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I have been out of Oz, driving around Europe for a couple of months, largely out of touch, but an idea or two came to mind, so hat in the ring .... here goes. Please remember my computer knowledge is insufficient for me to assess...or even guess...whether ideas are feasible, program-wise.

1. Units
...With the new specialised engineer units, is there a specialised flamethrower team? If not, would this be a worthwhile addition?....eg for bunker attack, although the ability to pop smoke :smoke: as well as shoot flame Fiery would seem to be needed simultaneously
...Remote control demolition eg Goliath. If this could be simulated, it might be fun. Could we be so sick as to include the Russian AT dogs?
...Bridgelayers that work (might have to wait for modern warfare)
...The gigantic German 80cm gun railway gun. :boom3:
...Recovery tanks, which would open the question of realistic simulation of repairable damage.
...WWI units..tanks, some arty, weaker infantry, slower German MGs etc..and flame thrower/assault/shturmtruppen teams, etc etc. Some work was done years ago on a WWI mod for WF. I think this could be easily adapted into JTCS, and might well produce both good games and great history.

2.Map Eye Candy, and a bit more than just that.

Some thoughts..
All theatres....Special buildings ..aircraft hangars, tented encampments, barracks (as in RS) stores depots etc etc
Europe/Mediterranean....Special buildings ...Three scales of church..cathedral(city)/town/village (We have temples in RS) And perhaps some other castle options? (I have about 5000000 happy snaps)
Could the WF map editor be set up to combine Europe/Mediterranean and Med/Desert?
Is it possible to include a tunnel (eg railway tunnel) in the map? The RS cave feature could lead the way here, but would be much more limited in scope, and would appear as a separate feature, particularly as railways are not a significant factor in RS.
Why does the game not allow the 'rubbleising' of special buildings? It should!

3. Game scale: There has been some debate about the game time scale, but little or none about the physical scale, set by the original designers at 250m per hex. This has 5 different magnifications, but the SCALE remains the same...whatever the view one chooses, a hex remains 250 m.
Questions...is it possible to set up a series of scales, dividing or multiplying by 2,4,8 say?
...would such a scaling feature be useful or desirable?
...would such a feature, if adopted, be applicable to existing scenarios as an option, or be a fixed factor in new scens made to order for that scale? (the latter I think)
...would stacking factors need to be reduced, or could a smaller area hold more troops etc?

On a related(?) scale issue, is it possible to expand vertically, from 0-12 to, say 0-24 or 0-36, to better simulate mountain/alpine areas, which CS does not do well at all.

:soap: :stir:
I am on record as being in total opposition to some game development changes, particularly and explicitly the ridiculous bathtub navy, and the absurd non-flying "bombers". I oppose these because they simulate reality as well as a pig flies, :pig: and because it is clear to me that no understanding of naval or air operations is evident in the development process which led to these fiascos :thumbs_down:

I am also on record as being a keen supporter of pretty much everything else that has been done. I offer the above thoughts without prejudice, inviting comments on feasibility and desirability, and of course hoping to inspire any other ideas that might come up. I also wish to note that I am happy to help the development team with thoughts on values etc.
I share some of these wishes, mainly map stuff. Need a bmp for farms and windmills mainly.

As far as physical hex size scale is concerned, it has to be fixed at 250 meters. As soon as you change it you have to build an entire new game and weapon data around it. (In theory that is possible ofcourse if you look at the variants Dumnorix has created with both larger and smaller scales).
You have some great ideas Rod.

I'm glad someone besides me supports the armored recovery tanks (I mainly, though not exclusively, envision them as wreck removal units). They'll probably be too rare to appear in more than a handful of scenarios, but I still look forward to having them. Perhaps other members here can think up a few new abilities for them?

I love the idea of being able to "rubble" hexes. Perhaps the aforementioned armored engineering vehicles can "clear" these to regular vehicles over a period of several turns? (they often sport a large bulldozer blade, like on the Bergepanther).

On bridgelayers, Jason said the other day that they are going to be included for East Front, as I recall. I'd love to see them appear in
West Front - remember the old Valentine Bridgelayer from Panzer Leader? I always thought it a shame how Divided Ground had the bridgelayer tank, but it could not actually lay bridges...

I had also mentioned to Jason that there needs to be a German (and perhaps U.S. and British), SMG unit - I had the German MP40 in mind at the time. The later MP44 (Sturmgewere) was even more powerful, an assault rifle actually, but Jason says these units are assumed to be mixed in with the regular platoons, so that explains that I guess. In the old Panzer Leader / Panzerblitz, these units are represented separately with their own platoons.

I still like the idea of FO vehicles and ammunition carriers being included in the game, but no one else seems to...yet.

Almost forgot to mention. I love the new trucks / soft-skinned halftracks - higher sp value, and defense factor wisely set to "2." However, the truck-based and soft-HT based combat units are still running around with their old defense factors of "1." Like the AAA halftracks and trucks for example. Can we have these sorts of units defense factor's increased to "2" for 1.05? I'm honestly surprised no one has mentioned this issue yet. The trucks are tougher than many of the support vehicles, lol...
I wouldn't have a problem with engineering or recovery vehicles being added/expanded. There are already mine/blockade-clearing tanks that are effectively engineering vehicles anyway. Just make some new units that retain the engineering capability but have no/very little combat ability, low defenses, low morale (so they don't become gamey assault vehicles) and you're all set.

However, recovery vehicles should be limited to clearing wrecks not fixing vehicles, which basically just makes them less-effective engineering vehicles anyway. They shouldn't get a die roll per turn to create/replace SPs of AFVs, since all they did in real life was tow fixable tanks to the rear for repair, not fix them in the field. The only tanks that might get returned to service quicker would be bogged tanks or tanks that throw a track due to terrain, but CS doesn't model these situations. Losses are generally due to combat, not movement.

If you want to simulate repaired tanks returning to service, it would be better to create some sort of replacement system with the appropriate limitations (e.g. repaired tanks/replacement infantry not warping magically to the front lines), but even that is out of scale for all but the most stretched time-scale scenarios. In a 2-3 hour battle (20-30 turns at 6 mins each), that sort of replacement just didn't happen very often, if at all.

Mike
K K Rossokolski Wrote:...With the new specialised engineer units, is there a specialised flamethrower team? If not, would this be a worthwhile addition?....eg for bunker attack, although the ability to pop smoke :smoke: as well as shoot flame Fiery would seem to be needed simultaneously

The Russians have dedicated flamethrower squads.

K K Rossokolski Wrote:...Remote control demolition eg Goliath. If this could be simulated, it might be fun.

This is included with 1.04 - East Front.

K K Rossokolski Wrote:...Bridgelayers that work (might have to wait for modern warfare)

As John mentioned, the first attempt at bridgelayers is included in 1.04 - East Front - Germans. These armoured vehicles are capable of laying one medium bridge throughout the course of a scenario.

No, you can't pick up the bridge again and use it elsewhere. That just isn't possible within the game at the moment.

K K Rossokolski Wrote:On a related(?) scale issue, is it possible to expand vertically, from 0-12 to, say 0-24 or 0-36, to better simulate mountain/alpine areas, which CS does not do well at all.

It is on my wish list.

Jason Petho
John Given Wrote:I had also mentioned to Jason that there needs to be a German (and perhaps U.S. and British), SMG unit - I had the German MP40 in mind at the time. The later MP44 (Sturmgewere) was even more powerful, an assault rifle actually, but Jason says these units are assumed to be mixed in with the regular platoons, so that explains that I guess. In the old Panzer Leader / Panzerblitz, these units are represented separately with their own platoons.

Hi John

Possibly a misunderstanding of what I meant.

Each of the various platoon types in the Germans (East Front) have various weapon stats, depending on how they are armed.

If you look at the weapon stats for the Grenadier 44 (regular, green and veteran) and the Volksgrenadier 44 (regular, green and veteran), you will see they are representative of the platoons being armed mostly with the MP-44. That being the case, you do have separate representative platoons as you did in PL&PB.

Hope that helps.
Jason Petho
This is purely a cosmetic request, but it would be nice if the 2-1/2D renderer was able to deal with height changes larger than three.

umbro
umbro Wrote:This is purely a cosmetic request, but it would be nice if the 2-1/2D renderer was able to deal with height changes larger than three.

umbro

Good call!

Jason Petho