Improvements you want to WinSPMBT

[Mustang]

Narwan, I think it's crazy that you have to direct every single unit's fire. I've seen a lot of real-time command simulations where individual units do most of the menial tasks themselves. Of course, Shrapnel is only a very small company, and I'm told that the WinSPMBT code is based on the old Steel Panthers II engine (AKA thousands of lines of "C language spaghetti code" in the words of Mobhack). So it'd be great if it was playable online, etc., but it would take too much money for Shrapnel. I'm surprised, though, that noones come up with any mods or asked for a development kit for WinSPMBT.

[narwan]

It's either you directing all the units or leaving it up to the AI. There's little in between.
Of course you've seen real-time simulations where individual units do most of the menial tasks themselves, it's endemic to real-time for exactly the reasons I outlined. In real-time there is no time to let one single brain (the player) do all the necessary (and realistic) thinking that needs to done (and which in reality would be done by all the individuals involved separately and simultaneously). So in real-time simulations the AI has to kick in and take over a large part of that. With all the (unrealistic) consequences that brings along.
Steel Panthers has gone the other way. It gives a player maximum control by reducing the AI involvement to a minimum. It mimics realism by giving each unit sufficient 'brain'time.

But you shouldn't forget that these simulations are all exactly that: simulations. They model only part of reality and can only model part of it. Simulations always have abstractions that violate reality. Can't be helped. Both the realtime simulations and turn based simulations have their share of unavoidable unrealistic elements. And it's almost impossible to combine the two.

Narwan

[Mustang]

Still, computer AI has advanced enough for any game to let the smaller units do some thinking for themselves. There's great potential here, but it's too bad that no big company is picking up the idea of a really realistic battlefield simulation. They're the only ones that have the money to try.

But why hasn't anyone talked about my "orders" idea I mentioned in the first post? It's an interesting little concept that needs to be considered.

Has anyone played the old Steel Panthers III? The "orders" function was a good idea. Each unit gets only so many orders per turn, and they regenerate at a random rate each turn. Orders are spent issuing some commands, like moving, but not the more commonsense commands like firing that a unit does on its own initiative. Not only does this orders function represent the different abilities of your unit commanders ( a less competent commander would be able to get less orders and get less things done), but, most importantly, it represents the Soviet-style lack of initiative in some armies (the Russian units tended to get less orders, representing the fact that a commander won't do anything on his own and has to wait for HQ to tell him exactly what to do).

[Double_Deuce]

Mustang said:
Still, computer AI has advanced enough for any game to let the smaller units do some thinking for themselves. There's great potential here, but it's too bad that no big company is picking up the idea of a really realistic battlefield simulation. They're the only ones that have the money to try.

Actually there are some already out there depending on what you consider realistic simulation. Are you talking 3D, top down? Any game that uses hexes or a turn based system can never hope to be "realistic".

Mustang said:But why hasn't anyone talked about my "orders" idea I mentioned in the first post? It's an interesting little concept that needs to be considered.

The orders you mentioned are specific to SP3. SPMBT and SPMWW2 are based on another game engine altogther (SP2) so some things in one probably cannot be replicated in another with substantial recoding at the very least.

[hoplitis]

Regarding the "orders thing" I agree with Double_Deuce.

[Mustang]

I guess, but it would be a pretty cool idea. There needs to be some way to represent the abilities of different unit commanders beyond morale and experience, which are kind of a superficial way to represent it. Yeah, it would require a major recoding, and it isn't all that big of a thing to warrant the effort.

Double_duece, you mentioned that there are realistic battlefiedl sims out there. What ones do you know of? I've heard of Battlfield Command (or something like that), it sounds interesting, but I haven't tried it.

[Pepper]

Check out Point of Attack 2 - looks pretty impressive if it would only work! Hopefully soon ...

But I agree that there are no excellent sims right now that take advantage of computers growing processing power. I'd love to see a computer company put together a game with the detailed OOBs of SPMBT, the ability to give detailed orders (like TacOps or Harpoon) at the single vehicle/fire-team level, but with a graphical interface more like an RTS, with a good zoom and floating camera to observe the action in 3D from 360 degrees.

Maybe someday ...

[Double_Deuce]

Mustang said:

Double_duece, you mentioned that there are realistic battlefiedl sims out there. What ones do you know of?

When I think of Battlefield Simulations I think of games like TacOps, ATF: Armored Task Force and BCT: Brigade Combat Team Commander (and there are others). I don't really think of FPS games as simulations in the military simulation sense. They are what I would call tactical training simulators or a way to train individual soldiers to enhance their combat proficiencies/senses.

When I think battlefield simulators I think of tools/games to train commanders in an overall combat environment and not micromanage each soldier. I know others would disagree mostly because everyone holds a different view on what is a battlefield simulator supposed to be, do and look like. I guess a question to you is, what would you want out of a battlefield simulation?