New features wish list!

[acrashb]

1) fire

2) more fire... well, you get the idea

3) "follow me" convoy capability.

4) man-portable AT weapons that can fire from cover (buildings). Perhaps I missed this and it is already in?

5) anti-aircraft ground capability. M45 Quadmount, anyone? Or anything else to scare away aircraft.

6) flexible triggers for scenario designers, not just time-based.

7) some buildings providing good cover and readily knowing which ones, either graphically or an info-box when hovering on it.

8) tcp/ip wego. File-transfer based approximations don't cut it.

9) hand-to-hand combat (did I miss this, or is it in now?). Put those bayonets and buttstocks to use.

10) move-to-hull-down towards a given facing, for AFVs. End the micro-positioning management (most of the time, there are always exceptions).

11) shoot-and-scoot - for AFVs and infantry with anti-tank weapons. Get some survivability to our AT assets.

12) re-mannable AT guns and field guns.

13) a few others.

[Broadsword56]

+1 for SOPs

TacOps had them over a decade ago and they worked great -- in fact it's the only distinctive thing I remember about that game, other than it was tactical and set in the 1990s modern era. They were the best and most original feature I've ever seen in any tactical PC game, before or since.

[normannobrot]

can i ask, with the new map editor features, with the picture underlay that you build the map over, will this show the terrain height? or will we have to try and put it in manualy...

been trying to make a scenario from a book "panther vs sherman 76" these new updates would be fantastic..

[Vinnart]

I think this would streamline arc creations, and manipulation incredibly. It would be created similar to how 360 degree arc is made with a single click (more efficient than two), but is 180 degree instead. This was available in Cmx1, and I used it 95% of the time. The player would hold down ctrl + target arc command and drag to size. Once, the desired size is achieved the player clicks creating a waypoint at the center. Once created the player can drag the waypoint to resize, and rotate it while it remains symmetric. In this way a player can keep manipulating the already made arc on the fly instead of having to have to re-create new ones to change size and direction. This is smart, sensible and efficient. A player could theoretically go through a whole game using one single created arc.

[YankeeDog]

I finally got around to writing up the previously promised .30-06' small arms fire vs. German halftrack results. I started a new thread in the CMBN forum, since this seemed a more appropriate place to post the full results. You can read all the details here.

Short summary: Odin, I don't know how you are losing German Halftracks to .30-'06 fire as anything other than a rare, one-off event unless you are doing something daft like exposing the HT to plunging fire from a higher elevation that can enter through the open top. The tests I ran indicate that SPW 251 frontal armor is nearly perfect proof against .30-'06 fire. Even the side armor is pretty much proof against .30-'06 fire at ranges of 200m or more. And even at 100m and perfect flat side aspect, .30-'06 fire only causes occasional "Armor Spalling" events that rarely cause casualties or damage; it takes a fair amount of bad luck to actually lose an SPW 251 this way.

Think I'm wrong? Run your own tests, or offer up a save game file...

[Redwolf]

It so happens I asked Steve this question and he essentially said that SOPs aren't in the game because when he played TacOps he never bothered with using the SOPs. Kinda blew my mind.

TacOps has less need for them since it is a little higher scale and has more abstraction. And of course the reason why you don't have to fiddle with them all the time is that they have sensible defaults.

CMx2 has a much more urgent need for them than TacOps ever had, even in WEGO.

I speculate that BFC doesn't like the additional UI load. But the problem with that is what I explained earlier. If there were SOPs then the in-game workload, in particular for real-time, would be much better, in exchange for just a bit more setup time.

[plau011]

I know the full replay is not possible or very difficult, but I think you could do and not that hard would be a simple replay. Not sure if anyone remembers Sid Meier's Gettysburg but at the end it had a replay. Very basic map(high bird's eye view) and red and blue arrow that should where everything moved, fought, was routed... I would think something along those lines could be done.

The other thing which would be nice is when you click on a weapon in the unit panel a popup would come up with a larger image and a better description(like in the manual). Would be a nice tool and help me learn more about the different weapons without having to pop open the manual.

[John Kettler]

KR,

I got Modello's mixed up. The correct Breda is the Modello 35 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breda_Model_35 Michael Emrys is correct. I got confused because the accounts I've read of the LRDG made it sound like an MG. In fact, I think it was called that. One thing I know for sure is that they were both popular and effective.

Regards,

John Kettler

[WriterJWA]

3) Network multiplayer over IPv6

This +1000

[Baneman]

...

1) ability to undo a "bail out" command. The default hotkey for bail out is the same as hunt.

(actually unique default command hotkeys would be nice too)

....

This.

I cannot understand why, in a game in which you give commands and then hit a "Go" button, that there are a couple of commands which are fully activated with no undo before you hit the "Go" button.

Same applies to artillery - if you misclick and "CeaseFire" your artillery strike, it's just gone.

[Odin]

I finally got around to writing up the previously promised .30-06' small arms fire vs. German halftrack results. I started a new thread in the CMBN forum, since this seemed a more appropriate place to post the full results. You can read all the details here.

Short summary: Odin, I don't know how you are losing German Halftracks to .30-'06 fire as anything other than a rare, one-off event unless you are doing something daft like exposing the HT to plunging fire from a higher elevation that can enter through the open top. The tests I ran indicate that SPW 251 frontal armor is nearly perfect proof against .30-'06 fire. Even the side armor is pretty much proof against .30-'06 fire at ranges of 200m or more. And even at 100m and perfect flat side aspect, .30-'06 fire only causes occasional "Armor Spalling" events that rarely cause casualties or damage; it takes a fair amount of bad luck to actually lose an SPW 251 this way.

Think I'm wrong? Run your own tests, or offer up a save game file...

I ran some tests myself, and I will admit that I found that half track passengers were getting chewed up by machine gun fire due to their poor use of the protection offered by the half track rather than ineffective armour (although there was still frequent armour spalling).

I've posted a link to a video below which shows all three passengers ending up as casualties within 50 seconds after coming under mg fire at ranges of approx 125-175m. I ran similar tests 10 times, on 9 occasions it ended up with some or all of the passengers ending up as casualties. On the other occasion the half track took out the 2 American mgs. (5 trials the half track started facing the mgs, the other 5 it was sideways on as in the video)

http://youtu.be/eZG5jIJN23k

The basic problem seems to stem from troops in the carrier insisting on manning the half track mg (even when ordered to button up) this results in a conveyor belt of gunners getting picked off when coming under fire.

Maybe there should be a button up option which insists none of the passengers man the mg?

[YankeeDog]

I ran some tests myself, and I will admit that I found that half track passengers were getting chewed up by machine gun fire due to their poor use of the protection offered by the half track rather than ineffective armour (although there was still frequent armour spalling).

I've posted a link to a video below which shows all three passengers ending up as casualties within 50 seconds after coming under mg fire at ranges of approx 125-175m. I ran similar tests 10 times, on 9 occasions it ended up with some or all of the passengers ending up as casualties. On the other occasion the half track took out the 2 American mgs. (5 trials the half track started facing the mgs, the other 5 it was sideways on as in the video)

http://youtu.be/eZG5jIJN23k

The basic problem seems to stem from troops in the carrier insisting on manning the half track mg (even when ordered to button up) this results in a conveyor belt of gunners getting picked off when coming under fire.

Maybe there should be a button up option which insists none of the passengers man the mg?

A little hard to tell due to the low quality of the video, but the results I see in that video are about what I would expect given the conditions.

You exposed the halftrack, near perfect flank, to fire from *2* M1917A2 HMG teams at ranges less than 200m. This is very heavy fire -- probably on the order of 3-6 rounds per second fired at the halftrack from the MGs, with at least half of those rounds hitting. And this isn't even accouting for the additional fire added by the rifles and carbines in the MMG teams. This is over double the volume that I exposed the halftracks to in my tests and far heavier small arms fire than I would ever deliberately expose a light armored vehicle to at this range even from a frontal aspect, let alone a side aspect. Frankly, if you expose your halftrack to this much flank fire, you deserve to take casualties and potentially lose the halftrack. Individual armor spalling hits may only rarely cause damage or casualties, but with this many rounds hitting, individually rare events are going to accumulate to a common result.

You are correct that when he is up manning the gun, the HT gunner is very vulnerable to incoming fire from a flank aspect, and that furthermore it is impossible to completely force the gunner to button up. For the most part, I think if you expose the halftrack to flanking fire like this, you get what you deserve. However, I do think my tests and your video lend some support the idea that perhaps the AI should be tweaked so that the gunner does not pop up to man the gun unless and until the HT has rotated far enough around to bring the gun to bear. He's really of no use on the gun until it can actually be pointed at the target, and this would substantially reduce the gunner's vulnerability, at least when there is only one incoming fire vector.

But overall, if that's the kind of fire you're exposing your halftracks to, I'm not at all surprised you're losing men and machines. Back 'em off to 200m, keep the frontal armor and the gun shield between the enemy and the soft things inside the halftrack, and you'll be fine, at least wrt .30-'06 fire.

[Odin]

I'm surprised they ended up dead. All they needed to do is keep their heads down. Heavy fire or not for them to get picked off time after time in under a minute's worth of machine gun fire, it tells me that half tracks are not doing the job they were designed to do or what you could reasonably expect them to do. Anyway I've already bitten once when I said I would say no more, so that's me over and out on the subject.

[Childress]

+1 for SOPs

TacOps had them over a decade ago and they worked great -- in fact it's the only distinctive thing I remember about that game, other than it was tactical and set in the 1990s modern era. They were the best and most original feature I've ever seen in any tactical PC game, before or since.

And TacOps was a smash hit? Have you ever tried to interest a friend in CM? Even a friend with some WW2 knowledge? I have. We're accustomed to the density; for an outsider it can be damn intimidating. Even CM1x. So I question the wisdom of adding another layer of user options on to an already complex game however useful they seem.

I could think of another half dozen movement commands for that matter. And they'd be practical. Or formations. Doubtlessly so has BF. Doesn't make them desirable.

[WriterJWA]

And TacOps was a smash hit? Have you ever tried to interest a friend in CM? Even a friend with some WW2 knowledge? I have. We're accustomed to the density; for an outsider it can be damn intimidating. Even CM1x. So I question the wisdom of adding another layer of user options on to an already complex game however useful they seem.

I could think of another half dozen movement commands for that matter. And they'd be practical. Or formations. Doubtlessly so has BF. Doesn't make them desirable.

Nice way to take a !!!! on someone's idea.... LOL ;-)

[Redwolf]

And TacOps was a smash hit? Have you ever tried to interest a friend in CM? Even a friend with some WW2 knowledge? I have. We're accustomed to the density; for an outsider it can be damn intimidating. Even CM1x. So I question the wisdom of adding another layer of user options on to an already complex game however useful they seem.

I could think of another half dozen movement commands for that matter. And they'd be practical. Or formations. Doubtlessly so has BF. Doesn't make them desirable.

TacOps is pretty successful, in particular with it's military customers.

And using SOPs the way that TacOps does doesn't only add things. The nice things about them is that they also remove things. You can remove some of the crazier "TacAI" code that tries to figure out (usually unsuccessfully) the things that the player should be able to specify in the first place. And as mentioned it trades a bit of setup time on the part of the player for a lighter workload once the game has started.

And of course SOPs like they are used in TacOps don't only remove some of the crazier TacAI, they also allow you to dump a good third of the different commands (which are different only in their implicit SOPs), and that is a pretty significant simplification both code-wise and on the user interface side.

[Redwolf]

Nice way to take a !!!! on someone's idea.... LOL ;-)

It's not my idea. It is a well-proven concept, and much older than any of the CMx1 games.

Maybe the story is true that Steve didn't like it when playing TacOps. But Steve and Charles have piled all that nonsense that SOPs could do in a simple manner into more and more complex TacAI and more and more slightly different user-visible commands. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate the value of these things.

And as I said, not only does it make WEGO more realistic, it is a great help for real-time play.

[Erwin]

+1 to Vinnart's idea re a covered arc that can be adjusted by simply clicking on and moving with the mouse, instead of having to redo it everytime.

Actually, there is little need for that whole yellow 180 degree graphical overlay at all for an arc that is simply trying to direct attention in a particular direction - an arrow or similar pointing graphic would be sufficient.

The only reason to have the yellow arc overlay is when you are defining a very specific area to control/limit what the unit will fire at.

[Childress]

And as I said, not only does it make WEGO more realistic, it is a great help for real-time play.

If the net effect is greater simplicity, transparency and realism then I'm for it. But user friendliness is essential if we don't want to confine the game to the hardest of the hardcore.

I don't argue that in the realm of unit reactions finer tuning could be achieved.

We can be certain that there have been internal debates on the subject.

[WriterJWA]

It's not my idea. It is a well-proven concept, and much older than any of the CMx1 games.

Maybe the story is true that Steve didn't like it when playing TacOps. But Steve and Charles have piled all that nonsense that SOPs could do in a simple manner into more and more complex TacAI and more and more slightly different user-visible commands. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate the value of these things.

And as I said, not only does it make WEGO more realistic, it is a great help for real-time play.

LOL. I know. I'm an old school TacOps player, too. I like the idea of being able to define engage distances and other factors pertinent to combat operations ... nevermind the fact that it is consistent with actual practices in combat. It would also take some of the micromanagement out of RT.

Another game that really took advantage of SOP's is Flashpoint Germany, a game similar to TacOps.

[Vinnart]

+1 to Vinnart's idea re a covered arc that can be adjusted by simply clicking on and moving with the mouse, instead of having to redo it everytime.

Actually, there is little need for that whole yellow 180 degree graphical overlay at all for an arc that is simply trying to direct attention in a particular direction - an arrow or similar pointing graphic would be sufficient.

The only reason to have the yellow arc overlay is when you are defining a very specific area to control/limit what the unit will fire at.

Erwin, I am sure the showing the highlighted area is needed to be able to see crossing fields of fire, and to better see total cover area. I think the way it is done is good, but needs to be more transparent, and not as overpowering. An arrow would not be enough to visualize the entire field left and right. Good thought though in trying to make it more graphically pleasing, but just not practical.

[Redwolf]

If the net effect is greater simplicity, transparency and realism then I'm for it. But user friendliness is essential if we don't want to confine the game to the hardest of the hardcore.

I don't argue that in the realm of unit reactions finer tuning could be achieved.

We can be certain that there have been internal debates on the subject.

Another thing where SOPs reduce player load is that they could be pre-set to something reasonable in setup by the scenario designer.

Experienced players will of course go through all units and re-set them to whatever they like but the above will be a great help for those who don't know or who don't want to bother.

It goes without saying that this would also make the preplanned computed opponent quite a bit stronger, compared to the TacAI trying to magically come up with player (or scenario designer) intent.

[Broadsword56]

One of the TacOps SOPs I remember was telling a unit what to do on first contact with an ememy. One option was "pop smoke and retreat." Think of how helpful that would be for a scout team, and how many clicks and lines and commands that would save.

[Childress]

One of the TacOps SOPs I remember was telling a unit what to do on first contact with an ememy. One option was "pop smoke and retreat."

With ANY enemy unit?

And retreat where?

[Broadsword56]

OK, just to clarify:

The SOP options box (for a vehicle unit, let's say) has 4 main menus:

IF FIRED ON...

IF FIRE...

IF FIRED ON AND HIT...

IF SPOT ENEMY...

So under the IF SPOT ENEMY, for example, you can check the box for these options:

STOP

STOP AND POP SMOKE

REVERSE (SPECIFY THE # OF METERS)

REVERSE AND POP SMOKE

UNLOAD

To BFC's credit, we already have excellent tac AI in CM x 2 for vehicles that will make them reverse and pop smoke when they decide there's sufficient threat. So some SOPs are already built in. But you can see from the above that SOPs let you do more commanding and less micromanaging, so you can match your orders to tactical situations instead of trying to do it all with moves and timed pauses/fire orders.

I think Tac Ops lets you set rally points too, which would be a great feature in CM x 2