What do we want in the next Combat Mission game

[Holman]

[snip snip snip] ...but it would really kick ass if there were elephants or water buffalo. like the vc could ride the elephants if they were nice to them. the elphants should have morale levels. a normal elephant would just go about grazing (or whatever else elephants do) but a panicked elephant would charge at anything it sees.

Elephants with variable morale! COOL! I call dibs on the Orwell "Shooting an Elephant" scenario.

"And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of 'must' was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him."

Think of the tactical possibilities!

[HarryInk]

This thread might have tired off but I thought I'd still throw a thought in.

Following on from my couple of posts here about a higher command feature for CM operations, I figure that 'moves' for regimental/brigade/kampfgruppe operations would actually be variable. They could shift gears from days/several hours down to hours and up again as action intensified or slackened. The dispatch of companies/batteries etc. could then be decided by the player commanding at these intervals, together with the specific combat mission brief to lower players.

I don't play in the onion wars or other campaign systems but do my ideas connect at all with what happens in them? What features of them would it be cool to have incorporated into CMX2?

[Buffy the Panzer Slayer]

Definitely more Vampires... and some Uber Wica's!

Oh yeah, and the ability to dictate weather in operations. :eek:

[Sergei]

I think when we get the next CM title, there should be more threads about what the next CM should include.

[chico]

i'd love to have

1)more "reference sections" where to get picture and tech info of all units to be consulted easily.. something like "IL2" view objects feature

2) I know it is not vital but a graphic level like "D-day" game would not hurt

3) please do not make CM a RTS :mad: ! I love it for that hybrid system.

4) stay on ww2. Forget about modern times.

let's hope..

PS any idea of release time? :confused:

[flamingknives]

Food for thought:

Bringing CM into a more modern era would mean that faults such as borg spotting and gamey half-squad scouting wouldn't be so unrealistic, due to modern personal radios and, in really recent conflicts, data nets.

Furthermore, the oldest use for wargaming has been to play out future engagements (cf the german WWII 'Kreigspiel' and TacOps).

A historical simulation can use empirical data to 'fudge' faults in it's algorithms, whereas predictive models are a bit harder to get right.

[AOK. 11]

I did not bother to read this whole thread, as I stopped with "MAKE CM REAL TIME" and "FORGET ABOUT MILITARY REALISM"... I know we are supposed to be nice to people here, even idiots, so I will not say anything. Anyway, If I mention somthing already discussed, forgive me.

One of the main strengths of CM is the detail, and adding to this would be a given. More units, of course. Being the fact that the new game will be an entirely new engine, I would imagine with new technology larger battles will be better accomodated. With larger battles the possibilities are expansive, with heavier weapons and equipment gaining a place in a battle. Sure, the 12.8cm Pak 44 is represented in CM, but when was the last time you thought, "I REALLY need a Pak 44!". How about a dual 12.8cm Flakzwilling emplacement? This list could go on and on.... I am not sure if making CM more accomadating to larger battles would then in effect pull away from its superiority in smaller, battalion sized actions. I would like to hear any thoughts on this...

[Brent Pollock]

I would like to request another text file slot - DEBRIEFING.

As it stands now, you have to put any historical aftermath or designnotes as a spoiler tacked on to a briefing. I think most of this falls by the wayside as players will not go backto read it after finishing the battle. What I'd like is a Debriefing text that pops up in the same way as the After Action Report screen.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Sergei:

I think when we get the next CM title, there should be more threads about what the next CM should include.

I think the major debate about the next CM title should be what to title the next CM title.

How about

Combat Mission: All of this and World War Too

[birdstrike]

Or:

"Combat Mission 2: There you have it, you bitching shmocks! And don't even dare to come up with a 'What we want to see in CM3' thread!"

[Nelson 1812]

Trasfer of units from one...game into another carrying the same name..same ammo..same boots etc, this must have been covered...but names are important.

[Agentorange]

Two things really:

1] Each vehicle or artillery piece actually has it's own model. That is no more sharing of models by vehicles that actually looked radically different to each other. British armoured cars in CMAK being my personal hate here.

2] a wider variety of building models ie terraces for towns, variety of farmhouses in different shapes, barns etc, wider variety of bridges etc, greater variety of bunkers with different weapons etc. Oh yes and tall walls and fences ( perhaps with some way to add a 'loopholes' function ? )

[Günzel for Kanzler]

Wanted:

-Being able to re-dedicate HQs,

i.e. changing/replacing/swapping HQs from platoon to platoon, and as well replacing platoon HQs with stronger company HQs at setup phase.

Of course, all of this without generating black lines (as in current model), while generating the appropiate red lines.

[poppy]

Include Korea 1950-53 war. poppy

[poppy]

Interesting reading on the Korean war at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/cgi-bin/usamhi/DL/showdoc.pl?docnum=57 poppy

[Midnight Warrior]

Here is one of the things I would like to see.

Feature. Embedded Journalist

Rationale. To remove some of the time and tedium of positioning play back camera

Description.

1. An Embedded Journalist (EJ) can be either user defined/ user named units (added at will during any movement order phase) or a role assigned to existing units. EJ’s can be moved like any other unit. However, they cannot spot, fire, be seen, or do any other activity that affects game play. If an EJ is a role assigned to an existing combat unit the EJ functions much like the current “tab” function in that the journalist moves with the unit.

2. During a play back phase a list of currently instantiated embedded journalist would be presented in a some sort of list (e.g. right click embed journalist button and get a list of EJ’s)

3. Once selected the camera position is immediately becomes that of the embedded journalist. When in play back in mode the camera position moves with the EJ.

4. The embedded journalist can be instructed to point his camera at certain events that fall within its event range, such as kill events, firing events, arty explosion, movement, enemy detect events, and etc. The event range could be specified by the user. Also, a LOS limitation option can be selected so that events outside of the EJ’s LOS are not reported. Also a sound event detect threshold might also be selectable .

5. If any of the above events occur during a turn the EJ name in the EJ list will become highlighted so that the user knows that that EJ has seen something of interest that turn.

6. Each detected event of interest (EOI) is added to an EOI list for that EJ along with an auto generated text field describing the event (e.g. Tank hit event: Veh 1, Sherman Tank recieves hull penetration from Veh 4 Pz Mk1V). Some portions of these text descriptions may not be viewable under certain Fog of War options until after the game (e.g. in the above example it might only be reported as a tank hit event). The player can add his own comment line to any event of interest (e.g “1st platoon got whacked bad by that Jerry tank's MG in the tree line in front of it”). This EOI list can be selected which in turn cause the replay clock to be set to the time of the event of interest (less a preamble time) and the camera pointed toward it. This list is cleared at the beginning of each turn for each EJ.

7. A cumulative log each turns of events of interest can be dumped as a text file at the end of a game as a aid for after action reviews.

Example.

Two user defined EJ’s are created one named Pegasus Bridge (PB) the other Orr River Bridge (OB) with a 500m even range. Plus the Company HQ is assigned an EJ role with a 200m event range with LOS limit and a sound detection threshold. All EJ are enabled to respond to enemy detect events. Nothing happens until turn 6. The player being in a hurry to get to the actions skips watching the playback video based on the knowledge hat nothing of interest happened. On turn 6 the PB EJ indicates 3 enemy detects. The user during turn 6 playback selects EJ PB and this calls up the EOI list. The list has detection event 1 at time 33, 2 at time 37, and 3 at time 58. The user selects event one and the camera clock is set to 23 second (10 seconds preamble time before the detection event at time 33) and the camera is pointed at the detection event. The user hits play and sees the detection event on the replay. The player was able to save about ten minutes of replay time reviewing videos that nothing of interest happened. At the and of the game he prints the cumulative event log and loads into his MS Word or EXCEL document and sees that in turn 6 1st squad spotted a German MG and identified it as infantry, etc. His recorded comment was “Drat! Didn’t think Jerry would be that close”)

edit. fixed some typos

[ September 06, 2004, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: Midnight Warrior ]

[Figo]

Contour Lines, Contour Lines, and some more Contour Lines...

[poppy]

Two man sniper er sharpshooter teams. Spotter and er sharpshooter. poppy

[Philippe]

More weapons sounds. And a redundant sound tree to hang them on.

One of the things that I really miss in CM is the ability to tell who is shooting what at whom simply by listening.

While it would be nice to model a specific sound for every weapon in the CM arsenal, all that is really necessary is to have a separate sound for each Axis or Allied weapon type.

I really get the impression that you didn't need to have perfect pitch to tell the difference between German and Allied weapons when they fired. And I keep remembering anecdotal comments to the effect that the problem with using enemy weapons in combat is that it would draw friendly fire.

BFC wouldn't even have to make the full panoply of sounds: it just needs to program the engine to use a different sound file for German, US, English, Russian, small arms fire (or explosions, or whatever). In other words, the out of the box version of CMX2 might have five differently numbered sound files for something that used the identical sound, but the modded version (or later patches) would make it possible to distinguish between the different sounds.

[Philippe]

Architecture inside of buildings.

I want rooms, walls, staircases. And closets. And cellars. And windows.

If anyone has ever played the old SPI game Sniper (the game made infamous because of a rule about an erect man exposing himself in front of an aperture), they'll recall that part of the fun of city fighting is the need to clear out enemy-occupied buildings room by room.

And on a simpler note, I want a toggle switch to make occupied buildings non-transparent so that I can take more convincing looking screenshots of games in progress. This last point shouldn't be too hard to accomodate.

[wildboar]

Get it to work on Mac's

[Ichthys]

BFC wouldn't even have to make the full panoply of sounds: it just needs to program the engine to use a different sound file for German, US, English, Russian, small arms fire (or explosions, or whatever). In other words, the out of the box version of CMX2 might have five differently numbered sound files for something that used the identical sound, but the modded version (or later patches) would make it possible to distinguish between the different sounds.

Why have 5 copies of the same sound file -- it takes up too much space. How about a "mapping" file, so every file for every vehicle or unit is just an entry in the map. Shared files would just be entries that point to the same file. Mod-makers could then use any naming scheme they wanted, they'd just update the mapping file to point to their files.

[flamingknives]

It will work on OSX. That much has been stated numerous times by the BFC crew.

BFC have an in-house sound specialist, MadMatt, and the weapons do have different sound. The bolt-action rifles sound the same, but I imagine that one single rifle shot sounds much like another. MGs and SMGs sound different - even an MG34 sounds different from an MG42. M1s sound different to other rifles too.

ATGs and artillery pieces sound the same for each side, but you can still roughly judge calibre by sound alone.

[Philippe]

Yes, BFC has a top-flight sound specialist and he did a cracking good job on CMAK. What I'm talking about here is making his personal fantasies come true. I want Madmatt to finally get what he really wants. [Please disregard split infinitive]

At the risk of being blasphemous, if you think about it firearms are a bit like musical instruments. Each has its own pitch and timbre. I think it was easy for the uninitiated such as myself to distinguish between the sounds of the different small arms in CC. I don't know if they were true sounds or not [ = historically accurate] , but for the sake of this discussion I don't care. The fact that I, a mere stringed instrument musician, could hear the difference on the first go round tells me that the real sounds, whatever they were, must have been distinguishable. But then again, I've been to a lot of Voodoo ceremonies where there is a lot of very good and intricate drumming.

As for the artillery (which I tend to think of as big percussion instruments like kettledrums) I suspect that you can tell the difference between a German and a British explosion of the same calibre. I don't know about WWII, but I seem to recall from the limited reading that I've done on WWI that people could eventually tell who and exactly what was shooting just by the sound of that whizz-bang. And if you've been bombarded enough I think you can probably also tell when its going to hit your dug-out.

[Redwolf]

I think sound is the area where the current CM games are most advanced. Everything can be improved, of course, but I fail to see how that can be a priority.

BTW, does CM sound work with 5.1 or 7.1 sound, as in directing every to the appropriate speakers? Or is it stereo only?

[ September 09, 2004, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: Redwolf ]