Author Topic: "Selection" criteria.... (Read 2245 times)

humble · « **Reply #15 on:** March 02, 2008, 09:50:44 AM »

Krusty,

1st your not factually correct...

1) the He-100 was flown in combat by the henkle test pilots defending its factory and was armed.

2) the F6F-5 did fly with the 20mm during daylight, just not in squadron strength. It was designed to accomate the 20mm and was so configured for the original combat trials.

3) While the F7F was a non factor in the war the rest of your comment is 100% wrong. Both Corky Meyer and the chief test pilot for the navy considered it the best piston engined fighter the US ever built.

4) Like the F7F the DO-335 was a 1943 design that entered production in 1944. The original production factory was bombed and the tooling destroyed...it was not a "late war" bird (and neither was the F7F) any more then the P-51D, P-47N, P-38L or any other mid 44 plane. These two planes simply never made it to the party.

Again this wasnt about an individual plane, simply the mythical criteria for selection. Recognizing that a more structured style of game play is coming the MA will change even more. It's interesting that the two new GV's follow the trend I'm looking at. The wirblewind saw very limited production and the rocket armed 251 is an interesting choice. Compared to lets say a "stock" sherman or a PZIII.

There is a "hardcore" group of players who will greatly appreciate the expansion of the planeset for FSO/Scenerio/Snapshot and/or like Guppy in his P-38G that will ignore the new stuff and plug away in favorite rides...but the other 80%+ of the player base is looking for filet mignion not hamburger helper.

Ghosth · « **Reply #16 on:** March 02, 2008, 10:08:59 AM »

USA/RAF planeset is very well represented across the board.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see the p39's, because it does dual duty for both the USA and Russia.

The German set could use bombers. Granted they didn't have many but I'd still like to see something else added. Ju-88 is a good bird, but stacked up against the US bombers its lightweight. As a result all scenarios, FSO's, Snapshots, and AvA setups are impossible to balance. USA and RAF planesets have the best bombers for each side right up to the B29. The same is NOT true for the rest.

Japanese set doesn't even have a bomber except for the lightweight ki-67.
It cry's for the betty, plus later war attack planes. Ki-44, 45, Betty, Judy would be a good start.

And its also true for the Russian set. P39's are going to help fill the Russian plane set quite a bit. But it really needs a bomber other than the iL2.

Early war planes for Japanese, Russian, and Italian sets would be a big plus.
Although they wouldn't get the use in the main's that others would. They would go a long ways towards adding balanced early war setups that could breath a breath of fresh air into FSO's, Snapshots and Scenarios.

Lusche · « **Reply #17 on:** March 02, 2008, 10:15:50 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by humble

1) the He-100 was flown in combat by the henkle test pilots defending its factory and was armed.
.

Though there was indeed a "Industrieschutzstaffel" (Industry defending squadron) formed in Rostock-Marienehe but this was a private venture. And, to my knowledge, there is no account that of any He-100 having seen any kind of combat. The first major daytime raids into that are are happened long after we have the last mentionings of any He 100 in official documents.

GGhost · « **Reply #18 on:** March 02, 2008, 11:04:12 AM »

A Frank or George would help out the Japanese plane set also. - GGhost

Lusche · « **Reply #19 on:** March 02, 2008, 11:14:32 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by GGhost
A Frank or George would help out the Japanese plane set also. - GGhost

You mean that Frank and George that are already in game for a few years?

humble · « **Reply #20 on:** March 02, 2008, 11:48:41 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Lusche
Though there was indeed a "Industrieschutzstaffel" (Industry defending squadron) formed in Rostock-Marienehe but this was a private venture. And, to my knowledge, there is no account that of any He-100 having seen any kind of combat. The first major daytime raids into that are are happened long after we have the last mentionings of any He 100 in official documents.

I actually read a combat report somewhere (from US side) with a comment regarding an "unusual" me-109. Speculation was that it was a He-100...but no question there is no record of an actual combat I've ever seen involving one. I brought it up simply since it appears to meet the criteria:). It did serve in "squadron" strength and it apparently did see "combat" if it was scrambled vs bomber raids.

humble · « **Reply #21 on:** March 02, 2008, 12:01:45 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Ghosth
USA/RAF planeset is very well represented across the board.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see the p39's, because it does dual duty for both the USA and Russia.

The German set could use bombers. Granted they didn't have many but I'd still like to see something else added. Ju-88 is a good bird, but stacked up against the US bombers its lightweight. As a result all scenarios, FSO's, Snapshots, and AvA setups are impossible to balance. USA and RAF planesets have the best bombers for each side right up to the B29. The same is NOT true for the rest.

Japanese set doesn't even have a bomber except for the lightweight ki-67.
It cry's for the betty, plus later war attack planes. Ki-44, 45, Betty, Judy would be a good start.

And its also true for the Russian set. P39's are going to help fill the Russian plane set quite a bit. But it really needs a bomber other than the iL2.

Early war planes for Japanese, Russian, and Italian sets would be a big plus.
Although they wouldn't get the use in the main's that others would. They would go a long ways towards adding balanced early war setups that could breath a breath of fresh air into FSO's, Snapshots and Scenarios.

I dont disagree at all. I'd love to see both the Judy and the Tu-2 in the game. And for the 500 or so who participate in the Scenario's, FSO and/or snapshots continued development of the planeset is a big big plus. My "question" is what it does for the other 5,000+ subsribers and how does it get subsriptions up to double that?

We're currently in a Medal of Honor/COD4 world and the vast majority of new blood are conditioned such that as they "improve" they want "uber" not historical reality. So in effect the game would seem to have to evolve in two directions. The CT thread of more structured "box" game meets MMOG and the "old" AH which is basically a "1st person shooter" in planes already. The scenarios/FSO etc would be the real linkage between the two.

I'm not looking at the "1946 airwar" here...simply delving into the few planes that were historically correct but didnt see action or that had readily available configurations that could be considered "uper". Another example is the 4 x 20mm A-20 which did see action (think the 1st 200-300 G's were 4 x 20mm) especially on the russian front (which flew the A-20 more then anyone else) and had most of them with 4 x 20mm.

I'm in no way agruing against building out the historical planeset, I'm simply questioning the "policy" (mythical or otherwise) on what can be included as the game enters its second decade. A 100 perk F7F or DO-335 would see alot more use then a Ki-44 or a judy IMO.

hubsonfire · « **Reply #22 on:** March 02, 2008, 12:09:30 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by humble
My "question" is what it does for the other 5,000+ subsribers and how does it get subsriptions up to double that?

How does adding a few late war planes do that?

humble · « **Reply #23 on:** March 02, 2008, 12:55:28 PM »

I'm not saying that it will, simply looking at what seems to "sell" in the current market. Many of the box WW2 flight sims or expansion packs have a variety of these planes while various "bomber sims" failed to sell at all. Looking at COD4 and other 1st person shooters they all escalate the weapons as the game goes on...

So even though its a "niche market" game the reality is that the availability of these "uber weapons" may impact the retention of "2 weekers" who are used to the concept of needing to "earn" uberness...even though the only thing really uber in AH is ACM.

Karnak · « **Reply #24 on:** March 02, 2008, 03:02:51 PM »

Humble,

How would the Ki-102 get Ki-84 converts? They are totally different aircraft. The Ki-102 is a twin engined ground attack fighter.

Quote

Originally posted by Ghosth
USA/RAF planeset is very well represented across the board.

I disagree. The RAF and RN still have significant holes in their sets and the US Navy lacks early war attack aircraft. The RAF needs an early war bomber such as the Wellington B.Mk III, one that a Bf109E can actually do something about. The Beaufighter, Firefly and Fulmar should also be added. Some Mosquito bombers would be nice. As for the US Navy, the TBD Devastator would be a good add for early war use.

Quote

The German set could use bombers. Granted they didn't have many but I'd still like to see something else added. Ju-88 is a good bird, but stacked up against the US bombers its lightweight. As a result all scenarios, FSO's, Snapshots, and AvA setups are impossible to balance. USA and RAF planesets have the best bombers for each side right up to the B29. The same is NOT true for the rest.[/b]

A Ju188A-2 or Do217 would be nice. Both had 1000+ produced. An He177A-5 would be, in my opinion, an unfortunate choice as it would see heavy use here whereas in reality it was one of the biggest failures as a weapon program that I can think of.

Quote

Japanese set doesn't even have a bomber except for the lightweight ki-67.
It cry's for the betty, plus later war attack planes. Ki-44, 45, Betty, Judy would be a good start. [/b]

The problem with Japanese bombers is that they are all "lightweights" by your reasoning. The G4M has the same bombload as the Ki-67, or slightly more depending on the source. The fact is that we have one of the two best Japanese bombers of WWII already. The only one that could be considered "heavyweight" was the H8K2 recon-bomber flyingboat with a max load of eight 250kg bombs or two 1500kg bombs, but barely over 100 H8K2s were built. Ki-43, Ki-44, J2M, D4Y, B6N, B7A, Ki-45 and Ki-102 would all be interesting additions. The extremely limited production B7A would probably see fairly heavy use.

Quote

And its also true for the Russian set. P39's are going to help fill the Russian plane set quite a bit. But it really needs a bomber other than the iL2. [/b]

Pe-2 in three versions could cover the whole war, though an SB-2 or Il-4 would be nice for early war. Earlier fighters such as the I-16, Yak-1, Yak-7, LaGG-3 or MiG-3 are needed too.

humble · « **Reply #25 on:** March 02, 2008, 03:27:12 PM »

whoops, my bad...I'd read about the 102 but did a brain fart and was thinking of the Ki-100.

By point here isnt advocating a particular wishlist but looking at the underlying "criteria" and matching it up with what seems to already be happening and speculating a bit on the future. IMO it owuld be ideal to see some of both with the majority tilted to historical development. But realizing we actually have relatively few late war rides left with enough real documentation to accurately model and that were actual production aircraft not prototypes it really comes down to what will get used in the LWA's IMO. The firefly got used, the wirblewind will see a ton of use and so will the sk251. The B-25 gets more use in the 75mm sniper role then anything else IMO.

moot · « **Reply #26 on:** March 02, 2008, 04:10:43 PM »

The 25H is a really good choice when sniping is the best type of attack, but I also use it anytime a vbase needs taking out, and there's no real hurry to get there. IIRC one 25H can take out all three hangars.

Rino · « **Reply #27 on:** March 02, 2008, 04:13:50 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Guppy35
All the talk of latewar monsters and '1946' birds speaks volumes about the mindset of most folks playing the game. Whether it's good or bad is a matter of opinion I guess but in my mind it says that most players want to accomplish more in a hurry while learning and doing less to learn the game.

Give them a plane that has lots of cannon, goes really fast and encourage them to get their name in lights.

Why would anyone outside of a few die hards that don't care about those things, fly early or midwar birds?

I hope that HTC can balance the desire to increase the player base, and income with continuing to round out the plane set to cover those less then uber birds that fought most of the war.

And yeah I'm one of those die hards that won't fly a latewar bird on principle. I'd rather die in my 38G and the occasional 38J and about 300 of those 1500 38G kills in February were mine.

Frankly Dan, you're as bad as the late war "uber" plane snobs. The plane
set is there to be used, using some over others doesn't make your flights
any more noble.

humble · « **Reply #28 on:** March 02, 2008, 04:16:41 PM »

Agreed, its an "uber" ride within the proper scope of use. All I'm saying is that we're getting alot of stuff thats uber (and I think at low alt the P-39 will be as well)...so the trend points that way. While I'd love to see the G.55, 410, Judy and Tu-2 1st (as well as the A-26) as we continue to "grow" at some point the F7F/DO-335/Meteor and some of the "load outs" are going to get more use/have more appeal then the He-111 or other birds...thats all.

moot · « **Reply #29 on:** March 02, 2008, 04:40:17 PM »

Guppy you forgot the simple corelation between speed and firepower, and adrenaline. Biplanes and early war stuff might make for some unique dogfights, but they're still snoozers. The only exceptions are some designs like the 109F, which IMO is the best dogfighting tool.
It's analogous to ragging on people who race gutted, well-sorted track machines rather than rental cars or normal road legal cars ballasted with all sorts of handicaps like foolproofing for average joe drivers and sound-deadening, safety and luxury mass.