Page Comparison

The Actual Course

• Google Docs - Combat Mission Course Curriculum

• Dropbox - My Combat Mission Course

Todo / next steps

• Try to get a ‘complete’ course done ASAP to build momentum, even if each individual part isn’t anywhere close to your final vision.

• Work on the appendices as a way to build momentum (so, how to install the game, how to use the controls, etc.)

• Write out a very step-by-step process (algorithm) that a person can follow to implement one piece of advice in Paulding’s videos. (Ex: an OCOKA analysis)

• Create a small training scenario that tests a student’s understanding of how to use a particular unit. Imagine Mint as the student.

• Create a shell product on Gumroad or create a shell website and host it on your Digital Ocean droplet.

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• Nice to have: Provide an introduction to the game for completely new players (in other words, cover the stuff the manual does).

• Nice to have: provide training scenarios that drill individual skills.

• Nice to have: pay Jeff Paulding to develop plans for a few different scenarios and then use them as tests for the students: the student would try to develop their own plan and then see what Jeff did and ask themselves what they neglected to consider.

Course outline

1-minute guides

• 1-minute guide to how to play CM

  • So, like, if the person isn’t going to watch anything else, give them the absolute basics for controlling the camera, giving orders, and what the objective of the game is.

• 1-minute guide to tank combat

• 1-minute guides to the various weapon systems

Tutorial scenarios / basic training campaign

• Use John and Kannika as your guinea pigs.

• Follow Plants vs. Zombies' example of:

  • Short scenarios (each takes like 5 minutes in PvZ)

  • Introduce one new thing per scenario (new enemy or new weapon system).

  • Keep the stuff you’ve already learned in the new scenarios so you don’t forget how to use them.

• Something I like from the DCS UN pilot campaign is that every mission feels real / immersive. Whereas I had been devising tutorials that were extremely small and simple and took small steps between them.

• Come up with very short, one-sentence explanations of the jobs of each weapon system.

• How I think I should order the introduction of different weapons:

  • Sharpshooter - Use these to take out exposed enemy crew of stationary crew-served weapons (AFVs, ATGs, mortars).

  • Antitank rifleman

  • Antitank guns?

  • Infantry guns?

  • AA guns?

  • Direct-fire mortars?

  • Flamethrowers?

    1. I feel like the fact that they need to get so close to be used may make them trickier to use.

  • AT teams?

    1. I feel like the fact that they need to get so close to be used may make them trickier to use.

  • HMGs?

  • Infantry - The defining job of infantry IMO is that they can move up very close to force enemy infantry out of certain positions. Like, you can have all the guns in the world pounding away at a position, but if the enemy infantry can just take cover in their trenches, you’ll have a very difficult time getting them to retreat just by shooting at them. That’s what your infantry is for: once the enemy is suppressed, your infantry moves in close to finish them off.

  • LMGS? The thing about LMGs is that it seems they’re really meant to be used in combination with assaulting infantry, so it might risk confusing the player if I have a scenario where an LMG is on its own.

    1. I feel like the defining characteristic of the LMG is that it can provide as much firepower as a squad at medium range, and is much cheaper than a squad in terms of points (I think?), but the downside is that it doesn’t have anything close to the same firepower of a squad at close range. So it’s best used in support of attacking infantry, holding back while the infantry move in close.

TLDR version

High-level concepts

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