quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE


Frankly, it's loud mouthed jerks like you that tend to annoy. Please rest assured that you are now green buttoned, and anything further your wish to sasy will be affirmatively ignored.

I am requesting Matrix to review your posts, and those of certain others like you, with a view towards removing your juvenile bile from these forums.

quote:

ORIGINAL: el cid again

RHS - and mods based on it like Empires Ablaze - have rockets that work. This is pretty easy to do with confidence if you simply use gun devices renamed as rockets. The trick is to figure out how to do the data? The big theoretical issue which caused lots of discussion for years on WITP was the matter of "reloading in the air." The solution was to limit the rate of fire of the gun devices - we tried a value of 1 and it worked remarkably well. One can also combine the rockets into pairs (for large ones) or banks (for small ones). Both theory and testing can be used to determine effect and accuracy values - but if reasonable ones are chosen - rockets turn out to work remarkably close to IRL. That is, they are more effective vs targets which are large and not very maneuverable - something of a surprise. Anyway - that solution could be adopted by anyone who wants to workaround the matter that the rocket devices per se may not work. Note that this form of pseudo rocket not only occasionally works vs aircraft, it works vs small surface targets very well (and isn't worth much vs large armored ships either) - just as it should be.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK
Now I know why it took so long to get AE out, with that sort of attitude to their CUSTOMERS
I'm about to do my redo of Scen1 and was adding rockets in that.
BUT
AndyMacs Mariana scenario is in the right time frame so I might try that.

Terminus has a point Jeff. There is no way anybody can know everything about what has been done. One knows this - one knows that - one knows something else. What we must rely on is players smiling and dialing and figuiring things out for themselves. That's how we learn about what works and what may not.

Even if you try AndyMacs Mariana scenario, there's nothing there that says rockets work or don't. If they work for Andy, they work for all; if they don't work for all, they won't work for Andy.

I do believe they work, but depend on feedback from players as to whether this is true or not. Terminus is right on point with this one.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK

quote:

ORIGINAL: el cid again

RHS - and mods based on it like Empires Ablaze - have rockets that work. This is pretty easy to do with confidence if you simply use gun devices renamed as rockets. The trick is to figure out how to do the data? The big theoretical issue which caused lots of discussion for years on WITP was the matter of "reloading in the air." The solution was to limit the rate of fire of the gun devices - we tried a value of 1 and it worked remarkably well. One can also combine the rockets into pairs (for large ones) or banks (for small ones). Both theory and testing can be used to determine effect and accuracy values - but if reasonable ones are chosen - rockets turn out to work remarkably close to IRL. That is, they are more effective vs targets which are large and not very maneuverable - something of a surprise. Anyway - that solution could be adopted by anyone who wants to workaround the matter that the rocket devices per se may not work. Note that this form of pseudo rocket not only occasionally works vs aircraft, it works vs small surface targets very well (and isn't worth much vs large armored ships either) - just as it should be.

Gday Sid,

Have you given this monster a try yet??

quote:

ORIGINAL: el cid again

At the risk of agreeing the both Terminus and JWE - see below - I too think Terminus has a point. Talking with the lead programmer (via email), he explained that even being able to read source is not the same as knowing how things work. He said that what I do - as an experienced test technician - "builds a very good picture of how things actually work" - and avoids pitfalls which come from thinking what you just read means something. He said "after two years, I thought I knew how (something) worked, but I just found a branch yesterday, and now I am sure of nothing" (approximate from memory). The idea that a great way to know is to try it - and try it in canned tests set up to reveal limits - is a very fine suggestion. Terminus was probably being sincere and helpful.
There is a history on the WITP forum boards of alleging the rocket devices do not work. One of the more experienced modders wrote me that he thought they didn't work vs air targets - and I bet he is right about that. Probably they were included as bombardment weapons - and maybe also as anti- ship weapons. But the view persisted that they didn't work even in those roles - and I was not able to devise a test that shows they worked either - and a programmer also said the same thing. Which is why I tried to create a workaround. Knowing it was a compromise, I was not very optimistic, but it seems to work better than my wildest dreams.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK
Now I know why it took so long to get AE out, with that sort of attitude to their CUSTOMERS
I'm about to do my redo of Scen1 and was adding rockets in that.
BUT
AndyMacs Mariana scenario is in the right time frame so I might try that.

Terminus has a point Jeff. There is no way anybody can know everything about what has been done. One knows this - one knows that - one knows something else. What we must rely on is players smiling and dialing and figuiring things out for themselves. That's how we learn about what works and what may not.

Even if you try AndyMacs Mariana scenario, there's nothing there that says rockets work or don't. If they work for Andy, they work for all; if they don't work for all, they won't work for Andy.

I do believe they work, but depend on feedback from players as to whether this is true or not. Terminus is right on point with this one.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK
Maybe the problem is with expectations.

I expect, after paying out $100AUD for the game, is that it was tested solidly and that all weapon types are checked to see that they work as designed. Simple scenarios as done byvaned74 would have proved the system, same could have been done for major "queried" areas such as CD, Subs & ASW.

What we end with is a program that runs at about 80% WAD and (To Matrix & Henderson Field Designs credit) a flow of patches to solve problems found by players.

Maybe a more professional approach rather than the reliance on teams of "volunteers" to develop these games would be better, but that would probably see an increase in cost. Matrix relies on this "volunteer" approach, its probably a good business move.

In the end, Air-Ground rockets work, thanks vaned74, it would have been nice if Sardarkaur's original query had been passed on to the Air team to check and prove BEFORE the orignal answer was posted.

To David Heath, Matrix needs to set up a Code of Conduct for ANTONE involved in the development of its products. The Sales bucks go into Matrix's immense coffers, bad Customer Service can limit your sales.

quote:

At the risk of agreeing the both Terminus and JWE - see below - I too think Terminus has a point. Talking with the lead programmer (via email), he explained that even being able to read source is not the same as knowing how things work. He said that what I do - as an experienced test technician - "builds a very good picture of how things actually work" - and avoids pitfalls which come from thinking what you just read means something. He said "after two years, I thought I knew how (something) worked, but I just found a branch yesterday, and now I am sure of nothing" (approximate from memory). The idea that a great way to know is to try it - and try it in canned tests set up to reveal limits - is a very fine suggestion. Terminus was probably being sincere and helpful.
There is a history on the WITP forum boards of alleging the rocket devices do not work. One of the more experienced modders wrote me that he thought they didn't work vs air targets - and I bet he is right about that. Probably they were included as bombardment weapons - and maybe also as anti- ship weapons. But the view persisted that they didn't work even in those roles - and I was not able to devise a test that shows they worked either - and a programmer also said the same thing. Which is why I tried to create a workaround. Knowing it was a compromise, I was not very optimistic, but it seems to work better than my wildest dreams.

quote:

Is there some sort of "policy", that one cannot ask if others have tried something, but have to try everything themselves?

quote:

ORIGINAL: el cid again

answering the question below

for some time I could not get it to run on 64 bit machines - but now I have it running on both vista and Windows 7

I like the bigger map - I argued by telephone with David for this for WITP but he said it was utterly impossible back then due to system limits - no doubt correctly. I like the better attention to detail in the OBs. I am frustrated by a lack of attention to detail in the map. There is a mysterious road in Alaska which still does not exist. The critical value of Baguio City is not coded, so why Yamashita was right to defend that malaria free resource rich area (and Mac was wrong not to) isn't part of the game - making the campaigns for Luzon impossible to do intelligently. Quibbles like that. But I like the map edge movement track concept - as you might expect having pioneered it (with Cobra) for RHS Level 6 - and they could do some things we could not (going outside the map as it were). I also liked the chrome of midgets and blimps (etc) - both of which I also pioneered - but neither of which could be properly done (as they are in AE) without coding changes. Better to have stuff done right than approximated with workarounds. My biggest problem is the decision not to address AI issues - and that means the AI cannot handle the Allies at all - nor any game after August 1944 - when Japan is forced to collapse in a grossly ahistorical way. But there was a limit to what could be attempted, and the project was meant to generate revenue and continue interest in WITP games - and I think it was successful. Several people have asked for a RHS variant - but work on a real world China game (invasion of Taiwan) means I can't do that - or it will be a minimalist effort.

El Cid,
Good to see you back around here again. I remember getting the sharp end of the stick from your rocket firing Swordfishes at Kota Bharu and having a CL sent to Davy Jones's locker. I think you will find enormous improvements AE despite not having your beloved Baguio. The combat models have already gone through a lot of evolution since AE was released and I find the developers have been very responsive to player feedback in tweaking the combat models. This is just a guess, but I surmise that the code was modified to make such tweaking easier than it was in the WITP code. A lot of the concepts you added in RHS are here and they work for the most part, and when it is clear that they don't, the fixes have usually come pretty fast. I got started on an Ironman campaign right after the last hot fix and the Japanese come after you so agressively with CV's and CVL's everywhere, it is almost like playing against you again. Good luck with the Taiwan sim, but try to stop by here from time to time.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

Thanks, I am thinking of adding some late war rocket-armed anti-shipping planes. Beaufighter is obviously one candidate. [8D]