Command LIVE #3 launched: Spratly Spat!

September 20, 2016 · Posted in Uncategorized · Comment

Available now on MatrixGames and Steam!

Concurrently, the free v1.11 Service Release 5 update is now available! Full release notes here.

And don’t forget the newspaper:

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Command LIVE #2 launched: You Brexit, You Fix It!

August 23, 2016 · Posted in Uncategorized · Comment

Available now on MatrixGames and Steam!

And don’t forget the newspaper:

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The road to v1.10: Waypoints for cruise missiles

December 12, 2015 · Posted in Command, Uncategorized · Comment

Command Build 757.12, which had been made available unofficially at the start of December, has now officially been released through MatrixGames and Steam. Barring any emergencies, this is probably the last update released as part of the post-v1.09/NI release support process (Command is still 50% off at MatrixGames until early January!). The development team’s focus is now the next major public update, designated v1.10. Let us take a look at the some of the major improvements that the new version will feature.

Complex missile courses for fun and profit

Arguably one of the most visible changes in v1.10 is the new ability to plot complex routes with multiple waypoints for cruise missile attacks. While this was already possible for weapons under positive datalink control (e.g. heavy Russian “carrier killer” missiles like the SS-N-19), this is now possible also for completely autonomous weapons. Let’s see how this works.

(click for full size)

In this completely hypothetical example, the USS Ohio, loaded with Tactical Tomahawk (TACTOM) land-attack cruise missiles, is tasked to attack the air facilities at Latakia airbase in order to hamper Russian air operations from this important base. The airfield is protected by a battery of Pantsir-S1 short-range air-defence vehicles and, most importantly, a full S-400 long-range air-defence missile battery.

From the position that the Ohio is currently located, a direct missile attack would appear the most obvious course of action. However, we have already tried this on a previous test run and observed that the airfield’s location (placed on a ~40m elevated plateau overlooking the Syrian coast) offers a near-perfect field of view for the air-defence radars located at the base. The results against an attack coming directly from the sea were thus predictable:

Even with a large-scale missile strike, the majority of the TACTOMs were detected, engaged and destroyed by the S-400 battery well before crossing the coast. Leakers were then engaged successfully by the Pantsir-S1 systems. While some of the missiles did manage to impact their targets, this was more a result of simply overwhelming the airfield’s defences by sheer numbers (the S-400 battery ewas completely drained of weapons, and the Pantsir-S1 vehicles nearly so) rather than outwitting them.

So let’s see if we can execute a smarter, more efficient attack. We observe that the airbase, while having an excellent view to the west, is somewhat lodged between the coast and the so-called “Syrian Coastal Mountain Range“. This ridge could make an excellent radar mask for our TACTOMs if we can get them to attack the base from this direction rather than from the sea.

So let’s do exactly that:

Using the manual weapon allocation window, we assign a salvo of 4 TACTOMs to one of the airfield facilities. We select the salvo (blue outline) and click on the “Plot course” button under it. This temporarily hides the allocation window and allows us to plot the desired course:

In this case we set the missiles to cross the coast at Lebanon, skirt behind the mountain ridges on their way up north and pop up to attack the base at the last possible moment. Note that we do not have absolute freedom in plotting such courses: We are constrained both by the maximum range of the weapon and also the number of available waypoints to use. This is not a problem for TACTOM, but numerous anti-ship missiles have only a handful of waypoints available.

This is the result of the revised attack, from the Russian point of view:

The difference is quite dramatic. The 96L6 (Cheese Board) radar that supports the base defences detected the first TACTOMs at just 12.8nm, as they popped over the mountain ridge. Combined with the inevitable OODA delay, this gives the Russian SAMs very little time to react. If the TACTOM strike is as massive as before, the Russian repair crews at Latakia are going to have a very busy day…

Units under AI control are also able to utilize missile waypoints to their benefit. Although not currently able to “think” about radar/SAM coverage as in the above example, they nevertheless attempt to make off-axis attacks whenever possible (this obviously depends on how much weapon range they can spare) in order to hide their true bearing from their target. No longer does the bearing to a detected incoming missile provide an immediate clue to the attacker’s location:

The inclusion of missile waypoints in v1.10 introduces a whole new range of tactical options based on RL operations, and we are certain the players will find even more uses for them (complex TALD/MALD flight paths anyone?).

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Back from HoW-15 – A few thoughts

June 26, 2015 · Posted in Uncategorized · Comment

HoW Well, we’re back from Home of Wargamers 2015. And what a terrific event it was.

Within less than 3 hectic days we were presented with, and discussed, the full gamut of seismic developments taking place in the strategy/wargaming market and what they mean for our hobby. We were aware of most of them, but seeing them all presented together and most importantly in proper context and with analysis of their repercussions was a real eye-opener. We are already busy in absorbing the implications of what we saw, and in fact a last-minute tweak on Command v1.08 (final version) was the direct result of one of the points hammered home (bonus points to the first one to spot it upon v1.08’s official release).

Even more than that, however, this was a rare opportunity to interact with fellow wargaming developers, journalists and publishers. Marco called the event “The Bilderberg of Wargaming” and that’s a particularly apt description. We stood in awe of veterans of the genre and gleamed golden nuggets from their experience. We shared war stories, tales of woe and moments of triumph with devs just like us – and were elated to find out they like and play our game just like we with theirs. We talked with press, fans, hobbyists and simple gamers – and they gave us the best, most honest feedback we could ask for. We all looked together at the future, and how to flourish in it. Roger, Gregor, Joel, Richard, David, Hubert, Daniel, Johan, Matthew, Mario, Owen, James, Frank and all the others, we salute you and look forward to catching up with you anytime, anywhere.

Our thanks go to Matrix Games for hosting this event, inviting us and most importantly _making it happen_. Every single staff member present from CEO to yeoman went above and beyond, pure and simple. We’d be unpardonable to not offer special recognition to Marco “The Superman” Minoli – quite literally the beating, pulsing heart of the event. Marco, we have no words.

More tidbits after we catch our breath 🙂

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Command v1.06 – The new features Part I

November 30, 2014 · Posted in Command, Uncategorized · Comment

As usual, it’s been a very busy time for the WarfareSims crew.

The September Steam launch was very successful and once again exceeded sales estimates by a wide margin, as well as providing us with some very valuable feedback for the way forward. The Christmas sale is now in effect and again the numbers are very strong. Baloogan, a staunch fan of Command (and not unimportantly a man who shares our vision for it) has joined WarfareSims as an additional member of the development team and is already contributing his valuable skills to the game’s ongoing development.

Version 1.06 is the next major Command public update, expected to be delivered within December. Simply put, there is a lot in it. It has something we have been working on for a long time (and have been wishing for since the days of Harpoon2/3), lots of improvements directly requested by the user community and a veritable armory of new scenario-editing tools that are certain to make scenario authors salivate. Let’s take a look.

Surge & Quick-turnaround times in Air Operations

The rationale for this new feature is comprehensively explained on a separate article, so here we’ll discuss the “what” and “how” rather than the “why”.

In short, players can now keep a constant sustainable “campaign” operational tempo as well as go to “Day-1” super-high sortie rates with very fast (30 mins or even less) turn-around times for loadouts supporting them. There is a price for this however: After a certain period of hyperactivity, aircraft _have_ to stand-down for an extended period of maintenance (and pilots badly need to rest).

The super-high sortie rate option (aka “Quick Turnaround” capability) is available only for a specific range of loadout types, typically those that do not need extensive mission briefing and coordination with other assets, for example close air-support (CAS) and air defence loadouts. So for example an A-10A Thunderbolt II can now indeed fly a series of quick CAS sorties but then has to stand down. Relevant loadouts have a “Quick Turnaround” option that allows aircraft to fly a certain number of short duration sorties in quick succession with a maximum overall airborne time limitation. For example, 3 sorties with 4 hours total flying time and 20 minute turnaround between each. The aircraft will then step down for the period set by the loadout’s Surge Operations or Sustained Operations ready time.

Let’s take a look at a practical example. In this screenshot (click for full size) the highlighted JAS-39A Gripen has the QT option enabled, which allows a maximum of four rapid-fire missions (just 30 mins turn-around) to be flown with a maximum air-time of four hours. On the “Quick Turnaround” column we see that the aircraft has already flown two of the four quick sorties and spent 1 hr 37 mins in-air (out of the four hours total available), after which it will be forced to stand down for six hours for rest and maintenance. It is now up to the player to decide how best make use of the remaining sorties.

It should be noted that aircraft flying Quick Turnaround sorties may be re-armed with a different loadout without having to step down, granted the new loadout is quick-turnaround capable. This means you can fly the first two Quick Turnaround sorties with iron bombs, re-arm with rockets for the third sortie, and cluster bombs for the fourth.

There are three limiting factors for quick turnaround: flying time, number of sorties (land-refuel-rearm-takeoff), and day/night capability. All three are used to determine if the aircraft can be quickly turned around to fly another sortie, or has to step down.

The player can easily determine if a given loadout supports quick-turnaround when browising through loadouts on the “Ready Aircraft” window. Here we see that CAS, air-defence and short-range strike loadouts enable Quick Turnaround while long-range strike loadouts, which take a lot more preparation and coordination, do not.

The distinction on whether to have a low (peacetime) or wartime (high) operational time is configurable as a doctrine setting and thus, like all other similar settings, can be configured by both the player and the scenario author at the side-, mission-, group- and individual-unit level. So for example you can simulate an entire country being at peacetime level of activity while one or two bases are kept in high tempo as a “quick reaction” force. Quick-turnaround ability is also configurable as a separate setting. (So for example a base may be on wartime tempo but not be allowed to use super-high sortie rates in order to instead operate on a 24/7-sustainable rate. Keeping up a steady pace is frequently more important than going all-out.)

There is also a corollary benefit from those improvements, which resolves a longtime players bane: When an aircraft, fully loaded and prepped for a mission, switches to a different loadout, it is not punished for it by going through the entire ready cycle again. Instead, only the time necessary for the actual re-arming is considered.

Being able to simulate historically-accurate bursts of air activity without resorting to the ridiculous “30 mins for everything and everyone!” setting of older games has been one of the holy grails of air-ops enthusiasts, and v1.06 finally brings this dream to reality.

Unit-level proficiency values

This is a direct response to a popular user request. When we introduced side-level proficiency ratings, the addition was welcome by players and scen authors alike. A frequent request, however, was to be able to combine different skill levels on the same side so as to emulate groups of forces with different skill or readiness levels, as is common in most military arms.

Pre-v1.06, doing this required the workaround of defining multiple allied sides and setting the proficiency level differently on each of them. Version 1.06 allows definining the skillset on an individual unit level, making this workaround unnecessary.

There are two ways to view and (in ScenEdit mode only) alter the proficiency level of an individual unit:

* Through the ORBAT window:

In this example you can see the individual units being listed in different colors that represent their proficiency levels (from the dark green of novices all the way to the red of the aces). As this shot was taken in Scenario Edit mode, the dropdowm menu for setting the selected unit’s proficiency is also visible. A unit can be set to either auto-inherit its parent side’s overall proficiency level (which is the default behavior) or override it with a custom level of its own.

* Through the “Unit Status” window and the right-click menu:

A unit’s proficiency level appears next to its class DB-hyperlink on the “Unit Status” window:

If running the scenario in editor mode, you can change the proficiency level of one or more units by selecting them, bringing up the unit-context menu (mouse right-click or context-menu key), clicking on “Set Unit Proficiency” and selecting the desired level (or setting it to auto-inherit from side):

Apart from making them configurable on a unit level, skill values now also have an even greater effect (e.g. when performing unguided weapon attacks, and in damage control) and their effects / modifiers are intensified. Novices and to a lesser extent cadets are now really lamb to the slaughter, while ace crews almost walk on water. Without knowing in advance just how capable an adversary you are facing (unless reliably pre-briefed), the ghastly uncertainties of combat become even more pronounced.

Coming up next: Part II – Game-changer, thy name is Lua

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