The unwish list: Difficult to code features on which precious development resources were best spent elsewhere.

[Sequoia]

Indulge me if you will. Likely every game series in existence has wish list threads and the Combat Mission series is no exception. Now none of us who are not part of the Battlefront paid staff  know what the CMX1 Engine is capable of, but I wanted to list in this thread features that (as I recall) Steve has stated would be development time sinks versus the benefits they would provide. I am also going to make some conjectures on other such features, though I will admit my conjectures will be without me having any understanding of the Engine.  Feel free of course to disagree and say why, and also add to the list.  I'm also aware many of you already know all of this. Here goes:

 

Lots more animations. Animations are I'm told expensive and time consuming to make them look right. Don't expect much more unless they would be absolutely required for a new feature. Especially don't expect hand to hand animations as it would be way out of Battlefront's budget to make them look anything but silly. 

Vast improvement in tactical AI. Coding game AI is truly a case of diminishing returns. Sure the AI will do stupid things on occasion but humans in combat (and everything else for that matter) do stupid things as well.

P.S. We have seen  (or will see) improvements to AI where necessary such as the  troops in trenches breaking. My point is game AI improvements reach a point of diminishing returns. 

Medics and medical evacuation. Entirely new behavior to code, lots of new animations and distracting from the main purpose of the game. Also I believe in reality they are not directed by the battle commander as the commander has plenty else to do.

Amphibious landings with landing craft. Yes we have amphibious vehicles already but going beyond that to add landing craft-infantry and landing craft-tanks plus the required fortifications, beach obstacles etc to allow for beach landing scenarios would take at lot of resources for what was a very small percentage of the combat that occurred.  Even if they did it many people would not be satisfied unless ocean waves, men and vehicles in deep water, drownings, etc were added.

Horses. Yes humanities most useful work animal did still play a large role in WWII in the Soviet, German (and probably Italian but that's a guess) armies, but they would be difficult to code as they would be something that was both  transport and alive plus they would require a huge amount of new animations.

The 3rd dimension. Sorry but I doubt we will ever see men dropping in parachutes or gliders or helicopters landing. In most cases these events did not happen under fire so like beach landings the amount of new coding for a small percentage of times it would happen would be better spent elsewhere.

The next two are conjecture:

Flares and night illumination rounds. We did not have this in CMX1 and not hint of it in CMX2. I'm thinking this may be difficult to code perhaps due to the behavior of the flare or round. IIRC the rounds hang from a parachute. It seems like a lot of physics to code.

More engineering vehicles. We have mine-flail vehicles but I doubt we'll ever see more than that, such as tanks with bulldozer blades. Yes they were useful but how many times were they used under fire?

 Thanks for reading.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Sequoia
PS

[A Canadian Cat]

Cool idea for a thread.

I would add a major reworking of the ammo resupply to make it more realistic but also more flexible. It currently plays a useful role and making it more of a thing would not really add much.

Your last two flares and more engineering vehicles are actually ones I would like to see. But your analysis is correct - plenty of work for limited gain. I just would put those at the to of this low priority list

[A Canadian Cat]

I just remembered the one I thought of as I was reading your post but forgot about when I started writing:

Dynamic spreading fire. I know I want it too. Just the amount of work to get something reasonable seems huge and plenty of cases just will not be a factor (rain, snow, muddy ground etc).

[Sequoia]

I do hope my memory is of such that I have not put words in Steve's mouth.

[A Canadian Cat]

I think it was a pretty good summary and I don't think you were trying say "Steve said" anyway, so ,I think you are good to go.

[IICptMillerII]

I'll bite.

1 hour ago, Sequoia said:

Lots more animations. Animations are I'm told expensive and time consuming to make them look right. Don't expect much more unless they would be absolutely required for a new feature. Especially don't expect hand to hand animations as it would be way out of Battlefront's budget to make them look anything but silly.

Agreed. I think that if CM were to change/improve/overhaul how it looks, animations would be the place to start. I personally think that vehicle models look really good, soldier models look good, and buildings/etc look ok, but nothing looks bad. If I were in charge and wanted a facelift, I would work on adding in more and varied animations. I definitely agree with you though that this is time consuming and not really necessary at the moment. I would rather have more modules for games than an animation upgrade pack. I'm sure I'm not alone there either. 

1 hour ago, Sequoia said:

Medics and medical evacuation. Entirely new behavior to code, lots of new animations and distracting from the main purpose of the game. Also I believe in reality they are not directed by the battle commander as the commander has plenty else to do.

For me this falls under the animations category. While it would likely take a lot of time to code new medic behaviors (such as dragging wounded behind cover, etc) I think the vast majority of the work done would have to go into making the new animations, making it unfeasible.  

1 hour ago, Sequoia said:

Amphibious landings with landing craft. Yes we have amphibious vehicles already but going beyond that to add landing craft-infantry and landing craft-tanks plus the required fortifications, beach obstacles etc to allow for beach landing scenarios would take at lot of resources for what was a very small percentage of the combat that occurred.  Even if they did it many people would not be satisfied unless ocean waves, men and vehicles in deep water, drownings, etc were added.

I agree. I think we already have enough with vehicles that are amphibious (BTR, BMP, etc) having the capability modeled is enough. I am personally hoping for the DUKW boats to be added in the CMFB module for some Rhine river crossing scenario's, but that wouldn't bring with it a whole new set of mechanics like you mentioned. 

1 hour ago, Sequoia said:

Horses. Yes humanities most useful work animal did still play a large role in WWII in the Soviet, German (and probably Italian but that's a guess) armies, but they would be difficult to code as they would be something that was both  transport and alive plus they would require a huge amount of new animations.

Agreed. They would be cool in a few select scenario's primarily on the Eastern Front (predominantly in time periods that are not yet covered) but that would be it. Definitely not worth the trouble. 

1 hour ago, Sequoia said:

The 3rd dimension. Sorry but I doubt we will ever see men dropping in parachutes or gliders or helicopters landing. In most cases these events did not happen under fire so like beach landings the amount of new coding for a small percentage of times it would happen would be better spent elsewhere.

Agreed here as well. Most of this would just be eye candy, and while eye candy can be important, I think it is best developed for other applications. 

1 hour ago, Sequoia said:

Flares and night illumination rounds. We did not have this in CMX1 and not hint of it in CMX2. I'm thinking this may be difficult to code perhaps due to the behavior of the flare or round. IIRC the rounds hang from a parachute. It seems like a lot of physics to code.

More engineering vehicles. We have mine-flail vehicles but I doubt we'll ever see more than that, such as tanks with bulldozer blades. Yes they were useful but how many times were they used under fire?

I agree with @IanL in that I would actually like to see both of these things eventually added to the game. The flares would likely be a pain to code into the game for various engine related reasons, but this is the kind of thing I would expect to see in an engine upgrade. Though I agree that it is likely on the lower end of the priority list, and for good reason. 

As to the engineering vehicles, I actually disagree here. I think that to add a few tanks with mine plows in the modern titles wouldn't be a terrible amount of work. The way I see it, a lot of the coding has already been done for the Sherman crab tanks in CMBN. I figure that a decent chunk of that code could be translated to an M1 (or T-72/etc) with a mine plow for a similar effect. The tank with the mine plow is able to clear mines as it rolls over them, when the plow is deployed. Of course there would be some model and texture work to do, but I think that out of everything on this list, mine plows are likely the easiest to implement into the game. I would certainly pay for an engineering vehicle pack, even if it only included a few tanks with mine plows added.

I think an engineering vehicle pack starts to get less likely when you talk about all the other variants of engineering vehicles. The ABV for example, with its mine plow and 2 MICLIC launchers would take a lot more time and effort to code and model/texture. I would love to see it eventually added (at the least the MICLIC in it's towed trailer) but I think this is far less likely as it strays into diminishing return  territory. 

 

Nice idea for a thread! Hope the good conversation lasts 

[Frenchy56]

Does the game have a dynamic light spotting system?

For example, if a unit is close to a burning wreck at night, is it easier to spot? Just having that may make flares easier to do.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Frenchy56

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I'm experimenting with a possible means of simulating a MICLIC or other linear charge laying system, that hopefully should (in theory at least) actually clear a path through minefields.....It's 'special effects' rather than a useable unit, but I think it will work.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Sgt.Squarehead

[MikeyD]

No 'what we shouldn't wish for' list wouldn't be complete without a "be careful what you ask for" column. A notorious example of that was players demanding troops be proactive in avoiding incoming artillery. The result was troops fleeing like school girls in silk blouses getting caught in a summer shower. That's since been fixed in the soon-to-release V2.01 (or whatever the number) patch. And yes, that had been added specifically to comply with player requests.

Beta folks have seen stuff that you haven't and know there's a reason why some of this stuff gets delayed/omitted. On-map mortars showed up (very) briefly in one of the earliest CMSF1 Alphas. But it quickly got pulled and it was years before proper coding and animations were in place to bring them back.

My contribution to the 'what were we thinking?' unreasonable demands list was civilians. I had requested a third AI-controlled 'force' layer of just civilians huddling in their houses and fleeing their neighborhoods as the opposing armies clashed. I imagined civilian deaths accumulating negative points to skew the final points total. That request didn't go far.

Edited February 22, 2019 by MikeyD

[Bulletpoint]

2 hours ago, MikeyD said:

a "be careful what you ask for" column. A notorious example of that was players demanding troops be proactive in avoiding incoming artillery. [... ]That's since been fixed in the soon-to-release V2.01 (or whatever the number) patch. And yes, that had been added specifically to comply with player requests.

I'd like to see the thread where players demanded this, but I haven't been able to find it on the forum or elsewhere. Do you have a link?

[Heirloom_Tomato]

Dynamic weather for me is the top of my low priority list. I really want to see snow squalls and thunderstorms roll in, ground thaw in a Spring scenario, freeze up at night in a Fall/early Winter setting. 

Oh and farm livestock. I really want to see a nice pasture full of grazing cattle with a Sherman racing across the background, chickens freaking out of the hen house when a GI busts in, pigs feeding in the apple orchard as an FO calls in fire on a distant target. But whoa be unto Battlefront if they get the genetics wrong. If we see any Norwegian Landrace in Normandy... I will demand a full refund!

[Erwin]

"...vehicle models look really good, soldier models look good, and buildings/etc look ok, but nothing looks bad." 

+1

I think of fun stuff like brothels and MP's showing up in jeeps to arrest drunken out of uniform soldiers...        Crazy, but would add "atmosphere".

Edited February 23, 2019 by Erwin

[snarre]

some new move order types for infantry , performance improve that game engine can handle 3+ battalion size battles and more AI triggers + Ai groups to editor. 

[Bulletpoint]

9 hours ago, Heirloom_Tomato said:

chickens freaking out of the hen house when a GI busts in

Of all the things I've seen people wish for, this gets my award 

[Wicky]

I'd like to see dynamic weather implemented - but with a scenario lasting only an hour or two at most would it be worth it...

Edited February 23, 2019 by Wicky

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, Wicky said:

I'd like to see dynamic weather implemented - but with a scenario lasting only an hour or two at most would it be worth it...

It would be worth it for early morning scenarios with fog - that usually lifts quite quickly once the sun gets up.

[Glubokii Boy]

18 hours ago, Sequoia said:

 

 My point is game AI improvements reach a point of diminishing returns. 

 

IMHO Combat Mission has not reached that point yet.

The fact that it is close to impossible to design a GOOD AI attacking scenario is reason enough to keep working on the AI. 

[Bulletpoint]

I think it should not be up to the customers to curb their enthusiasm and hopes/ideas for the game, but to the game developer to decide which ideas to include and which ideas to discard.

In the end, it's their game and their decision and responsibility what to do. I see no reason to hold back our ideas and suggestions...

[RockinHarry]

low priority...hmm.... dynamic weather would be it, but looks for different weather situations are amongst the things fairly simple to implement, either by means of shader settings, or object/terrain texture variation. Since these things can be modded into the game already, I would consider this also beeing secondary.

More animations...also seconday until absolutely necessary. Currently I´d be more interested how they´re handled with regards to cover, spotting and the like for individual pixeltroopers.

Vast improvements for TacAI.... surely depends. On micro level things appear to work sufficiently well actually, but when it comes to moving formations, coordination and such, there´s plenty of room to improve left.

Medics and medical evacuation... secondary as well, as it would be a new simulation sort of in the simulation and surely distracting from more important things. From a coder POV surely a hell lot of things to consider to get something like that halfway right.

Amphibious landings with landing craft..... another seperate simulation chunk put into the simulation. Rubber boats would be nice... but then the question... how to simulate carrying, embarking, moving, debarking and what about the rubber boat at last? Also deserves a whole new simulation block to be interconnected properly with the main simulation. 

Horses and 3rd dimension... until a future game engine relying on top notch hardware and 64 Bit OS likely a complete nogo. The ARMA game series is surely a good alternative til then.

Flares and night illumination rounds.... secondary, although I do not think it would be that hard to implement. Flares are projectiles as any else in the game and if there´s time chunks left to simulate every single small arms round, until it hits anywhere on the map, that shouldn´t be the problem. I usually do not play night battles so I don´t know if burning wrecks i.e provide some illumination to the surrounding area. Otherwise we just have 2 omni lights in the game sun/moon and 1 hidden I think), so adding one or more moving  lights also providing proper shadowing from the arcing 3D point, might overtax the game engine too much. With regards to unit spotting and targeting abilities, things can likely be abstracted some by adding an invisible cone of light projected from the flare, increasing to be spotted chances in this area. Fairly sure that ASL and similar boardgames have rules for that, but CM is wholy 3D and BFC told that they´ll remain in that domain.

More engineering vehicles... for WW2 series no need for it I think (although Hobarts funnies would be quite nice). Modern titles... likely more valid to have, but I lack knowledge on modern gear and conflicts. To me personally....secondary.

More sophisticated AI plans for the AIP... a mixed bag. While I personally find it fun to toy with AI plans, I´d actually wished more for an AIP that´s able to execute simple plans without that much interference from a mission designer. Triggers IMHO would also make more sense here , when the AIP could be learned some basic formation movement, combat and coordination principles. There´s so much that can go awry when the designer gives too many and too complicated orders at the whole. As a player battling an AIP that is given very detailed orders to make it act like a real commander, one can beat it even more easily knowing one just needs to aggressively interrupt the AIP at various times/places in his carefully setupped battle plans and cause total confusion. One can hardly add that many "if-then" branches to account for any such many cases.

major reworking of the ammo resupply.... I´d at least wish for addition of those ammo types that are currently left out, like hand/smoke and rifle grenades...but otherwise I´d find the current ammo system fairly sufficient.

Also to consider.... if it makes sense adding something to the game, would it fit to the whole game series, or just a particular game? 

[Erwin]

14 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Flares are projectiles as any else in the game and if there´s time chunks left to simulate every single small arms round, until it hits anywhere on the map, that shouldn´t be the problem

Good point.  When one sees an ATGM fired at night, it basically looks like a fast-moving flare, and burning vehicles illuminate the surrounding area.  The main difference is that a flare would have to have a greater area of illumination.  Maybe that is the issue?

[AlexUK]

I would guess that if the objective of a flare is to increase spotting ability, then that would be the big issue (I can imagine loads of complaints if it was just eye candy)

[Macisle]

CMx2 has superb vehicle models and very good soldier models (I really like the infantry). Stock textures improve with each release, but mods show that the current engine can display truly excellent textures as well.

As far as the list goes, I'd very much agree that things like horses, enhanced medics and landing craft are not worth the resource investment. I would really like to see enhanced infantry animations, but agree that they may fall under the not-worth-the-cost banner. Other things in that category might be additional modular building pieces to add more life-like variation. I'd love to see them, but they may not truly be worth the expense.

Night lighting improvements and flares...dunno, it depends. There could be some good juice there. On the other hand, it may be more of a CMx3 thing, as the heightened visuals might trigger a cascade of other needs to fit the combat they would create. Overall, I'd put those in the CMx3 file.

AI improvements: This one depends on what level you are talking about. The TacAI is largely in the area of diminishing returns. But, there are some possible exceptions, along with additional command functionality that might be worth the investment:

• If more than one soldier is available for buddy aid, having one grab the LMG after a short delay while the other does the buddy aid would be great. Or, like HMG teams do now, have the LMG simply pass to another squad member when the gunner goes down -- maybe after a short delay. As things stand, I think it is unrealistically easy for squads to lose their LMG support when the current gunner goes down.
• Being able to split off as many two-man teams as you want would reduce unrealistic attrition caused by TacAI rough edges and allow for more tactical maneuver and better spacing.
• The ability to customize the weapon mix of a team by drag and dropping soldiers (same overall squad only) would be great. This could facilitate realistic touches like pairing the SL (binocs) with the LMG in a two-man overwatch team while still creating an assault team or two to go forward. This can be done to various degrees now depending on the unit, but having detailed control for any unit would be a very nice addition indeed.
• Target Heavy command for infantry that increases their likelihood of using grenades.
• Rally Point: Give the player the ability to pre-assign a path or point that a routing unit will follow/return to. This would help eliminate suicidal rout. An alternative is to simply code "rout rules" ala ASL that make it impossible for units to rout towards known enemy units if safer option are available. If ASL can do it, computers can do it.

If I could choose only one thing from the above, it would be the fast recovery of the LMG.

Now, for an area where A LOT of room for improvement exists: Editor AI Plan features. The following would cut work time for scenario designers and massively facilitate their creativity:

• 32+ AI Groups. We have plenty of order slots now, but 16 groups is VERY limiting for anything above company size. 32+ Groups would allow for a much more sophisticated, human-like AI plan. This is my top choice BY FAR for any Editor feature additions. From my point of view, it would be well-worth the investment, unless there is a hidden code roadblock or ramification.
• 8+ Independent Terrain Triggers. Right now, designers must sacrifice their limited terrain objective slots to use as terrain triggers. I'd make them independent and offer at least 8 slots.  In combination with 32+ AI groups, this would really give designers the ability to facilitate good local counterattacks.
• Point-neutral exits. This would simply add the option to have friendly exits (most likely along the friendly map edge) that don't affect points in the game. That way, the designer could do things like have AI heavy assault guns enter the map, attack a target, and then exit. Or, in an extended H2H game, you could exit units that are out of ammo/spent to unclutter the map and free up computer power. Lots of potential here for designer creativity.
• AI Rally - Causes routed AI units attempt to return to their last order location. Non-routed units stay in place. So, for example, if you have a platoon holding a street block, those still in place would hold their position, while any units that had been forced to retreat would reoccupy the buildings as if following the last movement (or setup) order.
• AI Elevation Change. Have units move up or down in buildings. This functionality current exists in rough form, but I'd like to see it refined to make sure that groups don't leave their current buildings and allow the designer to choose specific floors in combination with hide/unhide.
• Additional Reinforcement Groups with Trigger Functionality.  Current reinforcement functionality doesn't offer enough slots for larger scenarios. More groups and adding trigger functionality would hugely facilitate designer creativity and make the AI feel more human-like.
• AI Artillery Enhancement. Allow the designer to specify units (single or multi) and delays. Also, allow arty smoke to occur anytime during a scenario and be trigger-able.
• AI Area Fire Heavy. Would make the AI fire like a standard player Target command. Current AI Fire limits fire to stretch ammo supply. in conjunction with Point-Neutral exits for out-of-ammo units, AI Area Fire Heavy would add a lot of human-like lethality to the AI.
• AI Button Up. Currently, the AI will start unbuttoned even if the designer buttons them during Editor deployment. He should have the ability to make them button up. Soviet AFVs under AI control really suffer from this. Most have four-man crews and are slower to spot than German vehicles anyway.  That means that as things stand, Soviet AI AFVs have a very good chance of becoming 3-man blind mice quickly during a scenario.

I believe the Editor AI Plan enhancements above, especially the first two or three, would be well worth the resource investment. I also think you'd see more scenarios coming out, as they would reduce designer workload by reducing the testing time needed for current Editor limit workarounds, while boosting designer satisfaction by facilitating creativity.

[mjkerner]

I agree 100% with all of your improvement suggestions, Macisle, especially the Editor and AI ideas, and Target Heavy. I wouldn’t be surprised if BFC implemented many of them over time.

[RockinHarry]

6 hours ago, Erwin said:

Good point.  When one sees an ATGM fired at night, it basically looks like a fast-moving flare, and burning vehicles illuminate the surrounding area.  The main difference is that a flare would have to have a greater area of illumination.  Maybe that is the issue?

Illumination and shadowing routines are likely the things that would kick in, since disabling shadows (and lighting) in the game is such a nice and easy way to increase FPS. More of that would likely decrease FPS in very noticable ways. OTOH, beside the moon there´s not much light sources during night (ALT-B, gun flashes, tiny fires, burning wrecks...) and the question remains if these light sources illuminate the area in noticable ways, not just visually but also providing extra spotting opportunities. Likely not the best examples to be found at YT, but gives an idea:

 

Signal flares would also be nice and there´s no necessity to provide an extra resource eating light emitting source. Likely more secondary than illumination flares though.

[JoMac]

On ‎2‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 6:32 PM, Bulletpoint said:

I'd like to see the thread where players demanded this, but I haven't been able to find it on the forum or elsewhere. Do you have a link?

Yes, I also remember that Thread for players wanting troops to be more proactive against Incoming Arty...Now, we also needed one for troops being more proactive against Small Arms as well (this way, troops will be more proactive against HE & Small Arms).

Edited February 25, 2019 by JoMc67