AndrewJ
Posts: 2318
Joined: 1/5/2014 Status: offline
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Hello. I looked around some more, and only noticed a few more items, some of which have been mentioned already, I think. More Assorted stuff The Side Briefing indicates that the patrol zone points are all intended to fire at 12 hour intervals, but the four triggers for PZ Delta are all set for 24 hours. Two CVN detection triggers, one “CVN Target Detected’ with a zone, other ‘CVN detected’ without a zone. I don’t think the second one gets used at all, so it may not make a difference. There are two triggers for NATO aircraft losses: ‘NATO Aircraft Loss’ and ‘NATO AC Destroyed’. Not sure if it matters here either. My shot-down pilots all stayed until the end of the game. I’m not sure if they’re supposed to eventually expire after a time? Action ‘Lua – Ryk window closed’ has a typo “have not made the widndow” Action ‘Lua - USNS Northern Lights at Faslane’ has a typo “unloading supplies to the dockyart” There are two actions which generate minefield RPs: ‘Lua – Minefield coords’ (which has the duplicate RPs) and ‘Lua – Target Minefield’ (which does not) The ‘Rft 86 Msl Bde’ event, which adds extra SAMs around Bardufoss, happens at 8:30 on the first day of the scenario. Was this supposed to happen later in the game? The INTREP on Mar 21 at 1800Z indicates that the 86th Msl Bde “has or is moving” from Kola three days later. Having the SAMs present from the beginning does make things tougher, but it might also be interesting to catch the player unawares, here or elsewhere, with pop-up SAM replacements (or repairs) after they think they’ve cleared things out. Pop-up runway repair might be fun too, although it would take a lot of Lua-ing, I expect. Currently the game takes forever to fix a runway, and in a game of this length they should be able to make some measurable progress. Maybe if runway = disabled, start timer. Four hours later, Lua in some trucks named ‘construction equipment’. If they’re in the zone for 2 days, then Lua the runway and a couple of access points to operational. Perhaps only at some of the bigger mainland bases (Bodo, Banak, Bardufoss)? Might make for an interesting surprise. (Although the problem might be that this could ignore the effect of restrikes.) SAM reloads I have to admit, I mostly forgot that the TLAM freighters at Reykjavik and Faslane had also brought SAMs, and I certainly made no effort to send any of my escorts there for restocking. I guess once I had decided that trips to Rota or Norfolk were out of the question, I put SAMs out of my mind. I wonder if a “Undertake SAM resupply” order from HQ, maybe a day before the ships are scheduled to arrive, and a minor points event for major SAM ships (Ticos, other CGs, Burkes) arriving at those bases would help make the player more attentive to this replenishing task? Finding CVs? I think the biggest difficulty for the Soviets is finding the American carriers, and, having found them, keeping the contact until the bombers can arrive. Submarine detection is a very unreliable method of finding the enemy, especially if they have slowed down to creep speed to do some ASW hunting of their own. You're only likely to get direct-path contacts, which means detection ranges will be ~ 15 miles at most. I wonder if a dedicated armed reconnaissance mission would be the way to go, rather than hoping for sub detections? Perhaps the Tu-22MR recce planes, on independent support missions with lanes ~ 100 miles apart, with heavy fighter cover (a MiG-23 surge from Bardufoss /Tromso/Andoya, backed up by Su-27s/MiG-31s) against a background of jammers could do it? It would be costly, but if done on day 2-ish, before major reinforcements arrive, it might work to catch a carrier. And the cost may be justified - even spending 50 to 60 to fighters to kill a carrier group with 80+ aircraft and multiple ships is probably a net win. It might also be worth a dedicated mission to hunt the Arc Royal and Clemenceau, coming in from over Svalbard to do it. (That assumes the Soviets actually know they're in the area. Would they have any indication of that in the scenario setting?) (Of course, this is all spoken like a micro-managing human. Convincing the AI to do this might be completely impractical.) Thanks again for the great scenario.
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