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What do we want in the new CM game, Part Deux!


MrSpkr

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I think it is more important to actually simulate what each unit sees and knows for the TacAI rather than preventing the player from seeing everything at the same time. This is not a solution to the spotting issue, as you can still see everything, you just have to cycle through every damn unit to do so.

I would like to see it exactly as suggested above, where clicking on each unit displays only their LOS and the units they are aware of, except when you press a hotkey, or have no selected units, the most accurately spotted versions of everything on the map can be seen all at once.

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Then you defeat the purpose of the idea. The whole point is that you are being put in the squads world view and have to respond to the squads perspective. Personally, I think that it should be the platoons perspective to simulate the sharing of info amongst the platoon through communication, hand signals, yelling, etc.

You have to remember that the game has abstractions. Some good some bad.

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Putting yourself on the ground with the platoon has a different purpose from what was proposed.

As a solution to borg spotting, ie. you, the player being able to respond to every threat on the map instantly, neither limiting the view to what a squad sees on view level 8 or on view level 1 will make any difference.

You can still see all, you just have to cycle through every unit and mark spotted enemy units on the map to do it. Combine this with actually recieving fractured messages for each squad and interpreting them from suad perspective and this would be very tedious and slow.

Currently, putting the game on view level 1 as per "frankos true combat rules" is not practical, because often trees or other graphical elements obscure the view of the player to something the squad has spotted in the game engine. This is because cover is treated like a block of translucent glass instead of like the sprites we see.

I would like to see a "units-eye" option but not have it be integral to the game system, but only to judge terrain etc.

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No the idea is to do a LOS check for the selected unit only during the orders phase. This way, he can not target what other units have seen. He will only be able to tagrget what he sees.

What the game does is a LOS check for every friendly unit to every enemy unit and therefore, the sharing of spotted units and enemy unit info. This is a means to curtail that.

Forcing the player to activate a unit (select it) and issue orders to that unit and then NOT being able to come back to that unit and edit the orders (because you cycled through all the other units) would also curtail the unrealistic gamey orders that are given.

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Has it ever been any thought of having a modern version of CM? Maybe covering the cold war in Germany or Korea. I don't know about you all, but I would love to see M1s speeding across the map. :cool: Could also be interesting to do what if for the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Beline crises of 1947 and 1961 with M48s and T55s. I would also like to see an Arab/Isreali Wars version covering all the major conflicts from 1947 to about 1982's Peace for Galili Operation.

So how about that? :eek:

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A simple idea that was already suggested:

Having side specific objectives.

I'm sure often IRL the objectives of both sides coincided, but in CM you always both have to go for the same flag.

I think each side seeing different objectives, victory locations and landmark labels on the same map would add to the excitement, FOW and reduce the predictability of the AI.

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Originally posted by Mr. Tittles:

Forcing the player to activate a unit (select it) and issue orders to that unit and then NOT being able to come back to that unit and edit the orders (because you cycled through all the other units) would also curtail the unrealistic gamey orders that are given.

Call me crazy, but I don't think many people would go for that. Not being able to go back and change a units orders after possible rethinking later in the order phase seems a little extream to me, and by no means would prevent gamey orders.
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I don't know whether this kind of feature has been discussed before, but as I couldn't find anything with a quick glance, here it goes:

For me the definite number one new feature would be the possibility to watch the whole battle non-stop from start to finish after the match has ended. Currently we are already seeing one minute "film clips", so how hard would it be just to store the needed action data and compose a film of the whole battle? This way one could do a nice post-mortem analysis of his troops movement etc, and what's even more important, one could also select to view the film from enemy's point of view to see where the enemy units really were, how they moved during the battle etc. Seeing the post-match film from enemy's point of view could be disabled from pre-match options, so if one wanted to protect his precious secret tactics, that could be done ;)

Furthermore, this post-match film file should be stored to a "playable" format, so that you could download and watch films of other people's matches. That kind of film could be also easily converted to .avi using 3rd party software to create a "real" video about your match with additional music etc.

This kind of functionality already exists in many FPS-games(where it's often called demo recording), so why should the next Combat Mission be any inferior? =)

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Starshells and illuminated areas from burning buildings would be good, although the way in which a bright spot both illuminates aroumd it and makes it harder to spot other units because it interfers with night vision could be impossible to model.

Muzzleflashes particularly from artillery would also be nice, a bit of a gamey feature rather than for spotting etc. Although at night whether a unit is firing should play a more important role than moving.

As to the debate on spotting the suggestion i made some time ago was the option to limit view by unit type, so that for example a sniper could only use 1, ie eyelevel, a squad 1 or 2, a platoon HQ, 1 to 3 etc etc.

Finally having spend the last week in Spain it reminded me of the way that european towns differ from the US.

When making towns in CM you can't have two large buildings attached on different levels, but in france, you regularly see long continuous streets rise in steps. and curves.

Monti Cassino may well be the best example of this where their were lots of long narrow streets on slopes with almost continuous buildings on both sides. Even in major towns and cities like Paris much of the street network looks nothing like the grid you get in CM.

I tend to think that the grid system used tends to make towns in particular far to "American" and not realistically "European".

Peter.

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Originally posted by Pzman:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Mr. Tittles:

Forcing the player to activate a unit (select it) and issue orders to that unit and then NOT being able to come back to that unit and edit the orders (because you cycled through all the other units) would also curtail the unrealistic gamey orders that are given.

Call me crazy, but I don't think many people would go for that. Not being able to go back and change a units orders after possible rethinking later in the order phase seems a little extream to me, and by no means would prevent gamey orders. </font>
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Air-to-air combat for when both sides have air support - yet another thing that ASL has but CM doesn't (yes, I like my chrome shiny :D ). Or is that already modelled but I am just too inattentive to see it in the manual?

[i searched the CM forums for "dogfight", "air to air"& "air-to-air" but found no relevant hits in the subjects.]

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Varying degrees of sound contact & more information from them… (I here 6-12 rifles in that wood so I presumably face a squad).

Forests & woods that actually hide infantry, I don’t want to be able to see troops wandering around hundreds of metres inside a dense forest.

Perhaps flash contacts or advanced sound contacts will tell you where in a wood incoming fire is coming from without revealing the exact location of the enemy & his current actions (Oh look those troops in foxholes, three hundred metres away in that forest are sneaking away now).

[ October 30, 2004, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: 37mm ]

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THE ORDER "FOLLOW"

You no need to make a lot of lines. Take a look , the unit C follow the unit B ; The unit B follow the unit A.(it is important note that the unit C not follow the unit A). Then , where the unit-A go, the rest go along the Turns. No problem if you change the direction. Between the units will have the same distance , the same at when the order follow was done.

"Follow" could be done when you select the unit to move with the next unit, not over the terrain , and a sole unit can follow the next unit only . Of course, if the unit "A" not moves then the column not moves neither . And the finish of the order follow occur when the player gives to the unit another order to move over the terrain or "follow" to another unit.

Follow01.jpg

[ October 30, 2004, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Halberdiers ]

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You can give "FOLLOW" with whatever Order (Move,Fast,Advance,Move to contact,Hunt,etc). But the unit selected was not before pinned,or routed ,etc. "Follow" must be make with the SAME ORDER for all units. For example, no unit can follow "E" because he change their velocity . But no problem to make one or two point of movements if it is the same order. As you see in the unit "A".

Follow02.jpg

[ October 30, 2004, 10:20 AM: Message edited by: Halberdiers ]

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In the combat in CITIES , "Follow" could help a lot to the easy movement of the infantry platoon. As you see , the HQ platoon follow the Squad-A ,who make the scout. Squad-D can take the position of Squad-C, making easily (and FUN) a coordinated move.

Follow03.jpg

When the squad A arrive at their final position (a House), the HQ platoon now change their order follow A for the new order "advance" to arrive at the same point of the Squad-A (a House). But it depend of the distance of separation between the squads when the order follow was done.

[ October 30, 2004, 02:17 PM: Message edited by: Halberdiers ]

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Animation of own WOUNDED troop

I put this picture to try to explain what I say before about pictures of " wounded troop ".

Developers you no need change the picture of the squad. Similar as animation of "explode" you can add a animation of "Wounded". The animation must to shock the player (as explode),but of course not gore is necessary.

wounded.jpg

Moreover,

The numbers in the main bar could be changed for an active use by the player:

1-Theoretical combatants: mean the maximun number of soldiers that can be exist in the squad during SCENARIO. This is equivalent of "stacked".

2-Cumulative Losses: mean all losses, KIA, MIA, wounded, Panic,loss their rifle, all circumstances and possibilities because a soldier can not fight. This number can increase or disminish TURN by TURN (for example a soldier shocked can return to the combat ,another can recover their firearm).

3-Ready Squad Strength : mean the actual soldiers plus their firearms. The real combatants that can be used by the Squad leader in the current turn. This number can increase or disminish turn by turn. For example in a panicked squad the current strength is zero.

The combination of "Theoretical combatants" and "Cumulative Losses" could explain easily to the player how punished is their squad along the scenario. And maybe, how much soldiers can recover the squad.

*In the example we are in a turn advanced:

My Soviet Rifle Squad is under fire. My squad was formed at the beginning of scenario by 12 soldiers , but along the turns and at the moment my squad loss 10 soldiers and the number of current strength are only 2 riflemen (note the specificity there are not SMG ). Maybe in the future next turns I will recover 3 or 4 soldiers with SMG (and diminish the cumulative Losses), but for the moment I know that I have 2 mens ready , I have woundeds,my squad is Broken....and the squad was heavy punished along the scenario.

This can be used to the crew of AFV too. For example a operator of the main gun can be shocked (your main gun would be "0" in the main bar) but he could recover in the next two minutes ( or not ).

Finally , relativizing the current strength turn by turn the fog of war is increased a lot and the Borg effect diminish.

[ November 02, 2004, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: Halberdiers ]

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I like the idea of "ready combatants". This also leaves open the possibility that not all of a squad would be panicked at the same time.

I think some more experienced guys would always be firing their rifle while the green replacements cowered in fear.

Animating every man in a squad would also make this very interesting. Not to have corpses everywhere on the map, but to tell at a glance the strength and armament of a unit.

As someone suggested above, maybe only animating the selected squad in a separate window would save processing power.

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Show a track when vehicles travel thru scattered trees and other vegetation. When vehicles travel thru soft ground,mud etc. show tracks and progressive deteriation. show deteriation of dirt roads when they are under heavy use. When a vehicle boggs and is unbogged show the hole it was in and require that the vehicle use a different path. When a distant point is selected for a vehicle to travel to using a single waypoint have an option to select "cross country ok" or "stick to roads"

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And being able to assign a headquarters to an AFV and for that headquarters to be able to spot for the tank ie, 10m to the right and up a couple of degrees,...your rite on fire for effect, or just point and click like for mortars except that the AFV would have to have "line of sight" but being closed up couldnt see the target. This would keep the AFV under command and it wouldnt select its own target except when under threat.

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