New features/feature ideas for CM for the next few years thread

[womble]

Only have the "changes will be lost if you haven't saved" dialog upon exit of a game or scenario design if you've made any changes since you last saved.

Edit: have the dialog have a third option if you've not saved when you exit: "save and exit"...

[Whiterider]

- A follow command for vehicles so you don't have to manually lay out convoy plans which may or may not work.

+1 (specially in large maps)

[Freyberg]

Easy formation commands - spread out, advance by bounds etc...

[Freyberg]

- I 'd love to see the inside of AFVs when they get a hit (or is that ghoulish)

- AFVs that show damage - penetrations, turrets blown off etc

[Michael Emrys]

...(or is that ghoulish)...

Yep.

Michael

[Baneman]

Infantry that do NOT advance in single file.

[dieseltaylor]

Interesting suggestions. I particularly agree with typing in map size which seems such elementary aspect of design. In fact most of womble's list:

Being able to deploy to the map from a holding area/menu rather than having your forces already plonked down in a horrid jumble that you then have to sort out.

Basic editor functionality in text and number entry fields: let me type in "1500m" rather than clicking "grow map" many many times; let me ctrl-arrow back in savegame names.

Scroll bars and industry standard cursor control in menus.

Broader hotkey definition.

A save hotkey.

Allow "lock camera to map location" without there having to be a unit there.

Similarly with waypoints.

Ability to see what your unit can see with LOS-fidelity, or at least have elevations match potential view heights for the selected unit.

Fuzzier unit FoW, with potential error.

I prize ease of playability above most things and then realism. Glitz is way down and that includes cut scenes. However it is not daft if a designer was able to add useful links or videos and suggest it for mood enhancement : )

On the realism front the provision of correct speeds for reverse and allowing armoured cars with two drivers to actually go forwards and backwards at full speed.

[JM Stuff]

Hm... Hm...

1 Possibility to transporting infantry men and equipments on the tanks.

2 Possibility of changing the "lines of movements and States of the units, thinner lines and style by movement."

--Example: line intermittently for the movements in the "assault" in closing its movement by a square around the unit and not the awful points and white triangles.

--Normal movement dotted lines.

--Fast movements in the form of arrows.

3 More details to place and designate a shot or a final movement.

4 Possibility to change uniforms for the distinctive, before playing a scenarios in advance, or via a link for example, be able to load the directories with the distinctive prepared with the sounds adequate leisure gamers, I'v got about 10 :cool: directories only for each units Ger US Uk Can Pol what I do already for now but before CMBN launching.

Point of the line, thanks in advance for the realization of my wishes

[Childress]

Infantry that do NOT advance in single file.

Troops will currently spread using Hunt. Or do you mean implementing formations?

[Baneman]

Troops will currently spread using Hunt. Or do you mean implementing formations?

No, not formations - if you QUICK a team to a location, generally they will run in a line. If someone occupies the location, one burst can take out 1 to all of them.

Unfortunately, HUNT is not the go-to command for movement, mostly due to its rapid tiring of troops.

I could live with single-file for FAST since the troops are focussed on the destination, but QUICK could use some love as it's the most common command.

[A Canadian Cat]

I have been thinking about this lately. I tend to think about these things in terms of: modules or games I would like to see; features to add; playability issues that I would like to see addressed.

New modules or games:

In this category BFC's current list looks fantastic and will take them a long time to work through (Market Garden, Bulge, Eastern Front, Modern conflict in Europe). That is a lot of stuff and will take a long time to cover off and I am actually pretty happy with it. If BFC wanted to plan longer term I would ask for early war years, Hot war between Nato and Warsaw Pact circa the 1980s and WWII Africa.

Features to add:

Head to Head Campaigns via PBEM

I have so far tried three campaigns but never got into them. I know the majority of your customers play against the AI only but I just cannot. For me play by email is the way to go and I would really like to play campaigns against a human. Please - this is my number one wish. If you only do one thing this would be it.

Infantry ability to look / shoot around corners

I know that improved maps will make urban combat better but so will allowing infantry to stay in the alley but still target the enemy down the street. Some way to allow them to keep the building between them and the bad guys.

Assault Vehicles command

I would like a way to tell my squad your target is that tank. Right now all I can tell them is go to this spot. Trouble happens when the tank moves - my men just stand their in the open until the tank takes them out. What I would like form a command like this is for the men to adjust where they go if the tank moves a short distance away. And if the tank drives of too far away for them to reach I would like them to cancel the idea and return to their previous position. Yes, this sounds hard.

Copy and paste of terrain / buildings in the map editor

It would make life easier if we could copy and paste between maps and within a map.

Map resize to the max in any direction

Right now the default map starts as a portion at the centre of a virtual 4km x 4km map. This means that if I grow the map to the edge in the North direction and realize I need more room North I cannot add any even though I only have a 2.xkm high map. A max size is understandable. Please let us grow to the max in what ever direction we need to.

Road curves

It would look so much better.

Vehicles follow roads

Right now vehicles sometimes get a bit confused and drive off the road only to drive back on again. I am not sure what is happening here from time to time. Vehicles on roads with the next way point that is on the road should strongly favour driving on the road.

Flames

Yeah, I know it is in the works but it needs to be on a list:)

Triggers for the AI (to allow reactive AI plans)

Something that would allow a defense screen to fall back or allow a defense to shift to respond to a break through on a flank. That kind of thing.

Playability issues:

Command line support

Third party tools such as H2HH should be able to launch the game and start a turn, start a new battle, edit a scenario etc. Just simple things like that would allow others to create things that will make your game better. I have other thoughts on this area as well but this number one in the theme of supporting the community.

Camera group persistence

I would love to be able to assign camera groups to units and have that be there next turn. Please.

Disable or remove edge camera navigation

Believe it or not doing something about this feature is my number one complaint about the game. Not a day goes by that I do not accidentally touch the edge of the screen with my mouse and cause the camera to fly off. This drives me nuts. We have talked about this before and I know that you (Steve) use this feature your self. I accept that it will not be removed. Can you please let me turn it off?

Toggle building transparency

I take a lot of screen shots and I spend a lot of time trying avoid having transparent buildings in the picture. What I would really like is to be able to turn this on and off. Clearly to play the game this is a very useful feature so I don't want it gone just toggle able so I can get a good screen shot.

Toggle compass

Ditto the compass. I always crop it out - I just want to toggle it.

Toggle UI panel

It would be nice to watch a turn / take a screen shot with more screen real estate showing the game view. Therefore I would love to toggle off the UI panel at the bottom. Yes, that can be scary "help I accidentally turned of the UI and now I am stuck". Pause tells you how to get back. But if you do that please also include a documented way to get rid of that message too.

[Vencini]

Infantry ability to look / shoot around corners

I know that improved maps will make urban combat better but so will allowing infantry to stay in the alley but still target the enemy down the street. Some way to allow them to keep the building between them and the bad guys.

+1 It's very difficult to do that

- Animations for passengers in vehicles. They stay too still.

-If I do a mistake calling for artillery, I have to remake all the process.So It will be fine, a button to "back one step" If I do a mistake

- Night flares

- A general strategic game AND (battlefront TM )and play the battles with CM

Love this game! Rergards!

[De Savage]

Here's my list:

1. Triggers for AI/reinforcements - this is A MUST. It would make designing scenario easier (now, you have to guess where the human player is). So now you cant know tempo of player. Longer scenarios can be boring, if AI is acting too fast or too slow.

2. More objects. How about making larger pile of stone which can be used when large house collapse.

3. Make choices in campaign. Make short list what to to next. Example you can wait for reinforcements or attack to gain surprise. Scenario makers could me very cool campaign, where you could make strategical choices.

4. Flares for night action

5. Fires and flamethrowers

6. Give scenario maker more user friendly. Like plopping flavor object on 3D etc.

[jhmorneau]

Let's open Pandora's box and dream on

I will gladly add my two cents :

- destructed vehicle models.

- ability to check/uncheck weapons for a given unit (this would allow for example to make sure that a sniper team only fires with the scoped rifle).

- area fire on more than one Action spot.

- finetuning of the amount of ammo one unit can take from a vehicle (instead of having to choose from a list of arbitrary quantities).

- possibility to grab ammo from a vehicle without having to board it first (even if the process could be slower that way).

- possibility to exchange weapons and/or ammo between two adjacent units.

- a "mirror" option in quick battles : when activated, the 2 sides would get the exact same forces (with manual as well as automatic selection).

- in quick battles : at the beginning of setup, I'd like to have my units spread out in a line like it was in the CM1X series. This would be much easier to sort out than the current "scrambled eggs" deployment.

- false enemy identifications : do you remember when your CM1X pixeltruppen thought a Tiger was approaching only to find out it was just a Stug or a Panzer IV ?

[Vencini]

Sorry I can't edit my previous message. Three more:

- Vehicles can push other vehicles (even destroy other vehicles passing over them)

- You can dismount one unit and mount in another vehicle in the same turn (WEGO)

- Numbers or a little big circles for trucks. It's difficult to count how many units can get in.

Sorry for double post. I like a lot of good ideas here...

Regards!

[Baneman]

...

- You can dismount one unit and mount in another vehicle in the same turn (WEGO)

...

And/or a unit being able to mount the same vehicle that another unit is dismounting from, in the same turn.

[Vanir Ausf B]

1) Let Fausts, Bazookas and Schrecks be fired from buildings.

2) ...

[Sublime]

I really think thats gonna hafta be done Vanir. Honestly, in this iteration of CM, I dont see that many huge new features (like corner peeking) being introduced. So for the meantime, until CMx3, I hope they adjust it so infantry can fire them in buildings. I think that will have a massive effect on urban warfare's realism, much like how 2.01 drastically changed MG behavior in game.

[Fizou]

Im also all for fausts, zooks and schrecks being able to be fired from indoors.

[Examiner2]

- Small arms friendly fire.

- Triggers as suggested numerous times.

- Slow-motion for playback.

- Unit formations as suggested, line, column, staggered column, wedge, vee, echelon left and right, etc...

[A Canadian Cat]

Let's open Pandora's box and dream on

Yep that's what we are doing. My list had no consideration for difficulty. Frankly, because it is not possible for me to tell how hard something is to accomplish. That plus it would feel like work then:D

- destructed vehicle models.

- possibility to grab ammo from a vehicle without having to board it first (even if the process could be slower that way).

I forgot those two +1 for each...

[womble]

- Small arms friendly fire.

That'd need some serious TacAI work alongside...

- Slow-motion for playback.

And fast forward instead of "skip 5".

[Lt Belenko]

Destroyed taller buildings create rubble in surrounding hexes and block streets to vehicles.

+1 to the cammo nets on AT guns. Providing concealment not cover.

[Juri_JS]

Sorry if this has been asked before. What about friendly units that are controlled by the AI? This would offer some interesting new possibilities for scenario designers.

[StkNRdr]

I personally think the GUI could better use the terrain of the screen. Most users have a wide screen monitor and there is blank space on either side of the unit information and movement button display. Instead of having 4 mode buttons to chose from for Movement, Combat, Special and Admin which slows down the process, why not have the option to spread these across the bottom of the screen to make selection of an action much quicker for those that prefer mouse clicks over key strokes. I think this should be an option as not everyone has a wide screen monitor or may prefer the current set up. Below is a image of what this could look like.