Matrix Games Forums

Apache85,

I understand your explanation, so there is no need to go further into that.

That being said, can you please post (if you can) something to us (the fans of this game) and explain what IS actually going on?

CMANO exists, yet we were led to believe that it would no longer be furthered or supported. After that, much to our surprise, you have made some very consistent updates to CMANO all along, and those updates sort of mirror everything in CMO (with the noticeable omission of TacView). So, what is exactly is CMANO's role, as you see it?

Also, since CMO is now the flagship of this series, how will/does CMO differ from CMANO going forward?

Finally, it seems odd that you have two games that are essentially doing almost the same thing. Many even initially questioned whether they should delete CMANO because of hard drive space, yet when you displayed your demo the other day, it sure appeared that the CMANO base engine was being used, not CMO.

So, whatever information that you could pass along would go a long way toward answering some of the many questions that WE (the fans of this game) may have.

Thanks in advance.

I'd like to add Sim Life and Lemmings to the interoperability matrix

I vote for Orbitor. All kidding aside, it's the best free software ever. Very steep learning curve. But if you are into CMO you will learn the basics in a few weeks. It does not compete with CMO. Some fans of Command might want to check it out.

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

That's what I think too. I'd be much more interested in things like discrimination of live and dead targets, smoke, land mines, obstacles, breaching, chemical warfare, improved logistics (e.g. destroying or running out of fuel on an air base means no more aircraft can be readied). Right now that sort of stuff is either assumed away or isn't there.

Those are great additions to the list of things to be worked on, specifically the logistics factors. Kill the fuel dump and that air base is no longer a threat for weeks or longer.

ORIGINAL: Uzabit
While I certainly love the idea of "A game that does it all", I highly doubt an interface between CMO and DCS or Falcon BMS would be that much fun gameplay-wise in the end.

A lot of people love that idea. Many have tried all have failed. The problem is that Command is really only good at one thing: the kill chain, and even then it has things that could be improved. It also has some limited ability to look at some types of sustainment. Ultimately, Command offers a high tactical perspective on warfare, is very technology oriented, and favors air and naval warfare still, even as the land warfare model improves. Command, fundamentally, is about hitting targets, killing people and breaking their stuff. At some point, warfare stops being about that, and becomes about politics, economics, logistics, scheduling and policy, and the fighting is just a symptom of that. At that level the questions to ask and the knobs to turn to answer them are completely different.

While I've seen attempts to handle that kind of stuff in Command, they've all been horrible and either produced results that weren't believable or else amounted to the scenario author TELLING the players what he thought then answer was, and expecting them to accept it as truth. A good scenario should never tell you how to fight the fight, EVER.

The other problem is that with "games that do everything," you run into the problem of too many knobs. After playing the same scenario over and over again, and asking yourself, "Did what I decide to do matter?" if there's too many knobs to turn, after some point, you're left saying, "I don't know!" and you're not really learning anything.

Since part of the entertainment value of games like Command is that they allow people to learn things and ask questions about some national security issues, that actually harms the game's value.

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen
Since part of the entertainment value of games like Command is that they allow people to learn things and ask questions about some national security issues, that actually harms the game's value.

That is honestly one of my concerns about the future of CMANO/CMO. How quickly do we get to that point?