Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: Karnak on May 02, 2011, 11:39:38 PM
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While the effect, or lack thereof, of strategic bombing in WWII can be debated endlessly, in this game, being very aircraft focused, it is reasonable that strategic bombing should play a significant role in the war game. The trick has always been finding a method of doing so that does not negatively impact other aspects of the game. I believe this proposal accomplishes that goal.
Design requirements I had in mind when creating this proposal:
1) Create a system in which strategic bombing plays a required role that is flexible to adjustments for gameplay balancing purposes.
2) Increase the significance of strategic targets.
3) Minimize the impact of the strategic bombing on the fighter vs fighter aspect of the game.
4) Utilize existing assets in the creation of the new system.
In brief, the proposed system ties the respawn rate of the town buildings to the damage percentage of the strategic targets in a manner that makes taking a base very difficult if the strategic targets are undamaged, yet progressively easier as the strategic targets sustain more damaged. The specific relationship between town respawn rate and percentage of the strategic targets that are destroyed can be easily modified by changing the ratios to suit gameplay needs.
This proposal would be to dramatically increase the respawn rate for buildings and defensive guns in the town when supplied by undamaged strategic targets. Structures and guns on airfields, vehicle bases and ports would be unaffected and would continue to behave exactly as they do now. The effects of damage to strategic targets on respawn rates for town structures would be greatly increased. For example a town supplied by a strategic target that was 100% up might have a gun and building respawn rate of around ten minutes while a town supplied by a city at 0% could have a respawn rate of an hour. Another change would be to eliminate the ability for the City strategic target to be resupplied by players. Players would still be able to resupply factories, bases, towns and the HQ in order to bring them back up more rapidly. The purpose to removing the ability to resupply the City is to ensure that strikes against it result in a useful amount of time in which to capture bases. Obviously the exact numbers, including City structure respawn rates, would need to be tweaked for gameplay. The intention is not for players planning on taking a base to have to hit strategic targets before, or at the same time, that they try to take a base; rather the intention is that players who want to bomb strategic targets to have a measurable impact on the war for a couple of hours or so. At the same time I would also propose to increase the score value of strategic targets to at least match that of the town's score value. When I initially created this proposal my thought was to tie the town respawn rate to the city alone. I now think it could also make sense to include one or both of the AA Factory and Barracks Facilities.
The effect this would have would be to have periodic strikes on the city, and perhaps other strategic targets, make capturing territory much easier than attempting to capture territory while ignoring strategic elements of the game. At the same time this should not affect the ability of an outnumbered side to fight or impinge on the ability of fighter vs fighter brawls to occur. In addition this would introduce more high altitude bomber raids, an integral part of WWII air combat that is largely missing from the main arenas of Aces High. My expectation is that the damage to the strategic targets needed to enable effective territory gains would be accomplished largely by the players who like to bomb things and that it would not often be an additional burden on the players who just want to capture towns.
One algorithm I came up (mathematics is not my strong point) with produced these numbers, rounded to the nearest minute:
100%: 10 minutes
095%: 10 minutes
090%: 11 minutes
085%: 12 minutes
080%: 13 minutes
075%: 15 minutes
070%: 17 minutes
065%: 20 minutes
060%: 23 minutes
055%: 26 minutes
050%: 30 minutes
045%: 34 minutes
040%: 39 minutes
035%: 43 minutes
030%: 48 minutes
025%: 51 minutes
020%: 54 minutes
015%: 56 minutes
010%: 57 minutes
005%: 58 minutes
000%: 60 minutes
(Yes, Lusche, this was the post I mentioned I was working on about a month ago)
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this is how it was in aw. and I maybe wrong but didnt the big boss said no to this idea already?
semp
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Way too complicated :)
Might just want to make it matter if you can get an ungunn3e Mossie over the HQ to drop bombs while an important speech is being made :)
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this is how it was in aw. and I maybe wrong but didnt the big boss said no to this idea already?
semp
No, AW had an airplane factory (Spitfires) that if destroyed denied those fighters to the side that lost the factory. That idea violates the implicit rules of not blocking the fighter vs fighter aspect of the game and it also sabotages the outnumbered side by removing the low ENY fighters they are supposed to be compensated with from their inventory.
Way too complicated :)
Might just want to make it matter if you can get an ungunn3e Mossie over the HQ to drop bombs while an important speech is being made :)
Dunno Guppy. I think it is pretty simple. Hit the city, make the town respawn time longer.
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Having to bomb the HQ when all other win the war objects are met to finalise the deal would be interesting. Just sit back and think of that for a minute and the ensuing mayhem, could be fun.
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Dunno Guppy. I think it is pretty simple. Hit the city, make the town respawn time longer.
Just messing with ya by trying to get the Mossie history reference in :)
I'm allergic to bombs so in the end it really won't matter to me. If there is something to get the bomber guys interested in things beyond killing fighter hangers, I'm all for it.
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Just messing with ya by trying to get the Mossie history reference in :)
I'm allergic to bombs so in the end it really won't matter to me. If there is something to get the bomber guys interested in things beyond killing fighter hangers, I'm all for it.
The interrupted speeches and light raids meant to do no more than trigger all the air raid sirens to deny sleep to the workers were interesting Mossie events, but I don't see a way to work those into the game. :p
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Something I had in mind. It could be made where the town's downtime is affected
by the number of resupply convoys (or trains, or barges) that reach it?
Destroying a strategic target would mean convoys (etc.) would 'spawn', or drive to
their town less often.
This would re-introduce another fun element to the game, that is anti convoy/anti-
train/anti-shipping duties for capturing a base.
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love the idea, I already can picture squads circling the strats at max cruise in formation, waiting for them bombers to show up.
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:aok
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I think it's a good idea but I kinda think it could be fine tuned more seems a little rough. Not sayin I could do any better but I think someone could. Besides the point +1
But only as long as I get the PBY-5A :noid
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But only as long as I get the PBY-5A :noid
*sidetrack* out of curiosity, what do you fly on a regular basis now?
i don't personally give 2 nickels about strategic anything but landing a sortie most of the time but i did like the old strat system...if karnak's ideas would improve the strat system in place now +1
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Anything well thought out like this that goes toward giving us bomber nuts something meaningful to do without negatively impacting but yet promoting the fight is worth investigation. There must be some strategic element worth ATTACKING AND DEFENDING AGAINST attack. That creates (dare I say it), a fight.
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Gyrene currently I bomb in the Ju-88 and B-25C most commonly. I fight in P-39Q and 109 E4
And I do like the idea +1
And still +1 for PBY :airplane:
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Gyrene currently I bomb in the Ju-88 and B-25C most commonly. I fight in P-39Q and 109 E4
And I do like the idea +1
And still +1 for PBY :airplane:
I think our pathes crossed ingame...keep doing that :t :D
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You probably saw me in a fire ball with like 6 spit 16 and P-51 chasing me :cry
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wow that is the best idea i have ever heard for more strategic bombing in aceshigh. All bombers have to bomb now is bases and strats and such but only bases are effected by the bombing. I say get rid of HQ and have multiple radar stations within the ones side country and if the more radar stations are destroyed then there could be a radar lag or something. Just a thought ,+1 to the idea. The game needs more stragic bomb and goals to win the war. Furballs over a base are getting old.
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Gyrene currently I bomb in the Ju-88 and B-25C most commonly. I fight in P-39Q and 109 E4
And I do like the idea +1
And still +1 for PBY :airplane:
ok, so you don't fly anything with a max speed below 200mph...what are you going to do with an aircraft that can't go any higher than 15,000 feet with a speed of 196mph max??? especially in a late war arena...a d-3a1 could catch that thing and shoot it down.
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Yes it's slow but so? If I want to take the risk what's wrong? Plus it's primary role will be a torpedo bomber die to the 2 torps it can carry and they have to be below 200mph anyway. I don't fly above 15K on a bomb run most the time so that isn't that bad. And it does have some defensive guns so no a D3A couldn't kill it. Plus it more then meets the requirements to be in game as far as history goes. For senerio it would be very nice because it was wispy used in pacific and we have many pacific senerio.
+1 for now bomb system
+1 PBY-5A
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Karnak,
I like where you are going with this - having the strategic bombing of city strat affect the respawn time of the cities near bases (either globally, or in that zone if they get back to zone strats) seems like a great idea. Yes, I think the numbers can be tweaked (it is a matter of opinion of course). The algorithm is a simple one as far as most programming problems go and that you can leave to HTC (it seems as if they program in seconds, so it is probably easier if they have a minspawntime of x seconds and add y seconds to it for every % of a strat that is down when the building is destroyed).
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I think the net outcome would simply be bigger lighting raids on the towns. How many times is a town now taking within 10 mins?
HiTech
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I think the net outcome would simply be bigger lighting raids on the towns. How many times is a town now taking within 10 mins?
HiTech
That is possible. When I was initially doing my time concepts I had the initial value set at one minute . I changed that to ten minutes after considering people bombing the town for points, turning around and having it back up to be bombed again by the time they were in position. I don't know if a one or five minute initial respawn rate would change your point though.
Nonetheless you do present a valid point. I still think that bombing the city would happen more often than it does now by a significant margin, though an increase in the numbers people felt are needed to take a base is a definite undesireable outcome.
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100%: 10 minutes
095%: 10 minutes
090%: 11 minutes
085%: 12 minutes
080%: 13 minutes
075%: 15 minutes
070%: 17 minutes
065%: 20 minutes
060%: 23 minutes
055%: 26 minutes
050%: 30 minutes
045%: 34 minutes
040%: 39 minutes
035%: 43 minutes
030%: 48 minutes
025%: 51 minutes
020%: 54 minutes
015%: 56 minutes
010%: 57 minutes
005%: 58 minutes
000%: 60 minutes
I like the idea Karnak, but I think your times are significantly askew. Currently and traditionally, towns stay down for 45 minutes IIRC. So in conjunction with this additional strategic system which would cater most to those that are concerned with strategic elements of the game, you are essentially making it that much more difficult for them to capture a base. 0% down = 10 minute town? :huh That's impossible. You are essentially making it a necessity to attack a strategic target to have a chance at taking a base without the use of an overwhelming horde. And in other words, to put things in perspective based on your numbers, you must take down 70% of the connecting city/factory/whatever to even meet the current town down times. This system is giving the strategic guys a cookie and a kick in the nads at the same time.
If your numbers reflected better on the current town downtime I might see it having some merit.
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I think the net outcome would simply be bigger lighting raids on the towns. How many times is a town now taking within 10 mins?
HiTech
Though I know you don't usually release much info on future development, but is the strategic aspect of the game going to get a review/update/change anytime soon?
Or, do you believe the strat is working well as is?
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Grizz,
As I said, the numbers were for representational purposes only. :p I also want the damage to cities to last a lot longer than it does now and to not be resuppliable.
With a different number stream, do you think the idea has merit? Say, if it started at 20 or 30 minutes and ran to 90 or 120 minutes?
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Grizz,
As I said, the numbers were for representational purposes only. :p I also want the damage to cities to last a lot longer than it does now and to not be resuppliable.
With a different number stream, do you think the idea has merit? Say, if it started at 20 or 30 minutes and ran to 90 or 120 minutes?
I think if it started at 30 minutes and ran up to 120 minutes, yes that would be a much closer range to being in the ball park. Like Hitech said though it has to encourage strategic involvement much more than it involves excess hording to offset. It would also make sense to have multiple bases attached to one given strat target. In addition to maybe calling them "Regional Strats" which could be graphically represented by cities, I think there should also be Global Strats scattered across the map, deep to semi deep behind enemy lines, yet reachable with a reasonable amount of effort, that when bombed, would further affect the down times of fighter hangars, vehicle hangars, bomber hangars, ords, ack, etc.
One caveat to this whole thing though which I feel is important and a pretty radical change to the game, would be dealing with squads simply going on suicide missions to kill a factory with significant war value and then simply upping to reap the benefits of their suicide mission. Imo with these strat targets, they should be high value. Significantly high valued. With that, I would call that a player who records damage to a strat must land his aircraft safely back at base before his damage takes effect. If he does not land, the targets that he bombed immediately revert back to undestroyed. This would have a two pronged effect. One, players could simply not suicide a target and crippling a side and then playing whackamole and disappearing, after many players on the other side upped to defend and stop them. This is bad gameplay. What would happen is the attackers would have to formulate both offensive and escape strategy. It would be fun for the defenders, and I also think it would be fun for the attackers, as they have purpose to land. If they make it back to base the reward is high. Maybe global fighter hangers down an additional 5% for 2 hours per XX amount of damage done. Something significant. You could incorporate this strat "bomb and land" for various targets. It would create a very interesting and immersive environment IMO.
I would be interested to see if the Devil's Brigade, as I see them as a very good cross section of the win the war crowd, would be interested by the prospect of a landing requirement for strat targets to yield greater reward in the war effort.
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Theoretically, if a fighter hanger is up, every member of a country could up from one single field. I propose a more "limited" supply set-up.
For example:
Small Airfield- 3 FH's * 5 planes per FH = 15 available fighters maximum
Medium- 4 FH's * 5 planes per FH = 20 available fighters maximum
Large- 8 FH's * 5 planes per FH = 40 available fighters maximum
The maximum number of available fighters is a function of the number of operational FH's. A fighter that ups from a particular field and does not return to land the sortie at that field is considered "lost", which subtracts from the remaining number of available fighters. An immigrating fighter from another field that lands its sortie at a different field from the one it began at will contribute to the number of available fighters at its final destination (and effectively, detract from the number of available fighters at its starting base).
On the supply side of things, the rate at which the strats replenish the amount of available fighters at any given field is a function of its health percentage. I propose three new strat areas: fighters, bombers and vehicles (vehicles could possibly be merged with the AA strat) to supply this new system. It is quite possible that a field could have all of its FH's operational, but only have 4 available fighters because the strat has been weakened to a point where it cannot keep up with demand.
This more gradual system compared to the current "all or nothing" system could be applied to vehicles, bombers, fuel and ordinance. I believe that this system will put a fresh twist on the supply/tactical side of AH. This can be shown in the tower on the table at any given field:
Fighters: 12/15 (means that 12 fighter sorties out of a max of 15 are available to be upped)
bombers: 4/10 (means that 4 bomber sorties out of a max of 10 are available to be upped)
vehicles: 16/16 (means that all 16 available vehicle sorties can be upped)
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Very good idea. However I agree with Grizz in that 10 minutes is a little bit short. 20 minutes would be best to start at IMO, running up to 100 minutes.
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snip
I would be interested to see if the Devil's Brigade, as I see them as a very good cross section of the win the war crowd, would be interested by the prospect of a landing requirement for strat targets to yield greater reward in the war effort.
I like to think of ideas like this one in terms of real world equivalents. Certain tactical recon information, would be gained from de briefing pilots returning from enemy territory. The same is immediately evident with the use of communications while in flight, sighting enemy fleets and direction, enemy formations NOE, etc. Assigning more importance to actually landing after a mission strike may have a two prong result. First, bomb and bail gamers will loose some important details for country intelligence on strategic targets. (pilot doesn't return home, clipboard status loses the damage report, while actual damage remains but unknown until another strike on that target) Second, escorting bombers would have added benefits to country intelligence reporting.
Possibly how this would look: Field stats on clipboard will be reflect the current damage of that field done by that bomber / attacker (including ground vehicle) unless that vehicle / aircraft has been destroyed or pilot has been "captured". A ditch in "friendly" territory would still report the current damage done as a result of that pilot's actions.
As long as the above landing and "friendly" ditch occurs, the morale of the country will be boosted and the enemy morale will be lessened. This will be shown in terms of additional downtime, and message will report "SYSTEM: FH1 A14 Rooks downtime increased 3 mins. downtime remaining 6 mins".
This additional message in conjuntion with the recent damage message for bombers will now identify a bomber pilot with specific targets. A sort of AH2 flash news reel, more bomber cool points.
Sorry Grizz, I ran with it :bolt:
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I like the idea, but not the implimentation. I would love to see something put in place that makes the strat worth protecting/attacking besides the whole name in lights thing, but I don't think it should be made to where its mandatory either.
Just my .02
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I like the idea, but not the implimentation. I would love to see something put in place that makes the strat worth protecting/attacking besides the whole name in lights thing, but I don't think it should be made to where its mandatory either.
Just my .02
Name in lights presently works for either large groups landing as a unit, or for incentive to grab as many scalps, sometimes at the detriment of one's own fellow countrymen. I don't see a problem with the implimentation as long as there is room for the small group to succeed in contributing to the advance or defense of country's assets.
Currently, a small group flying in the face of a large horde, does nothing but pad the scores of the horders. Give small groups of individuals the option to impact the map. Then give them names in lights to congratulate specific targets. In an idea above, a system message does not have to name the pilot but it would be obvious is player lands with 3000 damage and next message displayed shows a specific hangar and at specific field, one could draw the conclusion of what occured. "SYSTEM: FH1 A14 Rooks downtime increased 3 mins. downtime remaining 6 mins".
It would only be as manditory as destroying an enemy CV approaching your field. Leave it alone, and suffer the consequences.
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I created a revised algorithm that is easier to tweak the outcomes on. Produced this table:
100%: 020 minutes
095%: 021 minutes
090%: 022 minutes
085%: 024 minutes
080%: 027 minutes
075%: 030 minutes
070%: 036 minutes
065%: 041 minutes
060%: 047 minutes
055%: 055 minutes
050%: 063 minutes
045%: 070 minutes
040%: 079 minutes
035%: 086 minutes
030%: 093 minutes
025%: 099 minutes
020%: 105 minutes
015%: 110 minutes
010%: 115 minutes
005%: 117 minutes
000%: 120 minutes
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I like the idea, but not the implimentation. I would love to see something put in place that makes the strat worth protecting/attacking besides the whole name in lights thing, but I don't think it should be made to where its mandatory either.
Just my .02
I would not be mandatory but will give you a definite plus to win der krieg !
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i love the idea its not mandatory to take them out or protect but it gives us bomber nuts something to give to the war effort and all i like the idea i think Hitech should look into and be open for discussion to the players about this system. Great thought i love it. You didnt see bombers droppin bombs on hangers most of the time, mostly they dropped on factories and other important buildings. + 100000
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I'd just like to add my support for this idea or something along these lines. I'm a bomber pilot in the 91st and I've found myself taking long breaks from the game for the last couple months. It gets boring just hitting hangars all the time, 85% of the time nobody takes advantage of it. There's nothing I love more in this game than upping with the squad, forming up, and going on a long strat run. But it's very discouraging when we aren't even halfway back to our descent point and the strats are back at 100%, and there was no effect at all. Would be nice to feel like we've actually helped our side a little, I'm sure all bomber pilots feel the same.
Along those same lines, it would encourage defense as well. Getting a milk run while going clear to strats from a rear base, it's really boring. You have the moment of excitement dropping bombs and seeing what you hit, then more boredom going home. We enjoy fighter opposition, and making strats or some other kind of valuable target mean something would bring swarms of fighters up when bomb runs are reported. Ok maybe not swarms, but more than we see now. Would give the bombers a sense of accomplishment that they're helping the war effort, and the same for the fighter jocks when they bring some of those bombers down, causing less damage to be applied to the valuable targets.
:cheers:
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The current train logic may have something to do with that as I've seen 3 trains in 5 minutes before as well as trains that respawn a short distance down th track after being partially destroyed.
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You can add 15 different ways to win a war and it still wont get won. Personally, I see no purpose in this.
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Hitech has given you a strategic target. But, you do have to bomb it down. Then blow the HQ to have your way with that country. As of yet I have seen no massive bomber missions to level the strat. Just players trying to talk Hitech into changing the game so bomber pilots by tyranny of the minority can control a single countries fun for every player logged into that country with a few bomb drops. You guys may be really stand up gents. But wait till after hours and the vTards run their creative mischief against it.
Any time this game gives the players something that can be used by a minority of players to control the fun of the majority it gets abused and Hitech steps in with unintended consiquences.
Move the strats closer to the fronts or split it up across the front closer for the bombers to get at them without a potty break or more than one beer before bomb drop time. But, move them all back at the same time as the territory shrinks. Dosen't taking out a country's strat painfuly increase the respawn time of all base objects in that country? If that is the case, then killing all of the strat is the first step to steam rolling a country. I Could be confused on this one though.
Hitech has spread the war out across the potential of 20% of your countries bases as individual small wars to be won or lost one at a time. That generates broad scale conflict in tiny limited attention span bites all across the arena smorgasbord. Until the very last few bases for an arena reset, no one thing has the potential to cripple a whole country at any point. ENY is just a challenge of your skill and determination unless not being able to fly your favorite croch rocket cripples your psychi.
Having the ability to suddenly and drasticly lower the total potential fun quality for a single country in respect to the other two is the basis of tyranny by the minority. As bomber pilots you are asking for the ability to virtualy single handedly control the quality of the game experience for the total population of your targeted country. You want your endevors removed from all of those mini wars that have to be won to achive a reset. I will venture the strat is as tough a nut to crack for reasons like this.
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Seems to me that the heavy bomber is now primarily used agin towns....and it seems to work IMO. Strat has become a redundant feature in gameplay. If we want to pull it back into game play then it ashould be simple, rewarding and achievable.
This
It would also make sense to have multiple bases attached to one given strat target. In addition to maybe calling them "Regional Strats" which could be graphically represented by cities, I think there should also be Global Strats scattered across the map, deep to semi deep behind enemy lines, yet reachable with a reasonable amount of effort, that when bombed, would further affect the down times of fighter hangars, vehicle hangars, bomber hangars, ords, ack, etc.
seems the sort of thing
It could be zoned (and linked) or it could be nation wide but capturable.
Cities only though. Throw all the factories and complex stuff away to leave something called infrastructure. If infrastructure is low then rebuild time is low. Dont bother with anti suicide stuff other than hitting the perks etc. I think this should be linked to a perk value on ord some day.
I would prefer to make "infrastructure" capturable and liberally scattered like Cities would be.
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Having the ability to suddenly and drasticly lower the total potential fun quality for a single country in respect to the other two is the basis of tyranny by the minority. As bomber pilots you are asking for the ability to virtualy single handedly control the quality of the game experience for the total population of your targeted country. You want your endevors removed from all of those mini wars that have to be won to achive a reset. I will venture the strat is as tough a nut to crack for reasons like this.
I don't think this idea does that as all it does is make bases a bit easier to take if the strats in question are pounded down. In no way does it take the ability to fight back or have fun out of the game, which has been the failing of every other "make bombers important" idea I have seen.
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The reason I proposed the land portion of meaningful strat play, is because, as you proposed it Karnak, once these strats are destroyed, they stay down for a significant amount of time, as they should. Maybe 3-4 hours. But with this, gameplay will basically degrade to this...
1. Post strat mission
2. Suicide strats and kill as much as you can before you die
3. Off to whatever bases it will affect.
There is no combat added here, unless you can intercept this suicide raid prior to the drop which is usually impossible due to disorganization and the attackers having an altitude head start. It basically just adds another step into the base taking formula, without adding corresponding counter combat to it.
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Not sure about that Grizz. If the value of bombing the strats, scorewise and perkwise, was equal to or greater than that of bombing town centers I think the strats would be hit regularly by people who might not even be interested in taking bases at all. That could very well entirely obviate the need for people only interested in taking bases from ever having to hit the strats.
I would certainly be inclined to bomb them more often. One of the biggest reasons I don't do bombers much is that there isn't any target really worth bombing. When I do, I hit the strats unless I am trying to earn perk points, in which case I have to hit town centers.
The hitting the town centers thing is particularly silly as you are getting lots of points and perks for something that has literally no effect on the game.
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You can add 15 different ways to win a war and it still wont get won. Personally, I see no purpose in this.
somebodys not a bomber nut...
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Hitech has given you a strategic target. But, you do have to bomb it down. Then blow the HQ to have your way with that country. As of yet I have seen no massive bomber missions to level the strat. Just players trying to talk Hitech into changing the game so bomber pilots by tyranny of the minority can control a single countries fun for every player logged into that country with a few bomb drops. You guys may be really stand up gents. But wait till after hours and the vTards run their creative mischief against it.
I led a massive bomber mission against all the Strats back in the day when the strats were still point worthy as well as influencing the game in other ways.
We simultaneously went for the city, other strats and individual bases geting at least 4 of the strats to well under 50% in some cases under 5%. I have to say if the whole effort had been aimed at a local level we would have achieved allot more and I estimte we had 20-30 people involved and a highly co ordinated and timed opperation.
It seems unrealistic to expect missions to be bigger than that and in this case it took over a week to plan. In other words the current system offers no realistic incentive to launch a major bombing raid unless the whole country is intimately involved.