Hi! Based on my time playing so far, I have identified the following features I would find useful. Some of them are probably already planned in the Strike Planner that is rumored to be in the works, but could be added in the interim. I tried to keep them fairly simple. I'm still fairly new to Command, so some of these features may already exist. If that is the case, I would love to hear about it!
I tried to identify which features had already been requested, but I may have missed some.
Reference Point Manager
- Single window to help with organizing reference points including:
○ Basic functions like creation and renaming
○ Grouping RP's
○ Hiding individual or groups of RP's would be nice for keeping map clutter down
- I think this is already in the PE in some form. Mostly this ties into some of the other ideas I have with strike planning and weapon targeting
Strike Planning
- Weapon Targeting/Damage
○ Set weapon/aircraft waypoints using RP's. For example: I will plan a Tomahawk strike using the LOS tool to avoid radar detection, then have to manually select each RP that I identified previously. It would be nice to be able to select the RP's I want and order them. A window like how the Mission Editor allows selecting RP's for Repeatable loop missions would be very nice.
○ Related to the point above, but the ability to group weapons when assigning waypoints. If I launch a big Tomahawk strike against an airbase, it is a huge pain to set the waypoints for each individual missile. Especially when I have already identified a safe corridor and am launching from multiple ships to try to get all the missiles to hit at the same time
○ Ability to group launch platforms when manually allocating weapons. Mostly this applies to aircraft that only carry 2-4 of a certain weapon. It gets really annoying to run through the list of aircraft with 2 GP bombs when the target needs 3 and there are 4-6 targets. It would be much nicer to be able to select all the aircraft I want and say, "allocate 3 weapons to each of these targets"
○ "Generate Flightplan" button in the mission editor. I don't want to have to wait until the aircraft take off to edit their plan. Would be nice to snap the generated waypoints to reference points as well like the first point in this section. (Something similar to this has already been requested)
○ A tool to estimate how many weapons will be needed for a target. This is especially important for targets that are armored. I had to build my own tool to take a weapon: CEP, reliability, DP, and it's expected penetration against a target's armor value, to cross reference against the target's area and DP and spit out a recommended number of munitions against the target. Obviously, it isn't perfect since a lot of that is based on probabilities and I may fail to destroy a target with the recommended number of munitions or destroy the target with less. It is a good starting point though, and has been very helpful so far. Something native to the game that does the same thing would save a ton of time transcribing values out of the database manually. [Note: If anyone wants this, I can upload it. It's just an excel spreadsheet at the moment]
○ Ability to tell ARMs which radar they should look for. (If I'm attacking an SA-2, I don't want both of my ARMs to go to the Spoon Rest. I want both to go for the Fan Song or one for the Spoon Rest and one for the Fan Song. Most of the time, I really only care about the FCR. (I think this has already been requested)
- LOS Tool/Radar QoL
○ Ability to select multiple units and see their combined LOS. This would greatly help with finding safe corridors through an area.
○ Ability to see detection chance of a unit depending on its orientation at specific distances. Currently, I just assume that if a unit passes through an area (even just a single square) identified by the LOS tool, it will be detected. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, since different units have different RCS values. An F-22 skirting through an area where the radar can technically see it is much less likely to be detected than an F-14 at the same altitude. Would be really nice to be able to put in a unit and see an updated plot for different detection chances. Most of this is because I have no idea how to use the RCS values in the DB for anything else other than comparison with other units.
○ I think the LOS tool recalculates every time the map moves, which makes moving the map very slow. After the initial calculation, it should just be a static layer over the map unless manually refreshed.
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General QoL
- Ability to draw on the map with range circles and lines would be nice. Frequently, I will use the LOS tool to find a safe range away from a SAM Site, but the only way I have to make a circle is to use reference points and a no-fly zone. Same with lines.
- Ability to "Freeze" the location of a contact. For example: After I've nailed down the location of a semi-mobile SAM battery like an S-400, I don't want the contact to move. It's not going to be able to move in the 10 minutes it takes me to vector in a SEAD unit to take care of it. I've had some problems with the ELINT pods on EA-18s re-updating the location of a SAM battery while on their attack run to somewhere I know it isn't, like in the ocean, even though the unit was previously identified at a different location with high confidence, which messed with the flight plan I had crafted with the mission editor
- Ability to set altitude of planes when you add them in the mission editor. Maybe there is a way to do this, but for me they always are added at 36 kft.
- Ability to deselect units using Esc
- Allow multi-select of units using Ctrl as well as the area select
Misc
- Independently Targetable MIRV warheads. (Seriously though, it's in the name….
Currently launching a Trident at a target just makes sure it is "extra dead" by dropping all of the warheads in the same spot. Should be able to target each of the warheads within a range of each other. Similarly, missile silos should require a direct hit to knock them out.
- TLAM-D's currently use all their cluster munitions on a single target. Would be nice to have 2-3 attacks, especially for SEAD on SAM sites where the Radars are pretty fragile and could be knocked out by a few of the cluster munitions. This allows the missile to hit several targets and is more true-to-life.
- Using anti-runway weapons with mines damages units that pass through/prevents or delays runway repair