WWI Arena Attractions

[Chilli]

Tusk, 10:30 EST Sat. I will try and pop in also.

To clear a prior misconception.  I originally, suggested to hide the enemy field icon from the clipboard map, I made no suggestions about radar.   However, the radar distance from one field to another should be to the extent that potential battles can be easily sought, but without necessarily showing up while the contact is on his own runway.

The purpose, of this type of map could possibly disquise country affiliation and also require some practice to gain familiarity with good battle locations.  Basically, it would be advantageous to use tools like the mission planner to chart waypoints and add immersion to the WWI arena style of play.  Simply, flying to the closest known knight base on the clipboard would only be an option once you or your comrade has explored the map thoroughly enough to plot the correct coordinates.  For those not familiar with the map, it will be flying into the unknown, maybe even charting your way from terrain clues from mountains, hills, farmland, rivers, etc.

[R 105]

It is not so much that there is not enough to do in WWI. It is more the fact that for some reason I have very low frame rate in the WWI arena as well as in the DA. I get screen freeze as soon as I start to get close the an opponent. This has never made sense to me. I would think less people in an arena would add up to better frame rate. In the MA even in  a horde I still have 25 to 40 fps. In WWI I am lucky to stay in the teens. I am an old dude and I don't totally under stand computers all that well. While it would be fun to shoot at a Zeppelin now and then I don't think it would be a big reason to come to WWI.
The other thing I don't like in WWI is the planes speed. They all fly about to same speed in there no matter what. While the DR-7 had about a 15 to 20 MPH speed advantage and a much better clime rate than the DR-1. The DR-7 had even more speed advantage in a dive as the DR-1s lost their top wing in a dive. However in our WWI arena you still can't get any separation in there no matter what you are in. So you fly the DR-1 or be killed by it in most other planes.

[321BAR]

phatzo, 321BAR..... "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now-a-bed shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

William Shakespeare (Henry V - King Henry's speech prior to Battle of Agincourt, 1415)

uhhh you know that agincourt was a complete fail for the English correct? the only reason the English survived was because in the retreat, the longbowmen saved their big fat butts. ill try to make this time but i doubt ill be able to. earlier than 10:30 would work for me.

[phatzo]

Observation Balloon.....

could be used like a capture the flag type of game, get the oppositions ballon down and your side gets a bunch of castor oil or something, balloons directly above airfield as in DoA. An empire state building with king kong on it in each base would be more fun, kill King Kong and get the girl.

[bustr]

WWI War MA

1. Add 4 more fighters.

2. Add 2 bombers.

3. Add 2 observation/straffer/jabo planes.

4. Add a manned Zepplin with bombs and mannable gunner positions.

5. Add manned observation ballons with gun.
 
6. Add artillery batteries to fire at each other and depots. Ballon observers can zoom in to call fire coordinates.
 
7. Add 6 destroyable strat/marshalling yards per country. Bomb/artillery 3 to dust and it puts one airfeild out of commission for 30min. Put one airfeild in 2 countries out of commission in the same 45 minutes and war is won. Does not matter who gets the second airfeild down. They win the war for their country. As strat are destroyed fewer aircraft are availble from the feild they serve. Or a limited number per every 15 minutes.

8. Add one more undestroyable feild per country to up bombers and zepplin.

9. Add resupply truck convoys and trains like in LWMA. Destroying them delays feild respawn process for that delivery cycle or until the strat/marshalling yard is destroyed or ressurects.

10. Tie the health of local artillery batteries to one of the 2 forward airfeilds.

11. Put mannable machine guns on airfeilds.

WWI was a war of attrition. No one really captured much of anything in the WWII sense. They held and fought over ground until Germany ran out of steam. Availabilty of men and resources decided WWI.

[SCTusk]

uhhh you know that agincourt was a complete fail for the English correct? the only reason the English survived was because in the retreat, the longbowmen saved their big fat butts. ill try to make this time but i doubt ill be able to. earlier than 10:30 would work for me.

Henry V failed at Agincourt? Now see, that's the trouble with learning history by watching episodes of The Simpsons   Sorry 321BAR, cheap shot - can't expect our US cousins to remember everything about Europe, especially from so long ago. But just for the benefit of the FRENCH (spits - hehe joking) I'd like to put the record straight. Outnumbered more than 4:1 King Henry's men, who had indeed been withdrawing to the coast, slaughtered something like 5,000 French Knights for the loss of 13 Men at Arms and about 100 foot (most of them from the unarmed baggage train, which was sneak attacked from the rear during the main battle). Agincourt was a staggering blow to the French, and yes it proved the value of the standing requirement for every Englishman at the age of 15 years to commence training with the dreaded longbow.

As a footnote, prior to the battle the French promised to cut the two draw fingers from each captured English archer (index finger and middle finger). In response the English archers raised these fingers to the French, making the oft since used reverse 'V' sign, now interpreted to mean 'f off' but in fact suggesting at the time that the French would first have to come and get them.

1030pm EST too late eh? How's 930pm? That would mean a mid day start here in Adelaide, np with that. Any earlier and I suspect the arena would be empty.

 

[SCTusk]

Let me know if that new time is ok 321BAR, if so I'll start an event thread in the General Discussion forum to let others know about it 

[phatzo]

Time sounds good to me, Ill keep checking Sunday Arvo.

[Saxman]

As a footnote, prior to the battle the French promised to cut the two draw fingers from each captured English archer (index finger and middle finger). In response the English archers raised these fingers to the French, making the oft since used reverse 'V' sign, now interpreted to mean 'f off' but in fact suggesting at the time that the French would first have to come and get them.
 

The same myth is also used to describe the origin of the middle finger as obscene.

It's just that: A myth.

[321BAR]

Henry V failed at Agincourt? Now see, that's the trouble with learning history by watching episodes of The Simpsons   Sorry 321BAR, cheap shot - can't expect our US cousins to remember everything about Europe, especially from so long ago. But just for the benefit of the FRENCH (spits - hehe joking) I'd like to put the record straight. Outnumbered more than 4:1 King Henry's men, who had indeed been withdrawing to the coast, slaughtered something like 5,000 French Knights for the loss of 13 Men at Arms and about 100 foot (most of them from the unarmed baggage train, which was sneak attacked from the rear during the main battle). Agincourt was a staggering blow to the French, and yes it proved the value of the standing requirement for every Englishman at the age of 15 years to commence training with the dreaded longbow.

As a footnote, prior to the battle the French promised to cut the two draw fingers from each captured English archer (index finger and middle finger). In response the English archers raised these fingers to the French, making the oft since used reverse 'V' sign, now interpreted to mean 'f off' but in fact suggesting at the time that the French would first have to come and get them.

1030pm EST too late eh? How's 930pm? That would mean a mid day start here in Adelaide, np with that. Any earlier and I suspect the arena would be empty.

 

ehh i got my history backwards. its been a while for me and the hundred years war
930s fine. cya saturday

[SCTusk]

The same myth is also used to describe the origin of the middle finger as obscene.

It's just that: A myth.

Well Saxman, I guess most of history is just a myth, written by the victors - the assassins, the biggest thugs and liars. I don't suppose anybody can say with certainty what actually happened back then. Good story though, and you have to admire the sheer scale of the victory (if that can be believed?)

[SCTusk]

Just realised, hadn't intended to hijack the thread - apologies Chilli 

So, to the original topic...for what it's worth, and aside from the fact that (as far as I am aware) HiTech wants the WW1 arena to remain 'dogfight only', if we stand any chance at all of getting additional activities they would most likely be of the type that could be made quickly and easily. By this I mean basic stuff like changing settings, e.g. hangars set for damage from mg fire, field ack set to something less aggressive, some sort of building addition or vehicle addition representing radar that could be destroyed etc. This type of change wouldn't detract too much from the purist 'dogfight' idea, merely provide the potential to swing the odds in favour of one side or another as a result of ground attacks.

Due to ground attacks usually taking place at low level, anyone undertaking such work would naturally be exposing themselves to attack from above.... thus still satisfying the requirement to encourage dogfighting (because we only have fighters). The payoff would be temporary loss of radar and maybe some penalties re a/c availability, fuel or whatever. The main thrust of this general 'wish' would then be to present HiTech with a set of potential changes which he could at least test very easily, rather than a long list of labour intensive mods that may or may not improve gameplay and attendance.

So in conclusion, I'd suggest a concerted effort by everyone who wants change in the WW1 arena to ask for a trial period of simple 'settings changes' as outlined above, and see what happens from there.

   

[CptTrips]

(as far as I am aware) HiTech wants the WW1 arena to remain 'dogfight only'

Then it will remain mostly empty, IMHO.

If they add a plane, or something there will be a temporary flush, but if there is no real "GAME" being played there, most players will go elsewhere to find one.

That would be a pity, because it as real potential.  The planes themselves are excellent work.  Its the gameplay they are embedded in that isn't working.  And there is a reasonable set of players interested in a real WWI arena.

My hope is, based on past experience, that HTC will look at the deployed system, evaluate its performance, and be willing to make changes as needed to optimize. That's what engineers do, and they've always impressed me as talented engineers. They didn't dig their heels in and force night flying on everone when it became clear it wasn't valuable. They didn't blindly stick with field capture order when it became clear it wasn't working.  I have confidence in their willingness to reevaluate and adapt in order to succeed.

Regards,
Wab

[Chilli]

......The main thrust of this general 'wish' would then be to present HiTech with a set of potential changes which he could at least test very easily, rather than a long list of labour intensive mods that may or may not improve gameplay and attendance.
(snip)
   

Excellent point.   The problem that most of have, is that we don't have a clue of how much labor goes into even the simplest modification suggestion.  HiTech responded to a wishlist once, stating that it was only a matter of one line of code.  Even if the coding is simple, I am pretty certain it is still not just a matter of flipping a switch and bingo, there it is. 

So, basically, creating a new object like a Zeppelin, making it destructible, making it have flight characteristics, arming it with gunner and observation positions, making it have strategic value, etc.  ..... (all prior suggestions in this thread) - with each addition to what we might like to see a Zeppelin capable of doing, I see greater and greater potential for it becoming labour intensive.

Making new terrains, is something that the player community has contributed to.   

Also, it seems that staff is already busy with a build list for WW2 additional aircraft.  Adding new WWI planes, is not necessarily just a short time boost in interest if there is any model that can compete with the tri planes that seem to dominate the arena.

Finally, back to my original inspiration for posting, WWI film clips.  Another feature, similar to AH1 when going to launch from the runway, there could be an animation for field crew starting prop, removing wheel blocks, and retreating to the tower (in AH1 there was animation of pilot going to the plane from tower).  If I recall correctly, the animation speed could be adjusted.  This would make for some wicked, awesome film viewer shots.

[SCTusk]

it seems that staff is already busy with a build list for WW2 additional aircraft.  Adding new WWI planes, is not necessarily just a short time boost in interest if there is any model that can compete with the tri planes that seem to dominate the arena.

Chilli, I haven't had an opportunity to try it but I trust the AH FM enough to suspect that the DVII would dominate at high altitude (WW1 'high') as it did in the RW. So basically if you just want to fly an a/c that can knock down Dr1's try the DVII and go high. Yes it will make for longer sorties, but that actually adds significance to the combat. Possibly the F2B could benefit the same way, although the poor old Camel is stuck with being a low level also-ran in AH. Unfortunately everyone wants a quick fix these days, nobody seems to want more than 5 minutes worth of alting for their combat 'fix'. Fair enough too, their $14.95. Personally I enjoy a good 30 minute climb to face my doom... after enjoying a hearty breakfast of weavel infested porridge in sour milk the air conditioner goes to max cool and I splash myself with ice water from a bucket, which doubles as a repository for the porridge and sour milk when it reappears during manoeuvres. I used to have a nail gun handy for simulating pw's but my psychiatrist said I had to give that up or he'd send me back to that nasty place with no internet connection  

Finally, back to my original inspiration for posting, WWI film clips.  Another feature, similar to AH1 when going to launch from the runway, there could be an animation for field crew starting prop, removing wheel blocks, and retreating to the tower (in AH1 there was animation of pilot going to the plane from tower).  If I recall correctly, the animation speed could be adjusted.  This would make for some wicked, awesome film viewer shots.

Sounds good, but as stated earlier, labour intensive. In the meantime it's worth knowing that the external view gives you a pilot who moves his head around in concert with stick and rudder movement. You can do a really effective start up sequence with the pilot checking his gauges, looking all around and generally being Mr Cool as smoke belches from the exhaust ports, if you want something extra for your vids. Would you be intending to use Fraps for that btw? I'm interested in doing some occassional movies of AH but I don't like the AH movie maker, it seems too sterile with no control surface movements and an almost 'digitised' flight motion capture. Trouble is I can't get Fraps to produce AVI's that my movie editing software recognises.