Babes Guadalcanal Scenario

[JWE]

Finished. Sorta. Version 1 is going up on the site today.

Scen is done, basic AI is done. Only has the basic AI file, nothing gnarly, but quite sufficient for a small scenario. We understand the AI and can do some scripting, but OOB needs to be stable first. So dink with it. And give feedback.

It's your basic Guad Scen with BigBabes Devices, Classes, Ships, and LCUs (on steroids). This is not your regular Guadalcanal.

1. You can play it straight up against either AI, just like Nik's scenario (we edited as close to Nik's, administratively, as humanly possible).

2. You can play it straight up, but swap to H2H occasionally, to add your (Babes) spice to either (both) sides.

3. It's a short scenario, so play it against somebody who thinks they know somewhat. You will be very pleasantly surprised. And do an AAR: I'm tired of all this GC nonsense.

If you like this one, and you have the stones, Brother MO is slicking up the DEI scenario and Matt wants to put our PI stuff out there. Would really like to see some AARs of smaller scenarios. That would do more to help this title, and reduce the main forum whining, than I think you realize.

Hootz gazootz. [8D]

[DuckofTindalos]

I think I might come out of retirement to let myself be beaten up by this thing. Easier to contemplate a Guadalcanal scenario than the INTERMINABLE GC...

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Terminus
I think I might come out of retirement to let myself be beaten up by this thing. Easier to contemplate a Guadalcanal scenario than the INTERMINABLE GC...

Know exactly what you mean, Termie. If you like this one, we gots DEI and PI scens in the pipeline. Might even get MO (kicking and screaming) to work up a 1,000 Mile War thingy. Just for you. Kitakami and Oi were posted up there, IIRC [;)].

Ciao. John

[Don Bowen]

JWE

Haven't heard back on the last two emails. Don't you love me anymore?

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen
Haven't heard back on the last two emails. Don't you love me anymore?

Of course I still love you, Don. How could I possibly forget that weekend in Midland ... or was it Odessa? You are the redhead I met at the Waffle House, yeah? The one with the tat, with the arrow pointing South ... ? I'm sure the name was Dona or Donita, or Donoris, or som'in with a Don in it.

If you can still do that butterfly thing with your eyelashes, I want to marry you.

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen
Haven't heard back on the last two emails. Don't you love me anymore?

Of course I still love you, Don. How could I possibly forget that weekend in Midland ... or was it Odessa? You are the redhead I met at the Waffle House, yeah? The one with the tat, with the arrow pointing South ... ? I'm sure the name was Dona or Donita, or Donoris, or som'in with a Don in it.

If you can still do that butterfly thing with your eyelashes, I want to marry you.

Oh, I see you know my first wife....

Anyway, well - oh just skip it.

[berto]

ORIGINAL: JWE

If you like this one, and you have the stones, Brother MO is slicking up the DEI scenario and Matt wants to put our PI stuff out there. Would really like to see some AARs of smaller scenarios...

I will certainly give these a try. But I am not expert enough that any AAR I might write would be useful or interesting.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Terminus
I think I might come out of retirement to let myself be beaten up by this thing. Easier to contemplate a Guadalcanal scenario than the INTERMINABLE GC...

Know exactly what you mean, Termie. If you like this one, we gots DEI and PI scens in the pipeline. Might even get MO (kicking and screaming) to work up a 1,000 Mile War thingy. Just for you. Kitakami and Oi were posted up there, IIRC [;)].

Ciao. John

I'll probably do it hotseat. Sounds like the AI can't use the Babes toybox and I DON'T want to play PBEM.

[JWE]

yeah, Brother MO doesn't like the AI either. Wasn't too happy about having to include it. He did a basic copy of the nominal aie004.dat file and I entered the new units. So it's a pretty vanilla AI although it does work for both sides. Nobody wants to mess with it much, so I get to take the nickel. Am working on a couple alternative scripts that 'should' get some of the right kinds of support units in the right places at the right time. Want to do some smash-and-grab in NG and also set up phase lines for IJ defense, both along the NG coast and up the Solomons chain. Still can't figure out how to get the AI to schlepp Oka from Shortlands to Tassafaronga by barge, though [;)]

There are quite a few intermediate places, like Munda and Shortlands/Buin that Japan could build up and lay in wait at. Also, since this is regimental in scale, it would be fun to set up some smaller 'gator' ops, as well as try and force withdrawal of 1st MarDiv and send it to Auckland for R&R. Would be nice to force withdrawal of some of the Australian CMF brigades once the AIF brigades got rolling, too. Anyway, just have to see how it shakes out.

[Buck Beach]

Way off topic but since you mentioned the 1st Marine Div, I just saw yesterday a documentary of the "Chosin" Korean battle in which the 1st was a major participant. All I can say is "Damn", those of us who enjoy war games and have not "been there" are so very lucky we only know war from this vantage.

Sorry for the OT comment.

[RevRick]

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

Way off topic but since you mentioned the 1st Marine Div, I just saw yesterday a documentary of the "Chosin" Korean battle in which the 1st was a major participant. All I can say is "Damn", those of us who enjoy war games and have not "been there" are so very lucky we only know war from this vantage.

Sorry for the OT comment.

Don't think it is OT at all.. Sounds "Right ON" to me... And Pappy was in the 2nd MARDIV!

[Alikchi2]

I think I'll give this a hotseat attempt myself. Thanks.

[gabeeg]

So for (longtime) newbs like myself, is this scenario playable vs. AI using stock/babeslite and not DaBigBabes?

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: gabeeg

So for (longtime) newbs like myself, is this scenario playable vs. AI using stock/babeslite and not DaBigBabes?

AFAIK, Scen has it's own AI file, so it'll be playable. But as JWE & Terminus said, not going to be perfect (at least not at this stage).

[henry1611]

Thanks to the Babes Team for their efforts and persistence in bringing this scenario to life. I grabbed it last night and hope to begin soon. I will try to provide some feedback.

Appropriately enough, Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" was on IFC last night. Having seen the film a couple of times previously, I am still trying to piece the whole storyline together. The cinematography is beautiful though.

[JWE]

Please continue henry1611, and give us your feedback. And everybody else who is messing with this. It will be appreciated and addressed, believe me.

Ok. Darn, darn, darn. Have to make some adjustments. If you are already playing, keep on. It won’t have any fundamental effect on how the scenario plays: just admin stuff.

Cleaning up useless ants that do nothing except require administrative ‘clicking’. Same stuff, but organized to alleviate some of the ‘aww shoot!’ factor (smacking self on forehead, recalling this is a 45nm hex scale game).

Clumping more unit types (LCUs and now, AirGroups) into sets of contiguous slots. Same units, just organized more tightly. This is for the AI scripting. Don’t know how Andy or Nik could keep track of every slot location of every unit that they put into the original scripts. Woof!! I don’t want to scan through 500 slots to find some Recon AG to move to Buin for AI script-3; so, I’m clumping them for this scenario.

Am considering a more realistic allocation of AvSup units for this scenario. Totals seem ok, but perhaps a fewer number of AF Units (with proportionally increased AvSup) would be better. Been consulting Lundstrom and Senshi Sosho and think it might be too easy to establish a forward base.

Am absolutely blown away by the operational totals of 22, 25, 26 Air Flotillas over time. In “July”, 25 AirFlot was at 41% of paper strength, with an amazing 17% of that listed as non-op. 24 AirFlot, in the Marshalls was similarly situated (Senshi Sosho). On Nov 11, 1942, the totals for 11th Air Fleet were 102 operational aircraft, out of a paper total of 479. As of Nov 30, 1942, best guestimates of 11th Air Fleet losses (air and ground) are about 240, so about 140 planes were lost to non-op (Lundstrom, Frank, Senshi Sosho). Approx 30% of paper strength was lost through lack of AvSup. Woof!!

Have no fear, the scenario won’t make it that hard, but it does make a scenario designer think carefully about how to handle/allocate SupSquads [;)].

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: JWE

... Am absolutely blown away by the operational totals of 22, 25, 26 Air Flotillas over time. In “July”, 25 AirFlot was at 41% of paper strength, with an amazing 17% of that listed as non-op. 24 AirFlot, in the Marshalls was similarly situated (Senshi Sosho). On Nov 11, 1942, the totals for 11th Air Fleet were 102 operational aircraft, out of a paper total of 479. As of Nov 30, 1942, best guestimates of 11th Air Fleet losses (air and ground) are about 240, so about 140 planes were lost to non-op (Lundstrom, Frank, Senshi Sosho). Approx 30% of paper strength was lost through lack of AvSup. Woof!! ...

And still we find so many people on the main forum complaining about too high aircraft service ratings reducing their abiity to launch continuously or their 1000 plane raids over a 40 statute mile wide hex not seeing all their planes participate in combat. All the time whilst arguing history supports their assertions.

Keep up the work, I'm very much encouraged by the deliberately planned steady attrition of operational aircraft caused by lack of maintenance staff.

Alfred

[JWE]

Yeah. Boy oh boy! You have pressed a real hot button. There's almost two different AEs out there, Stock and Babes.

I thought about explaining this, but nobody but you and a couple hundred Babes players, who don't post, would get it, so what's the point.

Let the pathetic, pointless, pimple-faced, dinky-penis, people, from the main forum, whine away. They aren't worth thinking about. All we really care about is keeping michaelm from jerking the exe too far in an utterly stupid direction. Think we have that under control, now.

[ed] actually, keep them from pushing michael to to jerk the exe around. Michael does good work, but when the only people who scream are those otnay ootay ightbray, much of it goes for nought.

[henry1611]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

And still we find so many people on the main forum complaining about too high aircraft service ratings ...

In the mod of his own Scen004, Nikmod AE - Guadalcanal, Nikademus addressed this very issue.

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

4) Servicability tweak

Servicability in AE remains overly efficient (assuming adequate AV) averaging above 90% unless airbase is badly damaged or crowded. This is the critical "behind the scenes" culprit for accelerated pace of air operations. AE fortunately introduces variable "service rating" to editor. This has been tweaked upwards. Tentative schedule is a) fighters = 3, b) 2E bomber =4 c) 4E bomber = 5. Current version is testing universal service rating 5

* * *

- A word on Servicability.

I ask that players be a tad open minded regarding servicability percentages before sending comments my way that its over the top or other such. WitP, the game has conditioned players to expect "Five Nines" servicability at bases with enough AV and reletively free of bombardment. RL was not so rosy. While %'s varied from nation to nation, and situation to situaiton a more realistic "average" for an airbase under normal operating conditions and sortie count would fall more around 75%. This assumes good facilities and logistics. In situations of heavy combat and/or degraded servicing and supply situations, average servicability averages can fall as low as 30% or worse. This change will require the most 'adjustment' from players in that there will be less instances of setting aircraft to a mission and letting them go about their business. Units in heavy combat will require monitoring and rotation. Current playtest setting is Five for all units. Tentative setting is as listed in the FAQ on post 1, but more playtesting is required. Its easier to start from max and work down as needed in this case. Fortunately, this being a small scenario, testing and management duties are far lower than in the campaign game.

There is further discussion on the point but these excerpts get the point across. The full thread is at tm.asp?m=2479726.

Something that may be worth considering for this scenario, either in conjunction with or in the alternative to adjusting AvSup.

Henry

[JWE]

I usually keep as far away from airplane stuff as possible. Elf, Michael, and Timtom were very thorough and kept to a very high standard. There might be room for improvement, but so far none of us have wanted to open that box. Nik was the only one with the stones [;)]

Having AvSup in the 70% range seems to work well in prior scenarios, so we just stayed with the program. Right now, we're playing with the DEI scenario and working up some alternative Guad AI scripts. Not a lot of time to play with plane stats. If this is something you might want to look at, by all means please go ahead. Would appreciate muchly seeing what you find. Lots of people have found fun things that have made their way into the Babes database; it's very definitely an open architecture.