Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jaroen

quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf

What are the weaknesses I see? Well there are several, and I won’t go into each and every one, but will speak to the one that generates most of the discussion here:
Uber Air battles. This is an easy one. It is a legacy weakness, and one that we spent an awful lot of time trying to address, uber CAP, bloody results, leaky CAP, you name it, this game does not do well. That said we made great strides, and expert players have shown that you CAN minimize the impact of this weakness by playing carefully. But you have to know what is reasonable and what isn’t. One of the ways to do this is to try to understand how real world Air Operations work. If you do a little light reading you will find that Air Operations in WWII were cyclical in nature. Sustained heavy combat Ops were difficult to maintain. Maintenance cycles and fatigue, force flow, logistics, often did not allow a “Balls to the Wall” “throw everything at them but the kitchen sink” mentality. Air forces spent themselves against each other, made gains or not, and then went into a phase of rebuilding.

Cheers!
Elf

Hi Elf, thanks for being so clear and up front with this opening for discussion. I hope you don't mind me picking apart your full original post. To me this part is the essence of the message. I could be wrong . . .

On the specific issue you mention I don't really have any true experience. I play the AI and normally stay withing 'realistic' boundaries to have that 'historical' battle. And I do enjoy it even though I spot some 'awkward' design tweaks helping the AI. Nevertheless I figure we all deal in some part with this escort/cap problems. Only, in my opinion it is mostly about the all or nothing results. CAP must bypass ALL escorts before getting to the bombers. But when they do get to the bombers it's usually murder.

My preference would be somewhat of a half/half solution. I'd propose to think of something to let the CAP get to the bombers without dealing with the FULL escort first. Like some percentage of the CAP breaking through depending on some suitable game values (some plane data, weather, radar guidance, leaders, pilot experience, etc.). Would that be possible? I mean design wise? At the same time those attacks on bombers should be somewhat less lethal. More damage and less kills. And also doing some interference with target acquisition and bombing effectiveness. More damage could also result in longer and more repairs required lessening continued massive air assaults. Don't know how to go about that using game values though (some measured higher durability???). Would there be one without schewing other parts of the game?

If it comes to ship attacks it would also feel more realistic I think if allied AAA in the second half of the war would be more punishing. Again, doing damage instead of killing would be sufficient together with hurting targeting - and torpedoing/bombing effectiveness.

Together, fighter break throughs, damage + required repairs, less effective bombing/torpedoing when intercepted and 'historical' AAA effectiveness might effect a change which feels more 'realistic'. Perhaps even with mega air battles.
Only 'uber' with umlaut, or else it is 'ueber'!

My other remark would be about possible other 'weaknesses' you see. You're quite mysterious about them?! Are you sure there are more? What would be another one which perhaps isn't discussed (much) but which you find 'irritating'?

To bite my own tail, I don't know about the game machine modelling strafing ground forces? To be exact, strafing seems to be horribly hurting, or non-effective. Horribly hurting when attacking large ground concentrations (including some AAA of course) or non-effective when attacking (very) small forces where they actually should be most effective. Would that be another issue you're thinking of??? Or is it just me? I don't think it's anything major though. But having this fun and realistic attack option is somewhat nullified. Which is a pity.

Thanks for you attention and hoping for some sound discussion!

IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred

I can certainly confirm that whilst CAP always tangles first with the escorting fighters (="the ablative armour of the bombers) on occasion at some point some of the CAP does break through to the bombers even though there are still undefeated escorting fighters present.

One idea which has been put by Nemo before, which were it not for its coding difficulties, would go a long way towards addressing the ablative issues, is introduction of fighter doctrine a la EDBTR. The player would select that a particular CAP doctrine for each different fighter model. For example a Japanese player could elect Zeros to attempt to focus primarily on enemy fighters whereas Nicks could attempt to focus primarily on enemy bombers. Whether indirect or direct attack approaches were utilised could also be factored in. Thus the idea would be that whilst the Zeros kept the Allied escorting fighters occupied the Nicks would attempt to standoff until they could see an opportunity to reach the bombers. Off course they might not be given that opportunity by the Allied fighters who might target them directly, a distinct possibility if the escorting fighters greatly outnumbered the Zeros.

Whilst the idea has merit, it would entail some significant coding work and further extends the boundaries of the game's existing design parameters, an outcome which is not necessarily good for game playability. Not to mention the additional demands on processing power.

Alfred

IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred

TheElf,

Please, please, oh please do not fall for the old conjuring trick being presented with the aim of pressuring you into changing things when there is no sound fundamental good reason to do so. Too often in the past code has been changed to accommodate poor players who complain when their lack of skill/understanding is exposed. To put up now the detailed reasons for my plea would be too time consuming but here are a few briefly presented reasons.

1. You were generous in dismissing kindly in the other related thread the validity of the so called air combat tests. I shall be much more direct. For the reasons you gave plus a few other reasons you did not state, those tests had zero validity. They have been described by a well known forum contributor as "vanity tests". They prove absolutely nothing.

2. All the proposed coding solutions are difficult to code because they are arbitrary, and there is no development team available to do all the work. Plus they all fail because they fail to address the fundamental problem which is that RTS style players who attempt to play a game which is grounded in real world parameters will always, at some stage, reach the edge of the cliff.

3. The game already has the solution to the perceived problems. Unfortunately it requires players to do all the necessary unsexy things which the RTS crowd don't like to do. Those game areas which could be further improved involve zero coding but an awful lot of OOB reconfiguring a la the DaBabes family of mods. No one, and I mean no one, is volunteering their services to undertake all that hard yakka for the official scenarios.

4. Some posters in this thread and elsewhere have repeatedly poointed out the incorrect strategy and tactics employed. Those who continuously shout down the messengers of what is the correct approach fail to understand the points. Here are a few common errors.

(a) Attrition of the Japanese forces is cited as the correct approach. This is wrong because attrition is a very dumb military strategy. Ask Haig, Joffre and Falkenhayn. What advocates of attrition really should be iterating is that degradation of the enemy force structure, plus misdirection of the enemy military assets, plus pinning enemy forces elsewhere is required before a direct approach to the Home Islands can be undertaken with any reasonable comfort level. None of these elements has anything to do with attrition. In fact given the basic game design, compounded by playing the ahistorical scenario 2, attrition particularly of air assets is to the benefit of Japan.

(b) Several posters are advocating coding additional air coordination penalties. Mein Gott, they already exist in the game. Instead because a player places over 4000 aircraft in a single airbase and has the need for only 250 aviation support personnel present at that same airbase to maintain this surreal air fleet, you are being asked to undertake complex recoding. All that is required in this instance is two things, firstly properly implement the AE decision to remove the 250 aviation support upper cap for human players, and secondly adopt the DaBabes treatment of the multifacets of engineers. The first might be relatively easily accomplished but the second isn't (see point 3 above).

(c) Others are practically demanding that coding be introduced to guarantee carrier fleets will be able to utilise fully 1000 fighters on fleet CAP. Again a misunderstanding of the real world and what the existing game engine is capable of. Just how long would it be before an Allied player sends a 20 CV fleet to act as an air combat trap deploying only fighters, approximately 2000. Would we then have demands to up the limits? Whatever limits are introduced, someone will sooner rather than later come up with a counter. The only correct way to deal with that sort of a problem is with skillful play.

(d) Others complain about the ablative armour effect to the bombers provided by the escorts. This too can be defeated. The days of when a battle incurred entirely within a day, usually over just 1-2 hours are long gone. Battles can and do rage for days, weeks. Campaigns for months. Let the strike package approach with its ablative armour. On day 1 the bombers will get through, the ablative armour will be hacked out of the sky. The escorting fighter groups will return to their airbases and perhaps will be able to draw in replacements or be rotated out and replaced by fresh fighter units. So on day 2 of the battle another strike package could possibly be assembled with its supporting ablative armour. Same result. However this time, the fighter losses, even if supply is present and the pools contain airframes, cannot immediately be made good as there is already in the game a 7 day restocking limit on airframes. The skillful recipient of these huges strike packages factors into his planning these game elements and assembles his forces to absorb the impact of day 1, day 2 ... to come out ultimately on top.


5. All this has come to a head as a result of the rader-GreyJoy match. The single biggest reason why that match has a problem, is due to a single fact which no one ever comments upon. That is they have no "objective" victory conditions. An old thread by Bullwinkle argued, and in my view, quite correctly that a game such as AE needs auto victory. Section 17 of the manual deals with the game's victory conditions. Unfortuneately far too many players like to puff up their chests and declaim s.17 doesn't apply to me, I'll know when I have "won". Well guess what the fundamental sillyness of that approach is exceedingly well demonstrated in the rader-GreyJoy match. When GreyJoy landed on Hokkaido the peanut gallery said the war was now won by the Allies. Now after the failure of the subsequent follow up Allied strategy and tactics there is much wailing that the Allies can't win. The victory conditions outlined in s17 of the manual fairly represent the historical outcome of WWII. In mid August 1945 Japan surrendered because it was totally defeated (except in the eyes of certain fanatical suicidal elites) without the need for an Allied landing on the Home Islands. GreyJoy couldn't adopt that approach because he had been outplayed by his opponent and could not achieve a victory as per s.17 of the manual. Instead he chose a Hail Mary to bypass s.17 of the manual. The results of the poor play has come home to roost.

Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: pompack

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred

TheElf,

Please, please, oh please do not fall for the old conjuring trick being presented with the aim of pressuring you into changing things when there is no sound fundamental good reason to do so. Too often in the past code has been changed to accommodate poor players who complain when their lack of skill/understanding is exposed. To put up now the detailed reasons for my plea would be too time consuming but here are a few briefly presented reasons.

1. You were generous in dismissing kindly in the other related thread the validity of the so called air combat tests. I shall be much more direct. For the reasons you gave plus a few other reasons you did not state, those tests had zero validity. They have been described by a well known forum contributor as "vanity tests". They prove absolutely nothing.

2. All the proposed coding solutions are difficult to code because they are arbitrary, and there is no development team available to do all the work. Plus they all fail because they fail to address the fundamental problem which is that RTS style players who attempt to play a game which is grounded in real world parameters will always, at some stage, reach the edge of the cliff.

3. The game already has the solution to the perceived problems. Unfortunately it requires players to do all the necessary unsexy things which the RTS crowd don't like to do. Those game areas which could be further improved involve zero coding but an awful lot of OOB reconfiguring a la the DaBabes family of mods. No one, and I mean no one, is volunteering their services to undertake all that hard yakka for the official scenarios.

4. Some posters in this thread and elsewhere have repeatedly poointed out the incorrect strategy and tactics employed. Those who continuously shout down the messengers of what is the correct approach fail to understand the points. Here are a few common errors.

(a) Attrition of the Japanese forces is cited as the correct approach. This is wrong because attrition is a very dumb military strategy. Ask Haig, Joffre and Falkenhayn. What advocates of attrition really should be iterating is that degradation of the enemy force structure, plus misdirection of the enemy military assets, plus pinning enemy forces elsewhere is required before a direct approach to the Home Islands can be undertaken with any reasonable comfort level. None of these elements has anything to do with attrition. In fact given the basic game design, compounded by playing the ahistorical scenario 2, attrition particularly of air assets is to the benefit of Japan.

(b) Several posters are advocating coding additional air coordination penalties. Mein Gott, they already exist in the game. Instead because a player places over 4000 aircraft in a single airbase and has the need for only 250 aviation support personnel present at that same airbase to maintain this surreal air fleet, you are being asked to undertake complex recoding. All that is required in this instance is two things, firstly properly implement the AE decision to remove the 250 aviation support upper cap for human players, and secondly adopt the DaBabes treatment of the multifacets of engineers. The first might be relatively easily accomplished but the second isn't (see point 3 above).

(c) Others are practically demanding that coding be introduced to guarantee carrier fleets will be able to utilise fully 1000 fighters on fleet CAP. Again a misunderstanding of the real world and what the existing game engine is capable of. Just how long would it be before an Allied player sends a 20 CV fleet to act as an air combat trap deploying only fighters, approximately 2000. Would we then have demands to up the limits? Whatever limits are introduced, someone will sooner rather than later come up with a counter. The only correct way to deal with that sort of a problem is with skillful play.

(d) Others complain about the ablative armour effect to the bombers provided by the escorts. This too can be defeated. The days of when a battle incurred entirely within a day, usually over just 1-2 hours are long gone. Battles can and do rage for days, weeks. Campaigns for months. Let the strike package approach with its ablative armour. On day 1 the bombers will get through, the ablative armour will be hacked out of the sky. The escorting fighter groups will return to their airbases and perhaps will be able to draw in replacements or be rotated out and replaced by fresh fighter units. So on day 2 of the battle another strike package could possibly be assembled with its supporting ablative armour. Same result. However this time, the fighter losses, even if supply is present and the pools contain airframes, cannot immediately be made good as there is already in the game a 7 day restocking limit on airframes. The skillful recipient of these huges strike packages factors into his planning these game elements and assembles his forces to absorb the impact of day 1, day 2 ... to come out ultimately on top.


5. All this has come to a head as a result of the rader-GreyJoy match. The single biggest reason why that match has a problem, is due to a single fact which no one ever comments upon. That is they have no "objective" victory conditions. An old thread by Bullwinkle argued, and in my view, quite correctly that a game such as AE needs auto victory. Section 17 of the manual deals with the game's victory conditions. Unfortuneately far too many players like to puff up their chests and declaim s.17 doesn't apply to me, I'll know when I have "won". Well guess what the fundamental sillyness of that approach is exceedingly well demonstrated in the rader-GreyJoy match. When GreyJoy landed on Hokkaido the peanut gallery said the war was now won by the Allies. Now after the failure of the subsequent follow up Allied strategy and tactics there is much wailing that the Allies can't win. The victory conditions outlined in s17 of the manual fairly represent the historical outcome of WWII. In mid August 1945 Japan surrendered because it was totally defeated (except in the eyes of certain fanatical suicidal elites) without the need for an Allied landing on the Home Islands. GreyJoy couldn't adopt that approach because he had been outplayed by his opponent and could not achieve a victory as per s.17 of the manual. Instead he chose a Hail Mary to bypass s.17 of the manual. The results of the poor play has come home to roost.

Alfred

Alfred:
Dead on the money as always.

To extend your point #3 just a bit, you pointed out that the basic design can handle the changes as in "DaBabes" requiring "only" unskilled but dedicated people to dig into the OOB. Not only is no one stepping up to volunteer, there have been several comments (not all in this thread) stating that what is needed are a few simple code changes (but requiring highly skilled people) that no one is willing to make.

Dwell on that "willing" for a moment. First, on a system this massive and with this much really, really old legacy code there are no simple changes. Second, while no one has divulged any financial details I would be shocked if the AE development team achieved anywhere near minimum wage on this project; it was a labor for love, not financial gain. In industry, if you want something like this done you better expect to pay well in excess of $100/hour (including benefits driving by industry competition, not government mandates ) for a lot of hours. So just who is willing to stand up and say I will do my part in funding this change? And remember if a million people want the change it's easy, if fifty people want it they better have deep pockets.

Just my two cents from the viewpoint of a cynical old engineer

IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf

Hah!! if Michael got 100/hr from the vocal minority to implement their changes he'd be a millionaire by now!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred

TheElf,

Please, please, oh please do not fall for the old conjuring trick being presented with the aim of pressuring you into changing things when there is no sound fundamental good reason to do so. Too often in the past code has been changed to accommodate poor players who complain when their lack of skill/understanding is exposed. To put up now the detailed reasons for my plea would be too time consuming but here are a few briefly presented reasons.[...]


(a) Attrition of the Japanese forces is cited as the correct approach. This is wrong because attrition is a very dumb military strategy. Ask Haig, Joffre and Falkenhayn. What advocates of attrition really should be iterating is that degradation of the enemy force structure, plus misdirection of the enemy military assets, plus pinning enemy forces elsewhere is required before a direct approach to the Home Islands can be undertaken with any reasonable comfort level. None of these elements has anything to do with attrition. In fact given the basic game design, compounded by playing the ahistorical scenario 2, attrition particularly of air assets is to the benefit of Japan.[...]

quote:

Military theorists and strategists like Sun Tzu have viewed attrition warfare as something to be avoided. In the sense that attrition warfare represents an attempt to grind down an opponent through superior numbers, it represents the opposite of the usual principles of war, where one attempts to achieve decisive victories through maneuver, concentration of force, surprise, and the like.

On the other hand, a side which perceives itself to be at a marked disadvantage in maneuver warfare or unit tactics may deliberately seek out attrition warfare to neutralize its opponent's advantages. If the sides are nearly evenly matched, the outcome of a war of attrition is likely to be a Pyrrhic victory.

The difference between war of attrition and other forms of war is somewhat artificial, since war always contains an element of attrition. However, one can be said to pursue a strategy of attrition when one makes it the main goal to cause gradual attrition to the opponent eventually amounting to unacceptable or unsustainable levels for the opponent while limiting your own gradual losses to acceptable and sustainable levels. This should be seen as opposed to other main goals such as the conquest of some resource or territory or an attempt to cause the enemy great losses in a single stroke (e.g. by encirclement and capture).

Historically, attritional methods are tried when other methods have failed or are obviously not feasible. Typically, when attritional methods have worn down the enemy sufficiently to make other methods feasible, attritional methods are abandoned in favor of other strategies.

Attritional methods are in themselves usually sufficient to cause a nation to give up a non-vital ambition, but other methods are generally necessary to achieve unconditional surrender.

quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf

quote:

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes
In regards to the firing passes issue, quality of pilots or airframes is irrelevant. All you need is a couple hundred newbs in an obsolescent escort fighter and the bombers will always get thru. I'm not sure, but I believe Rader or Greyjoy actually tested this. They loaded up some squadrons with completely unskilled pilots and sent them out to escort some bombers. The escorts were slaughtered (as always) but the bombers got thru w/o a scratch.

Quite.

I think there are real issues and I'm attempting to be constructive, but I'm not finding this a very constructive thread, tbh.

That is too bad. I am disappointed to hear that is your opinion. I happen to think this has been VERY constructive. Just because you haven't convinced everyone here to your way of thinking doesn't mean the dialogue hasn't been constructive.

What I have found interesting is that we are in the midst of this discussion and I don't sense a floodgate opening. I haven't seen a lot of people piling into this thread with pitchforks and torches demanding a swift change. We're upwards of 75 replies, but the participation is low. It's still early, but I guess we'll have to see how this thread matures....

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jaroen

... Agreeing with Alfred, and with TheElf, on those mega battle issues that leaves me with asking about those other perceived air combat 'irritations'. Would there be any? Is that AAA efficiency one ...

quote:

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

... The 300 pass rule seems to exist alright. You can work around it, sure. You can split your CVs up so your CAP does not exceed 300 fighters (which is admittedly a pretty damn big bunch of CVs, so it's probably not that onerous... unless near land bases, which still might not be that onerous I suppose given the historic role of CVs). It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that if the code will only count the first 300 fighters, that having 500 is wasting your time...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred
Again you refer to a 300 CAP fighter limit. People who don't pay close attention or for whom English is a second language may not realise that you are totally wrong.

1. There is a 200 flight pass limit, which michaelm especially upped to 300 for the benefit of rader-GreyJoy.

2. Each flight can comprise up to 8 planes.

This means that excluding the special exe provided to rader-GreyJoy, the theoretical maximum number of CAP fighters who might participate in combat is 1600 aircraft.

Not all flights will necessarily engage in combat. There are several factors for this, such as not arriving in time etc. Nonetheless, under the existing main code, it is only the number above 1600 which would be quite redundant.

Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred

TheElf,

Please, please, oh please do not fall for the old conjuring trick being presented with the aim of pressuring you into changing things when there is no sound fundamental good reason to do so. Too often in the past code has been changed to accommodate poor players who complain when their lack of skill/understanding is exposed. To put up now the detailed reasons for my plea would be too time consuming but here are a few briefly presented reasons.[...]


(a) Attrition of the Japanese forces is cited as the correct approach. This is wrong because attrition is a very dumb military strategy. Ask Haig, Joffre and Falkenhayn. What advocates of attrition really should be iterating is that degradation of the enemy force structure, plus misdirection of the enemy military assets, plus pinning enemy forces elsewhere is required before a direct approach to the Home Islands can be undertaken with any reasonable comfort level. None of these elements has anything to do with attrition. In fact given the basic game design, compounded by playing the ahistorical scenario 2, attrition particularly of air assets is to the benefit of Japan.[...]

I very much agree with your post, Alfred. Except for the italic part.

Attrition is dumb, no doubt about it. But sometimes I am embarrassed to say, I agree with Wikipedia:

quote:

Military theorists and strategists like Sun Tzu have viewed attrition warfare as something to be avoided. In the sense that attrition warfare represents an attempt to grind down an opponent through superior numbers, it represents the opposite of the usual principles of war, where one attempts to achieve decisive victories through maneuver, concentration of force, surprise, and the like.

On the other hand, a side which perceives itself to be at a marked disadvantage in maneuver warfare or unit tactics may deliberately seek out attrition warfare to neutralize its opponent's advantages. If the sides are nearly evenly matched, the outcome of a war of attrition is likely to be a Pyrrhic victory.

The difference between war of attrition and other forms of war is somewhat artificial, since war always contains an element of attrition. However, one can be said to pursue a strategy of attrition when one makes it the main goal to cause gradual attrition to the opponent eventually amounting to unacceptable or unsustainable levels for the opponent while limiting your own gradual losses to acceptable and sustainable levels. This should be seen as opposed to other main goals such as the conquest of some resource or territory or an attempt to cause the enemy great losses in a single stroke (e.g. by encirclement and capture).

Historically, attritional methods are tried when other methods have failed or are obviously not feasible. Typically, when attritional methods have worn down the enemy sufficiently to make other methods feasible, attritional methods are abandoned in favor of other strategies.

Attritional methods are in themselves usually sufficient to cause a nation to give up a non-vital ambition, but other methods are generally necessary to achieve unconditional surrender.

Obviousely, a war of attrition is to be avoided if other methods of warfare are a feasible option.
It is also to be avoided if it means investing a lot of assets in an area with an equally strong enemy force with the ability to counter or reverse the attritiing situation.

But in context of using attrition to thin out, spread out, and wear down enemy forces to make other means of attack an option (which is basically the context under which
this discussion takes place: "A2A is borked, because I cannot attack a, b and c without getting my a** spanked" ), it is a valuable tool. If you apply mission governed
attrition warfare, and combine it with short to medium term goals, it is in fact exactly part of what you describe as "None of these elements has anything to do with attrition".

Considering our - on first glance - clearly different opinions I wonder if we just have slight differences when using the word attrition in the current context.
From my POV every element of warfare contains elements of attrition. If you use this factor to your advantage, I would call it
"attrition warfare". I don´t see the benefit of neglecting this element of war, it does not prevent or exclude other strategical
elements.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK
A general self aggrandisement society. keep going and you will decide there is nothing needs fixing. The customers must be wrong!

quote:

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Much appreciate so many of the good comments being made here. I am not the whining type; so, I may go,"Huh?" at a particular combat result but would never cry foul. The game engine has its limitations, I accept them. That said, sometimes I wonder about the air intercept routines.

As an example, I had a combat over Chittagong a while back. I need to go back and get the exact numbers but it was something like this

Japan's Force

60 G3M/G4M
25 A6M2
25 Ki-43 (not sure of the exact modal)

Allied CAP

75 P-40E
25 P-38E
32 Hurricane IIb

All fighters set at 40% CAP stacked between 15k and 25 k. Level 6 AB with multiple BF with Radars. Too RN TF in hex with multiple BBs, CAs, and CLs all with updated radar. By the time the ATA routine ended I had over 100 a/c on the scene

So 130+ fighters meet a raid escorted by less than half their number. Now, I would expect some leakers but instead NONE of the CAP made it through to the Netties! So the Japanese fighters were able to fully occupy more than two and a half times their number. My point being that this type of action occurs even in smaller battles not just ones involving 2000 aircraft. Now this is a big code change but it seems to me that it should be more like the Surface Combat action where we see "such and such a ship attempts to screen unloading ships". The ATA code seems to look at all air battles as one large "furball" instead of many smaller battles occuring within the hex. The Escorts act as one large lump of fighters that are able to engage all comers while the interceptors arrive piecemeal and are "screened" by the escorts one by one. Yes, Escorts could and did occupy numbers greater than there own but there was a limit. Not only that but as more and more interceptors arrive on the scene, the escorts would become more and more dispersed and increasingly less effective. Never mind the fact that Japanese radios were of poor quality and that they largely relied on hand signals at least early in the war.

quote:

fighters were able to fully occupy more than two and a half times their number. My point being that this type of action occurs even in smaller battles not just ones involving 2000 aircraft. Now this is a big code change but it seems to me that it should be more like the Surface

quote:

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

It looks like I'm in the minority but I find the air combat routine and modelling both brilliant and facsinating.

Great post Alfred, usually my attention span doesn't allow me to finish reading long post such as yours but you've written another classic..

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred
When you employ the word "attrition", you describe actions whose intent is not attrition (a mutual process) but degradation of enemy force structure and pinning of the enemy forces elsewhere, away from the critical front (aided by misdirecting the enemy). The aim of all good generals down the ages has been to defeat the enemy forces, not to ruin their own army in the process.

Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred
When you employ the word "attrition", you describe actions whose intent is not attrition (a mutual process) but degradation of enemy force structure and pinning of the enemy forces elsewhere, away from the critical front (aided by misdirecting the enemy). The aim of all good generals down the ages has been to defeat the enemy forces, not to ruin their own army in the process.

Alfred

Ah, to be a WWI afficionado! ...

quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
As far as other weaknesses, I've already acknowledged one, and that is the Ablative armor Escorts we've mentioned. But this is a tricky fix, as I have already stated, because when you look at attacker Vs Defender the ATTACKER has the Sweep in his bag of tricks. If we neuter CAP vs Escorts we risk imbalancing CAP against an attacker who uses sweep...does this make sense? not sure I am explaining this clearly...been a long day.

quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf

I think what is being lost here is that, while they have successfully explored the frontier of lunacy in terms of over stacking and uncovered the limits of computer processing power vis a vis AE, GJ and Rader did so by cramming an unrealistic number of aircraft into a relatively small space. In all likelihood, and I am guessing it sounds like they overcame all the little controls we put in place to break up Uber Air Battles in a unique set of circumstances that existed in their game.

What you are all advocating is hard coding essentially. We are talking about rewriting code for the game to accommodate gameplay that is aberrant. I admit that there are situations where large numbers of A/C come together regardless of how you play, and that others have begun to experience the same effects, but should we as developers risk making a change that could have 2nd and 3rd order effects on the rest of those that haven't seen this sort of thing in their game?

Development/support of this product is essentially over save for Michaelm's gracious charity. I can't just go in with a scalpel and start monkeying around with the code. Do I have ideas? yes. But it isn't my call.

Until something changes you all as players have to understand the limitations and try to live within them. That is the only way.