Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: Oddball-CAF on February 12, 2013, 06:47:28 AM
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(http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh169/OddCAF/4.jpg)
I propose a change to the current system of "strats" in the Late
War Arena.
The basic premise is to spread out the strats which would (A)
provide more "targets" overall on the map, more areas to
defend, and a more even distribution of airframes of all
countries around the map.
Above, you see 5 cities and 5 strategic "factory" complexes.
The white line from a city to a strat complex indicates
-that- city provides manpower and logistical support to the
strategic complex and the airfields around it.
The orange lines from a City to the airfields/vbases/ports
indicates those fields' strats (type determined by the factory
type in that "zone:) are immediately and directly impacted
by any/all destruction of the "factory".
The city which is abstractedly supplying personnel and
transports,trains, truck convoys to each of its airfields
will have that ability lowered based on the percentage
of damage to it. The damage to the City is the modifier
to the level of damage/repair times to field strats in that "zone".
In this proposal, rather than only ONE strat factory/City determining
the strats on the entire map, there are several of each type, spaced
about each country.
Oh, and the HQ becomes excess to needs. The ability to shut
down radar over an entire map never made much sense to me.
End result: more spread out action on the map(s),
more bomber/escort runs and/or jabo strikes, more
defensive operations such as fighter sweeps/interceptors,
a more realistic modeling of operational and strategic
"targets" on each map and the plain fact that a well functioning
operational/strategic plan would be in place for "attacking"
countries to work on. ie: it is my thought that base captures
rather than being the current "whack a mole" type will now
have specific areas/goals to be achieved in order to bring
their airfields/assets closer to a particular strat/city complex.
Defenders seeing this "push" into their zones, could then
anticipate better these attacks and form up fighter sweeps/
interceptors to defend against these attacks.
Anyway, that's the idea in a nutshell.
Regards, Odd
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This is a bit like returning to strat zones of yester year but with a city instead of a zone master field. Plus you are proposing to have a strat type supported uniquely from the zone.
I think you should consider the consequences of capture.....
It the group of fields associated with the city are captured what becomes of the city? more importantly what becomes of the Strat object it (the city) was supporting?
Would it be denied to the defending side and so permanently lost? If lost would there be an unlosable (in a set of uncapturable fields) rear strat duplicate that would continue at 50% of the oiginal total?
Would it be retained but vulnerbale to continuous attrition from the enemy fields surrounding it?
Would it even be aquired to provide 150% (given the above) strat capacity by the invaders?
You could achieve a similar out come by modifying the function of towns................ ie assume that all logistics come via the local town......... the % of healthy town buildings is made to have an effect on the local supply of non player logistics to the field. To achieve this all fields (GV & AC & Ports) would require towns.
The rest of the strat mode could be left as is.
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I really like the idea of having the ability to take in a low level attack fighter (Mossi, 110G-2, Me410, A20, etc) and hammer away at strategic targets. As it stands there is no chance of that happening thanks to an absurd amount of low level ack, and rightfully so. I'm imagine it like trying to hammer Berlin in a Mossi raid. Under the old system, these actual attacks could be made.
I do think HTC could spread out the strategic targets a bit. Perhaps on the larger maps place another 2 or 3 factories of each type spaced out somewhere between the "base" strategic industrial complex and the front. If only 1 factory of each type is added it would be real simple to simply halve the value of each OBJ. I'm thinking that the city should remain singular.
More strategic target to hit would be nice. Oh, and the current "all or none" damage is a bit limiting too, I vote to take that back to the tiered system as well. Currently, until the 37,000 lbs + of ord gets dropped on it and it is fully destroyed there are no effects and the clipboard shows that there could be. ;)
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:airplane: Outstanding suggestion Oddcaf! As you point out, there would be more targets to hit on each map, therefore, more "jabo" and bomber missions. I know Hi Tech built this game around air to air combat, but I bet if he ran a poll, less than 30% of the players in game point to ACM's as there reason for enjoying the game!
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Why don't you ask Lusche to run the numbers for how many fighters are upped in a month versus bombers per player.
Going back to a zone resource controling bombable city by definition is placing control of any given nights fun for hundreds of players in the hands of a tiny number of players. Effectively you are asking that your impact to the overall game play be greater than every other paying customer seeking fun for the night in an "open combat" arena. It's not a strategic WW2 arena with the potential to decapitate your enemy countrys ability to wage war. FSO, Snapshots and the Frames only last for pre defined time frames.
There is a finite amount of time people will pay to be on a loosing side or put up with being crapped on by a force multiplied minority of players when they want to have fun. Versus being forced every evening to keep track of a tiny group of dorks out to crap their evening into the dirt. Simply becasue they have a disproportionate force multiplying ability visa the relationship of their button pushing finger and strategic choke hold objects on the map.
Paying customers to the MA would be denyed the expectation of logging into a 24x7 playable arena to have fun by tiny groups of players expressing an exagerated force against a majority who don't want to spend their evening flying bomber patrols. You would never know what the state of the country you are logging into will be, or if it will be any fun to logon at all. That will cause players to re-think their Cost vs. Fun expectations with their feet.
Were any of you here in AH1 when a country could be reduced to a single airfeild from which players tried to defend against conveyer belts of carpet bombing and fighters? Were any of you here for the AH1 Rooks joint squad ops on sunday nights with 300+ players shutting down the MA by strategicly castrating the bish and knights with numbers? You are asking HTC to give you the ability to destabalise the 24x7 combat arena by the use of a single finger salute to the rest of the paying customers daily fun expectations. This in an arena specificly designed to have no imposed structure or organisation other than the ability to wage combat 24x7. One can use the parallel that you are asking a chicken farmer to issue you bazookas to hunt rats in the coops where his profits sleep.
Ever noticed we don't have TallBoys, GrandSlams, or nukes in this game?
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I like the idea of spreading strats out a bit. However they should be impervious to low level / single fighter attack (as they are now). Each factory ought to be placed in the middle of a well defended ack + flak infested city.
Not too pleased with the idea that having the flak factory down by 50% would only limit the surrounding fields and have no effect on the rest of the country. I'd rather they have an equal effect across the country.
Alternately we could have localised strat nodes (city+all factory types) for each cluster of fields. Gives more targets for bombers to bomb, generates a more localised defense / attack type of game.
Also if the start only controls a select group of fields, it should swap countries if all of the fields it is linked to are captured. If they are not all captured, then it will continue to belong to the original country and not provide supplies to the captured fields.
This would make it a little tougher to hold on to a captured field and allow for counter-takes. Would also force the steam rolling attackers to leave behind some numbers for defense of their captured fields. Also it will create a more logical / startegic attack which to some extent would be predictable and thus offer some nice furball opportunities.
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Why don't you ask Lusche to run the numbers
Not for nothin' Buster, but go find another ankle to hump. We're kickin' ideas around in
here and don't need some condescending know-it-all rainin' on our parade.
Thank you . :D
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Not for nothin' Buster, but go find another ankle to hump. We're kickin' ideas around in
here and don't need some condescending know-it-all rainin' on our parade.
Thank you . :D
:lol
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:D
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Hello, Folks,
There are some interesting thoughts in here regarding spreading out the strats a bit which got me to thinking of the following:
IF I am correct, the current requirements for a Country to win a map is that it owns 90% of its own Airfields, and 20% of each of the other Countries' Airfields, and there is no current requirement for any of the strats to be down at all.
But, what if there was a requirement for a certain amount of each opposing Countries' strats to be down as well as the ownership of Airfields to win the map? Utilizing OddCAF's idea of localizing some strats around the map could be tied in with the major strats by giving a light weight to each of the localized strats, but still require the winning Country to hit the deep major strats as well.
Example to Win the Map the winning Country must:
A) Own 90% of its own Airfields, and 20% of each of the other Countries' Airfields
and
B) Have reduced each of the other Countries' Strat Targets by 20% at the time of the capture of the last Airfield.
In the above scenario localized strats could be assigned a percentage of the 20% total of its parent strat, but not enough that would preclude at least one deep bombing mission to the main strats for the winning percentage.
The advantage/disadvantage of this is that it really does not change anything except how the map is won, so it shouldn't ruin anyone's fun as played today, but it does make winning a bit more difficult, and it does make "strategic bombing" a part of winning the map.
Thoughts?
<S>
patches
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In the above scenario localized strats could be assigned a percentage of the 20% total of its parent strat, but not enough that would preclude at least one deep bombing mission to the main strats for the winning percentage.
I think you have something here... although it needs some tweaking. Would need a way around the current map rotation of 4-5 minutes after the war is won which would likely prevent the striking force to make it home in time.
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Odd +1
:cheers:
HP51 :rock
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Yes Odd +1
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odd way to go :salute
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It the group of fields associated with the city are captured what becomes of the city?
How about... we give the city(ies) a "weight" towards the percentage requirements
for "winning" a map and do the same for the strat in that area of operations?
more importantly what becomes of the Strat object it (the city) was supporting?
I'm thinking the "strat" in that area continues to function for the original "owner" as long
as that country retains fields associated with that strat/factory complex.
The fields captured by the "invaders" would function with "crippled" strats of the
type in the AO, "forcing" continued advances with the goal of capturing all of
the affiliated bases. (This would eliminate the current trend of "whack-a-mole"
base grabbing ops, where a cadre of field grabbers captures a base, and then
pops up 20 sectors away to take another.)
Would it be denied to the defending side and so permanently lost?
There would be no "denial" of its use until/unless ALL fields in that AO were
captured. At which point, we could abstract that the civilian populace has either
been pacified or subjegated into rebuilding the strats/city and it would then
begin functioning under the "new ownership", supplying in full the
airfields of the invaders.
If lost would there be an unlosable (in a set of uncapturable fields) rear strat duplicate that would continue at 50% of the oiginal total?
The "uber strats" become excess to needs with this system in place. Bear in mind that dependent upon the
number of fields on a given map that there are not merely one of each strat type on the map.
Rather, there are one of each (fuel, ammo, troops, ack, radar) for say, every 30 fields.
Would it be retained but vulnerbale to continuous attrition from the enemy fields surrounding it?
Yes, once ALL fields in that AO had been taken by the "invaders", then that strat/city complex
would then become subject to damage from the country which lost it.
Would it even be aquired to provide 150% (given the above) strat capacity by the invaders?
I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.
Best regards, Odd
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Example to Win the Map the winning Country must:
A) Own 90% of its own Airfields, and 20% of each of the other Countries' Airfields
and
B) Have reduced each of the other Countries' Strat Targets by 20% at the time of the capture of the last Airfield.
<S>
Hi Patches,
While my idea is based more on an "operational scale", I see your point in adding a "strategic"
requirement to the "winning" of a map. My only problem with that is that it forces folks into
flying a 5,6,8 or 10 sector one-way mission to achieve a reset.
Leaving it at an operational scale system (theoretically) ensures more fights/furballs,
more mission/goal oriented options even for those guys who are just poppin' in
for an hour or so.
One thing I think many of us forget is that there is a large percentage of
players who don't have the luxury of time that some of us do.
For those who enjoy the long, long range "strategic" missions, they could
as an alternative, be hitting 2, 3, 4, 5 or more localized strats/city complexes.
Best regards, Odd
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Hello, Folks,
Hi Patches,
While my idea is based more on an "operational scale", I see your point in adding a "strategic"
requirement to the "winning" of a map. My only problem with that is that it forces folks into
flying a 5,6,8 or 10 sector one-way mission to achieve a reset.
<S> Oddball-CAF, sir. Yes, I did expect this objection to arise, but my hopes are that we can figure out a way to overcome this objection and incorporate "Strategic Bombing" it into the end product in a fashion that utilizes your ideas, yet only makes winning the map marginally more difficult.
I'm open to ideas. I purposely presented the requirements high initially to stimulate idea exchanges. I don't want to force anyone to do anything they don't wish to do, but it is my idea to give those Folks who fly bombers a very tangible purpose in the game related to winning the map that is not grounded in simply mindless bombing of GVs, Town centers, and Strats: I want to make those hours of flying to the Stats mean something for those bomber pilots who take the time to bomb the Strat City.
Just some thoughts...
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There would be no "denial" of its use until/unless ALL fields in that AO were
captured. At which point, we could abstract that the civilian populace has either
been pacified or subjegated into rebuilding the strats/city and it would then
begin functioning under the "new ownership", supplying in full the
airfields of the invaders.
The "uber strats" become excess to needs with this system in place.
Best regards, Odd
Actually the first para above answers the last question..................
Imagine the following....in one zone we have a city and the radar strat.......... the zone gets over run and captured........... according to the above the invaders then also take possesion of the city and the radar strat.
Lets focus on the Radar strat...... if it is lost to the defenders (cos the invaders have acquired it by capturing the zone) does this leave the defenders without logistic support for their radar? do they end up unable to repair radar?
It seems to me this would not be condusive to game play.............. one way to still accomodate this (start zones as described above) is to still retain the rear uber strat but make it only capable of supporting #% (30% ? 50%?)of the total country logistics.
This way the zoned strat is still a viable target, still strategic in its value but not the source of total and almost permanent loss of a strat logistic within game play.
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Lets focus on the Radar strat...... if it is lost to the defenders (cos the invaders have acquired it by capturing the zone) does this leave the defenders without logistic support for their radar? do they end up unable to repair radar?
If I'm understanding your question correctly, you are asking if the other zones in that area, each of
which would have a ammo, fuel, radar, troop factory (they've lost the radar factory zone)
would lose logistical support (less downtime) for -their- radars. Under this system, they
would not, BUT, the regenerating capacity of field supplies (M3s and C47s) would be
lessened.
The result of this would be that the defenders would then naturally wish to reaquire
control of that Radar Factor "zone".
The thing I like best about this setup is that it alleviates a lot of the "whack-a-mole"
base grabbin' crap we see so often in the LWA. Under this system, each country
is nudged a bit into defending/reaquiring bases they may have lost along a line
of battle since they are now directly impacted in a logistical as well as territorial
way.
Best regards, Odd
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I for one would just put in a simple addition:
Leave the central strats as they are and add a railyard complex to each zone, which simply gives another bonus (or malus) to downtimes for all supplyable objects int hat zone only.
So you can either fly
- far and have an impact on the whole enemy country (central strat complex), or
- fly a medium distance (with possibly lesser risk) and cause some regional supply shortfall for the enemies (railyards), or
- fly a short distance and cause local trouble by porking the base.
Strategic-Operational-Tactical strike. Chose your mood, mode and tool for the job :aok
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I like this idea a LOT better than mine. We're due for some new
"scenery" in the game, too. Railyards would look sweet. Hell,
unless I'm mistaken, HTC did some work on the trains in AH
months ago. Mind you , I've never actually seen them in-game
except years ago when they seemed to be everywhere, but I
would think adding tracks and railyards a lot simpler than
my now retracted strats/zones idea.
Best regards, Odd
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Imagine the following....in one zone we have a city and the radar strat.......... the zone gets over run and captured........... according to the above the invaders then also take possesion of the city and the radar strat.
Lets focus on the Radar strat...... if it is lost to the defenders (cos the invaders have acquired it by capturing the zone) does this leave the defenders without logistic support for their radar? do they end up unable to repair radar?
It seems to me this would not be condusive to game play.............. one way to still accomodate this (start zones as described above) is to still retain the rear uber strat but make it only capable of supporting #% (30% ? 50%?)of the total country logistics.
The question is not really an accurate one. If the invaders took over the entire zone (i.e ring of fields surrounding the local strats) then the defenders are now essentially flying into enemy territory. It should be no different than a rook flying into knight held airspace is today.
Also remember the strats simply affect the rebuild time of structures/equipment on the bases.
Now if we reverse the question and say what if the invaders have captured all the fields but one, what is the situation like?
Well it would be like this, all the captured fields now belong to the invaders and their radars etc function as normal. However, the defenders downing a invader held radar will have a much more severe impact than the invaders dropping the defender held radar.
This is because, the defenders will continue to receive the supply convoys as normal to their last outpost. The invaders on the other hand will not be receiving regular supplies to their captured bases (equivalent to having the strats at 0 for them), until they capture all the fields surrounding the strats and thus the strat itself. This makes it vital for the invaders to capture fields in a localised area and makes it a little tougher to steam roll the weaker/outnumbered defensive country.
Well thats my $0.02.
I like Lusche's idea of localised logistic centers replacing localised strats too. Essentially the same thing, but adds an element of deep strike larger impact missions vs localised effect missions. It also entails a bit less map reworking. Plus it calls for more trains to strafe and thats always a good thing! :aok :lol :salute
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I like railway yards or depots more too..........in AH1 (for a while) we had railway yards that took "stuff" from the city and "fed" the strat.
Strat magically fed depots which then distributed logistics to fields via roads
Depots were local to a set of fields.......they had map rooms and could be captured (actually the object group used was the old old town group with a field tower in the middle)
A return to depots would enable local "mini strat play"............
the more a depot was destroyed the lower the refresh rate for fields in its zone.
The depots could be made simply capturable but with a white flag rule that a % (75-80%?)of linked fields have to be captured before the depot would go white flag.
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The question is not really an accurate one. If the invaders took over the entire zone (i.e ring of fields surrounding the local strats) then the defenders are now essentially flying into enemy territory. It should be no different than a rook flying into knight held airspace is today.
The structure the OP presented was one where a group of say 4-5 fields (a zone) could be taken and the country lose all its strat for the "type" linked to those fields. I used radar as an example....in that example the defenders simply lost all their radar as it was destroyed and never rebuilt becaused at that point they had no radar strat (it was captured).
Oddball suggested that radar would have to be replenished by players dropping supplies. I might wonder where the supplies get their radar parts from but that takes even my penickitiness beyond the extreme................