Meanwhile, back to Improvement suggestions

[Sailor Malan2]

How's about "Iron +" - to mandate all those "only for the real hardcore player". Like only view 1 and 2 allowed, with all playability changes removed and replaced with realism? Maybe too hard core, but enforcing the views would fit with several posts over the years. Maybe view 8 as well but only from leaders? (And obviously Iron setting spotting)

[AstroCat]

I was looking at all the different CMx2 games installed and was wondering if there could be some kind of "shell" UI for them. Something that let me switch between them in an in-game environment. Maybe also a place to manage my mods, built in as well... Probably not gonna happen but it sure could be slick and convenient. Also this could also let you more freely pick maps, maybe even mix forces, etc... just like you do in the individual games, the games become in a way modules unto themselves.

Edited January 13, 2017 by AstroCat

[weapon2010]

turn off the icons, that alone changes the entire game

[Cpl Steiner]

This is a really minor graphical improvement request (and therefore most likely never to happen!). When you see a real life tank moving off road, little clots of dirt get thrown up by the tracks. I would love to see some dirt thrown up, as well as the cloud of dust we see now. The effect would be similar to the particles thrown up by ground-level explosions but much smaller.

[AlexUK]

Raised before, but throw grenades command (or perhaps more general fire secondary weapon?).

Visual indication of buttoned/unbuttoned status without needing to go to specific tab.

Would also be handy to have a key command to select last waypoint when you select a unit. when plotting a long movement path, and finding that the final position doesn't give LOS, i sometimes lose selection when clicking in the wrong spot.

Decals for small arms on buildings etc.

[mjkerner]

UI or icon notation as to what floor the selected unit is on when in a building would be a godsend.

[Michael Emrys]

59 minutes ago, AlexUK said:

Visual indication of buttoned/unbuttoned status without needing to go to specific tab.

This sparked another idea. Would it be worthwhile to model three different states of buttonedness, i.e., (1) fully closed; (2) only TC exposed; and (3) all hatches open? We have the first two now, the third would be a normal state used when traveling out of enemy contact. Since CM does not normally represent situations when enemy contact is not expected, this would at first glance appear to be unneeded. But especially if CM begins to delve into the area of irregular or guerilla warfare, situations like ambushes of units in road movement might become standard fare.

Michael

Edited January 14, 2017 by Michael Emrys

[Dynaman216]

Here are a few I'm hoping for.

Map marking - ability to put "markers" on the map with a label.  Useful for keeping notes for oneself.

Holes in bocage markers - having to visually go across a row of bocage to find openings is no fun.

Building door and window icons.  As per bocage, rotating around a building to find out where doors and windows are is a pain and it makes city fights that much more aggravating.

Follow road command, for me a lot of the "follow" command was simply to get a convoy down a diagonal road without putting a bunch of waypoints to keep them from going into the trees.  This would be along the lines of a vehicle will follow a road if it is within an action spot of the line you drew for the path.  I realize this is not as easy as it sounds to implement but I'm guessing it is easier than the follow command and might be doable.

Visible waypoints for the actual path a unit will take.  Place a waypoint and a separate color line will appear showing the path the unit will take to get there (based on current conditions of course - if things change the path might as well).  This helps for getting through bocage and such.

[AlexUK]

Another one that has been raised before, colour other units from same team within a squad when they are split, and you select one team (not sure I have terminology right). I know it won't work for colour blind, but it would work for most people?

[Michael Emrys]

33 minutes ago, AlexUK said:

Another one that has been raised before, colour other units from same team within a squad when they are split, and you select one team (not sure I have terminology right).

I don't believe you do. Teams do not split. They are the smallest components in the game. (Note that not all teams are parts of squads, sniper teams are one example.) If you mean give each team within a squad a different color, I'm not sure what good that would be, but coloring all the teams of one squad one color and all the teams of another squad a different color might be of some benefit in a situation where teams of various squads have gotten mixed up in a small area. Frankly though I seriously doubt that it would be worth the coding effort.

Michael

[Sailor Malan2]

Actually,  I often find myself using +/- to step between the teams just to see which ones are the same squad. When you click on a team or squad, uniits in the same command highlight. All we need is that if you click on a team, the whole command highlights as now, but other teams in the same squad highlight differently. ALso, the selected unit highlights in the same way as unslected units just taken a casualty. Sadly this means that there is only one flashing routine I suspect, but something like 'flash orange for selected unit' (as now), flash blue for teams in the same squad (if split)', and 'flash red for casualties' would be great. Units in the same command remain as now (brighter but no flash)

[Sailor Malan2]

19 hours ago, AlexUK said:

Raised before, but throw grenades command (or perhaps more general fire secondary weapon?).

Visual indication of buttoned/unbuttoned status without needing to go to specific tab.

Would also be handy to have a key command to select last waypoint when you select a unit. when plotting a long movement path, and finding that the final position doesn't give LOS, i sometimes lose selection when clicking in the wrong spot.

Decals for small arms on buildings etc.

Majorly against this. This is not appropriate to the CM scale. I wouldn't like this, or anything like it to be coded. 1) I would want the effort elsewhere, 2) it isnt appropriate at this scale, 3) it gives another level of micro-optimisation that would split the community (those that use it would have an unfair advantage over those who don't want the hassle or lack of realism). 

What is so wrong with the TAC AI use of grenades anyway?

[Bulletpoint]

5 hours ago, Sailor Malan2 said:

What is so wrong with the TAC AI use of grenades anyway?

I often feel the need for a command to throw grenades when assaulting a building. I can suppress the defenders and get an assault team right up against the wall of the house, but to throw grenades I then need to do an area fire order, which means my SMG troops will fire their whole magazine blindly into the floor and then get shot by the defenders while reloading. 

[JonS]

3 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I often feel the need for a command to throw grenades when assaulting a building.

This suggestion has always confused me a bit - wouldn't it only work if you were adjacent to a wall that had windows and doors? You can't throw around a corner, or through a room into the one beyond, so you're only dealing with the room directly in front of you. And in that case you can see in, in which case your guys should be shooting ... or at least making their own decisions on a second-by-second basis whether to throw or shoot.

[Bulletpoint]

Just now, JonS said:

This suggestion has always confused me a bit - wouldn't it only work if you were adjacent to a wall that had windows and doors? You can't throw around a corner, or through a room into the one beyond, so you're only dealing with the room directly in front of you. And in that case you can see in, in which case your guys should be shooting ... or at least making their own decisions on a second-by-second basis whether to throw or shoot.

 

I find that very often my guys won't shoot when they reach the building, because they won't immediately spot the covering enemies inside the building. Without active spotting, no shooting. And they don't have long to spot the enemies either, since when they are at the building, they will start to take suppression from the friendly covering fire.

Unless I am mistaken, in real life troops won't run up to an enemy occupied building and stand in front of the windows and look inside. If they have just a minimum of training (or basic good sense ) they will take up positions at the sides of the windows and throw in grenades.

It would be cool if the "throw grenades" command would be dependent on having an enemy contact marker within grenade range (just like the "mark mines" command needs a revealed minefield nearby). This would represent troops not just running around throwing grenades everywhere, but that you would need to make the assault squad aware of the enemy presence before they would do it.

[Michael Emrys]

2 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

And they don't have long to spot the enemies either, since when they are at the building, they will start to take suppression from the friendly covering fire.

Huh? Why the heck aren't you canceling the covering fire at the start of the turn or at least change it to Fire Briefly and time it so that it ceases when your assaulting troops get in range? No wonder you have problems. Sheesh...

Michael

[Bulletpoint]

15 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

Huh? Why the heck aren't you canceling the covering fire at the start of the turn or at least change it to Fire Briefly and time it so that it ceases when your assaulting troops get in range? No wonder you have problems. Sheesh...

Michael

Because getting the timing right is extremely tricky, and if I get it wrong by just five seconds or so, there's a real risk that the suppressed enemies will pop up again and shoot my assault team before they reach the building. So I often prefer to over-suppress a bit to be on the safe side. 

[JonS]

Sooo ... you want perfect synchronisation everytime without having to go through that tiresome learning process?

[Michael Emrys]

1 minute ago, Bulletpoint said:

Because getting the timing right is extremely tricky, and if I get it wrong by just five seconds or so, there's a real risk that the suppressed enemies will pop up again and shoot my assault team before they reach the building. So I often prefer to over-suppress a bit to be on the safe side. 

Sounds like you need to practice getting your timing down a little sharper. You might also try suppressing with something a bit bigger, mortar or a light infantry gun, or in other circumstances a bazooka-type weapon.

Michael

[Bulletpoint]

6 minutes ago, Michael Emrys said:

Sounds like you need to practice getting your timing down a little sharper. You might also try suppressing with something a bit bigger, mortar or a light infantry gun

I wouldn't recommend using a mortar to suppress a building while moving in an assault team 

And if I had an infantry gun, there would be no need for an assault at all.

[Sailor Malan2]

I find a heavy machine gun or two for a couple of minutes is ample for suppressing all but the toughest building. It sounds as if you are doing your own suppression with the assault team - never a good idea. And your use of a throw grenades command appears to mean 'only throw grenades'. So 30 secs later someone wants a 'throw and fire' command. Then a 'fire the rifles and not the SMG. Or vice versa., both with a 'throw grenades variant'...

In my experience it isn't the SMG reloading that is your problem. If the defenders unsuppress enough to fire on you during a mag change you are dead anyway at that range. Any automatic weapon, or 3-4 riles will kill you stone dead. The defenders must be  completely suppressed if you are assaulting otherwise its just Russian Roulette. As in, takes 10's of seconds to pop back up, not a 5 second timing error or a mag change.

[AlexUK]

11 hours ago, Sailor Malan2 said:

Majorly against this. This is not appropriate to the CM scale. I wouldn't like this, or anything like it to be coded. 1) I would want the effort elsewhere, 2) it isnt appropriate at this scale, 3) it gives another level of micro-optimisation that would split the community (those that use it would have an unfair advantage over those who don't want the hassle or lack of realism). 

What is so wrong with the TAC AI use of grenades anyway?

I find often I know, am pretty sure enemies are in a nearby location, but the team cannot get a spot (sometimes no los as just over a rise/over a wall), if I do area fire, I use a lot of rounds and give my position away. In the case of a rise, most/all the rounds go over their heads. I then send my squad over the crest and sure enough, they get wiped out. Throwing grenades is, at least in films/books, a common assault tactic. 

 

[Sailor Malan2]

And the pixeltruppen do throw grenades. If you start down this road, there is no logical stopping place until you control every man. 

If you know you are going to die, don't go over the wall/ridge.Find another way. It's only the same as tank combat... "don't rotate to shoot that halftrack there's a filthy great Tiger...BANG...oh... over there"

[weapon2010]

ok here is an improvement Id like to see, the ability to customize my visible icons, example show armor only(which I believe was in CMX1), show only FO's, show only AT guns, etc. , show all mines

[Bulletpoint]

On 1/15/2017 at 9:21 PM, Sailor Malan2 said:

And your use of a throw grenades command appears to mean 'only throw grenades'.

Yes, that's what I personally would like to see.

On 1/15/2017 at 9:21 PM, Sailor Malan2 said:

So 30 secs later someone wants a 'throw and fire' command.

We already have this: the Target command.

On 1/15/2017 at 9:21 PM, Sailor Malan2 said:

Then a 'fire the rifles and not the SMG.

This would be the "Target Light" command.

On 1/15/2017 at 9:21 PM, Sailor Malan2 said:

I find a heavy machine gun or two for a couple of minutes is ample for suppressing all but the toughest building.

I did some casual testing and found that I needed two light machineguns (M8 scout cars) and one heavy machinegun (M1917) to suppress a building enough that my assault team could approach with total impunity. But of course these results vary with a lot of different factors.