June, 2017 Scenario design discussion

[Phast12]

I would be interested in knowing exactly how many objects there are in total that the allied can get points for and if just the bombers can destroy those objects. 


Below is a wild swing as i believe the allied have many more objects than 150 per Factory. Besides the plane numbers being grossly in the allied favor the points generation appears to be that way as well.......

Max Points AXIS can clear if all 14 bomber pilots are put in the air and everything shot down twice = 177

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Allied
.2 per object
Not sure of the exact number say 150 objects per Factory ( i believe the object per factory is much higher)
 30 points 4 factories

120 points possible from bombers using my light numbers
88 points if they shoot down every axis twice
208 Possible points

[Guppy35]

I think the alt caps should be lowered for playablity reasons. Set the fighter max to 30K and the bomber cap to 23K. This will help close the high alt performance gap a bit and allow for a fair chance of bomber intercept

Also, I'd like to see a proper 50/50 split on players. The overall trend seen in single side attacker events over the last couple of years has shown that the defending side has had little success in making an even fight based on kills made vs losses suffered. Increase Jg26 to 8 190A's and add four 110G-2's from Zg76.

How do you pull that off when you consider the bombers included?  That many more fighters for the LW makes it that much tougher for the smaller number of Allied fighters to protect and give the bombers any chance of getting to the target.  Scenario history does seem to tell us that the bombers have a tendency to get slaughtered no matter what the escorts do.  The number of guys willing to fly bombers has dwindled down and down due to this.  Can't see how even more LW fighters would help reverse that trend.

[Brooke]

If folks want, we can probably rejigger it to have 8 pilots per group instead of 6.  Making it larger, though, is impractical when you don't have 100 people on a side like in the olden days.  We'd have too few groups.

Does anyone *not* want me to rejigger it into 8-pilot groups?

Speak up now, please, before I put in the work to change it.

[Phast12]

....

[Brooke]

Regarding ratio allied:axis, fighters:bombers, etc., this design takes the same ratios as Battle Over Germany, which worked out just fine, and everyone was happy.  There wasn't a bunch of complaining after it was over, and if you go back and look at the logs, you see that it worked out OK.

The ratios are also similar in DGS and DGSII, and those worked out OK as well.

I think the best way is to use what worked well in the past.

[Brooke]

For scoring, anyone who wants to put forth some different idea of a scoring system has the ability to go back through frames of BOG and DGS II and show what their scoring system would do.

For example, if a suggested scoring system results in one side or the other in BOG winning all of the frames, it isn't a scoring system we would want to go with.

[Devil 505]

How do you pull that off when you consider the bombers included?  That many more fighters for the LW makes it that much tougher for the smaller number of Allied fighters to protect and give the bombers any chance of getting to the target.  Scenario history does seem to tell us that the bombers have a tendency to get slaughtered no matter what the escorts do.  The number of guys willing to fly bombers has dwindled down and down due to this.  Can't see how even more LW fighters would help reverse that trend.

Because of this:

I just wanted to note that it's currently 78 Allies to 44 Axis. Due to formations.

And and how that relates to this: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,383331.0.html

The current proportion is too close a 45/55 player split favoring the attacker and I believe that this scenario will fall into a similar pattern with the defending side suffering a vast majority of total losses. This side split does not work in low number events.

 

[Brooke]

Here's how I applied the scoring system in the current version of the writeup to BOG and DGSII.

I can look at every frame of those and see:
-- The number of allied kills
-- The obj destroyed by allies
-- The number of allied bombers
-- The number of axis kills

Now, one thing in BOG and DGSII is that the bombers did one sortie.  So, to translate into our world of two bomber sorties per frame, I actually doubled the obj destroyed and then used it in my calculations.  Also, I wanted to make sure that a bomb run on targets in BOG and DGSII are comparable to what we would get here, so I did practice bomb runs myself through every target factory type to see what I get vs. what the top-experienced bomber pilots in BOG and DGSII got to see if I needed a further adjustment to obj destroyed to make them comparable.  They are comparable, though, so I didn't feel that there was any adjustment needed.

What I found is that a pts/object of 0.2 would result in allies winning 2 of 6 frames for BOG and 3 of 6 frames of DGSII.

If I picked 0.24 pts/object, it would have been 3 of 6 for BOG and 3 of 6 for DGSII, but one of the axis wins in DGSII would have been by an infinitesimal margin.

I picked 0.2 instead of something higher to be conservative on the axis side because of the outcome of the previous scenario.

[Devil 505]

If folks want, we can probably rejigger it to have 8 pilots per group instead of 6.  Making it larger, though, is impractical when you don't have 100 people on a side like in the olden days.  We'd have too few groups.

Does anyone *not* want me to rejigger it into 8-pilot groups?

Speak up now, please, before I put in the work to change it.

Not every squad should to be expanded to 8, just the 109G's, 190's, P-38's and P-47's.

Regarding ratio allied:axis, fighters:bombers, etc., this design takes the same ratios as Battle Over Germany, which worked out just fine, and everyone was happy.  There wasn't a bunch of complaining after it was over, and if you go back and look at the logs, you see that it worked out OK.

The ratios are also similar in DGS and DGSII, and those worked out OK as well.

I think the best way is to use what worked well in the past.

If you really want to recreate the opening frames Battle Over Germany, then just make it exactly that and end the discussion. Of course you already made changes that messed up the balance - higher bomber cap, replacing the 190A-8 with the A-5, and a higher proportion pf P-51's.

If you want a better balanced version then lets stop using BoG as the benchmark and actually fix the problems.

For scoring, anyone who wants to put forth some different idea of a scoring system has the ability to go back through frames of BOG and DGS II and show what their scoring system would do.

For example, if a suggested scoring system results in one side or the other in BOG winning all of the frames, it isn't a scoring system we would want to go with.

Let's ensure the playability is balanced first then make a fair points system after.

[Brooke]

So, that is how I did the scoring.

If you want to promote a different scoring system, please show what your scoring system would do at least for the frames of BOG. 

That way, we can see how it would have worked in the past.

A scoring system that results in, for example, axis or allies winning all frames of BOG is not one we'd want to use.

[shotgunneeley]

Count up the total number of objects in play: each object destroyed is a point for the allies, each one saved is a point for the axis (destroyed objects stay down for the duration of the frame). I don't know if the allies will have a different designated target each time or if they can freely hit whatever they choose each frame. Depending on how close potential targets are to the front lines, objects destroyed could stay down for the entire event to prod the allies to go deeper into axis airpsace to find unhindered enemy industry. Are the allies expected to make one long raid or two comparably shorter runs per frame?

Manual calibration for bombers. They'll be area bombing strats so no need for pin-point auto calibration, this will throw in a little bit of potential error as well to incentivize them into knowing their craft/skill.

[Brooke]

Not every squad should to be expanded to 8, just the 109G's, 190's and P-47's.

OK -- anyone object to me modding group sizes?

If you ...

Are you saying you want 190A-8's instead of A-5's?

I don't think allies having 2 less P-51's or bombers at 23k instead of 25k would be significant.

What problems are you talking about?

[BFOOT1]

Up them to 8 old boy 

[Guppy35]

Because of this:

And and how that relates to this: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,383331.0.html

The current proportion is too close a 45/55 player split favoring the attacker and I believe that this scenario will fall into a similar pattern with the defending side suffering a vast majority of total losses. This side split does not work in low number events.

I guess I'm looking for an example from past scenarios built around 17s and 24s where the Axis has struggled?  Generally the bomber guys are the ones who don't make it through the entire scenario because they get tired of dying.   

I don't recall any where the LW got pounded but am more than willing to hear if that has been the case.  I'm looking at DGS, DGS II, BoG as my examples.   I'm not sure how counting drones adds up to more pilots.  From a LW perspective, it seems like that just means more targets

[Devil 505]

OK -- anyone object to me modding group sizes?

Are you saying you want 190A-8's instead of A-5's?

I don't think allies having 2 less P-51's or bombers at 23k instead of 25k would be significant.

What problems are you talking about?

What I'm pointing out is that you have made 3 changes from BoG. Each one negatively affects the Axis to some degree. Given the low player base likely to attend the event, these changes are not - as you claim - insignificant.

The A-8 is a much bigger threat to the bombers than the A-5 because of the 30mm cannon. There was also the small number of 110's in BoG, also a bigger threat to the bombers.

That 2k difference in altitude makes a difference in the difficulty of intercepting the bombers because of their increased speed and poorer performance of the 109's and 190's.

The 2 extra P-51's may be a small advantage but it's still 2 more Allied pilots that are essentially untouchable in combat.


It's not about what I want, but what you are trying to achieve. If you want an exact small scale BoG then just set up the plane set and proportions exactly to what was seen in BoG. But don't make changes and think that the balance is maintained - because it's not. Why did you feel the need to tweak the design?

You made it easier for the Allies to accolmplish their mission, but reduced the capability of the Axis to accomplish theirs.

And, as I pointed out to Guppy, the side split is also a problem with low population events.