Near misses

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: TMFoss

I think some people are losing perspective here.  This is a strategic/operational level game.  If you want a tactical game with all the aspects of a tactical game modeled, then buy a tactical game.  I am not worried about the specifics of weaponry or wether a specific small unit is in the game. I just want a game that works, and I know that I am not alone in this.  Exactly how the armament is modeled or whether near misses are modeled or not are not that important to me.  I just want to know that my major ships are being lost and damaged at a reasonable rate,that I have sufficient land forces and sea forces to take a specific target without going to the absurd 10+ division atoll invasions sometimes necessary in WITP, and that air combat and loses are at a reasonable rate.  If the results are not realistic, then the developers will hear about it from many users, and it will be addressed. As far as I can tell, the developers have done everything reasonably possible,and then some, to deal with all of these issues.  I love the detail of this game and have played WITP since it came out, but there can be too much detail.  The old adage tells of losing the forest for the trees-here we have some people losing the trees for the twigs.  By the way, I have two weeks vacation time coming up- will I have something fun to do?  [:D]

Above is an excellent point. On the strategic level we want a game where ships are lost or damaged at a reasonably realistic rate and to a reasonably realistic degree. Getting swamped by every little micro-cosmic detail is just going to screw the game up in the agregate and generate a lot of controversy anyway. The focus should be on the big picture, not on every little microscopic detail of a shell hit. The game is overwhelming enough as it is. Why is there a need to track a "near miss" as opposed to a hit? Let's be realistic here...

[Nomad]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

There'll be enough new stuff to figure out that at least a week will go by before the complaints about this or that missing feature get posted.

well maybe a week.

[:'(]

I think Ron has his complaints already typed and ready to post. [:D]

[Nikademus]

having been down this road already, i'm more than prepared......I have a six pack of Smithwicks and I'm four bottles into it.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

There'll be enough new stuff to figure out that at least a week will go by before the complaints about this or that missing feature get posted.

well maybe a week.

[:'(]

I think Ron has his complaints already typed and ready to post. [:D]

Maybe a day before release Matrix Spec Ops will pull a black bag job on Ron's files...

[Nikademus]

naw...we'll just give JWE his address.......he'll drop a ton of paperwork filled with merchant class specifications on his hut in Greece. Nothing can escape this list......not even light.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

There'll be enough new stuff to figure out that at least a week will go by before the complaints about this or that missing feature get posted.

well maybe a week.

[:'(]

I think Ron has his complaints already typed and ready to post. [:D]

They are called GRIPES and I don't remember starting this thread.[8D]

[John Lansford]

IMO the developers brought this kind of discussion upon themselves.  JWE claims AE and WitP are "strategic" games, then they add ships down to the size of small amphibious craft, force players to choose what kinds of ordinance their planes will carry, keep track of how many torpedoes the carriers have in their magazines, introduce "critical hits", 'range bands' for engagements, and whether a plane flying at high altitude is susceptible to a ship's AA gunfire, among a myriad other details.
 
These are NOT "strategic" issues, they are "tactical/operational" issues, added to what at first --appears-- to be a strategic level game.  AE and WitP are NOT 'strategic level games'.  If they were, we'd not be obsessing over which ships are in a certain TF, or how many AP's need to be in a TF to carry an infantry division, or where to move each individual submarine to maximize its effectiveness.  Then, when the combat reports indicate ahistorical results (no superstructure hits, US/IJN armored flight decks, no CA penetration damage from DB bombs, etc), players begin asking why these issues cannot be adjusted or modified to give more historical results.  Combat in WitP is definitely 'operational'; you can't change the outcome once combat begins by your actions (by flying a plane, aiming a gun, or captaining a ship, all which would be tactical in nature), but they aren't strategic either (which would be more like "USN TF engages IJN TF, xx number of ships sunk").
 
So just saying "AE/WitP are strategic games, don't expect tactical results from combat" is misleading.  You've got a game with aspects of all three types (strategic, operational and tactical), with the naval combat (including air-to-ship combat) being IMO the weakest aspect of the game in its ahistorical treatment.  Even with all its flaws and being a much older game, Pacific War had as good a naval combat module IMO.

[Yamato hugger]

PacWar was about as "strategic" as any game on the War in the Pacific will ever be. WitP I would classify as operational. AE Is more on the tactical side of operational.

[String]

You don't have to have a "Near miss" that is between a hit and a miss. Just make it a hit that has a chance of causing extensive flooding, some system and no fire damage and ignores some of the belt armor, say 75%. So that smaller bombs cause little damage but big bombs can still cause some havoc even with deep TDS on battleships.

Ofcourse if such a hit is already in...

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: String

You don't have to have a "Near miss" that is between a hit and a miss. Just make it a hit that has a chance of causing extensive flooding, some system and no fire damage and ignores some of the belt armor, say 75%. So that smaller bombs cause little damage but big bombs can still cause some havoc even with deep TDS on battleships.

Ofcourse if such a hit is already in...

Exactly, any hit on deck, tower or belt should not always hit armour (representing unarmoured areas of any ship). However, there should be a limit as to how much flooding can be done and critical hits like magazine explosions should be impossible. Simple really being a non programmer.[:D]

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

ORIGINAL: String

You don't have to have a "Near miss" that is between a hit and a miss. Just make it a hit that has a chance of causing extensive flooding, some system and no fire damage and ignores some of the belt armor, say 75%. So that smaller bombs cause little damage but big bombs can still cause some havoc even with deep TDS on battleships.

Ofcourse if such a hit is already in...

Exactly, any hit on deck, tower or belt should not always hit armour (representing unarmoured areas of any ship). However, there should be a limit as to how much flooding can be done and critical hits like magazine explosions should be impossible. Simple really being a non programmer.[:D]

I'm not quite following the logic.

A near miss was a bombing critical hit--it did much more damage--particularly flooding damage--than a direct hit. It bypassed armour protection--particularly in unbulged ships--and had a chance of causing a magazine explosion.

[witpqs]

Guys I would like to point out that people keep asking for more and more detail and both Matrix, et al with the original release and the AE volunteer team have been providing it. First off the original engine still is what it is and replacing it in a line by line fashion would take well past a lifetime.

Second, the strategic level of the game is definitely there. Games that are not strategic level provide the strategic level and hand it 'downhill' to you, but in this game you make the strategy and it works or fails. The fact that all those details we love are present means it also has operational facets and some tactical facets too, but it is still a strategic level game.

We would also do well to remember that:

1) It is impossible to remove all abstractions.
2) The more abstractions removed the longer, more difficult to program.
3) The more abstractions removed the bigger hardware required.
4) The more abstractions removed the longer to run (on a computer).
5) The more abstractions removed the the longer to play (human processing turns).
6) The more abstractions removed the game becomes far more prone to serious errors.
7) The more abstractions removed the game becomes a less accurate simulation because we just can't build computer models that really integrate all the details of real life successfully.

There can be improvements made to what will be released as AE, the team has already stated that. Even after patches there will still be improvements that are "possible". Beyond that WITP-II (if it ever happens) would be able to do still more because of the advantage of a substantial (or total) re-write.

Even then there would be many abstractions. And there would be people offering improvements "if only it did it this way". Eventually you run afoul of the bullet points above and nothing works well.

[bradfordkay]

Harry, I understand everything in your post except for that last bit... how does an underwater near miss, causing the hull plates to buckle, increase the chance for a magazine explosion? Boyle's Law?

Typically, the near miss causes flooding - and flooding the magazines is a tactic used to prevent explosions.

Please help me understand. [&:]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: herwin

I'm not quite following the logic.

A near miss was a bombing critical hit--it did much more damage--particularly flooding damage--than a direct hit. It bypassed armour protection--particularly in unbulged ships--and had a chance of causing a magazine explosion.

And Don Bowen looked at the code (in response to the angst being expressed in this thread) and has confirmed that so-called near-misses are included in the 'hit-or-not' calculations. He went on to say that the damage model doesn't fully account for them the way they've been described here, and that it doesn't account for various other levels of detail (like partially armored decks, armored decks with unarmored flight decks above, etc.) But still they are hits and have a chance to penetrate armor and cause critical hits.

Conclusion: So-called near misses are in already. Maybe the damage calculations could be improved somewhat in the future. What we have now (with release of AE, I mean) is a lot closer to the mark than many people feared earlier in this discussion.

Recommendation: Let's move on and see how things work when we get it. We're giving serious heartburn to some very good folks who have busted their nether regions for us. Give 'em a break.

[Ron Saueracker]

Ahhh, we are just shooting the s--t about WITP stuff while waiting to get the puppy in our hot little hands. Next best thing to having AE is talking about it. I don't think anybody is seriously trying to give the heroes heartburn.[8D]

To herwin. Any examples of a near miss causing an explosion of a magazine or magazines?

[GaryChildress]

Near misses are technically already in the calculations. A ship is either hit or it isn't. A "near miss" counts as a hit and causes damage to a ship. As the old Ragu commercial used to say, "It's in there!"

[Nomad]

I'm pretty sure I have seen bombs return the message that they scored a belt armor hit. That always seemed to me to be a near miss. To me the problem is that they never seem to penetrate the belt armor of warships.

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I'm pretty sure I have seen bombs return the message that they scored a belt armor hit.

Yup

That always seemed to me to be a near miss.

Maybe - direct hit or near miss but the armour deflected the force of the explosion and was not penetrated.

To me the problem is that they never seem to penetrate the belt armor of warships.

They do, and when they do you do not get the belt armor message. Penetration is based on armour thickness, weapons effect, location of hit and the ever present random.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I'm pretty sure I have seen bombs return the message that they scored a belt armor hit. That always seemed to me to be a near miss. To me the problem is that they never seem to penetrate the belt armor of warships.

Since most bombs can't penetrate the belt armor hit location of heavily armored ships, you could interpret it as a non-damaging near miss. (there was such a thing) A "close" Near Miss hit location (a seperate HL vs. "belt armor hit") that i wanted long ago would have resurected a mechanism i'd seen before in a previous SSI title, whereby the warhead size would be compared to the belt armor size of the target ship + a random to see if some flotation damage and maybe a little bit of SYS occurs. It would make the larger targets more wary of bombers due to the random's potential to skew the straight up comparison of warhead to armor thickness. Ok so its not in AE......release the hounds! There's alot of other new features and tweaks in the game so like i said....anyone feeling cheated will initially be too busy to complain about it because your going to have a task scrutinizing all the other changes/tweaks/new additions that did make it in. A learning curve all over again.

JWE was right when he said the team can't do everything that everyone wants. It never could in the first place. Been there....heard that....been accused of it...you name it.

[herwin]

See my comment here.