Strats

[Biggamer]

i wish we had the old system back aswell. including the lay outs the new strat layouts i dont like for some reason

[RedBeard]

It seems to me that rather than having the extreme mechanic we currently have (i.e. No country dar and short effects times) that a more limited impact with a longer duration might be a better solution.

The concept of hitting HQ and affecting perfect intelligence is good. What if it only affected remote radar coverage on your map?  It seems that you should be able to get intelligence reports from a local base regardless of HQ status as long as the local base radar is up. A similar thing might occur with bar dar. The observer corps reports to a local base which reports to HQ. As long as there's a local base in your sector, you get that info. You only get to see bar dar for other sectors if HQ is up.

Next you degrade remote sector info gradually as HQ is degraded. Random sectors would no longer get their information disseminated as their communications lines to HQ have become degraded. This might show up on the map as remote sectors with hashed lines through them. Your local sector would never be hashed assuming you owned a field there for the observer corp to report to.

Another possibility instead of removing the dar and dar bar info would be to delay it over increasing lengths of time as HQ  degrades.

HQ is currently too easy to take down, so it would need to be hardened a bit and the amount of damage it has taken would cause progressive degradation of intelligence.

This kind of HQ mechanic brings it more in line with the strat factories mechanic, but still allows local mechanics to prevail.

[icepac]

The current strat system favors guys who fly off map to suddenly show up at a strat with very few defensive guns as compared to the older city system.

If you showed up at the old city at low altitude, you only got one run on a target where a couple of guys in ME410s can fly off map noe, show up at a strat, and almost zero it before any defenders can reach them.

[bustr]

You could always ask Waffle to put a 30k wall around the boarder of a 10x10 terrain or even a 20x20 terrain like I did with BowlMA. My new terrain has a 20k wall incorporated as the edges of the terrain. So first your 410's will have to climb above 20k just to finally go NOE. They will be visible for quite some time as a DARBAR. I decided not to do 30k so some genius wouldn't spend the next year whining about being kept from gaming the game by a 30k wall.

Waffle can make changes to terrains years after their owner leaves the game only if you can convince Hitech it is worth paying Waffle to spend the time doing it. Otherwise, players create terrains, so far it's only been Waffle and myself with AH3, and Hitech sanctions what the player dreams up. Along with a few suggestions by Hitech you will never hear about so the terrain will be accepted into rotation. A 10x10 terrain is too small for a movable strat complex, and with my latest terrain I bunched the HQ\city and "some strats" together as the terrain permitted.

You guys do this same thing on any given subject ad naseum. You get a small sampling group consensus which you then try to present to Hitech as a validation of your assertions. 99% of the time he ignores what your consensus polling group wants. Each of you has always had the ability to solve this specific issue. You can build a terrain and stuff all of the strat into one location as long as you keep them 8 miles minimum from each other. they won't move since that function has been eliminated but, you have the three uncapturable feilds you can place around them and Flak feilds if you want. Or completely leave them defenseless unless Hitech asks you to modify the area. It is this simple if you want a change in the current implementation of the strats. Otherwise, have you gotten Hitech to agree with you since he separated the super strat complex?





Red dots in white squares are the strats, the two large ones are city and fuel which are 2x2mile objects. HQ and other strat are 1x1mile objects. I've decided not to put Flak bases on this terrain and just let the 163 field do the defending. If there is an off the map arrow, everyone will know the con is above 20k and to get ready at the HQ. Creating mass mountain range topographical features across a 10x10 is a creative pain in the pooty. And then you have to paint them. All the white squares are the base locations, once I put them in, then I have to paint the local area and do any terrain tweaking for GV's like adding streams with bridges to cross. Oh! strat resupply is strictly a c47 thing on this terrain which means no GV camping out on the strat all night keeping them at zero. Though two of the strat in each country is in 16in range and there will be three battle ships per country.

See how easy it is to build a terrain and solve most of your strat problems.....

[cav58d]

1-  Harden the strats.  The City strat is 2.5 x's stronger then everything else.  That's where all the strats should be baseline.

2-  Remove GV spawns to strats.

[icepac]

I like the walls and also feel having vehicle spawns should be at least half a sector from strats but that enemy and friendly spawns should be the same distance.

[cav58d]

I like the walls and also feel having vehicle spawns should be at least half a sector from strats but that enemy and friendly spawns should be the same distance.

That I could live with.  Make the vehicle work to get there.

And harden all the damn strats man.  City strength minimum.

[icepac]

I would rather just have a 200mph wind traveling away from the arena off map.

That way, if you accidently went off map in a fighter, you might have a slight chance to get back on while burning a bit of fuel to do so.

[bustr]

I'm moving the GV focus on this terrain away from camping in a strat for the night with a GV and keeping everyone screwed. Only a c47 can resupply, and the nearest airfields make it worth the trip. All strat are reasonably condensed so strat runners and large bombing initiatives don't have to wander all over the place to hit enough things to do some damage. While there are airfields near enough to all of the strats to make things competitive for both sides.

Those two strats sitting alone on those long islands out in the open, I might put in a flak base next to each since they are so vulnerable, especially if the enemy gets a foot hold airfield to launch bombers against the HQ\city. That single airfield on the tip of each island exposed to passing task groups will act as early warning radar because the shore batteries will flash. Since there are three ports per country, each will have a CV\BB task groups, 6 task groups per country. On this terrain all the airfields on the water get shore batteries and PT spawns. Each country will probably park a BB group in the slot under their HQ to act as an AA barge and flash as an early warning radar. 

But, everyone has a 4-5k super large uncapturable airfield to launch a bomber box, or a raid from and be 20-25k by the time they get over another country's strat. It's not like you can hide on this terrain other than going NOE. And I suspect from how NDisles gets played on, the center island on this terrain will be where many spend their time in GVs and fighters. The play area is about the same as the arenas in WT and probably why so many furball and tank fight on the center island of NDilses.

The rest will have condensed strats, multiple task forces, and regular capture the field win the war kinds of things within easy distances on the rest of the terrain.


The three rings are GV spawns out of the single airfield I'm using to test bridges, and that I'm not dropping GVs into the water when they spawn. I don't know if Hitech has code in the spawn to keep GV's from doing that. When I start laying down the bases and strats, there will be three airfields 13miles apart with the same GV spawns to the center.

Building a terrain is far more satisfying than spending years fighting with Hitech, getting nothing for it, while trying to convince him you are smarter than he is concerning game design. Still wonder if I should put one PT spawn for each country into those channels.....and you will be able to camp those side spawns from one of the bridges that will connect the ends of those strips in a ring between them all. Those bridges make good high ground sniping spots if you are willing to expose yourself...... still, they make for another option in the GV game that has never existed before. Oh well, got more mountains to pull up on the last islands before I can build in all the feilds, port, strats, spawns, task groups, and put some life into this terrain. And then clouds......  


   

[icepac]

Looks pretty cool.

Any PT spawns planned?

[bustr]

All the fields on the ocean will get a PT spawn, I'm debating those canals in the center island screen shot. I wonder if anyone would up a PT and try to shoot at tanks and planes, or even get a PT fight going like a Miami Vice speed boat chase. LVT4 would have the advantage of crossing the canal where it wants to.

[haggerty]

I remember when missions for strats was a common thing, now its just solo player going at them easily.  Most maps seem to have them within a half hour flight for a bomber to hit them at 20k+, its just Buzzsaw that I can think of that has them directly on the front line with enemy vehicle spawns into them at the start of the game.  I imagine the creator was trying to come up with some dynamic vehicle combat there, but with the way proxies work it just allows vehicles to spawn in, do as much damage as possible, then land when they see or hear something coming for them.

[NatCigg]

All the fields on the ocean will get a PT spawn and those canals in the center island screen shot. I wonder if anyone would up a PT and try to shoot at tanks and planes, or even get a PT fight going like a Miami Vice speed boat chase. LVT4 would have the advantage of crossing the canal where it wants to.

that's a good idea, help make the pt useful.  All rivers should flow to the ocean.  boats can launch anywhere, especially rivers.


Also, the wall on your map is a nice touch to fix hitechs game.  I still see a problem with the strats tho, 30 minute down times make the gameplay unplayable, only fixed with long distance flights to a target that is easily repaired, a very uninspiring HQ, and low numbers in a increasingly stale environment.

The central strats created a hub of activity.  High value targets were in reach of attackers and defenders alike, one guy - ten guys, all the same sand box.  It was fun.

[bustr]

Lately all the activity on NDisles has been on the center island which is about the land mass of a WT arena. On the rest of this new terrain, bases are close enough the war win players won't spend all night in transit. And there is a capture path to get launch feilds to hammer the main strats with impunity if no one wants to defend them using the three un-capturable airfields clustered around them. There are at least 15 airfields that will have a river between the GV spawns and the airfield which means crossing and defending bridges. I'm not cutting out the rivers until I'm laying down the feilds and spawns. It's one of those custom kinds of things, it isn't worth the effort until you are laying down that field and customizing the local terrain for GV combat.

[NatCigg]

rivers will be a good day.  imagine the rapids!