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Improvement suggestions


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  • 2 weeks later...
2 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

More movie modes (although they don´t necessarily need having a movie style touch) from the ALT-M key combo. A couple of useful shader file edits have been made from users the past years and it would be nice to have get them integrated, or referenced to from the bumpmapping.frag file.

I found the Movie Mode too bland for my taste. But without it the colours seemed too bright. I used nvidia's digital vibrance ( saturation ) setting and lowered it to 25% which works well for me. It takes the edge off the bright colour without being bland. As an additional benefit the screen seems much easier on my eyes.

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1 hour ago, z1812 said:

I found the Movie Mode too bland for my taste. But without it the colours seemed too bright. I used nvidia's digital vibrance ( saturation ) setting and lowered it to 25% which works well for me. It takes the edge off the bright colour without being bland. As an additional benefit the screen seems much easier on my eyes.

Do you refer to the stock games movie shader (ALT_M) or one the modded ones like this?

 http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=2747

Or another tweak like this one?

http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=2566

As additional idea one could also add more "Artificial bright night" (ALT_B) variations, with different steps of darkness or other tweaks. All at repeatedly stepping through ALT_B key presses.

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50 minutes ago, Erwin said:

It's impressive how much one can achieve re visual improvements with NVidia controls alone. 

yes, that for sure, but it´s not about having a single setting for all cases rather having more variations for special cases like "rain" ect. switchable during game play. I think the frag/vert shader files could provide for such multiple cases if they would be structured and beeing accessed from with ALT-M. I made my own personal frag file some time ago, but more accessible entries would be desirable.

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3 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Do you refer to the stock games movie shader (ALT_M) or one the modded ones like this?

All of the above. I have tried  BarbaricCo's modded shaders and found they negatively affected anti-aliasing when viewing close up. The stock one was too bland for me.

I also tried reshade and I liked the results but for the psychedelic renderings when advancing the turn............it broke the immersion for me.

I do have Rambler's Night Vision Mod installed and I find it works well with my nvidia settings.

Edited by z1812
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4 hours ago, z1812 said:

All of the above. I have tried  BarbaricCo's modded shaders and found they negatively affected anti-aliasing when viewing close up. The stock one was too bland for me.

I also tried reshade and I liked the results but for the psychedelic renderings when advancing the turn............it broke the immersion for me.

I do have Rambler's Night Vision Mod installed and I find it works well with my nvidia settings.

I´ll definitely try that Reshader thing out, once I have my new computer!

It´s true anti aliasing beeing affected somewhat negatively and I wonder why it is so. :blink:

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Based on testing the no "floating unit icons" mod in a running PBEM, I oftenly find myself wishing to directly jump to a certain pixeltrooper if he reports something like "enemy contact sighted", or "enemy tank ahead" ect. in order to more quickly see, what he sees on the battlefield. Brief flashing (friendly) floating icons (or color change) and maybe also something in the unit info tab might be thinkable, so one gets quick access (jump to) to that certain ptroopers and his unit by key/mouse click. If it´s a leader using binocs, it could be paired with a preset, switchable  zoom at 6x (10x or anything common in WW2) if desired.

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On 10/2/2018 at 10:30 PM, DerKommissar said:

A CM1 feature I always desperately wanted in CM2 is random map generation. I really liked the CM1 one. That would really take CM2 to new heights (get it?).

a "simplified random map generator" that allows to quickly generate a map of particular size and terrain contours only would probably suffice. This one can be used to "creatively" fill the map with other content by the map/mission designer. I used it in CMX1 quite a lot (create random map and then delete everything but the contours). Having just the contour lines, I determined low lying areas where possibly creeks, ponds and lakes would likely be. Then determining flat or rather sloped terrain to be then either valid candidates for forestation and cultivation. Then comes finding valid places for farmsteads, towns and other buildings, followed by plausible lines of communication. Then spice it up creatively and work out details. Urbanizing such a map then is also fairly simple. How would´ve developed that farmstead into a village? Village to town and up? Maps created this way look quite realistic and naturally IMO. Having such a map finished more or less, possible scenario (or QB) creation ideas then develop rather quickly. B)

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  • 3 months later...

A few things I've been thinking about while playing and making my own scenario which could be nice to have:

32 Ai groups instead of only 16 would help to split battalions or companies up more, for the use of encirclement, when making custome made scenarios with large or huge maps.

Lorries and halftracks can be used to tow antitanks and field guns and it would be nice to be able to use a tanks and halftracks to pull vehicles up from being bogged so they don't get immobilized.

The crew of a tank or halftrack should be able to operate any vehicle of the same kind (tank for tank crew and halftracks for halftrack crew) whether it's a heavy, medium or light. But if a tank crew jumps into a type of tank they haven't been in before they laft their own tank they could maybe operate the "new" tank like a green unit or something no matter their experience in their own tank.

Any crew or squad unit should be able to drive a lorry. Two men of the squad could sit in the front seats and the other ones, if they're still alive, would sit in the back with the equipment they can require.

When using artillery to shoot up an area where there are mines, the mines are untouched in the game and will still harm the vehicles and men stepping on them. Would be better if artillery could make the mines blow up on a direct or close hit.

Improved line of sight so the squads see through the woods exactly what the player can see from the same spot would be great to have. And improved line of fire so the squads can shoot at what they see even if they are further into the woods.

The square areas where to move units (men and technical equipment) could be smaller as a way to have more variation in where to position them. It seems units are positiones in the corner of these squares. If the squares were smaller it wouldn't be so frustrating to position a squad closer to where you want them.

When a unit is moving slow (crawling) they seem to be coded to have their face turned to the ground below them and not to be aware of the surrounding area. Many times a unit has been crawling a few meters away from an enemy vehicle and not been able to see nor hear it until he is stopped. I hope that will be changed so the units in crawling slow mode actually are able to see what is close by and react to it. 

 

Men crawling (slow movement) by an enemy tank.jpg

Edited by BornGinger
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1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

A few things I've been thinking about while playing and making my own scenario which could be nice to have:

32 Ai groups instead of only 16 would help to split battalions or companies up more, for the use of encirclement, when making custome made scenarios with large or huge maps.

For sure with bigger scenarios we could use more. Personally I would like to see the AI editor overhauled so there are no limits. It's just a list after all so just add more. But that would require a different UI so that's not something we are likely to see any time soon.

Agreed - perhaps one day.

 

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

Lorries and halftracks can be used to tow antitanks and field guns and it would be nice to be able to use a tanks and halftracks to pull vehicles up from being bogged so they don't get immobilized.

Retrieving stuck equipment is outside of the scope of CM. Steve has commented on this type of thing before. Remember CM represents the pointy end of the battle. Having guys hooking towlines and digging things out while potentially under fire is not a normal occurrence. Even if you can imagine a large map and stuck vehicles a long way from the fighting the game is just not designed for recovery ops. I highly doubt given Steve's previous comments that it will change. I was unable to find the post I was thinking about. If anyone else can find it please post.

 

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

The crew of a tank or halftrack should be able to operate any vehicle of the same kind (tank for tank crew and halftracks for halftrack crew) whether it's a heavy, medium or light. But if a tank crew jumps into a type of tank they haven't been in before they laft their own tank they could maybe operate the "new" tank like a green unit or something no matter their experience in their own tank.

Yeah, also something that Steve has ixnayed before. Apart form the simple fact that crews of tanks and ACs that lost their ride did not normally jump into another tank (other than COs occationally), Steve has also said he feared gamey behaviour coming from that. I'm not sure how that would work but honestly, I think the current way is more realistic anyway. I cannot find Steve's own words but @ASL Veteran has a great post about this:

 

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

Any crew or squad unit should be able to drive a lorry. Two men of the squad could sit in the front seats and the other ones, if they're still alive, would sit in the back with the equipment they can require.

That might be reasonable. I'm not really sure what the "rules" are for who can drive what. There is another thread going about CMSF where the rules for who can drive a Hummer, taxi and pickup truck are different.

 

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

When using artillery to shoot up an area where there are mines, the mines are untouched in the game and will still harm the vehicles and men stepping on them. Would be better if artillery could make the mines blow up on a direct or close hit.

Artillery absolutely does detonate mines. You can even clear a mine field if you blast things enough.

 

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

Improved line of sight so the squads see through the woods exactly what the player can see from the same spot would be great to have. And improved line of fire so the squads can shoot at what they see even if they are further into the woods.

Yeah, I don't think this is really a problem. Forests are tricky and the game abstracts some of it so we are not likely to see changes and personally I don't think it is bad that there is some unpredictability in forests. I'll concede that being able to thread the needle 1000m through trees is a corner case that sucks but thankfully that doesn't happen much. In my opinion. Here is Steve's post about trees and LOS:

 

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

The square areas where to move units (men and technical equipment) could be smaller as a way to have more variation in where to position them. It seems units are positiones in the corner of these squares. If the squares were smaller it wouldn't be so frustrating to position a squad closer to where you want them.

The 8m action squares are a compromise for computations. It does lead to some limitations. Honestly though I have never felt that solider positioning was one of them. The face command and the Tac AI does a pretty good job. We shouldn't really be able to position every single solider that's a lot of work. My advice is to let go and let your men figure out what is best for them :) . Yeah, I know that's a dumb idea right :D

 

1 hour ago, BornGinger said:

When a unit is moving slow (crawling) they seem to be coded to have their face turned to the ground below them and not to be aware of the surrounding area. Many times a unit has been crawling a few meters away from an enemy vehicle and not been able to see nor hear it until he is stopped. I hope that will be changed so the units in crawling slow mode actually are able to see what is close by and react to it.

Interesting. They are supposed to have good situational awareness while slow moving. One possibility given your pictures is that they cannot see from prone position but when the kneel they can given the terrain. Does this happen out in the open? If it did then I don't think that would be right.

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Breach Teams for Uncons in CM:SF2.....Minor tweak but it would make a big difference to those of us who use them (adding pickups to the Single Vehicles list would be nice too).

The ability to set all vehicles as either genuinely dismounted or as ammo dumps across all the games.....More freedom to swap crews would be awesome.

The ability to attach smaller Formations to larger ones might be cool too.

Edited by Sgt.Squarehead
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For CMx3: 

  • Crouched run. Some way of moving faster than the crawl while keeping a relatively low profile. 
  • A new target order exclusively for throwing grenades (while staying prone/in cover, if possible). In close assault situations, you don't want your riflemen to stand up and go "peng, peng, peng!". You want them to go "boom!"
  • An easier way (requiring fewer clicks) to make soldiers stay prone but NOT withhold their fire. Right now, the way to go is to use a "hide" command in combination with a 360° target arc (which in turn, means that you can't fine tune the facing/usage of cover). Also, the hide command reduces spotting capabilites (soldiers go through "hide" tasks, not just idle and spotting).
Edited by Kaunitz
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  • Sound improvements. This is pretty obvious as I think almost every CM player uses some kind of sound mod. Even if the devs don't want to invest in some proper sounds (hire that guy from Post Scriptum! :D ), it would be nice to have at least two sounds per weapon. One to be played at short range to the listener/camera, with more "pop" and higher frequencies, one for long range with the higher fequencies died-out and more echo. Also, sounds should keep their maximum volume longer/in a larger area. This should help against unwanted sound-recon by the players (you can almost pin-point a firing unit just by tracking its sounds). Also, it gives weapons their proper volume - you should hear a rifle shot pretty loud over the whole map, not just within 30 meters (theoretically depending on terrain, of course). Right now, you amplify sounds a lot (--> noise) to make them loud enough. 
  • This veteran (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTE9BPmiZNo, ca. at 18:30, if I remember correctly) gives an account of his attempt to blow up a german pillbox. Reminded me that it would be nice to actually have those shutters for pilboxes (and fortifications in general). I don't know how common they were, but they certainly make sense? They could work like button up/open up for vehicles. [Also interesting, he mentions that he considered it to be a big disadvantage to have to fire into the dark of the pillbox's back door, while the germans in the pillbox would be able to see him in full light --> "flashlight" lol. Somewhere in the video, he mentions a whistle as a starting signal for an assault]
  • I also wondered whether it would be good to add some additional psychological factors. For example: A morale "buff" for intact friendly tanks close by. A "debuff" for hearing enemy MGs (close by? / inflicting at least a bit of suppression?)
Edited by Kaunitz
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I would really like to see improvements to sounds - they are a big part of immersion for me, and default sounds, particularly small arms fire, could do with some changes. CMRT in particular.

I also think a throw grenades command would be a great improvement. 

Edited by AlexUK
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2 minutes ago, snarre said:

you have grenade throw command all ready whit target order , tjust has to be enough close. 

I know that a target order at short range also triggers the use of grenade. The grenade throwing is quite staggered and unreliable though. When you assault a house or a pillbox or whatever, it really counts. You don't want your guys to wait, or even worse, fire their rifles than to throw their grenades. 

28 minutes ago, IanL said:

LOL seriously? The vast majority of players don't play with any mods at all.

Yes, seriously. The sound effects in combat mission games are disappointing. 

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6 hours ago, snarre said:

you have grenade throw command all ready whit target order , tjust has to be enough close. 

There are a few problems with that in my experience.

Grenades are not thrown rapidly, the throwing can be spread out. I would rather have several thrown at the same time.

Also, smgs will also often fire, this using up the clip and reloading as they are charging in.

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1 hour ago, Kevin2k said:

Are the sounds not realistic enough or not Hollywood enough?

That's a good point. 

One of the default sounds that to me sounds really off is the soviet wheeled MG (I think that's the one - travelling)

Edited by AlexUK
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2 hours ago, Kevin2k said:

Are the sounds not realistic enough or not Hollywood enough?

It's simply the overall quality of the sounds and the improvement potentials I've mentioned above (volume decreases too fast over distance, no differentiation between close and distant sounds). I can't tell how realistic or unrealistic individual weapon sounds are, but the the above mentioned issues are certainly "unrealistic". Generally speaking, other games' sound just strikes me as vastly more immersive (e.g. Post Scriptum). 

Off topic, through my interest for Combat Mission and sound-mods, I've been learning a bit about "combat sounds". For example I didn't know about supersonic bullet "cracks". Recently, I've also read in a veteran's account that mortar bombs struck silently, contrary to the "incoming whistle" that is so popular in movies and games?  At some point I even tried to figure out (via internet research ...) whether you could hear incoming artillery shells. As far as I can remember, I learned that you could certainly hear them whistle by when they were flying over your heads, but as for the location of their impact, I was not sure whether the "whistle" traveled fast enough to arrive at the target faster than the shell/explosion. 

Sound is just such an important aspect of immersion! 

Edited by Kaunitz
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