Unit Viewer

[Rosmarus]

Good evening everyone!

After laying awake last night and contemplating life and everything it entails I started to wonder the beauty of unit models in Combat Mission game series. And the more I wondered the more I became frustrated that to my knowledge there is no way to look at those models, apart from firing up a scenario and oogling at them. This realization came with another thought: wouldn't it be nice if we had some sort of unit viewer in the game? A list of all the assets from handguns to tanks and an ability to look at the model, spin them around and take in all the utilitarian beauty these things have to offer. If one wants to add more use to the viewer you could also add unit specs into the UI so that you could familiarize yourself with the look of the said unit and with the specifications. 

Now I am not a game developer nor even an IT professional, far from that. I have no idea how much work this feature would require to made it into the game, but I do feel that some of the gorgeous models go to waste because there simply are no scenarios with them or they are just simply too few and far between to be really noticed. What say you, my fellow grognards and war gaming enthusiasts? Am I being delirious and simply asking for things not meant for mere mortals or is there something worth pondering here?

Also you must forgive my writing as the hour is late and I'm sleep deprived.

[Michael Emrys]

I think this falls into the category of "nice but not a high priority". The small development team has to prioritize its time productively, and there are a whole lot of things that would go on the list above the item you mention. On the other hand, if it happened to be something that could be created in a single afternoon, you just might see it pop up one of these days.

Michael

[Warts 'n' all]

Given the fact that the manuals contain details of all the weapons, and there are already such things as "weapons showcase" scenarios. I'd have to agree with Mike.

[Heirloom_Tomato]

14 hours ago, Rosmarus said:

Good evening everyone!

After laying awake last night and contemplating life and everything it entails I started to wonder the beauty of unit models in Combat Mission game series. And the more I wondered the more I became frustrated that to my knowledge there is no way to look at those models, apart from firing up a scenario and oogling at them. This realization came with another thought: wouldn't it be nice if we had some sort of unit viewer in the game? A list of all the assets from handguns to tanks and an ability to look at the model, spin them around and take in all the utilitarian beauty these things have to offer. If one wants to add more use to the viewer you could also add unit specs into the UI so that you could familiarize yourself with the look of the said unit and with the specifications. 

Now I am not a game developer nor even an IT professional, far from that. I have no idea how much work this feature would require to made it into the game, but I do feel that some of the gorgeous models go to waste because there simply are no scenarios with them or they are just simply too few and far between to be really noticed. What say you, my fellow grognards and war gaming enthusiasts? Am I being delirious and simply asking for things not meant for mere mortals or is there something worth pondering here?

Also you must forgive my writing as the hour is late and I'm sleep deprived.

It would be fairly straightforward to set something like this up in the editor. Create a flat map and then add in one of every type of unit available in the game. Make one up with say all the vehicles and an other with all the infantry and heavy weapons.  You could then look at the units as they appear in game and read all about them in the manual.

One could even setup a small village as a target range and shoot up the houses to see how each vehicle sounds, it's rate of fire, and to an extent how effective the unit might be.

Crack open the editor, pick a unit or vehicle you want to know more about, load them in and then go play around with them in your own little sandbox. It will be just like being a kid again!