Plea for Modern Road Infrastructure

[Cpl Steiner]

This is a plea to Battlefront to include modern road infrastructure features in CM:SF. They would give maps a distinctly modern look as well as provide interesting LOS situations. Some of the features I'd like to see are listed below.

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• Elevated road sections, supported by pylons.</font>
• Entrance/Exit ramps.</font>
• Overhead Signs.</font>
• Overhead Covered Walkways.</font>
• Underground and Basement Car Parks.</font>
• Curved road sections, included elevated ones for complex road interchange systems like the classic motorway "cloverleaf" junction.</font>

I realise that map sizes will prohibit us from seeing really large, complex road systems, but my hope is that we could at least have parts of such systems on-map. They would make for some very interesting tactical situations IMHO. For instance, imagine a multi-story building next to an elevated road, or two multi-story buildings on either side of a road joined by an overhead covered walkway above the road. There are lots of interesting possibilities.

[MikeyD]

Geez, I thought this thread was only going to be about lobbying for those concrete 'jersey barriers' used to divide highways! With these roadway suggestions if the CMSF game tanks they can always sell off the game engine to city planners.

Me, I figure the game won't be worth playing without those little orange reflectors embedded in the road and 'rumble strips' on the shoulders. And potholes, lots of potholes (I'm from Boston).

[Soddball]

I want lines of traffic cones that have a % chance of jamming the wheels on my tanks when I drive over them.

And speed cameras. I want speed cameras.

[Cpl Steiner]

Sorry if I sound too ambitious but a modern city won't look modern enough if you leave out nightmare spaghetti road systems and road signs bombarding you with information at every street corner! Besides, how else am I going to do my "Thunder-Run" scenario!

[Dirtweasle]

Why assume that CMSF will not have modern roads?

Did I miss this information elsewhere?

[imported_Wildman]

Speaking of road systems and map size, what is the expected map size going to be.

With 2-3km direct fire, 4-8km missile fire, etc. how big will the maps actually be?

Or will we have a similar problem that we had in CMBB where the German long range tank fire was somewhat restricted by map size.

[MikeyD]

I think we'd all kill for a few screenshots about now. Months of waiting and we don't even know (for sure) if multilane-width asphalt roads are going to be in the game! All we can do is extrapolate on how the finished game 'might' look from roadways in Drop Team screenshots, though any Drop Team and CMSF connection is tenuous at best.

Sometimes it feels like we've been waiting for visiual proof of this game's progeress for ten months now. Visiting the Grognards website, by comparison, is enough to make you weep.

[flamingknives]

It would definately have a huge impact on some of the SACLOS-type missiles, as they do not come under control until a considerable distance from the launcher.

[Battlefront.com]

Map sizes are going to probably be more or less like CMBO size, not CMBB or CMAK size. This is for just about the same reasons. When we did CMBO we were pushing the envelope and map size is the single biggest CPU and video card crusher. As the hardware improved the capability to handle larger map sizes also increased. That's what is going to happen with CMx2.

Do not expect much for major highway stuff for CM:SF's initial release. It's too much for us to handle. These things impact so many aspects of the game system it simply isn't possible for us to do things like cloverleafs. It's so much of a ball buster we decided not to even try to do them for the initial release way back (probably 2 years ago).

I'm sure I'll get someone saying "it really can't be that hard". It's the typical reaction. But yes, it is that hard. If it wasn't, we'd have it in already. We LOVE putting in tough stuff, but we are constrained by time as to how much we can bite off. We're already well into development overtime here so we are not interested in dragging things out another month just to have cloverleafs. They would be nice to have, but they are far from being of critical importance.

MikeyD, we are only now putting in terrain graphics that are anything but ugly placeholders. Plenty of progress otherwise, it just either isn't visible or is uuuuuugly! Hopefully this will mean some screenshots soon.

Steve

[nijis]

Cloverleafs and overpasses are not that common in Syria, from what I recall, particularly when compared to Iraq. There are a few, but they wouldn't necessarily figure quite as prominently in the battlefields of a Syrian war as they did in the 2003 invasion.

[Sequoia]

As long as we can get abandoned civilian vehicles I'll be happy, especially if they can catch on fire.

[imported_Wildman]

Steve,

So by "CMBO size" your talking a map size of 2.4km or so on each side as a max?

[akd]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Map sizes are going to probably be more or less like CMBO size, not CMBB or CMAK size. This is for just about the same reasons. When we did CMBO we were pushing the envelope and map size is the single biggest CPU and video card crusher. As the hardware improved the capability to handle larger map sizes also increased. That's what is going to happen with CMx2.

Do not expect much for major highway stuff for CM:SF's initial release. It's too much for us to handle. These things impact so many aspects of the game system it simply isn't possible for us to do things like cloverleafs. It's so much of a ball buster we decided not to even try to do them for the initial release way back (probably 2 years ago).

I'm sure I'll get someone saying "it really can't be that hard". It's the typical reaction. But yes, it is that hard. If it wasn't, we'd have it in already. We LOVE putting in tough stuff, but we are constrained by time as to how much we can bite off. We're already well into development overtime here so we are not interested in dragging things out another month just to have cloverleafs. They would be nice to have, but they are far from being of critical importance.

MikeyD, we are only now putting in terrain graphics that are anything but ugly placeholders. Plenty of progress otherwise, it just either isn't visible or is uuuuuugly! Hopefully this will mean some screenshots soon.

Steve

I hope that, at least, simple overpasses are included. Good place to park a Syrian AFV.

[dan/california]

You mean as good a place for the bonfire as any.

[Battlefront.com]

Sequoia, we'll see We definitely have them on the schedule at least.

Wildman, that is what we;re estimating. Narrower in one dimension should allow longer in the other. We'll probably keep the hardcoded max size far larger than what we put into scenarios included with the purchased product.

AKD, overpasses are pretty much the same as offramps and what not, so no... you won't see them in the initial release. They are, however, on the list for game enhancements.

As an aside, there is a short list of things that we know (or suspect) we can't get into CM:SF's initial relase that are absolute musts for WWII. Therefore, we know that we'll be working on those features sometime after CM:SF is released but before WWII is released. It is possible, though I can't say for sure, that some of these things can be slipstreamed into a follow up CM:SF Module.

Steve

[John Kettler]

Steve,

Modest Proposal

Since Halo 2 has extensive modern highways, tunnels and bridges, even control booths, why not license those? Actually, I have no idea whether the model formats are even compatible, but if they are, it might be a quick fix. Economic viability? Could be zero for all I know!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Thomm]

John,

the problem might not be the models, but the pathfinding code (vehicles suddenly being "on top of each other"), the LOS code and the AI.

Best regards,

Thomm

[aka_tom_w]

Sure ..... and if BFC could license SIM CITY from Maxis we could have over passes AND civilians, but they can't and we don't. (presumably because there is no possibile way to blend or combine the two game codes into one.)

Maxis and Sim City have virtually everything CM:SF lacks in the way of roads, highways, rail lines, overpasses and cloverleafs, AND a civilian population, BUT it is a not a wargame.

It is my dream within the next 15-20 years (when I am about to retire) that somehow the "perfect" wargame will be released that will be the ideal combination of Sim City and ANY Combat Mission game offering!

What more could you want?

-tom w

[ September 29, 2006, 05:45 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[John Kettler]

Rollstoy and aka_tom_w,

By definition a "modest proposal" isn't and is in fact generally outrageous and flies in the face of the status quo. While I was certainly impressed with all the highways and such in Halo 2, while being appalled at the the huge, roomy Marine tank with room for one, I deemed the likelihood of my proposal being even semiconsidered, never mind seriously explored, to be minuscule. And that's knowing nothing about the cybernetic issues or the possibilities of licensing game components. I do know, though, of game engines being licensed. I'd love to see a

full up sim with everything in it, but I don't have a Massively Parallel Processor Array to run it--even if the Ultra War Sim did exist.

Regards,

John Kettler

[aka_tom_w]

OK

[Battlefront.com]

To make sure you guys understand, the models necessary to make modern road infrastructure are very easy to make. Compare an offramp to something like a M1A2 SEP and you'll see what I mean The problem is integrating complex detatched terrain into the sim itself. Extremely time consuming code needs to be written for that stuff. We'll get to it, eventually, but we've ruled it out for the initial release.

Steve

[John Kettler]

Steve,

Some years ago I was looking at an engineering software catalog which had an entire section devoted to roadbuilding. There were discrete, expensive programs devoted to such things as calculating the volume and weight of dirt for cuts, as a function of prevailing environmental conditions. Thus, I can see how making the roads and such would be relatively easy, but getting them to "play nicely" with the rest of the code could easily become a nightmare. Good to know we'll get such things eventually!

Regards,

John Kettler