miss a disappearing icon amongst the stacks of subtly shifting, blinking, disappearing-behind-each-other icons. The flashing icons stand out pretty well.]

- make the enemy units that take known casualties flash when they do. [i'm thinking any casualties you'd usually see as a "Red cross" - not sure what parameters Poesel71 is thinking, precisely]

- when the only enemy you can see within a building becomes a casualty, leave the building transparent for as long as the red cross is visible. At the moment, if a unit in a building under fire vanishes, you have to swoop into the building (and possibly back 5s) to see whether they just dropped out of LOS, or whether they were killed.

[para]

Trains and cars flavour objects

[poesel]

A technical wish: when loading a (big) turn CM hogs nearly all system resources (especially at the 29% mark) grinding the system to a near halt.

I usually tab away during loading so I don't actually mind the loading time but if I can't do anything during that time it's a bit annoying.

So could CM 'nice' itself (lower its system priority) during loading when its not the front application? I'm not sure if this is technically possible but it would be a nice touch (pun intended).

[womble]

A technical wish: when loading a (big) turn CM hogs nearly all system resources (especially at the 29% mark) grinding the system to a near halt.

I usually tab away during loading so I don't actually mind the loading time but if I can't do anything during that time it's a bit annoying.

So could CM 'nice' itself (lower its system priority) during loading when its not the front application? I'm not sure if this is technically possible but it would be a nice touch (pun intended).

Yeah, it's not so much that it's hogging resource (cos you can do other stuff while the game's at 29% loading just fine, if you Alt-Tab out before it gets there), just that it's hogging focus, which is antisocial, and very "early 90s".

[cool breeze]

So nobody thought my movie clip idea was good, fine that's cool ( I guess . Well there is another related idea I think you guys will like more. It seems much harder to code, but its a lot more useful. You know how CMx1 had the little thing that said what terrain your squad was in and tons of people complained about its absence despite that the complaint didn't make much sense in CMx2? Well the CMx3 or whatever version could have that little spot on the GUI but instead of a little scattered tree pic it could have a little level 1 viewing height movie camera thing where you could actually see the guys in the cover shooting and taking cover and such! Another amazing way they could use multiple camera angle renders is when you are plotting movement, you could have a little window pop up next to the terrain where you are moving them so you know what kind of cover they are going to be in more easily. It could potentially save a lot of moving the camera around and be really snazzy. And if we did some how get that it would be cool if we cool move the waypoints with a keyboard command, up down left right style. So like one you plot your long distance waypoint and see in the little window that you placed it a little too far forward, just past the forest edge you were trying to get you could just hold shift and press the down key 3 times and your waypoint would be 3 actions spots back from where you clicked, in the spot you see with your little window is perfect.

I also thought of a more tasteful way to show the off map assets in action, in case that idea ever picks up steam. It wouldn't be visible as much as Id like, but the arty icon, once it says firing, could instead have a little vid of them shooting. A picture tells a thousand words and all that

edit: Oh and by CMx3 I meant CMxX

thanks for the support para!

[para]

I would not say no to little movie clips

[womble]

Oh yes:

- Have the experience level of the support element appear in the info pane where it shows the asset type for that element in the support call window. Would save having to click on each asset to find the best one.

There are lots of ways the support call window could be improved. Some have been touched on in this thread. I think the following hasn't though:

- Have the assets listed in variable order. Put the assets currently called by the spotter you have selected first, in order of soonest anticipated arrival of rounds. Then put the rest of the offmap assets not currently under the orders of the spotter you're dealing with, then the onmap assets that are available, then the ones that aren't. Having to click through 18 out of reach Brixias before getting to the Battalion mortars is a chore that would be best eliminated. It would even speed things up for RTers.

[Michael Emrys]

- Have the assets listed in variable order. Put the assets currently called by the spotter you have selected first, in order of soonest anticipated arrival of rounds. Then put the rest of the offmap assets not currently under the orders of the spotter you're dealing with, then the onmap assets that are available, then the ones that aren't.

Bitchin'! +1.

Michael

[Wodin]

I would not say no to little movie clips

me too..immersion breaking I find..then repetitive and you end up turning them off..

[Glubokii Boy]

I would like to se a major overhaul of urban combat. Better TAC AI movement in urban enviroments and ability to fortify houses. This is a must for EF games but it would be good to have it included in Normandy and Italy.

I would also like to see a general overhaul of fortifications, more variations and ability to camouflage certain fortifications in order to improve their survivability on the battlefield

These suggestions are very high on my wishlist also.

Today i set about to try and make a scenario about the fighting in the bombed out ruins of the town of Monte Cassion. Newzeland infantry Vs german paratroopers and i found a very good map among the QB-maps (might even be intended to be Monte Cassino). I thought i would increase the destructionlevel a bit and add some troops but this soon turned out to be a big NO-NO.

The Tac-AI cant handle this map...The troops run around all over the place when you isue them a movement task and therefore become more or less uncontrollable in a firefight. NO-GO !

The isue with the actionspots also ruin any gameplay on this map. The need to see the groundtile in order to target a multi story building becomes truely ridiculous on this map. Therefore a NO-GO !

I guess that having seperate actionspots at each level when a building is placed on the map will seriously influence the FPS but something obviosly needs to be done regarding this problem. No easy solution i'm sure..but one could alway wish...

And like i think most of us would like to se...A greater varaity in fortrifications and cammoflage is also high on my wishlist.

The implementation of a good triggersystem is still at the top of my list though...But these comes close.

[Tank Hunter]

These suggestions are very high on my wishlist also.

Today i set about to try and make a scenario about the fighting in the bombed out ruins of the town of Monte Cassion. Newzeland infantry Vs german paratroopers and i found a very good map among the QB-maps (might even be intended to be Monte Cassino). I thought i would increase the destructionlevel a bit and add some troops but this soon turned out to be a big NO-NO.

The Tac-AI cant handle this map...The troops run around all over the place when you isue them a movement task and therefore become more or less uncontrollable in a firefight. NO-GO !

The isue with the actionspots also ruin any gameplay on this map. The need to see the groundtile in order to target a multi story building becomes truely ridiculous on this map. Therefore a NO-GO !

I guess that having seperate actionspots at each level when a building is placed on the map will seriously influence the FPS but something obviosly needs to be done regarding this problem. No easy solution i'm sure..but one could alway wish...

And like i think most of us would like to se...A greater varaity in fortrifications and cammoflage is also high on my wishlist.

The implementation of a good triggersystem is still at the top of my list though...But these comes close.

Agree with the actionspots in buildings, it would be nice to add a 3rd dimension to targeting.

And triggers is eventually a must if you want to have any kind of tactically smart AI. The TacAI can be further improved to handle the direct situation like what to do under fire, how to enter a house, cross a road etc.. The triggers are needed in order to provide the AI to react to the flow of the battle. Let say the AI is defending, the human player attacks on the left flank and forces a breakthrough, sweeps behind and breaks the AI completely. All the other units out there would today just sit there.

Imagine if we had triggers and you set up a defence by telling AI that if the group on the right flank is not engaged move it and counterattack in certain direction if the group on the left is engaged and has sustained losses of 10% or is routed.

Or you could tell the different groups to fall back to a 2nd line of defence. To make it even more interesting you could have triggers fire only if the chain of command is intact. So in order for the right group to counterattack it must be aware of the left group's status either by being able to observe it visually or by having radio contact through the HQ.

[Freyberg]

I second urban combat (having something like that house image would be amazing), and enhancements to fortifications and camouflage.

[A Canadian Cat]

Agree with the actionspots in buildings, it would be nice to add a 3rd dimension to targeting.

To clarify you can already target a specific floor of a building. The issue with area fire on buildings is that you still need to be able to see the centre of the action square to do it. This makes it very hard to shoot up the front of a building down the street that you men can plainly see just fine but because the neighbouring building is blocking your LOS to the centre of the action square you cannot fire on the front of the building.

Fixing this may well rise to the effort of many features but it is not a new feature it would be fixing a design flaw.

[womble]

- A shortcut for "Pause indefinitely" that works at waypoints, not just the current location of the unit. Hitting "P" 11 [Edit: sorry, ten - Ed] times each for 3 fire teams, 4 MGs and their ammo bearer teams is just a little bit wearing, especially on top of the cover arcs, Hide and Deploy actions needed for stealthy approach of massed fire elements to the back of a hedgerow.

[Lt Belenko]

To clarify you can already target a specific floor of a building. The issue with area fire on buildings is that you still need to be able to see the centre of the action square to do it. This makes it very hard to shoot up the front of a building down the street that you men can plainly see just fine but because the neighbouring building is blocking your LOS to the centre of the action square you cannot fire on the front of the building.

Fixing this may well rise to the effort of many features but it is not a new feature it would be fixing a design flaw.

Does this sound like the elevation issues?

[womble]

Does this sound like the elevation issues?

It's the obverse of the elevation issues. Lack of elevation limits means you can hit the top storey of any frontage you are allowed to shoot at, even if you're parked at the foot of an 8 storey fascia. This ridiculousness is somewhat balanced by the comparably ridiculous limitation that you can't shoot at a building halfway down the street unless some infantry are shooting out of it... Both are engine limitations, and there's no intentional balancing going on; the balance would be more even were that the case (I think the not being able to shoot at a building fascia you can plainly see is a far bigger problem than the occasional time elevation limits not being applied has an impact in the game).

[womble]

- A "next waypoint" key and a "previous waypoint" key to go with it. Cycles through the waypoints of the selected element. If the camera, as already suggested, can be locked to a waypoint (like Tab does for units, currently), that lock status should be preserved as you skip through the waypoints. In an ideal world, there should be a "last waypoint" key too.

[Glubokii Boy]

two other features i would like to se thats probably not to difficult to implement is...

The ability in the editor to set a SPECIFIC TIME for completion for each individual objectives (terrain, unit).

Or

The completion of an objective to be LINKED TO A SPECIFIC UNIT

This could be used to emphatize direct instructions from higher HQ...For example...

from the briefing "2nd platoons initial objective will be to secure the church in the center of the village"

Or

"To allow follow-up forces to advance past the river we will need the bridge secured NO LATER THAN 17.00"

Something like this...

The only thing that would be needed is the ability to set a CHECK TIME or CHECK UNIT condition for the objectives in the editor

[womble]

two other features i would like to se thats probably not to difficult to implement is...

The ability in the editor to set a SPECIFIC TIME for completion for each individual objectives (terrain, unit).

Good one. Would be fine indeed if you could have an individual objective's worth change over time. Would make "we need that road cleared as soon as possible" and "hold as long as you can" orders mean something in the evaluation of level of victory.

[Glubokii Boy]

Good one. Would be fine indeed if you could have an individual objective's worth change over time. Would make "we need that road cleared as soon as possible" and "hold as long as you can" orders mean something in the evaluation of level of victory.

Yes. This would open up some intresting possibilities i think

[bloodworth646]

Well, i have a problem with the fact that the only way to make your units stop and engage (AKA react as they are ought to under normal circumstances) an enemy is by using the HUNT command. Like already proposed in the thread about CMSF 2, it would be awesome to have this functionality of the HUNT comand with any movement command... but i'd like to further this proposal with an idea to add fire permissions\restrictions like:

Return fire - fire only if your unit get shot at, hold fire even if there's a visual on an enemy.

Open fire - your unit, upon seeing an enemy, will cease any action they were initially doing in order to shoot at the enemy.

[womble]

- Variable forces in scenarios, either a fully "free" pick along the lines of a QB, or a restricted set of options.

- The ability to define different force sizes for the AI in a scenario so that the forces can work for both HvH and vsAI play without having to have three versions.

[Ithikial_AU]

A few more to add.

- An inbuilt FPS counter so we can check performance if we think something is wrong. (Refer Nvidia performance issues in the tech support forum).

- The ability to set AI movement plans in 3D mode (like we currently can deploy units). If you could view AI plans with roughly the same guide lines as you see in a normal game it maybe easier for Scenario Designers to use and get a better idea visually on what they are setting in place all at once.

[warrenpeace]

I'd like to see:

1) A follow the road movement command. (Very annoying to have to make way points all the time when road zigs and zags).

2) If this is not possible, a "follow the leader" command. Useful to convoy exiting scenarios.

3) Allow retargeting same spot with additional artillery strike without new spotting. (Very annoying when your barrage fails to take out anti-tank gun and you have to wait to "respot". Mechanically, it might be possible to allow targeted locations to act as TRPs for future strikes.)

4) Re-examine frequency of main gun hits. Seems my big cats are always being neutered early in the battle.

5) A select all infantry command. Useful for setting short target arcs for ambush scenarios where it is ok for tanks to open up at long range.

6) At end of battle, I'd like to be able to download the stats, not just look at units. Kind of like Japanizers tool, but built into the game. Also, it would be nice to know how many guys were killed by off-map artillery.

BTW, I'm a long time CM fan. Just started replaying again with 2.01 and Commenwealth mod. Getting my butt kicked on Kampf group Engel.

[A Canadian Cat]

I'd like to see:

1) A follow the road movement command. (Very annoying to have to make way points all the time when road zigs and zags).

2) If this is not possible, a "follow the leader" command. Useful to convoy exiting scenarios.

3) Allow retargeting same spot with additional artillery strike without new spotting. (Very annoying when your barrage fails to take out anti-tank gun and you have to wait to "respot". Mechanically, it might be possible to allow targeted locations to act as TRPs for future strikes.)

Interesting. These three keep coming up. That must be a clue or something

6) At end of battle, I'd like to be able to download the stats, not just look at units. Kind of like Japanizers tool, but built into the game. Also, it would be nice to know how many guys were killed by off-map artillery.

Yeah, that would be pretty cool I agree.