Advanced Mission Planner (AMP)

[stilesw]

Agree also.

-Wayne

[ExNusquam]

Emsoy-
I definitely agree that the targeteering/weaponeering phases and tanker planing phases would take *years* to develop. Honestly, PFPS will probably be released to the public by then and you could just port that over. [;)]

What you have suggested sounds like an excellent start. While it's all achievable by a player by micro-ing units and an Exel spreadsheet, the real advantage will be allowing scenario designers to easily create very challenging situations for a player without extensive use of lua.

[ComDev]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

My main concern is a full blowm military-grade planner will take a long time to code up and deliver. I would rather have something simpler, easier to use, and delivered faster.

I've been trying to break down this monster into smaller work packages and estimate the code job. We're looking at 5+ years (more likely 7, but don't dare saying that out loud) on the code side alone. Then add testing, bug fixing, general project management, and a whole bunch of risk.

So yeah, this is starting to look like a game within the game hehe [8D]

[kevinkins]

Unless you are citing dog years (7 = 1[;)]) then this timing is discouraging. Given the half of a decade timeline, perhaps the community could now let the development team know the top couple of "must haves" for a simple but useful strike planner. Maybe drop the term "Advanced" and upgrade the Mission Editor to encompass the community's must haves. Is there a head start to be found in code developed for the Professional edition?

Kevin

[BDukes]

Yes focusing just on what people want a much better idea.

Thank you Mr. Ragnars

[BDukes]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

My main concern is a full blowm military-grade planner will take a long time to code up and deliver. I would rather have something simpler, easier to use, and delivered faster.

Haha we agree whole time. [:D]

[thewood1]

I see you are still contributing.

[stilesw]

emsoy & thewood1,

I absolutely believe this! I worked with the daily ATO process at Red/Green Flag (Nellis AFB) 1988-1997. The operations plans were created with a roomful of 12+ experienced air strike planners and an IBM mainframe cruncher (dinosaur now - today's PCs would have been great).

Developing the code for CMANO to do the same thing that involves fuel, AEW, OECM, loadouts, strike flight sizes, intelligence reports, hostile defensive ground units, etc, etc, etc would be far from a trivial or even moderate effort. And this was in a "peaceful" training environment. Doing it in the field during Desert Storm boggles the mind.

The AMP plan that has been created to date would have that whole staff green with envy (and heading for the O'Club).

Kudos for what I've seen to date.

-Wayne

[TyphoonFr]

Congratulations to the devs, thanks also to the experienced "players" who bring their experiences to help developers improve Command, and create a new version including all the functionality of the AMP (which will certainly cost more than the price of a simple DLC ).

[BDukes]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

I see you are still contributing.

Yes. Try as you did I was not run off. You can try again but somebody dox'd you so know what I'm dealing with now. Nobody.

Focus should be on game and not on weirdo posters. This was my mistake first time.

Thank You.

[BDukes]

ORIGINAL: stilesw

emsoy & thewood1,

I absolutely believe this! I worked with the daily ATO process at Red/Green Flag (Nellis AFB) 1988-1997. The operations plans were created with a roomful of 12+ experienced air strike planners and an IBM mainframe cruncher (dinosaur now - today's PCs would have been great).

Developing the code for CMANO to do the same thing that involves fuel, AEW, OECM, loadouts, strike flight sizes, intelligence reports, hostile defensive ground units, etc, etc, etc would be far from a trivial or even moderate effort. And this was in a "peaceful" training environment. Doing it in the field during Desert Storm boggles the mind.

The beta AMP that has been created to date would have that whole staff green with envy (and heading for the O'Club).

Kudos for what I've seen to date.

-Wayne

I second this. They have done great work and have answered difficult questions when asked.

[tango4]

Just as a sidenote here, instead of answering the question "what do I need in and AMP", I'd like to just answer the "WHY do I need an AMP" and why I feel frustrated by its absence.
From the beginning, Command has been a very realistic game, and since its initial release, many features were added, including many details in order to simulate the specifics of modern combat systems. It has grown into an even more impressive game, allowing to reproduce very complex engagements.
Now in such engagements, the difference between success and a complete failure often lies in the details. To get the best military effect out of your modern assets, you usually need a good synchonization between all your assets, and careful planning. In the air part of Command, I feel frustated because I sometimes have a plan in my head, and basically feels that it is really difficult to realize not because it is not doable, but because I am limited by the tools at my disposal.
And moreover, I have the feeling that the process itself is not realistic. In real operations, you start by carefully preparing your strike (defining flight plans, synchonizing various assets and so on). And when in real time, you make adjustments to cope with the unexpected (which WILL happen almost everytime !). My biggest gripe with the air part of Command is that you have to make adjustments even before the unexpected happens because you cannot even pre plan the waypoints. So when a complex strike is starting, you have to catch every flight (sometimes difficult to distinguish when they depart in sequence), and manually plot each flight as they are already airborne. This is REALLY A LOT of micro management and feels discouraging to start all over and try a new strategy.
For me an advanced strike planner woud be an awesome addition, and would reveal the full potential of this game. If it is optional to use it or not depending on the mission, I don't see how it would render things more complex for begiiners. If done properly, it has the potential to really alleviate the real time workload in complex scenarii.

Now I do agree with lots of things that have been said above. Especially with the fact that I feel it is clearly a better idea to have "ideal AMP" target in mind, but start with a version 1.0 that would only have the most essential features (for me: ability to prepare a flight plan with levels and speeds, synchronize elements of a package and if possible tanker support) in order to see it come to fruition.

I really hope the dev team will decide it is worth their efforts.

Once again, thanks a lot to the dev team for at least allowing such an interesting discussion and taking the time to listen to our feedback. Whatever your decision, given the workload we are talking about, it will be perfectly respectable.

Charles

[thewood1]

Another significant consideration is the amount of support the devs will have to invest in supporting an advanced planner. There are people here who don't know what a folder is, can't read a message properly, and don't know what a waypoint is...just as a start. Can you imagine those people buying and using something as complex as a TOT planner? Because they will try to use and will pummel the forum with questions before even reading a manual.

[ComDev]

Thanks for your feedback guys, much appreciated [8D]

Work is underway.

It seems most people would expect pre-takeoff waypoint editing and ToT for AMP v1.0 so guess we'll try to go for that.

Targeteering, weaponeering, detailed tanker planning, and various other features will have to come in version 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc.

Absolutely no promise on release date. It will probably take some time to get things up and running well enough to be releasable, and we'll likely run into all sort of unforeseen challenges that will delay the project. So please have some patience.

[ComDev]

Hmmm one of you posted a screenshot of a really nice Excel sheet and then removed it?

It had a lot of neat calculations that the AMP should do automatically.

[Lionheart]

Is this the Excel Strike Planner devised by skorpio667?

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4013929&mpage=1&key=Excel%2CStrike%2CPlanner&#4014266

[ComDev]

ORIGINAL: Lionheart

Is this the Excel Strike Planner devised by skorpio667?

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4013929&mpage=1&key=Excel%2CStrike%2CPlanner�

Thanks, the Excel Strike Planner is great but this other one looked quite differently [8D]

[c3k]

ORIGINAL: tango4

Just as a sidenote here, instead of answering the question "what do I need in and AMP", I'd like to just answer the "WHY do I need an AMP" and why I feel frustrated by its absence.
From the beginning, Command has been a very realistic game, and since its initial release, many features were added, including many details in order to simulate the specifics of modern combat systems. It has grown into an even more impressive game, allowing to reproduce very complex engagements.
Now in such engagements, the difference between success and a complete failure often lies in the details. To get the best military effect out of your modern assets, you usually need a good synchonization between all your assets, and careful planning. In the air part of Command, I feel frustated because I sometimes have a plan in my head, and basically feels that it is really difficult to realize not because it is not doable, but because I am limited by the tools at my disposal.
And moreover, I have the feeling that the process itself is not realistic. In real operations, you start by carefully preparing your strike (defining flight plans, synchonizing various assets and so on). And when in real time, you make adjustments to cope with the unexpected (which WILL happen almost everytime !). My biggest gripe with the air part of Command is that you have to make adjustments even before the unexpected happens because you cannot even pre plan the waypoints. So when a complex strike is starting, you have to catch every flight (sometimes difficult to distinguish when they depart in sequence), and manually plot each flight as they are already airborne. This is REALLY A LOT of micro management and feels discouraging to start all over and try a new strategy.
For me an advanced strike planner woud be an awesome addition, and would reveal the full potential of this game. If it is optional to use it or not depending on the mission, I don't see how it would render things more complex for begiiners. If done properly, it has the potential to really alleviate the real time workload in complex scenarii.

Now I do agree with lots of things that have been said above. Especially with the fact that I feel it is clearly a better idea to have "ideal AMP" target in mind, but start with a version 1.0 that would only have the most essential features (for me: ability to prepare a flight plan with levels and speeds, synchronize elements of a package and if possible tanker support) in order to see it come to fruition.

I really hope the dev team will decide it is worth their efforts.

Once again, thanks a lot to the dev team for at least allowing such an interesting discussion and taking the time to listen to our feedback. Whatever your decision, given the workload we are talking about, it will be perfectly respectable.

Charles

Very well said.

Let me Pre-Plan the strike before launching the package. The ability to create ingress/egress routes for multiple flights; to have timing triangles built in; to have designated launch points with Time to Impact information; to have pop-up windows which will help guide me as to the best altitude and airspeed to launch the weapon against THAT target; to see how much fuel is required at each point to follow the route and RTB; to see if that is a shortfall in internal/external fuel; these are the details which allow for competent use of modern air assets and give a chance of success.

The crux is the ability to pause the game and pre-plane a coordinated strike.

[thewood1]

I know this sounds crazy, but I play in the editor and if I have a big and complicated strike I am planning, I do my plan at a base level, save it, and then run it. From there I rinse and repeat, until I get it where I want. If its a large complicated scenario and mission, I'll end up with up to 10 variations saved.

It helps immensely with the timing and refueling needs to start to see where the plan falls apart. I consider this no different than having a simulated version of the mission I can use for adjustments. It becomes a scenario within the scenario. Looking at the features being requested for the planner, I don't think this is any more or less time and complication.

[guanotwozero]

ORIGINAL: emsoy

YES!

Very nice, this is exactly what an Advanced Mission Planner should do.

However it should probably be noted that setting up all the waypoints, timings, EMCON, etc, would require a bit of work for the player [:D]

If AMP v1.0 has this exact functionality, nothing more and nothing less, all would be good?

Something that may make life easier is the use of templates, defining statuses and/or actions at a waypoint. A template could define altitude, speed, EMCON, etc. These could be used to easily set the status of multiple flights arriving at a waypoint, instead of having to manage each one separately. For example, 3 flights could be set to TemplateX at WP5, while a 4th flight may have TemplateY at WP5.

A template could also include "time at", to help with coordination and sequencing, though there'd clearly need to be clever code under the hood to realistically make use of that.

An excel-like editor could create a template, and it could be cloned to create an (initially) identical one. Such a cloned template would allow small variations to be edited in, e.g. TemplateX and TemplateY differ only by altitude or TimeAt.

Another use of cloning would be to define subsequent waypoint states, e.g. TemplateA at WP6, and a modified TemplateB at WP7.

As well as defining states at a WP, it could also include actions such as commencing a sub-mission. For example, a tanker may commence serving local receivers, or a fighter may commence a BARCAP. A mud mover may commence its strike sub-mission. Clearly these sub-missions would need to created beforehand (include a create button in the AMP?) - the AMP & templates would coordinate their use.

In the AMP, any particular flight could have a sequence of "template instances", e.g. launch -> WP1:TemplateW -> WP2:TemplateX(refuel) -> WP3:TemplateY(Strike) -> WP2:TemplateZ -> Land.

Other flights could be coordinated to use some of the same waypoints for different purposes, such a a tanker having WP2:TemplateA(serve fuel), with TemplateX and TemplateA having the same TimeAt.

Such sub-missions would need an "exit mission" ability so as to return to the coordinating sequence; they'd otherwise be pretty similar to the existing missions.