For CM's and designers.

[Fariz]

I took part in the Regensburg Strike event today. It turned into the most frustrating expirienced ever in Aces High.

Allies started in 2 groups, buffs and fighters. We had 9 fighters and 7 buffs (I am not sure about numbers, I may be wrong so correct me if I do) I was in a group with p47. Reason I chosed this group was that I never flighed this plane and that when there are lot of buffs my fps drops badly. I read event page prior to the event start and I knew that fighters has range restriction, though I did not thought what it will turn into.

So we got 3 dt and rolled from one of the base. We should cross the whole map. I was sure, that we will be attacked by fighters before we will reach "9" line, but we were not. Not a single plane. So we stayed close to this line, burning dt's and losing pilots one by one due to disconnects and frustration of some of the pilots. I wanted to log too after 35 minutes in air, when it turned clear that axis planes (all 15) stayes over hq and just waited for 6 our buffs which survive disconnects knewing that we cant cross 9 line. I was told that after buffs will be killed (who doubt? they could barely get 25-27k till hq) enemy fighters will come to fight with us. So another 20-25 minutes of waiting for a fight which will have no sence due to mission falure, and I was not even sure that we would have fuel left till that (btw only 4 of allies fighters stayed online to this moment. From initial 9). So I told to my flight leader that my radio is broken and as a yound and stupid pilot I forgot about my fuel and turned into the enemy territory without hearing the orders on radio. So I flighed to enemy hq, where I found them at 33k, and attacked one. I thought that this will add at least some level of entertainment to scenario and will renumerate me for all that strange sightseeing flight. When I was there I was ready to due, attacked one, was accused on cheating and was asked to withdraw in "30 seconds" because of breaking the event rules. I agreed, said what I think about the event augered and quited arena.

Now.

Breaking the event rules is a bad idea even as an exeption, so I was wrong there. Also I went to channel 1 while frustrated and if I offended someone my bad, and excuses. BUT I am damn sure that it is CM not me should make this scenario more entertainming when he saw what it turning into. He could split axis fighters into 2 groups, with one attacking earlier, where we could participate. I am sure that this happened due to small expirience CM and scenario designers has at the moment, and with time when they will get more expirience it will be much less mission like this one. But still it was extremely frustrating. Beeing nothing than a flying scenario doll, just to add historical truth to scenario without having a chance to fire a single ammo is not good. That is the game, it shall give people fun, not frustration, or at least it shall be dosed correctly. If you ask people to join the event and to spend the hour with it you shall think 10 time how it will run. Game balance, fun value, historical accuracy -- they shall comply with each other, not contradict.

Fariz

[Saintaw]

Well, Ammo, ovm*** (spelling ?) & me stayed in & got a couple of kills on the way home  

Still, it is true that it would be nice to have an attack on the buffs while we are still around, or, if not, avoid such long distance flight.

(I have to say for my defence that I once planned a mission in the GMT TOD where the Axis never had enough fuel to do the mission, hehehe... we all learn with mistakes   )

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SAW/Saintaw
Click here for VMF-323 Death Rattlers info
 
"It's supposed to be hard; that's what makes it great!"
Tom Hanks, A League of Their Own

.squelch creamo

[This message has been edited by Saintaw (edited 08-06-2000).]

[Hamish]

OKay, i take the blame for the lengthy event, and the frustration on the part of the escort. I read the brief on the even one time, and was ill prepared to take the lead of the B-17 flight. I should have made this aware to mx22, the allied CO, but i thought i could handle it. Things went downhill from there. I initially tried to plan a mission in the Mission editor, but that was taking too much time as we were running late as it is. My second major mistake of the event was misjudging which direction to take off from on the field to avoid a mountain , losing half of our bombers to it on takeoff. we re-planed them but by then we were so spread out i made the call to circle, chop throttle and form up. Even doing this, it took forever to get up off the ground and moving. as we were heading toward our objective, i was pulling away from the rest of the bomber group, so i made another call to slow down and get everyone in close formation. every time i speed up i seem to leave everyone in the dust, i know it wasn't because i took less fuel, we all had 100% (another point i'll bring up later) and anyone who has flown formations of B-17's knows, it's hard to keep them in formation and they climb like rocks with full loads of fuel. In my experience flying bombers (it's not great, but not terrible either) the key to surviving and successfuly defending themselves was overlapping fields of fire from the gunners. So that's what i tried to ensure, that we would be able to defend each other when the LW hit, because our escort could not follow us. When the Escort group wondered why we were taking so long i responded that i was not going to fly a group into enemy territory spread out so far that we were all sitting ducks(one of our number had a hard time keeping up and was almost 4k back most of the time.  If we had been able to climb above 20k before we hit the target zone, we probably would have fared better. needless to say, the LW pilots hovered around thier HQ until they saw the green bar on sector map, and then rushed in to kill our poor BUFF's without escorts. how historically accurate was this? not very in my opinion. I would think the LW would have been on patrol, or scrambled on the reports of IB bombers. If i am wrong, please, let me know. After our atrition due to mountains, and 1 disco, i led our group of 6 B-17's into the teeth of the LW and very quickly we fell to our deaths. <S> to anodunos, who almost made it to the target, and dropped 2 LW pilots in the process.

   It was not a Bad scenario, because we all learned something from it. I think we might want to look at fuel loadout for the B-17's next time, and maybe give the LW a patrol order, so that there's at least a chance of them encountering the escorts. maybe even pick a field closer to the HQ to fly from, And cary less fuel.  I don't know, that's up to the CM's to decide. One other thing that i think we could do better is when we have dual CM's, to designate 1 for LW, 1 for allied, and they can Plan the missions and have it set up for the flight leaders as they join the game. Then, they can either sit back and watch or direct the events based on how they want the scenario played out. The Pacific-Rim crew has a good set up going for this. (although i think they could still do the mission planner as well)

I apologize Fariz, for it's mostly my fault you did not have a good time, I'll try to do better next time i am put into a position like this, as i am stil lnew, and learning this system, i hope you do not stay out of scenarios because of this one incident, as i think they will definately get better from today's example.
<S>

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Hamish!
   

[This message has been edited by Hamish (edited 08-06-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Hamish (edited 08-06-2000).]

[Ozark]

Today was the first time I ever worked as a CO in the SEA (Axis). I never knew of the worked that went in to such an event. To tell you the truth, I was kind of over my head today. I'm so thankful Wilbus was able to help me on my first mission.  The problems that we had in tactics were because of me. However, I glad we started with drop tanks.  

Today's mission was historically accurate. The last leg of the bombing run was without fighter escort. The Axis held North of  HQ while a small token force baited the bombers to attack from the South. The Axis regrouped over a20 as the B-17’s committed to an attack from the south. Then we attacked in full force.

Historically, the remaining B-17’s reported that they could use the downed and burning bombers as a beacon to lead them back to England. After this, bombing policy would be placed on hold. Months later the P-51, now in  full production, was able to escort B-17 and B-24 bombers to their targets and back.

"In 1943, July was a bad month for the Eighth Air Force.........August was worse still; its total loss of 107 bombers represented 4.72 per cent of those despatched. This included the disastrous assault on Schweinfurt on August 17, when the Eighth Air Force lost 60 bombers out of 376 despatched (15.95 per cent), or out of 325 which actually attacked, 19.04 per cent (in addition, of course, to a considerable number damaged) .............."

My thanks goes out to all who attended the event, sure, their were some problems however, that will make the events even better in weeks to come.  

Once again, <S> to all Allies. Axis, thank you for letting me fumble my way around my first CO mission <S>.

Ozark

[-ammo-]

yea I stuck with it with OVmech, and Saw ( BTW SAW...<S> for the outstanding leadership after MX22 discoed)

it was pretty frustrating but like OZ said,  fairly accurate. I imagine it was VERY frustrating to watch those bomber pilots fly off knowing they wouldn't make it back.

BTW to top it off for me... I was chewing up this 109 with my jug, I had seen several hit sprites registerring, this guy was diving out of trouble or at least he thought he was.... I then discoed ...ARGGHHH!!!!

who was the 109? anyone know? a big salute to him and the rest of the LW weenies

[Fariz]

If fighters played no active role in scenario, they should be removed. Instead of that 9 fighters pilots could be devided between bomber group and axis fighters. We could imply that poor p47 exist... somewhere.  Axis fighters could get restriction not to attack till that damn 9 line. So it would be a) more active participants so more heat fight.
b) less frustrated people.
c) more chance for buffs to return home after mission, and not to be massacred in couple of minutes.

Saw, TOD was one of the most fun scenario I took part up to date.

Fariz

[Duckwing6]

a big problem with BUFF raid is this one:

The Buffs will never turn back ..

The LW has had too high numbers during all these events we had previously .. the B17's should outweight the LW forces by 3:1 (minimum) with the escorts being 1:1 to the LW number IMHO

A WIn for the LW would not be total prevention of the drop on the target but getting 30% of the B17s inbound.

Allied scores would have to depend on the bomb damage assesment done after the strike .. but so far never an Allied Bomber has reached it's target.

[Dazs]

>the scenario played out. The Pacific-Rim crew has a good set up going for this. (although i think they could still do the mission planner as well)

Thank you for compliment,Hamish  

But I didn't do that method which you guess on my event. Of course COs assigned days before.  But I gave no sugestion on their tactics. That's why mission planner didn't use. COs are not CMs of this event.

My method was just forcusing situation. I limited CO's choice by fields, time and targets ... as rules.

I hope this information helps your next event design.

<S> Dazs  Tokyo Japan. Pac-rim CM team.
Far East Snap Shot Event

[Rojo]

The key here is balance, and that's for sure.  3:1 ratio of LW to buffs would definitely have helped, with the LW paying a victory condition penalty for every fighter they loose.  Some of us have designed and run alot of scenarios before, while some are just getting started.  Have patience with us  .

Hamish: Formation flying in buffs doesn't have to be the frustrating nightmare you experienced.  Go the the Buccaneers homepage (http://www.fantasyflight.org/buccaneers/), click on "Training" and read the peice there called "Formation Flying in AcesHigh."  It describes a method for buff formation flying that will give you the beautiful "pulks" you've seen in the documentaries.  It involves careful use of the .speed command and throttle, while flying the aircraft from the nose gunner position.  It's easy to master and will give you a fighting chance of arriving over the target with your formations intact.

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Sabre, a.k.a. Rojo
(S-2, The Buccaneers)

[Wanker]

Hi Everyone. Thanks for being such good sports on my very first CM'ing event.

My apologies to everyone involved. While I did not do the writeup for this event, I should've seen the problems that would arise out of the P-47 limitation. Sorry!  

We've had discussions on the CM BB, and as a result of yesterday's event, we will be putting future snapshot events under tighter scrutiny.

One thing I learned from yesterday is that while it was historically correct, it was also awfully boring. We'll try to balance the historical aspects in the future so that the focus is on action and fun, instead of pure historical accuracy.

[Bluefish]

banana/Hamish/everybody else involved should not be so hard on themselves; we all realize that everyone's learning how to do this in AH and it's only going to get better.

To Hamish, as the persistent buff straggler you mentioned in your post, I very much appreciated your efforts to let me catch up with the rest of the formation (even if we all died in the end-see further discussion below).  I still don't understand how there can be such a speed discrepancy in AH between identical aircraft, identically loaded out and trimmed.  It happened to me twice yesterday, once in scenario and once in MA with a squaddie in Spits; in both instances I was considerably slower.  I've posted the issue on the Gameplay board but no responses so far.

This brings me to one last point for the scenario designers to consider:  the Buccaneer's bulletin board article on buff formation flying in AH was very helpful and informative, but IMHO it did not fully address the implications for scenario gameplay which are created by AH's buff gunnery set-up.  It is quite difficult for even buffs with dedicated (non-pilot) gunners to deal with multiple fighter attacks; for buffs with pilot/gunners to do so while trying to line up the bomb sight in a scenario (where fighter attacks are far better coordinated than in MA) would likely be nearly impossible.  This definitely needs to be taken into account, either by requiring dedicated gunners in each buff and/or realizing that a certain percentage of the buffs will have to man guns during bomb run to protect the others and adjusting the side stregth accordingly (and to be effective the latter approach will require some VERY tight formation flying).  

I personally would like to see some limited period (say 2 minutes or so) of ....(dare I say it?) Otto be made available to solo buff drivers, particularly in the MA where dedicated gunners can be very hard to come by.  This would permit buffers to complete their drops without always getting clobbered while peering through the bombsight, but given community reaction to the "O" word I doubt I ever will.

[Hamish]

Sabre- Thanks for the link, very informative, and i will definately be able to use it in the future for myself. When i was leading, i was attempting to do just as you described in the page, only i didn't really know What i was doing.I had climbspeed set to 140, and MP at 40 initially. But when people kept falling behind, i dropped more manifold pressure, And throttle, as i now see is a bad idea     Next time, i think i'll be able to handle it much better, but the rest of my group will need to read your page     oh, i think you meant 3:1 ratio of BUFFS to LW, right? a 3:1 ratio of LW to BUFFS would be mass carnage of bombers    

     Dazs- No prob, bud, I didn't state it very well, or clearly in my post and looking back i can see how it can be confusing, what i meant to say was that how you all had CO's  designated ahead of time, it allowed them to be better prepared for the event, and allowed them to execute thier plans quicker, and more efficiently. I didn't mean to imply you were using CM's as CO's. I was mainly just suggesting that as an option for the CM's in This Hemisphere     It seems that it's harder for the guys out here to be able to designate CO's in that manner because they don't really know who will show up for an event until 5-10 minutes after the event's scheduled time. Note my late arrival to your event, I overslept     (woke up and my clock said 0805am and i was like DOH!)

    As far as CM's using the mission planner goes, i think it would be most useful in a "patrol" type scenario, they could set up a generic "patrol" mission with the aircraft/fuel load/ordnance loadout, and the patrol route. (or am i mistaking the capability of the mission planner, admittedly i have never used it successfully) The first scenario i was in the mission planner was utilized and it was great in execution. I think it's probably the most underutilized tool in the game atm.

   Thanks for the scenarios, they are prolly my favorite part of the game, so keep em coming, we'll work em all out eventually    

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Hamish!
   

[This message has been edited by Hamish (edited 08-07-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Hamish (edited 08-08-2000).]

[Camel]

Salute Hamish ya did fine!

With out the Mission planner it can be a logistic nightmare, one that is amazingly overcome at these Events. I sometimes want to reach through the screen and slap around the guy asking the same question over and over again without reading buffer. All Events posted should start with the same header explaining "proper etiquette".

Camel
a Bucc

[Dazs]

Rgr Hamish  

>Note my late arrival to your event, I overslept

Hehe, I know that. It's so early morning.
Dazs

[Saintaw]

Well, typed here yesterday, but the msg never arrived, Doh !

I remember, back in GMT TOD, I once organised an Axis strike...... where there was NO WAY they had enough fuel  

Everyone learns from their mistakes  

Planning to start GMT TOD again soon...


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SAW/Saintaw
Click here for VMF-323 Death Rattlers info
 
"It's supposed to be hard; that's what makes it great!"
Tom Hanks, A League of Their Own

.squelch creamo

[This message has been edited by Saintaw (edited 08-08-2000).]