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Battlefield eyes - 1/17/2002 9:09:00 PM

starbar

Posts: 44
Joined: 12/27/2001
From: England
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THe germans had the stork and the owl.
The yanks had something that looked like a stork
The Brits could have had the Lysander So what about an aerial recon plane for the game

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- 1/17/2002 9:28:00 PM

asgrrr

Posts: 529
Joined: 9/18/2001
From: Iceland
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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Think a little harder what it would mean. The player sees far too much as it is.

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- 1/17/2002 9:50:00 PM

achappelle

Posts: 150
Joined: 5/11/2001
From: Vancouver, BC
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Plus, aerial recon was a strategic asset, not a tactical one. Kind of beyond the scope of the game's intention.

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- 1/17/2002 10:10:00 PM

Larry Holt

Posts: 1969
Joined: 3/31/2000
From: Atlanta, GA 30068
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This has been discussed many times. I favor an aircraft, all reality aside, as a tool for special scenarios and because its fun (SPWaW is a game as much as a simulation, I loved my Storch in SPWW2). Think Maus here. Getting back to reality, the US Army had spotting aircraft assigned to arty battalions. I have read where a German unit was advised of a concentration of 120 (150?) Soviet tanks in front of it by an aircraft. So, aircraft in tactical battles had at least some basis in reality.

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- 1/17/2002 11:08:00 PM

Bing

Posts: 1366
Joined: 5/20/2000
From: Gaylord, MI, USA
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The game used to have a spotter plane. It was taken out of the game because it gave the player "too much information". In Western Eurpoe, from shortly after the Normandy landings to the end of the ETO campaign, if the weather allowed there was a Piper Cub in the air during all daylight hours. Removal of the spotter is another example of denying a standard feature to the players because of "competition", although I can achieve the identical rsult by simply flying one of my close support aircraft across the battlefield. If taking ot the spooter aircraft meant the "accidental" spotting would go away when the next turn started, it would be meaningful, but it doens't - once spotted the enemy tends to remain on the board, at least in my experience they do. Face it, the Germans knew that if they moved during daylight, they would be spotted. Players who usually take the German side don't like that. That's why you don't have the feature. I'm not throwing rocks, simply stating facts. If I were a super-competitve player I might also object. And... there is also such a thing as Recon ... which I usually can't get enough of. Bing

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- 1/17/2002 11:56:00 PM

Paul Vebber

Posts: 11430
Joined: 3/29/2000
From: Portsmouth RI
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The problem is that ther is "knowing" and there is "KNOWING"... Saying there are 150 tanks coming your way and somehow beaming the exact targting coordinates so the one with a flank facing can be sigled out and targeted is another thing. In dealing with engaging targets there is a sequence that needs to be followed, detection, ID, acquisition and engagement. the game right now rolls all that in together up to "engagement". If you detect something you instantly ID it and acquire it. While planes can detect masses of troops, they can;t provide "targeting data". That is why they are not in the game or the recon plane becomes a networked Apache Longbow that can direct the fire of all friendlies. Some discount the "borg telepathy" problem as a red herring. This is an example of why you need to differentiate between "how much you know" about things, and how long it takes to get around to those that need to know it. Units that do it reliably and efficiently win, those that don't lose. To seep it under the rug as most games do takes away the possibility of portraying a key to the C3 distinctions between good and bad units.

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- 1/18/2002 12:12:00 AM

Larry Holt

Posts: 1969
Joined: 3/31/2000
From: Atlanta, GA 30068
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I agree with Paul that spotting aircraft can lead to unrealistic situations but then again, so can a battalion of Maus'. If the code is there, I would advocate adding it back in and just tell players that its a tool, that it can be misused but let those who want to use it do so. Hey, sometimes I play a battle with the preferences set to arcade mode (me 250, AIP 30) just for fun. I'll put a howitzer on a kubelwagon and play around. Its a game as much as a simulation. If putting aircraft back in takes coding time, I's say spend it on CL. I understand in CL an aircraft could reveal details to a player but this could not be used for targeting unit the firing unit independently acquires the enemy unit.

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- 1/18/2002 1:59:00 AM

Skotty

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Joined: 7/18/2000
From: Las Vegas, NV, USA
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In SPWW2v4/5, the spotter aircraft is handled by an artillery plotting routine. You have a spotter plane plot screen in the arty bombardment menu. You plot a spotter "bombardment" hex like arty and the plane comes in after some delay and does a couple of orbits around the hex and then flies off, usually for good if it takes any fire. It's only good for spotting vehicles in the open, not infantry or dug in arty. It's better than the old system of treating the spotter plane as a helo with total control over the unit.
Just a though on spotter plane useage and execution.

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- 1/18/2002 2:42:00 AM

Charles2222

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Skotty: Well thank you for that little tidbit, I was starting to wonder about how the air recon worked in SPWW2. To me, considering what you said, it makes it's use perhaps even more useless to me. I was wondering why it's spotting didn't seem to work too well, but then it must've rarely found AFVs on the opening campaign battles I played, as I indeed haven't run into too many from the Poles and Finns. Even so, I never got past 3 recon efforts out of one plane, before they got shot down, and considering how easy armor is to spot anyway, that makes it even more pointless. About the only practical use would be if it could still see a good distance in balmy weather where the ground forces might not be able to cover all flanks sufficiently.

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- 1/18/2002 10:01:00 AM

Tombstone

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From: Los Angeles, California
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The old method of spotter planes makes the game lame. The statement "we should have spotter planes to be realistic" doesn't take into consideration wether or not the system for their use is realistic. The use of spotter planes wrecks the game mechanic. Everything becomes way too easy... recon becomes trivial. That SPWW2 method sounds awfully interesting... In the same way that one can choose smoke, cluster munitions, and HE rounds the spotter plane could choose multiple degrees of reconnaissance intensity (which would come with an associated increase in vulnerability) to get better vs. safer recon. Something like this is in no way useless if you have no other way to get recon on what the other side of the hill has to say... Tomo

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- 1/18/2002 12:02:00 PM

Dogfish

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From: Hopewell,NJ USA
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Hey All: I had given this some thought awhile back, and thought that it wouldn't work well unless the recon planes had more hard coding within the game. Haven't played ww2 so don't know if their's is realistic or not. For those of you who want one for a scenario or fun, I have a suggestion. Take a bomber, you can always change the icon later. Edit all the specs to be closer to a light plane. Make it vulnerable as hell to even small arms (no armor, slow speed, and a size that will be spotted easily... you could hear them coming.) Play with it's morale and experience so that it bolts when fired at. Since it probably won't fly with no weapon or ammo, give it a pistol. Set a bombing mission for it, target a hex, but don't send it across the map or you'll probably loose it. I think it could be doable... and we can always borrow an icon or 2 if needed. I have a full plate right now, or I'd try it myself. I'm about 25% done with making some changes/updates to Fred's SHPED, and learning Borland C++ as I go, I'm waiting for V7.1 so I can do more icon slot testing and if it looks like the last version for awhile I do a tutorial for adding/manipulating icons. And my ultimate goal after that is a hotkey add-on for any SP game that launches an unlimited Encyclopedia of html pages that run on your browser. I had a hard drive crash Sept. 13th and lost years of stuff for Civ, SP, and SPWAW. Lot's of work gone and it took me awhile to get back on the horse. Now it seems, I can't add anything new to my list for awhile.

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- 1/18/2002 12:35:00 PM

panda124c

Posts: 1692
Joined: 5/23/2000
From: Houston, TX, USA
Status: offline

Balloons, yea that's the answer Balloons.

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- 1/18/2002 7:41:00 PM

ruxius

Posts: 909
Joined: 5/5/2000
From: ITALY
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I was a supporter of who wanted a recon aircraft in the game , before...
Then Paul Vebber explained to me some details about recon planes I never considered before..and I have to say that my first idea of recon planes was not really adaptable to the actual engine game ! I was wrong !
Pilots can not in few minutes communicate to the HQ from their aircrafts what they spot so the HQ suddenly calls for an artillery fire just there ! And this especially applies to ground units target the enemy newly spotted.. What I think now , is that such a good idea must be corrected and designed to be finally represented in the game in a different way... The idea as simple as it is is not a good issue for spwaw INMO but.. Let's start a process that will allow us to introduce recon planes in SPWAW or CL...since this kind of planes existed in the war (and were intensively employed) we will always feel they are lacking if not represented at all
...designers may need them for some reasons and I never really accept the idea to have a limited SPWAW ! SPWAW is constantly growing up and the bordering between a squad-level and a battalion-level battlefield is not definitive anymore..reasons based on the tactical/strategical asset of the game may be boring constraints in the future..
Since I firmly believe everything should be a customizable 'option' (and the many options buttons say that MAtrix fortunately likes this policy) let's see some different choices :
For instance :
we could introduce recon planes and they could work this way..HQ assigns a spotting mission ..they require for instance 5 turns to leave..at turn 6 we can see the animations of the spotting planes coming through the battlefield (and AA-Heavy firing as usual)
OBVIOUSLY WE CAN'T SEE/SPOT ANYTHING NOW !
I mean NO enemy unit is spotted actually..we only see the plane flying to the battlefield... If the plane did succesfully its patrol then after some turns , say 3 turns , a beacon near the VCR replay button enlightens... clicking on that button and you will see a picture of the battlefield with enemy units spotted in their past position..
since the VCR replay exists I am talking here about a single 'frame' of that replay to be displayed ! (like an aerial picture based on the map you usually see from the main window) Semantically this means the aircrafts returned to base , made a report and now HQ can vision it...
You may say they are quite useless this way..
I can answer , YES because you will find them useful only for special designer's scenarios
or during a battalion level session..(that should mean 40 50 turns)..and larger battlefield !!! This way what Paul says is safe ! also you can set a pre-plan recon mission to be played on turn 0 so datas would be available to the HQ in the early turns.. Finally you may ask for a recon patrol during the purchase menu ..that way without any rec-plane animation you would have a picture of enemy troops available at turn 0 ---
Obviously you may want to pay
'x' for having rec planes operative during the game ...
'2x' for having them pre-set at turn 0
'4x' for having rec datas ready at turn 0
---
This way of purchasing will
a) balance a player who decide to take advantage of recon spotting ,
b )cancel the problem of almight HQ ,
c) and again extend SPWAW to all the possible equipments ! I would also add that all these new ideas contribute to make SPWAW UNIQUE and INNOVATIVE MORE COMPLETE and NEWER than ever compared to other wargaming companies Let's think about this !

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- 1/18/2002 9:17:00 PM

Charles2222

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With the length of the SPWAW screen, the area could be reconned very quickly. There are a couple of things that occur to me that would make air recon more realistic if it's a wise idea. Firstly, what was the typical area that a recon which comes from a branch higher than your organization, should they recon the enemy's rear in your area, recon somewhere else as well? The reason I ask that, is that there's no denying it's unreasonable to assume the area you're attacking NEVER gets reconned but then that recon is not too likely to be under your control. If General Rommel recons, how long would he be typically up if he reconned your area and how long would it take him from the deployment stage to get there (whether or not 'your' area was the first area he reconned)? So maybe in some instances he should recon on turn five, other times turn 15, other times not at all. In any case, when he did recon hopefully the details wouldn't be terribly accurate all the time. As well, if one wanted to get serious with recon, it would also seem wise to introduce the use of dummy units and camo nets. Perhaps a later module of CL might find this worthwhile?

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