What do we want in the next Combat Mission game

[Philippe]

I wonder if creating extra slots for a score of additional sounds (or some equivalent system that fits in with the overall architecture of the game) will really use up that many resources. It will certainly enhance the flavor of the game a little bit, which is always a good thing.

I'm not saying that this should be a priority, since I wouldn't presume to tell the designers what their priorities should be, or how they should go about implementing them.

[Philippe]

Continuing with my wish list, I want more redundancy.

Especially in the bmp's for buildings.

It has always bothered me that when you drive into a CM village that is big enough to have three or four churches that all of them are the same. If there were two or three different sets of church bmp's that could be used concurrently, that would make town architecture a little more realistic.

And the redundancy should probably be extended to some of the other large buildings as well. I've never seen a town with more than one Rathaus. But if you were to mod one of the large buildings into a Rathaus and then make a large town in your editor, chances are you would have a town with two or three of them.

If there were several sets of redundant building types that a scenario designer could designate, you could have a town with a main cathedral, a rathhaus, several ordinary churches, and a few large buildings. And nothing that shouldn't be repeated visually would be repeated.

This would also make it easier to set up scenarios with specialty buildings or distinctive landmarks, like the Casino at Ouistreham, the Reichstag, the Red October Factory.

[ September 09, 2004, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: Philippe ]

[Macphail]

well, i read the whole thread. one of the best ideas put forward here IMHO, is that soldiers stats be kept track of seperately. i dont mind the graphical representation at all, but id like to have a better idea what they are all up to individually.

[Macphail]

and better buildings...edit.

[Philippe]

Ten man squads represented by ten figures and not three.

One of the reasons that I got into this in the first place is that I wanted to get a better sense of what this kind of combat looked like.

Because I've done a bit of miniatures gaming I'm mentally flexible enough to understand that when you see three figures you should imagine twelve.

But computers are a lot more powerful now, and this simplification may not be necessary.

I'm also not convinced that the large squads as they currently exist take up the right amount of room. There's no way ten or twelve men will fit on that little square, even if you shrink them down to realistic mode. They've got to be spilling over the edges. Or not. Showing one figure per man would solve it. Or make it annoying enough for someone to find a solution for it (e.g. take two aspirin and call in the morning).

And if you show one figure per man, it would be really nice if one of them could have a different set of uniform bmp's from the rest. This would make Darknight extremely happy, because he would finally be able to have sergeants commanding privates, and represent it correctly.

Of course, if you wanted to go really wild you would make that ten sets of bmp's per unit so that partisans and maquis could have a different outfit on each man in the squad. Civilians don't wear uniforms, except when they're re-enactors or making a fashion statement. As it stands this kind of unit always has to be wearing a uniform.

And it would be heaven if you could have a variety of headgear for partisans and maquisards. Berets, old French Military helmets, forage caps, Holmbergs...maybe even that pointy sock that Seanachai likes to wear.

[Pzman]

Originally posted by Philippe:

I'm also not convinced that the large squads as they currently exist take up the right amount of room. There's no way ten or twelve men will fit on that little square, even if you shrink them down to realistic mode. They've got to be spilling over the edges. Or not. Showing one figure per man would solve it. Or make it annoying enough for someone to find a solution for it (e.g. take two aspirin and call in the morning).

First of all, I have seen a class room smaller than 20m square area with 32 people in it. Clearly you can fit that many people in that "small" and area. As long as they track what every man does there is really no need to show ten men.

[Philippe]

Do any of our resident grogs have any information on the footprint size of a ten or twelve man squad in WWII ?

How much space would a squad deployed to fight occupy, as opposed to a squad deployed to move when not under fire? Another thing that would have to be taken into account is the spatial implications of splitting squads. But I still look at those three-man squads and have troulbe not imagining them standing shoulder to shoulder, which went out of fashion early in WWI.

If you're modelling napoleonic tactics you can get quite a few men into a small space, two-, three-, and four-rank lines notwithstanding.

If my suspicions are correct, and the troops in the larger squads are too crowded together, that would also imply that incoming fire on soft targets is too lethal, if only in the sense that there's too much in the target area to hit. Spread them out a bit more and maybe the pace of infantry combat will slow a bit as well.

[poppy]

Armoured trains

[flamingknives]

Squad footprint depends on the sort of terrain the unit is fighting in. I've seen 8m between men given for open terrain given as a figure in a recent thread. Can't recall the pertinent details that would allow a search for it.

[krise madsen]

A Pacific campaign, with lots of amphibious warfare capability.

Or a CMBO remake brought up to CMAK standard, with the D-Day landings included, and with the German campagins in 1939 and 1940 added.

[flamingknives]

And the moon on a stick?

[Philippe]

A maintain relative position command.

A what?

A command that tells a unit to move so that it will always be a certain distance from another unit. The simple version would be to have it follow the path of that unit (e.g. column of vehilcles) at varying speeds. A more complex version would be to have it maintain lateral relative spacing, but not follow the path of the target unit. This last would be useful for moving formations of infantry units: you could set everyone in a platoon to maintain relative position to a target unit, and then move the target unit (probably the hq), not necessarily in a straight line.

Lateral relative position is probably harder to program than the column movement version. I'd be deleriously happy if I didn't have to micromanage the movement of vehicle columns.

[Philippe]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

And the moon on a stick?

Moon Yakitori ?

[junk2drive]

moon satay ?

[Philippe]

Shish moon.

[Spiny Mouse]

- 5.1 sound so you can hear what's behind you as well as to the sides.

- Sound echoes. The sounds of explosions and gunshots have a clear echo off of hillsides etc.

- The sound of shells in flight. That "freight train" sound is real. When artillery rounds pass overhead or to the side, you can clearly hear the sound of the shell in the air.

- Small arms ricochets. Anyone who has ever fired tracers at night remembers the show as the tracers ricochet and head into the sky.

- Tweak the fire parameter so that wildland and structure fires happen more easily. I've inadvertently started fires with tracers and with signal flares on several occasions.

- Signal flares such as star clusters of various colors. Eye candy admittedly, but they are a form of small unit signalling that has been used for a long time.

- Parachute, illumination flares can light up your life.

All probably mentioned before, but what the hell, why not mention it again?

Spiny

[poppy]

Replenishment of ammo in long battles, could do it by ammo trucks,carriers, pack mule, or automatically as in ops if units location fits certain criteria as in ops.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by poppy:

Replenishment of ammo in long battles, could do it by ammo trucks,carriers, pack mule, or automatically as in ops if units location fits certain criteria as in ops.

It would go a long way to give squads enough ammo so that they can shoot at least as long as they historically could.

Right now the ammo load is far too pessimistic. Pure SMG squads shoot off their 25 points load faster then they could changes magazines and shoot them at constant fire in reality. Mixed squads with lots of automatic weapons scale accordingly.

[Philippe]

Are small ammo loads a design limitation or the choice of a particular scenario designer ? Assuming for the moment that they're a deliberate limit, if (and this is only a hyptothetical if) small arms combat is too fast and lethal, then small ammo load is an important balancing element. Larger ammo loads (if historically defensible) would be great, but not if they produced unhistorical and excessive casualties. I wonder if there isn't a bit of a designer's balancing act going on.

The ideal would be to have historical levels of ammo expenditure and historical lethality. But deciding how to use the average (or a range of averages) when determing what is historical is a tricky business. My suspicion is that casualty rates are too high, but I'm not sure by how much, nor if there is any way to prove it. There's also a possibility that stricter anti-borg spotting regimes will drop that casualty rate. All we can reasonably do is to ask the designers to take another look at the issue and let them decide, because there are a lot of variables in play.

Having said that, I'm a big fan of some kind of a resupply routine, especially one that puts a premium on some kind of command control within the higher chain of command. I would expect company and battalion hq's (and the location of the ammo boxes) would have something to say about who can draw extra ammunition, and how efficiently it gets done.

[Pzman]

CMBO gave SMG's just as much ammo as rifles, but this was called unrealistic as well. BFC cannot win either way it seems.

[Halberdiers]

About borg-effect maybe can be usefull to diminish it with an extra Time delay on fire over the enemy unit identified by a remote friendly unit(corresponding the needs of communication to the friendly unit or the HQ platoon with voice ,hand signal or runner ; other factors as tiring,another target,enemy attack etc). Could be fantastic if will be possible that the developers can add Hand signals to the graphics game:

About people says before: I like

-Order "move and follow" in column to selected unit

-On/Off toggle switch for "Grid lines".

-having a 12 figures to show a 12 man squad unit.

-Export surviving units to other QB or Scenarios (build your own campaign game).

[ September 13, 2004, 03:15 PM: Message edited by: Halberdiers ]

[Pzman]

Originally posted by Halberdiers:

-Export surviving units to other QB or Scenarios (build your own campaign game).

Can already be done. If you play a QB just load the auto save file in the quick battle when it asks to generate a map or load one.

[YankeeDog]

Apologies if these points have been brought up already in this thread. . . it's too damn long for me to go back an thoroughly read the whole thing again.

I don't think that ammo resupply, if implemented properly, would necessarily increase casualties much.

What it would do is make issues like keeping lines of communication open, etc. MUCH more important.

I agree that casualties tend to be historically high in CM, but I think that the biggest single factor in this is that CM is a game with virtual soldiers, without mothers to write condolence letters to, and also CM only requires the player to worry about 1/2 hour or so of combat (or 2-10 1/2 hr. episodes in an operation), as opposed to keeping a unit reasonably combat effective over a period of weeks or months.

About infantry ammo loads and SMGs:

I agree that the one-size-fits-all ammo loads of CMBO were a bit unrealistic, but CMBB (and forward) actually added two changes to limit SMGs: (1) lower ammo loads for SMG-heavy squads, and (2) higher ammo consumption at close ranges. The combination of these two "fixes" can lead to some really improbably high consumption rates.

For example, full-SMG squads usually have an ammo about 25. From most of what I've read, the standard ammo load for an SMG-equipped infantry squad member (as opposed to someone else carrying an SMG like a mortar team member who has a primary job other than firing the SMG) was ballpark 200 rounds.

In CMBB/CMAKK at 100m or greater, that ~200 rounds/25 points will last an SMG squad about 3 1/2 turns constant firing, or about 58 rnds/min. Since at this range the SMGer is probably firing short, aimed bursts, that's about 14 4-round bursts, probably with one or two clip reloads in there depending on the weapon. As an average, this sounds about right -- of course, in real combat there would proabably actually be a substantial variation from individual to individual, but over the whole squad, it would likely average out.

Now, have that same SMG squad ambush an enemy squad in a heavy cover situation, like inside a building, and you will sometimes see the SMG squad fire of it's ENTIRE 25 point ammo load in one turn, sometimes without even quite managing to kill off the whole enemy squad! Now, I'm guessing that someone reasonably well trained an MP-40/PPSh/Thompson/etc. could get off 170+ rounds in a minute on a firing range with the mags laid out on a table in front of them, but in a close combat situation? No way! To be sure, there's a fair amount of "Spray and Pray" in Close Combat, especially when there's losts of SMGs around, but there's also grenades (which, keep in mind, EVERYBODY has to take cover from), short bursts of maneuver, a lot of confusion/trying to figure out who's friend & who's foe, and even presumably a bit of fisticuffs here and there.

With CM's current Close Combat ammo consumption rate, one gets the bizarre image of the SMGers lined up like napoleonic musketeers, blazing away with their SMGs as fast as they can pull the trigger and reload at an enemy only 40m away.

In short, I think the Close Combat model could use a bit of tweaking. . .

Tracking ammo loads of differing calibers in squads, allowing the player to set "Ammo SOP" orders and other small arms model advances would also help the infantry model a lot.

One other big thing I'm looking for is some kind of variable encumbrance model for infantry. Right now, all infantry squads move at the same speed and fatigue at the same rate (assuming same fitness level). I really doubt a German Panzergrenadier squad with 8 men, carrying between them 2 MG42s (and ammo to feed same!), a couple of Panzerfausts, and various lighter small arms can move a quickly or as long over rough terrain as a Russian tankodesantniki squad carrying nothing but PPShs and a few grenades.

Variable encumbrance might also help the ammo load issue. IMHO The silliest thing in the CMBB infantry squad model is the Volksgrenadier Heavy SMG squad, with 2 MG42s, 6MP40s, and a whopping 15 point ammo load. Rather than such a small ammo load, and given the Heavy squad was the Volks. SMG platoon's only ranged firepower, methinks it far more likely that this and many other 2-LMG squads simply carried more ammo and so was less maneuverable than their more lightly armed companions -- more like a large LMG team than a regular infantry squad.

Cheers,

YD

[Le Tondu]

What I'd like to see is have the Labels (Shift-G) last only for the turn that they happen in. --Or have what I just said be a third option to what exists now.

Playing a long game and having all those red "Eliminated" of "Abandoned" words blocking the view of what's going on is kind of hard. (I know that I can turn them off, but that doesn't help so much with what happens this turn when the KO is at a distance from the camera.)

If my Pz IVH was abandoned several turns ago, why do I still need to know it now?

Maybe a different color for each side --say red for the axis and blue for the allied?

Its just some thoughts.

[Halberdiers]

"Can already be done. If you play a QB just load the auto save file in the quick battle when it asks to generate a map or load one."

Upppps yes it is thanks panzerman !

Every day I discover something new in this game. This is THE GAME really.

[ September 13, 2004, 06:27 PM: Message edited by: Halberdiers ]