MCS User WISHLIST

[Busto963]

Posted, elsewhere on the forum, moved here at Jason's sugguestion.

Here are some ideas:

1. A more sophisticated zoom function would be a welcome tweek to the interface, as would a wider selection of animation speeds, and sound volume control. What about a clock (with alarm for married guys!)!

2. Better and larger interface screens. The current dialog boxes are fixed in size and were made in an era of 14" monitors!The scenario selection and F2 unit description screens for example are microscopic and require scrolling to reaveal the contents of the dialog boxes. This is ridiculous in an era of large flat screens and projectors. I do not want to have to "scroll" through anything, except a massive list of scenarios or campaigns!

3. How about an "ambush" or "point blank fire" setting for opportunity fire. Essentially the unit will hold fire until a given target is in the adjacent hex, perhaps two. Late war high velocity guns like the 17 pounder make a mockery of "short range" op fire. It is very disappointing to set the op fire so your 8.8cm PAK 43s will engage soft targets at close range; only to have them start engaging trucks at 5-hexes and use up a turns shots. Short is relative...

4. How about the ability to set opportunity fire *before* the game starts. It stinks to be the defender and go second only to watch a defense collapse because the default op fire does not make sense for current conditions.

5. I am dissatisfied with indirect artillery and the artillery spotting rules. Large caliber guns can be put into action too quickly, are too responsive, and arrive too quickly on target. Others have posted solutions - I am just voicing an opinion. See above post on Corps level artillery.

6. The unit descriptions and photos need freshening up. Many descriptions and photos are missing, show the wrong unit, or are just bad pictures.

7. I am in favor of reducing the number of units. For example, the proliferation of truck types adds very little to the game, especially when the difference between the units is minimal.

GAB

[marcbarker]

I would like to see a way point system toyed with. Like in Combat mission and etc. Have options on the way points for recon, ambush, assault, full atack and probe. you have the HQ units display the waypoints and then have sub units try to get to the spot. This would be a great point for assembly areas in a dcg at division level. As it is now units are all over the place and takes forever to assemble and set up. This could be available in higher units etc.
 
what do you guys think

[V22 Osprey]

To sum it up for me:
Fixed 2D graphical unit icons.
Abilty to load custom maps in the generator(like SPWAW)
Being able to setup your units for generated battles
A way to easily setup generated Campaigns(like Steel Panthers WAW Campaign Generator)So it doesn't have to be DCG,I could just set a couple of options and play a generated campign.

[OttoVonBlotto]

Sorry if Im repeating an know wish, but how's about showing the range of units loaded on land transports, I'm not a hex counter [>:] and the amout of times I have unloaded an AT or artillary and then had to reload it to move closer as it is still out of range is a bit of a peave. [8|]

[Geomitrak]

Include fixed units in the 'Scroll to Next Unit' button. They may not be able to move, but they can still fire. In the 'Get off the Beach' scenario in West Front, you only get to press the button about four or five times on the German side because it only deals with units that are capable of movement.

Regards

Paul

[scottintacoma]

If you have firing toggled, it will only jump to the next unit that can fire. So activate firing and you should get all units that can fire, including artillery.

[Geomitrak]

Ah Scott, thanks very much! I had no idea you had to do that. Good info !!

Regards
Paul

[CaptainHuge]

Hi Jason,

I would like to see a separate option in 1.05 to slow down aircraft when they attack. Often times, they go by so quickly I can't get a good look at them.

[qbert55]

It would be nice if units could recognize obstacles (such as roadblocks, mine fields) and did not attempt to travel through them. Currently is seems that even when a unit has an obstacle in LOS it will not recognize that it actually costs more action points to move through the obstacle rather than around it. When you select the movement endpoint the computer/program seems to calculate and execute shortest distance without regard to obstacles.  

[qbert55]

It would also be nice to have retrograde movement that allows armor to "back up" (reverse gear) without exposing their rear. 

[Crossroads]

Here's my 0.02 for all three games in the JTCS

In no particular order:

Graphical

Tiger 88
with the double time key - make it so that you can see how far your unit can travel - vs when you hit the key it automatically puts that unit in fatigue mode regardless if you wanted to move that way or not.....

It is a bit annoying as it currently stands, isn't it.

RobertMC
Any interest in working on the 2D maps and counters to make the MCS playable at that scale? I guess what I'm talking about is making the 2D hexes and the counters a little larger. Or "comfortably larger" for old eyes like mine.
I saw the great work someone did to mod a Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader interface, and being able to play comfortably in 2D would really complete the package.

I would definitively like to see PB/PL counters available for 2D gaming!

Busto963
2. Better and larger interface screens. The current dialog boxes are fixed in size and were made in an era of 14" monitors!The scenario selection and F2 unit description screens for example are microscopic and require scrolling to reaveal the contents of the dialog boxes. This is ridiculous in an era of large flat screens and projectors. I do not want to have to "scroll" through anything, except a massive list of scenarios or campaigns!

As time goes, this has become a more and more annoying limitation... It would be nice to see all pop up windows to follow the modern Microsoft look-and-feel standards. A lot of programming work, though?

Scenarios

junk2drive
In addition to the main scenario description, separate Allied and Axis briefings ala Combat Mission.

This would be nice! I bet it would be nice to sometimes give a a different and even conflicting briefings to both sides. For an example to provide both sides with often historically accurate briefings to conduct an attack, resulting in an interesting meeting engagement. Then the players would really need to adapt: oops, did not expect that, should I set a defense although I was ordered to attack?

pzgndr
I just got into CS this past week. Scenario selection is a challenge. There are so many! Could something be done to group scenarios by size, complexity level, dates, whatever? Or at least show more of this information in the scenario selection box?

This is the reason I actually came to post here.

I am in the process of selecting a next scenario to play, to continue a theme of playing D-Day + scenarios. Very difficult to get a good view of what is available.

I would like to see more information available for scenarios on a meta-data level: the larger theatre of war, eg West front, smaller theater of war: Normandy, etc...

This could easily be a separate app, like the current scenario selector tool. But more meta data would definitively be handy to support the ever growing list of new and existing scenarios!


New Country

1925
New Country: Allied Finland in West Front (to fight alongside France and the U.K. against the Axis Soviets in a hypothetical 1939 conflict and to fight against Germany at the very end of WWII).

As a Finn [:)] I would argue that an Allied Finland would already be needed (for EF). Winter War (1939-40) should have Finland as Allied (was a neutral) against Axis Soviet Union as SU had the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Hitler where they divided the areas between them among themselves.

The main reason Stalin agreed to peace was his realisation that he was risking England and France to join Finland in defending Scandinavia against Germans and Russians.

A respective what-if scenario could be the Franco-English Expedition force joining in for the battle of Mannerheim line, for an example. With the current logic we would need an Axis France and an Axis England to implement this scenario [:D]

Additionally, or, at least, depending on your view, an Allied Finland would be needed to create scenarios for the so-called Lapland War that took place in late 1944 to 1945 where the Germans were being forced out of Finnish Lapland, according to peace terms.

For the latter, technically that would mean to have the units available in summer 1944 accordingly available to Allied Finland. OOB wise it would be a new ball game however, but something that could be left for the scenario designers.

Engine

Cpl Porter
Tanks able to dig themselves in 'Hull down' I think is the expression. I guess this will have to be done by the tank crews.

This would be nice, although I guess something like this could be achieved if a IP is created for a hex that contains tanks.

Additionally I would like to see a feature where it would be possible to use SPs for additional camouflage.

In this manner a 88 or a tank destroyer or any unit for that manner could bring their concealment level up per every turn they do not perform anything else, and use the APs for hiding their position so that they would be more difficult to be spotted.


EDIT: Compatibility testing for 64bit Windows 7

The Map editor does not work with W7. I am not 100% sure the game works perfectly either... There's been some anomalies on the way that could be user errors, but then again...?

A separate build for 64bit versions?

--
Thanks for the great work! Let us keep this game going for another 15 years [:)]

Any news on the 1.05, btw? [8D]

[CaptainHuge]

One thing I would like to see fixed is leader movement rates. It is a little frustrating when a leader cannot keep up with a tank formation across difficult terrain. You would think that, no matter what unit type it is, the appropriate leader would be able to move as fast as his troops.

What do you think?

[1925frank]

Currently in the OOB editor, there's a list of all the countries on the left.  Some countries have to appear twice because sometimes they acted like Allies and, on other occasions, they acted like the Axis.  This requires duplication of the OOB.
 
Has any thought been given to being able to simply drop a country into an Axis side or Allied side, depending upon what the scenario designer wants?  This would remove the need to duplicate OOB.  It would also make it simpler when designing a scenario.  For the duplicate countries, I can never remember which is Axis and which is Allies.
 
And on a not-necessarily-related note, I would like to see Tito's communist partisans have their own OOB, bases, and objective colors.  I could be wrong, but I believe Tito effectively fought against the Germans and the Fascist Italians, although there may have been instances when he fought against the Allied Chetniks.

[kool_kat]

Mine is a rather "modest" list compared to others? [&:]


Mike’s Wish List for MCS 1.05 Update

All Games

Double Time – Select Reachable Hexes to graphically illustrate all the hexes that the currently-selected unit can reach utilizing Double Time BEFORE committing the unit to Double Time. Toggle (off or on)

Unit Bases – Program “remembers” last Unit Bases setting toggle (off or on) for all 3D unit icons on any 3D map view.

Bunkers and Pillboxes – Have a “front” facing. Units inside these structures may only fire in the front arc – front hex + 2 adjacent hexes out to their weapons range.

Special Concealment (Anti-Tank Guns) Fog of War – Anti-tank guns smaller than 57mm, reduce 50% maintaining concealment when they fire or move to 35%.

Save Game Warning – Eliminate this warning from the PBeM Command Report.

Extreme Assault – Compromise on a setting “harder” then the pre-1.03 assault rules and “easier” then the 1.04 update. Extreme Assault, in its current form, reduces games to a Direct Fire “slug fest” and essentially eliminates the Assault option for players.

Variable Visibility – Eliminate this optional rule.

Reduce the 5% chance of mortars disabling AFVs to 3%. (I think these are the correct percentages?)


Rising Sun

Caves – Have a “front” facing. Units inside these structures may only fire in the front arc – front hex + 2 adjacent hexes out to their weapons range.

Banzai – Eliminate this rule.


All Games

Include all H2H Approved scenarios in 1.05 patch.

[MrRoadrunner]

ORIGINAL: mwest
Double Time – Select Reachable Hexes to graphically illustrate all the hexes that the currently-selected unit can reach utilizing Double Time BEFORE committing the unit to Double Time. Toggle (off or on)

I'm neither with or against this.

ORIGINAL: mwest
Unit Bases – Program “remembers” last Unit Bases setting toggle (off or on) for all 3D unit icons on any 3D map view.

This I like.

ORIGINAL: mwest
Bunkers and Pillboxes – Have a “front” facing. Units inside these structures may only fire in the front arc – front hex + 2 adjacent hexes out to their weapons range.

This I much like.

ORIGINAL: mwest
Special Concealment (Anti-Tank Guns) Fog of War – Anti-tank guns smaller than 57mm, reduce 50% maintaining concealment when they fire or move to 35%.

I actually like the way they stay hidden. I would not like to see any changes.

ORIGINAL: mwest
Save Game Warning – Eliminate this warning from the PBeM Command Report.

I think it should stay.

ORIGINAL: mwest
Extreme Assault – Compromise on a setting “harder” then the pre-1.03 assault rules and “easier” then the 1.04 update. Extreme Assault, in its current form, reduces games to a Direct Fire “slug fest” and essentially eliminates the Assault option for players.

I'd like to see it changed as you state. Though, I am happy with it as an option in addition to the current two. Have a light, medium, and hard assault.

ORIGINAL: mwest
Variable Visibility – Eliminate this optional rule.

I think this is fine as an option. Though, scenarios should be created with it's use in mind and stated in the descriptions as such.

ORIGINAL: mwestReduce the 5% chance of mortars disabling AFVs to 3%. (I think these are the correct percentages?)

I think mortars smaller than 120 mm should be reduced in their disable effect.

ORIGINAL: mwest
Rising Sun

Caves – Have a “front” facing. Units inside these structures may only fire in the front arc – front hex + 2 adjacent hexes out to their weapons range.

I'm not sure I agree. I think the scale would give the ability of the defenders to fire from outside the "cave" and thus have a more all around type fire? Unless the developers believe that the cave is more like a pillbox?

ORIGINAL: mwest
Banzai – Eliminate this rule.

I never like this rule. I think it was ill conceived and not well thought out.

RR

[berto]

[pardon me if this has been suggested before...]

Please tell me that JTCS Modern Wars (and all future updates of previous games in the series) will have Hot-Seat play with extreme Fog of War.

[berto]

More wishes:

• Variable ending (end-of-game turn limit varies a la HPS Squad Battles)
• Ability to play beyond formal end-of-game (irrespective of whether player has won or lost)

[MrRoadrunner]

ORIGINAL: berto

More wishes:

• Variable ending (end-of-game turn limit varies a la HPS Squad Battles)

I hope you do not mean for PBEM? This would be almost as devastating to the game as extreme assault. Every scenario would be effected in terms of balance. I would hate to see this added. [:-]

[*] Ability to play beyond formal end-of-game (irrespective of whether player has won or lost)
[/ul]

Isn't this the same question as the first?
I'd rather see play against the AI having the ability to end the game sooner when the AI runs out of troops. Nothing worse than playing a campaign and scrolling through three or four turns waiting for the AI to realize that it has no troops left, when the game is not over only due to the amount of turns left? [8|]

Add to that your variable turn ending that would increase it further? [X(]
No thanks. [:)]


RR

[berto]

ORIGINAL: MrRoadrunner

ORIGINAL: berto

More wishes:

• Variable ending (end-of-game turn limit varies a la HPS Squad Battles)

I hope you do not mean for PBEM? This would be almost as devastating to the game as extreme assault. Every scenario would be effected in terms of balance. I would hate to see this added. [:-]

[/quote]
As in Squad Battles, it would be an optional rule. If not applicable to PBEM, don't select it.

[*] Ability to play beyond formal end-of-game (irrespective of whether player has won or lost)
[/ul]

Isn't this the same question as the first?

No. The two are separate.

For the first, imagine that a scenario formally set to end after 25 turns ends instead at 24, or 25, or 26, or ... 25 turns plus or minus a few.

But when the game ends, it ends. There is no option to play beyond that point. Period.

What I'm asking is the option to play out the scenario as long as I want, all the way to the bitter, or glorious, end. The current CS doesn't give me that option. When the (fixed, unvarying) scenario turn limit is reached, that's it. Done. Finis.

I'd rather see play against the AI having the ability to end the game sooner when the AI runs out of troops. Nothing worse than playing a campaign and scrolling through three or four turns waiting for the AI to realize that it has no troops left, when the game is not over only due to the amount of turns left? [8|]

Add to that your variable turn ending that would increase it further? [X(]
No thanks. [:)]


RR

Optional rules only. Again, if you don't like them, then don't choose them.

[MrRoadrunner]

ORIGINAL: berto

Optional rules only. Again, if you don't like them, then don't choose them.

Sorry to disagree. I think there are enough optional rules that already ruin the game. Why add more?
If you like the way Squad Battles plays, then play Squad Battles? Why ruin a game that is not Squad Battles?
If you've finished the scenario, abiding by it's rules and victory conditions, why play beyond it?
If you cannot complete the task in the allotted time then it may be a "how you play the game" issue rather than a "how the game plays" issue.

There is so much that the Campaign Series needs that will make it much more visually appealing, as well as improving playability, that I think it would be a waste of time and effort to fundamentally change it, by adding chrome, so that it could be more like "other games".

Better graphics and more units would go a long way to improve the game. A better thinking AI would improve the game. A more effective game engine would improve the game. More scenarios and campaigns would improve the game.

Changes to the game are not always improvements. Making something an option is no excuse for doing something to the game that does not improve the game. The last "optional" change to the game fractured the player "community".
I'd rather not see something like that again.

Upgrades, improvements, and additions are not always bad. Change that doesn't upgrade, improve, or add to the game are often bad.

Staying within game scale would also help the game.

[:)]

RR