Wish List, Where would you like to see SPWaW go?

[Dragoon 45]

Not wishing to start any battles, I would like to get some of my cherished wishes for this great game out into open discussion.

OOB's - While I realize OOB's are a contenscious issue for some, I would love to see the number of available slots increased to allow more specialized weapons, vehicles, and units to be added. I.E. add recovery vehicles for all nations that fielded them, add artillery tractors, add formations such as HQ companies (where a lot of heavy weapons were found in infantry formations), add more experimental weapons to the weapons lists. etc.. This would be a boon to scenario designers allowing them more freedom to adapt historical actions to the game.

Bridge Layers - all the major combatants at one time or another during the war employed armored assault bridgelayers. If possible I would love to see them added, it would open new avenues in scenario design.

Enhance the Map Editor to include more impassible terrain for armor vehicles, higher elevations in terrain, include ice covered rivers where a vehicle has a chance to break through, adjust the stream elevation levels where it corresponds to surrounding terrain i.e. a stream is not at -5 when running down the side of a 30 level hill,

AI - I would love to see the AI able to destroy bridges if enemy units move within a certain radius of the bridge hex. Also I would welcome more unpredictability in the AI, give more freedom of maneuver. Also tweak the AI to where it would intergrate tanks and infantry better, normally AI armor units run-off and leave the infantry behind.

I would like to see the number of pre-planned artillery targets per mission allowed each side increased, say at least doubled.

In the Scenario Editor, I would like to see the ability to change a unit's core function, i.e. Change a Tiger I from a main battle tank to a mine clearing tank to represent the use of Borgward demo layers, or add a special ability such as route recon engineers, etc.

While a lot of people like SPMBT, I find the original SP II is better. SPMBT is a very slow game to play. Once you give the command to fire at a target, you may wait up to 5 seconds for the results, to me this is very frustrating. With this in mind, I would love to see SPWAW expanded to a bigger historical period say up to the late 80's or early 90's.

I have played a lot of computer tactical wargames over the years, both commerical and military ones. By far the most realistic and easiest to learn in my experience is SPWAW. It teaches a lot of tactical principles to the player sometimes without him/her actually knowing it is. I.E. massing of forces at the decisive point of the battle, tank/infantry support, artillery planning, and the list goes on. This game has a great future in front of it and I for one would not be adverse to paying for an expanded version of it, if that is what is necessary to see it grow to its full potential.

[Mau Fox]

Hey Dragoon 45!

You have some valid issues here. [;)]

Increasing unit's weapon slots (from 4 to 6), number of units and formations would be a great add to this game.
This would avoid redoing previous scenarios and campaign in order to fulfill Oob changes made over the years and, IMHO, would allow to have even more accurate (from a historical point of view) Oob and TOE.

I would like to see added a few more Countries or the possibility to have some "blank" Oobs.
For example I'd like to have a dedicated Partisan Oob, two France Oobs and two Italy Oobs, an Ethiopic Oob, a South African Oob, now we have two Spain Oobs and be sure that Spain did play a "minor" role.

About your others valid issues I think that these would involve a deep redo of the game engine and as we all know Mike Wood is pretty busy, although he put a lot of passion and time in order to keep this awesome game updated.

About stretching SPWaW up to 80's or 90's I would say that there are other games for that.
This beauty is a game about tactical warfare in WWII.
The game engine has been set up to match some combat routines that wouldn't fit modern warfare.

Just my wish list. [;)]

Ciao!

Mau Fox.

[omegaall]

ORIGINAL: Mau Fox

Hey Dragoon 45!

You have some valid issues here. [;)]

Increasing unit's weapon slots (from 4 to 6), number of units and formations would be a great add to this game.
This would avoid redoing previous scenarios and campaign in order to fulfill Oob changes made over the years and, IMHO, would allow to have even more accurate (from a historical point of view) Oob and TOE.

I would like to see added a few more Countries or the possibility to have some "blank" Oobs.
For example I'd like to have a dedicated Partisan Oob, two France Oobs and two Italy Oobs, an Ethiopic Oob, a South African Oob, now we have two Spain Oobs and be sure that Spain did play a "minor" role.

About your others valid issues I think that these would involve a deep redo of the game engine and as we all know Mike Wood is pretty busy, although he put a lot of passion and time in order to keep this awesome game updated.

About stretching SPWaW up to 80's or 90's I would say that there are other games for that.
This beauty is a game about tactical warfare in WWII.
The game engine has been set up to match some combat routines that wouldn't fit modern warfare.

Just my wish list. [;)]

Ciao!

Mau Fox.

In general I agree with Both.

I do not believe it would be useful to extend the game time period beyond the current year range.

The original engine SPIII though covers a bigger period range I suspect theer have been many mopdifications taht would not permit this extension. Also you may end up devaluing the internals of the game with such a move.

There is actual room for more OOBs when you lok at the OOB structure.

Possibly more could be done with modswapper than currently .. just a thought ..

[Goblin]

Alot of good ideas, Dragoon!

While a lot of people like SPMBT, I find the original SP II is better. SPMBT is a very slow game to play. Once you give the command to fire at a target, you may wait up to 5 seconds for the results, to me this is very frustrating. With this in mind, I would love to see SPWAW expanded to a bigger historical period say up to the late 80's or early 90's.

Not anymore. Been fixed for awhile.


Goblin

[omegaall]

ORIGINAL: Goblin


Not anymore. Been fixed for awhile.


Goblin

You got fixed .. Poor Goblin [:D]

[MindSpy]

[quote]ORIGINAL: Dragoon 45

Further map enhancements for terrain would be great.

Cumulative enhancements of the AI have already substantially improved the WAW game from its SP123 origins.

You have listed some interesting options that would be cool to have in the game.

Playing the MBT in smaller screen settings speeds up the game enourmously. For instance with all the bells and whistles of animation on, with the game map in 640 mode. The animations play instantly. In the max setting of 1600, there is a multi-second play out of the animations

MindSpy

[Goblin]

WinMBT actually has the delay settings detail increased greatly. You can set it for lightning fast play. I have it set for uberfast (action basically blurs by), but have not tried it on the purchased version's higher detail.

omega - [:-][:'(]


Goblin

[Riun T]

how about a button on the side list that would allow a squad to adopt any surviving crews or other units that had deminished #'s or a special skills catigory that allows engineers to assist in freeing stuck or immobilized vehicles or getting broken down guns to fire again quicker??RT

[sami heimola]

SPWAW is almost prefect for me[;)]...

But...

I have only one wish. Could it any way possible to add "volume knob" (as original SP games and SPWW2 have) into SPWAW's preferences? It's bit difficult play mp3's with Winamp if you play SPWAW at same time. I mean, battle sounds cover my mp3 music[:(]... If I use XP Home's volume preferences, both (Winamp and SPWAW) decrease/increase at same time[8|]...

PS. More map sizes (I mean more width hexes), as in WinMBT could be nice[;)]...

[soldier]

MBT & WW2 have a far better (and more dangerous) system for simulating movement in a combat zone becuase unloading troops near an enemy draws fire. In Spwaw you can waltz your APC right up too enemy infantry, drop and then attack at will. Sorry but for such an integral part of warfare (fire & manouvre) WAW just blows here. Even worse you can then drop smoke and remain completley protected by force field (not so in MBT).
Similarly passengers in trucks took casualties in MBT long ago but WAW has only just caught up here in 8.4 [8|] . Loading weapons onto trucks also takes time in MBT because the transport now cannot move so far. Load twice and your stopped completly but in WAW theres this instant loading feature where you can load as many times as you wan't and still drive the full distance as if it took no time at all to haul your 88 onto a truck. You can even ferry AT weapons across the board using the same truck (pure fantasy in one turn).
My wish is that WAW would clean up this area which has been so badly overlooked for so many versions and head back to something that resembles reality.
Worry about oob slots and prices once you have the basics of combat down properly IMHO

[junk2drive]

When WinSPWW2 is released this will all be moot IMHO.
Then we can go to argue at their forum

[Goblin]

Soldier: SPWaW has had the casualty feature for a long time. It was somehow turned off in 7.1 or 8.0

j2d: I agree with your point. Lets talk about WaW.


Goblin

[FNG]

I seem to recall that at some point in the past, an iteration of SP did reduce movement for loading/unloading. As soldier says, that and unloading troops drawing fire is crucial to the 'reality' of fire and manoeuvre. Another 'me too' is for a volume control. As I have already mentioned on another thread, having an Italian long campaign would be an excellent addition.

Finally, an 'all guns repeat' button in the artillery screen would be so useful, as would the ability to group guns. If I could set a mortar battery to fire a particular spread, group them and then only have to do one 'lift' to move the entire battery x yards, now that would be cool.

[Swamprat]

What I'd really like to see is a vcr playback that shows you units moving, rather than just shots. You can see enemy units moving when online. How about PBEM? Would it too much to ask to hear stuff moving too, like when playing online (even when you can't see it)?

[Goblin]

ORIGINAL: soldier

MBT & WW2 have a far better (and more dangerous) system for simulating movement in a combat zone becuase unloading troops near an enemy draws fire. In Spwaw you can waltz your APC right up too enemy infantry, drop and then attack at will.

This actually occurs in two instances in SPWaW, and I believe it used to occur during any unloading but doesn't anymore for some reason.

During amphibious unloading, the units get shot at, and they also do during a glider drop, when the glider unloads. I have brought this to Mike's attention to see what can be done about turning it back on for all unloading troops.


Goblin

[Goblin]

From Mike regarding some of the issues mentioned above:


1) Units riding on tanks do suffer damage, when hit by machine gun fire.
Not as much as when hit by fire from larger ordnance, but some. Tested this
and found that usually 0-2 casualties occur, depending on type of fire and
range.

2) Units unloading from trucks and the like do not expend movement points.
Units unloading from landing craft do expend movement points. Opportunity
fire occurs, when movement points are expended. Has always been this way.
Could extend this to include loading or unloading. Could also make loading
or unloading expend movement points (right now, it just reduces number of
shots for passenger), as some have requested. This would automatically
trigger opportunity fire.



Goblin

[JEB Davis]

ORIGINAL: Goblin

SNIP

2) Units unloading from trucks and the like do not expend movement points.
Units unloading from landing craft do expend movement points. Opportunity
fire occurs, when movement points are expended. Has always been this way.
Could extend this to include loading or unloading. Could also make loading
or unloading expend movement points (right now, it just reduces number of
shots for passenger), as some have requested. This would automatically
trigger opportunity fire.[/i]

Mike, PLEASE do this, the "free load" is very unrealistic. Seems that loading an field gun / ATG would take some time, at least 1/2 a turn. IMHO, if it was keyed to the "size" of the gun, with smallest = 1/4 turn, medium = 1/2 turn, largest = 2/3 turn, this would be nice. Loading troops similar also.

[&o]

I like how the boardgame Tobruk handled it, I believe it took four 30-sec. turns to load or unload an 88. Two minutes even seems fast, but then I'm not a gun crewman.

[Dragoon 45]

Jeb, The German 88's could be fired while still on their wheels if necessary, even still limbered up to the prime movers. The earliest Flak-18's didn't have this feature, but after combat experience in the Spanish Civil War the mounts were changed to enable them to be fired in an emergency while still limbered to a vehicle. Accuracy was not as good, but some trade-off's were necessary to enable this. Not all towed weapons could do this but the 88"s could.

ORIGINAL: JEB Davis

ORIGINAL: Goblin

SNIP

2) Units unloading from trucks and the like do not expend movement points.
Units unloading from landing craft do expend movement points. Opportunity
fire occurs, when movement points are expended. Has always been this way.
Could extend this to include loading or unloading. Could also make loading
or unloading expend movement points (right now, it just reduces number of
shots for passenger), as some have requested. This would automatically
trigger opportunity fire.[/i]

Mike, PLEASE do this, the "free load" is very unrealistic. Seems that loading an field gun / ATG would take some time, at least 1/2 a turn. IMHO, if it was keyed to the "size" of the gun, with smallest = 1/4 turn, medium = 1/2 turn, largest = 2/3 turn, this would be nice. Loading troops similar also.

[&o]

I like how the boardgame Tobruk handled it, I believe it took four 30-sec. turns to load or unload an 88. Two minutes even seems fast, but then I'm not a gun crewman.

[Mike Wood]

Hello...

Am aware of this. Took special effort to account for it in code. Then, later some OOB fellow changed the unit class for the '88', in order to void code, claiming feature was a 'bug'.

Oh Well...

Michael Wood

ORIGINAL: Dragoon 45

Jeb, The German 88's could be fired while still on their wheels if necessary, even still limbered up to the prime movers. The earliest Flak-18's didn't have this feature, but after combat experience in the Spanish Civil War the mounts were changed to enable them to be fired in an emergency while still limbered to a vehicle. Accuracy was not as good, but some trade-off's were necessary to enable this. Not all towed weapons could do this but the 88"s could.

ORIGINAL: JEB Davis

ORIGINAL: Goblin

SNIP

2) Units unloading from trucks and the like do not expend movement points.
Units unloading from landing craft do expend movement points. Opportunity
fire occurs, when movement points are expended. Has always been this way.
Could extend this to include loading or unloading. Could also make loading
or unloading expend movement points (right now, it just reduces number of
shots for passenger), as some have requested. This would automatically
trigger opportunity fire.[/i]

Mike, PLEASE do this, the "free load" is very unrealistic. Seems that loading an field gun / ATG would take some time, at least 1/2 a turn. IMHO, if it was keyed to the "size" of the gun, with smallest = 1/4 turn, medium = 1/2 turn, largest = 2/3 turn, this would be nice. Loading troops similar also.

[&o]

I like how the boardgame Tobruk handled it, I believe it took four 30-sec. turns to load or unload an 88. Two minutes even seems fast, but then I'm not a gun crewman.

[Alby]

MIke, what class are the 88s supposed to be?
I have forgotten.[&:]