Thoughts on TOD

[Sable]

So now that AHII: Classic is out lets put this forum to proper use.  What sort of gameplay are you hoping to see with TOD?  What do you think the biggest problems are going to be?

My hope is that with TOD we will have a campaign (like Battle of Britain, or Guadalcanal etc.) running for a month or so (at which time it cycles to the next campaign).  Players would ideally have some sort of score that they built up by completing missions (and killing targets and airplanes etc.), and diminshed if the player died or was captured.

I think the biggest challenge will be to come up with some sort of mission generator that can create fairly random, but realistic missions on the fly.  Something that would say "Ok, we need to start a battle, lets send a formation of Bombers to go hit target X, and we'll assign a formation of fighters to escort them, and then we will create an enemy intercept mission to confront them".  The idea would be to have some sort of balancing scheme built into this so that if one team had a huge numerical advantage it didn't just turn into a big furball with the smaller team getting clubbed for a month.  The larger team would simply get split up into a lot of smaller missions, and only a few missions would get opposition from the smaller team - but it would be meaningful opposition.

I think the other big challenge with this is going to be to create a fun environment for bomber flying.  If TOD is going to be a historical style arena bombers are going to be central.  If there are no bombers (or recon aircraft if we want to do that) there's no reason for the fighters to be flying.  It seems like we would need to keep the 3 plane formations for each player (or maybe even make them larger).  Another problem is flight time?  Who is going to want to fly a bomber for 4-6 hours to bomb one target?  Obviously the maps will be a reduced scale, but would airstarts for the attacking formations be a good idea?  I think putting more wind and weather effects might also help make bomber flying more interesting and enjoyable.

So what are you guys' thoughts?  I realise TOD may end up being nothing like this, but I'm really excited to see how it turns out.

[United]

I agree with you in many cases there.  What you say would be great for ToD.  Especially about your thoughts with bombers/recon flights.  I think it would be great fun to send out recon flights with different planes (maybe a PBY in the future? ) to spot enemy locations.  Then, send a bomber/fighter group or a mix of both to get superiority of that area.
 
I also agree with you on the weather effects.  Instead of random areas having clouds around, maybe more wind and rain could be added to make bombing/fighting more difficult and more interesting.

I'm also very excited to see how ToD plays out.

[BigMan]

Sable,

That's what we all want.  Your right.  I could Imagine running a multi-day Guadicanal scenario with the AHII engine.  I would quit my job, apply for mental disibilty, and play every waking moment.


Making a Boxed sim type of Mission arena without the benifit of TIME COMPRESSION will be tough.  Nothing will kill AHII-TOD faster than flying around in formation for an hour with no action.  That's what I hate about the Il2 co-op missions the most.  If HiTech can solve this problem then he can kill the Il2 threat.

[rogerdee]

perhaps it  would  be good if  only your bases  were  shown  and  the enimies had  to  be  found  by  recon?.ok  citys  would  be  shown  and  factories  but everything  else hiddern till some  one  finds  it.  no  dar  bars  in  sectors  where there  are  no radar     but  perhaps  mobile  field  radar   .  as  with  ground  eliments  recon  would  be needed  and  then  have  towed  artilery? with  a spotter  in  the  hils  in  a jeep? to flattern  a town  or  hit  a  base.
  things will be  hard and development will take  time   but it will be worth  it