Wolfe

Really? Ugh. I don't know enough about Macs to make a real suggestion, but if it helps the files are saved in Excel 5.0 format. The only thing I could recommend is to print them out or convert them on someone else's machine. Sorry for the inconvenience. - Chris

Glad to be of service. - Chris

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! [twists moustache and scampers back into the darkness] Thanks! I hope BTS finds it and the other posts here useful. - Chris

... continued (last one, thankfully!) AFV Fighting * Wind that affects shell flight. * Some shells (not just tank rounds, but artillery, grenades, everything) should have small chance of being complete duds due to manufacturing defects. Basically I'm asking for more overall randomness, not a nationality-specific degradation of quality. * Shell graphic color changed to black or dark grey (already done in CMBB) except for back end of shell, which can remain orange to simulate tracer burning. Would make it look more like a solid object traveling through the air rather than a cone of light. * A "gun hit" where the shell completely overpowers the target (i.e. KwK43 vs. Stuart or 17pdr vs. 251/1 HT) should be able to cause crew casualties and vehicle abandonment or even destroy the AFV. * Show "Shot Trap" penetrations separately from "Weak Point" hits. * Show "Mantlet Hit" separate from front turret hit, where applicable. * More detailed armor plates on various tanks (gun shield on Ferdinand, etc.). * Armor rating should not necessarily be uniform over entire tank (e.g 85% on all Panther armor in CMBO). Some plates other than the glacis should be normal rating. In fact, the rating doesn't even have to be listed since neither the tank's crew nor the enemy unit firing at it would have any idea of how good or bad the armor was. * Force switching between shell types when the wrong shell is in the tube (either fire the one in there or take longer to switch). * ROF of open topped AT vehicles should probably be higher than closed-top ones (StuG vs. PzIV vs. Marder; Sherm-76 vs. Hellcat) in many cases, not just the obvious ones like the Hetzer. * Open-topped vehicles should have better chance of detecting an enemy AFV as a sound contact (useful in fog). * Chance of main gun jamming. * SOP of AFV firing HE shell at enemy tank after getting a kill to try to eliminate the crew (but only if there is no other juicy target in immediate area). * SOP of CS (close support) AFVs retreating when enemy tank emerges (e.g. StuH shouldn't sit there and duel with a Sherman; it's not what the tank was intended to do). It's ok for the CS tank to fire at the enemy while retreating or in ambush (not yet targeted by enemy tank), but it shouldn't just sit there and duke it out. * Same for recon vehicles; they shouldn't sit there and take on a thin-skinned tank destroyer. * SOP of CS tanks ignoring small recon vehicles (so long as the recon vehicle isn't a real threat). CS tank should continue on its current task unless it is specifically ordered to engage. * Tanks, when stopping, should lurch forward and not stop on a dime. * Light fast tanks and vehicles, when going over small hills, should be able to "fly" short distances and bounce around on their chassis a bit after landing. Ok, it's completely superfluous, but would be :cool: to see. [NIX? - already in CMBB?] * Between battles in operations, all vehicles should automatically unbutton. * AFVs (and other support units for that matter) should be allowed to decide whether to continue firing at a target that has disappeared (e.g. an enemy MG nest in a building where the MG is pinned because of the fire it received). Would allow the tank to fire at the "last known" location instead of just stopping and waiting for the unit to reappear. * Model gun depression. * Allow for differing levels of hull-down: Track down where the tracks cannot be hit and the lower hull is not exposed. Hull down where only the turret/superstructure can be hit and the hull MG is blocked. Turret down where only the TC and flex MG are visible. For StuGs, "track down" does not exist; only hull-down where the main gun and bow MGs are still exposed. The hunt-to-hull-down command would move tank forward until its main gun is exposed. Hunt-to-observe would move until only the TC/flex MG are exposed. * Tanks that block LOS and incoming fire. Maybe only mostly blocks LOS/incoming FP to represent some of the unit behind still being visible (e.g. inf squad that can't fully hide behind a vehicle). * Some excellent points about tank fighting (e.g. stationary tanks should have better aim than moving tanks and be able to fire very accurately at closely stacked enemy AFVs) can be found in this thread: Biggest Shortcoming of CM System. * When tanks lose a gun, cross out that gun/MG in the stats window. * Allow neutral steering (turning in place) for tanks whose engines allow it. Turning rates for tanks without it should be utterly abysmal (to encourage using reverse and then forward (instead of rotate) in order to change a tank's facing). * Guns that have large allotments of HE relative to its amount of AP (e.g. 75HE vs. 20AP) should not switch to using ineffective HE until the AP becomes critically low (only a few shells left). Preferrably, it would move to cover more often than not if its rounds are repeatedly demonstrated to be useless against the target. Commands and Battlefield Management * Target Wide should have a different color line than normal area fire. It should also let you known via text that it is target wide and not just area fire. * Target Wide option for arty smoke. * Suppressive Fire command for small caliber direct-fire units: like Area fire, but gun (either Flak or MG) sweeps back and forth over entire tile rather than shooting at one point on the ground. Would deliver less FP, but would cover a larger area. Useful against buildings. * Ability to Reverse guns instead of having to move them where they turn around to move back and then turn around again to face forward. * Ability for player to place labels on the ground during a battle to use as markers. Viewable to one side only. Handy reminders for plan of attack. * Ability for player to label individual units. Viewable to one side only. Can be set in-game or by scenario author in the editor. If set in the editor, still must be editable during the battle by player. Can use existing Shift-G to choose the type of unit info to display. * Allow covered arcs to remain on-screen permanently (shouldn't have to hit Shift-X every time you start the game). It's easy enough to turn them off. * Directional wind gauge that changes with camera position. * Have a mode in Infantry labels (Shift-G) that shows which units are hiding/supressed/resting so it's easier to find any units that are/aren't hiding when you want them to. Units * Wider range of naval artillery (not just big 12"~16", but smaller stuff too). * Show difference between US 75mm gun (derived from French 75) and British version (bored out 6pdr). * Show difference between US 57mm AT and Brit 6pdr as well as different 6pdr versions. * Show difference between German 20mm guns (ROF between Flak30 and Flak38). * As many different AFV variants as possible (esp. the different riveted/welded varieties of Stuart, Grant/Lee, etc.). * Model the croc fuel trailers for their explosive qualities. * List of crew positions for AFVs in statistics window. * Include turret speed of all turreted vehicles, even those armed only with MGs. * Show silhouette of support guns in data window. * Tall TDs (e.g. Marders and JagdPanther) should have both an upper hull and a superstructure, even if they are the same armor plate. Short vehicles (e.g. Jagdpanzer IV) should only have upper and lower hull (like StuGs). * Some crazy ideas for representing armor: Have different ratings for armor plates expressing their relative size. A 'Small' upper hull would be less than the size of the lower hull (e.g. M3 Stuart (Stuart I to the Brits)), and would be statistically more difficult to hit than the lower hull. A 'Medium' hull where the upper and lower hull are about the same size (e.g. Tiger). And a Large upper hull (most other tanks) where the UH takes the majority of hits. * Turret fronts that can be Small (PzIV, King Tiger), being half the size (or less) of the upper hull; Medium (Panther), being between 50 and 75% the size of the upper hull; Large (Tiger), being 75% to 100% of the size of the UH; or Very Large (British Bishop, Soviet KV-2) where it is significantly larger than the hull. * Mantlets that can be small, medium, or large. Small mantlets cover less than 50% of the turret front, and allow more shells to hit the turret than the mantlet (JagdTiger). Medium mantlets cover a good deal of the turret front, but not all of it (King Tiger). Large mantlets cover the whole turret front (Panther, PzIII). * Include 'Cheek' turret armor (I don't know a better name for it) that slopes away from the front of the turret like on the King Tiger. This armor would have a thickness and angle rating, but the angle would be how far it slopes away from the front of the turret. Any vertical slope that this plates also possesses would be the same as the side turret armor slope. The 'cheek' armor would also take up part of the turret front reducing the number of hits to the turret (or mantlet). Small cheek armor (Tiger), Medium cheek armor (King Tiger), and Large cheek armor (I can't think of any examples off-hand). * So taking these altogether: ... * The King Tiger would have a Large upper hull, a Small turret, Medium cheek armor set at [approx.] 80 degrees slope (along with the inherent 21 degree vertical slope for a compound angle) that covers about half the turret "front", and a Medium turret mantlet. ... * A Panzer IIIL would have a Small upper hull, a Medium turret, a Large curved mantlet, and no "cheek" armor. ... * Churchill III would have a Medium upper hull, Medium turret, no cheek armor, and no Mantlet (I think ???). ... * The M3 Lee would have a Large upper hull, a Medium Superstructure, and a Small turret. The Superstructure would contain the Large turret front (the 75mm gun) with a Large curved mantlet. The Small turret (containing the 37mm gun) would have a small mantlet. * Camo option in QB and editor screens allows you to buy units with or without camo covering. No camo is less expensive. Camoed unit would naturally be harder to spot. Camo would also use a different set of BMPs (see Mods section below). * Show HQ bonuses that a squad receives on the individual squad's status bar (so you don't have to click its HQ to see what bonuses it is getting). * Show max range, penetration, and blast stats of squad AT weapons in stats window. Other * In QBs it would be nice to be able to select Early war, Mid-war, or Late war which would randomly select a month within a specific time period. Both players should have to input their passwords before they are shown the date selected by the game. * Separate the BMP/WAV files into different compressed files (e.g. different RARs for vehicles, tanks, infantry, support, terrain, buildings). Having to search through one enormous file takes way too long to find and extract a file, especially using RAR. Mods * Renumber all the BMPs to a more convenient format like 0003390c.bmp so BMPs of the same unit are always listed in order. The zeros in front are important. * Multiple slots (a, b, c, d, etc.) for mods for each unit. So one side of Tiger tank in different mods would be 0003390a, 0003390b, 0003390c, etc. allowing a choice between which texture sets are used in-game. Would be nice to get rid of the current BMP swapping when changing texture sets on a vehicle. If the entire alphabet were used, that's 26 different texture sets per unit. :eek: Mod mania! Mod slots A through E could be used for normal summer textures. F through J for summer camo versions. Winter could be V through Z and winter camo Q through U. If no camo exists for a unit, game defaults to summer (or winter, whichever is appropriate) texture. If no winter, then summer texture is used. This would obviously require a screen within the game allowing us to choose which mod slot (A~E) we wish to use for each unit. And the game would also have to check which files are actually present in the BMP directory. And this would be a helluva lot of work, but it's worth it. Trust me. * Alternatively, separate directories for the different mod sets could be used instead of letters at the end of the filename. * Choice between using different textures for both sides of a tank or just one (as it is now in CMBO/CMBB) to save on VRAM. * Moddable bases, mortars, schrecks, etc. * More units portraits (one for each infantry type). * Each gun has its own sound slot. Currently (in CMBO) many of the different 75mm guns share the same wav file. Would be nice if these were different. Even if the game comes with the same sound repeated for all similar 75mm guns (less work to create), having individual slots for each gun will allow much modding goodness. * Choices of different color in-game text and font styles (and background colors for text screens). * Ability to resize text for higher resolutions (oversize 50%, 100%). Also re-sizes in-game toolbar. * Larger menu screen background images for use with higher resolutions. * Choice of grey (or other color) for off-map terrain (the background BMP). * Create a transparent rectangle that is placed *just* overtop of the side BMPs of the turret and hull to allow mod makers to create numbers for each vehicle. All vehicles of the same model could have a series of mods to choose from to use as ID numbers (would be randomly assigned for each new game). Shouldn't take up too many polys and BMPs would be very small, so hit on VRAM wouldn't be severe. Damn, I'm glad I don't have to program this game! - Chris

... continued Unit Interaction with Environment * Glare from sun affects LOS/spotting when looking into the sun. * Skylining. Spotting (but not necessarily identification) of enemy units is increased if they're silhouetted against the sky. Very handy at dawn/dusk. * Snow on the ground increases (slightly) spotting ability at night. * Secondary vehicle explosions affect nearby units (possibly injuring, but mostly supressing). * Heavy shelling of forested areas can reduce the area to a different tile type (e.g. Woods turn into Scattered Trees, but with logs on the ground). AFVs would still not be able to go through the "new" tile because of debris on the ground, but LOS would change, and so would cover, along with chance of getting airbursts from any further artillery. * Be able to cut holes in bocage by driving tank with hedge cutter on it. * Be able to blast holes through bocage and hedge with HE (and arty) blasts and by engineers using demo charges. Bocage should obviously be more resistant to HE than hedges. * Units riding on back of tanks when tank drives through bocage should hop off the tank. * Ability of tanks to shoot through smoke. Would be a very low probability shot, especially if the enemy tank moved even slightly. * Ability of MGs to area fire through smoke and at places they can't see at night. Would significantly reduce MG's FP, but is important for supression. * Guns with small shells and a high ROF (e.g Flak guns) can fire through or into a building using AP in order to suppress enemy infantry units inside like MGs currently can. Right now, the fired shell always impacts on the front facade rather than penetrating. * LOS tool should be able to see a known minefield. Currently, it only shows the ground underneath. * Outgoing firepower for squads within buildings should be lowered to simulate not all units being able to fire effectively out of the structure at the same time. * Mortars shouldn't be allowed to fire from deep within heavily treed areas (Woods, Tall Pines, etc.) because of dense canopy. Mortars would have to get within -say- 5m of the edge of a forest to be able to fire out, and fighting inside of forests would be impossible. However, light mortars which can fire directly can still do their thing in a forested area. This restriction would not affect mortars in Scattered Trees or Orchard tiles (no canopy). * Field guns within a heavily treed area must be within X meters (say 10m) of the edge of the woods in order to be able to fire. Currently, if the gun crew can see out of the forest, they can fire at targets. But in reality, just because you can see a target through the trees doesn't mean your gun can actually get a shell out of the forest. IOW, LOS and ability to fire would be disconnected for these units. Just like the restriction on mortar teams above who need to be within 5m of the edge. * A gun shooting through, over, or into some woods along a very flat trajectory should have a chance of accidentally hitting one of the trees in the wooded area, generating an airburst. Would affect guns shooting into a wooded area more than gun shooting out because a gun shooting out would have a pretty good idea of his surroundings and could better judge whether his shell would get through the trees and low-hanging branches and under-brush. * Unit firing out of woods should have better accuracy than unit shooting into the woods (see above about a gunner in the forest knowing his surroundings). * Always show type of ground unit sits on, not just crater/foxhole. A unit sitting in a crater that is on scattered trees can hide and fight effectively. A unit sitting in a crater that is on open ground is easily supressed and will readily flee to the nearest cover when panicked. Unit behavior * Light Mortar teams that have no minimum range for their mortar and that are within X meters (say 20m) of an enemy unit should fire directly at that unit rather than lob the shell high in the air (assuming the mortar can actually be used in that manner). It's an uncommon occurance, but still ... * Modify gun turning rates so carriage comes into play. i.e. treat most guns like a StuG: tube can traverse +/- X degrees, but beyond that the carriage must turn at its own rate. Some guns (like Flak guns on pintles or guns on platforms (25pdr)) can turn at its fastest rate all the time. * Split squads should remain split unless ordered to rejoin (would obviously need a new 'Rejoin' command). Just because they're close together doesn't necessarily mean I want the squad to recombine. * Running total of kills as movie plays back rather than having everything listed on the kill screen at the beginning. Not very important, and may be hard to do, but would be nice to see. * Allow Infantry units to squirt less ammo per blast (results in lower FP), but faster blasts on multiple targets for close-in fighting. Ammo would naturally drain more slowly (per blast), but would add more hectic sound to close-in fighting. * If each full squad were essentially treated as two half squads (just currently joined), this would allow the squad to target up to two enemy units, giving more opportunity fire (rather than waiting 10~11 secs to fire a full blast). Each "half-squad" burst would drain less ammo per blast (as above) and put down less FP, but would add a good deal to the cacophony of sound and wouldn't completely miss some juicy targets. Watching an enemy unit run safely across a street without receiving any fire whatsoever gets old after a while. I realize you have to reload and don't always get the chance to fire on each enemy unit exactly when you want to, but even in CMBB the delay between bursts seems painfully long to me, particularly for city fighting. * Water-cooled MGs should be capable of long periods of uninterrupted fire. * MGs (including ones on tanks) should be able to cause friendly casualties even during the day when firing close to friendly units. * MG grazing fire. Along the entire flight path of the MG bullets, squads who are near a defined horizontal cylinder of radius 'X' can be affected by the MG fire lane. This horizontal cylinder can have 2 radii: one small that can cause real immediate panic to the whole squad, and one larger radius that can cause supression or even induce the squad to split, each half deciding for themselves whether to continue on their previous path, drop and become pinned, or retreat back where they came from. If an MG fires through smoke, the suppression effects on the other side of the smoke would significantly lessen due to the inherent lack of accuracy. * Infantry should be able to mistakenly target friendly units during dawn/dusk hours. * PIATs, zooks, etc. that re-hide after firing a shot if no other targets are in the immediate area. * Higher ammo loads allowable in the editor (particularly for onboard mortars). Defending units run out much too quickly, even at max loadouts. * Units should not switch targets simply because a more expensive target has appeared. Should only switch if there is a good reason to switch, especially if they've already fired at the current target. The decision to switch targets should also take into account the time it takes to turn and re-aim. Self-preservation (i.e. tank shelling infantry and then an enemy tank shows up), however, would obviously overrule most any current target. * Allow option for units to Abandon (or Destroy) their support weapon or AFV in a scenario. Would be a Scenario/Op-only option (not for QBs), and must be enabled by scenario designer for each unit to have this capability (kinda like Exiting for Points or Digging in vehicles). * Allow capture of intact enemy guns (those not knocked out; only abandoned) to count for more than just their point value in the end. This would not allow you to use the captured gun in the scenario/op, but would simply count for more points. Might also be combined with Abandon command above for enemy to choose whether to abandon or even destroy the gun before retreating (destroying would take longer to abandon and may not succeed, but would deny your opponent the extra points for capturing the gun intact). * Units currently Area firing (e.g. a gun) can stop its area fire command to engage an important target, but then will go back to its previous area fire assignment if no other juicy targets immediately appear. Not just for direct-fire units either; mortars that are currently firing at an out-of-LOS target using an HQ as spotter but temporarily switch to an in-LOS target should be able to resume its firing on the previous target. This is real handy for off-board arty in CMBB (reset target key), but I'd like to see the TacAI be able to do this too. * Tanks or guns can be placed in buildings, but only in the editor or during setup (and only if allowed by the scenario author). No moving into/out of structures during battle. But unlike pillboxes during Ops, allow them to be moved between battles. * If a tank/gun fires from inside a building, there should be a chance the crew will be supressed or button up because of the blast. Same for other units inside the same structure. * When Assaulting a building, infantry should regularly throw grenades in just before entering the structure to try to supress/kill any enemy units hiding inside. * Squads riding on tanks that are KOed automatically split into half-squads when getting off the destroyed vehicle. * After throwing a demo charge, engineers should duck until after the blast. [NIX - already in CMBB] * A pillbox should have a small chance of exploding catastrophically from a hit to its ammo. * Allow squads to be initially mis-identified as teams, not just as 'Infantry?' to simulate only a couple of squad members being spotted initially. * Muzzle flashes from MGs at night; even when the unit hasn't been fully spotted yet. [NIX - CMBB already does this] * Show tracer fire from MGs at night even before the unit has been spotted. * An extra level of spotting between sound contact and knowing the exact location. This new level would place a unit somewhere in the correct 5mx5m tile, but not fix its exact location. The AI would be allowed to target the not-yet-firmly-fixed unit with area fire. Would be especially nice for night fighting. * Infantry should not be able to run directly through a tank, but should have to go around. [NIX? - Already in CMBB?] * Show units that normally lie down when fighting (MGs) as laying on the ground. It shouldn't be that difficult to see the difference between a unit ready to fight and one that is hiding/supressed. Though the head of the AT-Rifleman needs to be elevated a bit more, IMO. * Be able to set different levels of aggressiveness for close air support (Cautious/Normal/Aggressive) in editor. More cautious pilots are less likely to attack for fear of friendly fire incidents (or simulates lack of ground controller to coordinate the attack). More aggressive attack posture indicates positively IDed target or presence of FAC. * Forward air controller - Editor option only (not for QBs). Option to have a TRP associated with an airplane. Could be fixed spot on the map (marked with TRP and colored smoke; both sides would be able to see the smoke) by the scenario designer so it can't be moved or allowed to be placed by player like current TRPs. Plane shouldn't necessarily attack exact spot, however. It should look for enemy positions near the TRP and, if it can spot the target unit, attack. If it can't spot the enemy, it should have the choice of either assuming the ground controller knows what he asked for and simply release its payload onto the target point. Or fire at a nearby spotted enemy unit if the plane thinks the ground spotter got it wrong or mis-placed its smoke marker. In most cases it should just follow orders and attack the TRP. [NIX - already in CMBB] * Ability to play Tophat/Lowsky with SPA. A Hummel firing then retreating to reload would be a beautiful thing. * For that matter, give AFVs the ability to area target while out of LOS, give a move order, and then have the unit begin firing when it can see the target area. * An infantry unit that isn't moving (particularly if it's currently hiding) shouldn't be forced to get up and move when a new unit (particularly one that's routed) occupies its space. The unit that most recently moved into the space should have to find another area to sit down. * When an MG is firing at enemy units, it should be strongly inclined to concentrate on those units that are nearest (esp. within 150m) rather than snipe at an exposed MG or mortar team moving at 400m+ away. * Instead of a single-point attack for strafing planes, have the plane pick two units, start it's attack run at one unit and end at the other. Infantry units in the strafing path should dive/run for cover even if they're not yet being shot at. - Chris

... continued Editor and Terrain/Environment [NIX? - already in CMBB?] * Add light drizzle and driving rain to weather types. * Haze. Heat from desert ground can obscure distant objects. * Be able to specify which edge of the map friendly artillery is firing from and have the shell dispersal pattern match that. * In Operations, when deciding to draw the front lines for an attacker, the game should take as-yet uncrossed bridges into account, preventing areas of land across the bridge from being occupied at the beginning of a battle simply because the attacker is near the land. The river should prevent this from occuring unless the bridge is held. Would likely be messy as the bridge would probably need to be seen as an invisible flag to determine who holds it, but I think it is important to not allow an attacker a "free pass" over a river in an Op just because he holds land near a bend in the river. Ran into this in the Carentan Op in CMBO. * In Operations, not all friendly units should be pushed back to the "friendly edge" of the map if some are far behind enemy lines. Would be nice to be able to attack from multiple directions throughout an Op. * Ability to set reinforcement flags anywhere on a map in an Operation (so these units cannot be repositioned by the player). But keep the current Op Reinforcement system too. * Ability to orient reinforcement flags so units will be properly oriented when entering. * Ability to place "Trigger" flags that trigger specific events (arrival of reinforcements, higher/lower morale for one or both sides). Trigger flags can be invisible, viewable to one, or both sides. Flag can also be named with two different names (one for each side). Flag vanishes after goal met, and has no impact on game scoring. Can be used in Scenarios and Operations. Could be useful for "guiding" the AI. * More different size flags that have different point values. Click on flags to find their value (or have it displayed on or above the flag with text). * Ability to set number of turns a unit is present in a battle/op, afterwhich it vanishes whether it's been used or not (e.g. artillery assets). * Ability to set amount of ammunition a certain unit can have during an Operation (so no re-supply for that particular unit during the Op). * Major and minor terrain labels. Major labels are as they are now. Minor ones would be smaller, a different color, and fade with distance so they don't clutter the screen. * Ability to label reinforcement markers so the stupid scenario author can remember what the Hell they are for. * Hitting Return on a reinforcement marker should bring up a window (like the unit statistics window) that lists what units make up that reinforcement marker and what formation they are to arrive in (wedge, vee, column, etc.). * Reinforcement markers should display the reinforcement slot number (game already does this) as well as the nationality it represents (if multiple nationalities, use the predominant one). * Ability to randomize where reinforcements show up on the map. Multiple reinforcement markers that represent the same reinforcement units that allows you to place the flags at different spots on the map and give each flag a percentage (liklihood the reinforcement will show up at that spot). If you can split a squad, why not split a flag? * Be able to tell in-game which edges of the map are friendly (maybe like Landmarks). * Ability to customize reinforcement text messages (something other than "Reinforcements have arrived"). * Reinforcement slots could have an "Airborne" checkbox. For these flags, units would be placed on-map over a wider area to simulate air drops. How far away units would be from each other would be configurable (near, moderate, far). Units would also always land in half squads, forcing the player to reassemble them. A 'Flak' rating could also be set (none, low, moderate, high) causing casualties in some units and others to never actually arrive. Any units that land in marsh, flooded, or water tiles would be lost or suffer casualties. Would be really neat to see a unit float down with a parachute attached, but that may be pushing it. For glider troops, they would be whole units, but might take some casualties (or even be completely eliminated; showing up as a dead body graphic) when they appear on-map. * Fully transparent buildings. Especially in urban areas, it would be nice to be able to 'turn off' the buildings so you can more easily see all your units. Or make the structures semi-transparent as if they all have infantry in them. * Better visual identification of factories (which can be travelled between) vs. individual 2-story structures. Maybe make factories inherently taller so two buildings sitting next to each other can be more easily distinguished. * Auto terrain generator: ... * Don't place random water holes on the map. They look funny and just aren't needed, IMO. ... * Have options for selecting deep and very deep maps for long-distance engagements. ... * Better clumping of trees. ... * Less regularity of hills. And it would be nice to be able to select both the number of hills (few, average, many) as well as thier average size. Visuals, Sound, and Camera Stuff * Better particle effects (flying debris) for explosions and artillery impacts. Though it's much better in CMBB, collapsing building debris still looks too much like an explosion to me. * Different explosion graphics depending on what is hit. Rounds impacting water should send up a shower of water. Don't know if this would warrant a change in LOS like the dust clouds above, though. Rounds impacting ground should throw up dirt, not a fireball. Rounds impacting buildings should throw dirt and some chunky debris. [NIX? - already in CMBB?] * Different fire and smoke (shape of fire/smoke and color), depending on what is burning. Buildings that can "smoulder", not just burn intensely. Existing black oily smoke is good for vehicles. * Explosions at distance should not be heard immediately (speed of sound). You see the flash, then hear the sound after a short delay. Obviously only useful for explosions large enough to be heard at distance. Toggleable feature; some folks may find real-world physics disconcerting. * AFVs belch exhaust when starting movement. * Some dust is thrown up from ground when a tank/gun fires (unrelated to the smoke from the shell's propellant, which can hang around for a bit and obscure LOS. The dust is only for visual effect). * "Worm's-eye" view of the battlefield (Level 0) so tanks can roll-over the camera. * Toggleable Mouse-look feature to be able to turn the camera view with the mouse instead of having it controlling the cursor. Movement forward, back, left, and right would be handled by the keyboard. Toggle back (Shift-Whatever) to return to normal mouse control. * Smooth zooming. Use Shift key for smooth zoom, no Shift for regular transition. * More zoom levels. Including zoom out to create fish-bowl effect. Also would like to see more camera movement available when fully zoomed (currently very limited when looking up/down when zoomed). * Smooth level transitions between adjacent levels (i.e. from 3 to 4); like smooth zooming above. Currently exists if you click the on-screen buttons, but would be nice to have as keys. Use Shift key for smooth level transition. * Ability to look up into the sky. * Ability to lock view to tank hull as well as its turret (i.e. you can watch from the tank but not have the viewpoint turn along with the turret). * Ability to lock onto and "ride" the shell from a gun or tank into the target. Fun! * A command that sends you back to the last camera position. So if you select a unit and hit the Tab key to lock the view to that unit but then be able to go back to your previous spot by hitting the 'Previous' key. * More incidental sounds (e.g. "chatter" for a gun crew while reloading the gun. MG crew member pointing out the enemy squad moving on the right, causing the MG to turn and engage the target, etc.). * Doodads that fade and then disappear as distance increases (a la Serious Sam 2) instead of popping on and off as they do now. * Enemy 'Eliminated' text in green (or some other color than red) so it's easier to tell them apart from your own. * Different color text for low and out of ammo units. * Different color font for eliminated units (say grey) so it's easier to see the panicked/routed unit text. * Different colored bases for enemy sound contacts. * Different color bases for captured enemy units. * 3D bases. - Chris\

... continued Editor and Terrain/Environment * Essentially all of the suggestions listed in this section are intended to give the landscape more variety and interest (along with enhancing gameplay). The more variety and subtle touches that can be built onto the terrain the better the game will look, feel, and play. [NIX! - already at 1.25m in CMBB?] * Minimum terrain elevations down to 1m in height. * Ability to terraform the landscape while in the 3D view in order to fine-tune the ground. In Terraform mode, the terrain would be sectioned into 1mx1m squares where you can grab a corner of one (or more) squares and increase or decrease the height of this one square. Would make for some very fine detail. May be too much work to bother with, though. * A Terrain mode that allows you to place and orient terrain features (bocage, walls, houses) while in the 3D portion of the editor. In Normal editor mode, you can place and orient the units (same as now). In Terrain mode, you can place and orient terrain objects (houses, etc.). In Terraform mode, you can adjust the underlying terrain height. In Terraform mode, we would need to be able to turn on/off buildings, trees, etc. with the Hide command so you can see the underlying landscape better. * Ability to create long gentle slopes of ground rather than "terraced" areas (in 3D Terraform mode). * Ability to create harshly terraced areas that make movement similar to climbing over a wall (in 3D Terraform mode). * Ability to smooth parts of the ground (get rid of sharp peaks and valleys). * New terrain features like stairs/steps and paths (both affecting movement) and railings (aesthetic only). * Multiple different color grass tile types (same LOS and movement characteristics) for a more visually varied landscape. * Multiple different color water tiles (including muddy) for aesthetics. * Trees with a thick canopy should have little to no lower branches with leaves on them for trees in the middle of a stand. Only those on the exterior of the treed area are fully foliated. * An idea to cover the above: Add a vertical rectangular polygon to the "edge" of dense tree tiles (woods/pines) that is mostly transparent, but will allow you to paint on static trees for the edge of a stand of trees. That way, the individual tree sprites in the middle of the tile can still face the camera, but the edge trees stay static and provide more visual cover. Does that make any sense? * Light Trees: compromise between scattered trees and woods. Prevents mortars from firing inside because of canopy (see Unit Behavior section below), but field guns are not prevented from firing at targets they can see (see Unit Behavior section below). LOS is more restricted than Scattered Trees, but not as much as Woods. Allows slow movement of AFVs, but provides better hiding capabilities for AFVs and cover for infantry than Scattered Trees currently does. * Orchard: Like Light Trees tile, but allows mortars normal operation. * Swamp: a marsh with tall thin trees and a high canopy. Mortar fire restricted. [NIX? - already in CMBB?] * Tall grass: same as wheat, but different BMP texture. * Cornfields: essentially very tall grass with very limited LOS. No way of seeing over unless you're on a higher level. * Vineyard: like a series of closely spaced hedges; allows normal movement in one direction, but slows it going over/through the vines. * Tall brick/stone wall: completely blocks LOS and hinders movement, but not as badly as bocage. Has a dedicated gate tile that is easily moved through. Can be rubbled (wholly or partially, creating a smaller wall) by HE. * Tall hedge: blocks LOS like bocage, but easier to travel through. * Ability to place soft ground, hard ground, muddy, churned muddy, rocky, rough, wet, snow, flooded, grassy, etc. areas over existing tiles which can affect that specific tile (i.e affect the chance of bogging rather than have whole map as "mud"). These tiles are an "Overlay Tile" and are placed like laying a minefield in the center of a tile, but overlay (and therefore modify) the entire tile. It modifies the existing tile's features so you can have -say- a forest tile that is more rocky than the surrounding forest. Allows more interesting and varied maps without having to create additional dedicated terrain types. A BMP of the overlay would show which type of overlay it is (mud, water, etc.), but would mostly be transparent so you can also see the regular tile underneath. And when viewing the area with the LOS key, the display would say "Rocky Tall Pines" or "Muddy Road" for that tile. The overlays won't always make sense, of course (a wet tile on water would be pointless), but it gives a scenario designer much more flexibility without adding three trillion different terrain tiles for every conceivable circumstance. ... * soft ground - Increases chance of bogging, but doesn't affect movement. BMP similar to mud or choppy ground or maybe marsh. ... * hard ground - Decreases chance of bogging (useful to modify soft sandy areas that might bog a vehicle), and prevents foxholes and buried minefields. BMP could look like gravel. ... * muddy - Slows movement and increases chance of bogging. ... * churned muddy - Intended for roads and near roads. Really slows AFV movement and significantly increases chance of bogging. ... * rocky - Makes spotting on-surface minefields (e.g. daisy-chain) harder. Slows vehicle movement and increases bogging chance. Does not add to cover. ... * rough - Prevents foxholes/minefields and prevents vehicle movement. Adds to cover. Essentially the same as the current rough tile type. ... * wet - Prevents foxholes/minefields. Increases chance of bogging. ... * snow - Adds snow to tile or deepens existing snow in tile. ... * flooded - Prevents vehicle movement through. No foxholes/minefields. Severely slows movement. ... * grassy - Adds to concealment. Useful for river deltas, marshes, adding to tree undergrowth. * Not sure if the overlays should be allowed to overlay each other. A rocky grassy wet Scattered Trees tile? Hmmm. Maybe allowing only one overlay per tile would be best. * The snow overlay tile could have light, medium, and heavy snow overlays that not only have different BMPs, but are shown at different levels above the existing ground. Light snow lays directly on the ground like existing tree bases. Medium would come up to an infantry man's shins or knees. Heavy could be waist-deep (though that may cover up sitting MG units or any prone troops, so maybe the unit bases could still be visible above the snow level?). Or maybe the "Snow Depth" can be toggled on/off, just showing the snowy BMP sitting on top of the ground like tree bases currently do. I really do think it's important to find some way to give snow some real visual depth without destroying playability. * Streams, paths (through woods), and gully/ditch features that are placed just like trenches. * Trenches/ditches/gun pits/foxholes/streams that are truly 3D. * Like the above overlay tiles, some textures that can be placed on a map just for aesthetic purposes (i.e. seaweed on beach which neither affects LOS nor movement, just sits there and looks pretty). Foamy water where water meets the beach (would be nice if it were animated too). Fields of low-growing wild flowers, vegetable gardens, etc. * Change the existing "Snow" tiles that are used when snow is on the ground to a map-wide "overlay" type that lays on top of existing ground like tree bases. Unlike the above overlays, this is for the entire map, and not just for one tile. This gets rid of the existing dedicated white snow tiles whenever snow is on the ground in a scenario and replaces them with normal winter ground (brown grass, wilted brush, and partly frozen marsh tiles instead of all winter white or ice). These tiles would then be overlayed with the partly transparent snow overlays. Light snow would still show through a good amount of ground underneath. Medium and Heavy snow would be opaque, and hover higher above the ground to show their depth (height could be toggled on/off). * In addition you could also use the Snow overlay (the individual one that is laid like a minefield) on top of "normal" snow to create deeper snow on some tiles. So you would have the brown grass underneath, a partly transparent (Light snow) or opaque (deeper snow) map-wide overlay and then the Snow overlay on top adding to the depth of that particular tile. If the snow depth is already at max, however, the additional Snow overlay doodad would do nothing. * And how about small 'snow drift' doodads set at an angle to the ground they sit on next to buildings and walls. The wind direction would determine where these "drifts" are placed on the map. So, like pre-rendered shadowed areas on a map mentioned above, the map would have to be "compiled" in order to place the drifts. Or maybe they could be like units: placed and oriented like barbed wire? * Separate BMP files for lightly snowy trees and tree bases (when light snow is on the ground) and heavily covered trees/bases (medium and heavy snows). * Ability to set in editor whether the trees have snow on them or not when snow is on the ground. If not, then use a separate tree BMP set that has no snow. All this allows a scenario author to create a widely varied snowy terrain. * 3-story buildings (or just ones higher than currently available). * Building walls should affect LOS and movement differently than the interior of the building (e.g. walls behave more like low stone walls: slows squad movement significantly, exposes infantry to incoming fire, and prohibits any useful return fire). This would obviously require the building wall to have a thickness of its own, making the useful interior space of the building smaller. Once the squad is inside the building, it can then receive the normal benefit of the structure. Also, the building wall could act like a stone wall: allowing a prone or hiding unit to have near zero exposure to fire, regardless of which side of the wall the unit is on (though the unit on the interior would naturally have more cover). This exposure percentage would change depending on whether the wall was partially destroyed or intact. * Movement through building walls should not be uniformly slow for all infantry; smaller squads/teams should be able to move through walls more quickly (e.g. fewer men have to fit through the same door). * Governmental building that is multi-story and has thick, nearly impassible exterior walls (e.g. behaves like bocage). One tile has dedicated door to allow ease of movement in and out. Upper and lower floors are separate, and cannot be fought between (e.g. you have to go upstairs in order to be able to see or engage enemy units on the upper floors). * Hmmm. Maybe travelling through a "door" into a structure could also be simulated for normal buildings too. Currently when you place buildings there is an orientation indicating a front of the building. So long as the BMP representing the front has a door on it and the "wall" section of the front actually indicates it is a door or passage when the LOS feature is used, maybe its movement characteristics can indeed be different than that of the other 3 walls. So a "door wall" could still raise a unit's exposure rating, but not inhibit movement or limit return fire nearly as much as a "wall" would. This could be disconcerting at first, but I think people could get used to it, particularly if the door side of the structure were truly 3D (i.e. have a step outside or have the door slightly inset into the wall). * Buildings of all sizes that have flat roofs which can be occupied by infantry. The flat roof could provide complete cover (like a wall) for units that are hiding or prone on the roof. * Buildings whose walls (all 4 sides and upper and lower segments) can collapse independently of each other. So you could have a 2-story building with a collapsed lower front and a collapsed upper rear of the structure, but the remaining part is still standing. And the segments can partially collapse, hindering LOS and providing some cover or wholly collapse, allowing full LOS into the interior of the structure. * Collapsed walls should be able to create Rubble on nearby tiles. * Light, Medium, and heavy rubble. Light rubble can be driven over by vehicles and is 2D. Medium is impassible for vehicles, and slows infantry, but doesn't provide much cover, and is somewhat 3D. Heavy rubble prevents vehicle movement and severely slows infantry movement, but provides very good cover, and is very 3D in nature. * More varied rubble types (wood, brick, and stone/concrete types depending on what type of building created them) within each category (light, medium, heavy). * Create a chance that the roof (and upper floors) can still remain standing if only one wall (or opposing, non-adjacent walls) collapses. * A small chance that the roof will collapse (from direct arty hit) without taking down any of the walls. * A small chance that buildings that have previously been damaged can collapse without being hit by further explosions (e.g. it falls just because of the previous damage). Chance increases with more damage to structure. * A small chance that damaged buildings can catch fire without receiving further fire or damage. Chance increases with more damage to structure. * Buildings/walls being rubbled should be a bit more random. Now it [seems like] it's a perfectly linear relationship between HE blast and building strength. A bit more randomness in when buildings collapse would be nice. * Ability to edit building walls individually to delete some or make some partially destroyed. Same for roofs. * Allow mortars to fire from within buildings that don't have a roof. * Ability to place and rotate buildings like a unit (will get rid of a number of redundant tile types). * Ability to "dig-in" a building (into a hillside) so only one side of the building can be entered. And the second story (or roof for flat 1-story building) can be entered directly if the adjoining terrain is high enough. * Set the phase of moon (full/half/quarter/new) in editor to affect overall LOS at night. * Set time of year and latitude/longitude in editor so it affects position of sun placement in the sky and therefore shadows. Ok, that's probably asking a lot. * The sun can change positions every 15 minutes, changing the shadowed areas of a map. * Express battle turns as time rather than turns (e.g. begins 6:45am, and ends at 7:15am). Toggleable option. - Chris

Ahhh. Little did you realize ... Nearly all of these ideas were written down before the CMBB demo came out, so some suggestions may already be covered by the current game engine. I marked the ones that I found are already addressed in CMBB, but left them in for posterity's sake. Hopefully this doesn't repeat too much of what's already been suggested. A few humble suggestions for a great game. Previous suggestion thread: Dream List for CMBB and Beyond Most recent suggestion thread: Some thoughts about the next generation of thie engine Graphics/Rendering Engine * Pre-rendered shadowed areas on map. Allows a unit to "hide" in plain sight in a shadowed area (ala Thief). Shadows at dawn/dusk can be particularly harsh and difficult to see objects in. Could be affected by position of sun (see Editor/Terrain section below). The map itself would likely have to be "compiled" so the game can understand which tiles have shadows, and how dark the shadowed areas are. * Adjustible texture sizes (tiny-huge). Can save lots of VRAM. Would be nice to be able to choose between which textures should be large or small (e.g. have different categories like AFVs, infantry, buildings, ground, and trees to be able to really customize the game). * Adjustible texture LOD slider. This can be adjusted (forced) on many modern graphics cards, but it's nice to have it in-game. * More MIP-map levels. The texture shimmer, particularly in the trees, has got to go. * Alpha blends. Allows blending of alpha textures to reduce texture shimmer. Particularly useful for multi-sample AA cards that can't do super-sampling. * Texture compression. 64MB isn't enough for hi-res mods (particularly the ground) even in CMBO. Outside of DXT1, S3TC is probably the most widely supported (and doesn't cause bad banding on Geforce cards like DXT1). But please don't pre-compress the textures (ala Unreal Tournament) otherwise Voodoo 4/5 owners can't use S3TC. * Polygon compression (or whatever it's called). High-poly count models can saturate the AGP bus as well as kill CPU performance. * T&L can help with high poly models. * Bump mapping can help greatly with the look of ground textures; helping to get rid of that ever-annoying complaint of playing on a pool-top table (though the doodads really do a lot for this; much more than I thought they might). Vehicles could also benefit from bump-mapping. Dot-3 is the most widely supported hardware type of bump-mapping, AFAIK. * Support for Surround Gaming (Parhelia's 3 monitor setup). * Choice of enabling decals (texture patches) showing scorched HE/AP hits (and even penetrations) on buildings and AFVs as well as showing tank tracks on the ground (just for aesthetics, not gameplay). Choice between no decals, temporary decals, and permanent decals. Temporary decals last for one turn; permanent ones throughout the scenario/op. It's fluff, but it's cool fluff. * Vertex/Pixel shaders: only supported in the newest video cards, and is still under development, but can be useful for particle effects and explosions. * Stencil buffer shadows for units. * Some very high polygon models (particularly the more important AFVs (Tiger, Panther, Sherman, etc.)). Allow choice between high-poly models and the lower poly models (like ones that currently exist). So for machines that have the CPU and/or T&L video card to handle it, the high poly models would add some very nice visuals, but not overpower slower machines who could use the lower poly models instead. Of course, the different models would each require a different set of BMPs, which would mean a lot more work, but it would be worth it. * A large in-game menu (a la Serious Sam or Return to Castle Wolfenstein) would be needed to turn on/off many of the new graphical features to fit various hardware setups. It would also be nice to be able to customize controls (re-assign keys to different functions) as well as change behaviour (so screen scrolls sideways rather than rotates when mouse is at the edge of the screen without having to hold down the Shift key). More customization, please. * Dozens of defined resolutions. If CMII is to be OpenGL, I believe you need to define all the resolutions the game can run at rather than just using the default Windows ones like you can for Direct-X. Would like many of the unusual resolutions like 920x690, 960x720, 1080x810, 1200x900, 1360x1020, 1440x1080, 1536x1152, 1704x1278, 1792x1344, 1800x1350, 1856x1392, 1920x1440, and 2048x1536 to go along with 1024x768, 1280x960, and 1600x1200. As well as widescreen ones like 852x480 (or 853x480), 960x540, 1280x720, 1360x768 (or 1366x768), 1920x1080, and 1920x1200. - Chris [ February 13, 2003, 07:58 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]

Probably a good idea. Thanks! - Chris

The Unit Database has been updated with the new data from the CMBB 1.02 patch. Get it while it's hot!! A list of what's changed: Axis Guns * Corrected penetration numbers on Nimrod gun. * Added second AP shell to 40mm 40M AT gun as well as 40mm Bofors AA. And corrected HE and existing AP numbers. * Corrected caliber-length on 47mm AT gun (now 47/L31). * Renamed Zrinyi gun to Zrinyi II and added Hollow charge penetration numbers. Allied Guns * Changed caliber-length on 76mm M1942 ZiS-3 gun (now 76/L42), changed a few penetration numbers, and moved the entire entry up the page. * Corrected availability dates for AP (lg) and APBC on 122mm M1943 D-25 gun. Hungarian Infantry * Added panzerfaust to Hungarian Tank Hunter team and specified its availability date. German Tanks * Added MG to StuG IV. * Changed min range for German 50mm mortar. Hungarian Tanks * Corrected ROF on Toldi I. * Corrected Ammo on Toldi I, IIa, and III. * Corrected side armor on Turan I, I late, II, and II late. * Changed Zrinyi name to Zrinyi II. * Corrected front and side armor on Zrinyi II and II late. * Added Hollow charge (O) designation to Zrinyi II and II late ammo types. * Corrected ammo loadout for Nimrod. * Changed Panzer IIIJ short to Panzer IIIM. * Changed availability date for Panther A. * Corrected side and rear armor on Csaba. * Changed ranges on 50mm and 81mm mortars and corrected typical ammo loadout for 50mm mortar. * Changed ROF for 40mm 40M AT gun. * Fixed gun designation for 47mm AT (now 47/L31). * Added captured Russian 45mm M1938 AT and 76mm F-22 USV AT guns. Soviet Tanks * Changed lower front hull armor slope on T-34/76A M1940, 76B M1941, 76B M1941 cast, 76C M1942, 76D M1943 early, 76D M1943, 76D M1943 late, OT-34 M1942, OT-34 M1943, T-34/57 M1941, T-34/57 M1943, T-34/85 M1943, T-34/85 M1944, T-34/85 M1943 late, and OT-34/85 M1944. * Changed hull slope on KV-1 M1939, KV-1 M1940, and KV-1E. * Changed armor on IS-1, IS-2 M1943, IS-2 M1944 early, and IS-2 M1944. * Changed armor on SU-85, SU-85M, SU-100, and SU-122. * Changed availability date for 82mm M-8 amd 132mm M-13 rockets. For printing purposes on the Tanks chart: The German section probably doesn't need to be re-printed. Just add a '1-24' MG to the StuG IV, change the min distance on the 50mm Mortar from 75m to 60m, and change the 214mm Rocket availability date from Jan42 to Feb43. That's it for the German section. The Finnish section is unchanged. The Hungarian section has radically changed, so printing its two pages is recommended. The Italian and Romanian (Axis) sections are unchanged. The first two pages of the Soviet section should be re-printed. The rest can remain as-is except for the introduction dates for the 82mm M-8 and 132mm M-13 rockets, both of which change from Jun41 to Jul41. For printing purposes on the Guns chart: Reprint all the Axis stuff. The Soviet M1942 ZiS-3 gun changed its caliber-length and a couple of its penetration numbers (as well as its position in the chart). And the availability dates for AP (lg) and APBC on the Soviet 122mm M1943 D-25 gun have changed. For printing purposes on the Infantry chart: Thankfully almost nothing changed. Only the addition of a panzerfaust AT weapon to the Hungarian Tank Hunter squad. And a note on its introduction date (May44). Enjoy! - Chris

The Unit Database has been updated with the new data from the CMBB 1.02 patch. Get it while it's hot!! A list of what's changed: Axis Guns * Corrected penetration numbers on Nimrod gun. * Added second AP shell to 40mm 40M AT gun as well as 40mm Bofors AA. And corrected HE and existing AP numbers. * Corrected caliber-length on 47mm AT gun (now 47/L31). * Renamed Zrinyi gun to Zrinyi II and added Hollow charge penetration numbers. Allied Guns * Changed caliber-length on 76mm M1942 ZiS-3 gun (now 76/L42), changed a few penetration numbers, and moved the entire entry up the page. * Corrected availability dates for AP (lg) and APBC on 122mm M1943 D-25 gun. Hungarian Infantry * Added panzerfaust to Hungarian Tank Hunter team and specified its availability date. German Tanks * Added MG to StuG IV. * Changed min range for German 50mm mortar. Hungarian Tanks * Corrected ROF on Toldi I. * Corrected Ammo on Toldi I, IIa, and III. * Corrected side armor on Turan I, I late, II, and II late. * Changed Zrinyi name to Zrinyi II. * Corrected front and side armor on Zrinyi II and II late. * Added Hollow charge (O) designation to Zrinyi II and II late ammo types. * Corrected ammo loadout for Nimrod. * Change Panzer IIIJ short to Panzer IIIM. * Changed availability date for Panther A. * Corrected side and rear armor on Csaba. * Changed ranges on 50mm and 81mm mortars and corrected typical ammo loadout for 50mm mortar. * Changed ROF for 40mm 40M AT gun. * Fixed gun designation for 47mm AT (now 47/L31). * Added captured Russian 45mm M1938 AT and 76mm F-22 USV AT guns. Soviet Tanks * Changed lower front hull armor slope on T-34/76A M1940, 76B M1941, 76B M1941 cast, 76C M1942, 76D M1943 early, 76D M1943, 76D M1943 late, OT-34 M1942, OT-34 M1943, T-34/57 M1941, T-34/57 M1943, T-34/85 M1943, T-34/85 M1944, T-34/85 M1943 late, and OT-34/85 M1944. * Changed hull slope on KV-1 M1939, KV-1 M1940, and KV-1E. * Changed armor on IS-1, IS-2 M1943, IS-2 M1944 early, and IS-2 M1944. * Changed armor on SU-85, SU-85M, SU-100, and SU-122. * Changed availability date for 82mm M-8 amd 132mm M-13 rockets. For printing purposes on the Tanks chart: The German section probably doesn't need to be re-printed. Just add a '1-24' MG to the StuG IV, change the min distance on the 50mm Mortar from 75m to 60m, and change the 214mm Rocket availability date from Jan42 to Feb43. That's it for the German section. The Finnish section is unchanged. The Hungarian section has radically changed, so printing its two pages is recommended. The Italian and Romanian (Axis) sections are unchanged. The first two pages of the Soviet section should be re-printed. The rest can remain as-is except for the introduction dates for the 82mm M-8 and 132mm M-13 rockets, both of which change from Jun41 to Jul41. For printing purposes on the Guns chart: Reprint all the Axis stuff. The Soviet M1942 ZiS-3 gun changed its caliber-length and a couple of its penetration numbers (as well as its position in the chart). And the availability dates for AP (lg) and APBC on the Soviet 122mm M1943 D-25 gun have changed. For printing purposes on the Infantry chart: Thankfully almost nothing changed. Only the addition of a panzerfaust AT weapon to the Hungarian Tank Hunter squad. And a note on its introduction date (May44). Enjoy! - Chris [ April 07, 2003, 07:15 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]

Great idea, Tom. Is this now the official Winecape-endorsed CM3 Request Thread? If so I have much typing (actually cutting and pasting ) to do! - Chris

It would seem your last post finally killed off this leviathon. Not trying to revive this long-dead thread, just adding a couple more ideas I recently thought of. * In mountains, give armored units an attack and defend penalty vs all types of land units. In plains, steppe, and desert give infantry an attack/defend penalty vs armor. In cities and fortifications give armor a penalty vs infantry. * When a city is captured reduce its MPP level to 50% and IPP level to 25%. This is intended to simulate a lack of output by a recently conquered peoples. It can then starting climbing back up to 75%/50% until the whole country is taken. Once the whole country is conquered, MPP and IPP can begin to climb back up to their max allowable levels. Also, when a country is conquered, drop all cities (including the ones that haven't been attacked) to 50% MPP and 25% IPP due to the change in regime. Likewise when a city/country is liberated drop its MPP/IPP to 75%/50% if it isn't already at or below that level because of change of control and any sabotage done by the retreating side. Scorched Earth would still apply, of course. But it'll obviously take much longer to get them back to reasonable production levels. * In conjunction with the readiness idea mentioned above, have new land units start out at readiness levels of 40%. While you can fight with them, they won't be very effective. Letting them rest a few turns before commiting them to battle will bring their readiness up to more reasonable levels. This can help simulate the time it takes to train new recruits, but still allow ad-hoc units to be assembled and thrown directly into the fray if a desperate situation warrants it. Armored units could start out at 25% levels due to the longer training times. - Chris [ February 07, 2003, 12:41 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]

It's a tank, AFAIK Hi, Laxx. Looking good! Feel free to use my stuff as you wish. - Chris

Personally I like the Partisan unit as it is in the game, though I think it's too strong (they can reinforce if they get near supply and they start with an experience bonus, and can leave their own country). I think the Partisan unit represents a number of different smaller annoyances that are difficult to simulate at this scale. For example if a partisan unit pops up and takes a city this could represent a general strike that needs to be quelled. It doesn't necessarily have to represent an actual armed revolt. Though having to quell this uprising with a number of Corps or even Armies is a bit of a stretch. If it pops up behind enemy lines it cuts off supply to a specific area. It isn't just a generic MPP or supply hit against the whole army. It's an obvious and specific threat in one (and only one) area, which I like. It also requires many more combat units to guard against them than would normally be necessary. Since every army normally has strategic reserves (not every unit will be on or near the front line), Partisan units force the player (well, maybe only the Axis player) to ostensibly keep a "reserve" whether he intended to or not. I don't see this idea mentioned in the thread (may have missed it) so: You might limit its range by only allowing the airborne unit to land on hexes that friendly air units have range to. I still don't know if I'm in favor of airborne units. Adding specialized units that barely fit into the scale could add too much complication and place too many units physically on the map itself. Particularly if those units have certain restrictions as to how they can be used. After all you could argue for engineer units that are required to cross rivers. I fear an Airborne unit has the very real potential of becoming either overly useful or on the opposite end of the scale extremely useless, depending on its capabilities. - Chris

Thanks! And you're welcome. - Chris

Tankdawg, you can find a list of FP ratings for the various infantry units at the site listed in my sig. - Chris

Thanks! Glad you like 'em. Oh yeah, I meant to mention mike8g's Unit Availability charts are available over at CMMods. They list both beginning and end date for all the vehicles (something my charts don't do). - Chris

[blatant plug] This stuff is listed in my unit charts for those interested: Chris' CM Database [/blatant plug] - Chris

[blatant plug] Chris' CM Database - Unit database charts. [/blatant plug] - Chris

Not sure if you don't already know this, but you can hold down the Shift key while clicking to make the number change in increments of 10. - Chris

Update for Dec 24, 2002: Added pair of Jaeger 43 squads with MG34s instead of MG42 to the German Infantry FP listing in the Infantry tables. - Chris

I like the idea of separating prop-driven and jet-powered air units, but I'm not sure I'm too keen on separating into individual abilities. I think this may make the units too small (or specialized) for SC's scale. When an air unit in SC attacks, it represents the main attack units along with their escort. If you separate them, you then have to manually coordinate the attack yourself. And I worry about having to choose which of my air units to use in a given situation. Sometimes too many choices can be a bad thing. So how about having: Advanced Air - These units would be essentially like they are in SC. They can attack naval and land targets and will automatically defend against enemy air raids. They're vulnerable to city-based and unit-based anti-air. Attacks against resources would be fairly ineffective. Serves as escorts for bombers and automatically assists land warfare for any units in range (this can represent both coordinated air-grounds attacks (which were rare in WW2, AFAIK) as well as initial air attacks at the beginning of an offensive, but is not necessarily the same as large-scale directed bombing attacks). Jet Aircraft - Like Normal air units, they can attack all units and resources, but have limited effectiveness against resources. Slightly less vulnerable to AA than normal Air units, but much less vulnerable to air interceptors. Limited range at lower tech levels. Advanced Air Level 3 is required to begin building these. Strategic Bombers - Similar to how they are currently in SC, but are invulnerable to unit-based AA (still vulnerable to resource-based AA, however). May only attack resources or naval units; no attacking enemy land units (on raids vs. resources, any enemy units on that resource are ignored). Each tech level increases range by 1 hex. Jet Bombers - Less vulnerable to resource-based AA than Strategic and invulnerable to unit-based AA. Requires Strategic Bomber tech Level 4 (or maybe even 5) to begin building. Limited range initially (worse than Strategic), but each tech level increases range by 2 hexes. As has been suggested before you can do something similar with tanks. Have Advanced Tanks similar to the current game and also have Heavy Tanks that can begin being built once you've achieved Tank tech level 3. The Heavies have good firepower and defense, but limited range and are expensive. - Chris [ December 21, 2002, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]

The Faust is listed as available for those squads because the squads are in the game long enough to intersect the date the Faust first becomes available (which, AFAICT, is Jul43). The notes at the bottom say when you actually first get them: * Panzerfausts are available starting in Jul43 (PF-30K), Sep43 (PF-30), and Oct44 (PF-60 and PF-100) and are all available through the end of the war. * Finnish panzerfausts are available starting in May44. * Romanian panzerfausts are available starting in Jan44. - Chris

Update for Dec 16, 2002: Fixed tungsten availability for Soviet T-34/76D M1943 early in tanks chart. - Chris [ December 16, 2002, 02:29 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ]