Big B -> RE: HELP ALL YOU AIRCRAFT GURUS (6/15/2006 8:47:58 PM)
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ORIGINAL: mlees Another thing to bear in mind, as Mog touched on, was that the raw historical numbers only tell part of the story. Why did plane type "x" acheive "y" kills over plane foe "z"? Those raw numbers dont tell the tactical story, usually. For example: the Battle of Britain. Radar helped the Brits to better vector intercepts, without having to maintain standing CAP over the Home Isle. This leads to reduced wear and tear on the planes and pilots. Also, it allows the defence to pick and choose where their numbers will do the most good vs. the attacker (i.e. hopefully where the defenders can locally outnumber the attackers). Once the radar operators (and flight leaders) got more experienced, they were able to vector the aircraft to more advantageous approaches for the crucial initial meeting phase. This leads to higher kill rates than before. None of those doctrinal/support aspects changed the mechanical capabilities of the planes involved. What does all that have to do with the game? Only in that, by trying to use historical kill ratios as a target goal for the game engine to achieve, we should be carefull what we choose to tweak to force the formula to "balance" against our perceived expectations... Do you lose too many aircraft versus historical results? Is that because the A2A model is broke, or because your throwing your forces in piece-meal (i.e. outnumbered)? In PBEMs, I have always used good tactics of never using piece-meal attacks - only go with rested pilots from well supplied bases with an Air HQ - and always throw the 'kitchen sink' at them (no such thing as a fair fight). Through 1942 (mid August now) always get my head handed to me in the air battles. Ouch. When it has come to testing the game engine I have always given both sides complete equality in airbase size, numbers, supply level and support - and arranging equal encounters. The whole ideas has been to see what happens under equal conditions, so no one is handicapped (anyone can prevail when they hold all the cards - that won't tell you much). Then run literally thousands of repeat sorties to get a wide variety of results so I can see averages and trends. For the record - the game engine Is Not Broken. In fact, because of all the testing of it that I have done - I have gained an entirely new respect for it. I just think there are a few things they didn't get quite right.[;)]
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