The LVT is also known as the "Amtrack". It is an amphibious tractor. A lightly armored tracked vehicle. Think of a small landing craft with no ramp, and a pair or tracks running over the top of the deck and back around under the bottom. The tracks provide the propulsion even in the water. Speed is 20mph on land, 7.5 in the water. Amament was a .50 caliber machinegun, and a .30 caliber machinegun.
Bassically, this is the M3 troop carrier for the waterborn assaults.
As for the seaplane tenders...this is moot, since no mention of any seaplanes is in this version. However, maybe there is a small, single engine seaplane for cruiser gunnery spotting (bassically, the floatplane has the gunnery controls, not the ships themselves).
This was how Dawn of Aces worked (another online game HiTech and crew worked on). That game, a WW1 sim with biplanes had two seater recon planes, as well as artillery batteries. Only from the backseat of these things could you use the dot commands to make the guns fire.
I've been wondering how the shore bombardment was going to work myself. Maybe this is how? Maybe its completely different than Dawn of Aces? Who knows?
Anyways.
My guess as to how the system works is like this.
There are two types of fleets. Carrier battlegroups, and cargoship fleets made up of large assaultships (for LVT spawning), PT boat tenders (for spawning PTs at sea), and Seaplane tenders (???).
You probably can also spawn PT boats at shipyards.
Pyro said anyone can give fleets waypoints, but the guy with the highest rank/score...those are the waypoints the fleet will follow.
The player controlled AA is a neat idea. They're using the radar fused warheads you see at the end of the war. Instead of presetting a round to explode as a certain altitude, whether there was anything there or not....radar fused warheads actually have a tiny radar in them. It projects out a beam out in a 360 degree ring to the side of the round. If it gets a return signal (range of about 50 feet I think), it detonates.
Close counts. If you miss, you won't see the shell exploding. You also don't have to worry about setting an altitude yourself...just shoot at the enemy.
Hans.
[This message has been edited by Hans (edited 11-13-2000).]
