THE DREAM LIST FOR CMBB and BEYOND

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

1) Relative Spotting

2) Relative Spotting

3) Relative Spotting

4) 'Jaeger' Infantry

5) Realistic artillery system

6) 'Hold fire' command for tanks (no, I don't want them to shot on a tank, 2000m away, while moving with full speed)

7) dynamic LOS range (is fog/rain/snow etc always homogen? - Is dusk/dawn static for a half hour? Who has stolen the shadows?)

8) Starshells

9) Bratwurst & Sauerkraut

10) 'Goliath' Sprengpanzer

P.S.:

11) tank barricades

[ April 03, 2002, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: Puff the Magic Dragon ]

[SlowMotion]

Originally posted by Mattias:

[QB]

[litchy]

At the end of the game the abilty to watch all movement sequences in kind of film.

[YankeeDog]

Not necessarily my top priority, but not mentioned yet:

Randomize ALL command delay & LOS numbers.

And command delay for ALL orders.

That is, command delay for a Veteran squad would average 13 seconds. Sometimes, it might be 14 or 15 seconds. Sometimes, it would only be 12 or 11 seconds.

The same for LOS. Right now, if you play with the engine enough, you can figure out that LOS on on a foggy night across open ground is EXACTLY 51m. The same goes for any other conditions. I'd like to see it slightly randomized - sometimes the LOS would be a bit shorter, sometimes a bit longer. Fog and forests, after all, are not of a uniform density.

I also don't see why targeting orders, for example, shouldn't have a command delay. Maybe not as long a delay as a movement order, but someone's got to get the message to the unit that is supposed to be firing at a specific target. Of course, the unit might fire on the unit of its own accord anyway.

I think the above would help limit some ways that you can currently take advantage of the predictability of the game engine owing to it's consistency. If LOS and command delay had some variation built in to them, it would be harder to micromanage unit placement.

Oh, and some sort of conditional 'area fire' order. Too often, I'll have an MG firing at a unit in a building and the targeted unit will go 'heads down' and I'll lose LOS to it. I'm then faced with a difficult conundrum: If I give the MG and area fire order at the building, if the unit pops it's head up again, the MG won't target it, so it's fire will be less effective. OTOH, if I leave the MG untargetted, I completely lose it's supressive capability, meaning that the unit may be able to sneak away.

I think this could be done quite easily with the upcoming 'cover arc' command in CM:BB. If you could give a unit both an area fire and a cover arc command, then you could tell it "area fire at this building unless an enemy unit appears within this arc, then shift your fire to that unit". Strikes me as quite reasonable and doable.

Cheers,

YD

[IronChef4]

napalm

[acrashb]

My hot items:

- per-weapon ammo tracking - strong affect on gameplay.

- enhanced artillery (adjustable sheafs, et al) - also strong affect on gameplay

- start-to-finish movie capability - awesome training and review tool. Plus tons-o-fun.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

Not necessarily my top priority, but not mentioned yet:

Randomize ALL command delay & LOS numbers.

And command delay for ALL orders.

That is, command delay for a Veteran squad would average 13 seconds. Sometimes, it might be 14 or 15 seconds. Sometimes, it would only be 12 or 11 seconds.

The same for LOS. Right now, if you play with the engine enough, you can figure out that LOS on on a foggy night across open ground is EXACTLY 51m. The same goes for any other conditions. I'd like to see it slightly randomized - sometimes the LOS would be a bit shorter, sometimes a bit longer. Fog and forests, after all, are not of a uniform density.

I also don't see why targeting orders, for example, shouldn't have a command delay. Maybe not as long a delay as a movement order, but someone's got to get the message to the unit that is supposed to be firing at a specific target. Of course, the unit might fire on the unit of its own accord anyway.

I think the above would help limit some ways that you can currently take advantage of the predictability of the game engine owing to it's consistency. If LOS and command delay had some variation built in to them, it would be harder to micromanage unit placement.

Cheers,

YD

"Randomize ALL command delay & LOS numbers.

And command delay for ALL orders.

That is, command delay for a Veteran squad would average 13 seconds. Sometimes, it might be 14 or 15 seconds. Sometimes, it would only be 12 or 11 seconds."

I really like that idea

More randomness and more fog of war over all.

You can sort of get that effect now by playing GREEN troops but a more random pattern to the way orders are giving and acted upon would make the "mircomanagers" and "Min/Maxers" cringe even more

so I like it!

-tom w

[kipanderson]

Hi,

YankeeDog wrote,

“I also don't see why targeting orders, for example, shouldn't have a command delay. Maybe not as long a delay as a movement order, but someone's got to get the message to the unit that is supposed to be firing at a specific target. Of course, the unit might fire on the unit of its own accord anyway.”

As I see it, the last line above really explains all. A point that is often forgotten is that CM is “not” a command game alone. In CM you play the role of the battalion commander, the company commander and the platoon commander. If that were all then some sort of command delay for targeting/firing “may” be in order. However, it is important to remember that in CM you also play the role of the squad/AFV commander. When you order a unit, by which I mean a squad or AFV, to fire you are doing so as the unit commander not just as the platoon or company commander.

I believe units must be free to target/fire as if commanded to do so by the squad/AFV commander. Hence very little delay. If a unit can see a threat it must be free to fire on the threat on its own initiative. i.e. with very little or no delay.

None of the above should be taken to mean that I wish for any “unrealistic” features. Nor do I often micro-manage, the TacAI is so good I often do not need to. However, I do not wish to give up the ability to play the role of the squad/AFV commander “if” or “when” I wish to. If CM became a command game and one no longer played the role of the squad or AFV commander, it would be a very different game. It may still be a fine game, if it came from BTS it would be a fine game, but it would no longer be CM.

All the best,

Kip.

[xerxes]

Multiplayer with player specific level fog of war!

-marc s

[MikeyD]

On my wise list:

noses

civilians... with noses

3-D clutter (civilian cars, wagons, airplanes,train cars, etc.) than can be blowed-up real good.

And I want it all to run of a 300mhz G3 mac.

[Mud]

Hmmm. Somewhat random order, and of varying degrees of importance and difficulty...

- Relative spotting.

- Better machinegun modelling.

- Mouse-holing.

- Solid vehicles with per-model hit-area probabilities; e.g. probability of turret hit vs. hull hit differs depending on size. Serious can of wyrms, however; TacAI would need to be smarter, both for vehicles (not blocking each other when it'd be a bad idea to do so) and infantry (e.g. taking advantage of moving cover).

- Better handling of building damage. The 'winds are a bit too nasty here.

- Smarter "finding cover" logic for infantry.

- Dynamic lighting. Can o' wyrms, probably.

- SOP menus.

- Better handling of area fire special situations. For instance, if you target a known-occupied building w/ an SP gun, and the occupants pop their heads (stealing the SP's targetting focus) and then hide again, the SP gun will not resume smashing the building. If the building itself could be designated a "hostile" for the SP gun then hm.

It would also be nice to be able to order an arty spotter to fire, but to have it stop firing when there are no suspected enemy contacts in the area -- mostly applicable when you're trying to smash multiple targets such as a troop concentration crossing an area that you have good LOS over.

- Speaking of building designations, it would be nice if a building could get a VL designation that would be degraded or removed with building damage/destruction (e.g. representing something that's only really worth it if taken intact).

- Smaller terrain tile size.

- Option to show all known target lines at once, outgoing AND incoming.

- Persistent waypaths/waypoints, and otherwise better movement coordination between multiple units (like designating a group to move at the speed of the mobile slowest member).

- More information about units in QB unit selection, like summary of historical role, rarity, that sort of thing -- essentially "What the heck is a ---, and why would I want one?".

- The ability to overlay a numbered grid on the map, obviating the need for two sets of textures. Might be useful for an AAR, or if there is ever any forum of cooperative play. Or for those who play multiple CM games simultaneously -- it'd facilitate note-taking.

- AT teams that are far less likely to interrupt their sneaking to take an unrealistic frontal shot at a tank some 100m away. If they can estimate the hit/kill probabilities, they should try to behave sensibly regarding such. This is particularly galling when they'd been ordered to sneak and then hide at a suitable ambush location.

[Kestrl]

Originally posted by Resyk:

[QB]After my extensive few days playing

CMBO..

You can already rally routed/broken troops, if you have a platoon or company HQ within commanded radius of a routed or broken unit, it just takes time.

* Ability to Rally routed/broken troops.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Mud:

- Solid vehicles with per-model hit-area probabilities; e.g. probability of turret hit vs. hull hit differs

depending on size. Serious can of wyrms, however; TacAI would need to be smarter, both for vehicles

(not blocking each other when it'd be a bad idea to do so) and infantry (e.g. taking advantage of

moving cover).

AND that is a BIG one

so that Pillboxes are not treated like Vehciles for LOS purposes.

Ever try to hide a unit (AFV or inf doesn't matter) behind a CONCRETE pillbox??? GUESS WHAT?

both your units and the enemy's units can see and fire RIGHT through that Pillbox, same for ALL vehicles EXCEPT those on Fire and Smoking, and then only Smoke blocks the LOS you can STILL fire right through that dead AFV as is does not block LOF.

Funny this list got this long before anyone mentioned that issue.

It would be nice to see turret ring hits modeled too as we know tank gunnners aimed for the turret ring.

-tom w

[ April 03, 2002, 02:36 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[MikeyD]

I'd like to have new sounds like:

"Arrrgh1 My eye! My eyes!"

"I'm on Fiiiire!!!"

"Beam me up Scottie!"

"Excuse me, is this fox-hole taken?"

"Hey, I can see my house from here!"

...of course, it'd all have to translated into Finnish, German, Romanian, Italian, Czech, Russian, etc. etc..

[Guest PondScum]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

Randomize ALL command delay & LOS numbers.

And command delay for ALL orders.

That is, command delay for a Veteran squad would average 13 seconds. Sometimes, it might be 14 or 15 seconds. Sometimes, it would only be 12 or 11 seconds.

This is already in CMBO: the greener the troops, the greater the variation in command delays around the quoted figure. Start a company of conscripts running, and they'll end up staggered halfway across the board. Start a company of elites running, and they'll be virtually in lockstep.

[flammenwerfer]

BTS-

Will CMBB cure Male-Pattern Baldness?

[Speedy]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Mobile kitchens. We've got to have mobile kitchens.

Michael

I'd actually prefer a French Army Mobile Brothel.

[Splinty]

HQ's to be able to call for fire.

[Ex Bellator]

BTS- Will CMBB cure Male-Pattern Baldness?

Of course it will, CMBB also stands for 'Cures My Bald Bonce' and is a bonus product offered to all our folically challenged posters by that understanding gentleman Mr M Matt.

You simply rub the CD anticlockwise on your head while standing on one leg and chanting the BTS manifesto backwards twice a night.

The famous 'Dual Action' formula is also included for those who cannot wait for the guaranteed re-growth to start. The manual arrives finely shredded, and you cleverly stick the strips of paper on your head for a virtually undetectable (and ever so slightly flammable) hairpiece.

Send no money now!

[Boris Balaban]

1)Have the ability to print out an OOB any time. Show what condition the unit is in?

2)Maps you can export.

3)Multiplayer games.

4)During the movie show how fast the unit is moving (meters per second). May help planning where your unit will end up at the end on next turn.

[Boris Balaban]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Individual soldiers would require a massive amount of work to code, and would represent a completely different game - even if you were still giving orders to them in groups of 5 or 10. I see no advantage in including 10 men on the screen for each squad; think about the effort just to have, say, a squad boarding a truck, or the LOS issues if a squad couldn't fit entirely inside a building. I think Close Combat suffered from trying to model all the individual soldiers yet make command and control based on the squad.

Michael are you talking about a game called Sniper? It was a game where you controled up to 10 men in a town and had a mission to carry out.

[dumbo2]

-Campaigns

Preferably a clone of Steel panthers system but campaigns of some sort

[Priest]

Be the next member of the BTS staff.

[Pzman]

Infantry squads that when routed don't run towards the enemy.

[Cpt. Cook]

1940's style French women serving me French wine after a hard fought battle in France. Did I mention they ought to speak French?