What can and what cant be done by the staff.

[TexMurphy]

Hey AvA staffers.

Im wondering what can and what cant be done with the arena to simulate war progerssion.

There has been a lot of talk and lot of sudgestions on how to create more war progression in the arena and how to make the gameplay "more then just furballs". Im qouting that as the furballs have been alot of fun and much much more fun then MA gameplay. But I do think that gameplay would benefit positivly from some sort of enchasement.

What Id like to know is what the restrictions are.... what can be done manually with a reasonably low effort... what cant be done at all...

For example.

Can strats and cities be made capturable?

There has been talk about simulating the invation of normandy. Doing that by taking air fields just feels wrong. Taking cities would feel much more "realistic".

Can hardness of buildings be changed and can downtime of buildings be adjusted?

If yes... can this be done individually on building type.

For example can strats downtime be much longer then FH, radar, ord, ect...

Im thinking about this because hitting factories disrupting fuel supplies was a important part of the war.

This could be simulated through manually linking factory strat status to plane introduction.

Reason Im asking is that it is much easier to come up with sudgestions if one knows the limitations you guys are working under.

Tex

[B@tfinkV]

they can set the cloud levels and they cant sort out your tax returns

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by TexMurphy
What Id like to know is what the restrictions are.... what can be done manually with a reasonably low effort... what cant be done at all...

Probably the easiest thing is for you to just fuss around with the settings off-line, or set up a H2H arena.  We have no powers beyond those available to you in those settings.

- oldman

[Grits]

Dont let him fool you Tex, Oldman is teh All Powaful!!!

[XAKL]

Oldman

I don't want to waste my time capturing airbases in this scenario.   We want more players taking to the sky.  However, is it possible, lets say to reduce fuel and ammo availability due to heavy boming of towns or oilfields??  History shows that bombing had absolutely no effect on plane reduction, instead production output actually grew.   However it did have effect on fuel, ammo, and parts.    This may heighten interest in bombing missions.  


known as the Sinker in A v A
XAKL

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by XAKL
I don't want to waste my time capturing airbases in this scenario.   We want more players taking to the sky.  However, is it possible, lets say to reduce fuel and ammo availability due to heavy boming of towns or oilfields??  History shows that bombing had absolutely no effect on plane reduction, instead production output actually grew.   However it did have effect on fuel, ammo, and parts.    This may heighten interest in bombing missions.  

...I...er....I THINK that this may be the strat system, which we always turn off in this arena....but I have to confess that I don't actually know, so I'll let others answer this for you.

- oldman

[ROC]

I was rather suprised when our raid the other night was a "devastating" hit on fuel and ordinance on the base, yet no damage occured.  

It wouldn't be unreasonable to allow strat damage and still avoid the whole base capture concept.  This could actually push the fight across the map, without walking across the map taking bases.  As your ordinance got weakened, you would have to consider launching at a base farther back, and fly to the fight to defend the forward base.  This would also force the attacking side to move deeper and split their attack, sending a force to intercept the rearward planes before they arrived.

It could open the map up to a larger, less focused fight right at the center of the map.

Just a thought, as there is nothing "wrong" with the way it's set up now.  It's totally playable as is.

[RTSigma]

Is there a way to limit fuel on certain airbases? This is more for later war when the Luftwaffe were hitting shortages, perhaps this can be represented?

[OOZ662]

Originally posted by RTSigma
Is there a way to limit fuel on certain airbases? This is more for later war when the Luftwaffe were hitting shortages, perhaps this can be represented?

When Aces High II hit the market, HT made it so that the lowest you can disable a field's fuel to is 75%. People were whining and crying too much about being porked to 25% all the time in the MA.

[Panzzer]

Originally posted by RTSigma
Is there a way to limit fuel on certain airbases? This is more for later war when the Luftwaffe were hitting shortages, perhaps this can be represented?

No, except than hitting the fuel on that particular airfield... (or, I'm new here, I don't think that's possible to limit that on field-by-field basis).

ROC, we'd like to keep it playable with minimum effort (since there are only ... uhh.. 5 of us??), and you know how the setups go in the SEA, what would be possible in a "continuos scenario"?

Oldman / XAKL: That's strat, we don't have that enabled in this arena... Or, that's what I think, if Oldman doesn't know, ask Fork.. So, no, it isn't possible to reduce ammo/fuel loads by bombing factories/cities/transportations.

And TexMurphy's questions from the first post:
- Can strats and cities be made capturable?
No

- Can hardness of buildings be changed and can downtime of buildings be adjusted?
Umm... Yes, the hardness and the downtime can be adjusted, but they affect all towns. (In another words: I'll let someone else answer this )

- If yes... can this be done individually on building type.
No.

- For example can strats downtime be much longer then FH, radar, ord, ect...
That is possible (for some of the items you mentioned), but we're using standard AvA downtimes for all of those.

[Knite]

Here's an odd idea... what if newer planes were only available at forward bases, not rearward bases? And not ALL forward bases either, just a scattered bunch (like every 3-4 bases across the shorelines). That would definitely give an impact to bombing the figher hangars at those specific bases, as well as give a realistic(ish) impact of bombing the airfields. It would also make protecting those specific airbases far more important if you knew losing 2 bases in sector x,x meant no more advanced aircraft for a little while.

[ROC]

Panzerr, I'd hate to dabble in it.  Like I posted, there are options that could change the way the map is played out, but that might be change for the sake of change, not really a need. The arena is so playable now it's just killing me to be in the MA and not in here lol

I'd hate to see you guys get dragged into continual setup modifications that a scenario would require, that's really not what I think you guys have here.  It's really an option of enabling strats, for the ability to damage fuel and ordinace, while radically cranking up the hardness and troops needed to capture a base and grossly discourage the capture concept.

But again, I have to refer back to my earlier statement of it's playable, and quite enjoyable, as it is.  I personally wouldn't change a thing.  If the concept of fine tuning the strat concept really is something the players want, it's doable, but really not something I see as beneficial in this particular style of play.  I was speaking more along the lines of technically able to do some of the things discussed.

This is too good of a thing, and far too early to start changing anything IMHO, I was simply thinking outloud of attracting more players and trying to get this massive terrain used beyond the centralized few bases currently being utilized.

[Shifty]

I think Strat has always been turned off in favor of quest for the perfect furball.  With the low numbers the arena has had in the past , the porking of bases may killed it all together.

Strat may be a feature to add in the next RPS. Personally theres no reason not to try these ideas at some point.