Future Directions - Features

Command Ops: Battles From The Bulge takes the highly acclaimed Airborne Assault engine back to the West Front for the crucial engagements during the Ardennes Offensive. Test your command skills in the fiery crucible of Airborne Assault’s “pausable continuous time” uber-realistic game engine. It's up to you to develop the strategy, issue the orders, set the pace, and try to win the laurels of victory in the cold, shadowy Ardennes.
Command Ops: Highway to the Reich brings us to the setting of one of the most epic and controversial battles of World War II: Operation Market-Garden, covering every major engagement along Hell’s Highway, from the surprise capture of Joe’s Bridge by the Irish Guards a week before the offensive to the final battles on “The Island” south of Arnhem.

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boogada
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by boogada »

ORIGINAL: Grim.Reaper

I know this probably won't make it in, but after playing other games that have this feature, I find myself missing it. When moving around the map, I would like to be able to click and drag the map which allows for better positioning of the map. Although scrolling to the edge if screens is fine, I just think you can get more precise if clicking and moving. I would also still keep in the edge scrolling as well.

this feature is in BftB. Right click and move the mouse.
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Deathtreader
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by Deathtreader »

Hi all,

Just some things I'd like to see:

1/ A more realistic routine for mounting/dismounting. I know the current process is only a temp. routine but greatly look forward to something a little more robust.

2/ A seperate movement type/class for tracked equipment. The current 2 classes (foot and motorized) do not (IMO) accurately reflect the differences between a tank and a truck in varying terrain and ground conditions. Unless there is already something under the hood that is not discernable to the user??

3/ The ability to create forces and make attachments etc. from the OOB lists. Control clicking off the map in unit congested areas can be an adventure in fat fingers for some of us.

4/ The ability to capture and use at least some basics and fuel from surrendered or destroyed enemy units. Especially enemy bases. Not ammo for obvious reasons.

5/ The ability for units within the same force -- at the lowest level ( i.e. companies and platoons within the same CURRENT battalion or company level force structure) -- to be able to share basics/fuel/ammo between themselves when in very close proximity to each other and no spotted enemy units are around. This could be a manual process initiated by the lassoo tecnique followed by an order to rebalance supplies within the force.

6/ The ability to ascertain whether reinforcements are foot or motorized (and hopefully mechanized if #2 above sees the light of day).

7/ Reinforcements more than 24 hours away should not always be visible to the player as there were often occasions when formations only became available at the proverbial last minute. A dynamic reinforcement list. Sort of a friendly fog of war.

8/ In line with #7 above we should not have as much precise info on reinforcements that are hours or days out of the battle. Their actual strength etc. should only become truly apparent at the time of entry. More friendly fog of war......

9/ Routing units should be losing/abondoning way more of their heavy equipment than is the case if they are truly disorganized and fleeing for their very lives. Maybe rout less and retreat more?? Or perhaps a new condition somewhere between what we currently call routing and retreating??

10/ More fog of war when it comes to things like always knowing whether a particular enemy held bridge is primed or not. Also applies to new features like mines. Ooops, unit "X" just plowed into a minefield and sustained "Y" per cent losses. Only then does the new minefield terrain graphic become apparent. Sometimes we know ahead of time and sometimes we don't........

Those are my top ten and do not include Arjuna's existing announced list of enhacements such as a cross river assault process, amphibeous assaults, off map artillery ......... all of which I would also like to see!!

[&o][&o]

Rob.

So we're at war with the Russkies eh?? I suppose we really ought to invade or something. (Lonnnng pause while studying the map)
Hmmmm... big place ain't it??
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Grim.Reaper
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by Grim.Reaper »

ORIGINAL: boogada

ORIGINAL: Grim.Reaper

I know this probably won't make it in, but after playing other games that have this feature, I find myself missing it. When moving around the map, I would like to be able to click and drag the map which allows for better positioning of the map. Although scrolling to the edge if screens is fine, I just think you can get more precise if clicking and moving. I would also still keep in the edge scrolling as well.

Wow...thank you so much. That is exactly what I wanted!
this feature is in BftB. Right click and move the mouse.
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wodin
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by wodin »

ORIGINAL: Deathtreader

Hi all,

Just some things I'd like to see:

1/ A more realistic routine for mounting/dismounting. I know the current process is only a temp. routine but greatly look forward to something a little more robust.

2/ A seperate movement type/class for tracked equipment. The current 2 classes (foot and motorized) do not (IMO) accurately reflect the differences between a tank and a truck in varying terrain and ground conditions. Unless there is already something under the hood that is not discernable to the user??

3/ The ability to create forces and make attachments etc. from the OOB lists. Control clicking off the map in unit congested areas can be an adventure in fat fingers for some of us.

4/ The ability to capture and use at least some basics and fuel from surrendered or destroyed enemy units. Especially enemy bases. Not ammo for obvious reasons.

5/ The ability for units within the same force -- at the lowest level ( i.e. companies and platoons within the same CURRENT battalion or company level force structure) -- to be able to share basics/fuel/ammo between themselves when in very close proximity to each other and no spotted enemy units are around. This could be a manual process initiated by the lassoo tecnique followed by an order to rebalance supplies within the force.

6/ The ability to ascertain whether reinforcements are foot or motorized (and hopefully mechanized if #2 above sees the light of day).

7/ Reinforcements more than 24 hours away should not always be visible to the player as there were often occasions when formations only became available at the proverbial last minute. A dynamic reinforcement list. Sort of a friendly fog of war.

8/ In line with #7 above we should not have as much precise info on reinforcements that are hours or days out of the battle. Their actual strength etc. should only become truly apparent at the time of entry. More friendly fog of war......

9/ Routing units should be losing/abondoning way more of their heavy equipment than is the case if they are truly disorganized and fleeing for their very lives. Maybe rout less and retreat more?? Or perhaps a new condition somewhere between what we currently call routing and retreating??

10/ More fog of war when it comes to things like always knowing whether a particular enemy held bridge is primed or not. Also applies to new features like mines. Ooops, unit "X" just plowed into a minefield and sustained "Y" per cent losses. Only then does the new minefield terrain graphic become apparent. Sometimes we know ahead of time and sometimes we don't........

Those are my top ten and do not include Arjuna's existing announced list of enhacements such as a cross river assault process, amphibeous assaults, off map artillery ......... all of which I would also like to see!!

[&o][&o]

Rob.


What he said;)
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wodin
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by wodin »

New combat doctrines is another No 1 need so we can play other theatres.

Everything GoodGuy and Deathtreader asked for are my requests aswell. I think they covered pretty much everything I'd like to see.
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loyalcitizen
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by loyalcitizen »

Something I mentioned a year or two ago...
 
Add some features to the Run-Time:
-Run to Reinforcements
-Run to Airstrike
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by tyrspawn »

More feedback from high command, the magical instant appearance of 30 corps in HTTR for example. It would be nice if high command can "wire" you a message saying "Hey these guys just broke through our lines and are barreling toward you" in a little box like the end mission box. It would also be cool if subordinate on map officers could provide stuff like "I need artillery support" or "I am unable to accomplish my current objective with my force level" etc

Very rarely should a gigantic enemy formation (like a division) appear out of nowhere.

ALSO:

The ability to click on an event text and zoom to it.
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scsfan
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by scsfan »

I'm not sure if it's there but I need a feature that allowing the game pause at certain situations, eg, the arrival of reinforcement or particular type of important message, eg rout, surrender, disband etc. When the game speed is set at fast, I found it is easy to miss the reinforcement message and not to realise there is reinforcement sitting there when I'm concentrating on other things.
FredSanford3
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by FredSanford3 »

ORIGINAL: tyrspawn

More feedback from high command, the magical instant appearance of 30 corps in HTTR for example. It would be nice if high command can "wire" you a message saying "Hey these guys just broke through our lines and are barreling toward you" in a little box like the end mission box. It would also be cool if subordinate on map officers could provide stuff like "I need artillery support" or "I am unable to accomplish my current objective with my force level" etc

Very rarely should a gigantic enemy formation (like a division) appear out of nowhere.

ALSO:

The ability to click on an event text and zoom to it.

You can do that in the message tab now, just not the on-screen messages. I usually leave the message screen selected as my default tab to show- that and 'FS'.
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simovitch
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by simovitch »

ORIGINAL: Howard7x

Arjuna,

This was something I brought up a couple of years ago and hopefully you can add it into the next title.

Pretty simple gripe I had mainly with COTA as for me, it was a battle I knew little to nothing about. Front end interface, when selecting battles without going through the text files it was very difficult to figure out how each battle linked from one to the next and what the timeline was. When selecting a scenario, it would be great if they were displayed on a map of the entire theatre, showing the location and time of the battle in relation to the other scenarios. This way you could give the player a guide as to the scenario they are playing and how it actually fits into the bigger picture of the entire battle. I found myself enjoying the COTA scenarios but having no clue as to how or why I was fighting them in the grand scheme of things.

I hope you understand my point and it kind of makes sense! Im downloading BftB as I type [:)]
We came very close to developing code to implement this, so it may be a possibility for next time. Here's an example of what the graphic for "Race for Bastogne" would have looked like when you selected it on the scenario menu:

Image
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Titanwarrior89
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by Titanwarrior89 »

Campaigns/Battles in the Pacific theater. Such as Guadalcanal. That would be interesting.
"Before Guadalcanal the enemy advanced at his pleasure. After Guadalcanal, he retreated at ours".

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FredSanford3
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by FredSanford3 »

One thing that many won't think about, but it will help immersion- more detailed and varied sound effects.

If you could at least make 'incoming' and 'outgoing' different sounds- not just the guns firing, but rounds impacting friendlies will sound different than your artillery impacting him. That way you could at least hear who was dominating the artillery battle, instead of one monotonous drone of explosions.

Nice-to-have sound item: localized to a unit- e.g. if you pick a unit far behind the lines, you hear a crickets-chirping, distant explosion echo sound. If you click a unit under fire, you hear the explosions and pandemonium louder.
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by Howard7x »

ORIGINAL: simovitch

ORIGINAL: Howard7x

Arjuna,

This was something I brought up a couple of years ago and hopefully you can add it into the next title.

Pretty simple gripe I had mainly with COTA as for me, it was a battle I knew little to nothing about. Front end interface, when selecting battles without going through the text files it was very difficult to figure out how each battle linked from one to the next and what the timeline was. When selecting a scenario, it would be great if they were displayed on a map of the entire theatre, showing the location and time of the battle in relation to the other scenarios. This way you could give the player a guide as to the scenario they are playing and how it actually fits into the bigger picture of the entire battle. I found myself enjoying the COTA scenarios but having no clue as to how or why I was fighting them in the grand scheme of things.

I hope you understand my point and it kind of makes sense! Im downloading BftB as I type [:)]
We came very close to developing code to implement this, so it may be a possibility for next time. Here's an example of what the graphic for "Race for Bastogne" would have looked like when you selected it on the scenario menu:

Image

Yes thats very similar to what I was thinking of, but with nodes on the map, so when u hovered over them it highlighted the battle in the scenarios list (or visa versa). I hope it makes it into the next game! Sounds like there is a high possiblity it will if you already started some code on it [;)] Nice one.
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daft
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by daft »

The ability to delegate some co-ordination tasks between units to lower ranked commanders. Case in point is the co-ordination of preparatory arty strikes before an assault. It would be great to be able to link the fire mission to the assault task and specify a bombardment at position XY, H+X minutes before the linked assault task begins. That way the units will try and co-ordinate postponed assaults and preparatory bombardments automatically instead of you having to keep a constant eye out for any delays and manually react to them by adding X minutes to the start time of the fire mission. Obviously you could simulate comms problems so that fire missions come in too early or too late, just as they sometimes did in the real war.
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by DanOppenheim »

Yep, that'd be good. Just a way to say "hello, commander performing such and such operation, I'm giving you this bunch of batteries as fire support. Use them sensibly.".

I also agree with tyrspawn: it'd be great to get more status reports from subordinates. If I'm at the corps level and I instruct a regiment to go off and perform a task, I'd really like more feedback from it or its divisional commander as to how the operation is proceeding. More than the failed/succeeded messages that seem to be the current limit. Information is key and, although it's possible to get all that information by trawling the OB and E&S tabs, it'd be nice to receive a digested version from subordinates. Otherwise I'm going to start removing those lazy officers from their commands... [;)]

If extra log messages were added, then it'd be pretty important to add a lot more filtering functionality, e.g. filtering by unit.
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Deathtreader
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by Deathtreader »

Hi,

Forgot to add on my above post (number 42) a way to target those pesky enemy remnants that haunt your rear areas, trash your supply columns, and call in incessant artillery strikes. I really don't think it's the role of the Divisional or Corps commander to personally supervise their pursuit and destruction, but if you don't you're entirely at the mercy of the six most dangerous enemy troops on the map. [:D]

Rob.
So we're at war with the Russkies eh?? I suppose we really ought to invade or something. (Lonnnng pause while studying the map)
Hmmmm... big place ain't it??
- Sir Harry Flashman (1854)
FredSanford3
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by FredSanford3 »

ORIGINAL: Deathtreader

Hi,

Forgot to add on my above post (number 42) a way to target those pesky enemy remnants that haunt your rear areas, trash your supply columns, and call in incessant artillery strikes. I really don't think it's the role of the Divisional or Corps commander to personally supervise their pursuit and destruction, but if you don't you're entirely at the mercy of the six most dangerous enemy troops on the map. [:D]

Rob.

This is why I think they should list radios and maybe wire gear as equipment. Only units with functioning comms gear (some radios only function when a unit has basics (i.e. batteries)) should be able to call in artillery.
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FredSanford3
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by FredSanford3 »

Also, when moving, there should be a "relocate HQ" button that lets you give the HQ unit orders to move without all the subordinates rearranging themselves.

Conversely, there should also be a "Maintain current command post" option for moves- when invoked, the HQ of a formation won't move with the group, but will stay in it's current location.

I still see major HQ's (Corps/Divs) 'leading the charge' far too often still. The chances of a unit encountering the enemy's corp hq should be exceedingly rare.
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by wodin »

ORIGINAL: DanO

Yep, that'd be good. Just a way to say "hello, commander performing such and such operation, I'm giving you this bunch of batteries as fire support. Use them sensibly.".

I also agree with tyrspawn: it'd be great to get more status reports from subordinates. If I'm at the corps level and I instruct a regiment to go off and perform a task, I'd really like more feedback from it or its divisional commander as to how the operation is proceeding. More than the failed/succeeded messages that seem to be the current limit. Information is key and, although it's possible to get all that information by trawling the OB and E&S tabs, it'd be nice to receive a digested version from subordinates. Otherwise I'm going to start removing those lazy officers from their commands... [;)]

If extra log messages were added, then it'd be pretty important to add a lot more filtering functionality, e.g. filtering by unit.

This has been asked for before. Infact it's something I requested a couple of months ago. It's a great idea. More radio feedback.

I believe Dave said it would be possible. Unlike some requests on here that I think are stretching the possibilites a little to far, we only have some much PC power;)
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RE: Future Directions - Features

Post by wodin »

This is a copy and paste to something I posted elsewhere on the forum.

Its a message about campaigns.

OK I've been checking back to see if I could find the posts and I have come across a few where the power needed was mentioned. It has been debated several times now...and Dave did say it is on the wish list and may be implimented next title (i.e the one after the Bulge). So we could be in luck. However it all depends on the sale of this game how much development will go into the next in the series. With the release of the est editor I believe the long term plans have been thrown up into the air. Thats why we have the stickies top forum.

I feel new combat doctrines and other additions with regards to the current gameplay would be better for now as I expect another 4 year gap until the next title isn't something Dave would want to repeat. A campaign would really drag out the development and to be honest with two week scenarios do we really need one? I'd prefer new theatres then maybe different conflicts coming say once a year or every two than waiting for four years for the next title because it has a campaign.
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