Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: dtango on July 30, 2001, 05:41:00 PM
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The topic has come up before on other occasions and thought I would add my opinion on night fighting in AH.
OPINION
My view which I’m sure some agree with while others do not is that night flying and fighting in AH is great eye candy (especially the sunsets and sunrises, twinkling stars and moon are nice) but frustrating if you’re looking for enjoyment in aerial combat. For me I think this has to mainly do with the inability to see other aircraft in the dark.
RANDOM SUGGESTIONS
Here’s is a list of ideas that might help spice up night fighting in AH. I haven’t thought through their implementation so here they are for what they are worth! Looking forward to your comments and ideas!
Searchlights and Flares for Illumination
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Perhaps ways of illuminating aircraft could be introduced through searchlights and flares.
- Searchlights could be placed around fields, cities, factories, etc. Perhaps they would be placed at intervals of distance from these “targets” in some form of perimeter. Up to 36 lights could be deployed (typical US AAA battalion had 36 searchlights divided into 4 sections of 12)? I don’t have any info on how flak batteries and searchlights were deployed.
- Searchlights would be activated by radar detection of incoming a/c and would begin scanning the sky in the general direction of the a/c. Searchlights could fix and track an a/c depending on algorithm of frequency an a/c gets “scanned” by a searchlight, the degree and amount of evasive (or lack of) maneuvering of the a/c, and the number of enemy a/c that are over or crossing the “target” area.
- Searchlight batteries are destroyable.
- Searchlights would have some form of blinding effect on pilots and crewmen making it hard for them to see outside or down.
- Flares would be lobbed up by AAA around these “targets” areas and temporarily light up the area allowing dot and airplane silhouettes to be seen. Another way to simulate this is by having icons for planes show up for the amount of time they are illuminated by the flare.
- Flare activation would be basically the same as what is used for AAA today.
Historical Excerpts & Tidbits for the Above:
- ON THE GERMAN WILDE SAU TACTIC- To combat the widespread use of Window it was decided to light up the skies as brightly as possible during an air raid. Along with the fires started from bombing this provided enough illumination to allow single-engine day fighters to attack enemy bombers. Above a pre-arranged flak free altitude usually 15,000 feet (4570m) these fighters would patrol waiting to pounce on bombers now clearly silhouetted.
- MORE ON WILDE SAU- Less than a week later on the night of August 23 the Wilde Sau concept was fully realized in the skies over Berlin. Nearly an hour before 727 British bombers reached the capital every available fighter was already en route to defend Berlin. On the ground searchlights lit up the sky brilliantly and gun batteries had been issued incandescent rockets to launch, providing even more illumination. Between the flak guns and night fighters 56 of the attacking bombers were shot down.
- RAF ACCOUNT OF NIGHT BOMBING MISSION- ”A blue masterbeam searchlight settles on our rear turret. Immediately its associated white searchlights form a cone around us. The pilot is blinded. He is not wearing his goggles. He cannot use the anti dazzle screen which is fitted to the goggles. The rear gunner who has been wounded by flak once before is shouting to the pilot to get us out of the searchlight beams. We have very little time before our height and course is predicted. Can't shake them off. They are hitting us. A metallic rattling sound. The starboard engine is hit. The pilot in desperation pulls the nose up and up. There is the inert sensation before a stall, then we are cartwheeling over...He has STALL TURNED the bomber and we are now diving in the opposite direction. The searchlights lose us but will the aircraft stand up to the strain?”
- P61 PILOT ACCOUNT- Modena recalled his most frightening experiences during his days of piloting the P-61 were getting shot at and being caught up in search lights. “That was probably worse than being shot at,” he said. “Because when you were in search lights you couldn’t see anything.”
- SEARCHLIHG BATTALION ORG- Searchlight battalions generally consisted of about 800 men and 36 searchlights divided among four batteries (HQ, A, B, and C). Each battery A – C had 12 lights divided among three sections (four lights per section). In addition, some were outfitted with gun-laying radar sets, notably the SCR-268 and SCR-584 units.
- SEARCHLIGHT OPERATION- These behemoths [searchlights] were conceived to light up the sky, searching for hostile planes. U. S. Army AAA searchlight battalions used them in conjunction with radar sets and machine guns to shoot down enemy aircraft in both the Pacific and European Theaters. The radar would pick up the target, relay instructions to a primitive computer attached to the light, which would track the target and, finding it, illuminate it.
Introduction of Night-Fighter Plane Set
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IJAAF:Ki-45-Toryu Model Hei, Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko "Irving"
LW: Bf 110G-4, Ju 88G-6, He 219A-5 Uhu (Owl)
RAF: de Havilland Mosquito Mk.XII, Mosquito Mk.XIII
USAAF/USN: P-61 Black Widow, P-38M, F4U-2
- These night-fighters would only be available at dusk-dark-pre-dawn hours.
- Implement the airborne radar features of these aircraft by allowing dot dar for forward 30 degree cone infront and at some limited distance (D10k?) of these fighters no matter their place on the map. The dot dar would include alt info as well.
- Another more interesting way of doing this is actually implementing the oscilloscope views of the airborne radars carried by these planes.
Reduction of Icon Range for Night
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This sounds counter-intuitive to the “finding the enemy easier” equation but if night illumination and night-fighter plane sets were introduced this would be in order to definitely give more credence for the use of night fighters. Perhaps the icon range would be reduced to D200 in darkness assuming that a/c aren’t under the illumination from searchlights or flares.
Conclusion
Can you imagine these planes flying about in the AH darkness hunting bombers, unwary day-fighters and finally each other in the night as searchlights and flares light up the night sky?
Anyhow, these are just some thoughts to spice up the AH nighttime and make it more exciting to fly at night and to help make it easier to find the enemy at night while maintaining a sense of night air combat realism.
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see http://www.mthuff.clara.net/ah/SL.html (http://www.mthuff.clara.net/ah/SL.html)
Fidd
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i think it needs to be darker at night
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Fidd... that page of yours looks absolutely amazing. Don't think HTC would go for it though, "night-fighting" isn't condusive to low-alt furballing, which is what the vast majority of the players seem to prefer.
I'm all for a greatly expanded "night" period, because I think it is damn fun to fly around at night. The searchlights are just a cool idea...
I also like the idea of dedicated nightfighters, and perhaps changing the icon distance during the night down to <1k?> or so for the "day" fighters to symbolize their lack of, well... night-fighterness.
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Problem is, night fights as they are now are just "hunt the icon" fights. You cant see the other planes deflection/attitude for crap, and we all know your turning your monitor brightness all the way up ;)
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I hate the night, would be less work for htc to just get rid of it :)
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Fidd- nice page and concepts on graphically implementing searchlights. Does the approach change any or is there any other enhanced effects through the use of transform & lighting functions of DX7/8? Any thoughts on how flares might be implemented?
Urchin- You might have a point about furballing. Not sure that I totally agree with you though. I'm one of the ones that espouses the idea that finding the fight quickly is a good thing. I'm not sure that this equates to furballing though. My definition of furballing is just simply jumping into the best T&B plane and mixing it up with the closest enemy with little to no regard for ACM, relative a/c strengths & weaknesses, and surviving the fight.
For me, it's about finding and getting to the action at some acceptable duration of time, a chance to engage other a/c in ACM, applying your aircraft strengths while magnifying your opponent's weakenesses for a chance for a kill. Rarely does this mean I grab a turn & burn plane, head to the mass of planes and have a stall fight at low altitude (though this is called for during vulch defense :)). I would venture to guess that a good percentage of AH players have a similar psychology, otherwise they/we wouldn't put up with the flight model realism, the real-time assessment of many variables and decision making, and the application of realistic ACM.
If I'm correct about the psychology then perhaps the introduction of night-fighting concepts might enhance the night-fighting by creating a more exciting environment where new sets of tactics apply, giving us a better way of finding each other and fighting at night, all the while not sacrificing realism in night-fighting. For those who (and I believe that it is the majority) in AH community that have this psychology, I think that this would appeal to them.
2Late4u- that is exactly the problem hence the change in nightfighting suggested.
[ 07-30-2001: Message edited by: dtango ]
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Night is pretty.
However I don't fly AH for the scenery and night does make it hard for me to do what I want so I would rather not have it.
Hooligan
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Urchin- You might have a point about furballing. Not sure that I totally agree with you though. I'm one of the ones that espouses the idea that finding the fight quickly is a good thing. I'm not sure that this equates to furballing though. My definition of furballing is just simply jumping into the best T&B plane and mixing it up with the closest enemy with little to no regard for ACM, relative a/c strengths & weaknesses, and surviving the fight.
For me, it's about finding and getting to the action at some acceptable duration of time, a chance to engage other a/c in ACM, applying your aircraft strengths while magnifying your opponent's weakenesses for a chance for a kill. Rarely does this mean I grab a turn & burn plane, head to the mass of planes and have a stall fight at low altitude (though this is called for during vulch defense ). I would venture to guess that a good percentage of AH players have a similar psychology, otherwise they/we wouldn't put up with the flight model realism, the real-time assessment of many variables and decision making, and the application of realistic ACM.
You are right, I wasa bit harsh to label that as "furballing". I pretty much do the same thing as you do, anyways. Maybe it would be better to say that the majority of the players enjoy doing that, and the lack of visibility at night makes it much harder to find opponents (even WITH dot dar it can be tough). For that reason, I think the majority of players in the MA would be hostile to the idea of a longer night, even if it meant new "tactics" and planes that were suited to fight at night.
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I love the night,no problem doing anything at night.
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just a note on the US AAA Bat. its 3 sections of 12 therefor it equals up to 36 :D
Hodo
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S! Dtango
Some great ideas and good historical research.
It would be great to have some of these ideas incorporated. The idea of doing night attacks in Mosquitos and Lancasters versus JU88c's and 190 Wild Sau's would be a real challenge. It would be spectacular with the AA bursts and searchlights.
Another night area would be the night attacks on convoys, done by both sides in the Med. around Malta. Also this was common in the Scheldt estuary with Mosquitos and Beaufighters going after German Coastal traffic. Both sides used flares to illuminate their targets.
Hopefully something like this could be incorporated. Perhaps an hour per day could be set aside as the night period.
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I'm not the only pilot who logs when night falls. I'm primarily a fighter pilot and for that, night isn't my idea of fun.
It's all about chasing icons rather than planes. It's virtually impossible to see the orientation of the enemy fighters and if it does any kind of evasive action it's very hard to follow.
Unless you turn the brightness up on your screen, which sort of beats the *purpose* of the night.
We do not have any dedicated night fighters in AH. Non nighfighters employed in the Wilde Sau tactics of the LW during WWII went for big fat bombers flying level that was lit up by searchlights. I've yet to hear any stories of searchlight keeping a fast moving fighter in its sight and the Wilde Sau tactic employed there. At any rate, it'd mean the defenders got the benefits.
This is a WWII sim, and i gather the tankers and buffers are happy about the night. For a fighter pilot, it servers little purpose.
Dawn and dusk are pretty though; I enjoy those. Total blackout is...black.
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Night is dark.
So, the cockpit should be dark.
So, we, should have a 'useless-but-cool' cockpit lamp/lights just for the fun of it :D
Cockpit lamps - utterly useless for gameplay itself, yes. But at least it's cool :D
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Night is coool..
I vote for longer night.
sky is quite dark , like it shall be, but i think that land should be much darker... LIKE FLYING OVER SEA at night its real Coooool ..
How many of you finished in water while night yoyo fight ? :D its realy nice expirience
I also recomand to short icons dist at night.. fighters may be 2k or 1k and bombers 3k-2k
wo what do you think about it ?
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Ooops! King, thanks for catching my math error. I guess they should flog my 3rd grade math teacher for passing me!
Buzzbait, I think you and I are on the same wavelength with night-fighting. I was suprised as I found out more about areial night-fighting in WW2, especially about the fighter vs. fighter hunts that would go on in the night along with the usual fighter vs. bomber engagements. Using flares to illuminate convoys sounds like a great idea as well. The addition of flak bursts that flash at night would be pretty cool too.
StSanta, I'm the same with current night in AH. If I log on when it is night, I usually won't stick around. If I'm on and then night comes, there's a 75% I'll log. All for the very reason you stated about being difficult to see the enemy.
I guess the ideas boil down to trying to change the AH night environment so that it will attract and offer incentives for more people to fly and fight.
EagleC reduction of the icon distance as without balancing that out with planes suited for night-fighting would be pointless to me. That would just exacerbate the "I can't see a darn thing" problem.
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St. Santa- I just realized that even in my excerpts above there is an example of a P-61 getting caught up in searchlights perhaps multiple times and those being pretty frightening moments. The excerpt comes from an article that was an interview of a WW2 P-61 pilot.
Modena recalled his most frightening experiences during his days of piloting the P-61 were getting shot at and being caught up in search lights. “That was probably worse than being shot at,” he said. “Because when you were in search lights you couldn’t see anything.”