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Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 4:42:38 AM

erichswafford

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The Mission Editor: What He Forgot to Mention

Ok, as I promised, I'm just going to proceed in fairly random order as I spot things in the review that I find misleading, based on my experience with the game thus far.

The next subject is the Mission Editor. According to the reviewer, using the Mission Editor to implement our operational plan is well-nigh impossible, leading you back into some sort of click-fest using the manual controls. When I read this, I honestly wondered if the reviewer had actually ever played an entire scenario using just Missions - because that's one of the first things I tried when I got the game.

Here's what the review said about the Mission Editor:

It is significant to note that the CMANO Mission Editor lacks any timing function necessary
to coordinate Missions. The Missions simply execute as soon as possible. A player could easily
get the strong impression of a game meant primarily for play according to AI-controlled
Missions with only minimal interference from the human. Unfortunately, the multiple
difficulties encountered by players attempting to exercise hands-on control only serve to
reinforce this perception.

1. No timing function: While technically correct, he fails to mention that you can dynamically Activate and Deactivate Missions at will. This allows you to easily coordinate timing in a way that's much easier than creating exact times that the mission should start. I don't know about you, but the idea of pre-planning exactly when every mission will start (irrespective of enemy activity, one presumes) sounds about as much fun as watching paint dry. No plan survives contact with the enemy, so this is the sort of "feature" only a Soviet could love.

Why is this important? Because it allows you to see, at a glance, which missions you have Active at any time, and change that in whatever sequence you desire to pull off your Grand Master Plan. I like this much better than setting actual times to kick off these missions. And God knows how I'd pick a time. What time? Hell - when it's appropriate I guess! Depends on what the Competition is up to, really.

The review glosses over all these essential features, never mentioning the various options which allow you to tailor these missions to nearly every possible circumstance. Did he even really play the game?

This is another example of the many problems in the Command review, where features which would have addressed or eliminated the reviewers objections are simply ignored. One is left to draw one of 2 conclusions: Either the reviewer never learned the game very well or he was trying to score payback points rather than do an honest review. And Yes, there's a lot more where this came from.

To Be Continued...

< Message edited by kondor999 -- 10/4/2013 4:44:36 AM >

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Post #: 1

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 5:46:46 AM

snowburn

Posts: 188
Joined: 9/24/2013
From: Bovril, Argentina
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well done kondor999 :)

i wish the devs add a "priority target(s)" option on the target list, so the AI can focus on destroying those units (such as a CV or a troop transport)

(in reply to erichswafford)

Post #: 2

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 11:31:58 AM

Tordan69

Posts: 25
Joined: 12/2/2009
From: Stockholm, Sweden
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Kondor, do not take this the wrong way but you are missing a basic feature of military planning if there is no way to hook various events to a set time.

Not being able to plan a mission using a set time as a common reference is a huge problem. There simply is no military plan of this complexity in real life that is managed with a set of sub-missions that the overall commander activates when he feels they should begin. You define a desired time that for instance is when you want bombs on a target. You then build the rest of the strike with different events that you want to occur prior to or after that time with carefully timed intervals to achieve maximum effect. A simple example, a strike against a bridge that has one identified AAA gun defending it. You want two strikers to attack the AAA with weapon X at time T-30 seconds. You want one striker to attack the bridge from the east at time T, and another from the south at T+10 seconds. The plan also has SEAD between T-20min to T+5min. That�s how you want the attack to be performed. You can easily adjust the timing by changing when T is. If something happens that prevents the plan from being performed in this fashion the mission commander either makes changes to the plan or aborts.

What you are talking about is absolutely valid for certain situations. Having assets on hand and using them in a fluid manner is also an essential part of warfare. One does not contradict the other, they complement each other. Take the bridge in my example. The Air Defence in that area doesn�t consist of just that one AAA, there are actually two more ZSU23-4s camouflaged. The AAA gun is actually nothing more than a decoy. One of the Zeus is under order to light up his radar if the decoy is attacked, the other is to be silent until ordered to go active by the commander...

I hope you, and the devs, see the difference and the importance of having both possibilities. Now, having just tried the first tutorial there may very well be a way to have the type of coordination that is necessary that I�ve yet to see. Looking forward to getting to know this beast.

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RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 11:43:46 AM

erichswafford

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Folks seem to be missing the point here. It's not that such a feature wouldn't be useful (though I now see that I didn't make that clear in my attempt at humor). It's that the author of the review drew a totally unsupportable conclusion - namely, that the Mission Editor is unusable, forcing the player to use the "manual" interface, which - according to him - has major problems.

This is highly misleading. It's one thing to say a desired feature is missing. Fine, no problem. It's quite another to pronounce an entire aspect of the game as broken due to that missing feature. I'll edit my post to make this more clear. Thanks for the feedback.

BTW, I'm pretty familiar with military planning. In this game, your role is that of a Theatre commander, not someone responsible for tactical planning. Ask a General some time if he knows exactly when each of his packages is taking off. Assuming you survived the experience, the response would be something along the lines of "I have people who handle that".

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Post #: 4

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 12:49:16 PM

Tordan69

Posts: 25
Joined: 12/2/2009
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Status: offline

Ok, I see your point about the reviewer, but the General analogy doesn�t fly. The General has people creating those plans, this sim doesn�t, again as far as I can tell from my brief glimpses. If it did you wouldn�t have to manage missions at all, just point at an object and press the "Destroy" button and that, I�m sure we all agreee on, wouldn�t be much fun ;)

Anyway, the ability to time different events is one, albeit important, aspect of military ops. This sim certainly seems to do a fine job at many other aspects and I�m sure that as time goes by it will improve even further.

Uvidimsya pozzhe

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RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 12:52:59 PM

Floyd

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quote:

ORIGINAL: kondor999
BTW, I'm pretty familiar with military planning. In this game, your role is that of a Theatre commander, not someone responsible for tactical planning. Ask a General some time if he knows exactly when each of his packages is taking off. Assuming you survived the experience, the response would be something along the lines of "I have people who handle that".

With all the detailed settings for sensors etc your role is way more than a Theatre commander.
A TOT setting for waypoints might be useful to coordinate flights between missions.

< Message edited by Floyd -- 10/4/2013 12:53:40 PM >

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Post #: 6

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 1:18:23 PM

chrisol

Posts: 209
Joined: 1/5/2008
From: Cambridge, UK
Status: offline

I hadn't realized about this, so thank you.

Incidentally, I know that adding altitude/speed changes to waypoints has been discussed elsewhere, but it would be great to be able to assign to a mission at a waypoint (I guess the last one)... so you can manually plot a course with various altitude changes and when the aircraft reached the end it is automatically assigned to a pre-determined mission...

(or that the mission to which it is assigned becomes "active" on reaching a waypoint)

Thanks
chris

(in reply to Floyd)

Post #: 7

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 1:29:47 PM

Primarchx

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Joined: 1/20/2013
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A timer is needed, that's for sure. It doesn't need to be linked to missions, though that would be fine. As long as I can stop the clock at a specific time or elapsed time with a message, that would be great. If it then activates/deactivates a mission, nice too.

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Post #: 8

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 1:42:44 PM

Der Zeitgeist

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Joined: 9/5/2013
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If we discount the aspect of a timer, the bigger point the reviewer made...

quote:

A player could easily
get the strong impression of a game meant primarily for play according to AI-controlled
Missions with only minimal interference from the human. Unfortunately, the multiple
difficulties encountered by players attempting to exercise hands-on control only serve to
reinforce this perception.

...still stands. Before release, the major selling point advertised for CMANO was its strong mission AI, with much less requirement to micromanage your assets.
Right now, the mission AI at least for strike missions is mostly suicidal in an actual threat environment because of default flight profiles used for all jet planes.

< Message edited by Der Zeitgeist -- 10/4/2013 1:43:23 PM >

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Post #: 9

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 1:46:09 PM

Primarchx

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I don't run automated missions in combat areas at this time if I want to keep my units intact. Support functions are fine, as long as mission parameters are tight. But where there's trigger-pulling and missile-dodging, that's where I need to be involved.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Der Zeitgeist

If we discount the aspect of a timer, the bigger point the reviewer made...

quote:

A player could easily
get the strong impression of a game meant primarily for play according to AI-controlled
Missions with only minimal interference from the human. Unfortunately, the multiple
difficulties encountered by players attempting to exercise hands-on control only serve to
reinforce this perception.

...still stands. Before release, the major selling point advertised for CMANO was its strong mission AI, with much less requirement to micromanage your assets.
Right now, the mission AI at least for strike missions is mostly suicidal in an actual threat environment because of default flight profiles used for all jet planes.

(in reply to Der Zeitgeist)

Post #: 10

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 2:10:52 PM

Der Zeitgeist

Posts: 280
Joined: 9/5/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Primarchx

I don't run automated missions in combat areas at this time if I want to keep my units intact. Support functions are fine, as long as mission parameters are tight. But where there's trigger-pulling and missile-dodging, that's where I need to be involved.

And here lies the problem. The player can take over manual control, use real world tactics which actually work in the game (which is pretty awesome, when you think about it).

But the AI opponent can't, if you don't want to play your scenarios in the editor, switch to the other side and play against yourself, that is.

That's why im ranting on and on about this issue on these forums. The scenarios I'm planning and working on will really have the player get their asses kicked, but for that, we need the ability to fine tune the AI missions with waypoints, speeds and altitudes, EMCON changes and ROE changes.

(in reply to Primarchx)

Post #: 11

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 3:39:06 PM

Dimitris

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Guys, we hear you on this. Mission flight profiles are actually in the DB but we need some more time to make them work reliably.

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RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/4/2013 3:44:55 PM

Primarchx

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And this is one of the main reasons I love Command.

These guys are players like us. They want the same functionalities and challenges we're looking for. When they say they're working on it I'm confident they have an excellent grasp of the issue and are balancing solutions based on game play needs and tech requirements.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sunburn

Guys, we hear you on this. Mission flight profiles are actually in the DB but we need some more time to make them work reliably.

(in reply to Dimitris)

Post #: 13

RE: Second counterpoint to SimHQ review - 10/5/2013 12:03:18 AM

JRyan

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Still, the counterpoint is taken.....as some of us have said...it was a biased review before the first key was pressed and therein lies the problem...

(in reply to Primarchx)

Post #: 14