The tojo as uber.....

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: pompack

ORIGINAL: castor troy


better to live in a troll world than in an ignorant brown noser world.

[8|]

you´re right, a silly comment.

[packerpete]

High altitude means energy, which means more options. Speed in a unmanuverable plane, like a P-40, meant high speed passes at the enemy, extend away, climb and turn, do it again. Against a Zero, this tactic often didn't work and why the Zero was dominant early war. The Zero could out climb and out-manuver the P-40, so it could negate the P-40 dive ability leaving the P-40 pilot with two choices: 1) fight a manuver battle against a more manuverable plane or 2) dive and run away. Of course, a good pilot in a P-40 could still beat a Zero, but it wasn't based strictly on altitude.

IMO, there should be a few things tweaked with the air combat:
1) Altitude bonus, by itself, should be removed...altitude is pretty much already included in plane air to air ability and pilot quality...all things being taking into affect, altitude should only affect the ability to "bounce" (surprise) the enemy and "bounce" should affect the first round of combat only (assuming the game does round by round combat).
2) There should be a true "bounce" check. Though lower altitude planes might not be able to exploit a bounce, it was possible IF the planes could climb fast enough and the altitude difference wasn't extreme. Bouncing comes down to how fast you can surprise the enemy. The check should go for both sides, with a bonus to the higher altitude planes. Pilot quality, alititude difference, climb ability, radar (if present) should come into play. Even if the higher altitude planes get a "bounce", if there's a 20,000 feet difference, the higher altitude planes might not be able to exploit it because it takes time to drop 20,000 feet and the defenders could see them coming and manuver accordingly...If someone wants to fly at 30,000+ feet, fine, but it will significantly reduce the ability to bounce someone at 10,000 feet.

The two changes above, are probably within the scope of changes to this game that are possible. There's another option that may not be doable.
3) There should be a "spot" check, with altitude, weather, pilot quantity, etc., coming into play. If there are multiple squadrons at multiple levels, who spots whom and at what level would have major affect. High level cap spots high level sweep but misses low level bombers/escorts. Mid-level cap bounces low level bombers/escorts, but gets bounced by high level sweep or misses high level bombers (which is what happened at Midway...fighters went low to attack torp bombers and missed high level dive bombers)...

This would open the air war up a bit from the current "fly as high as you can" approach...Fly cap at high altitude to get a bounce and miss either the bounce or the low level enemy altogether...fly cap at mid-level to bounce low level bombing raids and possibly get bounced from high level sweeps. Fly sweeps at high leve (30,000+)l and miss the cap entirely or the bounce.

Vicberg: I agree 100%. This what I was trying to say in my own inarticulate way in another thread.

I Would only like to add that most USN standard CAP altitudes started at 10K FT until ordered to do otherwise because of pilot fatigue issues revolving around: limited quantities and/or questionable quality of LOX onboard (ie. Guadalcanal), the cold (those cockpits were often not heated), and spotting difficulties while constantly wrestling with the cumbersome O2 masks and the often not coolocated microphone.

There is another thread somewhere in here where Treespider is thinking about incorporating some of this in his mod.

[Who Cares]

I agree as well, the "bounce" should only apply if one side is surprised regardless of relative altitudes. If a lower altitude air group spots a higher altitude air unit that does not see them, they will invariably climb to "bounce" them (or they will just plain run away). These altitude issues are nothing new, they were there in WitP and the testers had reported these issues YEARS ago in AE.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Who Cares

I agree as well, the "bounce" should only apply if one side is surprised regardless of relative altitudes. If a lower altitude air group spots a higher altitude air unit that does not see them, they will invariably climb to "bounce" them (or they will just plain run away). These altitude issues are nothing new, they were there in WitP and the testers had reported these issues YEARS ago in AE.

they weren´t there in WITP (at least not the same as in AE) because in WITP altitude settings for fighters didn´t matter at all. Hard to believe but that´s how it is in WITP. The bounce exists though and is only related to radar in most cases because if you´ve got enough radar coverage somewhere (means everywhere for the Allied in 43+) then your fighters would always be in position to bounce the enemy.

[Big B]

This is well reasoned as far as common assumptions go, but is incorrect, and lies at the root of the problem in AE.

ORIGINAL: ...
High altitude means energy, which means more options. Speed in a unmanuverable plane, like a P-40, meant high speed passes at the enemy, extend away, climb and turn, do it again. Against a Zero, this tactic often didn't work and why the Zero was dominant early war. The Zero could out climb and out-manuver the P-40, so it could negate the P-40 dive ability leaving the P-40 pilot with two choices: 1) fight a manuver battle against a more manuverable plane or 2) dive and run away. Of course, a good pilot in a P-40 could still beat a Zero, but it wasn't based strictly on altitude....

I know (as a bit of an insider) that the aircraft ratings for maneuver, and to an extent the actual air combat model itself, is a bit simplistic, and does not take into account all of the tangibles and intangibles of maneuver and aircraft limitations. This is what is giving unrealistic results.
This is not to open an old debate - but simply stating that a Zero or Oscar are more maneuverable than a P-40, or F4F, or Hurricane (based on best climb and sustained turning radius) - hence a much greater maneuver rating, is over simplified and does not take into account the many other factors that go into actual air combat.
The game does not (and probably cannot) take into account all of the different factors that actually determine relative maneuverability and ADVANTAGE between opposing aircraft - especially considering the dynamics of multiple aircraft engagements, whereas in real life - aircraft with superior sustained turning capabilities have that advantage negated by aircraft with decidedly greater rate of roll and speed (meaning energy, and the ability to change direction and gain quick target angles, or execute defensive maneuvers that the other aircraft cannot follow).
This is why in real life, aircraft that cannot out-turn a Zero or an Oscar (for example) ONE ON ONE - more than held their own with them actual combat.
One cannot overstate that rate of roll (and hence ability to change lift vector) changes with dramatically with speed. Our game does not reflect this.
If light wing-loading, and small turn radius, were the definitive qualities of a WWII fighter aircraft - then the most effective fighters of WWII would have been the CR-42 or Bristol Bulldog - not the FW 190 or P-51 ...and we all know this was never the case, yet these are the very qualities that matter most for maneuver in the game - as far as maneuver rating is concerned.

I believe the apparent problem of High Altitude Sweep unrealistically ruling (though enough people have posted sound arguments against this currently being too high), is only a part of the problem. The air combat model itself is not sophisticated enough to really accurately generate reasonably expected results. I could spit out more - but this post is already over-long.

So if you ask me (and no one has) a lot more experimenting with what can be done with-what we have, is in order.

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Big B


So if you ask me (and no one has) a lot more experimenting with what can be done with-what we have, is in order.

BRIAN!!!!!!

We want Big B 2.0!!! But you have to fix China too like you did in WiTP

[Big B]

Hahaha [;)]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

ORIGINAL: Big B


So if you ask me (and no one has) a lot more experimenting with what can be done with-what we have, is in order.

BRIAN!!!!!!

We want Big B 2.0!!! But you have to fix China too like you did in WiTP

Thanks vettim89, but if I could paraphrase from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - "If they would just pay me to stop robbing 'em - I'd stop robbing 'em"
Meaning- "if I made a paycheck off of doing this stuff - I'd do it!"

I love WitP & WitP/AE, but as you can guess - it takes A LOT of time to figure this stuff out - and in the mean time I have to actually work to support my family! (not to mention doing the next generation of ship-art).

So...as I told my good friend TOMLABEL, I've got ideas and theories germinating, but I don't have a lot of time to devote to it....(yeah - this is a naked attempt to having Matrix pay me - LOL).

Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Brian

[Rob Brennan UK]

Vote +1 for Big B to get a pay check from Matrix !

Back in the real world .. Big B .. great to see you back again and hope all is well in your world.

Not impressed with Poor Ziggurats slap down by TitanWarrior .. someone with that many posts and thereby a lot of time here should know better than to rag on a new guy .. but you'll no doubt not care about my opinion regardless. However the rules state that posters should be POLITE .. you arent.

Can we all take a big deep breath and calm down here. forums for porting comments , advice and opinions on the game NOT a sandbox for slaggong other people off. We all can have differant opinions/experiences and preferances for the future of this great game but lets not drag the forums into the sewer guys. YOU know your better than this.

[christenberryd]

My first post ... what fun.

Perhaps consider two categories for fighters to engage each other. First would be surprise, as mentioned in the posts above. Second, and that is that most fighter pilots knew, is to not seek to engage if they were under a serious disadvantage.

Pilots knew not to climb at 100 knots airspeed to go fight someone 5k feet over you.

And basically, aside from the B-29, there was no reason to engage high flying aircraft in the Pacific. Anything over 15k feet is not a threat to anything in this theatre for most of the war. So as other posts mention, the altitude sweep goes in ... and does nothing other than grow fatigue and suffer higher ops losses.

This dynamic could be modeled into AE.

The P39's at Port Moresby became known as the "fishing fleet" (Fire in the Sky) as the fighters would head towards Australia to avoid a zero sweep.

My peeve is highly trained Betty's put on naval strike to interdict Guadacanal and instead hitting a few AKs covered by 100 fighters over the aforementioned PM. The max strike range is no use here. I would like to set a "patrol zone" for naval strike. Also, possibly assign a target value ... if you see a capital ship, hit it. Ignore 2 AKL and a patrol boat!

Cheers,

Dave

[Nemo121]

I'd like to second RobBrennan's comments.

I have no problem disagreeing with people or having them disagree with me but going around calling people "brown nosers" for having an opinion which just happens to disagree with yours and be the same as the Matrix opinion is a very low standard.

By the same token just a day ago Terminus' response to a complain was to simply post "Moron" so it goes both ways.



Here's the bottom line though.... If you actually want ANYONE to listen to anything you say then cut out the personal stuff. Feel free to point out factual errors OR just disagree and agree to disagree but when you have to fall to calling someone a moron or brown-noser or whatever then you've actually abandoned any factual basis for your argument and, in future, you'll have no-one but yourselves to blame when no-one reads your stuff.


FWIW I'm sure I'm not alone in having run lots of tests on this and coming to conclusions but I'm also sure I'm not alone in thinking to myself, "Why on earth should I post to that vituperative viper's den when all it will do is guarantee that 50% of the people call me names?" So, if you don't give a damn about yourselves also just realise that you're actually preventing rational people who wish to debate things rationally with facts and multiple series of test runs in order to ensure some measure of statistical validity from actually posting their findings to the fora. That hurts not just you but prevents improvement of the game.


I'll give you this for free though, there is a problem but the problem is not height, it is a consequence of height differentials and their interaction with other factors which aren't, as of yet, modelled. Hence it requires code additions, not changes. As such I think it is unlikely to get fixed unless the team makes it a priority.

2nd piece of free advice.... Bleating and calling eachother names won't get the team to pay any (good) attention to any of you.

3rd piece of advice.... If you want the team and any other rational adults here to treat you guys like rational adults in future I suggest you agree to disagree, start a new thread and try to keep that on a more statistical basis. You'd be surprised what might come of rational discussion.

[freeboy]

yep, name calling will see this shut right down..
I do not think anyone can argue the a2a model works as advertized... well they can argue but really whats the point? A2a is certainly one of several flies in the ointment, BUT notthe only one... give this a year and Patch 5 or 6 will probably be the addition of a new a2a model.. followed in a few years by the final version of witp giving us the ability to have statistical anallysys on every battle.. linked to those in the database giving us "in theory the most accurate game ever, but probably coming back to stronger faster planes shootong down weaker slower planes.. oh wait thats what happened in reality!~[X(]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

I'd like to second RobBrennan's comments.

I have no problem disagreeing with people or having them disagree with me but going around calling people "brown nosers" for having an opinion which just happens to disagree with yours and be the same as the Matrix opinion is a very low standard.

By the same token just a day ago Terminus' response to a complain was to simply post "Moron" so it goes both ways.

well, to point it out (not that it would matter for you I guess), I usually (and also in this case) use the term "brown noser" if someone slaps me first, in this case by calling me troll. So I got called a troll for basically saying it is BS that in game the airwar in the Pacific happens just below 40.000ft while we all (or probably 99.9% on the forum) - including the devs for sure - know that this wasn´t true in real life due to the (Japanese) aircraft involved that for sure weren´t 40.000ft fighters. Not true in the game. So if someone wants to disagree on that, fine, but still praising someone (who actually wouldn´t dare to say that this is reflecting real life happenings) on the other side for it is for me just what I said, a brown noser.

I appreciate the (non paid) work that was put into AE. I don´t agree that it should have been non paid, I find it ridicoulos so to say, but if someone wants to spend his time not being paid than it´s his decision. I would appreciate it the same way if the work would have been done by employees of Matrix Games. I like the game, just like I did like WITP. I disagree with a lot of things in WITP and for sure a lot of things in AE.

One obvious flaw is the "just below 40.000ft bounce parties" and I guess there is one thing for sure, only a brown noser or someone who does not know anything about the real Pacifc war would say this is excellent work because it is not. And I still don´t get why it is not allowed to post this on the forum because would someone have opened a thread in the WITP forum that says "airwar in the Pacific happened around 40.000ft" then everyone would have pointed out that this is completely ridicoulos. So if a dev is offended by people that point out the obvious, then hey, ho, what an ego. If others then chime in to call those people trolls (or perhaps just me if I forget about all the others who are called trolls by the same people all the time) then I put on a smile on my face and call them "brown nosers" because that´s just what they are in such a case.

Just because someone appreciates the work of the devs on a product I actually have PAID for (which you shouldn´t forget either) he should NOT defend something that is so absolutely not true that denying it alone is enough not just to call someone a brown noser but many other funny things... But perhaps someone wants to point me out a book that mentions an ongoing airwar in the Pacific from 41-45 that has constantly been fought at altitudes between 35.000 and 40.000ft.

And while it´s just completely childish (but no matter how old certain people are, this won´t change), I was not the one who again started with it. Someone slapped me in the face with a completely unqualified post naming me troll, I responded in calling him brown noser. Easy? Yeah, slap me left, you get it right on the nose.

Nemo, and why would you think that Matrix (aka the devs) think that it´s fine that airwar should happen at 40.000ft? Those people are perfectly knowing that this isn´t reflecting reality and I´m sure that wasn´t their intention. Yet with the given routines or stats, this is exactly what it turns out in PBEMs if the people don´t restrict themselve to hrs. Of course it perfectly works against the AI as the AI won´t keep everything at max ceiling and the player just happily keeps on bouncing the AI´s fighters. Also a good way to play, especially for your ego. [:D] You can´t even blame the devs, the routines probably are hard to change, or the stats are hard to decide on, but this is still leading to what we see in most PBEMs. And if it can´t be changed, then be it. But it still doesn´t make it right.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

yep, name calling will see this shut right down..
I do not think anyone can argue the a2a model works as advertized... well they can argue but really whats the point? A2a is certainly one of several flies in the ointment, BUT notthe only one... give this a year and Patch 5 or 6 will probably be the addition of a new a2a model.. followed in a few years by the final version of witp giving us the ability to have statistical anallysys on every battle.. linked to those in the database giving us "in theory the most accurate game ever, but probably coming back to stronger faster planes shootong down weaker slower planes.. oh wait thats what happened in reality!~[X(]

you are right freeboy, name calling should be kept outside the forum, but this was never true in the WITP forum and won´t be true in the AE forum. Saying this, I´m sure both forums still are one of the most civilized forums on the net with very few posts going off the track.

but be aware your above statement can already put you on the list and this comment alone can be enough to get flak and it´s just a small step from being a forum member to becoming a troll.

[BShaftoe]

As a non english-native speaking person, I have a question: "bounce", here, means just "surprise the enemy"?. Or "make a first surprise pass"?

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: Titanwarrior89

Thats just it, there won't be any later stages. The game will be over. Japs win! Again I ask If "ANYONE" played into the later stages(pbem) as the allies and seen real world results for the allies in the game. All the players do here is throw up -"Look at what we get in 1944".

Surely that's why about a half of current AARs show Japanese in full retreat by the late summer of 1942.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: BShaftoe

As a non english-native speaking person, I have a question: "bounce", here, means just "surprise the enemy"?. Or "make a first surprise pass"?

bounce in the way it is used here means "attack with an altitude advantage". So even if not being surprised (due to "raid spotted by radar" for example) your fighters get bounced due to at least flying 100ft lower than the enemy. As soon as one side got an altitude advantage (and the game seems not to make a difference between 100ft or 30.000ft) you get the message "xy squadron BOUNCES xy daitai" (WITP) and "yx fighter DIVES on yx fighter" (AE). The "dives on" message then is the most important factor to get a "shoots from behind" which is most often a kill than not.

So you a) want to be flying higher than your enemy´s fighters, b) want to get the "dives on" message to c) get the "shoots from behind" message

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: BShaftoe

As a non english-native speaking person, I have a question: "bounce", here, means just "surprise the enemy"?. Or "make a first surprise pass"?

a bounce is slang but like a bouncing ball you dive on an enemy build up speed form the dive shoot a few times and use the speed to keep going past them and backup ( like a bouncing ball) , this allows superior pilots little chance to manuever however it is more important in 1:1 dog fighting games since it neglects mission , surprise and unit tactics all of which were more important. That being said there is a bonus to being higher.

[BShaftoe]

Ok, it's clear now. I get the rest of the conversation, but the meaning of "bouncing" here just confused me, because I cannot imagine a squadron bouncing another one in the "usual" meaning... [:D][:D]

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: BShaftoe

Ok, it's clear now. I get the rest of the conversation, but the meaning of "bouncing" here just confused me, because I cannot imagine a squadron bouncing another one in the "usual" meaning... [:D][:D]

Yeah, in this instance the bounce is more akin to the tactic of 'diving out of the sun' such as used by the AVG against the Japanese over China. The AVG is a very good example of a mediocre aircraft (P-40C) using superior tactics to gain the advantage. Unfortunately the game doesn't seem to model this well (or rather models it too well).

[Nemo121]

castor troy, decrying the other as childish and then retreating to the level of "he started it" really establishes a low base of behaviour.

I see you've decided to continue the discussion in this thread - which isn't going to get anyone rational and adult to join in or take you seriously.

Goodbye, if you reflect and see some sense and have a fresh, rational start in a new thread I may contribute further. I think others might consider taking the same stance, it is probably the best chance for the many to hold the line against unseemly behaviour.


And just in case anyone decides to go asking who I am to be posting "sage" advice... Someone who would have joined in in this particular furball with relish a few years ago but, thankfully, we all have the capacity to learn, even castor troy ( and I ). IOW no special qualifications or anything just, I hope, a little bit of common sense ( although probably not enough [8D] )