Couple a questions

[Walloc]

Couple of Questions.


I've played both BoB and BTR back in the days.
I played BTR back when Jean-Luc made updated OOB's. Think it was around 1.04 to 1.06.
I found that there was some issues/ bugs that put me off playing the game.

First one was that the repair damage was severly bugged. I mentioned this to Jean-luc and i think he had GG look at it, but i dont know if it was ever really fixed. Im going on memory here but i made some tests to back me up back then. They showed IIRC that the repair rate was only around 1/20 of what it was suppose be.
I found that meant if u focused on 1 part of aircraft production like engiens that u could stop the axis plane productions more or less completely after only a few months. U could then change targets and very rarely had to return to keep those almost non repairing factories at 0 production.
This ofc had a downward spiraling effect on the game for the axis side.

Was the repair bug ever fixed? is it some thing being looked at?

Secondly. I found a tactic where i after identifying which bases the axis used for nightfighters.
Found that placing my own night fighters over those airfields, that up on returning, the allied nightfigthers wiped out the landing axis nightfighters. because of it being night u was immune and didnt take any casulties ur self. Some times the axis changed bases and u had to adjust. This along with the above had the effect in my games that in a month to two u saw next to no axis nightfighters. I remember some of my nightfigther aces had 50+ killz using this tactic, in no time.

Is this some thing that was ever fixed or is being looked into?

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Walloc

Couple of Questions.


I've played both BoB and BTR back in the days.
I played BTR back when Jean-Luc made updated OOB's. Think it was around 1.04 to 1.06.
I found that there was some issues/ bugs that put me off playing the game.

First one was that the repair damage was severly bugged. I mentioned this to Jean-luc and i think he had GG look at it, but i dont know if it was ever really fixed. Im going on memory here but i made some tests to back me up back then. They showed IIRC that the repair rate was only around 1/20 of what it was suppose be.
I found that meant if u focused on 1 part of aircraft production like engiens that u could stop the axis plane productions more or less completely after only a few months. U could then change targets and very rarely had to return to keep those almost non repairing factories at 0 production.
This ofc had a downward spiraling effect on the game for the axis side.

Odd, most of the complaints about repair was that it was too fast (IE, you got 73 points, and do 7 points of damage that turn and the AI repairs 10 points of damage (it took me a month to win the game as the Allies once I got to 74 points) way back when, one of the things we wanted to add to the game was concrete factories and repair btnns, so you could interfere with the repair rates

but that said, we have looked over the code and how it works, and it works as planned, I will ask to have it double checked, and see if there is anything we can add to it (faster/slower ?)

Ports are the only thing I have really seen, that seem to not want to repair at a quick rate, V-sites, Radar and AFs sure repair fast

Odd, the AI is allowed to do what it needs to do (the player is not) if it does not have any engines, it will find a way to make some, so, not every EFAC is the only place the AI may be building Engines at

one thing I seen, is the game wants to upgrade everything to the 109 as soon as it has any numbers, so, all the AxisAllies change to the 109, and then, there is a major drain on any 109s coming into stock, to that end, I have put some blocks on what the AI/player can do (while still letting it do so, if enough is in stock) we have what I call "trainers", trainers can only upgrade to other trainers, until they get to the end of the line or a date and then they can upgrade to "fighters"

we also have GE 109 models and CoAxis 109a models, the GE get the full 109 production run, while the CoAxis has to build there own models for use (Bf 109G-2a and Bf 109G-6a, once you get to the G10, anybody can use it)

we also have the "jabo" models, only jabos can upgrade to jabos, until a date or enough planes are in stock, so all of the Jabo type units that come into the game, will be flying Jabos, not fighters (which, so saying, the 190F and 190G if used right, are going to be nice models, use them wrong, and so long jabos)


Was the repair bug ever fixed? is it some thing being looked at?

best I can do, is look at it myself and ask to have the code relooked at

Secondly. I found a tactic where i after identifying which bases the axis used for nightfighters.
Found that placing my own night fighters over those airfields, that up on returning, the allied nightfigthers wiped out the landing axis nightfighters. because of it being night u was immune and didnt take any casulties ur self. Some times the axis changed bases and u had to adjust. This along with the above had the effect in my games that in a month to two u saw next to no axis nightfighters. I remember some of my nightfigther aces had 50+ killz using this tactic, in no time.

Is this some thing that was ever fixed or is being looked into?

again, Odd, most people find the return, not worth the work, you can spend a hour plotting intruders to get one kill, when it works, it works great, but when it misses, it misses by a mile

but, will say, you fly low enough, you got a chance to be hit by AA fire, or run into a balloon, but have a better chance of catching a NF in the landing pattern, fly higher to stay out of the AA/Balloons, and you do not have as good a chance to get the NFs as they land

that said, we are working on the getting the "Tame Boar" tactic to work better

one of the troubles is, the Intruder system works the way it should and did, Harley is looking at a way to get airplanes to change there landing fields when in trouble, but not sure when this will be working as planned or can be added (maybe a down the road deal)

which again, so saying, one of the things I have been doing, is adding in, more Airfields as I find them (I added 7 new ones to the Holland area, that I just found) the more fields, the more places the GE can be based, the more targets the Allies have to worry about, right now, one hassle is, to cover this or that area, they may be one or two fields, the GE can use, so they have to mass, to have any effect, now, we got more fields, the more fields I find, the more I will add

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Hard Sarge]

just ran a short test, to get a look see
 
targetted 6 targets
 
a Arm 2
a Arm 15
a Arm 2
a Port 3
a Area 4
a OILR 1
 
during the day, I did, end of day I ended with (Allied see)
100=100   (100)
100=100   (100)
42=42      (38)
100=100   (89)
98-14=98-16(99-14)
16=15      (15)
 
6 days later, I see, (Allies see)
 
93   (95)
90   (95)
33   (36)
95   (89)
86-15 (93-14)
7     (9)
 
overall, it looks like it is working the way it should ?

[Walloc]

Hi HS,


Im working on memory here. Dont even have the manual near. Its in a box some where.
So im not 100% on this, but as far as i recall the repair rate was about according to the manual to be about 1% per day. Ur test seems to indicate it does repair at that rate.
Again IIRC at the time i ran double sided tests. It IIRC repaired at some thing like 1,5% per month. Double sided to be sure of the actual repair rate not the intelligence esstimate. I send the tests to Jean-Luc that confirmed my findings. After having waited for a while and not seingg a fix i left the game. So if it was fixed im glad to hear, it seems so based on ur tests.

I cant recall at what height i chose for my nightfigthers. I did put numerous of my own nightfigthers over each base. I dont recall seing many losses to non on my side. There was the risk i guessed wrong and it was all in wain, but since u could follow if cynical enough like me the route enemy planes flew, pinning the landing bases down to 1 2 bases. I seemed to guess right in most cases. iI the cases i did guesss right it seemed i got huge succeses. Shooting down most of what seemed to land. The measure of succes to me most measured in the fact that 1 month into the 1943 campaign notacibly fewer nightfigthers opposed me and in 2 months very few. Again if it has been fixed great.
Hench why i posted it as questions.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

edit : P.S. since it is saturday ill take time to look through my boxes of manuals. see if i cant find it.

[Hard Sarge]

Repair rates, remember, each kind of site can have a different rate, with Radar and AFs and V-Sites having the quickest, and off hand, I would say, Ports and Area, having the slowest, plus, I believe, it is still a die roll type thing, so....., roll with in the range, and you get a point repaired, miss the roll and nothing happens, roll good enough, and you got a chance for 2 points and or what not
 
one trouble with the NF's, is that not every unit should be seen as Intruders, some, most would/should fly with the stream, while others fly Intruder missions
 
hassle being, the true NF mission was sort of hosed, we working on getting that to work the way we expect it to
 
which, for the "patrol" planes, I want to get them to burn fuel at a combat setting, that should allow them to patrol, but cut down there time on station
 
questions on this or other areas, ask away (remember though, the "old" rule book is going to be out of date, even for BTR at 1.06x5 and OOB 1.06a, and we can almost toss it out the window for "our" verison
 
 

[von Shagmeister]

I play almost exclusively as the Axis and have never noticed a problem with damaged sites repairing too slowly. That's not to say there isn't a problem but just that I've never noticed them.

As regards Intruders over A/Fs they are a right pain. They can shoot down a/c in the landing pattern unerringly - never missing. This can look worse than it is because of the reporting loop that the game gets into where by the same loss is reported more than once. Also there is no option for landing a/c to divert to satellite A/Fs once intruder activity is detected above their home base. Intruders over A/Fs are probably too effective but this is balanced by Allied nightfighters rarely intercepting Axis nightfighters trying to insert themselves into the bomber stream or intercept over the target.

The problem is also compounded by the fact there are probably too many serviceable nightfighters (both Allied and Axis) available for operations. There is no requirement for air defense and hence all Allied nightfighters can be used for intruder ops. Also avionics of the period were notoriously unreliable and would limit the number of a/c available for ops and whilst in real life Allied intruder a/c rarely carried the latest radars (to stop the most up to date technology falling into enemy possession) a varied array of other avionics devices (homers, nav aids etc) were carried.

[Walloc]

To HS, it was on aircraft producing factories only i did the tests, IIRC. Simply by virtue of my thot on strategies if i could stop axis production of aircrafts, all other things would become "easier" afterwards. If its worked now, great.

Again i prolly stopped at 1.06x maybe 1 2 3 cant really remember so it could have been fixed in the later versions.

To both HS and Shagmeister. Since i saw i never caught many axis night figthers doing their regular mission and I saw that i did kill many as A/F intruders i very unhistoricly switched every allied NF to intruder missions. Using the filosophy: Why do some thing that doesnt work if u find some thing that does.
I cant say that i remember any thing about a report loop. All i can say is that i saw a significant reduction in Axis NF activity after a 1 month to 2.
Im get the feeling that Shagmeither too feels that A/F intruders might be a bit to effective.
It might be some thing to look into. If its "allowed" for an allied player to do a very unhistoric tactic of doing purely A/F intruder missions with all their NF planes. There are those of us cynical players that within thé limits of a game will use tactics that wouldnt prolly wouldnt have worked in RL.[:-] could be argued that players playing that way have it come.
Any how possibly a solution could/should be found for that. From reading ur first posts seems like harley alrdy are. Changing landing A/F.
Having 12 15 allied NF circling an A/F, gunning down landing planes seems to be a thing that wouldnt really have worked in RL. Counter mesures and what ever would have been put in place. All i can say is it seem to work for me.
I dunno how much of a rework ur doing of the game. I just thot i'd share my experience, as i recall it. Not knowing if things had changed, affecting my experience.
I know that not having the game by hand explaining exactly what i do, hampers any efford to fix a possible problem, if there indeed are a problem. Im sorry for that.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Walloc

To HS, it was on aircraft producing factories only i did the tests, IIRC. Simply by virtue of my thot on strategies if i could stop axis production of aircrafts, all other things would become "easier" afterwards. If its worked now, great.

Again i prolly stopped at 1.06x maybe 1 2 3 cant really remember so it could have been fixed in the later versions.

To both HS and Shagmeister. Since i saw i never caught many axis night figthers doing their regular mission and I saw that i did kill many as A/F intruders i very unhistoricly switched every allied NF to intruder missions. Using the filosophy: Why do some thing that doesnt work if u find some thing that does.
I cant say that i remember any thing about a report loop. All i can say is that i saw a significant reduction in Axis NF activity after a 1 month to 2.

there is and always was a report loop, say 3 planes are coming in to land and get jumped by a patroller or a sweep, you may end up getting the combat report on about 10 planes getting shot down, which we hope to find and get rid of that bugger, as I realy hate it


Im get the feeling that Shagmeither too feels that A/F intruders might be a bit to effective.

the trouble is, it was effective, the GE even had to change there landing patterns, to try and counter it, after war reports, and talks, one of the questions asked was about the P-61, the Germens sort of chuckled and said, while it may of been a good plane, the pilots didn't know what they were doing, they always cross the border at low level, and that alerted the GE that it was a Allied plane, which we want to add some kind of devert funtion to the game, but not sure when we can

It might be some thing to look into. If its "allowed" for an allied player to do a very unhistoric tactic of doing ugger, I really hate it
purely A/F intruder missions with all their NF planes. There are those of us cynical players that within thé limits of a game will use tactics that wouldnt prolly wouldnt have worked in RL.[:-] could be argued that players playing that way have it come.
Any how possibly a solution could/should be found for that. From reading ur first posts seems like harley alrdy are. Changing landing A/F.
Having 12 15 allied NF circling an A/F, gunning down landing planes seems to be a thing that wouldnt really have worked in RL. Counter mesures and what ever would have been put in place. All i can say is it seem to work for me.

well, 15 really is a bit of overkill, where in real life, you got to worry about planes flying into each other, in the game you do not, the same with after escourt sweeps, in RL they had quid patterns that each FG was allowed to fly into and attack at will, what you didn't want, was a squadron from the 56th coming in, and alerting the AFs in the area, and then 10 minutes later, another squadron from the 4th FG coming in to make a attack

I dunno how much of a rework ur doing of the game.

oh, I think you could say, it is a Major rework, I got to wait on my programmers to give the okay, before I show off more of the screen shots

I just thot i'd share my experience, as i recall it. Not knowing if things had changed, affecting my experience.
I know that not having the game by hand explaining exactly what i do, hampers any efford to fix a possible problem, if there indeed are a problem. Im sorry for that.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

[Hard Sarge]

oh my, during my night test (I was away from the screen, repling) one of my stream NFs got a kill !!!!
 
oh boy, looks like what I am working on, may be working, hehehehe
 
of course, had to do a trail run, while the two Squadrons I wanted to used moved into place (Duh)
 
But, in about 3 years of playing, I think I have only seen 2 NF Stream kills (and a few siteing reports) I think that is a good start
 
(one of the best ones though when we were working on this way back when, had a NF spot a 110, and then make a attack, and shoot it down, only to see that the 110 also shot down the NF !!!!)
 
 

[Hard Sarge]

well, this is looking up

two nights of flying and doing well

[Hard Sarge]

which, 3 kills by Stream NFs is nothing to bragg about, it is looking better then what we had before

of course, the bad side is, I getting my head handed to me

[davidjruss]

Hard Sarge,

What about German Flak Emplacements killing their own GE fighters that fly over them - has this been reworked or should this still happen?

DavidR

[Hard Sarge]

Hmmm, funny you should ask
 
bring this up again in a little bit and I will be able to give you a better reply
 
 

[HMSWarspite]

I always thought this was intentional - it seems to be more frequent near allied bombed targets, and is not excessive. Given we don't have training accidents, it feels OK to me. Of course, damaged a/c not having to fly 200 miles past many other airfields, and then crashing before they get home would be nice!

[Hard Sarge]

I do not have any trouble with the idea of friendly fire, it is war and stuff happens, but the areas I have trouble with, is the AI/GE will patrol over a target site, and then get ripped apart by it's own AA, now that is wrong, stuff happens, but over all, you set up zones of of fire, high limits and stuff, the pilots would be brieffed and would have a HARD deck, they didn't fly under and the Gunners had limits on how high they were allowed to fire (part of the Wild Boar tactics)
 
now the one that is a royal pain, is the planes returning to there bases, far away from the action and then base AA opens up on the planes in the landing pattern
 
(of course, different story when enemy planes are in the area (or Chaseing))

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

well, this is looking up

two nights of flying and doing well

well that is working better

4 kills with the stream, and 5 kills with the intruders (two of the names have been corrected, but got no info on Tomalin ?)

over all, kind of happy, I said before that I have only seen around 3 kills total with the stream before, my tests and work, show at least 10 kills in the last couple of tests, so we on the right track

[Hard Sarge]

ahhh
just in case, Michael J. Gloster flew with 219 during Btr (456 earlier in the war)
 
and James G. Benson flew with 157
 
 

[Fallschirmjager]

Are not repair rates influenced by nearby railroad damage?

[Jonathan Pollard]

One of the issues that soured me on BTR was the fact that there was virtually no correlation between the amount of support that the allies gave to the ground war and the date of historical events. If the Allies refused to do any bombing of German ground units at all, Italy and France would still be successfully invaded and the Allies would break out of Normandy within 30 days of the historical dates for those events. Conversely, ultra-massive bombing of German ground units would still result in a 30-day historical window for the events. Is this issue still present in the new version?

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Pollard

One of the issues that soured me on BTR was the fact that there was virtually no correlation between the amount of support that the allies gave to the ground war and the date of historical events. If the Allies refused to do any bombing of German ground units at all, Italy and France would still be successfully invaded and the Allies would break out of Normandy within 30 days of the historical dates for those events. Conversely, ultra-massive bombing of German ground units would still result in a 30-day historical window for the events. Is this issue still present in the new version?

Got to disagree here, while the ground war is based on time, it can also be "helped" or hurt by what the player does

some of the GE players had reported that they were able to delay the landings, based on the "score" at the time

I also was the one to prove that the GE line in France could be broken with air power (later tests, tend to point out that a double line can be broken, a single line will not break, or the work needed was too much to be done)

(a damaged unit will be pushed out of the line, with a single line, there is always a heathly unit that can replace it, with a double line, you can crippled/damage enough of the replacements units at the same time you are damageing the main line units)

which, I have always said, that while I was able to do it, I would not tell or advise anyone to try it, it took a lot of dumb luck right at the start, and then a lot of work after the luck to get it done