Wanted features

[Fredrock1957]

They already get the chance to close assault the vehicle, which is pretty effective, even in the absence of demo charges. There isn't really a need to waste a demo charge to make it more so.

I would also like to be able to attack a tank via a unit on the second (or higher) floor of a building (this cannot be done with an assault) by throwing demo charges on a passing vehicle.

Good list by OP, I will take'm all...

[Denis1973]

And how about decrease deploying time for guns? Or allow them to move in unlimbered status at a short distance? Because now for guns are very hard and spend tons of time to change a position

[Lt Belenko]

All Trees appear as stumps. In addition to the local tree stumps for the selected unit.

[Amizaur]

I would like to kindly ask for one UI improvement, that should be very easy to implement (I believie it would be small code modification only).

When various AP shells, HEAT warheads, splinters and ordinary MG/rifle bullets are striking a tank, all of those hits are displayed as "hit _something_" text.

Often it's hard to notice which of those hits was the important one - from AT gun or some AT weapon. I would like to ask for:

- the hits made by AT weapons be displayed in a different text colour. Like red or blue.

I'm letting it for you to decide how to discrimine "AT weapons". It could be for example all projectiles of 20mm+ and all shaped charges, or just dedicated AT weapons... whatever. Discrimine them from ordinary bullets please.

Thanks !!

[derbius]

There does not seem to be a “master" suggestions thread that has been "stickied" –some kind of “official" place to put feature suggestions (maybe even a wiki?) Would seem useful. I would like to second several of the previous suggestions:

Armored covered arc.

Recovering support weapons.

I recall all the arguments about players potentially using this in a “gamey" fashion but as long as crewed weapons cannot be voluntarily abandoned it would seem logical for weapons whose crews have fled or died could be re-crewed by appropriately qualified people. One recent problem I encountered was the death of some pioneers carrying vital demo charges. There were other pioneers who had already used theirs but I couldn't get them to pick up the unused ones from their dead comrades.

Combined command with LOS - If it could be implemented it would be one way around the problem of “move unit, find it still out of line of sight, guess where might work, move again, find it still doesn't work etc–repeat until bored".

Discriminating AT from bullet fire

Better playback & End of game full intelligence playback

it is frustrating that playback is only in 1 min chunks. I would like to be able to view back through more than 1 min and to go back and replay easily at any point in the game. Often I find that a key unit has died without my noticing it in the replay phase. Particularly when playing with the artificial intelligence I would love to know after the game is over just what had been going on on the other side all this time. The fog of war is realistic enough that a lot of units end up being shot by an enemy they never see.

[Animal_Mother]

Artillery changes:

The ability to call for repeat FFE within a certain distance of the original target without having to start a new fire mission from scratch (maybe 100-200 meters) with the tradeoff being that each type of artillery gun/mortar/rocket/whatever has a default target circle that, if deviated from, adds significantly to the fire mission time. Also repeat FFE should have to be requested immediately following the original fire mission.

Cover armor arc would be nice as well.

[Pak40]

Combined command with LOS - If it could be implemented it would be one way around the problem of “move unit, find it still out of line of sight, guess where might work, move again, find it still doesn't work etc–repeat until bored".

*sigh* - this has been requested a billion times it seems. It's actually in the game already, do a search.

Second, this is a debatable gamey feature. Maybe it should only be used for WEGO because that's one of the limitations of the WEGO system. Personally, I never use it. If I want to see if there is LOS between two points I put my camera on the spot and go to level 1 and make a judgement call.

[Animal_Mother]

Artillery changes:

The ability to call for repeat FFE within a certain distance of the original target without having to start a new fire mission from scratch (maybe 100-200 meters) with the tradeoff being that each type of artillery gun/mortar/rocket/whatever has a default target circle that, if deviated from, adds significantly to the fire mission time. Also repeat FFE should have to be requested immediately following the original fire mission.

Cover armor arc would be nice as well.

Should have also added that there should be a random variation on where your repeat FFE actually hits, depending mainly on the quality of the spotting unit.

Repeat FFE uses same target area (circle of standard/nonstandard size, line, or point target) as original fire mission.

You can repeat as many times as you want as long as the above criteria are met, but all targets must be within 100-200 meters of original.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

*sigh* - this has been requested a billion times it seems. It's actually in the game already, do a search.

Please point out where it has been discussed and confirmed that there's a feature that allows you to know whether moving a squad currently in command by sight or voice to its HQ will still be in command if it moves to another point further away. From my understanding there is no way to know this except by trial and error, where the distance the squad can be away from its HQ depends on the terrain that the units are in at the time and possibly the experience level of the HQ?

Regards

KR

[Pak40]

Please point out where it has been discussed and confirmed that there's a feature that allows you to know whether moving a squad currently in command by sight or voice to its HQ will still be in command if it moves to another point further away. From my understanding there is no way to know this except by trial and error, where the distance the squad can be away from its HQ depends on the terrain that the units are in at the time and possibly the experience level of the HQ?

Sorry, I interpreted his request to be purely about determining LOS from one point to another without having a unit at either point. However, the feature that is in the game can be used to see if a unit will have LOS to it's leader once it moves to the new spot.

I'll try to find some exact directions but basically it involves selecting the desired waypoint and then using the target command.

[Wreck]

Here is a feature I would like to have in CMBN: a secondary covered arc. The idea should be fairly obvious by the label, but the idea is to give the player better control of a number of different types of units, each of which has the property that it has multiple types of weaponry, that need to be employed in different ways.

The UI implementation would just be a button in the combat orders, perhaps labeled "Arc(2)". Each unit would have one more covered arc. Also, I think it would be nice to color-code two kinds of covered arcs: one color for covered arcs controlling weapons with AT capacity, some other color for covered arcs controlling only anti-infantry weapons. (This would be a helpful change independent of the rest of this post.)

The semantics would be as follows: every unit could have a particular kind of weapon deemed its primary weapon, and then other weapons. The primary covered arc controls only the primary weapon and the orientation of the man controlling it, or for vehicles, the vehicle's orientation. Other weapons obey the secondary arc.

Many units (i.e. normal infantry squad w/o LAWs) would only have a primary weapon: in their case, small arms. In their case, the secondary arc item would grey out and not be usable.

Many units have 2 attack types:

  unit          primary    secondary

  ----------------------------------

  armor         main gun   MGs

  AT teams      LAW        small arms

  infantry+LAW  small arms LAW

  sniper teams  sniper     small arms

  mortar teams  mortar     small arms

Note the mildly confusing aspect of the reverse in infantry/AT team semantics. I have thought about it and I think what I suggest is better, but I might be wrong.

[Michael Emrys]

Wreck:

Basically a sound idea. However, it does add one more thing that a player will have to bother about in order to have optimum play. This is in a game that is already suffering a little from time-consuming "feature growth". Not saying this shouldn't be done, just that the cost might need to be weighed against the benefit.

Michael

[Wreck]

Michael, there are certainly tradeoffs, and you're right that adding anything like that does increase the management. Whether it be all-too-micro management... well, so far my take on the "feel" of CMBN is that it is naturally smaller scale than CMBO. This happens naturally in a game which simulates every man and every weapon in a squad. So the suggested change is in the spirit of a smaller game.

On the other hand, unless the tacAI was improved, any such change like this increases the advantage of the player over the AI, and of experienced players over newbies.

One thing that might help split the difference would be for the game to automatically assign secondary covered arcs in a sensible way. I.e., all small-arms get a short range 360 degree CA.

[derbius]

I believe it is possible to check LOS by ordering a move, then clicking on the order waypoint and doing a "target" command pointing at the place you want to target but since I believe also it is not possible to drag around a waypoint any more as one used to be able to do in "old" CM, one is still forced to do a lot of 'click and test, click and test' to check LOS. A "move in this direction until you can see this spot" might be a useful way around this problem.

[xian]

After playing the game for a few months I have discovered just a few things that I noticeably miss (in order of importance):

1. Fire. To be able to set fire to buildings and the terrain. I hope that this will be the first major improvement to CMBN.

2. A hot key to toggle all targets. Sometimes I forget which units I have left with an area fire command, and only discover them after I scroll through every single unit.

3. To voluntarily abandon an AT gun, and to re-crew it at a later date. Very useful when the sky falls in on your crews.

[Animal_Mother]

A "move in this direction until you can see this spot" might be a useful way around this problem.

I'd like to see this feature, I'd use it constantly.

[Erwin]

I find the LOS issue to be increasingly annoying. It doesn't make sense for an entertainment game to have (say) the 3rd crewman see a target but the gunner cannot see the target to shoot at it.

This is "design for maximum irritation/frustration." It wastes time esp in WEGO as you try fruitlessly for several turns to target a unit only to realize it's impossible from this position.

In RL it would be obvious that one of the crew can see the target but the gun can't shoot at the target. The game should either provide a warning that "LOS does not permit targeting" or better still just have the "if you can see it, you can shoot at it and vice versa" put back into the game. In an entertainment game it doesn't matter that gunlayer #3 can see the target in a game. All that matters is that you can fire your gun at it.