Pack of wishes

[Rudankort]

Lots of good points on recon aircraft here guys, thanks.

[mulleto22]

Would like to add these points to a feature wishlist:

1. The game should provide a view (an overlay) for "covered against air attacks". What I mean by this is: Show an overlay, which displays which hexes are currently adjacent to an AA or a fighter plane. Its always a tedious thing, especially on larger maps, to find the spots that are still uncovered and need protection. Small mistakes here always cost quickly, because the AI will simply jump on those unprotected units. While this is obvously just a convenience function, it would definately improve player experience, because it saves you from those angry moments when you overlooked a unit which promptly got attacked.

2. The game should provide an overlay "Enemy fog of war". By this I mean: Show the player how far the AI can currently see, of course only from those AI units that are seen by the player. This is somehow tied to my first wish: Since you are rarely able to protect everything from enemy air attacks, you usually would protects those in enemy sight. This can be difficult to evaluate, especially when playing with modded equipment files.

3. A third one: Custom waypoints have been suggested for player unit movement. May I add a suggestion: it would be simple to add a keyboard shortcut, something like pressed-ctrl-key when moving, to have the player unit use a path that does not move through any fogged hexes. Even better, on a second shortcut - e.g. shift-ctrl - the unit could move one hex distance from fogged hexes, thus avoiding enemy zones of control (always assuming movement points allow that move).

[Rudankort]

mulleto22
Good ideas, and in the area of usability which rarely gets discussed. Very useful. Thanks!

[guille1434]

About recon ability of units, I remember two useful traits some air units (not spaceships, but the craft that could fly over planet's surfaces) had in the game "Star General":

- There was one called "Spotter" who gave an advantage (in ground attack stats, I believe) to friendly artillery units who fired on units placed in the "spotter" unit spotting range.
- Another one was "Awacs": It worked like an airborne radar... it gave advantages to friendly air units placed in the "awacs" spotting range (this should be effective only to friendly air units engaged in air combat, when attacking enemy air units). This trait, I think it could be combined with a numeric value, so, if you give the units a trait equal to, for example = awacs5, the unit will have an air spotting range of 5 hexes (spotting range only for air units), but this value will not have effect over sea or land unit spotting.

The traits system is a very good one, you can give the units very special abilities to differentiate them from others...

Pacific general also had some interesting ones:

- Fearless: The unit will not retreat, but suffered and additional point of damage instead of moving.
- Banzai: Will attack with more effect, but with less regard about losses, so probably suffering more losses if the attacked unit fired back.
- Night Optics: Ships have more effective fire control (traduced in better Naval Attack) when engaged in night combat.

Which brings me to mind: NIGHT TURNS! Make the possibility of adding night turns to scenarios!

Would it be possible to design a "trait creation" or "trait programming" system, like some scripting language with a limited, game related grammar, basic logical operators, and variable use.
For example you give the system some key words: "Air", "Unit", "Hex", "Enemy", "Friendly" etc...

With this language, you can program traits: "Awacs X = Air Unit Enemy and Friendly Spotting X hex(es)" --> Meaning that the unit with this trait can spot all air units within the hex-range indicated
"Rocket-Assisted X/Y = Artillery Unit Range add X hex(es) and subtract Y Ground Attack" --> Meaning that the arty unit with this trait can fire further, but with less
powerful shells.

I hope I could explain it in a more or less clear way... But a "trait programming" system (even a very basic one) would be wonderful! (second best thing after the "Switchting" function introduced in PzCorps!!)


I hope some of these ideas will be interesting to the developers team!!
Thanks!!

[KeldorKatarn]

I would suggest then however that recon aircraft can only be switched if at an airbase. switchin them during a mission is kind of.. I don't know. The recon Ju88 after all wasn't the bomber version. It had specialized equipment on it that probably took the room of the bomber sight and other stuff. It's not the same plane. A 88 Flak however simply fired directly at a tank with their rounds, it's the same gun just used differently. So I'm not sure about this switch thing.

I disagree that recon planes need combat abilities for players to use them. I used one in Soviet Corps and braccada who was initially not sure about it now uses one as well. It is useful enough as is. If some players think they're not, they will simply not buy them. But the fact is that players in Soviet Corps DO use those units already so there is no need to change them or make them better. Their huge range is good enough and recon move in the air is very powerful since it's not hindered by terrain. I think they're more than good enough. Switching would be pretty unrealistic but I could live with it, but again that should only be allowed at base. It would be s strange precedence however. If I can switch a Ju88 recon to a Ju88 bomber.. then why can't I also switch a Fw190 fighter to a Fw190 ground attack aircraft... the fact remains.. it's not the same aircraft. I cannot switch a Ju87B to a Ju87R just because I want a bit more range all of a sudden...

Switching should be limited to abilities that the unit really had. The ground attack role of the 88 was clearly historical even though born from desperation because of Matilda tanks. same goes for artillery shooting over open sights. But a recon aircraft remained a recon aircraft and couldn't suddenly be used in a different way unless refitted in a factory. There might be exceptions where certain types of aircraft could be refitted for different purposes by the ground crews. Then a switch is fine, but again, then it should only work at base. not in mid air.

[Buffalohump]

I see your point about the switch abilitys not being historically accurate and agree that it would lead to an unbalanced unit.
As I noted in an earlier post the English Mosquito and American P-38 recon aircraft were unarmed relying on their speed to get through. These aircraft were used mostly for strategic reconnaissance.

However my primary interest are the tactical recon aircraft. These purpose built aircraft were generally lightly armed to attack targets of opportunity on the battlefield and generally had a multi role ability. The Soviet U-2 was used for battlefield reconnaissance, medivac, courier, light bomber, and for harassment missions. The U-2 was armed with a single machine gun and had the ability to carry roughly 500lbs of bombs.

The game designers did a wonderful job with Lt. Rudel to reflect an aerial recon units limited attack ability with the minus 5 attack trait. The recon version of the Bf-110's through all marks had the cannons removed for cameras, leaving the machine guns and presumably a light bomb load.

I agree with you about the utility of aerial reconnaissance units and as earlier stated Lt. Rudel almost always makes my cut (along with uber Rudel) when pairing down my units for the 42/43 West Grand Campaign. I personally do not need the scout move ability but I do think an effect bonus for artillary would be historically accurate to reflect their use as artillary spotters and would add enough incentive to encourage their use in game.

[Buffalohump]

Post Script:

I always upgrade Lt. Rudel to the Bf-110 in game and stop upgrading at the Bf-110g

[Buffalohump]

I must add that the inclusion of a dedicated aerial reconnaissance class is but a personal desire. Their inclusion or exclusion will not truly effect my desire for or enjoyment of the upcoming game.

[KeldorKatarn]

I think instead of making them switchable, recon units would benefit a lot more from a "avoid" ability like submarines have. They are supposed to be fast and be able to get out of harm's way. Ground or air. And the ability to AVOID combat is probably more representative of this. Of course this needs to be balanced. Attacking a recon with 3 tiger platoons and it avoiding combat 3 times in a row would be game breaking I think. So maybe this should only work once or somethng like that.

[Yrfin]

Then a switch is fine, but again, then it should only work at base. not in mid air.

Ability to switch airplans only at airfields it is already realized in PzC (only 1 switch allowed in flying, no more.)

[Intenso82]

1. Warning about the end of fuel for air units.
Slow death for air units without fuel as in the OOB or simular.

2. More separation between small-caliber(20-50мм) AA artillery and large-caliber (60-100mm) AA artillery.

The large-caliber is more for high-altitude slow targets like a strategic bomber, small-caliber for fast targets at low altitude.
Dive bombers, fighters when attacking ground targets.

Deeper use of high-altitude targets and low-altitude targets.
For example, a fighter usually flies high and the anti-aircraft guns do not operate, but when attacking ground targets, he goes into a low-flying state for 1 turn.

Yes, I know that in the OOB was divided into large air targets and small ones. It's good, but still far from ideal
Altitude and low-altitude targets, also a good separation, especially if it can change on one unit during the game.

3.Counterbattery fire.
Ability, trait or something else.

4. All game mechanics do through skills, ability, traits, config etc.
So that the player can then configure most of the features, if he wants.
And not so much that the most game mechanics were a hardcoded.

[hugh2711]

I think that changing/introducing an element of 'supply' other than what is there at the moment will change the nature of the game enormously. You will lose 'that easy to learn clarity/simplicity but lifetime to master' thing that makes panzer corps so great. There are other similar looking games out there with that and they are horrible to play in comparison (as with units what you see is not neccessarily what you get).

[KeldorKatarn]

I agree that supply should be easy to manage and understand. However some introduction of supply lines, maybe making rail lines more important might be interesting.

[Akkula]

I would love to see traits related to modern equipment, not to be used in the vanilla game, but in mods. In case we have a volunteer to make a total conversion.

[Rudankort]

I would love to see traits related to modern equipment, not to be used in the vanilla game, but in mods. In case we have a volunteer to make a total conversion.

And who might that person be?

[Rudankort]

I think instead of making them switchable, recon units would benefit a lot more from a "avoid" ability like submarines have. They are supposed to be fast and be able to get out of harm's way. Ground or air. And the ability to AVOID combat is probably more representative of this. Of course this needs to be balanced. Attacking a recon with 3 tiger platoons and it avoiding combat 3 times in a row would be game breaking I think. So maybe this should only work once or somethng like that.

"Avoid" for recons seems logical, but I'm afraid that even a single avoidance can be very annoying at times. In Panzer Corps it works for submarines simply because naval warfare is usually secondary to ground action, and wasting a couple of turns killing a pesky submarine is usually not the end of the world. But on the ground, it's very easy to lose a lot of time because of one lucky avoidance. Imagine a road going through difficult terrain, and your front unit gets stuck on a recon. Other units don't have hexes to attack the recon from, so the whole column is stuck. This is not only annoying, but seems to be exploit-prone.

I think, if recon unit avoids damage, it should at least somehow give way to attacking unit (e. g. trigger retreat instead of combat or something).

[Rudankort]

About recon ability of units, I remember two useful traits some air units (not spaceships, but the craft that could fly over planet's surfaces) had in the game "Star General":

Good ideas from Star General. I looked at Pacific General, but I think I forgot about that game. Need to look at it some more.

Which brings me to mind: NIGHT TURNS! Make the possibility of adding night turns to scenarios!

I don't know if this will be in the game from 1.0, but in our graphics design we keep this opportunity open.

Would it be possible to design a "trait creation" or "trait programming" system, like some scripting language with a limited, game related grammar, basic logical operators, and variable use.

Trait programming would be awesome, but it's not easy to design system which is simple enough to use and powerful at the same time. I'll think about it, and any ideas would be welcome. We may need a separate topic for this.

[Razz1]

For Recon, I use camouflage and it works quite well.

While playing multiplayer, you can see the unit move then disappear if it is with range one. Very nice!

[KeldorKatarn]

"Avoid" for recons seems logical, but I'm afraid that even a single avoidance can be very annoying at times. In Panzer Corps it works for submarines simply because naval warfare is usually secondary to ground action, and wasting a couple of turns killing a pesky submarine is usually not the end of the world. But on the ground, it's very easy to lose a lot of time because of one lucky avoidance. Imagine a road going through difficult terrain, and your front unit gets stuck on a recon. Other units don't have hexes to attack the recon from, so the whole column is stuck. This is not only annoying, but seems to be exploit-prone.

I think, if recon unit avoids damage, it should at least somehow give way to attacking unit (e. g. trigger retreat instead of combat or something).

Agreed, this needs to be tested well. I'm just saying there needs to be something done about certain units to make them feel more like they are good at what they did historically. Recons need SOMETHING to easier avoid combat and tant tank guns and tank destroyers need something to enable them to play the ambush role they historically did. After all the StuGIII didn't get its legendary kill score by running around and attacking artillery supressed tanks. They camped hard

[Razz1]

I would suggest then however that recon aircraft can only be switched if at an airbase. switchin them during a mission is kind of.. I don't know. The recon Ju88 after all wasn't the bomber version. It had specialized equipment on it that probably took the room of the bomber sight and other stuff. It's not the same plane. A 88 Flak however simply fired directly at a tank with their rounds, it's the same gun just used differently. So I'm not sure about this switch thing.

I disagree that recon planes need combat abilities for players to use them. I used one in Soviet Corps and braccada who was initially not sure about it now uses one as well. It is useful enough as is. If some players think they're not, they will simply not buy them. But the fact is that players in Soviet Corps DO use those units already so there is no need to change them or make them better. Their huge range is good enough and recon move in the air is very powerful since it's not hindered by terrain. I think they're more than good enough. Switching would be pretty unrealistic but I could live with it, but again that should only be allowed at base. It would be s strange precedence however. If I can switch a Ju88 recon to a Ju88 bomber.. then why can't I also switch a Fw190 fighter to a Fw190 ground attack aircraft... the fact remains.. it's not the same aircraft. I cannot switch a Ju87B to a Ju87R just because I want a bit more range all of a sudden...

Switching should be limited to abilities that the unit really had. The ground attack role of the 88 was clearly historical even though born from desperation because of Matilda tanks. same goes for artillery shooting over open sights. But a recon aircraft remained a recon aircraft and couldn't suddenly be used in a different way unless refitted in a factory. There might be exceptions where certain types of aircraft could be refitted for different purposes by the ground crews. Then a switch is fine, but again, then it should only work at base. not in mid air.

I have recon aircraft in the TR Mod. I would also like to see the use of a communication truck which increase spotting. However, I haven't played much with both of those units balance them perfectly in a campaign.

The problem with Communication truck and recon is balancing the cost aspect it they are both reasonable to buy and use.

The BIG problem with recon is it gives the Human too great advantage over the poor AI. However when the AI has recon, you wouldn't believe how good it is in moving and attacking.

I agree, please don't make all AT and AA switchable. Not accurate at all.