Melee Perk-Purchased AI Bomber Strat Strike

[CptTrips]

In many games a user may acquire access or purchase with "points" an automated strike against the opposing team.  I.e. a bomber or cruise missile strike. 

It might be fun if users had the ability to purchase with perk points (maybe 2x a 262 cost?) an AI bomber strike against an opposing team's strat target.

It would be listed in the hangar like a field gun or shore battery.  When selected,  it would pop up a dialog and allow which team the players wishes to attack and select witch strat item is the target.  At that point a 24 bomber strike force launches from an uncapturable Strategic Air Command base near their HQ and begins the long flight to the target.  At the same time a text announcement to both teams that an automated strike has been launched and what the target is. 

Both sided pretty much know the flight path.  If the attacker team wants the strike to be successful, they might want to launch human escorts to try and help the strike punch through.  Friendly bombers might want to launch and fall in with the AI formation for protection and join the strike.  The defending team knows it's coming and can plan their interception.  The strike becomes a lens to focus action. The strike has cost and the outcome has consequences.

After the drop the AI bombers return to their base and circle a couple of times before de-spawning (very hard to get AI bomber formations to land).  The percentage of bombers that return safely vs the percentage that get shot down, determine the percentage of the perk point costs that get recovered.  Like a deposit. 

There needs to be a pre-canned set of AI missions created going from each HQ to each of the opposing country strat per map.  Maybe only some maps have the ability.  That is a finite number and not large (~50 per map?).  Doable.  They don't have to be fancy.

The only problem is this would only work in a 2-sided arena or the mission system would have to be changed.  Currently the mission system only has the concept of 2 countries.









 

[turt21]

Whats wrong w a real strat strike?

[CptTrips]

Whats wrong w a real strat strike?

Let me know when you get a 24 plane formation going on a regular basis.  I'll escort you.

[atlau]

Not a huge fan of mixing AI in with real players. Would killing the bombers count as kills? Would they be a different color icon to identify?

[CptTrips]

Not a huge fan of mixing AI in with real players. Would killing the bombers count as kills? Would they be a different color icon to identify?

I realize something like this would be controversial with the old guard.  But with the continually dwindling numbers, I think a broader view of how AI might augment arena action and fun should be considered.

In the past that in situations like this I would suggest some kind of icon identifier for AI.

I would probably not suggest AI fighters.

You already have AI in the Melee (or used to).  Field ack, ship ack, convoys, trains.  These bombers would simply be flying field ack that will drop ord on your strat if you don't stop them.   

As far as kills?  Do you get a kill when you shoot AI field ack?  What you get is to remove the threat and any escorts you find along the way.    I guess you could have a separate AI destroyed score category.   Might be a good way for noobs to find AI in the Melee and shoot down as target practice.

I think there is a role for AI augmentation to a certain degree to flesh-out arena activity without harming the core Aces High experience. 

I could see a lot more AI naval activity.  Supply routes of cargo ships.  Destroyer patrols.  AI truck convoys cruising along roads.  A network of C47 supply planes flying between bases. 


 

[Chalenge]

I would love to see a non-stop re-enactment of the BoB with scripted AI running in a special host 24/7 where live pilots could join either side at any point. I would think is very possible with the game in the state it has developed into and would serve as an even greater attraction for pilots on the fence, as it were.

[Vraciu]

Not a huge fan of mixing AI in with real players. Would killing the bombers count as kills? Would they be a different color icon to identify?

If the AI is decent--as opposed to impossibly good--then it would be nice to see SOMETHING when the arena is less full.

Heck, even just airplanes doing touch and goes in the pattern would give an air of activity to the place.  Just don't give them icons so we know they're not real.

I would love to see airplanes lined up on the apron as eye candy.   Drone missions.   The WWI arena seems to be teething with activity even when nobody is in there.   That's gotta' be a good thing.

[CptTrips]

I would love to see a non-stop re-enactment of the BoB with scripted AI running in a special host 24/7 where live pilots could join either side at any point. I would think is very possible with the game in the state it has developed into and would serve as an even greater attraction for pilots on the fence, as it were.

Oh man, don't get me started. 

I've spent the last year researching that and experimenting.  Creating test missions.  Creating test terrains.



The allied balloon model I used in WW1WF  was originally a barage balloon so I go back and reuse those.


I was even going to put in London Bridge 


I learned everything I needed from doing the WW1WF and Hitech had added in all the special tweaks to make that kind of arena possible.  I had written custom code for doing a lot of stuff that would have not been possible by hand.  WW1WF had something like 225 individual mission files that could be bundled up into larger mission files for scheduling.  It still almost killed me.  But, it seemed after all that effort, it would be a shame to have only done one. 

I sorta hit various technical road blocks. 
No Dornier 17?  Sigh.
Might be my VR settings but I was getting aircraft blinking out with very large formations.  Too many planes in visual range I guess. 
Still haven't gotten the Stuka to dive bomb properly.  What I could achieve, looked pretty lame.
No AI ships so can't do any KanalKampf.
Issues with AI bomber formations where you kill the lead, the other AI just follow him down to their death.  lol (Hitech says that mightcould be fixed eventually.)
Not being able to give different flights different skins.  Everyone in the world is one squadron!
AI can do weird stuff like when you are being targeted by two AI far back, other AI will let you fly right up behind them and start shredding and ignore you because you are already targeted by two AI. 
Most painful is that AI has no concept of making an attack on a bomber.  It tries to dogfight the bomber and the results are a little sad to watch.   

I could probably work around a lot of that and get something not too bad, but in reality, I would crush my nuts for 8 months and a few people would play it for a week and then it would get ignored.     I eventually decided it was not reasonably worth the effort and Hitech probably doesn't want another empty arena on the clipboard.   



However, now that Hitech improved the Offline Mission system so much, maybe that would probably be a more reasonable approach.  I could just do a single BoB mission someday.  If people like it maybe someday I would do another.  And then maybe another. Etc.

 

[atlau]

The BoB or a Midway scenario might be interesting.

[CptTrips]

The BoB or a Midway scenario might be interesting.

AI can't do carriers take offs or landings.

You also can't spawn or control the movements of a ship with a mission.