HA... hardcore dream

[Citabria]

Picture if you will...

1. An arena with no Icons,
2. No killshooter,
3. limited supply of planes,
4. No inflight radar,
5. Short range tower radar
6. No sector activity bars
7. Realistic Historically accurate terrain created by the players that rotates to the next players terrain every time the game is won by one side.
8. Buildings and AAA that do not rebuild on their own.
9. A game that is won by completing an organized operation in which formation flying and teamwork is absoluetly essential.
10. planes that are historically matched by country affiliation and times period.
11. a game that can be won by a smaller amount of players operating as a flight or squadron.
12. historically accurate weapons effects:
bombs with very large blast radius against vehicles and tanks and structures and acks.
deadly rockets with larger blast radius.
all guns accurately deadly.
13. an arena with realistic AI ack guns, flak, etc.
14. a quasi-scenario-HA that rotates after meeting a defined objective that changes in each terrain setup

this continues to be my dream


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"There are no born fighter pilots. Some are a little better than others, thats about it. But I would say time, training, training, training and more training are the key... to any success."  -Francis Gabreski

Citabria
=357th Pony Express=

[This message has been edited by Citabria (edited 05-15-2000).]

[Saintaw]

Hey ! where did ya buy those sleepin pills ?   Gotta get me some !

[Ghosth]

Hmmmmm sounds like a pretty good dream Cit!

Count me in if it ever arrives.

[Citabria]

It aint for everyone saintaw.
I think many will not even have the skill or ability to even be succesful in a no ICON environment.

No mindless quakebirder will have the patience to wait in the tower to get an operation organized.

And even fewer of these said mindless furballers will have the ability to fly in formation, which is vital to fighting in a no icon organized operation.

the terrain does not have to be small by any means but the objective should be limited.

that is the beauty of it!

all it takes is a tiny bit of organization and fewer players.


I and many others would prefer to alternate between the mindless MA, and a mission based HA.

[This message has been edited by Citabria (edited 05-15-2000).]

[Pongo]

11. a game that can be won by a smaller amount of players operating as a flight or squadron.

The war in the air in WW2 was a straight war of attrition.....where is the realism in point 11.
Nice thoughts though

[funked]

Sorry, No Icons = No Interest.

Real fighter pilots can judge range and enemy type from 2000 to 3000 yards.  With no icons we have ZERO chance of doing that with the current monitors and displays.

Otherwise, sounds good.  

[Citabria]

why play chess when we can play checkers right?

we have the worlds best, most realistic flight modelling ever created for a ww2 sim.
Yet we fly these aircraft in a fantasy land where all sense of reality is missing.

I compare ICONS vs no icons to having otto for buff gunner vs having buff guns slaved to one human player. with ICONS, the computer points out the location of the enemy for you, computes range, and identifies type miles and miles away. without Icons the player must do this by themselves.

read #3 pongo
3.limited supply of planes

obviously the terrain will rotate and a new planeset and operation will be presentedif all of one sides aircraft were destroyed.

It was not my intent to simulate ALL OF WW2, merely individual offensive and defensive operations. thus variety is always present and the arena does not get stale from having the same thing for to long of a period.


funked, we have been playing with no ICONs in the TA for a long time and it is a lot more fun without the damn icons for those few of us that enjoy that type of thing.

however it has to be organized and on a smaller scale. (trust me it will be) many in AH never even notice they are shooting a plane, they fly against billboards and nothing more.

without icons camoflage is effective, altitude is less effective, teamwork is essential, formation flying and staying with your wingman is an absolutely esential skill. SA is 100 million times more important.


basically all the things not needed in the MA would be necessary in this arena.

Your generalization on pilot ability to determine type at 3000 yards does not explain all the accounts of friendly fire in ww2.

there are those in AH that play at resolutions of 1600x1200, this is more than addequate to simulate real life id ranges.

we have the MA and billboards for people that run it at 640x480

but we have nothing for the hard core history fanatic who wants every real difficulty faced by the actual pilots to be present. those that hate the crutch that ICONS are. The reason almost all planes in ww2 were shot down is because the pilot did not know they were there. the Icon above the plane would have alerted the pilot in ww2 to its presence but it was just not there for him.

but that was just a dream.

[This message has been edited by Citabria (edited 05-15-2000).]

[funked]

I forgot aspect along with range and type.  The current graphics hardware and software does not give us sufficient ability to make these determinations without some help, whether it's an icon or in some other form.  

I've read several fighter pilots state the ranges at which they could ID type, range, and aspect, and they were all possible at ranges where our graphics system just draws a little speck on the screen.  

Trying to have air to air combat without this information is like trying to play baseball in dense fog.  You may enjoy the result but it will have little to do with WW2 fighter combat.

"SA is 100 million times more important."

SA is the ability to process and react to information.  Taking away icons means there is less information to process, and correspondingly, SA becomes easier to maintain.

"The reason almost all planes in ww2 were shot down is because the pilot did not know they were there."

I don't think so.

"without icons camoflage is effective, altitude is less effective, teamwork is essential, formation flying and staying with your wingman is an absolutely esential skill. "

I agree with that part.

"we have the MA and billboards for people that run it at 640x480

but we have nothing for the hard core history fanatic..."

Ahhh, so people who can only run at 640x480 are not "hard core"?  

I'd like to see something like a "Historical Arena", but with some sort of icon or visual aid.  How about a range icon at 3.0k, a type icon at 2.0k, and nothing inside 1.0k or outside 3.0k.  This will increase your chances of getting a bounce, but still give pilots a realistic range/aspect/type information in those regions where real pilot visual capabilities exceed the capabilities of our hardware and software.  Inside 1.0k I think the graphics are sufficient, and removing the range information should keep gunnery under control.

[This message has been edited by funked (edited 05-15-2000).]

[Udie]

 I just had an idea.  It may have been put forth already, as I haven't read this entire thread.  How bout we only have icons out far like d3.0 d5.0   and only in zoom mode.  This way you have to already have seen the dot and zoomed in on it to id the target.  This way it's still possible to bounce and be able to get good flight path data on the bogey.

udie

[Cobra]

Funked,
I agree with both Cit and you, if its possible.  Both positions have merit, no question.  It then comes down to a matter of what one considers enough immersion with or without icons to suit them.

But from my recent experience using no tags in the TA, I've found that you can see the dot at further out than 3.0k, and why would you need to know type at 2k?  At 2k, unless its a nice shiney pony, I don't think WWII pilots could positively identify the type, and then having it go no icon inside 1k is almost useless as you have already been given its type, range and rate of closure by the time you are inside of 1k.

I agree with you that there are limitations to the hardware/software today, but I don't think that they are as limiting as you might think.

It is difficult to determine the range, aspect, type and closure rate...that is true, but we seem to be getting along fine with it when we try these no tag nights.

Cobra

[Torque]

And a puter to fly it on!

[Saintaw]

 

Originally posted by Citabria:

It aint for everyone saintaw.

I'm wih ya Cit  

A- Just wanted to add a little smile in this BB that is turning a little sour
B- Call me in next time you guys organise an Iconless event, I'm in (Even if only a nice target)
C-Don't forget to smile when you post, there are far too many reasons not to , in RL...

[lasse]

Point:4. No inflight radar
and 6. No sector activity bars
This is actually a `must` in MA today too.

Perhaps: 5. Short range tower radar too  

     


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The Wild Vikings
Commanding Officer
lasse-

[This message has been edited by lasse (edited 05-16-2000).]

[StSanta]

Less information to deal with - easier SA management? Aye, easier for sure, but isn't this akin to playing the piano with only one hand, or typing with only one finer? Sure to be easier, but not quite as efficient.

If we can find a way to simulate the human eyes to detect movement, I am all for iconless environments.

The challenges of no icons whatsoever are quite great. Even with icons, if I am on the six of a well camouflaged aircraft and we're at the decks, I can hardly see him. Some form of visual aid is necessary, IMHO, but the neon sign labels we got now aren't it.



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StSanta
II/JG2

[Heater]

I agree with Cit! I think it would be fun to try it once just to see how it would work. The only thing I would add would be to limit the type of aircraft that could be flown by each side.

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!!! Heater !!!
 
Shit Happens All The Time

"If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done."

[This message has been edited by Heater (edited 05-16-2000).]