My wish for 2012: True LOS tool, and optional draw of Command Lines

[Cid250]

Another old CM feature that i miss too much... those old lines from HQ to their units (red or black), gives a much better visual feedback of you chain of command.

Will be nice to have those lines back eventually... at least as an optional feature, like drawing trees or not.

If a true LOS tool is included, much better.

Happy new year 2012!. Is not the end of the world.

[sluggo337]

Couldn't agree more with both.

[futon river crossing]

+1

and cover amour

[Erwin]

Yes, admirable though the current experiment in depicting C2 has been, it often doesn't work as advertised, and it's hard for almost everyone to understand and simply makes gaemplay harder without contributing gameplay entertainment value.

The current C2 system has not been worth the programming resources when there are other more glaring issues that may even have been a step backwards from the CM1 system.

[sburke]

Yes, admirable though the current experiment in depicting C2 has been, it often doesn't work as advertised, and it's hard for almost everyone to understand and simply makes gaemplay harder without contributing gameplay entertainment value.

The current C2 system has not been worth the programming resources when there are other more glaring issues that may even have been a step backwards from the CM1 system.

I think this is one of those where there will likely be widely divergent opinions. The C2 set up works for me (yeah I am fairly twisted), but I would really love an armoured covered arc. The thing I want most though... more modules! I want the fallschirmjager and it won't be till the Market Garden module that we get them.

[YankeeDog]

Cover Armor Arc, or in any event some way of better controlling who should be shooting at armor, and who should be shooting at infantry, is definitely at or near the top of my list.

a "True LOS tool" is tricky, because I'm not exactly sure what a "True" LOS tool would be in CMx2. I agree that some better way of quickly measuring and understanding LOS and also its cousin LOF would be a nice addition to the game, but LOS is easily a factor or magnitude more complicated in CMx2 than it was in CMx1 so simply trying to recreate the functionality of CMx1's LOS tool in CMx2 wouldn't work.

It's difficult for me to say what form and LOS tool should take and exactly how it should function. In CMx2, for a unit in any given position, testing "LOS" from that unit to any point on the map could mean:

- Can the unit actually see the ground at the map point? (probably the most stringent test)

- Can the unit see the ground at this map point through the gunsight of its primary weapon? (this is nearly, though not quite, a LOF test)

- Does the unit have at least some chance of seeing a prone, kneeling, or standing enemy soldier in the immediate vicinity of this map point? (answer could be different depending on stance of enemy)

- Does the unit have at least some chance of seeing a vehicle of height X on this map point? (Complicated because vehicles vary widely in height... what height vehicle should be the reference point?).

To make things even more complicated, each soldier in CMx2 has its own LOS through its own pair of eyes (which may or may not be restricted/assisted by things like gunsights and vehicle view ports), and each set of eyes within a unit may be able to see different things. Further, especially wrt infantry units, individual sets of eyes can sometimes change height (by going between prone, kneeling, or standing), which changes what they can potentially see and shoot at. Under certain conditions, the LOS of an infantryman standing at full height can be VERY different than the same infantryman lying prone, in the same spot.

So... yeah. It's complicated. I'd like an "LOS tool", but it has to be simple and robust enough to provide immediately comprehensible information. Given all of the above, I'm not sure how an "LOS tool" should, or even could work in CMx2... maybe BFC will pull something out of their magic hat for the next big game engine improvement, but I wouldn't expect anything before then.

[Erwin]

Yes, it is completely pointless to have a LOS tool that gives the view of (say) the third loader but not the gunner - since the latter is all we really care about.

[Childress]

Another old CM feature that i miss too much... those old lines from HQ to their units (red or black), gives a much better visual feedback of you chain of command.

Not worth the programming diversion, imo. Then there's the the aesthetics. Blecch. And how granular should C2 be in a simulation?

Armor Cover arc, yes it would be nice. But the AI, in the CM1 series, was never enabled to use it. BFC might have felt that this was unsatisfactory. For CM2, they evidently thought they could make the TacAI more judicious about when to employ AP or HE shells. Did they succeed? I don't know. In the Shock Force setting there are a host of units with anti-tank capabilities. So it made more sense in the modern environment to drop that feature.

[MikeyD]

Yeh, you watch footage from WWII of soldiers using their LOS tools to judge whether the position they're planning to occupy will have a proper field of fire.

[GerryCMBB]

True. But wouldn't they have a better idea than us, the gamers, as they are in the real 3D environment?

And if they hadn't LOS wouldn't they shuffle around until they had made a best effort to get LOS to a certain point? Our troops don't have that intelligence so a tool would make up for that.

Gerry

Yeh, you watch footage from WWII of soldiers using their LOS tools to judge whether the position they're planning to occupy will have a proper field of fire.

[Steiner14]

+1 for Command Lines (optional to switch off for the girls playing CM )

Armor cover arc

Simulation of fully dug in and camouflaged ATGs

[Ranger33]

C2 is fine for me as is, I don't want a bunch of lines running all over the map. I think the one best improvement here would be simply changing the outline of the floating icons from black to red to when a unit is out of contact. I think the floating icons could offer so much more information than they currently do.

Now for some "this would be nice but I don't expect it anytime soon" items.

Armor arc for sure eventually and a maybe a "soft vs hard" covered arc would be nice. As in, the "hard" arc units would be stricter about only firing within that arc, for ambushes and such. Then the "soft" arc which would have them prioritize targets in that area, but fire at anything else they see as well. This would be nice to keep tanks from swiveling their turrets back and forth trying to make up their minds about what to shoot.

[Erwin]

"wouldn't they have a better idea than us, the gamers, as they are in the real 3D environment?"

Am with Gerry on this. The 2D screen sim world gives us both god-like info on the situation, but also makes it v hard to determine things that the soldier on the ground would deem obvious. Hence the need for abstractions to level the playing field to make the GAME playable. And that's why this is an entertainment game and not a DoD simulation.

[Baneman]

Yes, I'm not too fussed about the LOS not always being LOF, but surely, an HMG team deploying the "item" in an AS should make an effort to put it where it can fire through the cover - ( even when helped with a Face command, they often place the actual HMG so far back from a bocage hedge that it cannot fire through - what's the bloody point then ? )

[LJFHutch]

Re-worked colour, brightness, saturation and hue as well as atmospheric depth, a fix to the strange foliage bug and ambient occlusion (SSAO)!

[Cid250]

+1

and cover amour

I just forgot that...

[LJFHutch]

This is just from my own study and from photo reference, but I think one of the main things I'd love to see changed is the brightness, contrast and overall colour of the game, as well as atmospheric fog. It seems to brown and dark in my opinion, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Left: Pure screenshot, Right: Edit

[Ted]

I'd like to see target lines.

If there are several lines emanating from one unit (since my understanding is one unit can shoot a several targets) perhaps they could be color coded. Team A, B, C, that kind of thing.

No need to turn on all target lines, what a mess that would make, but just the ones of units you click on.

[Felix_45]

My own 2 cents......I'm okay with the C2 and not having target lines. But I'd like to see the game tweaked so that it plays better PBEM. A lot of action happens in one minute, so I'd like to have the following:

Covered amour arc (so does everyone else and we all don't understand why it's not there)

Ambush command (your squad hides except for one guy who is a lookout, he would be the guy with the binoculars)

Enter building command (grenades get thrown in, rooms sprayed with bullets....you get the point it's been discussed in CMSF)

Things I like about CMx2:

the detail of the game

the way mortar/arty fire is handled

being able to set multiple way points and commands

being able to view LOS from a way point marker.

Have a good New Year

[Erwin]

+1 to Felix's points. The foums here don't allow editing after an hour or so. I'll try and start a thread on this at BoB forums so we can have a comprehensive wish list.

http://webandofbrothers.yuku.com/