500!

July 14, 2023 · Posted in Command, Command PE

Command Professional Edition v2.2.4 is now available, and with it, Pro access to a major milestone: v500 of Command’s massive simulation database. We’re very excited to reach DB v500, as it gives us an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved over the past decade.

The Command DB has had a number of stewards over the years, each of whom left a distinct mark on it. The steadily ripening fruit of their collective labor can be seen just by looking through today’s databases. Though we often collectively refer to “the DB”, Command actually has two separate databases: the “Cold War DB,” or “CWDB,” which covers the years 1945 to 1980; and “DB3000”, for everything after. Combined, the DBs include platforms of today, tomorrow, and yesterday, as well as also modeling some hypothetical platforms ranging from likely to ludicrous.

	DB3000	CWDB
Aircraft	6,645	4,630
Ships	4,351	2,983
Subs	744	573
Facilities	3,827	3,442
Ground Units (New)	432	N/A
Satellites*	162	26

* Each “satellite” entry actually represents an entire constellation, so each will contain specific TLE data for several or even dozens of satellites.

The Ground Units annex was added comparatively recently and represents only a year or so of additions as opposed to the decade spent on the others, hence its lower numbers. However, these additions were specifically chosen to include nearly all mainline American, Soviet/Russian, and Chinese combat vehicles.

On their own, the numbers are impressive, but they become even more so when considering the work that goes into each entry. Each entry contains dozens or even hundreds of individually researched fields. The Command DB is entirely open source, and therefore reliant on original research from the DB team and community contributors. We have no automated web-scraper or third-party source from which to consistently pull information, nor do we settle for single-source data. Everything must be corroborated. Sometimes, team members have even analyzed overhead imagery to confirm dimensions or armaments. Finally, all research is vetted to ensure that leaked classified sources are not used in the DB. Every one of our thousands of entries represents hours of painstaking research work from the DB team – and, increasingly, from our dedicated community members, who spend countless free hours creating Github tickets, bug reports, etc.

The result is no less than one of the world’s foremost open-source global military equipment databases. At professional events, we often challenge visitors to our booth to come up with something not in the DB; few have yet managed it. Regular bi-monthly updates keep the database relevant in a world where new platforms emerge seemingly weekly, as well as ensuring a constant stream of fixes and improvements – and you get all this support free with your license!

For all these flowery words, at the end of the day, the DB v500 release is just that: the latest in a string of releases. There are countless platforms yet to add, there are features still to implement, and there will be bugs to fix. By the time this post is released, DB v501 will have already been released to commercial users for public testing, and the DB team will be hard at work on DB v502. The gears turn; the cycle continues.

But as we mark this moment, we’d like to wholeheartedly thank everyone who has helped Command and its database so far: from every member of the dev team, past and present, whose work is entwined in those thousands of entries; to the eagle-eyed contributors on our forums and Github repos; to every player who opened Command for the first time and asked “gee, what don’t they have in here?” Reaching DB v500 is not merely a testament to the toils of today’s DB team and their proud predecessors, but rather a reflection of years of sustained support by the entire dev team and our valued community.

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