Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Axis vs Allies => Topic started by: Mister Fork on August 29, 2003, 08:54:00 PM
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Let's face it, we all know that in WWII radar was not what it is today. Radar use in Aces High is two-fold.
a - to inform pilots where friendlies/enemies are
b - to warn of attack
There is a delicate balance between setting radar so that it doesn't ruin gameplay but enhances the timeline setting. Here's what I propose. We should use radar settings based on historical settings with gameplay in mind.
Proposed Radar Rules- Full friendly on. Air command could tell you within proximity where friendlies are and it's quite realistic. Since we can't talk to CAC (combat air controllers), full friendly makes sense.
- Tower enemy on. We can lenghten or shorten this setting based on date of our setup. Airfields always had spotters until radar could go beyond the binocular and could spot aircraft up to 79200 feet away (15 miles).
- Sector range should be set according to historical data + a factor to improve gameplay.
The following two tables are proposed settings for radar ranges based on date of the CT setup (in feet):
Large Maps
Date_||_Tower__|_Sector
1939 || 079200 | 105600 *a
1940 || 079200 | 132000 *b
1941 || 079200 | 158400 *c
1942 || 105600 | 237600 *d
1943 || 132000 | 316800 *e
1944 || 158400 | 343200 *f
1945 || 237600 | 369600 *g
Small Maps
Date_||_Tower__|_Sector
1939 || 039600 | 052800
1940 || 039600 | 052800
1941 || 039600 | 079200
1942 || 079200 | 105600
1943 || 105600 | 132000
1944 || 132000 | 158400
1945 || 158400 | 237600
Notes
a. Tower radar does not exist. Spotters can see targets but ID at 15. IIF equipment makes it appearance.
b. Sector radar improves range to 25 miles.
c. Sector range improves to 30 miles. Tower radar makes it appearance on ships and airfields but range is poor at 15 miles.
d. Search radars now appear at most airfields but range is still poor at 20 miles.
e. Search radars now improve to 25 miles with . Sector radar improves.
f. Radar units at airfields appear as large rotating rectangular antenna arrays with a large range up to and over 35 miles. Targets can be tracked with ease. Land based radar stations abandon HF antenna arrays to more conventional rotating radar sets.
g. Rotating beamed radar now replaces most stationary radar sets. EWR units can track far ranges.
Disclaimer: There were some search radars during the latter part of the war that had ranges well over 200 miles. Also noted were wide differences between radar technology with British, German, American, Russian and the Japanese. This is a balance between all technologies that address gameplay yet at the same time add a sense of realism for the time. It is not realsitic to set radars in the Combat Theatre to match historical data.
Sources:
- A Radar History of World War II: Technical and Military Imperatives. L Brown, Carnegie Institution, Washington DC, USA. ISBN:0750306599
- http://www.radarworld.com
What do you all think?
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Some are under the delusion that things like radar and icons settings are what keeps folks out of the ct. While i agree the harder it is to find a fight the less likely folks will be to fly.
But what makes it hard to find a good fight in the ct now is the milkrunners, runners, hiders and opportunists.
Even when a good "fight" develops its usually stiffled by porkers and strat types. An "ace" opportunists who bring their bore n' zzzzzzz game.
Leaving the arena set so that these types have a greater impact on the fighter folks coupled with your radar suggestions will only make it easier for these types to ruin what good fights there are.
Take away the field capture the milkrunning and the semblences of the half assed "strat" and you may have something.
Until then I just dont think it would turn out very well for those who come to the ct looking for a few good fights.
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What these rules actually do is lengthen the default to more realistic settings. Full friendly on is perhaps the key here Batz. With it on (unlike the MA) you can see EVERY friendly aircraft in or out of radar ranges.
The tower radar settings would allow wider searches than the default which I think is set at 10 miles. The sector radar is also increased from the default setting of 20 miles. For larger maps, it's even a greater distance for both, especially for late war setups.
It doesn't decrease the current defaults, it actually enhances them.
Several of us CT staff have been sneaky and have left FULL FRIENDLY on. Even if you fly UNDER the radar, you still appear on your friendly scope.
Point: you see a lot of friendlies around one spot, guess where the action is?
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I agree
But its it those other areas where you see nothing that the milkrunners turn up. Radar or not I never couldnt find the fight (if there was one) because of that.
Most of the time when you see 40 guys in game and cant find a fight is when most are out milkrunning.
Hey I all for trying something new. Go for it :p
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I thought the rings were the radar range but in this setup, I can see well past it and get enmy icons as long as they are above min alt.. does the boat extend the range - if so it should have a ring too
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I agree to Mr Fork: I always like realism in this game and I played very much with radar settings when I hosteds in H2H-arena two years ago.
I think it that way in FinRus maps:
1) Main control system in Finland (and mainly in Russia) based on an auditory perception from Aerial Control people (they were mostly young "Lotta"-women in their towers around the country in 1939 - 1944). They didn't always identify or even see the planes, but they could tell that engine sound has heared from this or that direction. Those Control Towers were everywhere in the East part of Finland and the Frontline commanders reported enemy contacts, too.
That means that Darbar is always on and maybe there might be a little delay because of the bad telephone connections. Finnish had only couple of German's radars around the capitol town Helsinki in the end of the Continuation War.
2) Our Air Command system was good when we are speaking it in Squads level (LLv 32, LLv34 etc.), but the Main Air Command system was poor almost whole War because of the poor top leadershipness. Actually we didn't have any centered Air Command and the Squads operated very indivdual.
Fortunately the Squads Commanders were experts and Marshall Mannerheim gave free hands to our Fighter experts Colonel Lorenzen and Lt.Col. Magnusson during the Soviet's Great Summer Offensive in 1944.
Magnusson created excellent telephone and radio based aerial control system to the Karelian Isthmus and the East Gulf of Finland when he was the Brewster-commander of the LLv 24 in 1941 - 1943. He gathered all the radios and telephones he found and built the system actually from the junk. This initiative work has rewarded in the summer 1944!
The beam of the Tower based radar range (again in Finland-Russia map) is about 15 miles, because the map's scale is 1:4. In the real world the radio men in the fronts, isles and coastlines reported enemy contacts about 60-80 miles distange from Airfields. As you see we didn't have any radars in the Airfields, so the radar adjustments must be a compromise with those things.
There must be about 1-2 minutes delay with the enemy dots in the map because of links between radio bases, telephone operators and Squads CO's.
Radar settings are Full Friendly without delay, because the CO's always knew where their several planes were. That's because we had so few Fighters and Bombers...;)
We had high top experts in our radio reconnaisance, too. They listened to Russian radio messages and warned countless times our Squad's CO's for enemy attacks here and there. The headquarters never understood how important it was, but our expert Squad CO's use this information very effective. Actually FAF Headquarter's Generals didn't know anything what was happening in the fronts and aerial reconnaisance. Thanks God!:D
Maybe you CT hosts can adjust Finnish Voice-radios that way we can listen what the Russe is speaking!:D :D :D
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.. which has me thinking.
Maybe if some AI component concerning ground warfare, or any simular functions effecting the progress of the "warring state" are available in AH2.. maybe they can be scripted and edited, like in IL2/FB?
From my Fighter Ace days I recall the Territorial Combat arena had a basic/primitive type of those AI/pre-scripted components surrounding a ground war. If player initiated attacks against a certain target/airbase yield a certain amounted of pre-set success the system will come into action, and it would announce something like: "the Panzer division is headed towards ". Then the AI controlled ground units be produced at a certain spawn point, and scurry across the map to its destination. An AI controlled defenses would also be produced, and when the two opposing ground forces meet, a battle occurs.
It was a very simplistic system, but maybe it can be fine-tuned, and the actions may be player-scripted??
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You limit radar the arena will empty.
That's a fact, proved many times over in different venues.