WX report for Monday, February 3rd, 1945

[Mister Fork]

WX report issued at 0800GMT for Rhine Region. Winds calm.  Visibility 15 miles. Sky, light clouds 2000. Scattered clouds 10000. Temperature 49F. Pressure 3009. You have information Kilo.

[TheBug]

Radar needs to have a broader range.  I know you shoot for historical, but having it short like that makes it very difficult to find the fight.  Which in turn, makes it difficult to keep people in there.

Give it a bigger range and enable it in the tower only??

[CAP1]

i didn't see anyone having trouble finding fights.

[captain1ma]

i did, me and oldman, and a couple of others, no dots, no nothing. we had to tell each other where we were just to fight. i have to agree with bug on this one.

[CAP1]

i did, me and oldman, and a couple of others, no dots, no nothing. we had to tell each other where we were just to fight. i have to agree with bug on this one.

hhmm....when i was in, the bardar seemed intermittant, but the dot dar worked whenever someone was within the dar circles for enemies,  and dot dar worked for friendlies wherever they were.
 wonder if something got porked?

[Nr_RaVeN]

More dar helps pepole find fight that's true, but it wont prevent pepole from joining some fricking base in east Bumm Fk.

Its better to have less dar (ads to the excitement and element of supprise) but keep the usable(flyable)bases limeted to only 3 or 4 pers side. Axis and allied flight paths will intersect and fights will be found by default.

That's why limeting the axis and allies to only a few usable bases(that are close to each other) is a good idea with our limeted population for now.

That's what will turn guys on to no icons, and keep em coming back.

 Big maps with multiple bases are for big populations... We don't have that yet, and wont till we consistently run tighter base to base set ups and make all the rest of the bases unusable.
Big maps only serve to confuse and dilute an already small population.
 
Once again...The idea is to hold pepole in the server to grow it. As the server grows only then expand the map to accommodate the size of the population.
 
But all the set ups need to run that way for a while... If one week its a small map and the next week a huge confusing one we lose our momentum..

Pepole go to a chain because they know what they are going to have consistency from one store to the next.

I don't go to Wendy's for lunch because the menu changes every day. I go there cause I know what I'm going to get.
The framework is consistant.
I want my Wendy's Baconator when I want my Wendy's Baconator

[trap78]

Posted by TheBug:

Give it a bigger range and enable it in the tower only??

Good idea. If the purpose of radar is to enable players to find a fight, then make "all seeing" so it basically covers the entire map. Then make it available in the tower only. That way a player can log on, look at the map and fly to the fight. The fight itself is more realistic because because radar can't be used as a GPS to keep track of the battlefield. It also eliminates the issues of porking to get an advantage, flying in the weeds just to avoid radar, etc.

[Oldman731]

I don't go to Wendy's for lunch because the menu changes every day. I go there cause I know what I'm going to get.

Perhaps.  But we also have had many comments over the years that one of the things people enjoy about the AvA is the variety of good maps.

The no-icon challenge is better when you have plenty of people and no dot DAR, but it's still good if you have the radar and, simply, no icons.  If you have few people and no radar, even those who want to fight spend an inordinate amount of time finding each other.  This is true whether you're on a big map navigating by flashing bases, or on a small map navigating on the assumption that if there's an enemy flying, he must be nearby.

We all agree we'd like the arena to grow.  My sense is that we don't yet have enough hard-core no-icons people to eliminate the radar.

But others often accurately point out that I lack sense, so what do the rest of you think?

- oldman

[Nr_RaVeN]

True but the best set up is only good if you get pepole to use it.

 Dar is good for us don't get me wrong, but dar on a huge map with small population doesn't prevent folks from flying way off in a far away base.  That can dilute population .

I'm for some dar sure  but I think for now to get the No icon population up we would do well with limeted bases.

 Once we have guys that  see how cool no icons are and start to frequent the server the population will slowly grow in population. At that point we can afford a bigger map in the from of more available bases.

I'm looking for a blending of dar with less available bases to fly from at this juncture to prevent defusing our already small population and to hold folks in the server longer so others see numbers  and join.

A limitation of bases doesn't have to mean a bad set up. With correctly balanced plane sets and great terrains like Ranger and others provide we would have lots of very exiting immersing action.
Obviously bases would have to be hardend to prevent the porkys.

IMO I think its better to get folks exited about how fun no icons is by getting them into action fast with a combination of limeted bases and intelligent tasteful dar settings

[CAP1]

to me......

one of the coolest things, is knowing there's an enemy in the sector, and then trying to find him before he finds me.

 example......sat. night......i'm flying in low vis.....probably about 5 miles. chatting away on open channel. every few seconds, i do a scan of the skies. as i'm typing, i thought i noticed something off in the distance, a little below me. i cleared the message window, powered back up from cruise, and made sure my sight was set the way i like it for fighting.
 i get over there, and sure enough, there's a con about 2k below me. he flies straight past, so i thought he didn't see me. heart's pumping now, as i dive below him, hoping to get into his blind spot before he sees me. no such luck......he turns last minute(and in the ma's i'd have been dumb enough to take the shot right there), so i point my nose up, to reset. he follows, i loop over on him, maintaining my e advantage(not by much though), and finally, got a lucky shot to take his wing off.
 i pull my flaps in to regain speed, scan around, and here comes another one in. thought this was gonna be more fun, as it was not co-alt......maybe 2 turns, and this 109 headed for the deck. i chose not to follow.

 the point is, that half of the fun in here, is spotting you, before you spot me.

[TheBug]

Is it possible to have bigger cover and make it enabled/seen in the tower only?  I thought that was a new parameter they had added to  arena settings, but I may have been mistaken.  If they did, I think it would interesting to experiment with.

Allows people to locate the fight quickly, but leaves that sense of uncertainty/hunting when in flight.  Also some may enjoy playing ground controller for a side. 

Just trying to throw ideas out there.  Didn't want to make it sound like it was impossible to find a fight. 

[CAP1]

Is it possible to have bigger cover and make it enabled/seen in the tower only?  I thought that was a new parameter they had added to  arena settings, but I may have been mistaken.  If they did, I think it would interesting to experiment with.

Allows people to locate the fight quickly, but leaves that sense of uncertainty/hunting when in flight.  Also some may enjoy playing ground controller for a side. 

Just trying to throw ideas out there.  Didn't want to make it sound like it was impossible to find a fight. 

i actually did the ground controller thing for crazy the night he was hangar flying. couple 109's were hovering over the field trying to nail him....so i kept calling out their locations to him from a field gun.

[Molsman]

i actually did the ground controller thing for crazy the night he was hangar flying. couple 109's were hovering over the field trying to nail him....so i kept calling out their locations to him from a field gun.

ya that was a good time I just wished one of them had the gonads to follow me thru the hanger

[CAP1]

ya that was a good time I just wished one of them had the gonads to follow me thru the hanger

so was i. woulda looked pretty dam cool on film too.

 they just wanted the possibility of the easy kill i think.