Author Topic: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?  (Read 922 times)

Offline oboe

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 9805
Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« on: August 25, 2017, 03:47:14 PM »
I'm thinking about very difficult settings like:

- kill shooter off,
- friendly collisions on (there is such a thing, right? this would make ground operations and runway spawns very important and would have to be tightly controlled),
- very short icon ranges (or short friendly icon range and no enemy icons),
- 1 life, but bailing out or ditching over friendly territory won't count against it,
- no inflight dot-dar
- very long down times for destroyed items
- fixed number of planes per side per frame with reinforcements arriving between frames; planes landing damaged can be repaired between frames
- fairly small terrain with limited objectives for both sides


Offline Krusty

  • Radioactive Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 26745
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #1 on: August 25, 2017, 03:58:28 PM »
no icons = legally blind pilots. Super hardcore nations didn't send blind pilots up to fight. They sent the best of the best that had 40/20 vision and the cream of the crop only were chosen for air combat. Why try to simulate handicapped pilots?

Offline oboe

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 9805
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #2 on: August 25, 2017, 05:32:13 PM »
I hear you, that's why I also included short icons ranges as a possibility.   OTOH a real hardcore experience has some appeal to me.  For example a disorganized, poorly led team could cripple itself through friendly collisions on the ground before they even get airborne.  Discipline and organization could maybe even make up for an unbalanced planeset (like in North Africa, where P-40Fs went up against 109Fs.)

Seems to me though, back in the day - didn't we fly in the AvA arena with no icons?  I recall lots of board discussion about it, but can't remember what the settings actually were.  I know they were much more difficult than the MA, but that's one of the things that made it cool, IMO.

I think I'm also seeing DCS WWII YouTube videos with no icons, though I've never played it so they could be turning icons off just for the film production and I'd never know it...

Offline Krusty

  • Radioactive Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 26745
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #3 on: August 25, 2017, 05:49:12 PM »
I don't think you can do friendly collisions. That would take hours to take off and coordinate. We like to skip to the combat recreation, not the minutae.

As for single life: We've done scenarios like that before, if I recall. FSO does it every week, almost.

Rant on:

As for the AvA, the no-icons was a holdover from IL2 fans that liked to tout it as a superiority indicator that they were supreme and anybody else was inferior and other logical fallacies based on arbitrary handicaps. That's why the big forum discussion. It always boiled down to facts, science, history, reality, practicality on the one side vs the "I'm better than you and you just can't hack it" on the other side. So... those conversations stopped because they weren't conversations. The no-icons folks took over the AvA for a while and it's been pretty dead in terms of discussion since then.

There is no realism in no or resticted icons. In reality, you could see enemy planes if you looked towards them. You could tell how many, what direction, an idea of what type, the markings, the fuselage codes from very long distances, even. In this game if you put short icons on, a "dot" is within lethal guns range before you can identify it has 1 or 2 engines let alone anything else.

In WW2 there were maneuvers and posturing before you got into guns range, you could set your terms for combat by turning into a fight, flying parallel away from something, or merging gradually into it. What the short 1.5k icons recreate is nothing like that and all thought and planning and care go out the window. When one group sees the other the only thing they can do is bounce them. That's it. IMO that made many an FSO a terrible thing to fly. Took all the intellect out of it and it was just following orders and random luck that put you in position to bounce or to be bounced.

Even in scenarios where we have 3k icons that's pushing it.

Rant off.


As for everything else on your list, yes we've had them all at some point or another. Remember the old BOB where you had to get "rescued" to save your life, and that let you get back into the fight after a delay? Otherwise you were out. Most have long down times so things stay down between frames. We've also done limited planesets before where you had X planes of one quality and if they were gone you got degraded. Malta had fixed 109Fs and if you lost your plane and it wasn't servicable you only got a 109E to take off in. There was a MASSIVE lag spike as 90% of the 20+ pilots near me were on final -- new update version and there was a stutter as certain ground things rendered -- most of us dinged our props and were landed 100% safe but lost our planes and had to roll 109Es. Most don't have dot dar, but when it is on it is to simulate the minutae of friendly radar control stations telling you where friendly forces were, and being properly briefed before flight, etc, but without dedicating some poor saps to do nothing but that.


So, yes, aside from the icons, we've done almost all of those at some point, and if you want to write up an idea that combines a lot of them, feel free to work on it. Most scenarios I've seen are a lot more "hard core" than the recent BOB was. The 12-hour ones follow a different format. The 4-frame ones are a lot more demanding and tense.

Offline Guppy35

  • Radioactive Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 20385
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #4 on: August 26, 2017, 12:37:54 AM »
I remember flying AvA with no icons and lots of clouds. Made it very interesting ducking in and out and having to be in very tight to ID the baduns.  Seems I remember 39s vs Zekes too :)
Dan/CorkyJr
8th FS "Headhunters

Offline Delirium

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 7276
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #5 on: August 26, 2017, 09:40:48 AM »
Not a big fan of no icons, the monitor just can't simulate the resolution that the human eyeball Mk.I visualizes. Rare day I agree with Krusty, but I can't fault his logic on this topic.

I do like the friendly collisions, but with the current settings it would make take offs and landing impossibly complicated. I wish there were further sub-settings such as;

< > Friendly collisions disabled
             < > Friendly collisions under 200 feet disabled
             < > Friendly bomber collisions disabled

(off topic)
         
While they are at it, another great add on would be the ability to disable or minimize friendly bomber gunner fire on the bomber box (due to lag, and stutters) while keeping it higher for enemy fighters interceptors. It might encourage more bomber pilots in scenario style events.
Delirium
80th "Headhunters"
Retired AH Trainer (but still teach the P38 selectively)

I found an air leak in my inflatable sheep and plugged the hole! Honest!

Offline Krusty

  • Radioactive Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 26745
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #6 on: August 26, 2017, 10:35:05 AM »
Del, that's a thought, but I disagree there... if the fighters get friendly fire, so should the bombers. Same principle. If 3 friendlies line up on a single target and the friendlies shoot each other up -- that's rather historical and rather realistic. If bombers shoot at a fighter on their dead 6 and some other bomber is 1k behind, they'll hit it too. That's one of many reasons why bomber box formations were staggered in WW2.

In BOB I probably got the most assists on the german bomber fleet, and it pains me to say I put a few rounds into some friendlies, according to the logs. I feel bad for that and it makes me aware for the next time to do better.

Offline oboe

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 9805
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #7 on: August 26, 2017, 11:04:50 AM »
We all have different eyesight capabilities, and we're not all running the same resolution on our monitors, so I suppose icons could be considered an attempt at equalizing detection of cons/bogeys for everyone. 

I'll also note that the term I used to describe settings was "difficult" not "realistic" - that much of the old argument I do remember.   I had forgotten though that one faction had "facts, science, history, reality, practicality" on its side and the other had only an attitude of smug superiority.   :D    Probably wise to let that sleeping dog lie.  ;)

Del has some interesting ideas for handling friendly collisions, esp WRT bombers and bomber formations.  You know what I wouldn't mind seeing, which would help alleviate friendly collisions in spawns/ground operations?   I'd like to see a small checkbox add to the spawn area on the clipboard called "Random".  If you have it checked, when you click a runway direction to spawn, you will be spawned at one of a dozen or so (non-occupied) spawn points (hardstands?) along the side of the runway you chose.  I'm not interested in spending hours to take off but one thing that sortof momentarily wrecks my immersion is when we all spawn on top of each other at one end of a runway at the start of operations.   I wouldn't mind spending a few minutes taxiing and holding for others on takeoff, and if it meant we had to fly out of more fields and rendezvous and form up, well that might be considered more historical anyway.

It sounds like a lot of what I'm thinking about has been done at one time or another. 





   

Offline ROC

  • Aces High CM Staff (Retired)
  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 7700
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #8 on: August 26, 2017, 12:19:37 PM »
Quote
I wouldn't mind spending a few minutes taxiing and holding for others on takeoff, and if it meant we had to fly out of more fields and rendezvous and form up, well that might be considered more historical anyway.
Been there, done that.  Spawn to the hanger, taxi, while taxiing the next player spawns to the hanger, it's fun for a time.  It generally takes about an hour to an hour and a half to accomplish.  Fun, until you run out of fuel before you get into a fight.
No scenario will succeed doing this.
There is a niche group of players who would enjoy it, and there are plenty of arenas including the custom ones to do this all day long, but not really scenario material.  We already launch from multiple fields and follow waypoints to form up groups, in fact, we just did that quite often across 12 hours last week.
ROC
Nothing clever here.  Please, move along.

Offline Brooke

  • Aces High CM Staff
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 15570
      • http://www.electraforge.com/brooke/
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2017, 05:23:23 PM »
All have appeared in scenarios in the past except friendly collisions (because of spawn points on runway and potentially warping in bomber formations) and no enemy icons.

I'm thinking about very difficult settings like:

- kill shooter off,
- friendly collisions on (there is such a thing, right? this would make ground operations and runway spawns very important and would have to be tightly controlled),
- very short icon ranges (or short friendly icon range and no enemy icons),
- 1 life, but bailing out or ditching over friendly territory won't count against it,
- no inflight dot-dar
- very long down times for destroyed items
- fixed number of planes per side per frame with reinforcements arriving between frames; planes landing damaged can be repaired between frames
- fairly small terrain with limited objectives for both sides

Offline Crash Orange

  • Silver Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 911
Re: Has there ever been a scenario with "hardcore" settings?
« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2017, 03:05:44 AM »
Friendly collisions would make the game impossible without traffic control. The game isn't set up for traffic control and I doubt anyone much feels like spending their scenario doing it. The lack of depth perception and relative difficulty of moving your head six inches to see a nearby friendly obscured by your canopy frame also make friendly collisions impractical. You'd lose more pilots to friendly collisions than to enemy action. Finally, it would be enormously frustrating to lose one's only life and have to sit out most of the scenario because of another player's incompetence or cavalier attitude. Unlike real life your squad mates may or may not be marginally competent or have anything remotely approaching a serious or professional attitude. It's already bad enough with friendlies diving right into your tracers when killshooter is on and the suicidal HOer enemies. So out of all the things you list friendly collisions is the one that I can't see ever happening, or anyone ever wanting once they discover what a nightmare it would actually lead to.

No icons gives an enormous advantage to players with bigger monitors and better graphics cards. Most of us don't want the game to be heavily slanted in favor of the players who spend the most money on it.

Most of those other items  - small areas, long down times, the ability to be "rescued" after bailing over friendly territory thus not losing a life - have been done in some prior scenarios. Some turned out better than others.