Strat.

[Babalonian]

Now now Ted, how is that any different from every other day????? 

Sorry, I just kinda sorta had to 

See ya's up.

Wurz

Wakka wakka.     Camarillo Air Show this weekend, fyi.

[gpwurzel]

Rgr bud, wont be able to make it, on a techie course for work - sigh

Thanks for the heads up tho,

Wurz

[Lusche]

Something still now quite right.
I did a couple of sorties on Trinity, both in the regular MA as well as in custom arena. Damage to the factories was indeed a lot more persistant when the City was at reduced percentage. Even with city at 80% and 60%,  factory downtimes were increased considerably and now allowed for some effective bombing missions.

However, this evening I was doing the same to (rook) strats on OZkansas in the MA. I brought City down to 36%, then hammered the ammo factory. To my surprise, despite city being down that much all the time, the ammo factory was up to 100% again only 45 minutes after I had destroyed the last buildings.

[Hap]

The AH help file lists 2 hours.  Would be nice.

[Lusche]

However, this evening I was doing the same to (rook) strats on OZkansas in the MA. I brought City down to 36%, then hammered the ammo factory. To my surprise, despite city being down that much all the time, the ammo factory was up to 100% again only 45 minutes after I had destroyed the last buildings.

Did test it again in controlled environment (custom arena) and could not replicate it. But the error above really happened that way, I double checked my films & notes. 

[bustr]

Maybe this is "The" candidate for Hitech's new direction of making things simple.

This is more complicated and confusion than anything affecting so much in the game so subtily requiring so much more effort than it's worth.

I cannot remember a time that the requirements to make it delay resupply times to a whole country have ever been in force. The sheer volumes of negative discource over time about it should have been the best indicator of it's facility to the enjoyment and challenge of the game. I grant that it's complexity in part is to protect the three largest entities in the game from constant griefing by the tyranny of the minority.

Strat status makes no sense to the average player to what the condition of his country is other than 20-80-20 some of the time. It should be something simple enough in response to assaults that the average player can pull up an indicator list on his clipboard as basic as a (Full-|-Half-|-You'er Screwed) fuel gauge and understand how close his country is to a severe dead line or point of no return.

The cause and effect of strat and the clipboard means of determining it are both too complex and arcaine for more than a handful of players to care about. Especialy since we have never had to worry about the results other than occasionally resupplying the HQ. Kind of the problem with strat. If it's cause and effect is simple enough for us to take notice out of our adrenalin fueled furballs, it's simple enough to make the game unplayable for a single country every night of the week while driving players out of their subscriptions.

Yes mommy I cross my heart and swear I will not eat all of that candy the first night you and dad leave me alone with it.

[Chilli]

Bustr,

Although I have to agree with the consequences of "wiki" strat complexities.  I am fairly certain that HiTech intends for his product to perform as designed.  So, to speak to any movement in direction of game play, it seems to be more of a status quo, UNLESS there are indeed some upcoming change to stratocasters' performance. 

However, it is important to recognize that a relatively small dedicated force of players, may impact the game play of the majority, as has been the charge for those who have simply overwhelmed the complexities of the base capture system.  With no viable alternative to discourage long range extreme altitude bombing attacks, (besides maybe hiring mercantile muppet jet aces to defend country strats), prepare for the forum whines to build into a high pitched brake squeal.

This fix seems to have reintroduced the shy strats bug.

Please be more specific.  Do the strats move more easily?  Are strats harder to effectively reduce percentage? 

[bustr]

Strat is so arcane it protects itself. Otherwise it would be the greif of choice to engender the greatest number of ch200 whines possible.

Consider the HQ. If it took 50 C47 runs to bring back radar, someone would drop the HQ at least once a night. And a small number of players would find it entertaining to be in the area NOE to shoot down C47 to mess with the long tooth pulling resupply time. Or they would simply kill ord at the closest feilds timed with the HQ strike. But, the long term greif and sticking it to that country would be worth the whines on ch200 and in this forum.

If taking down strat engendered something akin to that, strat would be a sitting duck. Now if strat after a certain amount of it was taken down could be manualy resupplied with the resupply effort showing a country wide positive effect. You might have something. Win the war with 20% of one country captured plus 100% taken down strat of the other even if it has 50% of your country captured. Or 10% of his feilds captured and 50% of his strats destoryed or something arcane like that. Then spread the strats out from each other and put flack feilds all around and in them in spades. First supplys dropped off brings back 25% of the flack. Include 100% of the flack down as part of the individual strat destroyed. Gives you mission planners some numbers and options to work with while deciding the best way to win a map.

Suddenly escorting bomber raids and protecting resupply C47 becomes a way to generate fighter combat or loose the map to a buzy littel hoard if you feel apathetic or just want to TT all night long. Adjust GV spawns and you might get some intersting M3 runs and GV fights around the individual strat.

Now you can engage in base capture and strat destruction as a hoard to reset the map while POing the furballers and TTers by taking their map away from them while Rome burns and they fiddle in the feilds.

[Traveler]

http://www.hitechcreations.com/Help-Section/Flight-Sim-Information/aces-high-help-gameplay.html#ss

that's very outdated, not sure that really applies anymore.  just read the paragraph above it for winning the war. 

[DrBone1]

Does this guy ever get tired of posting walls of text.


 

[Chilli]

Does this guy ever get tired of posting walls of text.


 

Maybe we type fast....  Evelyn Wood Speed Reading Course, maybe needs a chapter on BBS posts 

[Lusche]

I spend 12 of the last 24 hours bombing the strats systematically and I have to say: It seems they are working now as intended. So far I could not reproduce the glitch I mentioned earlier, so it remains a mystery... for now.  

For example today I first bombed the city down to 32%, then did a follow up attack on the ammo factory bringing it down to 28%. The damage to the ammo factory remained for 2 hours, and it had notable impact on the downtime of ords of the few rook bases that had their ords porked around the same time - it seemed that they stayed down for about 1.5-2 hours too, instead of the standard 45 minutes.

So while playing the strategic card is still not an use of 'resources" as 'efficient' as the standard basegrab missions, it does give bomber pilots looking for something else than the usual "fly one sector, drop hangars" routine a viable target. In fact, when I alone was able to keep one factory down for some time, just two or three player coordinating their attacks could make a much quicker, and more lasting impact. Especially on a map like Ozkansas, where many front line fields can only be resupplied by goon and not by m3.
It only takes three good B-29 sorties to smash the city and one factory, even just two sorties can make a big impact while a third player starts porking the enemy bases. So if only 3 (able!) out of 60-150 players would do the strat thing at any given time, it could have a notable effect. I have to say this is the first time ever in my AH career that I regret not having any henchmen, err squaddies...

But I have no illusions. We are so much being used that "strats are not worth it" that we won't see much activity in that direction. The occasional strat raider will drop his bombs all over the factories with no lasting impact, and the even rarer strat missions will do the same with even less efficiency. When I called out the state of the ammo factory and that porking the enemy island bases NOW will keep ords down for almost 2 hours, nobody cared. Not even the airmchair generals who constantly complain that we "aren't fighting as a team" or "when will we learn to PORK".

[ImADot]

Have you verified that you must take the City down before taking out the factories, to keep the factories down longer? Strat missions might need to know that, so they hit targets in the right sequence. 

[Lusche]

Have you verified that you must take the City down before taking out the factories, to keep the factories down longer?

Yes.

[bustr]

Lusch,

So spread the strat around each country and make 100% destruction of one installation along with a percentage of bases captured part of winning the war. And allow player resupply of the strat to throw a monkey wrench in the 100% destruction towards winning the war. Just like a single pilot can hide in that last map room needed to win the war and make everyone scream in the mission trying to take it.

Now bomber groups have something to do all night. Visit as many strat as possible in force to keep most of them down close enough to 75% that the host country has to play whack-a-mole choosing to defend\resupply the one that wins the war when it's 100% down. Guys who like resupply runs in M3 and C47 will have fun reversing the bombing efforts. Sort of like rebuilding factories after the 8th bombed them in WW2. Now you have something else to do with fighter sweeps. Stop the active resupply efforts and furball with defenders of the resupply efforts.

Like anyone will even bother to resupply, even if it means keeping one of the two other countires from winning the map.....

Or maybe predefine one of the dispersed strat as "The" required strat to kill in the war win formula. The rest have a small agregate percentage effect on rebuild times to the overall country as they are destroyed. Reversed as they are resupplied. It will be simple like knowing that enemy bombers at the HQ means lights out if you don't defend it.

Not sure how you would handle capturing all the feilds around a strat cutting it off from the rest of it's country.