“This is truly awesome!”*: Command PE v2.4 now available

October 22, 2024 · Posted in Command PE · Comment

* Actual quote from early-bird pro user

It has taken a while, but the wait is most definitely worth it. CPE v2.4, the next major update for Command Professional Edition, is now available for download to all professional users.

The headline feature of the new release is most definitely the addition of Real-Time Multiplayer (RTMP), a brand-new capability to Command. (As a reminder, CPE has offered WEGO-style multiplayer since version 1.15). The new system offers several key features and advantages:

– Real-time execution and UI update means participating players can view progress updates and issue orders dynamically as the scenario unfolds, instead of having to wait for the next “checkpoint in time” as in WEGO.

– Up to 16 players can participate in a single MP session.

– Multiple players can play under the same or opposing side. The importance of this feature (which is not available in WEGO) is hard to overstate: One of the challenges of CPE is that, for any non-trivial scenario, the single payer may wear “too many hats” (from theater commander all the way down to mission planner & weaponeer). RTMP allows players to organize their assets to players, effectively demolishing this limitation.

– Multiple umpires and observers. Umpires have unlimited hand-of-God powers (can edit the scenario at any point in time) and can witness the action from any side’s point-of-view, in addition to being able to see everything (no fog-of-war). Observers have the umpire’s omniscience but none of the editing abilities.

– Time progression is either real-time or accelerated.

– The scenario state can be rewound/reverted to any previous point in time, and resume from there.

– Players can arbitrarily leave and rejoin an ongoing session at any point.

The RTMP feature was until now available only to select early-bird customers in a dedicated development branch based on CPE 2.0, and was demonstrated at the recent CUE. Now, it uses the baseline development path and is available as a license option.
(Contact Matrix Pro Sims for pricing information on a RTMP license)

CPE v2.4 also benefits from the massive “get well” development work over the last year, like its commercial counterpart CMO v1.07. Other significant features of the new release include:

Significant improvements in stability and performance, in addition to a large and diverse array of gameplay and simulation fixes.
Further progress on the ATO compliance process. As part of this, various security vulnerabilities have been identified and removed or mitigated. CPE is now included on the USAF Evaluated Products List (EPL), which clears it for deployment on USAF protected systems and networks.
Significant improvements to UI for heterogenous/mixed groups, greatly facilitating Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) operations.
A new non-lethal weapon type: Laser Dazzlers. Although subject to the same atmospheric-absorption effects, these are distinct from high-energy laser (HEL) weapons and have different effects.
A new HTML-rendering backend, using Microsoft’s new WebView2 rendering engine. You should notice improved HTML rendering on the DB-viewer and other UI elements that use HTML sources. This also allows richer custom UI elements at the beginning of a scenario (e.g. to define custom options for the scenario, difficulty settings etc.)
A new wrinkle on air-to-air refueling: Aircraft fuel on-load rate restriction (requires v508+ DBs). When large tankers such as KC-135s or KC-46s refuel tactical aircraft, the bottleneck on fuel transfer is usually not the tanker’s offload capacity, but the intake rate of the receiver aircraft. This is now properly modelled.
Indicators for aircraft contrails and ship/submarine wakes can now be displayed on the map, under unit datablocks. This makes it easier for the player to be more aware that his units may be visually detected at significantly longer ranges because of these factors. These indicators can be disabled on the “Map Settings” menu if they clutter the map unacceptably.
(Clarification: Contrails and wakes have been part of the simulation engine since Command’s original 2013 release. This change adds visual indicators for them.)
Various “quality of life” improvements across the UI and particularly on the mission editor and various strike-planner windows.
The latest releases of the DB3000 and CWDB databases, with the completion of a major year-long milestone: The China national review (see this overview for more details). The Command database is now arguably one of the most comprehensive open-source compilations of information on modern Chinese military platforms.

The CPE dev team is already busy assembling the first hotfix update for this momentous release, as well as preparing for a new set of features that will define the next milestone of CPE some time within 2025. Stay tuned!

Tags: no tags

Quantico three-timers: The 2024 CPE User Event

September 20, 2024 · Posted in Command PE · Comment

It was, like the previous two times there, a blast.

The Command-PE User Event (CUE) was hosted this year again at X-Corp’s facility at Stafford, Quantico VA as it has been in two previous years (2021 and 2022) and it is already being assessed as the most successful CUE yet. We had representatives from national militaries, corporations active in the defence sector, and academics travel from around the globe to attend CUE in Quantico, Virginia. It was a tremendous showing and we were thrilled at how many users arrived to attend tutorials and network.

Day-to-day coverage of this year’s event was provided through Matrix Pro Sims’ LinkedIn account:

To hit on a a few key points…

– New users got hands-on tutorials directly from our development team.

– Veteran users got advanced tutorials from our dev team on a separate track. CUE is for everyone, novice and expert users alike.

– Future features and a roadmap were laid out to our clients with Real Time Multiplayer, ATO compliance, and massive expansions of the unit database on the way. Further out in the future, a massive expansion to ground operations and a wholly-revised comms model were both greeted with intense excitement and anticipation.

– Guest speakers shared some of the ways they use Command. Onboarding and training new recruits, using A.I. to play thousands of scenarios to generate data, and planning strike packages with novel approaches are just a few of the ways we have heard how our clients use Command.

– Networking between our users. At multiple points during the conference there were collaborations between users, sharing their expertise on how to get the most out of Command.

– Presentations by the Command dev team, including Project Lead Dimitris Dranidis and Matrix Pro Sims CEO Iain McNeil.

We would especially like to thank our guest speakers – Lieutenant Colonel Scotty Black, Flt Lt. Leo Banks, Lt. Kaleb Neil, Lt. Maximilian Koch, Luis E. Velazquez, Tim Barrick, Ryan McKendrick, Ritam Guha, Kalyanmoy Deb, Bradley Feest, and Thomas Antonacci. Their presentations on topics ranging from A.I. integration to Command’s use as a training tool for recruits highlighted the diverse capabilities Command Professional Edition has for defence organizations.

Finally, we would like to thank the Marine Corps University for hosting CUE at an evening gala dinner at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The hospitality of the Museum with both the dinner and tour of it’s facilities was a great addition to the conference.

We are looking forward to CUE 2025 next year, and hope to see many old and new faces.

– The Command Development Team

Tags: no tags

11th Command User Event in Quantico – Tickets now available

July 6, 2024 · Posted in Command PE · Comment

The 11th Command User Event (CUE), the gathering of the Command-PE user community, will be held on September 9-13 2024 at the X-Corp facility at Quantico, VA, right next to the USMC installation. Past CUE attendees may be familiar with the facility, as it also hosted the 8th and 9th CUEs in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

Don’t miss your chance to interact face-to-face with the CPE development team as well as the worldwide community of its professional userbase from 23 nations and over 150 organizations – from government and military operators and analysts to industry and private sector vendors and contractors. Share your war stories and learn from the successes and mistakes of others. Reserve your attendance ticket on Eventbrite today!

Tags: no tags

Polishing the diamond: Command-PE v2.3.2 released

May 10, 2024 · Posted in Command PE · Comment

Not much time has passed since the release of the last CPE update, but the dev team has been busy as always. This time around the emphasis has not been on new ground-breaking features like those that dominated the launch of v2.3 or the v2.3.1 update, but rather on incremental improvements: tweaking the new features and fixing reported issues as suitable.

Among the standout additions & changes for this release are:

New UI elements for the cargo-ops and cargo-container windows
A new Lua method for creating a new blank scenario (very handy for constructing a scenario for scratch completely hands-off)
Improved DIS support for the new ground-unit annex
Proportional navigation for weapon terminal guidance has been temporarily disabled as a number of logic flaws were discovered in it
Significantly improved AI logics when using dual-mode SEAD weapons (e.g. AARGM) against radar emitters
Improvements in trajectory modeling for HGVs with terminal guidance (e.g. DF-27 anti-ship variant)
Lots of improvements in ballistic missile, MaRV, HGV and ABM logics
Plus numerous improvements and fixes related to “double-flame” (ie. 5-sec timeslice) execution mode, as well as the v505 release of the DB3000 and CWDB databases.

The v2.3.2 update is now available for download by all existing CPE customers through the Matrix Pro Sims portal. The dev team is already hard at work assembling the next major release, which will see the integration of RTMP into the mainline release as well as numerous other features.

Tags: no tags

Nitro boost and DB magics: Command-PE v2.3.1 released

February 9, 2024 · Posted in Command PE · Comment

Missed us? It hasn’t been long since the release of the big v2.3 update for Command-PE, and the dev team has continued to fire on all cylinders. Following the release of the Showcase: Icebreakers DLC and its accordant CMO update, it’s time to take the wraps off what we’ve been working on since last December: The v2.3.1 update for Command-PE is now available.

While the release notes for this update are their usual mile-long ones, two key items easily stand out: RAMDB and the performance improvements.

RAMDB is, in a word, massive. In more words? RAMDB is an exceptionally powerful tool aimed at automating Command database edition, verification and version control. It is also a built-in database browser and comparator, and allows the generation of automated reports. To those among our pro customer base who have been asking for this for years: Your prayers have been heard and answered.
As an aside, the entire DBTools suite (which now also includes RAMDB) is now no longer a separate app bundled with the the DB-Editor, but instead has been merged right into the main CPE application. This may not sound like a huge change (and from a user’s perspective it’s not), but it finally opens the door to directly linking the functionality offered by DBTools (post-change validation, for example, or the calculation of highly-dynamic values) right to the actual simulation engine. As you may imagine, this creates a whole new world of possibilities hitherto impossible.
Speed improvements: One of the most common feedback requests we’ve received since the release of v2.3 has been for even more performance and scalability, to better exploit the potential unlocked with the transition to a 64-bit architecture. We are happy to say this process is well underway, and the first fruits are evident: v2.3.1 clearly demonstrates an across-the-board performance leap over v2.3, enabling even greater-scale analysis and wargaming cases.

As usual, the new update also benefits from all the fixes, tweaks and performance improvements of the recent CMO release, as well as the new content additions including the fantastic new versions of the DB3000 and CWDB databases.

The v2.3.1 update for CPE is now available to all existing users through their personalized pro portal access, while the development is team is already busy assembling the next major release. Stay tuned!

Tags: no tags