Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Karnak on July 21, 2002, 02:01:32 PM
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It seems to me, based on the multitude of threads on the subject, that the current bomber model (which I like) doesn't work well with the current targets/gameplay. The new bomber system wants to be used in a historical fashion, aka dump all the eggs in one pass and get the hell out of Dodge. However, it seems that the players who are being most successful with it are still being forced into the unhistorical position of hanging around, making multiple passes. Those passes take a long time now because the aircraft's speed must stabilize before the bombsight can be calibrated. All of this sums up to Jabo aircraft being much more damaging to the targets on a per player/time basis.
What are some possible solutions?
Well, lets start by saying what we know is not going to happen. HiTech has said that infrastructure will never affect the simulation side of things. Bombing fuel will not globally reduce a country's fuel quality, nor will bombing reduce aircraft/vehicle reliability. This makes a lot of sense to me, from both a modeling point of view and a gameplay point of view. Modeling chaning performance for every unit might be a major bit of work. From a gameplay point of view, people don't want to fight from a position of disadvantage that is beyond their control. Degrading a country's unit performance would also set it up for a cascading failure and, while realistic, that wouldn't be fun.
So, what does that leave us? Certainly it means that solutions must be found exclusively within the gameplay mechanics. Lets look at some possibilities and their advantages and disadvantages.
- Redo the targets to be more "bomber friendly".
This may be the most obvious path to go, but is it really best?
Pros: It would, done ideally, return things to how they were previously with level bombers able to do significant damage.
Cons: It would return things to how they were and would require lots of work from Superfly and Natedog. Do we really want bombers to be primarily anti-field?
- Make strategic targets more important by making the time delays bigger.
Making it so that having a strategic target completely destroyed would prevent any respawning of that target's item and much longer delays for damage to the target might make strategic targets worth hitting.
Pros: This would probably be the easiest for HTC to impliment.
Cons: It doesn't solve the need to make multiple passes.
- Make strategic targets global controls for their item in their sector.
If the fuel factory at 125 percent (just like a field's) allowed all fields in it's sector to used 100% plus drop tanks and a fuel factory at 25% (destroyed) allowed the fields within its sector to only use 25% fuel the strategic target would be worth hitting.
Pros:It would make the strategic targets very much worth hitting and defending.
Cons: It comes dangerously close, perhaps entering, to the kind of things that HiTech said would not ever happen in AH. The ability to limit something as critical as fuel at so many bases by destroying one factory complex is almost certainly too powerful. It doesn't solve the need to make multiple passes.
This would be a way to make bombers more useful by making Jabos less useful.
Pros: It would be very easy to impliment.
Cons: It would make base captures rarer. It would make bombers like the Boston Mk III and Ki-67 useless as the only target they can really hit right now is the fragile town. It doesn't solve the need to make multiple passes.
- Strategic targets governing the durability of field objects.
If there were strategic targets that the big bombers could hit that would reduce the durabilty of the item they govern in their sector it would be a valuable target, but not one that would affect the simulation side of the game. It would be noticable by all players, yet not eliminate the ability of players to compete.
Pros: It would be a useful target to hit. It would have an impact on the game. It would make base captures easier. It would not affect the ability of people to compete by removing the FHs or fuel.
Cons: It would make base captures easier. It doesn't solve the need to make multiple passes.
My preference would be for the strategic targets to be rearanged to make hitting them more effective and adding stategic targets that would govern the durability of field items. I think that would have the effect of pointing the bombers towards the strategic targets instead of the fields (something the fighter boys want) and allowing the bombers to have a significant impact on the course of the war (something the bomber boys want).
What I'd like to see in this thread is constructive ideas to improve the bomber related gameplay.
Thoughts?
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Well thought out good ideas
;)
I already posted this on another thread, but since this thread is looking for ideas, how about if we could control 3 to 6 buffs instead of just 3.. and could control formation (box, "V", whatever"), then we'd have the choice of spreading bombs over wide area (fields) or concentrate attack (towns), and the maps wouldn't need to be changed.
tgnr
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I'm for re-arranging all targets including fields, as well as making strat targets more important.
Targets would be arranged so that one type of object could be killed in a certain number of passes, but so that only that could be. i.e. kill all of a fields fuel, but not be able to hit anything else.
Small field, one pass per object type
Med field, two passes
large field, three passes
Strat targets should be arranged like cities are now, lots of targets, densely packed. Instead of individual buildings coming back up after x minutes, the whole thing should rebuild slowly, one building after another, every x minutes. There should also be a significant effect on rebuild times. Enough of an effect that people will notice when thier strat has been bombed without having to look. Bombed strat should be almost like bombed HQ's, you should be able to tell its down, and they should be worth defending.
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I like the idea of the strat targets decreasing durability of the field targets; that gives a reason to go for the big targets.
Another mechanism that would be annoying to players victimized by it, but wouldn't be as damaging to overall play as porking field status with the destruction of strategic targets is to make damage to strategic targets perk your loadout. For example, if you completely destroy a fuel factory, each 25% fuel past the first 25% costs a tenth of a perk point; drop tanks cost a quarter perk point. The basic weapons load is free, but additional ordnance costs fractions of perk points.
It would also be interesting to see perk points awarded for mission kills as well as shootdowns. If someone takes up a P-47 loaded with bombs and rockets, and you bounce them before they get anywhere near a target, making them jettison their ordnance to be able to defend themselves, then you've achieved a mission kill against them, even if you don't shoot them down. Define some large area for targets -- a half mile around an airfield, VH, city, or town, and something like 500 yards around a GV, and if they can't get their ordnance to hit within that distance of the target, the closest enemy plane gets a perk point bonus for making them throw away their ordnance. It shouldn't be much -- a fraction of the value of shooting the plane down -- but there should be some way to credit pilots for preventing an enemy from completing their mission.
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I would much rather see strategic bombing have a large effect on winning the war, while having absolutely no effect on a country's ability to fight.
People play this game because they want to fight other players. Limiting their fuel or choice of aircraft due to the "strat" system is bound to irritate some players (like me). I don't want to have to be limited to a 25% fuel load or to have to fight doras and mustangs in a p-40 because of the "strat" system.
Here is an example of a simple system that does what I suggest.
Suppose each country had 10 cities/factories and 10 airfields. A country "loses the war" when it suffers a combination of destroyed cities and lost airfields that equals 10. In other words: If buffs destroy all 10 of your cities you lose, of if all 10 of your airfields are captured you lose, of if buffs destroy 6 cities and you lose 4 airfields you lose.
Strategic bombers should be provided with strategic targets that strongly affect the outcome of the war. Possibly, bombing strategic targets (enemy factories for example) should affect the enemy's STRATEGIC capabilities: i.e. damaged factories might reduce maximum bomb loads for buffs. Likewise, the enemy's tactical capabilities (radar, vehicle and fighter ops) should be unaffected by damage to the strategic targets.
The goal is to give the "capture the flag" guys and the "furballers" a way to peacefully co-exist. If you care about winning the war, then you concentrate on destroying the enemy's cities/factories and hurting their bomber capabalities so they can't do the same to you. If you could care less about the strat system, then what the strat guys do won't kill your fuel or radar or otherwise prevent you from having a good time in some dogfights if you only have 45 minutes to play.
Hooligan
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Hooligan,
I agree with you about limiting aircraft types available, and any global affects on fuel or ordanance. Those things would simply harm the fun of the game.
Where I think your idea misses is in completely separating the two activites. I don't think that bomber fliers want to have no effect other than reseting the map, and that's what you describe. There needs to be a tangible effect on the game, but one that doesn't stop the fighter fliers from having their fun.
I think that affecting overall object (not unit) durability might very well meet both requirements. The bomber fliers would be helping by making the Jabo flier's jobs easier, but there would be no single bomber flier at 20k stopping fighter ops from any field.
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Karnak thx for ur well thought post. I agree with u that bombing should be more "interesting". So here are my points of view:
- Redo the targets to be more "bomber friendly".
Yes, but only make strat targets bigger, make them to what they should be real huge complexes of buildings! Anyone remember our Depots? That were nice targets for carpet bombing.
Don't change the fields.
- Make strategic targets more important by making the time delays bigger.
Yep, why not sounds good to me and in combination with bigger targets it would be a very easy way to make bombing more meaningfull.
- Make strategic targets global controls for their item in their sector.
Ummm, I think thats a really great idea but IMO if u make strat targets control their items in the whole sector its to much impact. A sector is really huge. So why not combine a few strat targets geographically in an area and let them control only 1/3 of the fields in a sector (maybe call this STCS (strat target controled subsectors)). Add 2 or 5 manable 88mm directly beneath the strat targets so that we have real flak fire there. I mean u only have to look at the reality to make those things "interesting".
Yes make them tougher for machineguns and cannons but not for bombs and rockets!
- Strategic targets governing the durability of field objects.
I don't like this idea cause it's to gamey for me.
Thats it. I really hope the new bombing system remains like it is but gets the targets it needs.
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Buffing works well they way it is know. Practice and learn your skill. A lanc with the 4000lb can level a twn easily. B17 with 500s can salvo at 5 and kill a twn.
I rarely fly bombers and most of the time I get shot dwn when I do. But the problem with bombers isnt the site or their ability to effect gameplay (thats a good thing) its the fact that they are to weak imho. Their defensive fire is more then capable of killing fighters but the buffs themselves are weak. I have killed all 3 bombers in 1 pass with minimal ammo. Wingtips seem to "jump off of them.
The formations and sights are great.
No way would I want them to snipe off individual structures from alt. No way would I want 1 buff (or even 3 buffs) to come in and ruin an airfield.
My advice find a country mate and practice.
ps Seems the current factories/cities and such are unkillable. Several squaddies dropped on a training facility. Direct hits and killed nothing. We also straffed the ack at the ammo fact n of 6 to knock it down to keep the attackers hitting 6 from running to it. It wouldnt die.
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Wotan,
I agree that the current field status is fine. Bombers shouldn't be able to easliy close them. I like the new sights much more than the old onse. I've flown more bomber sorties this Tour than I have in a long time, and there is no way I would advocate returning to pinpoint, lazer guided accuracy.
However, there needs to be a target that bombers are useful for hitting. The town can be completely annilated by a 110G-2 or Mossie much, much faster than a B-17 or Lanc formation can hope to do it. Towns aren't the target we need.
We need meaningful, and hitable, strategic targets. Other than the HQ, those simply don't exist in AH at this time.
EDIT: This isn't about my ability to hit targets. I flew a Ki-67 mission last night and missed for the very first time. Hitting isn't the problem. Condecending statements about practicing is just a strawman method of changing the subject.
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As a compromise between having the strat targets be functionally useless, which honks off the bomber pilots, and having the strat targets control availability of supplies at an airfield, which honks off the furballers because they can't take up the planes they want, how about modelling the reduction in supplies as a reduction in immediacy?
What this means is that for every fraction (say, 25%) of each strategic target supplying a base that gets destroyed, there is a delay of, say, five seconds between your clicking 'Fly' and your appearing on the field. This represents the fact that, with the main supply destroyed, you're not getting supplies in easily-loaded packages.
I.e., if your fuel base is up, fuel is available in tanker trucks that can fill a plane quickly; if the base is damaged, the field gets its supply in 55-gallon drums that have to be pumped individually into the planes. You want to take off, but your plane isn't ready yet; you have to wait for it to be ready.
This won't affect your plane's weapon and fuel loadout, so once you're in the air, you've got the same plane you would have had if your ammunition factory hadn't been levelled; it just took longer for the armorers to load it out.
This would give a perceptible advantage to whacking strategic targets when capturing fields by slowing down the shoot-down/re-up cycle at fields supplied by the strategic targets, while a five- or ten-second delay isn't going to mean much when you're taking off from a nearby field and have to fly for five minutes to get to the field being attacked.
With the current rebuild times, you would still be wanting to run groups of four or more people to a strategic target if you wanted to be sure of taking it down completely, or running multiple missions to hit it repeatedly to keep it down. And protecting your ability to re-launch quickly from a field being attacked gives the defenders a reason to go up after the bombers hitting their strategic targets.
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Id love to see towns all become the size of the Depot bases that were introduced in v1.09. Right now, Ostwinds can wipe out a city in mere seconds. Make the city larger, add in some tougher targets inside of it (so that single ostwinds aren't all that's needed) and that gives a somewhat hardened city too tough for a sole Ostwind to knock in, and requires some heavier JABO/Buff ordinance to take down.
Possibly toss in a mannable ack or two? Or Stick a VBase in there?
Just a thought...
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I like Hooligan's idea. When I want to furball I don't care about resets too much (in fact a reset makes my life easier as I get nice fresh unporked fields to play with). When I'm interested in strat I'm aiming for a reset (or preventing one). I think making strat target damage contribute to resets is good way of encouraging the use of bombers (and interceptors for that matter).
Base capture should still be the heart of the reset but if a countries city and HQ are at 25% (just as an example) perhaps all you need to do is to reduce that country to 5 bases (or 10 or whatever some balancing number would be) instead of 1.
Furballers can happily go on thier way but now the mission planners might start making some big buff raids (and look to recruit those master bombardiers who can calibrate a bombsite).
In defence thye would have to think of putting up a group of interceptors when they see a big raid inbound.
Getting the balance right would be tricky but i think it could be done.
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An interesting variation on Hooligan's theme:
Perhaps strat damage could work against your o bigtoery (rather than for the country fighting against you):
Strat damage could count against you when the winner is to be decided for a reset: if my country has only 25% HQ (just for the sake or argument) then perhaps my country counts as having less bases than it really has for the purposes of working out who won the reset. This could mean the second largest country could possibly win if it has less bases but has inflicted a lot of strat damage on the largest country. An laternative or addition to this could be that if a countries is HQ 0% it can't win a reset at all (or needs 20% more bases than the second largest for example).
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it may sound condecending to someone as overly sensative to you but how many threads have you started about the bomber model?
I agree we could use large targets for the bombers but thats a problem for a terrain Builder. The terrain editer is available to everyone. I admit I dont have the patience to be a bomber pilot its boring. But it was in real life.
If as you say you hit your target then there are what 100 fields on a 256 x 256 map 2/3 of which are nme. 75 twns to hit plus factories towns and cities. You could spend a whole day just bombing these targets. Also as kronos has shown even hitting airfields can be relatively succesfull.
Bombers should not have any instantaneous impact on gameplay. Not by sniping like we had prior to 1.10 or by killing resources. It took how many years and how many bombing sorties to have a true effect on the german war industries?
Then look at real life bombing accurracy. If you just want a couple of meaningless structures to go "boom" just to satisfy you then I dont think anyone has a problem.
But the bombers impact of the main should be kept at about the same level it is now.
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Wotan,
Stop being intentionally dense (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt).
It isn't a job for the terrain editors, its a job for HTC.
You obviously didn't read my original post as you are simply using this as another soapbox to rail against the "fluffs" that simply want to ruin your fun.:rolleyes:
I agree with you that a player, or a small group of players, using bombers should not be able to close an airfield.
I don't want a return of the lazer guided bombs. I much prefer the current system, thank you.
Let me ask you this, if it is correctly setup now, why didn't the Allies simply use Mosquitoes and P-38s to destroy Germany's strategic assets? If AH is correct, that would have been much, much more effective than trying to use Lancs, Forts, Liberators and Halibags.
The key thing we need is balance, and that absolutely is not what we have. The fact that you and Lazs think the current balance is spiffy and fine is absolute proof of that. The bombers need to have an effect, right now they are easier to kill than they were and have vastly less effect than they did. I don't think they should ever have the kind of effect that they used to, but there needs to be a valid purpose for them.
As to you're redicules aplication of reality into a vastly compressed MA, you're off your rocker. WWII lasted 6 years. A war in the MA is considered very long if it lasts 6 days. 6 hour wars are not unheard of in the MA. It is reasonable to compress the time that it takes to have an effect by hitting strategic targets in such an environment.
You are railing against the idea that anything is wrong, and saying that any such suggestion is whining. When I tried to come up with a fix, you and Lazs figured very, very high in my considerations. I tried to come up with an idea that would have the absolute minimal effect on the game you guys like to play while giving bombers a real use. I see that that is wasted effort now. You and Lazs want only to eliminate any other kind of gameplay, and no idea, even one that bends over backwards to accomadate you, can be tolerated.
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Interesting thread Karnak,
As much as I despise the roulette wheel bombsight, you've shown there may be alternative solutions and the point is taken.
Until those are developed, I will continue to support the new bombsight but advocate a closer correlation between skill level in tracking and the results.
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I agree we could use large targets for the bombers but thats a problem for a terrain Builder. The terrain editer is available to everyone. I admit I dont have the patience to be a bomber pilot its boring. But it was in real life.
Yes, you can put nine factories down in a little 3x3 square. Then you have a triple-size factory area with buildings scattered across it as sparsely as they are now. And you expect us to believe that that really does anything? Look at the 'port' -- eight buildings and eleven AAA emplacements scattered across the entire port area, with structures covering maybe 1% of the port area. Stringing a bunch of them together isn't going to improve the target for strategic bombers; we want ports like this:
(http://www.photo.net/photo/pcd1676/vancouver-rail-yard-88.3.jpg)
Or a single, isolated factory (this is a methanol plant under construction in Monroe, Wisconsin. Compare the building sizes to the automobiles and railroad track, and then compare them to the sizes and density of buildings in a factory block in AH:
(http://www.badgerstateethanol.com/photos/2002-01-Jun/June%201%20Gardner.jpg)
Or this shot of a strike against the marshaling yards in Fulda, 19 Mar 1945 as the bombs start to hit:
(http://www.reese-457th.org/Mission_no_213_19_mar_45_11-71a.jpg)
...and go off:
(http://www.reese-457th.org/Mission_no_213_19_mar_45_11-71b.jpg)
Give us targets worth hitting, and we'll be satisfied.
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i made a long reply to your "points" karnak but the bbs crashed.
Even in the images shiva posted you may have lotsa things to blow up but what do you want that to do in the main once they are blown up?
whats of such "worth" in those images that you feel we need them in ah? A few more structures to blow up?
Stop supplies? limit aircraft? limit fuel? basically reduce onesided ability to log on and have fun?
BS.....
Real life bombing only effected german industry over a long period of time with many many sorties and many many large formations. The german peak production year was 1944.
So what is it you want? A few extra structures to go boom? You yourself said you hit every target you went after with the current buff model.
Define "useful". The main aint ww2. The majority of folks enjoy fighter to fighter aircraft. Should the minority of bomber pilots/squads in the main determin how when and where the rest of us want to fly?
again BS.
If the point is , maybe not for you if you hit all your targets, to give a large area so folks can hit stuff then I say bs again. Folks are bombing in the main some folks hit stuff. If you arent practice and ask and learn from the guys who are.
Heres the only other alternative I se is something like this. It would take basically redoing ah so a few bomber pilots feel "useful"
How about something like production figures to determin the rest. They have no real meaning accept to trigger a reset. Base capture could still be in effect. Deny the nme the air bases necessary to defend production facilities. if over all production fall below xx then it signals one countries surrender. Have train stations and rail junctions that keep the supplies rolling. Assign certain ares of the map as "resource" areas. If your country owns them then you get an increase in that "resource" (iron ore, oil, etc). You get the point.
It would give the strat guys something to do and give some "point" :rolleyes: for bombing. I am sure you can work out the details of such a concept and offer a viable alternative.
I like ah as is.
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Copied from another thread.
My take is this:
IMO it is the target structure, not the new bomb model that is kind of goofy.
What is a VH? It is a tent.
What is a FH or a BH? It is a wooden building.
What is a city building? It is a wooden building.
I think the only hardened targets in the game are the Shore Batteries
So lets say:
To kill a tent is 3k bombs
To kill a FH or a BH is 3k bombs
To kill a city building is one 100 pound bomb or a couple passes with 50 cals
To kill a SB is 3k bombs
This wacky system is how AH progresses as a strategy game. This worked very well with the old LGB bombing model. IMO it does not work very well the new bombing model.
The new bombing model is just one of the coolest things to hit AH. I just feel that to make it reach its full potential, the target damage model also needs to be changed.
IE: More targets!
There just needs to be many more ground targets that make buff raids a neccessity. For example; a small field would have 12 FH's, 12 BH's, 4 VH's etc....
Build the structure damage model so that 100 or 500 pound bombs will destroy these buildings. Make it so that an accurate bomb run leaves destruction in its path, but does not destroy the field. To destroy the field you will need multiple bomber flights, then JABO to finish it off.
Be cool!
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Just as an addendum to my last post (which I am surprised to see actually made it up; the host stopped responding while I was trying to post it), the bright flash in the last picture is the loaded ammunition train exploding; it took out half the yard.
As for the rest, let's do it one step at a time; we can start by filling up the target areas with structures that more realistically represent what would be there, with realistic amounts of damage required to destroy them -- at fields, instead of one VH, have a cluster of four or five, groups of BH and FH, with scattered revetments around the field, enough ammo bunkers and fuel tanks to supply the planes launching from there, and enough FlAK to make jaboing the field a chancy proposition.
Once we have the targets, then we can work on a better strategic model; it's a lot more work to pork a field's fuel, for example, if there are a dozen fuel tanks than if there are two. It's easier to make strategic targets affect the rest of the game less drastically if you've got more steps to go down between undamaged and destroyed.
Fixing the way the effects of bombing work isn't going to happen all at once; there's too much involved for that to happen -- changing the target structures, deciding what the tactical and strategic effects of bombing will be, implementing the changes on the host to keep track of it, and updating the map editor to be able to set up the new system, updating old terrains so they work with the new model. But it needs to start somewhere. The old targets were designed to keep the old bombing from ruling the game; they don't work with the new bombing. So fix them first. The rest of it can come with time.
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I'm on the other hand for strat that actually has impact on gameplay, I mean whats the point of even adding strat targets that have so little impact on the gameplay.
I would say make it big, make it difficult to destroy but let it have impact on airfield next to it.
Also I would like to see targets that could be destroyed ONLY by bombers, I suppose its very simple to implement....just make ack's indestructable on those strat targets and make the target hard to destroy that would make it hard to destroy by any Jabo.
I'm for Strat targets (soort of small HQ's maybe ) that after destroying would disable like 75% of fuel or a random aircrafts/vehicles on one airfield.
For example when you destroy it 7 random Fighters, 4 random Bombers, 2 random GV's would be disabled on a certain field for like 20 minutes. It could be big and hard to kill but it would have atleast some effect on the field and whats the big deal when you would have to up a spit V instead of spit IX for couple sorties or change the airfield for couple minutes to fly your favourite plane.
soz for my bad English :D
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In addition to putting more structures at fields and cities/factories, creating some more variation in the existing building types would increase the utility of bombing.
For example, take the fighter hangars. Expand them into three types. First are open revetments, which are protected from blast effects by the berm, but even a 100-lb bomb into the revetment would make it useless. The existing sheet-metal quonset-hut hangars would require 1,000 pounds of bombs to collapse the roof and make it useless. Bunker-style armored hangars would require, say, 3,000 pounds of bombs to destroy.
If you wanted to use hangar destruction as an impediment to the use of the airfield, it might be possible to do something like have destroyed hangars remove spawn points -- for example, if you had a medium field with five FHs, each FH destroyed would remove one randomly-chosen spawn point (hangar last), so that it becomes more inconvenient to take off as the hangars are downed, until you run out of spawn points with the destruction of the last hangar.
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How about a new bomber-friendly field layout?
It's IMO the easiest short-term solution we can get before we reconsider further changes to strat..I know the positions of FHs and BHs were changed once before, to stop super simple buffing with 1 Lancaster, 3 salvos per drop: in between the hangars and knocking two~three hangars with a single drop.
How about we increase the number of field objects on a field, and rearrange them so about two formations(6 buffs) with perfectly coordinated flight paths can knock objects in a single pass? Knowing how hard it is to set a perfect flight path, this would effectively take about three average-skilled bomber pilots(9 buffs) to knock out a field. But the overall difficulty would be reduced a bit due to bomber-friendly layouts.
Here is my design of a small air field. Yeah, I can imagine it'd be hell to the frame rates with smoke pouring out from 12 fuel tanks and 12 ammo bunkers, 4 BHs and 4 FHs.. but it really seems like a good temporary solution. Notice the FHs are bit off from the BHs in the axis of alignment, so only a perfectly aligned pass will kill the two FHs and two BHs in one pass. (Also, note that left two FHs are further apart so a single East-West pass will not kill all FHs) Fuel tanks are placed in two separate groups in a realistic manner so it'd be generally easier to kill fuels. Killing ammo dumps would be even easier.
Overall, since there are more targets even in a small field, the JABO difficulty would go up a bit, it will need a lot more JABO pilots to kill everything even in a small field. But for the bombers, the difficulty will be a bit lower than before because the hangars are aligned symmetrically and straight in most cases.
This in effect, might let bombers become a worthy alternative in attacking airfields.
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It's the manual calibration which is the pain in the bellybutton for me.
Fighters have Auto Trim - buffs should have auto calibration.
Keep the buffs the way they are, and eliminate the need to use the joy stick to calibrate the bomb sight.
Make it so that once you decide that you are on the right course, alt, and speed, you press U then the target on the map.
This will set the drop alt, speed, wind, and target alt all at once.
Every thing else stays the same as it is now: must stay on course, have to maintain same speed and alt, and the bombs disperse.
Build some error in to this so that drops are not always perfect.
The higher the buffs, the more dispersion in the bomb pattern.
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Wotan,
Yes, I listed many of those, but that was in the spirit of being comprehensive. I specifically stated that aircraft could not be limited or nerfed for any side. I shot down the global fuel reduction as being too harsh. Lets take a look at your accusation and see which of them I argued in favor of.
Stop supplies?
Irrelevant. It happens already and nobody notices. That said, I think its a poor design. It has the potential to really, really hurt a side if overwelming forces are used and maintained against a country, yet at the same time it has no effect if that massive number of players don't do it.
Limit aircraft?
This is a ludicrious idea and I specifically said that it was not a possibility in my post.
Limit fuel?
I did mention this, but I don't think this would be the way to go. Its too powerful and has too detrimental an effect on the fighters.
Basically reduce onesided ability to log on and have fun?
No, this must be avoided, while finding a balance. (You haven't flown Rooks recently, say within the last year, have you?)
No, my suggestion was to leave airfields laid out as they are to make them very Buff resistant. A few players in bombers shouldn't be able to close an airfield and hurt other's fun. I suggested that strategic target be rearanged to make them easier for buffs to have an effect on (yes, I hit my targets, but because I am dropping my loads historically, i.e. all in one pass, that means I blow up very, very few structures compared to 1.09). In addition I suggested that there be strategic targets that governed the durability of field objects as a mechanism to represent reducing quality control from the bombed country's industry. I think this would work well because the field layouts would still make bombers ineffective against them and a field with structures reduced to only 25% of full durability would still be fully operational from the point of view of the fighters. The only time it would come into play is whan the Jabo aircraft, something the defending fighters can do something about, try to destroy the field. This would only affect field objects, it would have absolutely no effect on the damage models of aircraft or vehicles.
This would allow the big bombers to work in tandem with the fighter-bombers, without having the big bombers directly porking the airfields. It would have minimal impact on the players who simply wish to furball because the bases would operate at full capacity regardless of their durability level. The idea is to use field object durabilty as a representaion of manufacturing quality.
Do you see how I tried to come up with an idea to give the level bombers a real role, while limiting their impact on the furball part of the game?
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Also I would like to see targets that could be destroyed ONLY by bombers, I suppose its very simple to implement....just make ack's indestructable on those strat targets and make the target hard to destroy that would make it hard to destroy by any Jabo.
Flakturm.
(http://www.reichinruins.simonides.org/flaktrm2.jpg)
Four twin 128mm FlAK guns, twenty either 37mm FlAK 37 or 20mm FlAKvierling 38:
(http://www.hlj.com/images/pit/pitmw-01.gif)
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Karnak;
I like your idea about field organization. This could also be carried over to factories ports, railyards, etc... As you stated, it would be a very good interim fix.
In any event, currently the major game stragety is capturing bases. Level bombers need a significant role here. Irrespective of actual history, the AH bombers need a role that is fun, requires skill, is accomplishable and actually makes a difference to the game strategy of capturing fields.
Good thread gents! :)
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hooligan is correct... everyone else has simply found a way to make gameplay more lopsided for longer amounts of time per reset. I see a lot of formulas for sucdcessfully getting people to log off or to keep them from logging on... some are so good that they would keep new players from subscribing even when WB goes tits up.
lazs
Public Relations Officer for the Bk's
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lazs,
Please explain how my proposed system would create a lobsided environment for longer? This is an honest question as I really don't see it.
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Karnak wrote:
"I think this would work well because the field layouts would still make bombers ineffective against them and a field with structures reduced to only 25% of full durability would still be fully operational..."
At the risk of sounding like I support the furballers, I must point out that as soon as we bomber pilots see the durability of the hangers drop to 25%, needing only a 1K bomb to kill it, all our comrades will begin unloading on all the field hangers. This would be no more balanced then the roulette bombsight we have now so I can't support it.
I try to think in terms of what changes are possible in the near term and what can we hope for in a later release.
Karnak, Rivven, Kweassa and yes even Wotan have convinced me there may be other alternative in the future but they would imply major changes to the current model for strat targets and tactical targets. I don't think game play can wait for that to happen, at least as far as bombers go. It will be interesting to see how many of the assigned bomber pilots show up for the upcoming Battle of Britain. I think it will be very difficult for the Axis to accomplish the stated win conditions with the current bombsight model but what the heck, it'll still be a hoot.
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Easycor,
The numeric values I gave are arbitrary examples, not what would be used if HTC were to adopt the idea (and based on today's news I'd guess that there won't be any changes to the strat in the MA). For example, base durability could be increased so that the strat guys would have to bomb the factory complexes just to make it as easy as it is now to capture bases. The durability levels would have to be played with to find a balance.
Also, this would not involve getting rid of the new bombsight. I like the new bombsight far more than the old one. The new bombsight makes hitting hangers difficult and I would submit that anybody who would choose a bomber over a Jabo aircraft for taking hangers down, regardless of their durability, would be choosing the less efficient method.
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sorry karnak I was using the numeric values you gave in the original post.
seems that if you have the most bombers or players then your country will have the hardest to kill features while those your excess players are milkrunning will be "soft".
lazs
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If you want a simple solution to the problem of Ostweenies driving up and flattening a town, or a field, then what should be considered is establishing a 'You must be this large to attack this target' number for each ground object -- a minimum-damage cutoff. Structures would retain their current damage requirement for destruction, but for each structure you would have a damage minimum -- below that number, damage does not accumulate.
So you could, for example, set up different buildings with different durability -- wooden buildings that could be shot up with anything, brick buildings that would shrug off 37mm rounds but be damaged by anything bigger, and concrete buildings that would laugh at the PzKpfw IVH's 75mm gun, and maybe 100-lb bombs.
Combine this with adding PaKfronts to the fields, towns, and strat targets, and you push the Ostweenies out of terrain levelling and back into air defense, where they should be.
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**********A-bomb************
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well..whatever the result of all this blabber..there MUST be a way
to make buff pilots have an impact on the game..LOTS of people here cannot ever be effective in a fighter, and the current situation takes away their ability to have an effect on the daily wars. I have to agree the 35k laser-guided eggs were a bit much, but if ya cant hurt bases under 15-20k, (which is the only surviveable alt) and hittin strat targets doesnt REALLY affect enemy, then ALL the full-time buff pilots have been, in effect, told they are not wanted and can hit the road, or just fly about to give the AK's more stuff to kill.
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I love flying buffs. However I find myself JABOing much more often now. Especially on the Pizza map.
I agree that it is possible for buffs to still make a siginificant impact on the game. My personal best with a 3 Lanc formation was 3Fh's down, 1 damaged, and a bunch of ammo, gun emplacements, fuel ect taken out. However that was a very unusual run, and was at only 11K, well below the wind.
My suggestion for an intermediate step that may draw more folks back to buffing, Turn Off the Wind !
Trying to hit anything above 12K, where the wind starts blowing your buff and your bombs around, is just not worth the time and effort of climbing a Lanc to get there. The rewards at the end of the run make JABOing much more fun than High Alt buffing.
Turning off the wind is easy, it keeps all the new bombsight stuff in place, it would add a little more accuracy to high alt buffing while not returning us to laser guided munitions.
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First Wotan -
The majority of folks enjoy fighter to fighter aircraft.
That is simply wrong and reading your other posts you seem to have a "make the bombers meaningless so us REAL players can have our fun unhindered" agenda going on.
Should the minority of bomber pilots/squads in the main determin how when and where the rest of us want to fly?
Yes if you majority hotshots don't shoot us down - its called defending strategic targets and could be a very enjoyable and immersive part of the game if done properly.
Karnak you make interesting points but I think a few key things are being overlooked in the current gameplay although I absolutely agree with your initial statement that the targets are part of whats wrong with the current system.
I also believe there are two other factors making bombing fruitless -
1. Rebuild of city buildings etc by goon meaning bombing of resuppliable targets is a complete waste of time.
2. Mission play as it stands - organised missions can up repeatedly from the same base or can up from damaged bases which gives rise to squad or mission steamrollers taking over bases at a pace which makes bombing pointless. This is because you take off with a view to bomb a certain feild but by the time you have climbed etc two and sometime three feilds have fallen and suddenly you flight is heading for a useless feild well behind the line of attack. It should only be possible to launch a major attack from a base whic can support it - i.e one with plenty of supplies.
I can't find a suggestion out of your list though that I completely agree with and thats because I can't see a simple solution.
(Wotan please take note here)
When I take a bomber formation up I'm in it for a while - 20-30 min climb then at least 10 cruise, a couple of passes and then home - often its a 45 min job to do it right and I think thats how it should be but at the end of it I want to impact the game by affecting the enemy's ability to fight - thats the whole point and was the point of strategic bombing in WW2. So to me flattening a town to capture a base is ok but ho hum.
This leads me back to an idea I can't let go - the concept that the MA game should be based on usage and supply. For example an airfield gets supplied fuel at a certain rate - when an aircraft or several take off with full tanks that fuel has to be replaced at the full rate. Under normal circumstances with 100% refinery and supply route the refill rate will replace it quickly. However bomb the refinery and the refill rate drops - that means people can still take off with full tanks but the feild tanks may gradually or rapidly empty depending on activity at the feild. If a mission is upped then the tanks will empty quickly but if defenders take off with 25 or 50% then it will last longer.
At the same time make the bombing of the bunkers / tanks etc on fields affect the field storage not the availability per a/c so half the fuel gone means half the a/c can take full tanks untill they are refilled.
I would not make this country wide however but keep the zone sytem so there is a refinery etc for each zone. I would also overlay minimums so that even if an airfield has all its tanks down and minimum resupply then the feild reverts to what we have now i.e max 25% fuel available / aircraft. (So you could take 100% up to the point when the tanks are empty on feild and then its 25% until they fill again - the number of tanks available to fill on site and the refill rate will determine how many a/c can up with fuel above 25%)
This basic idea can be extended to ammo and troops although ammo and troops could go to zero.
Next I would stop the rebuild of cities and Strat by goon.
For me this addresses all issues:-
1. Bombing now has a purpose - even one mission for one person.
2. It makes the repeated upping of large missions from the same airfield impossible - the usage rate would simply empty the tanks - this would slow the gang bang steam rollers we see going across the MA at the moment.
3. It would keep the furballers happy - up to 100% fuel would usually be available for small numbers of fighters.
4. If goon rebuild is stopped then it becomes more important to defend your strat targets.
As a final point this could all be done with the existing structures:-
Have a zone with a city, refinery, ammo factory etc. . The city controls rebuild time on the refinerys etc as now but with no goon rebuild. The refineries etc feed the zone feilds via a depot - bomb the depot and the resupply rate is slowed (fewer convoys leave). All that is needed is to give the tanks and bunkers specific volumes etc and then code the maths for the refill rates and damage variables.
When dedicated bombers can cripple a countries resupply then maybe we'll see how good the hotshot fighter pilots are - in both defending the buffs and bringing them down. :)
Sparks
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Originally posted by Sparks
First Wotan -
Yes if you majority hotshots don't shoot us down - its called defending strategic targets and could be a very enjoyable and immersive part of the game if done properly.
:D You tell em Sparks!!!
How about allowing us to put plane factories out of commision with 3 possible effects:
1) Cost of perk planes doubles until factory rebuilt
2) Some near-perk planes become perk planes
3) Historically rare planes availability reduced or eliminated until factories come back up (also a good incentive to RTB.. you get to keep the plane if you land it)
tgnr
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I wholeheartedly agree with Mino and Kweassa on this one. The original idea for rearranging the field was to counter laser guided bombers for disabling fighters/bombers in a single pass. The field needs to be rearranged again in order to encompass this new system of bombing.
In addition to rearranging, I like Mino's idea of lowering the "wooden" structures amount of poundage required and adding more "targets" to compensate for their weakened strength. The total amount of poundage could equal roughly the same depending on how things are worked out. I wouldn't mind seeing more net poundage required to totally knock out an airfield.
Ex:
3000 lbs per fighter hangar at a field / 3 hangars total at a small field.
Cut the poundage in half to 1500 lbs per hangar / Increase the number of hangars by half giving a total of 6.
The end result is the same amount of poundage required to achieve the destruction of all fighter hangars.
IF the rearrangement of fields were to take place, perhaps we could see a more realistic looking field layout? Not all fields were built identically I am sure of that.. anyone have pics of a typical WWII field layout? I like Kweassa's sketch of a possible layout plan.
Duedel: I also loved level bombing/jabo'ing the depots. They were huge! I would like to see each town that size.
All in all, more ground targets please :)
oct out
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Sparks I know bombing is boring.......whats your point?
The main isnt a war. Argue for ht to enhance strat, to make larger targets and more dense targets but dont argue the only way a bomber can influence the main is to stop fighters from taking off. Thats not their roll historically and thats not there roll (after 1.10) in AH.
I dont care about 1 bomber pilots fun. He kills the fuel and fhs that stops the fun for far more folks. Jabos and attack planes are designed to do the very thing you want your bomber to do. They do it better (always have) and are a lot more fun to stop. Very rarely does 1 single attack plane impact gameplay the way 1 bomber did prior to 1.1.
Dont gimme crap about killing bombers. They are as easy to kill as killing ants and not much more fun to kill.
I made a detailed suggestion on how the bomber model and an improved strat model could be used to really effect the main with out killing fighter hangers. My suggestion puts bombers in their proper (or as close as can be) roll.
But those who didnt like my suggestion assumed that if bombers were tasked with reducing one countries production to trigger a reset that they would be bored because the rest of the main may ignore them.
You dont want a realistic strat and bomber model. You certainly arent arguing for one. You are the typical Me Me Me Bomber pilot who thinks its his "mission" to stop others from having fun.
There nothing "mysterious" about my motives. I have posted in near 100 of these thread that are started by a bomber pilot who feels his "roll" is unappreciated. My views are clear in everyone. Give bombers the roll they had historically and thats not killing fighter hangers.
If you dont think the majority of folks in the main are in fighters then jump around field to field and see what folks are doing.....the same thing they were doing before 1.1. Upping a fighter and looking for the closest fight.
Instead of taking the time to work through and learn the new model you come here with "now I cant hit the fhs, bombing is ruined". I see others guys bomb and hit what they are aiming for. I've seen fighter hangers destroyed by bombers in 1.10. But wih the formations and new bomb site I would want a little more then just killing a fighter hanger.
:rolleyes:
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sparks... you appear to realize that you have no purpose without fighters... you also appear to want your limited talent ot be given a lot of weight so that you will be noticed. You appear to realize that you will be ignored if HTC doesn't make people play with you.
I fly fighters and very rarely have an affect on the "war". I am not a threat to the strat. I have no trouble finding people to play with me in the arena.
What are you having trouble understanding?
lazs
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sparks... you appear to realize that you have no purpose without fighters... you also appear to want your limited talent ot be given a lot of weight so that you will be noticed. You appear to realize that you will be ignored if HTC doesn't make people play with you.
I fly fighters and very rarely have an affect on the "war". I am not a threat to the strat. I have no trouble finding people to play with me in the arena.
During the war, the whole purpose of the bomber offensive was to be "a threat to the strat", as you put it.
I suppose in your ideal simulation, the game world would be filled with furballs within easy flying time of your airfeld -- or, better yet, be able to air-start near one, so you don't have to waste your precious time getting there -- while the occasional robot bomber formation flew overhead so that you could casually exhibit your ability to dynamite fish in a rain barrel whenever you got the urge. Lots of fat, juicy targets on the ground for you to strafe and jabo, and none of those nasty acks shooting back at you to distract you. Oh, and just to make sure that you never have to suffer the psychologically crippling trauma of getting shot down, let's just make all the other fighters robots, too, and have them circle over the airfields where they're easy to get at and never shoot back.
Oh, wait -- that's pretty much the way offline play works. Well, you should happy as a pig in toejam, then, lasz2; I don't see why you need to go online at all.
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Seems some want bombers to have an "historic role" in the MA, where nothing else is at all "historic".
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Originally posted by lazs2
sparks... you appear to realize that you have no purpose without fighters... you also appear to want your limited talent ot be given a lot of weight so that you will be noticed. You appear to realize that you will be ignored if HTC doesn't make people play with you.
I fly fighters and very rarely have an affect on the "war". I am not a threat to the strat. I have no trouble finding people to play with me in the arena.
What are you having trouble understanding?
lazs
Ah yes.. an intelligent debate degrades into condescension :rolleyes: Sounds like you folks can't play nice together. Go to your rooms :mad:
If buffs can't affect fighters, then fighters shouldn't be able to effect buffs. So let's make buffs bulletproof... let them bomb whatever they want, without any impact on the gameplay, but without fear of accidently stumbling across a fighter jock who obviously has no desire to shoot down a lowly buff and is really looking for some real competition from all these skilled NME fighters and just happened to come across a buff that he shot down quite by accident, not wanting to waste his time on a subclass of AH player :eek: Oh wait.. but then that would cut down on your precious perkies :p
Or... how about realizing that furballers, base grabbers and eggers can co-exist, all have fun and impact game play if that's what rings their chimes.
Why is it that improving the game for buff pilots automatically means that fighter pilots will suffer irreparable harm? Would missing a plane or two really make you so sad that you wouldn't want to "play" with your friends? :( Would you be vewwy, vewwy sad?
Maybe AH needs a fighter town where furballers can spend hours killing each other without fear of having to "play" with an underclass.
Hug & Kisses :D tgnr
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IF the rearrangement of fields were to take place, perhaps we could see a more realistic looking field layout? Not all fields were built identically I am sure of that.. anyone have pics of a typical WWII field layout? I like Kweassa's sketch of a possible layout plan.
From http://www.bomber-command.info/afl.htm (http://www.bomber-command.info/afl.htm):
"This aerial photograph of Skellingthorpe Airfield was typical of the layout of a WWII Bomber Base.
"The triangle of runways in the centre of the picture allowed take off and landing from a possible six different directions according to operational needs, weather conditions etc.
"The 'frying pan' aircraft dispersals can also be clearly seen around the distant edges of the airfield, thus ensuring, as far as possible, that no aircraft would be an immediate danger to another."
(http://www.bomber-command.info/skellymap.JPG)
Here's a map of RAF Wickenby, another Bomber Command base; you can see the general similarity to Skellingthorpe:
(http://freespace.virgin.net/dave.stapleton9/RAF%20Wickenby%20Scale%20Map_files/image003.gif)
Here is a map of the Rattlesden bomber field. The page it is from, http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb5433/rattlesdenaf3.html, has links showing the building layouts at various parts of the outbuilding areas:
(http://users.cybercity.dk/~nmb5433/rattlesden%20AF1.gif)
A picture of Buckingham AAF in Florida from 1945:
(http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/FL_S/Buckingham_FL_1945.JPG)
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Seems some want bombers to have an "historic role" in the MA, where nothing else is at all "historic".
Well, let's look at the way that AH was built. If HiTech had wanted to produce a sim for the fighter fanatics to furball endlessly, the technology exists to run drone buff groups around the arena; there would have been no reason to include bombers in the flyable planes. Therefore HiTech must have had a reason for wanting player-flown bombers.
The pre-1.10 arena had ground targets unrealistically dispersed so that bombers, with their laser-guided bombs, wouldn't be able to sail over a field or installation and snipe enough targets to cripple the field or installation. If a buffer wanted to get more than two or three targets, they had to choose their approach carefully or make multiple passes.
1.10 changed bombing so that the bombs disperse realistically; it's no longer possible to sail a Lancaster over a field and snipe three hangars, two ammo bunkers, a barracks, and an AA emplacement in one pass -- and setting up a second pass can take long enough that targets struck on the first pass can be up again by the second pass. So there's nothing a bomber can do for tactical support that can't be done as well by jabo missions.
The implementation, in 1.10 as well, of a strategic supply system that appears to be fully nonfunctional, removes the strategic mission for bombers, as well. What's the point for taking two hours to climb to altitude, run into enemy airspace (when the field ownership isn't so chaotic that you can't just make five-minute jabo runs to the nearby enemy strategic supply base), just to bomb a half-dozen structures at a strategic target when flattening it doesn't affect the country that owns it?
The net effect is to create a powerful disincentive to fly bombers. But, since HiTech must want flyable bombers for some reason, there needs to be some reason for the players to fly bombers. Think about what the MA would be like if all the uberplanes were perk-free. If you don't give the bomber pilots any incentive to fly bombers, and give them a gruntload of drawbacks, pretty soon you aren't going to see anyone flying bombers. Which defeats the purpose of putting them in the game in the first place.
Maybe the answer is to triple or quadruple the number of AA emplacements at all ground installations, to make it clearing all the AA out enough harder that bringing in bomber strikes to cut swaths of damage across the field is more efficient. Maybe the answer is making strategic targets more important to field supply. If you change the game so that bombers make a difference to the gameplay, then you're going to have fighters going up to shoot down the incoming bombers before their fields get trashed or get their supply cut off. And because the fighters are coming up after the bombers, if a bomber formation hitting a target is more effective than the same time spend jaboing, then you're going to see fighters coming up with the bombers to defend them -- which brings you right back to the fighter-vs-fighter combat, so you don't lose anything except some of the 'get shot down, take off, fly for three minutes, rejoin the furball' perpetual meat grinder.
Or maybe what it's going to take is enough of the people who did enjoy buffing to group together and make three- or four-group runs on the furball fields and trash the fighter hangars, ammo, and fuel; there have been a pile of suggestions thrown out for discussion about ways to allow bombing to affect gameplay without preventing fighters from taking off to furball, but all I hear from whiners like lasz2 is "No, no, no -- if you let bombers have any effect on my precious furballs, it will destroy the game and all the fun I get from it!" -- nothing constructive, contributing nothing, just whining about how giving bombing any effect on the rest of the game is going to ruin the game completely.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
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A couple of things to consider. Now realize that these came from my experience in building one of the earlier terrains, and these are considerations I was told by HTC to always remember. Some of these may have changed.
1.) The more buildings/structures present, the more polys it takes. The more polys you have, in addition to possibly having more fires and smoke plumes in view at any one time, is a degradation of frame rates. In some cases extreme degradation.
2.) The entire terrain is loaded into memory when you log into an arena. The more airfields, cities, factories, etc., the more memory it takes, and the slower the load time. There use to be a hard coded limit in the terrain editor, on the number of objects you were allowed. I'm sure these have been increased, but its still quite finite. Remember the problems with WWII Online, and its eating up huge memory resources on loadup?
The result is that people with what are already marginal machines will be forced to upgrade, or leave AH. Realize that personally, I don't mind. I have a fairly powerful machine, and the ability to upgrade whenever I want (ie no wife yet ;) )
But its obvious that HTC has tried to keep minimum machine requirements down to keep its potential player base as large as possible. Personally I like the idea of large Cities and factory complex's, but don't forget the other realities either. :)
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1.) The more buildings/structures present, the more polys it takes. The more polys you have, in addition to possibly having more fires and smoke plumes in view at any one time, is a degradation of frame rates. In some cases extreme degradation.
I don't think that there needs to be a whole lot of work put into high-poly strat targets, but as a counterexample, look at the troop-training strategic target -- how many of those little barracks buildings are there on each one? If you take that strat target and make all the buildings bigger, then spread them out so that they fill the area more.
For strategic targets, too, the high-altitude bombers are never going to see the flames; I don't see that leaving them out will hurt anything. Similarly, with larger buildings filling more of the space, you can save framerate by taking, say, four adjacent smoke plumes and replacing them with one big smoke plume. As more of the target gets destroyed, the smoke plumes will merge into fewer larger plumes, obscuring what remains of the target for follow-up bombing runs -- a historical problem, so that comes out as a net benefit.
2.) The entire terrain is loaded into memory when you log into an arena. The more airfields, cities, factories, etc., the more memory it takes, and the slower the load time. There use to be a hard coded limit in the terrain editor, on the number of objects you were allowed. I'm sure these have been increased, but its still quite finite. Remember the problems with WWII Online, and its eating up huge memory resources on loadup?
Not knowing what the internal data structure of the terrain files are, I can't address this one directly, but it seems to me that this could be addressed by changing the way that terrain loads into memory. If you define a multilevel object structure -- at the terrain level, you have a compound object of type X with orientation Y at position Z, the actual description and status of the object doesn't need to be maintained in memory for every single object on the terrain -- just the ones within visible or soon-to-be-visible range of the player.
The description of a compound object -- where the hangars and things are at a field -- is common to all instantiations of that object, and only needs to exist in one place. The status of that compound object only needs to be a packed array of condition values -- structure 1 is okay, structure 2 is destroyed, structure 3 is flaming, etc.
Of course, making changes to the terrain data structures is going to require a significant rewrite of the terrain creation code, and conversion of the existing terrains; I wouldn't expect to see it as part of a minor upgrade, which means that we're not likely to see more than minor incremental improvements for a while.
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Wotan - I've copied your last post and will add it to the bottom of the thread I started in General and reply to it there because its a bit more general I think than Karnaks original post here.
Lazs -
sparks... you appear to realize that you have no purpose without fighters...
You appear not to be able to read...... what I am saying is bombers role in the game has been decreased - it has no link to fighters at all.
you also appear to want your limited talent ot be given a lot of weight so that you will be noticed.
1. Insulting me adds nothing to your arguement and makes you look a tard
2. I couldn't give a monkeys about being noticed in fact I rather not be.
You appear to realize that you will be ignored if HTC doesn't make people play with you.
At what point did I ever suggest I was looking for HTC to "make people play with me ???
I fly fighters and very rarely have an affect on the "war". I am not a threat to the strat. I have no trouble finding people to play with me in the arena.
They shoot you down because you are there - the same as the rest of us - I can assure you most of us do not go looking for you.
What are you having trouble understanding?
You......
To Everyone else :- Getting back to the original point, while I agree that target spacing and density could be changed, what do you all think about a strat system based on use and supply ??
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hmmm... you guys claim that the fighters have an effect on the fluffs but the fluffs have no effect on the fighters? Not true. If a fighter get's bored enough to attack a fluff then the fluff has every chance to shoot him down.
I repeat... You don't want to have anything but a lopsided effect. I have little effect with fighters other than to remove a few cons from the sky. And that it by no means a given.... you wish to affect the gameplay of dozens or more players directly without having to have any skill.
large area targets that did not affect fighters but would "win the war" when leveled would allow people who didn't care about the "war" to ignore the fluffs... Those who did care.... would create an "historical" affect. escort and attack of fluff formations.
lazs
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I think it's clear from all the posting that there is a fundamental difference between the people who have an interest in 'the war' and the people who just want to furball.
So, as was proposed in one of these threads, we should create an 'Endless Summer' arena. All the terrain has are three large airfields, one for each country, 25 miles apart; only fighters are enabled at each field, there's no ordnance available, and the building durability is cranked high enough that there's no way for any aircraft to be able to take a hangar down with just its guns. Using a large airfield makes it a little more challenging for a country to vulch a field, given six ways for a plane to take off.
Set that up as its own arena and let the people who don't care about 'the war' go off in their own corner and furball to their hearts' content without having to worry about some lowlife bomber pilot flying over their field and porking it unmolested because they ignored him to get to the furball faster. They can play in their own little ghetto and revel in the knowledge that everyone there is interested in exactly the same thing they are -- the kill confirmation in their message window.
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As a dedicated fighter pilot, I just wanted to say a few things for the bomber pilots:
When the mission based arena comes up, there will be plenty of fighter pilots who WILL want to fly realistic intercept or escort missions.
There are fighter pilots out there with the patience to climb to 20k and patrol their forward bases and strat targets.
There are fighter pilots out there who feel that bombers should be hard, even very hard, to kill. I 'd love to need go hunting even single bombers with a few wingmates.
There are fighter pilots out there who appreciate that fighters are strategically DEFENSIVE weapons - and if we fail to defend our homeland we do expect to suffer shortages, even lose the war.
But, like yourselves, we will probably have to wait for the mission theatre to have the sort of gameplay we want.
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What are you having trouble understanding?
A bunch of things, first and foremost, why I read through this entire thread. Second, why do folks keep arguing these same issues. Create a furball arena and see who shows up. If you take out all the folks that take any shots at ground targets (bomber or jabo) I don't believe you would have a majority of pilots left over. We keep hearing about the minority of buff pilots who want to change the game from the minority of pure air to air only pilots who can't stand the thought of having to fly more than 2 or 3 minutes to get into a furball. So the third thing I don't understand is why someone who doesn't want to fly more than 2 or 3 minutes would pay to play a flight sim. OK..with 1.10 the "air to air" only guys have won. Buffing is now worthless, show me a buff pilot who claims to hit his target 100% of the time and I'll show you someone who plays at 6am and has only buffed a couple of times. I like the new bombsight and I've had fairly decent success hitting things from alts of 28-30k but what's the use when it doesn't change the outcome of the battle. Now its as boring as firing up my auto trim and vulching some newbies in my N1k or La-7. Does that help game play, AH or HTC? We'll folks who used to enjoy bombing missions have been dropping from our squad. You very rarely see over 400 players in the MA anymore. Congrats, you won, now AH is a lot more like AW and WB and I can't understand why that's a good thing.
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Originally posted by zipity
What are you having trouble understanding?
A bunch of things, first and foremost, why I read through this entire thread. Second, why do folks keep arguing these same issues. Create a furball arena and see who shows up. If you take out all the folks that take any shots at ground targets (bomber or jabo) I don't believe you would have a majority of pilots left over. We keep hearing about the minority of buff pilots who want to change the game from the minority of pure air to air only pilots who can't stand the thought of having to fly more than 2 or 3 minutes to get into a furball. So the third thing I don't understand is why someone who doesn't want to fly more than 2 or 3 minutes would pay to play a flight sim. OK..with 1.10 the "air to air" only guys have won. Buffing is now worthless, show me a buff pilot who claims to hit his target 100% of the time and I'll show you someone who plays at 6am and has only buffed a couple of times. I like the new bombsight and I've had fairly decent success hitting things from alts of 28-30k but what's the use when it doesn't change the outcome of the battle. Now its as boring as firing up my auto trim and vulching some newbies in my N1k or La-7. Does that help game play, AH or HTC? We'll folks who used to enjoy bombing missions have been dropping from our squad. You very rarely see over 400 players in the MA anymore. Congrats, you won, now AH is a lot more like AW and WB and I can't understand why that's a good thing.
Good post But tell your squadies to hang in there. I have faith that these things tend to balance out and that HTC has the business sense and commitment to their product to swing the pendulum back the other way a bit, regardless of what any of us say hear.
tgnr
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zipity... Ok... create two arenas and only two. Leave em just as they are except make one a fighter plane only arena and the other a fluff only arena. "see who shows up" I think that even ther fact that the fluffers won't have to buy expensive joysticks or even upgrade their mouse won't be enough to fill the fluff only arena.
After all... wasn't a good fluff "missun" one where you never seen a fighter that wasn't ur own?
lazs
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oh no lasz what u really want is an arena without bombs and an arena with bombs.
See which one has the numbers then!
SKurj
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Originally posted by lazs2
zipity... Ok... create two arenas and only two. Leave em just as they are except make one a fighter plane only arena and the other a fluff only arena. "see who shows up" I think that even ther fact that the fluffers won't have to buy expensive joysticks or even upgrade their mouse won't be enough to fill the fluff only arena.
After all... wasn't a good fluff "missun" one where you never seen a fighter that wasn't ur own?
lazs
Interesting attempt at framing your argument so as to imply your conclusion is the only valid/logical conclusion. However, when the factors in an argument are invalid, the conclusion itself is invalid.
A more appropriate test would be a fighter only arena (Fighter Town) and an arena where fighters co-exist with buffs, land grabs are a significant aspect in game play, and bomber missions impact fighter performance.
Since these, in essence, represent the two opposing viewpoints, these would be the more valid scenarios. In this test, there would likely be a large number of players who would jump between the scenarios depending on their mood and with how dedicated they are to "the war effort" when there side is at a significant disadvantage. There would be hardcore furballers (I would estimate in the 10% range), probably another 25-50% who would visit both arenas, and at least 40% who would stay in the fighter/buff arena. This would be somewhat equivalent to experience in Airwarrior arenas, except that the 10% is a very generous number. Fighter town in Airwarrior was virtually empty while the "main arenas" were often full.
Now.. here's a cookie... run along now :D
tgnr
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"Now.. here's a cookie... run along now "
You owe me a monitor and a keyboard now.....spewed coffee all over both of them......
:p
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Originally posted by eddiek
"Now.. here's a cookie... run along now "
You owe me a monitor and a keyboard now.....spewed coffee all over both of them......
:p
oops.. sorry (hope you're kidding about spewing coffee on the keyboard :( that would suk)
My wife says I have a nasty habit of causing "spit takes".
tgnr
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Originally posted by lazs2
After all... wasn't a good fluff "missun" one where you never seen a fighter that wasn't ur own?
lazs
Not exactly...a good buff mission was one where I would see you in my bomb sight at 2k of alt just prior to me destroying a couple of your fighter hangers. Back in pre-v1.10 days I used to really enjoy cons that would actually attempt to cap their fields. 90% of them would die attacking from the bombers 6. Now unfortunately the buffs are so easy to kill, you might even be able to do it. Oh that's right you get nose bleeds above 2.5k. Maybe sometime when you're on, I'll fly a formation at 1k and let you shoot up my drones. Don't worry, I won't shoot back..I wouldn't want to ruin your game play by making you have to re-plane.
I really do hope that HTC creates a fighter town for you, give it a week and you'll have the whole place to yourself.