Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Tac on May 17, 2002, 01:36:51 PM
-
How to introduce night fighters to AH when the night is barely long enough to fly 2 sectors?
Since most night fighters had on-board radar, why not model that radar? Just put a little "radar scope" in the copilot's seat which would show a zoomed view of the clipboard map that would only show stuff 10 miles around the player's plane.. and which shows full dot dar?
The way I see it, the pro's and con's to this balance each other out.
Pro's
-Allows night fighter pilots to find targets easier when flying outside of friendly field dot dar.
-At nighttime (aka, 8pm AH clock) make the night fighter's radar range increase to 15 miles.
Con's
-Night fighters are heavier and sometimes less manouverable than their daytime versions.
-Pilot must go to #2 position to see his special radar.. so he cant really fly and fight by radar, only vector himself to a target.
-Make night fighters cost about 2 to 4 perks depending on fighter's speed and armament (aka, a 400mph cannon armed fighter would cost 4 perks while a 300 mph MG armed fighter would cost 2). That radar would be worth the perks.
And since many of AH's currently modelled planes have nightime versions, it would be easier (i think) to build them.
P-38M, Ju88, etc etc.
-
as long as we have icons that are visible at night,there's no need for nightfighters. I actually find it easier to get kills at night than during the day :p
-
thats why im not even touching the "make night longer" or the icon question. Asking for any change in those is futile anyway.
Instead, giving a player a plane which can track a target 10 to 15 miles away (outside icon range) and be able to vector itself to it, ALBEIT flying a plane that performs worse than its daytime version is worth having.
Especially with the advent of the bomber formations coming next version, having a plane to play AWACS (or pathfinder) for the defending craft if they intercept the buffs outside friendly dot dar range would be heavenly.
Especially if HTC manages to model that on-board radar to be able to filter out friendly dots on command.. and be able to give a dot's altitude and heading and speed when you put your mouse over it would be great too. :)
-
don't really see the point in taking the time to code it...
Rather wait until all day fighters/buffs/gv's are modelled first +)
SKurj
-
because itd be fun, relatively easy (*grin*) ... and because I waanna have em :D :D
-
Night fighters could certainly have a place in AH, even more so with extended night scenerios. Tac hits it - the MA nightime is so short that a heavy night fighter could take off in the twilight of sunset and not reach operating altitude before the sun comes up. But, serious concessions would have to be made with the length of darkness, radar and icon availability to replicate the environment WW2 pilots experienced.
Period nightfighter radar, by itself, would be several steps back from what we have now. The existing AH radar indicates a god's eye view of all target's bearing, ground track and range by looking at the clipboard map. Combined with the icons providing aircraft type, country of origin and exact range, we have a system many generations ahead of the radars found in a the typical WW2 fighter. The vast majority of modern fighters can't track every target within range with a 360 degree view vertically and horizontally while unerringly providing accurate IFF.
(The old displays resembled small oscilliscopes that were difficult to use even when they worked right. They basicly showed the strength of one jumpy line that indicated the strongest radar return. The very skilled pilot or operator had to decipher the number of contacts, range, azimuth, and bearing if they were lucky enough to have a target fly in front of them. They didn't have rotating radial lines, labeled dots, the ability to "see" down (ground clutter), behind or to the sides. And they still had to get within visual range before opening fire to verify that the target was indeed an enemy airplane.)
Too many pilots vehemently hate night, though, to expect any kind of wide-scale acceptance. Sure would be neat though.
MiG
-
If we DO get a knight fighter it should be a P-61B blackwidow:) :D
-
Hi Tac
"Especially if HTC manages to model that on-board radar to be able to filter out friendly dots on command.."
Here you are talking about a technology that was introduced in the early 90's, and is called IFF. so I guess we can't have that
:D
-
what about this.....At a certain time in game night fighter spawn points become available...what i mean is say at 8pm AH time pilots can use perkpoints to buy a spawn point, say 50 points per sector and 30 points per 10,000 feet of altitude, for this cost they shoud be icon free but still be on the map dar, also dont let spawn points be within 1 sector of any base.
im not a programer so you will find holes in the suggestion.
just getting my 2 cents worth..
:)
-
Nope, no place!
As long as the black "night" :rolleyes: period is as stupidly bright and short like now and as long as icons are still available at night there is no place for them whatsover.
I would get rid of night alltogether. It is 100% useless. All it does is reduce bandwith issues on HTC servers.
And the seemingly 15 daily hours of that hideus dusk/dawn are even worse....
-
My idea of perfect radar in HA would be:
If below radar altlitude, the enemy should not see ANYTHING before you are close.. 5-10 miles. NO silly bar, cause in real-life you either see a contact, or you dont.
-
yes HTC should model H219 UHU the best German nitefiter in WW2 (first flight He219 killed 5 lancs in 30min)
-
Nilsen u just described dar in the MA, tho i am unsure of when the base starts flashing. U never show as a bar so long as u stay below dar.
btw on the ground u can hear an aircraft at full throttle from a ways out even if u can't see it...
SKurj
-
Hi everyone,
How about a different approach? Day and night fighting are very different. Maybe it's the best not to cram them into one arena, but keep them separate. "Dayworld" is eternal day and home to the "visual" warriors, and "Nightworld" is eternally dark and populated by the radar wizards.
But ... connect the two worlds. Everything that gets hit in Dayworld gets hit in Nightworld, too. Likewise, everything that gets hit in Nightworld gets hit in Dayworld.
However - hits don't transfer immediately! All the damage that is done in one of the world is applied in the other with a delay of (say) one hour. If an airfield is bombed in Nightworld, it'll be down later in Dayworld because it has been bombed "the night before".
Just as squadrons on an airfield that has been bombed during the night, the Dayworld pilots would see their daylight operations hindered. As in real life, they'd still have time to prepare against a daylight follow-on attack, though - the delay in damage propagation between the worlds makes paradox simultaneous day and night strikes impossible.
The arenas would also tend to balance each other - if there's little activity in Nightworld, the night bombers would be highly effective, drawing in fighter pilots from Dayworld to try and stop the night bomber force. If on the other hand the night fighters get too effective, bomber pilots will switch to day operations until the fighter pilots leave for lack of targets - and Nightworld again becomes attractive for bombers.
I admit that idea sounds a bit weird at first, and I might have missed some important details, but it seems to me it makes it possible to have continuous day and night operations in a coherent gaming world with the two arenas optimized for each kind of operation.
That's better than just a niche, I'd say :-)
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
-
Hmm. Something to think about.
Isn't our dot radar based partly on the function of an observation corps? There was no radar that accurate in ww2, - I bet that is what the "bar-dar" does.
I guess that the solution must incorporate a change to the AH radar system as a whole. At night perhaps no dot-radar except when in a nightfighter. Or perhaps a slow refresh rate (similar to the CT) unless in a night fighter.
Anyway, this subject is quite valid. As it is now, the night without being able to use night fighters is merely a nuicance.
-
Hi Angus
Prolly my bad Angus, guess I should have known that by now since I have been playing for 9 months
:D
I have always thought that when a plane is below dar or at long ranges it shows as a bar
Learning new things every day..
-
Have icons full bright in daytime and gradually become more transparent until they do not show at all during full on night.
F.
-
Originally posted by HoHun
Hi everyone,
How about a different approach? Day and night fighting are very different. Maybe it's the best not to cram them into one arena, but keep them separate. "Dayworld" is eternal day and home to the "visual" warriors, and "Nightworld" is eternally dark and populated by the radar wizards.
But ... connect the two worlds. Everything that gets hit in Dayworld gets hit in Nightworld, too. Likewise, everything that gets hit in Nightworld gets hit in Dayworld.
However - hits don't transfer immediately! All the damage that is done in one of the world is applied in the other with a delay of (say) one hour. If an airfield is bombed in Nightworld, it'll be down later in Dayworld because it has been bombed "the night before".
Just as squadrons on an airfield that has been bombed during the night, the Dayworld pilots would see their daylight operations hindered. As in real life, they'd still have time to prepare against a daylight follow-on attack, though - the delay in damage propagation between the worlds makes paradox simultaneous day and night strikes impossible.
The arenas would also tend to balance each other - if there's little activity in Nightworld, the night bombers would be highly effective, drawing in fighter pilots from Dayworld to try and stop the night bomber force. If on the other hand the night fighters get too effective, bomber pilots will switch to day operations until the fighter pilots leave for lack of targets - and Nightworld again becomes attractive for bombers.
I admit that idea sounds a bit weird at first, and I might have missed some important details, but it seems to me it makes it possible to have continuous day and night operations in a coherent gaming world with the two arenas optimized for each kind of operation.
That's better than just a niche, I'd say :-)
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
Very intersting Idea!... though I think they should stay the same... I like how time changes instead of it Allways being day or night... But I would like a night fighter!... You could get somebody to join you and they would operate radar and stuff while you fly etc would be cool too.
-
why not make it a combat theatre game, or a separate arena all together? reduce the range at which the numbers give location away to say....500 yards, increase the glow from the exhaust, make it real! take a couple different fighters and just add radar, like the f4u's and the 262 :D and a couple other night ifghters, make a couple new one's alltogether, and just have a separate arena. i myself find it easier to kill in the dark, just cuz of surprise (especially with no tracers and from below and behind) and with a visibility reduction, u've got a whole other ball game! it sounds like it would at least arouse interest...