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SeaQueen -> RE: Pushing the Envelope – Tips on Running Extremely Large Scenarios? (12/4/2019 8:48:07 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: zclark
Do you have a AU Count cap when designing scenarios?
No. I'd also suggest that being large in itself ought not to be the goal of a scenario designer. Instead I try to limit the scope of a scenario by focusing on what is necessary to perform a single specific operational task. There might be many things which might be necessary for completing that task. As an example, consider attack an airbase. I could imagine in an operational level commander (e.g. JFACC or AB in a CWC framework) receiving intelligence that air attack is pending. The commander seeks to blunt that attack by pre-empting it, and identifies an airbase containing the largest concentration of cruise missile carrying bombers in the theater. Striking that airbase is the entire scenario. That's the player's task.
An airbase can consist of hundreds of aimpoints, though! Which ones do you strike? That depends on the scenario. Since the goal is to blunt the attack the first obvious target is the bombers. That's my first scenario objective:
1) Destroy 90% of the bombers at airbase X.
The next best thing to destroying the bombers permanently is trapping them on the ground where they can't harm anything. There's two ways to do that. The first is destroying enough runway so that they can't take off. The second is depriving them of fuel. There's two more objectives.
2) Damage runway at airbase X to 55%.
3) Destroy AvGas storage at airbase X.
I need at least 12 aircraft just to carry the bombs to hit those targets without even considering the defenses. Then there might be another 4 ship SEAD element, and a 4 ship fighter sweep to go with them. Now I'm up to 24 aircraft! That's a whole USAF squadron (assuming none are broken!) just to penetrate the airspace. To support them I need tankers, ELINT and AWACS aircraft, so now I'm probably up to around 50 aircraft. Then those aircraft need to be protected so that's at least another squadron. That makes it around 75 aircraft. It turns out they also need some kind of penetration aid to help get past the long range strategic SAMs. There's a few ways to do that, but since I'm in an airplane kind of mood, I decide to use my own cruise missile carrying bombers and some ECM aircraft which also need some kind of protection as well. In total we're probably now up to around 100+ airplanes total just to strike one airbase.
It gets big fast. When you start considering the big picture about what it takes to do just one task, HUGE scenarios start to seem really unrealistic most of the time.
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