RyderSpearmann

The chain idea is interesting... how do you select a specific unit for assist? All I can ever do is have ALL of them go into assist mode. The problem with any mode is that when under attack, the AI just drive randomly... if attacked on a road with drop offs into lava... they'll just drive into the lava and die.

SUICIDAL WALRUSES!!!!!! This is easily the most frustrating game killer in CC. You bring a kick butt team of Walruses... and go onto a volcano island or something, where the roads drop off to lava flows... which means you need to NOT simply drive off the damned road. LOOK. The Walrus AI sucks.....OK. The things get confused on which way to Go. I can understand that. Any real world AI vehicle would face that. BUT IT IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT ISSUE TO DRIVE OVER AN EDGE. BOHEMIA - IF YOU CAN'T IMPROVE THE AI GENERALLY, FINE. BUT, SELF PRESERVATION WITH RESPECT TO TERRAIN GRADE MUST NEVER, EVER BE VIOLATED BY AI. PERIOD. IF IT'S TOO STEEP TO DRIVE OUT OF, THEN DON'T GO OVER. I LOST AN ENTIRE CONVOY TO SUICIDE. IF YOU WORK ON ANYTHING.... WORK ON WALRUS AI, ESPECIALLY TO END SUICIDE. THIS PISSES ME OFF MORE THAN I CAN SAY.

I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING OVER THE NOISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE FIX THIS. I tried reducing the music and EFX sounds... and that should leave the voices standing out, right? WRONG. OMG. What a crazy oversight. Voices are considered EFX. Very lame, dudes. Very Lame.

OK, My $.02 on Manta and Walrus controls Control Options: There is no single setting for controls that work worth a damn. For all vehicle controls (including carrier), there is a need to be able to separate out inversion and control sensitivity for each.... I want the flight controls inverted (which is "normal" to all true gamers :) and then NOT inverted when controlling the Walrus turret (with the mouse). For an Xbox controller, I would want BOTH inverted. Don't ask me why, because I don't know :) But truly, separate the control options for each vehicle. The sensitivity between the two vehicles must be separated. Must. Don't try to "one size fits all" this issue. Landing: Manta's extend their landing gear when you get close to the ground. They should land and shut down when you touch the ground, and then "go dark"... hiding electronically and thermally to enemy... that outside of a certain visual range, the enemy would not know they were there. That would be a great new twist. Ambush time :) RS

Controls... OK, I generally LIKE the idea of thrusters for carrier maneuvering... and I think I picked it up pretty fast... though there is something odd about the behavior that I can't quite grasp yet... I like the graphic that shows what the thrusters are doing. Personally, I like the fact that it's a futuristic rudderless machine, and I think I can do fine with it, although like I say, there is something still odd with the control model. I'll try to figure out what it is. One of the things was that I was seeing control interferes with by the carrier scraping bottom... I think that if there was a much louder sound/rumble when touching bottom, it would help to alert the user that there is more going on than simple control. But generally, I like where they are going with this. RS

Well, I just got my P&C Beta, and I really think that Bohemia Interactive have nailed this... It's excellent. Any reservations I had about it are gone... I think that the long range comms system is missing... which is too bad... and I do think that Manta's should be able to land and refuel on islands, but these are minor points. Honestly, a super job. I'm thrilled with it. And I'm thrilled with the changes made to it since 2010, as evidenced by the videos I saw of it back then. I really hope the best for BI on this one.

Hi All, [EDIT: I made the comments below BEFORE my P&C Beta came... and so, I was *WRONG* to worry about it. They kept the 4 & 4 vehicle layout... and the battle has that smaller, intimate feel that I was looking for, as well as all of the critical elements. Two thumbs up!] OK, I've cranked up the old 1988 version of CC to get reacquainted with it, and I have some perhaps radical ideas as to why it worked as well as it did. As it turns out, the limits of technology back them, caused them to swerve into success in this way: ***SMALLNESS*** Because of the amazing growth of power in PC's, RTS games have become unit heavy behemoths! Players are given a wide array of tools that are designed to command LARGE GROUPS of units, and let AI do much of the rest. The scale of the conflict in a modern RTS is grand, and there is a place for this... but what made CC DIFFERENT is that it presented an amazingly smaller and believable scenario. In other words, RTS mano a mano. It was a gunfight in the middle of town, except your holster had a few extra toys in it. Walrus 1 and Manta 3 were not just arbitrary units... out of thousands to be deployed and lost... with only 4 of each, you could literally think of them as individual characters... and try to coordinate them... like NASA controlling a pair of robots on MARS. Those robots had NAMES! Carrier Command was a game of limited hardware locked in a precision small scale battle. With newer CPU's, programmers have decided that more is better... and now we see spectacles we can barely comprehend... and we are stuck letting the numbers tell the story. The story scenario of the Original Carrier Command (OCC), was of a rogue carrier designer defecting, and taking control of an automated carrier... one of two. The other carrier is given to you, and with your limited resources, you must prevail. OCC presented an INTIMACY of conflict and of the hardware that was more like controlling the rovers on Mars, than it was like directing the invasion of Normandy. This expansion of conflict seems to be one of the problems with Hostile Waters... too much going on. Impressive as a technical achievement, and enjoyable in it's own right, but still, OCC was a DIFFERENT game, and placed the player in a different frame of mind due to it's smallness. Already, the expansion of Carrier Command: Gaea (CCGM) with EIGHT of each type of craft (and naturally more enemy) starts to strain the abilities of the human mind to associate itself closely with the many new actors. The fact that one can get into any of a thousand vehicles in a massive battle, while a nice feature, doesn't suddenly make the total experience intimate... if you are storming Normandy in one of 5000 landing craft, it doesn't much matter if you are in #173 or #2188. It's the same damned thing in a different seat. As I watch CCGM, I am instantly annoyed at what seems like endless reports of "Manta program 1 completed. Manta 7 program completed. Manta 2 Program completed. Manta 3 Program Completed. Manta 6 program completed." An endless barrage of important information.... on too large a scale. I personally think that if CCGM went to three Manta and three Walrus.. they might have a better game!!! This is like the astronaut and his three robots in Silent Running... or the difference between the film Alien, and Aliens. Very different, yet very similar... but different enough that they literally became different KINDS of movies. If CCGM enlarges itself too much, it will become "just another RTS". I would sure like to see a "TINY MISSION" option... where resources are much more limited, and the player can focus on more of the detail of the smaller things, instead of engaging in a war of numbers and attrition that require statistics to comprehend. This, I think, was the critical key to what made OCC a success... forced on them by computers with only 256K of ram. :) RS

OK, some of my fears were raised too soon... I've seen some gameplay video, and indeed, you CAN drive your carrier... it's just that "island to island" is somehow a through a wormhole or something... this works for me. The DOS version of the original CC had a timewarp feature that was sadly missing from the Amiga and And atari versions, so I think this sounds very similar. Anyway, I coughed up the cash for the Beta.... looks amazing.

I was thrilled and amazed to see that CC is coming back... I *loved* the game on the Amiga, and wish only the most success. Trying VERY hard not to piss on anyone's parade... I read the list of differences here, and honestly, I have some truly serious concerns that I can only hope that I can offer, as an original, day 1 player of Carrier Command, can offer. Now, granted, my memory is foggy on details... it's been a VERY long time, but may I kindly suggest, that as I read through the list of differences, a common and distressing theme starts to gel. CC was about *control*. More than anything... it was about deciding and doing, minus the mundane chores. A single person control of a vast automated toolbox with a mission in mind. Mantas can now do more than before. Well. OK. But this now MORE capable craft can now no longer do what the driver want's it to do... namely land where he want's it to. He can't even park it on his own carrier deck? WHO'S IN CONTROL HERE? Certainly not the player. No real free movement of the Carrier?????? Again... the fantasy here is that *I* am in control. Me. If I want to sail round the islands pointlessly... then so be it. *If I can not, then it is not a world, and I am not a part of this world. I am a player limited to arbitrary rules. It is now a game of chess.* I can't automatically produce several items at a time? I am not totally sure what this means... but I am tempted to say, why not? It's my world. Now, if it relates to the realism and practicality of factories only being able to produce one thing at a time... but can carry on until many things are automatically produced, then all good and well. Rockets *can't* be guided???? Again, who is in control here? What if I *want* to? Again, am I not in charge? The pure JOY of CC was that things happened because I said they should. In this short list, I see this notion present that "Sorry captain... you're not allowed..." rearing it's head. CC was essentially the first 3D sandbox game as far as I know... wayyyy back in the 80's. That made it special. A world is a sandbox... and the idea of the sandbox has been taken to amazing heights. The popularity and playability (and YouTube potential) for games comes, these days, almost exclusively due to their sandbox nature... where you can do anything... stupid, crazy, unintended things, that very often turn into amazing moments. "Can't" is not a word that should appear much in such a game as CC, in my view. Run your carrier aground!!! Shoot it and blow it up! Fly the Mantas into each other! Wire guide a rocket through a tight spot, just because you can. Unleash the game. You'll do better. Wishing the crew at Bohemian and those chaps working hard at the studios all success. I'm very tempted to find my A1000, see if I can start it up, and play the old CC again! Try to find and understand the magic of the old game as best you can... that's the best advice I can give. It *does* look good... but I truly hope for greatness. All the best. RS