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DISCLAIMER: You (developer, moderator, or otherwise) are NOT legally obliged to read and/or respond to this thread. If you are, then I hereby relinquish you of that obligation by the power invested in me by Jesus Christ. These are 10 quick questions from a new player who has read all included documentation, played all included tutorials to completion several times and spend perhaps a few dozen hours with the game. Despite this, these issues have not been made clear to me. ANSWER AT YOUR OWN RISK. THERE WILL BE NO LEGAL REWARD FOR ANSWERING THIS THREAD, NOR ANY PENALTY FOR NOT ANSWERING IT. I, AUTHOR OF THE THREAD GIVE NO PERSONAL GUARANTEE THAT THESE QUESTIONS HAVE NOT BEEN ANSWERED IN EXCESS OF ONE MILLION (1,000,000) TIMES BEFORE. IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME ANSWERING MY INQUIRIES, KILL YOURSELF. THE AUTHOR OF THIS THREAD TAKES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANYTHING WRITTEN IN OR OMITTED FROM THIS THREAD.

Hey, I have 10 quick questions for anyone who feels like answering:

1. How big is the CMANO community? And how big is the development team? I get the idea that it's a very small team (10 people?), based on the fact that the game doesn't appear to have an audio guy or dedicated scenario designer, BUT the developers seem extremely responsive to updating the game, which makes me wonder. I've read negative Steam reviews from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 and they've all mentioned something that has been fixed since. Impressive! The forums also appear quite buzzy, but there exists little evidence of CMANO beyond this website (say, Metacritic ratings).

2. Is it possible to create zones where weapons release is restricted? I.e. in the DCS A-10C Tactical training, you're not allowed to release weapons when flying above populated areas. Can this be emulated? I'm already aware of fly-here, don't-engage-outside-of-here, don't-fly-here, and fly-here-and-get-designated-hostile (at least I think that's how Exclusion works) zones.

3. In the Submarine tutorial, your sub has an active sonar that can be activated under water, but it only appears to do anything over water (the surface sensor range circle disappears when you deactivate it). What gives?

4. What's the best way to assign airplanes to escort other airplanes, such as fighters escorting an AEW? Or to get anything to follow anything else? I haven't toyed around much with grouping yet, but it often tells me what I'm not allowed to group stuff so I've kind of ignored it. Can you group a fighter flight (or individual fighter) with an AEW perhaps and then have them move as one?

5. How to best make attackers disperse their bombs in a strike mission, instead of having 12 GBU's land on the same poor AAA sod's head? Is "Engage manual" and then allocating bombs to individual targets manually the best way?

6. Why is there no message when one of your planes open fires on another plane? There's only a message when the missile arrives. I think such a message is desirable. Basically, anything that does anything should generate a message, right? Has there been any discussion about adding more message log messages for when airplanes reach waypoints or other common events or is this largely considered redundant by the community?

7. Are debriefings possible? All missions I've played have ended with the rather anti-climactic "Victory" message.

8. Does any of you play in real time? Do you ever miss alert sounds, since they play only once?

9. Can missions be duplicated in the ME?

10. Why is the 1/3 rule default? Is it that significant in "higher levels of play"? Do you use it a lot?

Thank you.

OK I'll bite

1. How big is the CMANO community? And how big is the development team? I get the idea that it's a very small team (10 people?), based on the fact that the game doesn't appear to have an audio guy or dedicated scenario designer, BUT the developers seem extremely responsive to updating the game, which makes me wonder. I've read negative Steam reviews from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 and they've all mentioned something that has been fixed since. Impressive! The forums also appear quite buzzy, but there exists little evidence of CMANO beyond this website (say, Metacritic ratings).

Don't know . . .Don't really care.

2. Is it possible to create zones where weapons release is restricted? I.e. in the DCS A-10C Tactical training, you're not allowed to release weapons when flying above populated areas. Can this be emulated? I'm already aware of fly-here, don't-engage-outside-of-here, don't-fly-here, and fly-here-and-get-designated-hostile (at least I think that's how Exclusion works) zones.

Answered your own question there. Playing around with Exclusion zones, Doctrines, etc. should get what you want.

3. In the Submarine tutorial, your sub has an active sonar that can be activated under water, but it only appears to do anything over water (the surface sensor range circle disappears when you deactivate it). What gives?

I believe it disappears because you deactivated it. Activate it again and I bet it shows up again.

4. What's the best way to assign airplanes to escort other airplanes, such as fighters escorting an AEW? Or to get anything to follow anything else? I haven't toyed around much with grouping yet, but it often tells me what I'm not allowed to group stuff so I've kind of ignored it. Can you group a fighter flight (or individual fighter) with an AEW perhaps and then have them move as one?

With support missions (aew, elint, etc.) For escorts you can define an area around your support track and set up an AAW patrol mission. Or define an area around the aircraft you want to protect and set the RP's to be relative to the aircraft you are protecting and set up an AAW patrol mission. Personally I try to keep my HVA's (high value aircraft) out of harms way.

5. How to best make attackers disperse their bombs in a strike mission, instead of having 12 GBU's land on the same poor AAA sod's head? Is "Engage manual" and then allocating bombs to individual targets manually the best way?

WRA's are your friend here.

6. Why is there no message when one of your planes open fires on another plane? There's only a message when the missile arrives. I think such a message is desirable. Basically, anything that does anything should generate a message, right? Has there been any discussion about adding more message log messages for when airplanes reach waypoints or other common events or is this largely considered redundant by the community?

You are the commander you should know what your troops are doing. (again...WRA's, Doctrine, EMCON, etc.)

7. Are debriefings possible? All missions I've played have ended with the rather anti-climactic "Victory" message.

Again your the commander here, do your own debrief and share in the AAR section. [:D]

8. Does any of you play in real time? Do you ever miss alert sounds, since they play only once?

When it gets hot and heavy I'll play in real time, mostly I play in 5sec. time and 15sec., when I want to speed up the mundane things. (patrols reaching station. etc.) Personally I don't use game sounds, I prefer the pop-up messages, so I can listen to my music while playing.

9. Can missions be duplicated in the ME?

Not in a copy/paste way that I know of. Not sure what your asking here.

10. Why is the 1/3 rule default? Is it that significant in "higher levels of play"? Do you use it a lot?

Well if I have 3 AEW birds doing a support mission I don't want all of them in the air at the same time. Very useful in large scenario's. I use it a lot!

Hope this helps.

ORIGINAL: Gunnn

3. In the Submarine tutorial, your sub has an active sonar that can be activated under water, but it only appears to do anything over water (the surface sensor range circle disappears when you deactivate it). What gives?

Just going to take this one and expand a bit.

Forget that button exists! As a submarine you never, ever, ever want to use your active sonar (ever). Submarines depend almost completely on detection by passively listening. "Passive sonar" is really arrays of underwater hydrophones that pick up faint sounds in the water. Data processing and trained operators in the sub will take that raw data and determine the location and type of contacts (with some work and time).

Active sonar emits sound - a lot of it. Submarines depend on remaining as quiet as possible.

In the Army we had a joking saying that "tracers point both ways" Active sonar is exactly the same. It's a big noise pointer to the location of your submarine and after using it you could expect a torpedo incoming very shortly. You've just advertised your (almost) exact location. At least the direction from the enemy you are.

I was thinking if he wrote these questions under a ‘Gunnn’ point when I read the disclaimer part.

I think the best answer for all of those is to play CMANO a bit longer, like 2-3 weeks with various scenarios.

ORIGINAL: Dannyp19

7. Are debriefings possible? All missions I've played have ended with the rather anti-climactic "Victory" message.

Again your the commander here, do your own debrief and share in the AAR section. [:D]

[/quote]

Are there not some reports you can pull on ammunition expenditures and the like?
I am away from my game machine, so I do not remember off of the top of my head.
Me -- I just shake my head in wild surprise when I am victorious. [:D]

it's game --> losses & expenditures.

the "victory/minor victory/defeat" etc. is totally set up by the scenario designer so if it's even included and how it functions is up to whoever wrote the scenario.

I’ll give this a punt as well:

1. How big is the CMANO community? And how big is the development team? I get the idea that it's a very small team (10 people?), based on the fact that the game doesn't appear to have an audio guy or dedicated scenario designer, BUT the developers seem extremely responsive to updating the game, which makes me wonder. I've read negative Steam reviews from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 and they've all mentioned something that has been fixed since. Impressive! The forums also appear quite buzzy, but there exists little evidence of CMANO beyond this website (say, Metacritic ratings).

Don’t know. They contract with some of us to design scenarios, and I think the marketing team is also contracted. Probably only a few.

2. Is it possible to create zones where weapons release is restricted? I.e. in the DCS A-10C Tactical training, you're not allowed to release weapons when flying above populated areas. Can this be emulated? I'm already aware of fly-here, don't-engage-outside-of-here, don't-fly-here, and fly-here-and-get-designated-hostile (at least I think that's how Exclusion works) zones.

Yes. Exclusion zones and No nave zones

3. In the Submarine tutorial, your sub has an active sonar that can be activated under water, but it only appears to do anything over water (the surface sensor range circle disappears when you deactivate it). What gives?

I think you're probably reading the rings improperly. Turn them all off (the rings) turn on the underwater sensor ring and test.

4. What's the best way to assign airplanes to escort other airplanes, such as fighters escorting an AEW? Or to get anything to follow anything else? I haven't toyed around much with grouping yet, but it often tells me what I'm not allowed to group stuff so I've kind of ignored it. Can you group a fighter flight (or individual fighter) with an AEW perhaps and then have them move as one?

For strike missions use the escort function. For any mission grouping is only for the same type of AC with the same loadout. If you want to escort a support or any non-strike mission (AEW, mine laying etc) set up a patrol mission covering the area you want. Escorting an individual AC is wasteful anyway, a patrol mission is far more effective. Play with the timing and speed if you want them traveling together.

5. How to best make attackers disperse their bombs in a strike mission, instead of having 12 GBU's land on the same poor AAA sod's head? Is "Engage manual" and then allocating bombs to individual targets manually the best way?

WRA. Also, be clever with your strike missions. If you’ve played through my Strike tutorials, you will see how I normally do it. Simply making an entire air base a target is like throwing spit-balls at a freight train, fun in a way but not very effective. Do some target analysis, strike planning and be precise in what you want to achive.

6. Why is there no message when one of your planes open fires on another plane? There's only a message when the missile arrives. I think such a message is desirable. Basically, anything that does anything should generate a message, right? Has there been any discussion about adding more message log messages for when airplanes reach waypoints or other common events or is this largely considered redundant by the community?

I cannot recall all of the settings in the message configuration but I think you can do this.

7. Are debriefings possible? All missions I've played have ended with the rather anti-climactic "Victory" message.

Entirely up to the designer to set an end game message. I’ve done so in some of my scenarios but not in others. Depends on if he wants to link to another scenario usualy.

8. Does any of you play in real time? Do you ever miss alert sounds, since they play only once?

Often but I usually turn all the sound alerts off. They're annoying. For messages and such that appear only once – I cut them into an always open word document. I also have a spreadsheet open to help with quick calculations.

9. Can missions be duplicated in the ME?

No.

10. Why is the 1/3 rule default? Is it that significant in "higher levels of play"? Do you use it a lot?

Because you need a default to any setting – and I suspect this made sense. I use it all the time, but as in all other settings there are other options which you will need to consider and make a decision.

I think that fundamentally this game allows you much more control over your assets then most. The implication in that philosophy however is that you must think through a lot of factors, make a plan, and be familiar enough with the tools available to provide your units with the orders and guidance they need to do the job you need them to do.

Enjoy

1) Command has 10 devs (according to the manual, but at least one has left and who knows how many joined) and 30,000 owners on Steam (compare with 80 devs and 2 million owners for DCS, but since that’s free the 700k owners for Wargame is probably more representative. Several other wargames also have approximately this amount of owners, like HoIIV). In other words, it’s very small and comparable with moderately successful indie games developed by 1-5 people, not “mainstream” wargames.

2) I’ll have to experiment more, then.

3) Nothing apparently changes if you kill the active sonar, since the (active/)passive sonar can’t be deactivated. And they have the same range. So what’s the point of the active sonar? But I get it: don’t use sonar anyway.

4) Okay then.

5) Will have to experiment more here as well.

6) My point is: theres an audio cue and it’s clearly a significant event. If you play without sound you wouldn’t notice an air battle starting just off-screen, until the missiles impact. But now that I think about it, I used to have a tremendously annoying alarm sound (in addition to the missile wooosch), whenever a missile was launched, along with a pop-up. Perhaps if I re-activate that (which IS the default), I’ll be more adequately warned again.

7) 8) 9) Okay!

10) Good to know. I guess I will use it in bigger ops as well. It feels redundant as a default in smaller ops though!

1) Command has 10 devs (according to the manual, but at least one has left and who knows how many joined) and 30,000 owners on Steam (compare with 80 devs and 2 million owners for DCS, but since that’s free the 700k owners for Wargame is probably more representative. Several other wargames also have approximately this amount of owners, like HoIIV). In other words, it’s very small and comparable with moderately successful indie games developed by 1-5 people, not “mainstream” wargames.

CMANO was developed because we wanted to build the game we always wanted. Every sale, pro contract or award after is gravy. I'm sure the devs of Wargame, DCS, etc. feel the same way. If we wanted to do things for money we'd be doing big data, medical IT or web dev.

Thanks

Mike

ORIGINAL: mikmykWS

1) Command has 10 devs (according to the manual, but at least one has left and who knows how many joined) and 30,000 owners on Steam (compare with 80 devs and 2 million owners for DCS, but since that’s free the 700k owners for Wargame is probably more representative. Several other wargames also have approximately this amount of owners, like HoIIV). In other words, it’s very small and comparable with moderately successful indie games developed by 1-5 people, not “mainstream” wargames.

CMANO was developed because we wanted to build the game we always wanted. Every sale, pro contract or award after is gravy. I'm sure the devs of Wargame, DCS, etc. feel the same way. If we wanted to do things for money we'd be doing big data, medical IT or web dev.
Thanks Mike

It is going to sound like I am brown-nosing, but thank you. This is a good game, solidly constructed, and just 'making games and coding LUA (as poor as I am at it) have led to many fun hours, and kept this old man out of trouble.
Thank you!

ORIGINAL: mikmykWS

1) Command has 10 devs (according to the manual, but at least one has left and who knows how many joined) and 30,000 owners on Steam (compare with 80 devs and 2 million owners for DCS, but since that’s free the 700k owners for Wargame is probably more representative. Several other wargames also have approximately this amount of owners, like HoIIV). In other words, it’s very small and comparable with moderately successful indie games developed by 1-5 people, not “mainstream” wargames.

CMANO was developed because we wanted to build the game we always wanted. Every sale, pro contract or award after is gravy. I'm sure the devs of Wargame, DCS, etc. feel the same way. If we wanted to do things for money we'd be doing big data, medical IT or web dev.

Thanks

Mike

Absolutely. I don't know about the Wargame devs, but the DCS devs are deeply passionate. It also took them 27 years to get to where they are today.
There's nothing wrong with a small userbase, but of course I (as a consumer) hope that you aspire to bring your product to many more people in time and grow the simulator massively in terms of quality and (moreso) quantity.

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

ORIGINAL: mikmykWS

1) Command has 10 devs (according to the manual, but at least one has left and who knows how many joined) and 30,000 owners on Steam (compare with 80 devs and 2 million owners for DCS, but since that’s free the 700k owners for Wargame is probably more representative. Several other wargames also have approximately this amount of owners, like HoIIV). In other words, it’s very small and comparable with moderately successful indie games developed by 1-5 people, not “mainstream” wargames.

CMANO was developed because we wanted to build the game we always wanted. Every sale, pro contract or award after is gravy. I'm sure the devs of Wargame, DCS, etc. feel the same way. If we wanted to do things for money we'd be doing big data, medical IT or web dev.
Thanks Mike

It is going to sound like I am brown-nosing, but thank you. This is a good game, solidly constructed, and just 'making games and coding LUA (as poor as I am at it) have led to many fun hours, and kept this old man out of trouble.
Thank you!

Yeah and likewise we were lucky to have a supportive fan base and a few key people that helped us succeed along the way. I really think we hit most of my key goals and I've got a really cool tool to game out the things I'd like.

Mike

ORIGINAL: Gunnn

ORIGINAL: mikmykWS

1) Command has 10 devs (according to the manual, but at least one has left and who knows how many joined) and 30,000 owners on Steam (compare with 80 devs and 2 million owners for DCS, but since that’s free the 700k owners for Wargame is probably more representative. Several other wargames also have approximately this amount of owners, like HoIIV). In other words, it’s very small and comparable with moderately successful indie games developed by 1-5 people, not “mainstream” wargames.

CMANO was developed because we wanted to build the game we always wanted. Every sale, pro contract or award after is gravy. I'm sure the devs of Wargame, DCS, etc. feel the same way. If we wanted to do things for money we'd be doing big data, medical IT or web dev.

Thanks

Mike

Absolutely. I don't know about the Wargame devs, but the DCS devs are deeply passionate. It also took them 27 years to get to where they are today.
There's nothing wrong with a small userbase, but of course I (as a consumer) hope that you aspire to bring your product to many more people in time and grow the simulator massively in terms of quality and (moreso) quantity.

Nice. Hopefully one day they'll meet your expectations[:)]

Thanks!

Mike

On many web forums like Seeking Alpha, writers have a Disclaimer and a Disclosure. These are very different. In the case of Gunnn, I would say the Disclosure should read "I am borderline psychopath and have no financial position in anything".

Gunnn, I am just making light of your Disclaimer out of jest. I have been in war game forums since the dawn of the internet and never seen an intro to a post that cracked me up so much. Thank you. I applaud the way my buddies here addressed your concerns. Have fun with this marvelous sim.

Kevin

ORIGINAL: Gunnn

4. What's the best way to assign airplanes to escort other airplanes, such as fighters escorting an AEW? Or to get anything to follow anything else? I haven't toyed around much with grouping yet, but it often tells me what I'm not allowed to group stuff so I've kind of ignored it. Can you group a fighter flight (or individual fighter) with an AEW perhaps and then have them move as one?

I must caveat by saying that I'm relatively new to COMANO as well, but I thought I might add my 2 cents and expand on the responses to this a bit.

For AEW Aircraft, since they are generally just running in a box or racetrack flight path at a relatively fixed location, it's usually pretty simple. I just set up a CAP Patrol in close proximity to the AEW's area along the expected threat axis, with 1/3 rule and be done with it. The CAP should automatically engage any hostiles that approach the area.

On the other hand, I've found that the best strategy to protect/escort your strike aircraft can vary from scenario to scenario depending on your mission goals and the expected opposition.

1) The Escort function in the Mission Planner:
I've found that the built in COMANO Escort function has some disadvantages, but also some clear uses, depending on the scenario.

The disadvantage of using this function is that unless they spot an enemy and decide to leave the strikers and engage other aircraft, your escorts will fly the exact same route and altitude as the strike aircraft. This means they'll go low level with the strike aircraft, putting them at a disadvantage if attacked by fighters coming in at a higher altitude. Also, the fighters may need to have their radars on to adequately defend your group, which would also give away the location of your strike aircraft. I find that using this methodology is best suited for situations where you are striking a target with stand-off weapons and stealth isn't the primary goal, as the goal is just to get your attack aircraft to a particular point, launch everything and go home. Examples are heavy bomber raids with cruise missiles, or long-range anti-ship missiles, etc.

In these cases you can just assign your fighters to the mission, then select them as "escorts" and then define the mission doctrine for them. There is a separate mission doctrine for the main strike aircraft and for the escorts within the same mission plan. For the escorts you'll likely allow them to ignore waypoints when attacking, whereas for the strike aircraft you might not. You might also want to set different EMCON and different WRA settings for the escorts as well.

2) The "Bait and Sneak" approach:
This approach is predicated on using your fighter escorts as "bait" to draw out enemy fighters and SAMs to allow your strike aircraft to sneak in at low altitude from an off-axis direction and hit their targets. You'll need to set up two separate missions for this.

I'll usually create a CAP mission right at the edge of, or just inside the enemy's longest SAM range. At this extreme range it's low probability that enemy SAMs will actually be able to down your fighters. Just be careful of doctrine settings, or use a prosecution zone to prevent your fighters from straying too far into the enemy SAM envelope. The goal here is to attract the attention of enemy fighters and get them all to come to you, so having your fighter's radars on, and ECM if they have it, is a no-brainer.

Then create your strike mission to come in from 90 degree off-axis at tree-hugging altitude so that it's very unlikely that enemy fighters coming out to engage your CAP will see them, and the ground clutter will minimize the chance of the high altitude fighters picking your strikers up. Besides, if you design this right, the radars on the enemy fighters should be pointing in the wrong direction anyway.

However, in case your strike is spotted, and enemy aircraft begin heading in that direction, be prepared to break off some of you fighters to chase. I usually reserve two fighters with long range AAM, set those fighters WRA to only allow manual targeting with their long range AAM (but allow them to engage as they see fit with their other weapons and allow all of my other fighters to engage using all their weapons as well), that way no matter what happens in the air to air engagement, I always have a few long range AAMs available in reserve in case I need to send those two fighters off to chase down enemy aircraft that vector towards my strikers. Bear in mind you often times don't need to kill the enemy fighters, just get them to go "engaged defensive" long enough for your strikers to get on target. So the closer you can get your strikers to the target before detection, the better. Use the terrain.

This strategy works very well for SEAD strike missions and other scenarios where you expect the air space to be heavily contested.

3) The Air Superiority approach:
This involves just creating a second strike mission (Air Intercept) that essentially tracks the path of the strike group.

You'll create a Strike mission with Waypoints parallel to, or slightly ahead of, the actual land attack strike mission. To do so you'll create the Air intercept mission and assign it a target nearby or within the target group of the strike mission. That way waypoints will automatically be created that are hopefully similar to the ones created for your original strike mission. You can adjust as needed after the two missions are created. Set the appropriate doctrine, EMCON and WRA, launch the aircraft in the missions and adjust waypoints accordingly.

The disadvantage of this approach (compared to option 1) is that it requires more planning and management. The advantage is flexibility. You can separately control the escorting aircraft as they approach the target area, and you can have them maintain high altitude to engage enemy aircraft even if the primary strike mission has a hi-lo-hi profile. This also has the benefit of giving you better ability to defend against aircraft coming from a different direction than the target (for instance if the target is a naval base, or oil refinery and you're expecting enemy aircraft to come from an airbase 50nm away in some other direction). You can set your waypoints of the escorts so the they are along the threat axis in between your primary strike aircraft and the direction of the expected airborne threat. This also has the advantage (over option 2) of keeping your escorts in closer proximity to the actual strike aircraft. The disadvantage of course is it's more likely your strike aircraft will be detected as enemy aircraft coming to investigate/intercept will be more likely to be able to see your strike aircraft flying below and/or in close proximity to your escorts.

4) A note about OECM Jamming aircraft
It's often useful, if you have them available, to send one or two jamming aircraft with your main strike force assigned as "escorts". You can set the doctrine so that their OECM activates at the Initial Point waypoint. by having them flying with the strike aircraft it makes their jamming more effective as they are in close proximity to the strikers. This has the benefit of making it harder for any SAMs to target your strike aircraft, as well as harder for them to target the weapons that your strike aircraft launch. The advantage of having your OECM with the strikers as opposed to in a standoff position is the increased effectiveness of OECM based on a) proximity, and b) directionality (jamming is often more effective when the jamming signals are coming from along the same axis to the enemy radar as the aircraft it's trying to protect/obscure). The disadvantage of this approach of course, is that your jamming aircraft are very vulnerable high value aircraft, so you'll have to weigh the risk vs. the reward of stand-off jamming vs. having the jammers "escort" your strikers.