Participation and DAR

[AKcurly]

I've posted most of this in Bloom's thread, but I think it's important enough to have its own thread.  And, like most of the dribble we post here, this probably isn't new.  

I've often thought loss of arena wide DAR is so catastrophic, it should be done away with.  Hell, there are so many reasons not to have arena wide DAR.

1. Realism.

2. Loss of arena-wide DAR when your opponents still have it removes much of the fun for the DAR-less competitors.

Instead, I propose something like this:

1. display local (say 25 mile radius, altitude of 800ft ABOVE the ground - not altimeter reading) dar dots.

2. increase the field ack - make it tougher to take down local dar. None of this 20mm stuff, 1k direct hit.

3. the strat chart should give you a way to look at the dar map for any FRIENDLY area -- perhaps this would be similar to calling a friendly base and saying "how are you doing?" Perhaps information about ack status in addition to hangar status.  Anyway, it gives you a way to check local DAR for any friendly field (that has intact local DAR,) but it's not global and it would be realistic.

4. get rid of the freaking sector bars completely.

5. keep the factories and HQ. Damage to HQ and factories would continue to have the same effect it does now, but with no global dar, no effect.

This would bring so many benefits:

a. Low-level sneak raids become possible. Man, everyone loves them, why isn't HTC listening to this? Not only are they fun, but low-level sneak raids give outnumbered sides a way to recover!

b. Loss of global dar is such a downer (given that your opponents have it) and can thwart your moves.

c. No dar is worse than night - folks loggout -- bad for business HTC.

d. No global dar would discourage massive furballs and would instantly give HTC a big network boost.

e. Did I mention low-level sneak raids?  

AKcurly

[BigGun]

IMO some of these points are very good ideas. I love the idea of low level raids without enemy knowing it is coming.

BgMAW

[This message has been edited by BigGun (edited 05-18-2001).]

[DocFalconer1]

i was thinking the same thing...maybe after night rolls around, the dar range is shortened and have nightfighters w/ onboard dar (with a range of 20-25k) to make it a nightfighter haven.  This could be a new area for HTC...i dont think there's any other WWII online sims w/ nightfighters and plane dar

[funked]

Thumbs Up

[ElLobo]

Dar who needs it! I remember an evening not to long ago where the rooks were taking a beating. We were stuck up in the NW corner and the bish were rolling us up from the south.

Then they knocked out our Dar with a well executed HQ raid. A funny thing happened then. We all started working together, communicating where cons were and where we were going to attack next. Our Dar was down for 2 hours and we took 5 bases during that time. People were flying recon missions to find the cons and all in all it was a lot of fun. I say do away with in air Dar completly!

------------------
Aces of America
Fly to Live, Live to fly
Do or Die

[This message has been edited by ElLobo (edited 05-18-2001).]

[Tac]

Agree to all these points, and i'd like to add to the point on the ack:


IMO, field ack should me NUMEROUS but not MURDEROUS.

How many acks are there now on a small field? 12?

Put 20 X .303 cal, 5 X .50 cal and 1X40mm cal acks on the field. That way you wont have the annoying tendency of cowards diving from 20k to their ack the moment they lose alt advantage. dependency on AI should NOT be encouraged, no matter what. With mannable field ack guns in next version, I EXPECT lethality of field ack to decrease DRAMATICALLY.

Also, how to "alert" one country that a field is being attacked when things are not in dar (aka under 800ft agl) or by gv's? I'd say to have said field issue a "Warning: Field XX is under attack!" when a field receives damage and there is nothing showing on dot dar.

[CptTrips]

Good thoughts but I see it slightly different.

-I'd like NO global dar at all. Not dots on local dar.  Only sector bars.

-I'd like local dar's based on airfields and remote dish sites.  800 ft floor just enough range that they don't quite overlap so a careful raider might "thread the needle" if he's luck.

- maybe "slightly" smaller sectors.

I like being able to find the fights quickly and gauge activity levels in certain areas, but I don't like the idea that you see 4 dots ahead and from dar you can tell the 3 on the left are enemy and the one on the right is friendly before you are actually in id range.   Bleh.


Also, if Auto Ack has not been "Activated" by enemy presence within a 5 min period it should go into stand down mode.  There should be a 1 min spool up delay once it is "activated" agian before it can start spewing rounds.  It'd be nice to have a chance to bounce unaware base defences after you carefullly terrain masked your approach.


$0.02,
Wab

[ra]

DAR takes away the whole aspect of 'hunting' for the enemy.  You know where they are and it blows half the fun of the fight.  It is a big mistake to have it in the game, even in the MA.  I liked old WB's red and white arrows pointing to the nearest group of enemy and friendly planes.  You still had to hunt for the enemy, you just had a general idea where they were.

ra

[Furious]

Please see this thread:
 http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/Forum8/HTML/001247.html

I think the author is a genius and his point of view goes well your ideas.

F.

[Lephturn]

I agree, that being able to hit a single target and globally disable Radar for one side just sucks.

However, I do wan't inflight radar, and I do want a dar bar.  I don't really need accurate dot radar, but I want to be able to tell the difference between vehicles and planes in a sector.  I'd go with the current system of dots and bars (but modified so you can't drop it all by hitting HQ), modified so that the dots are not updated as often so they are much less accurate.

Curly, the only problem I have with what you said was that you, for some strange reason, want to surpress huge furballs.  I'm perplexed.  I WANT huge furballs.  That's why I play a game that 200 folks can log into.  That's what makes it better than games with smaller numbers of players for me.  Seriously, why bother to play a game of this scope if I can't find the odd 35 player furball?  That kind of thing is the reason I play this game.  I can understand that you might not want to fly in that kind of environment, but that's no reason to take that away from those of us that enjoy it.

Lephturn

[Gadfly]

You can only see 32 of em, so why would you need more?

[AKcurly]

Leph sez:  "Curly, the only problem I have with what you said was that you, for some strange reason, want to surpress huge furballs."

Leph, I like them too, but there is a major issue: Warping!

Suppose you are flying into a 30 plane furball.  Then your client has to receive sufficient network traffic to accurately update the positions of each plane.  

Of course, that's true for the other 30 planes too!  Heh, it's enough to make a T1 weep.

I used to participate in a WW1 sim and when 60 planes or so were in the same area (I believe that's the right number, it might be smaller), it would saturate their T1.
This porked the entire arena!

I have no idea what the magic number for Aces High might be, but it's there!  

AKcurly

[DeeZCamp]

While were at it... Why dont we just take off Enemy Icons.          

[Degas]

 

Originally posted by Lephturn:
Curly, the only problem I have with what you said was that you, for some strange reason, want to surpress huge furballs.  I'm perplexed.  I WANT huge furballs.  That's why I play a game that 200 folks can log into.  That's what makes it better than games with smaller numbers of players for me.  Seriously, why bother to play a game of this scope if I can't find the odd 35 player furball?  That kind of thing is the reason I play this game.  I can understand that you might not want to fly in that kind of environment, but that's no reason to take that away from those of us that enjoy it.

Lephturn

Leph, I agree that trying to dictate how someone spends their 30-bucks-a-month game time is a bad thing.

Just a couple of thoughts, though.  You never see furballers in the MA saying "Please help us furball at A1!!!"  Yet you always see players begging the furballers to come help with base defense and/or captures.

And then there are many times when your team is being constantly rolled up on one or two fronts, when your team is outnumbered drastically.  And yet, the furballers turn totally deaf ears to the screams for help.  IMO, this is why Rooks have been reset twice in 24 hours.

I've started furballing a bit on this map, because of all of the above.  And it can be fun, no doubt.  But for strat players, the real fun in this game is winning the reset through teamwork.  Furballs are gameplay as individual effort.

I suppose that it boils down to a subscriber doing what is the most fun for them.  When said subscriber stops having fun, HTC loses.

I'm reminded of John Dalmas' excellent series of sci-fi novels (The Regiment, The White Regiment, The Regiment's War).  In this hypothetical future civilization, they have developed something called "The Philosophy of T'Sel", where all mankind's behavior is broken down into categories  (Too lengthy to go into here.  I highly recommend the series, though.).  Five categories of human Activity and five categories of human Focus.

Furballers are engaged in War as Play (results unimportant), Strat players are engaged in War as Competition (war as a contest).

I don't think either side is playing the same game here.  And while that does nothing to prevent the enjoyment of Aces High by furballers, it seriously effects the enjoyability of the game by Strat players.

[Skybax]

"I liked old WB's red and white arrows pointing to the nearest group of enemy and friendly planes."

They pointed the the LARGEST group of aircraft, not the closest.

So the arrows are worthless and you have to ignore them.

If you follow the arrows, you will be flying around the arena endlessly looking for fights.

You use the DAR in the tower BEFORE you take off. Plan your flight. You use your brain a little bit and think ahead. Once airborne, you use communication with your fellow country men who are on the ground to locate specific enemy aircraft positions and headings "if" needed.

Nobody stays in the tower assigned to DAR, there is just always somebody who had just landed or taking a break. Sometimes I will eat my lunch, chat, and just do DAR duty for fun.

O ya, and you look out the cockpit with your eyes scanning the skies for the enemy in a WWII fighter. What a concept! hehehe

[This message has been edited by Skybax (edited 05-19-2001).]