Could we/Should we ever see horse drawn wagons?

[Sequoia]

I don't expect to ever see mounted cavalry in any Combat Mission game. As I recall Steve's explantion is the amount of code and animations needed would be huge. Horses would be an entirely new type of unit with some aspects of personel and some of vehicles.

I want to ask, however, if horse drawn wagons might be easier to tackle? The animations would certainly be fewer. They would behave like a vehicle except when wounded or dead in which case the change in animation seems to me not much greater than a burning vehicle.

One could argue that they'd never be in the front line but that's true also of trucks and horse drawn wagons were more common on the Eastfront than trucks. Are wagons worth it you think or just a pipe dream?

[PanzerMike]

I don't need no stinkin' horses! I prefer a Donkey

[JoMac]

Not until we get Bicycle Units first :-)

Joe

[Sequoia]

Okay, I'll bite and pretend you were serious. Bicycle units were not that common. IIRC every battalion size non motorised unit on the Eastfront had horse drawn wagons.

[Buzz]

I don't expect to ever see mounted cavalry in any Combat Mission game. As I recall Steve's explantion is the amount of code and animations needed would be huge. Horses would be an entirely new type of unit with some aspects of personel and some of vehicles.

I want to ask, however, if horse drawn wagons might be easier to tackle? The animations would certainly be fewer. They would behave like a vehicle except when wounded or dead in which case the change in animation seems to me not much greater than a burning vehicle.

One could argue that they'd never be in the front line but that's true also of trucks and horse drawn wagons were more common on the Eastfront than trucks. Are wagons worth it you think or just a pipe dream?

"If it don't have hoses in it ... it ain't "historically accurate."

I smokin this 'horse drawn wagons...pull and cannons' Pipe Dream.

Now with 'mod tags' all kinds of non animated flavor objects may be possible.

Saddle Up

[Tashtego]

This would be my choice for an animal with 4 legs. The same number as a horse, AND they explode.

[PanzerMike]

Is that a Donkey attacking that tank ?

[snarre]

its bomb dog and this is tru . russians try to train dogs run under the tank in combat but problem was thous dogs runned under own tanks more than to enemy tank, sou they forgot this plan .

[PanzerMike]

Look carefully, it really is a Donkey

[Michael Emrys]

This would be my choice for an animal with 4 legs. The same number as a horse, AND they explode.

I foresee a minority of players using this feature once and never touching it again after the novelty and chuckles wear off. The rest would be wondering out loud why BFC ever wasted valuable development time on such a useless feature.

Michael

[PanzerMike]

Emrys! Surely it is no coincidence that you and the Donkey show up in the same thread

[JoMac]

Oh, Mike...Stop being a J**K Arse :-)

[PanzerMike]

He he he

[A Canadian Cat]

I foresee a minority of players using this feature once and never touching it again after the novelty and chuckles wear off.

Oh man we do not need PITA in these forums.

[Wodin]

Prefer to see bicycle troops or a Goliath before horses..though Horse mounted Cavalry would be cool it would be hard to make them look good I reckon.

[weapon2010]

Cant comment on horses or bicycles, but Steve absolutley said"I dont know how were going to leave them out",refering to motorcycles on the Eastern Front!

[A Canadian Cat]

Cant comment on horses or bicycles, but Steve absolutley said"I dont know how were going to leave them out",refering to motorcycles on the Eastern Front!

That quote suprised me. My expectation was we were not going to see motor bikes in CM and I thought that came from comments Steve made.

I did quick search (looking for comments by Steve re motor cycles since about 2008) and all I found was this (which backs up my memory): http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1220369&postcount=3

I would be interested in reading the comment you remember.

[MOS:96B2P]

That quote suprised me. My expectation was we were not going to see motor bikes in CM and I thought that came from comments Steve made.

I did quick search (looking for comments by Steve re motor cycles since about 2008) and all I found was this (which backs up my memory): http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1220369&postcount=3

I would be interested in reading the comment you remember.

Not sure how to link it but I copied it below.

05-28-2013, 01:57 PM

Battlefront.com

Administrator Join Date: Feb 1999

Posts: 17,185

________________________________________

Motorcycles present a unique challenge because they have unique physics characteristics that the game doesn't currently have. Fortunately for the timeframes we've simulated so far, motorcycles were pretty much relegated to messengers and other HQ duties. That's not true for 1939-1942 timeframe where they were standard recon element for German units before Volkswagens took over. When we get to that timeframe we're probably going to have to bite the bullet and support them.

Steve

[Sequoia]

I too remember Steve saying there was no way they could do early war Eastfront without motorcycles. By this I am guessing he means not before the 1942 family so we're still talking years down the road.

PS. Opps I see someone found the quote itself. I'm wondering what is meant exactly by the unique physics that makes the difference greater than the difference between two other types of vehicles. Is it that they can be thrown around by blasts and knocked sideways?

[weapon2010]

Ok my bad,Steve didnt exactly say"I dont know how were going to leave them out",lol

I was kind of paraphrasing.Shouldnt have quoted him.I was going on memory.

"Motorcycles present a unique challenge because they have unique physics characteristics that the game doesn't currently have. Fortunately for the timeframes we've simulated so far, motorcycles were pretty much relegated to messengers and other HQ duties. That's not true for 1939-1942 timeframe where they were standard recon element for German units before Volkswagens took over. When we get to that timeframe we're probably going to have to bite the bullet and support them."

This is the quote I remeber, which I was shocked to hear coming from Steve, because Im interpreting this as motorcycles will be in at some point, and if that is true, imagine what other sweet things are coming our way!

[YankeeDog]

Horses and other beasts of burden, whether mounted or harnessed to carts, do have some limited applicability to the CM scale, more so early war, but late war as well. The Germans never managed to completely motorize their logistics chain, and the Soviets used some horse cavalry supported by heavy weapons (MGs, mortars) moved in horse-drawn carts right to the end of the war. Cavalry formations weren't generally supposed to fight when mounted -- the purpose of fielding such units was more for operational mobility through terrain that was difficult for vehicles than for mounted combat. Nevertheless, it's not difficult to imagine CM scenario conceits where horses might be close enough to get caught up in the fighting.

But don't kid yourselves, getting horses modeled passably well in the game would require a very large effort, on both the animation/modeling side and the coding/AI side. A horse-drawn cart is nothing at all like a truck with hooves instead of wheels at the front and the code for this sort of thing would have to be built pretty much from the ground up.

So I don't expect it anytime soon, if ever. Only way I can see ever having horses and horse-drawn transport in the game would be if some other company contracted with BFC to license the CM engine for U.S. Civil War game or something like this where modeling horses would be essential. Presumably once coded and modeled, they could be ported back into the CM WWII games.

Motorcycles seem more possible to me. Still a lot of work, but at least they don't involve coding up an animal AI.

[MikeyD]

I recall on another topic Steve had responded to somebody's foliage request by joking that they weren't building an architectural landscaping design sim (though they do come pretty close sometimes). I suppose on this request he'd joke that they weren't building a rear echelon baggage train sim (though again they do come pretty close sometimes)

[Sequoia]

Every infantry battallion had horses to tow their organic infantry guns. They would be used in tactical situations at Combat Mission's scale.

[YankeeDog]

Sure; and it would be nice to be able to move Maxim MMGs up to the firing line on tchankas was well; this was certainly still being done at least occasionally, even in 1944.

But given realities of the coding effort vs. benefit analysis, we ain't gonna see this anytime soon. Maybe this is something BFC could consider adding once they get to the 41-42 East Front game release, or thereabouts... I doubt it, but that's so far down the road it's difficult to estimate what the state of the game engine will be at that point.

[Sequoia]

Fair enough. I can only say if no one ever asked then we would never get them, but I imagine the beta testers have a long wish list we never have seen.