Pleased with the direction..

[SSN754planker]

Hello everyone! Im new to this forum, but not new to this genre. I have been playing Harpoon and various naval sims ever since i have owned a computer. Be it Silent Hunter, Dangerous Waters, 688i Attack Sub, Fleet Command, and Harpoon in its various shapes and forms. I also served in the US Navy as a sonar technician for 10 years and served aboard a Los Angeles class boat. Since that time i have become somewhat of a naval history buff and work for a consulting firm involved with various government based projects.

I have been following this game ever since the first mention of "Red Pill" popped up a couple years ago. I was intrigued and got really excited when it came out of beta and was headed to Matrix. The price tag was a bit steep (at least my wife thought so) but i didnt have no problems forking over $80 dollars at all. Especially after seeing all the preview videos and reviews. I have read all the reviews of this game i could get my hands on, including the SimHQ review. I feel that having some critical voices in a discussion is a good thing, and keeps people wanting to fix things and make it right. Everyone should have their say.

My 1.0 impression in a nutshell was this. SO close to being a very good game. Some things with the UI i felt needed fixed and the whole issue with 1:1 time being slower than it should be were two big "bugs" really made me think that things could be better. But digging through the forum here a bit made me realise that the devs are in this for the long haul and will listen and "patch" things the community feels could be made better or introduced. Then i downloaded the Beat patch and almost all of my most glaring issues with the game are now gone.

1:1 time? i have that option now. I probably spend 75 percent of my time in 1:1 time so this was a HUGE thing for me. I have been known to let monster harpoon scenarios run for days in 1:1 time. And my wife still thinks im crazy.

Mouse cursor being the center of the zoom? Also an option now. This should have been in there at release IMO, but im glad it is there now. TY devs.

To me the UI isnt the most intuitive, but is it workable. If anyone has navigated Harpoon2 or H3's UI successfully, then this will be a cakewalk for you after about 5 minutes with it.

The scenario editor is a dream come true for me. Never has it been easier to just "plop and play" with different platforms and turn the sim on and just see what happens. The scenario editor can be as easy or as hard as you want it to be, and i cannot wait to see what the community has in store for us. I am sure we will have a bunch of classic scenarios arrive in our near future. And even some we havent seen yet.

One of the few downsides for me with Command is for the price i was paying, i was hoping i would see a good portfolio of scenarios on release. I am a child of the cold war, and i love NATO vs. Warsaw Pact scenarios. Again, i am sure in time the community will pick up the slack, so this will be a non issue soon.

The various models of systems such as ASW, Sonar, Radar, ECM, etc. seem to me to be spot on, and my "sandboxing" of a vintage 688 class earlier today and seeing how it performed made me feel like everything was just "right"

All in all, this is a great start for Command. Im enjoying it. It has breathed life into this niche genre of gaming we so love. And it is only going to get better. TY again to the devs for stepping up and starting a patch process that will hopefully knock out most the major gripes with the game.

[moontan]

that's a very good mini-review m8.

i'm off tomorrow so i can't wait to try the game.
i did not want to start trying to learn it in the middle of my workweek. [8D]

[mikmykWS]

Thanks for the input and glad you like the game.

Mike

[Der Zeitgeist]

For me it's the opposite, I'm afraid.

The more I'm trying out with the editor, the more I'm wondering what the beta testers were doing all this time. The mission AI is pretty much useless for a lot of very common mission right now.

The latest example:

Try setting up a simple target, like a runway. Set up a strike mission to attack the runway. Then add a group of dedicated strike fighters and assign them to the mission, like Tornados or SU-24s. Take a look at the database and the loadouts. It lists all kinds of fancy flight profiles, Lo-Lo-Lo, final dash to target, all kinds of stuff that sounds great on paper. So you expect your Tornados to do a low level high speed attack on that runway with their JP.233s?

Yes?

No! They take off, get up to 40.000 ft and take their sweet time at 480 kts all the way up to the target. They then drop down from 40.000 in about five to ten seconds (!), just in time to allow them to release their weapons. Remember, it's a Tornado, we're talking about, the principal low level strike fighter, built to penetrate air defenses down on the deck.
What good are all these flight profiles if our planes don't do anything with them, if they all simply approach any mission at maximum altitude, if it's all just some fancy stuff written in the database window, without any impact on the mission AI? How are we expected to create challenging missions when the AI opponent comes barreling in at 40.000 feet all the time?

I mean, I just don't get it! There's even a Desert Storm scenario being shipped with the game. Didn't anyone during beta ever try out the first night JP233 strikes on Iraqi airfields?

In Harpoon 3, you could at least cheat with waypoints, speeds and altitudes to create realistic flight profiles, but not even that is possible with CMANO.

I really was expecting to build some scenarios by now, but with this state of the game, I just don't see the point. There's just too much that doesn't work in it's current state. Where's the AI that was promised before release? We had lots of previews by beta testers that were praising the mission AI that was supposed to allow less micro-managing than in Harpoon 3. Maybe those guys were playing a different game than I am, but I just don't see it right now. [&:]

[mikmykWS]

You can do manual attacks and JP233's attacks work fine.

Post a save and I'll take a look.

Mike

[Der Zeitgeist]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

You can do manual attacks and JP233's attacks work fine.

Sure, I can do manual attacks, and those work fine.

But the AI can't. And you can't just switch to manual control in an actual scenario to help your computer opponent use actual tactics.

[mikmykWS]

Just tested AI had no problem dropping so I wouldn't say its useless. I do see though what you're talking about in terms of flight profile and its definitely on our list.


Mike

[SSN754planker]

This is awesome. As long as things get fixed! Thats all that matters.

[DrRansom]

Are you looking into flight profiles in general?

And, do aircraft suffer reduced maneuverability and performance as they climb outside their maximum altitude?

For the strike editor, I'd like it if one could have the airplane approach the target using waypoints. Then, for the final run into the target, the game takes over with the appropriate attack profile. That way preserves the ability to maneuver the plane appropriately before the target and also keep the various attack profiles for the final approach.

[Der Zeitgeist]

Sorry about the rant.

I have no doubts that CMANO will eventually be a truly great naval simulator. It's just that I get the feeling that with a lot of games I've been eagerly waiting for these days, "release" is just another word for "extended beta" or "early access".

If we at least had the capabilities offered by Harpoon 3, there would be ways to work around the current flaws in the AI.

[mikmykWS]

I understand and hope we can get Command to a point where your satisfied. I do hope you recognize though that we're actively engaging with our customers and looking to give them many of the features they ask for.

What features from H3 are you missing?

[Der Zeitgeist]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk

I understand and hope we can get Command to a point where your satisfied. I do hope you recognize though that we're actively engaging with our customers and looking to give them many of the features they ask for.

Sure, there's no question about that! I mean, you're basically releasing new builds to adress problems of single users. [:)]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk
What features from H3 are you missing?

What I miss most is the tools to work around the AI to create a challenging opponent in scenarios. The state right now is a bit like the original Harpoon 2 scenarios were. You have planes taking off to go on missions, flying in a straight line from their base to their targets at a mostly constant altitude and speeds that are often inappropriate to the tactical situation.

The features that are needed most right now are simple waypoint capabilities for AI missions and the ability to adjust speed and altitude at these waypoints, as well as EMCON status. You only have to look at the scenarios you guys built back with DB2000 and Harpoon 3 to see what I mean. These complex scenarios with unpredictable paths for opposing units aren't possible right now because units on missions ignore the plotted course and go in a straight line mostly.

The only thing you can adjust right now is the altitude, when I try to change the speed the unit immediately reverts back to automatic settings. And with that you have the things I mentioned earlier, like strike fighters optimised for low altitude going on bombing missions at 12.000 m, right in the SAM envelope.

[BKLANDIN]

Your response is what tells me that this game will evolve very nicely. I am already addicted to this game.

[thewood1]

But then you have to work around the flaws in Harpoon.

ORIGINAL: Der Zeitgeist

Sorry about the rant.

I have no doubts that CMANO will eventually be a truly great naval simulator. It's just that I get the feeling that with a lot of games I've been eagerly waiting for these days, "release" is just another word for "extended beta" or "early access".

If we at least had the capabilities offered by Harpoon 3, there would be ways to work around the current flaws in the AI.

[ComDev]

ORIGINAL: DrRansom

Are you looking into flight profiles in general?

Yes. Flight profiles are in the database, but the game dones't use them ATM. Implementing AI-automated flight profiles sound simple but in reality its horribly complex. Especially if you don't want the AI to cheat. But we're working on it.

Really don't want your strike aircraft to crash out of fuel 0.5nm from the home base because the F-111Es switched to the low-alt 30nm/800kt target dash too early, etc. Have to get it right for all aircraft types/profile/ordnance combos.

And, do aircraft suffer reduced maneuverability and performance as they climb outside their maximum altitude?

They don't climb outside their maximum operational altitude [8D]

For the strike editor, I'd like it if one could have the airplane approach the target using waypoints. Then, for the final run into the target, the game takes over with the appropriate attack profile. That way preserves the ability to maneuver the plane appropriately before the target and also keep the various attack profiles for the final approach.

Yes an Advanced Strike Mission Editor is on the to-do list.

[evaamo2]

I must say that one of the things I miss from Harpoon is the ability to "program" each waypoint with its own parameters (altitude/depth, speed, emcon... even ROE would be awesome to have!).

[AFIntel]

ORIGINAL: evaamo2

I must say that one of the things I miss from Harpoon is the ability to "program" each waypoint with its own parameters (altitude/depth, speed, emcon... even ROE would be awesome to have!).

+1[:D]

[ComDev]

ROE settings for waypoints. Hm that's an interesting idea [8D]

[Der Zeitgeist]

ORIGINAL: emsoy

ROE settings for waypoints. Hm that's an interesting idea [8D]

Didn't you ever try converting your own DB2000 scenarios to CMANO, Ragnar? You of all people should know the things that are missing right now. [;)]