Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: MANDOBLE on April 10, 2002, 07:44:40 AM
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There are some players very interested on the strategic part of AH, looking at this sim like a realtime wargame.
What about a "client" for them with a much more detailed and bigger 2D map of each terrain with much more strategic information, a better mission editor, a special radio channel with a different colour for generals, etc, and all this working in a windowed app (the client) without needing DX8 or anything. Of course, they wont be able to fly or to driver vehicles. You may log with the normal client AH or with the strategic one. This may be even a java pluggin for a web navigator.
So, anyone from an old laptop may play to be general for some hours.
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AH has too much strat and not enough action as it is.
And far too many caps using, BBS time wasting GEnaRALz who are consipously absent when their services are actually required.
They should all be disembowlled and their kneecaps stapled together.
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Humm, I'm sorry, but giving orders would not work at all. Usually, you can find some(many) of your teamates attacking the wrong enemy bases.
Let's say one nme has 3 bases and the others has much more than you... you won't attack the nme with 3 bases, right!?! Well some $@#&$@% do. Event though you write in CAPS, they won't figure out what they are doing wrong and simply ignore you.
The name of the nme are kept secret to preserve the identity of the team with mucho dweebs. :)
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The so called "Generals" dont need to give orders, just to have a more detailed picture of the situation and the tools to design easily complex missions.
The app I described would have a radio buffer, a big 2D map with much more info than our actual map (detected plane types, % of destruction in each mg. plant, cities, roads, friendly and detected enemy vehicles on the map, and a mission editor. All these in a common window app (no dx) runnable from computers with little cpu power and memory.
It may be a good tool for some boring days at the office ;)
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I agree with mandoble, it would be very nice to have something like that. I wouldnt call it a GENERAL ROOM, i'd just call it HQ.
What I picture is a room LIKE the MAP ROOM but that:
1) Has a flat, top-down view of the map (like the one in clipboard, but in black/grey/white colors and covers most of the screen so you can see things easier)
1a. When player d-clicks on a field the map view zooms and centers on the field in question, showing the field in the center and terrain 25 miles around it.
1b. In this zoomed view the player can see the dot dar more clearly, moving mouse over the dot dar will pop up a little flag showing who the contact is (if green), what he flying and his alt. By double-right-clicking on it you can tune your radio to a priv message to that pilot.
1c. Friendly vehicles would be shown as green squares rather than dots. Enemy vehicles, when 2 miles out of the field/town, would be shown as red squares. Friendly fighters would be shown as green triangles, friendly bombers as green circles, enemy units of same types will be shown as red triangles/circles.
This allows players to act as AWACS as long as they are in the HQ.
2) Has mission editor functions so you can make more detailed missions there.
3) When in zoomed view (as said in point 1), you can double click on the field itself to get a top-down view of the field (aka, a la being in tower and pressing F5, zooming out and looking from straight above). Note: It would only show a picture of it, it wont have any real-time data. The point of this would be to show the field's layout in relation to the NORTH. This way someone planning mission can make an appropiate approach for the buffs.
4) Have detailed strategic information. Status of factories,fields (and field objects) and their down time shown in a count-down digital clock, location of resupply convoys and their countdown to next spawn for FRIENDLY stuff, when viewing enemy stuff it should only show the % down of stuff in factory/city/fields.
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Ooooooo....
That would be really cool to have....
Another thought is that the situational map in the "HQ" could also and should also have some Fog of War in there....not sure how to model that but generally dont show all the icons or just put the number of GV's and planes until there is a friendly aircraft in the area.....this way you could incorporate the Recce thing in there where "strawberry 9" could fly over enemy territory and his plane could pass back information. If he were toooooooo high then it would not be very accurate (25k+) to prevent alt monkies....LOL....
Just a thought....
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and JSTARS and...maybe the GeNeRaLzz can get an auto-bail/destruct button as well...
Fan: "OTW A18 in Lanc 24K ETA to drop 5 mins"
Napoleon: "Fan, I'm directing an attack on A26. We need those eggs there."
Fan: "Um, I'm just doing a milkrun or two before dinner, sry."
Napoleon: "FAN WE NEED YOUR EGGS AT 26. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING."
Fan: "Hey, easy, killer...maybe I'll head that way later."
Napoleon: "YOU HAVE GIVEN THE WRONG ANSWER."
Napoleon:
Fan:
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Originally posted by JoyFul
Let's say one nme has 3 bases and the others has much more than you... you won't attack the nme with 3 bases, right!?! Well some $@#&$@% do. Event though you write in CAPS, they won't figure out what they are doing wrong and simply ignore you.
The name of the nme are kept secret to preserve the identity of the team with mucho dweebs. :)
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Well, THAT was clever. I'm not multithreaded; more like MacOS3.2.
I don't think any country has a dweeb shortage. Just because we were all too busy saying NI to stop those evil [!rook,!knight] from winning doesn't make us all dweebs. I was attacking the [!rook,!knights] at the time.
Does anything that happens in the four minutes between a reset and a map change count?
--no, I am not one of the Knights who say NI, except in a generic sense.
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Well.. I don't exactly agree with Mand's idea.. but I think it would be interesting to give the HQ building some potential function other than just a gigantic radar-relay station.
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Just to clarify, my idea has nothing to do with the HQ building, it just a separate application that you may use without needing of any 3D accelerator or lots of memory or CPU. Just an application that shows you the map with more strat detail, a radio buffer and a way to edit missions, perhaps even a way to take command of unmanned ground units (tank batallions composed by 4 or 5 vehicles) setting waypoints and, at some point, unlocking them and let normal players to handle the vehicles announcing that via radio: "Hey rooks tank batallion 1 in possition near A1, you now may handle the units", and the players moving to that batallion like to a normal base ".move tb1" and then selecting the vehicle to use like when selecting the manned ack to control from a field. Perhaps each commander may control 3 or 4 batallions at same time of vehicles or boats, aswell as fleets like normal players.
Some people may enjoy that application while in travels with a not 3D capable notebook, from the office, even creating a second account an using it from a second home computer while flying in the other or simply cause they are more interested into real time strategy than just flying or driving panzers.
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Originally posted by MANDOBLE
It may be a good tool for some boring days at the office ;)
Now you got arguments! LOL, I like this one! :)
Most of surfing at work, wouldn't be for sex anymore. ;)
But seriously, yeah, that would be great.
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Sounds like a fantastic screen saver:p
I have enough problems listening to my squad CO,
why should listen to some super maximus generalissimus, who has nothing to do at his job????
But I know several kids, who would enjoy telling everybody, what they have to do.
They do not need a generals room up to now :rolleyes:
Tofri
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The idea is great, but the technology is way beyond what was available during WWII, so this type of strat (IMHO) would not fit in with the reality aspect of the game.
I would agree that HQ should have a vehicle base so that some protection could be provided besides the AI ack.
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Make the HQ like StarCraft. Display realtime information including aircraft type, loadout and player name about all friendly planes that volunteer to obey to orders (e.g. dot command .acceptorders). Radar information (altitude, size etc.) for all other aircraft. Information about ground vehicles when in visible range by someone.
With one or two mouse click it should be possible to order players to do somthing, like "move to 9.5.4" or "attack con at 3.4.5" or "drop bombs on field X". Pilots not flying should also be listed in the tower, together with a description of their prefered mission. Select one or more of them, click on a take off field, and order them to take off in their rides of choice.
StarCraft with human units. That would be fun :D
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I dont think it is beyond what they had in ww2. It would be real time of course, that would be an advantage, but beyond that it is fine.
If you dont want to listen to a general, squelch the bastard. Heck, if you fly MA and dont squelch 9-20 guys over a matter of 5 mins something is wrong.
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Because the strat-only player-"general" isn't in the action, he is dedicated to the strat aspect, and not disturbed like mission makers are atm; having to deal with non-strat decisions of the moment i.e. situational awareness etc., shouldn't mean they will automatically be authoritative and forcing orders to everyone.
Having a brain dedicated to the strat aspect separately has to improve its effectiveness, at least better than it is now, with one-time editing of the mission plan; only before take off, any corrections are only possible by canceling the mission as a whole.
Improving the mission-making/editor interface/tools should make things easier, not worse.
The general/dictator shouldn't have to be heard first person, the minimum would be to have his guiding hand for operations coordination.
Flights/armor formations are easier this way maybe, at least GVs, since it means less variables (change gears and follow waypoints)to make automation/AI dependent of:
It's possible this way to have (for example) x GVs in formation automated to move from A to B, of course giving the AI the task of aiming does not fit in, like AI gunners on bombers wouldn't.
No bots.