New features wish list!

[Glubokii Boy]

I would like a HOTKEY option to

- REMOVE FORTRIFICATION FLOATING INCONS

I feel that especially in larger battles they really clutter up the screen and make it more difficult to see your other units.

[stikkypixie]

I would like a HOTKEY option to

- REMOVE FORTRIFICATION FLOATING INCONS

I feel that especially in larger battles they really clutter up the screen and make it more difficult to see your other units.

There mods that help unclutter things a bit. One makes the icons smaller and the other (mine ) makes them more transparent. It's not the same of course, but it will have to do for now.

[WriterJWA]

Here's a feature I'd like to see:

The ability to create rolling barrages with artillery and larger-caliber mortars.

This is a rolling barrage for the uninitiated:

http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/worldwar1/p/prcreepingb.htm

[Sergei]

On the bright side, the icons vanish after setup, except for bunkers. So yes, get either the small fortification icons mod (mine ) or the other one. It really helps a lot with making sense of your units when there's more trenches and stuff around.

[Glubokii Boy]

Stikkypixie

I'm using your mod...It makes things better !

Thanks for your work (and all other modders)

The various mods sure brings improvments to the game

I will download Sergeis mod to and see wich i like better...

[Lt Belenko]

Modifying Artillery orders.

As of now atry can be shifted and cancelled. I like change of Mission and duration available as part of modifying orders..

When you call in a strike for less then MAX duration/ROF and it turns out that's the perfect location but it's going to run out in the next minute. Having an option to change the intensity and ROF (other than cancel). I'm pretty sure "Keep it coming and give'm hell" would not be proper fire mission protocol but the guy on the other end might get the gist of what's being said.

[Broadsword56]

Better explosion graphics/animation -- hope it wouldn't be too much of a framerate hit, but I really miss the look of artillery explosions in series like Theatre of War. CM versions may never be as good as that, but couldn't they get a bit better than the "dirty puffs" we have now? Something taller, darker, with jagged points rocketing out.

Speaking of smoke, it's a minor but annoying thing to me that the smoke from flaming vehicles always rises straight up. Looks weird. Since the game already models wind, couldn't vehicle smoke drift windward the same way WP and grenade smoke already do?

[Sergei]

Speaking of smoke, it's a minor but annoying thing to me that the smoke from flaming vehicles always rises straight up. Looks weird. Since the game already models wind, couldn't vehicle smoke drift windward the same way WP and grenade smoke already do?

It shouldn't rise straight up unless the wind strength is nil, it merely depends on the wind strength and direction. If the wind setting is heavy the pillars of smoke from burning vehicles almost hug the ground! Even at 'gentle' setting the shift should be noticeable.

[Aragorn2002]

I would like a HOTKEY option to

- REMOVE FORTRIFICATION FLOATING INCONS

I feel that especially in larger battles they really clutter up the screen and make it more difficult to see your other units.

Good point.

[Gen Von Television]

About Fortifications: I would really appreciate if they would belong to a special category, and not specifically to any one side.

They should be purchasable by any player, and once placed they can become possessed by the same player.

One great thing would be for the fortifications to be modular, like trenches and barbed wire: have the armored cement walls link up with various types of MG, AT or AA bunkers and nests... That would be just fine!

If these fortifications can combine with any other kind of fortifications/buildings/terrain, then we'll have no limit in creating puzzling scenarios...

[Gen Von Television]

Ah yes: what about a possibility to MOD and add flavor objects?

That also would be great: suppose I want to create a battle with some specific buildings, bridges etc. and I can convert those objects and somehow add them (or reference them) to some specific Campaign/Battle.... It would be just a matter of adding the compiled objects to the MOD directory to make it available to the indexer when the game loads.

[poesel]

Ah yes: what about a possibility to MOD and add flavor objects?

How do you solve the problem that one player has the object and the other doesn't?

Placeholder object? But what size does it have?

Next problem is that people will start to make bigger objects which should have an influence on the game (fortifications? ) - but AFAIK flavour objects don't react with anything. This will look strange and people will complain.

I would love to create 3D things for CM but I don't see it happen.

[The Teacher]

statues for town squares etc

dead cows or better still live ones that die.....steak....mmmmmm steak.

Horses and Horse wagons

civilian transport, cars, buses etc

just more flavor objects really

wells

PLEASE Sir, can I have more ?

[Glubokii Boy]

As the number of basegames and modules increase an ENCYCLOPEDIA would be a very nice thing to have to quickly find useful information about the various AFVs, weichles, weapons and formations...

It would be good if this encyclopedia could be accesable from all theese 3 locations:

main screen, in game, the editor.

In adition to the information provided in the manuals it would be a big plus if the encyclopedia could also show information on armour thicknes and slope angles for AFVs

and armour penetration at different ranges and slope angles for guns...Kind of like the unit info screen in CM1.

If i have not missed it...the manuals in its current form gives no information on armour thicknes, slope-angles and penetration capabilities of the guns...

[Erwin]

"quickly find useful information about the various AFVs, weichles, weapons and formations..."

Just buy the CM1 series. The manuals and in-game screens were invaluable. For some reason CM2 manuals and in-game info are almost designed to be relatively useless in terms of info that would be helpful in playing the game.

[Gen Von Television]

How do you solve the problem that one player has the object and the other doesn't?

Placeholder object? But what size does it have?

Next problem is that people will start to make bigger objects which should have an influence on the game (fortifications? ) - but AFAIK flavour objects don't react with anything. This will look strange and people will complain.

I would love to create 3D things for CM but I don't see it happen.

Well, in case of a battle/campaign that uses custom flavor objects, these should be included in them, with instructions on how to activate and install them: adter all is the same when you want to play a custom modded campaign as they happen to be published right now (Japanese, Ardennes, etc.).

Doesn't seem to me it's so complicated, even in the unlikely case some of the objects may influence the game play, or rather especially if it's at all possible they will (I would love to design or reproduce historical fortifications, buildings, bridges...).

[Broadsword56]

Would be nice to have:

The ability to turn off the white text on paused screens during replay that says, "DONE" or "review" etc., so that I don't have to do a lot of doctoring and cloning on images to remove it when making screenshots.

Being able to turn off the GUI for a full screen would be nice too (or is there already an option for that)?

[JonS]

Would be nice to have:

The ability to turn off the white text on paused screens during replay that says, "DONE" or "review" etc., so that I don't have to do a lot of doctoring and cloning on images to remove it when making screenshots.

That's already in. IIRC, you press SHIFT+ESC to pause the screen without the big PAUSED showing up in the middle. (Or maybe ALT+ or CTRL+ ?)

[Sergei]

That won't remove the "turn review" text. If you want to take that out you could edit the strings.txt, find the line with the text and replace it with an empty line. That ought to do it.

[Fizou]

Id love to get the information panels with armor and weapon penetration data from cmx1. For me part of the fun of cmx1 was to learn of the platforms in such an easy way. Hope to see this in a future upgrade.

[Jaksteri]

Is it yet possible to code dead corners and zones for tanks and their main cannons so that they can't say, blast infantry from fith story from street level one meter away?

Other things that I want have already been listed on the front page, damage decals, flares, fire, etc.

[YankeeDog]

Is it yet possible to code dead corners and zones for tanks and their main cannons so that they can't say, blast infantry from fith story from street level one meter away?

Steve has stated this is more of an AI issue than a technical weapons modeling issue. In other words, adding code to model weapon elevation could be done fairly quickly. Adding AI code so that the computer "knows" what to do with a unit that is trying to engage an enemy outside the depression/elevation limits of its main weapon is quite a bit more complex. This holds for both the "Unit AI", that handles the short-term autonomous behavior for all unit, whether human or computer player controlled, and also the "Tactical AI", which runs the computer opponent in a single-player game.

I don't have any special insight into the minds of BFC, but from comments Steve et al have made here on the forums, I don't think we're likely to see improvements to the game engine in this area for 2.0. Further down the road, who knows?

[Redwolf]

Yeah, the min/man weapon elevation would see too many tanks stand around doing nothing (unable to fire) but still exposed to enemy fire and they wouldn't know how to react to the condition. If you were teaching them naive code to deal with it they would drive around like mad and expose themselves even more.

Having said that, the specific case of upper elevation and people high up in buildings sounds like something you could deal with that way. As the Russians learned in Grozny in that case standing around and being unable to react is entirely realistic.

[Jaksteri]

Yeah, the min/man weapon elevation would see too many tanks stand around doing nothing (unable to fire) but still exposed to enemy fire and they wouldn't know how to react to the condition. If you were teaching them naive code to deal with it they would drive around like mad and expose themselves even more.

Having said that, the specific case of upper elevation and people high up in buildings sounds like something you could deal with that way. As the Russians learned in Grozny in that case standing around and being unable to react is entirely realistic.

Everything can be achieved with enought work, it requires lots of coding and time. This game has been only out for a year now.

[Redwolf]

Everything can be achieved with enought work, it requires lots of coding and time. This game has been only out for a year now.

No, what is most likely to happen is that the new AI code dealing with min/max gun elevation is forever in a state where just turning if off would be the better option.

As I said, in the case of max gun elevation and nearby buildings I think it would be an overall good solution to not fire and not deal with it either. It's not that there'll be an enemy tank up there and you can't go hulldown against those shooters either. So sitting around waiting for the infantry sorting it out is a good enough thing to do unless you panic anyway.