Word Around the Campfire (con't)...

[VonMessa]

There's not going to be an official statement.

Did you hear that at the convention?

[715]

He really wants to concentrate on the "land" and "water" aspect to get the "world" looking better.

I vote enthusiastically for that.  I'm getting tired of looking at the same few terrain tiles, same buildings and same trees.  Just give the terrain designers some more different tiles and objects to work with.  With greater diversity they could come up with less repetitive terrains.

[Anaxogoras]

Did you hear that at the convention?

That's just my hypothesis.

[NoBaddy]

The 15 degrees was about drones...not bombs.

...back to the thread...

HT did not "bury" CT. He did state that at this time, they felt that they did not have the resources to complete CT AND support AH properly.

I have seen a bunch of folks posting here about AH compared to CT. Doing so is like comparing "old maid" to "poker"....both use cards......and that's about it. CT is not designed or expected to be a replacement for AH or an alternative. It's aimed at a whole new segment of the gaming community for HTC...the RPG player.

I'm surprised at how many veteran players are posting about this and don't seem to have a clue about the goals of HTC in creating CT. It's not like HT kept it a secret. No one has a "right" to feel betrayed. No "promises" were made.....and none were broken.

It is much harder to blow off a customer in person, as opposed to on a forum..............

What I find amusing, is the amount of folks waving goodbye, when there has been no official statement from the producers of the game.

Well, "officially" HT annouced to 50+ people (in person) that CT was being moved to the "back burner". Sounded pretty "official" to me.

[Anaxogoras]

Well, "officially" HT annouced to 50+ people (in person) that CT was being moved to the "back burner". Sounded pretty "official" to me.

"Official" is posted on the HTC homepage.

[opposum]

There's not going to be an official statement.

then the question is why isn't there going to be an official statment? why can't they just tell us     theirself?    why?...............

[Anaxogoras]

Because marketing is all about message control.  If it doesn't reflect positively on the business, it's better left unsaid.

[VonMessa]

Because marketing is all about message control.  If it doesn't reflect positively on the business, it's better left unsaid.

Give that man a cigar.   

[LYNX]

I was forthcoming with what I was told ... and posting what I was told, was not meant for anyone to get pissy about what I was told.

I have a pretty good sense of when someone is trying to BS me, and I did not get the impression that what they told me was "malarkey" or trying to pull the wool over my eyes ... nor did I feel insulted ... it was a genuine response.

From the pics that you have posted, hopefully Pyro will see them (maybe you should email them to Pyro/HTC) and hopefully something can/will be done about it ... he seemed pretty open to it.

I grabbed their ear about the problem ... they responded that it would be looked into ... that is far better response than I have seen anywhere posted about this problem on the BBS ... so lets not take an aggressive stance, but rather a helpful and informing stance.

One would never imagine from all the threads HTC and staff read that they are not aware of this situation.  One would imagine they have never test flown their product or observed it's use within the game.... malarkey!

Not being code savi I would have thought the easy easy fix would be F6 bombsite view for bombs away.  I started a thread some 5 years ago about this and someone linked an older prior thread which said back then "they'll be looking into it". 

Just for you personally to know what I'm getting at by saying F6 view to drop bombs.  When you enter F6 heavy bombs go into auto level (X on the keyboard).  If you dive Lancs, B17's and the like then press F6, quite often the stress to the air frame snaps the wings off as it auto levels.  (i must test this to see if the bombs actually drop as the bomber folds up)

My train of thought is rather than have to recode bomb release angles and so on, just code into these particular planes that you HAVE TO BE IN F6 before the bombs will drop.   When the xbox / gameboy crew get to realise their LancStuka folds up less will be inclined to game the game.   This will still allow the heavies to use extreme evasives when they are attacked but will inhibit their ability to drop their bombs in an over steep or too fast a dive.  A "kiss" solution.

As for CT if it is dead (conjecture and rumour) then long live Aces High II.

EDIT couldn't reproduce the folding effect in the training arena.  Perhaps it needs looking at more thoroughly.

[Wingnutt]

I had a long conversation with Dale ...

He is going to be seriously looking at bump-mapping, pixel shading, etc ... He really wants to concentrate on the "land" and "water" aspect to get the "world" looking better. He said that these are some of things that he can take advantage of without a huge "cost" incurred by implementing them.

To those who don't know and say that the graphics engine needs updating ... well it doesn't, or you using that term in the wrong context. HT wrote the current graphics engine from scratch ... Pyro said that they could have bought one, but HT wanted to do it himself. The graphic engine has all the bells and whistles in place, HT just needs to "turn" them on or take advantage of them ... and he probably will turn them on when he feels that a "change" will not exclude a huge part of the player base because of a change.

With that, I also had a long conversation with Waffle ... HTC constantly plays a "balancing" game with graphics/artwork ... they don't want to do things with a "Big Bang" approach ... they want to make changes subtly ... so as to not clobber a good part of their play base. Waffle and SuperFly do pay particular attention to the total amount of polygons to render their artwork. They could go crazy, but then that would result in a much larger download, and/or the need to increase the minimum specs to play the game. It is very important to them that this game be "downloadable" and not require a CD to install.

HTC, in my eyes, pays very much attention to the "lowest common denominator" and is very fickle about why and when they move that line.

An update of the terrain and effects would do more for this game than any 10 additional aircraft IMO.  No doubt some people still will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming im sure, into the 20th century.  People will cry and scream that they can no longer run the game well on their Pentium 3 400 with 64mb of ram and on board video, and will be forced to update their gear..  but Im sure just like pulling a tooth, they will feel better after its all over with.

[Furball]

In my opinion, they should scrap CT if they haven't already and concentrate on scenarios.

They are the best part of AH by far.  The immersion, camaraderie, strategy and AARs from scearios makes them really special.

I think they should concentrate each update on one scenario to fill the planeset, and upon launch (or shortly after to iron out plane bugs) begin a scenario with it.

If i wanted to battle AI i would play IL2.

[Furball]

In the interest of "seeing for myself"...  I just did this in a Lanc.  I'd say dropping at more then a 15 degree angle is certainly quite possible.  I doubt I could hit anything doing this, but my dive bombing skills are lacking anyway.

(Image removed from quote.)

By the way, after that release, I was able to very easily pull out of the dive.

Ever seen a Lanc bomb bay?  The bombs are not stacked like in a B-17 or 24.  It wouldn't surprise me if the bombs would release as long as you are not pulling negative G in a dive.

[Simaril]

I was forthcoming with what I was told ... and posting what I was told, was not meant for anyone to get pissy about what I was told.

I have a pretty good sense of when someone is trying to BS me, and I did not get the impression that what they told me was "malarkey" or trying to pull the wool over my eyes ... nor did I feel insulted ... it was a genuine response.

From the pics that you have posted, hopefully Pyro will see them (maybe you should email them to Pyro/HTC) and hopefully something can/will be done about it ... he seemed pretty open to it.

I grabbed their ear about the problem ... they responded that it would be looked into ... that is far better response than I have seen anywhere posted about this problem on the BBS ... so lets not take an aggressive stance, but rather a helpful and informing stance.

Listening to that same Q and A -- I had a different impression about what they were trying to say.

1. I understood the 15 degrees to refer to the angle at which the DRONES would not follow. Didn't think they were talking about the drop angle at all for that portion of the answer.

2. To my ear, HT seemed to be emphasizing that the issue wasn't one of modelling as much as it was one of player behavior, and that the core problem was the KAMIKAZE attack. In other words, the problem is that some players absolutely don not care about dying in that kind of attack, and that THATs where our attention should be placed.

3. HT absolutely was solicitiing any information the player base could produce about G load tolerances and actual test data for the airframes in question. Their pattern has been absolutely clear -- they feel they cannot rely on anecdotal evidence, but that they will take objective historical test data very seriously.

[Simaril]

Ever seen a Lanc bomb bay?  The bombs are not stacked like in a B-17 or 24.  It wouldn't surprise me if the bombs would release as long as you are not pulling negative G in a dive.

Furball --\

Exactly true. In the past Dale has said that he does NOT want to kluge some workaround to model bomb bays, but that when the time comes he wants to do complete modelllng that will include variations in bay architecture...and the effects of G loading that allow toss bombing, etc.

I don't anticipate any modelling of bays until they're ready to do it right. (I can link to a long thread on this topic when I have time to search for it.)

[Furball]

Been looking for reports of a B-17 dropping bombs in a dive.  Apparently a 'Major Bernard Schriever' attacked Japanese shipping in Harbour by divebombing after taking damage.  I can find it mentioned but not a specific report.

Not sure of the accuracy of this though... Destroying a battleship?   

http://www.dba-oracle.com/louis_f_burleson.htm

Major Bernard Schriever, a newly-minted Major fresh from Graduate school at Stanford University, joined the 19th bomb group in Australia and directed Burleson’s effort to perfect the flare racks.  In less than 90-days Schriever recommended Louis Burleson for an officer’s commission.  Schriever was the pilot of Louis Burleson’s crew on a famous bombing raid there Schriever used the B-17 as a dive bomber, destroying Japanese battleship in an act of extreme heroism.  This recollection is from an article about General Schriever in “Air Force” magazine:


General Bernard Schriever
 “They flew in a formation of about a dozen B-17s in a night raid on Rabaul. Their airplane carried the flares and half the regular bomb load. The flare system worked well, but Schriever wanted to check on the bombing results, so they made another circuit over the target area. Flak was heavy but ineffective at the 10,000-foot altitude from which they were bombing.

As they turned, the No. 3 engine burst into a ball of flames. Dougherty, in the left seat, feathered the prop and shut the engine down. They still had bombs on board but did not want to set up another bombing approach. A quick conference on the intercom led to a decision: They would dive-bomb the ships in the harbor.”
 

The books i have read suggest that the B-17 bomb shackles could be a bit of a PITA for releasing bombs, i would like to know how they would react with dive angle, but i guess with an aircraft that really does not matter as it is g-force which counts: -

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp2Uc9XvmjY