Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: sparow on January 15, 2007, 06:01:51 PM
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Hi all,
After reading Kweassa's post a few threads down the line, I would like to elaborate a little bit more on the carrier ops subject, because I agree entirely with him and I also have a few ideas of my own about the subject.
Carriers in Ah, as I have read in past threads, were born with a major problem: they are objects, not vehicles. This means that carriers, and fleets also, are quite limited today, in AH. I believe that this could be an area of improvement.
Carrier ops have become increasingly more and more important in AH operations, in a tactical and strategic role, just like in real life. But, as their use became more common, "gaming" it's limitations put them further and further away from reality, until a point where AH community uses carriers like battering rams, spitting planes like missiles and enduring almost impossible damage, under the cover of murderous radar-laser-guided ack-ack, only to capture a medium airfield with too little or too late defense...
In my opinion, Carrier Ops, as well as the whole Naval Warfare design in AH could be extremely improved, for realism and gameplay in what is the most complete MMOG ww2 warfare simulation in the present day.
1 - The Aircraft Carrier size and his Task Force
We should have at least 2 sizes: large carriers (Big E type) and Escort Carriers. Each type would have a proportional Task Force attached for protection.
I believe it would be too much to ask to have exact replicas of every CV, CVE, battleship, cruiser and destroyers of the major naval powers of the time...
2 - Separate surface ship groups and carrier groups
We should have 2 distinct types of vessels acting: surface groups, with battleships, cruisers and destroyers and aircraft carrier groups, built around a aricraft carrier. More ships in the water would give submarines more work than simply lay at a port entrance waiting for the ships to spawn...
3 - Task Group range and Heading
Here, we would have to allow 2 modes: auto (AI) and manned ships. Like we have today, control of the main ship would imply the control of the whole Group. Nothing new, here.
New would be that the comand of the ship or carrier would be from a bridge and:
- you would be able to plot a possible course within fuel range (without refuelling) and let it go on automatic;
- you would be able to actively steer and control speed directly from the bridge, all within the manoueverability limits of a real ship;
- you would have access to surface radar - when available - for surface target aquisition, thus allowing to feed gunnery instructions to the manned guns;
Range would be an important issue here, for ships would have to travel from one port to another for refuelling, repairs - in Kweassa's shipyards - and rearming too, btw. Yes, because ammo must be loaded and aircraft total number would be limited to a realistic number aboard, although only combat kills registered by the host would count for each CV "stock" of aircraft. If a CV would arrive to a port without fuel, could not leave until fuel dumps re-spawned. It's damage would not be repaired if the shipyards were not operational to a certain percentage. His complement of aircraft would only be loaded after some time in port...
Of course, AI plotting would tend to be more conservative for big carriers, more audacious for escort carriers, without putting the ships in a very dangerous position but taking then into enemy zone vicinity or into it.
Auto or manual plotting would give the possibility of port-hopping to a certain destination, but in a dinamic way: if a port was taken by other country forces, all ranges and plotted courses of every ship depending on that specific port would be changed immediately, overruling any previous calculations, automatic or manual.
Speed and manouvering would have impact in range, thus forcing to reduce ranges and returning to next closest port earlier in some cases.
4 - Damage, vulnerability, AAA accuracy and related issues
All ships should be able to sustain more degrees of damage, in different parts. Rudders, boilers and propellers, shafts included, should be considered. The big deck lifts also. Fuel leaks should be possible. Side impacts would force the ships to list port or starboard, depending. Water flooding the ship should reduce speed and floatability. Getting the props or the boilers would give a dead-in-the-water ship.
Then, we would have the straggler CV problem: until, say, 5 knots of speed, the fleet would hold its positions. Under that speed, the fleet would follow his way to the nearest safe harbour, leaving the CV to sink or be scuttled (automaticaly as escort ships reach port).
AAA accuracy, as in the whole of AH, should be reviewed. It should be calculated by the average accuracy of manned guns in AH for the last 12 months and updated monthly.
5 - Carrier ops and naval aviation related issues
Here, the new thing would be to have a finite complement of aircraft and landing crafts aboard, proportional to the size of the carrier. We would have Fighters, Scouts, Dive Bombers, Torpedo Bombers as we have today, only in a limited number.
Every aircraft flown off the deck and shot down by an opposing aircraft and registered as one by the host would reduce the carrier complement by one. Crashes on landing, take-off or in flight and safe ditches would not count (to avoid big time cheating).
Aircraft would have to be lifted from the hangar deck to the flight deck for take-off, thus making replaning and mission launching slower but more realistic.
Although incomplete, these are some ideas that I believe would add more value to carrier ops and naval operations in AH.
Would like to know your opinions and suggestions.
Sparow
249 Sqn RAF "Gold Coast"
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I absolutely LOVE this idea, but I dont think it will ever happen because of the problems it poses from a programing aspect. Also, HTC is making this game appeal more to 5 year olds, (Or so it seems from my standpoint) and thus this would be too difficult for little kids to deal with as it requires patience.
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that sounds like a really cool and well thought out idea, but my only concer is the limited amount of aircraft, wut if oodles of players spawned with your CV and they all die, or get strafe on deck, you are ****ed!
also you mention they would need to be loaded onto deck with the lifters, would this be an animation of you belowdeck then lifting up? is so that'd be sweet, we'd also need the folding wings too then.
which raises another question, say I have a 20 man mission on your CV, it would take awile to wait for everyone to load up, = annoying
you are saying that the TGs should be made into vehicles, so your saying I could up a TG at port, no doubt perked, correct?
this all would give the ports more use and make them very important to keep, but only to those who care about their TG,
i think escort carrier would be kewl though, and u mentioned subs, we have no subs, i hope we get them someday though. (don't start telling me that they are too slow cuz TG go 50knots, just make subs faster!)
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Naval battles rock, so let's take what we HAVE and work with it...
Large Task Force:
2 CVs
4 CGs
8 DDs
Small Task Force:
1 CV
2 CGs
6 DDs
Surface Group:
3CGs
5 DDs
Yes, I raised the number of escorts. Very little at low level should survive. The motto of Naval anti-aircraft was "Shot is all down, we'll sort the wreckage later".
Surface groups would be pretty good for anti-shipping or softening up an airfield. Also a nice patch of friendly ack that moves around the map.
Not sure how 2 CVs affects re-spawn. One might need to be designated a CV and the other a CVE; kill the CV and the re-spawn timer starts to click, though it would be nice to hold off on a re-spawn until both CVs are dead.
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im all for it, maybe have tankers around for refueling, and enemy cankill htem,
not so for the coming up from hanger though
good thoughts
PS, i fly the b5n a lot more cause of torp, takes more hits than a TBM!!
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if we could drive the Cv's directly ill be trying to knock spikes off the Cv as he takes off :lol
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and i get in 5 in. and kill you in the bridge
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umm u forgot i dont think u can aim them at the bridge:p
and their own team can kill their own Cv's:p :p
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so, at least i kill you :O
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nah:p unless u go as a enemy and "lancastuka" the Cv:D
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The CV groups could definitely be improved. I do forsee a few problems with your proposed system though, and have a few suggestions of my own.
1. I like the idea of having different size CV groups (including multi-CV groups). I don't think a jeep / escort carrier adds much to the game and think the development time would be better spent on other improvements.
2. I like the idea of surface groups - I'd suggest 3 or even 4 CAs and a screen of destroyers as a surface group. The destroyers themselves need work though - I'd like to see mannable 5" guns added to the destroyers (3 x twin 5" turrets, as per US Sumner Class). The couple of mannable AA guns on DDs now is just a joke.
3. We definitely need better Radar on CVs, and better methods of steering the group or ordering evasive action during air attacks. Refueling of ships doesn't make much sense to me given the size of the maps we are dealing with, although a method of resupply / repair of CVs damaged in battle would be nice.
4. I don't think we can base AAA accuracy on a sampling of data by manned gunners. First off, the data collection / tracking would be incredibly cumbersome and time consuming - imagine tracking the result of every bullet fired in the game and putting the hit/miss result in a database table, and then every month parse through the table to get hit % for every gun. You can do it, but it'd be ugly and slow, and wouldn't get you much accurate data since AH gunners are not trained as RL gunners were. Fact is that late-war radar-directed AAA was deadly, and a single plane coming into a carrier group would be in a world of trouble.
The damage models on the CV could use an upgrade - being able to stop air ops on a CV by damaging the flight deck, or stop it dead in the water with an engine hit would be a nice addition. Having the escorts just run off and leave her there is a bit much - I think it would be better if they circled and tried to protect her until repairs could be made.
5. I'm glad you recognized the potential for big time cheating in the limited aircraft scenario. I could just see some dweeb augering all the CVs aircraft overnight and finding the CV empty of aircraft in the morning.
If you limit the CV's air group this way, I'd suggest that you allow players to fly aircraft in from land bases to resupply the air group and bring it back to full strength.
Would be nice to watch the aircraft coming up the elevator from the hanger, the wings unfold, and then it takes off. Might be a bit of a pain for players "waiting their turn" to takeoff, but it would be fun to watch.
Some good suggestions - I like CV ops and would love to see the system improved.
EagleDNY
$.02
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Some interesting suggestions. Here are my own thoughts. First, I would absolutely NOT limit the numbers of a/c or vehicles spawning from CV…unless you’re willing to do the same from land bases (a non-starter, if you ask me). However, see “Ship Damage” comments below.
Fleet Disposition: I agree with the notion of multiple types of task forces. As a minimum, I would like to see two different types, a carrier battle group (CVBG) and a amphibious assault group (AAG). A third type of group is the Surface Action Group (SAG), but this would be pointless in the context of the current arena-style of play.
CVBG: 3xCV, 1xCA, 6xDE; these CVs would spawn any CV-capable planes only, no boats or LVTs)
AAG: 2xCVE (escort carrier), 2xCA, 6xDE; these CVs would be able to spawn fighters (no attack planes), PT boats, and LVTs.
Note on CVE: These “jeep” carriers should move at a slower speed than a fleet CV (say 20 knots), which would slow down the entire task group and force players to limit ordnance light load outs. They should require less damage to sink, as well.
Ship Damage: As noted, the ship damage model -- though improved) -- is still not adequate. I am all for being able to temporarily disrupt flight ops. Just as we can take hangers down, I believe we should be able to temporarily knock out flight ops by taking out the elevator or damaging the flight deck. Having multiple CVs would require taking several out of action to completely stop flight ops (just as with a land base). Likewise, I’d like to see a couple of auxiliary ship types added to the fleet. Specifically, I would add an ammo ship (same effects as ammo bunker), a tanker ship (same effects as fuel bunker), and a troop ship (same effect as troop tents, but only for AAGs) to each fleet. You could also add several other types of damage, such as maneuvering (only allows movement in a straight line, port turn or starboard turn until it repairs itself), and propulsion (limits speed, but never cuts it completely to zero). These latter hits would only apply to CVs and CAs, but would affect entire task force.
Ship Enhancements: Add surface radar and proximity alert when enemy task group is within surface gun range. Allow direct helm control. Taking control of helm would interrupt plotted course until helm control is relinquished or a set period of time elapses without player helm input. Allow player-selected speed settings of “Flank”, “Full”, “Ahead One-Half”, and “Ahead One-Third”. A complete stop would not be possible, even due to propulsion hits.
There, that ought to cover it. Oh yeah, and allow two of the three DE turrets to be man-able (and torp launcher would be kind of cool, too; one you could aim).
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Originally posted by sparow
AAA accuracy, as in the whole of AH, should be reviewed. It should be calculated by the average accuracy of manned guns in AH for the last 12 months and updated monthly.
Ambitious, but I'm not too sure about this. Historically, gunners were trained and usually pretty accurate. In AH the overall hit percentage for manned guns would be extremely low- especially considering the 2 weekers who sit in a 20mm deck gun and blast at red (and green) icons on the fringe of icon range.
From reading accounts of fleet action, I would venture that the settings are pretty close to realistic...at least in terms of how often a lone bogey at low-mid to low alt is able to get through close enough to the group to drop eggs.
Now, I definately DO agree that as range increases, the AH AAA AI is too deadly. But for close-in, I would leave it as it is.
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We NEED and we HAVE are not the same.
The goal was to make better use of what we have rather than dream of things we don't. There is an infinitesimally small but still existent possibility they'll implement something that does not require any sea c, and I'm all for incremental improvements using the tools at hand.
Now, if Dale can c fit to write sea code, the Nimitz (CVN68)was caught in a storm off the coast of Virgina and propelled back to 1941. It ordered the California (CGN36) to turn back before the storm hit, unfortunately. After it returned to the present (more or less) it parked at Pier 12, NOB NORVA where all the PacFlt admirals were waiting to board.
I never did figure out the Norfolk/Perl Harbor thing, but maybe Dale can.
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Thank you all, it was extremely gratifying to watch so many good ideas come out so fast.
Loved the ammo/troop/fuel ships in the task groups! Imagine the fireball one of these would do when exploding?
Also the possibility to ferry aircraft to the carriers to resupply is aircraft complement is a nice touch indeed!
One comment only to the elevator issue: no need to wait to roll. It's a spawn point, several may spawn at the same time like it happens today, no problem there. Wing folding/unfolding would be mandatory and animation from hangar deck to flight deck necessary.
Also, no spawning of CVs or TG on demand...that's a no-no...Carriers, and surface ship spawning should allways be Host managed and kept in a limited maximum number of units available in a given arena, balanced or not, that should be left for the arena manager to decide and control.
Now, not two, but three more ideas to stirr the fire a bit more:
- Catapult launched aircraft from battleships in surface groups;
- Seaplanes (fighters and big flyingboats) at ports;
- Submarines, highly perked, diesel/electric units, would have many targets of opportunity and reasons of concern about destroyers if - fourth idea - they had sonar and depth charges!
- Also, fifth idea free when buying four, sea mines and minelayer ships!
Think I'm out of ideas for a few days, but I'll enjoy to read your comments...
Thank you all,
Sparrow
249 Sqn RAF "Gold Coast"