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84 people found this review helpful
10 people found this review funny
Not Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 65.2 hrs on record (57.2 hrs at review time)
Posted: Mar 10, 2015 @ 3:53am
Updated: Mar 5, 2016 @ 7:07pm

EDIT: If you see this on sale, and you liked the idea enough to check out reviews, buy the thing.

Apparently, they picked the Blue Pill.

Has a pretty good database of military ships, aircraft and weapons. Its cheaper than a subscription to Janes. There are a lot of decent scenarios written for this game.

That all said, this is still a game, when it could be a simulator (which is how it is advertised). It cant seem to pick between game and simulator - UI that makes life harder than it has to be, which is an absolute nono for a game, then a very realistic list of units to pick from - that do not follow realistic performance or tactics, especially the aircraft.

In fairness to the games developers, the game does handle ship to ship combat in the modern age, very well. Its aircraft still need a fair bit of love.

This is a game that for the longest time, I held hope that there was some chance that issues would be attended to - and if they were, the game still has that potential to be a fantastic military command simulation - but there is seemingly no interest in realism for the sake of reality.

For $30, this would be a fantastic game. At over 3 times that however, its simply not worth the money.

EDIT - Having spent some time on the latest build of 1.07, Ive decided to revise my fair price upwards to $45. A number of very much needed improvements have been added since my last serious amount of in depth play, granting the player significantly more control over their units.

All other things being equal, one thing you cannot fault the developers on is their update cycle. Comparing 1.01 and 1.07 goes to show what an update cycle SHOULD look like. Many other small developers could take note.

EDIT - With 1.10, Id pay $50 for this title. Controls are better, aircraft are smarter, a host of much needed improvements. Kudos again to the devs - literally the only thing at this point making this review a not recommended is the price tag. The title still doesnt scratch the realism itch hard enough for me, but it is still an enjoyable game.
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39 Comments
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Blu3wolf Mar 5, 2016 @ 7:19pm 
I liked the latest update. Havent given it the stress test yet though - putting a pair of 4 ships in the air on each side, and trying to get them to replicate enemy CAPs.

Such a test is useful, lets you see missile avoidance and group tactics the AI tries to use. Takes up a little of my time setting it up though.
strykerpsg Mar 17, 2015 @ 5:32am 
Blu3wolf, agree and wish for all as well. I think after this lengthy conversation and your notes about your test flight while we chatted earlier only confirm your commitment to excellence. I feel confident this team will not let you down. Now, as to who marketed the RELENTLESS REALISM should probably make that the desired end state, not necessarily all that's contained within. However, it's an evolving product. Cheers
Blu3wolf Mar 17, 2015 @ 4:56am 
It was a fairly new release a year ago. By all means, it will take some time - but arguments about it being a new release are not going to hold much water.

I fully appreciate your point about most purchasers not caring about 100% accuracy - but I trust you also appreciate my position, which is having purchased the game as advertised - RELENTLESS REALISM.

Im not most purchasers, and I do care about things like speed differences in the region of 5 miles a minute. With that said, top speed is only one part of it - and not that relevant a part of it for many engagements. Its a lot more often that other parts of performance are important, things like speed with a combat loading, or things like unloaded acceleration.
strykerpsg Mar 17, 2015 @ 4:03am 
Vinnie, your points about having one's aircraft take advantage of it's maximum speeds to either ingress as quickly as possible or egress under pursuit is indeed a basic military tactic. I concur it's a necessity and I suspect the development team will indeed accurize it's aircraft database further at some point as it's done for it's naval database. Might I suggest just giving them some additional time, afterall it is still a fairly new release and by and large most of the purchasers have little care about the averaged airspeeds and truly enjoy what they have purchased. However, there are the grognards that want 100% accuracy from the onset and it is that category you fall into.

Afterall, the latest iteration has indeed impressed Blu3wolf and that was not an easy task.
strykerpsg Mar 17, 2015 @ 4:01am 
Blu3wolf, I wholeheartedly agree there are many more dimensions to factor when discussing maximum airspeeds, altitude, temperature, air density, etc. It is tough to make a one size fits all sort of argument when touting accuracy as your rockbed foundation and therein I agree with you and Vinnie about CMANO having taken some liberties with generalizing the airspeeds. I am not in the immediate know, but based on previous conversations with the developers, it was done to provide an average of low, medium, high and afterburner speeds (when appropriate) based on the average airspeeds indicative of those found with combat loads.

Blu3wolf Mar 16, 2015 @ 9:38pm 
Stryker, and Reckall - I might also make a brief comment regarding your deliberations on the top speed of an F-104.

It was determined that the top speed of an F-104 at 40,000 ft and with a specific engine state and configuration is approximated M2.0 - which was stated as being 1333 knots. This is factually incorrect.

At 40,000 ft with an OAT of -57 degrees C, Mach 2.0 corresponds to a True Airspeed of 1146 knots - which in the absence of winds aloft, is equivalent to a Ground Speed of 1146 knots.

Similarly, for another given combination of engine state and configuration, its top speed of M2.2 actually corresponds to 1261 knots Ground Speed (in the absence of winds aloft).
Reckall Mar 16, 2015 @ 9:23pm 
Sorry, Blu3wolf: you are right. I apologize.
Blu3wolf Mar 16, 2015 @ 9:18pm 
@the devs if you are still reading this: kudos on where you have gotten. Im impressed with how much improved BVR is on the current build. Its (in my opinion) far from perfect, but its also far from where it used to be. Im particularly impressed with aircraft now starting to crank and decelerate - though I would still impress upon you the need to include altitude with performance considerations. I noted aircraft slowing far more than they should whilst defending incoming missiles, and then not using their altitude for any kind of acceleration.

I do also note aircraft accelerating unrealistically quickly still. No F-16 alive can go from 270 knots (GS) to 850 knots (still GS) in the space of 30 seconds at level altitude (or even I think in a dive), but I still see that in BVR defence.

On the whole, I was very impressed with improvements in my time playing CMANO today. You still have a ways to go before you have a 100% to real combat simulator - but you are also well on your way.
Blu3wolf Mar 16, 2015 @ 7:54pm 
I see you missed the part where a large number of the developers posts were deleted as well, Reckall. And yours. And Strykers.

To clarify - factual criticism is welcome. If its accompanied by personal attacks, then the baby is thrown out with the dishwater. As its not my baby, Im not too worried. How can you fix this? Stop putting your baby in with dishwater.

It is simply amazing how folks in this day and age still think that sassing someone who can delete their commentary is going to make them change their mind about the validity of those deletions.
Reckall Mar 16, 2015 @ 7:42pm 
Basically with a single "improvement" WarfareSims made the airplane speed problem even more serious all across the spectrum. "Development teams active listening skills and adapting their engine to meet those criticisms" indeed. Life is beautiful.

BTW, airplane speeds are only one of the limitations of the game; we also have problems (repeated "out of memory" errors even on the most capable computers; time compression crashes, radar guided missiles fired by the AI then losing their target because the firing airplane immediately turns around, buggy "formation keeping" routines...) Let's not be distracted by a single "dead horse", or we risk forgetting about the others.