The effectiveness of PT boats in the Solomon Islands campaign was substantially undermined by defective Mark 8 torpedoes. Nevertheless, PT boats did achieve some success against Japanese shipborne resupply efforts, dubbed "The Tokyo Express," operating in New Georgia Sound ("the Slot"). Relying on speed and stealth to offset their frailty and lack of firepower, PT boats contributed in many other ways to the success of the campaign. The bravery of their crews is a story that needs to be told and remembered for, truly, "They were expendable."
- Assigned hexes to all objectives involving locations for easier mission recollection.
- Removed two F4U1 Corsair fighters for better gameplay balance and less busyness.
Note: Significant exploits have been revealed that require a rewrite. Look for version 2.0 in the near future.
- Corrected positioning of objective hex links (in 1.1, I had mistakenly made them the same as related popup messages).
- Substituted an AI team of Marines for player-controlled Army infantry stranded on Kolombangara to eliminate the "board transport" exploit.
- Fighters opposing the Japanese air raid are now on the AI team of Marines to keep them focused on the job at hand and leave when its done, thereby eliminating the "keep a Jap bomber alive so I can use the fighters on other stuff" exploit. Also threw in a couple of Japanese fighter escorts to spice things up.
- Bombers saving a PT boat from a Japanese destroyer are now on the AI team of Marines to keep them focused and depart when the job is done, thereby eliminating a similar exploit of keeping the destroyer barely alive to use the bombers elsewhere.
- Redesigned the vignette about locating a Jap sub so that it works more reliably (anticipating other ways of going about it) and eliminates the exploit of blocking the sub from exiting so that the remaining destroyers can be used elsewhere. Basically, there are no destroyers now, just implied. However, I jazzed this one up a bit and added an interesting historical reference (details in the Information folder).
- Fixed the error that allowed victory without sinking any supply barges (the objective should have been active from the start even though the barges don't show up until later).
- Fixed the error that prevented the endgame from happening at times. (No wonder this scenario looked so easy with all of the exploits and no endgame.)
- For good measure, reduced the available resource points from 250 to 120. That alone would dial up the difficulty but taken altogether, good luck now.
I am going to play this out myself tonight or tomorrow to see how tough it is, middle difficulty. Regarding introducing the Marines AI to handle certain chores properly, remember that this scenario is about the PT boats. Everything else is a prop.
You know, my hat is off to anybody who does this nonsense for a living. Remind me what the rest of us unpaid schlubs do this for . . . fun? Plus, tomorrow they are going to release another patch that is probably going to blow the whole thing out of water, no pun intended. [:@]
No sooner did I sit down to enjoy PiC version 2.0, with all the changes therein, than it decides to fail to show the crucial series of messages on the first turn if one looks at objectives information. So I changed the trigger to be first move, which ought to work. Until tomorrow, perhaps.
Crap. As moderator and gentlemanly person, I will permit myself that much profanity here. Just as I thought and asked, if a player clicks on any question mark for objective information at turn start, it's no longer turn start and the event popup message does NOT appear. Back to the god d... uh, ever-loving drawing board.
Profile in Courage new version 2.3 uploaded (version 2.2 was short-lived - see the Bru's Scenarios thread for details). A special thanks to my buddy GabeKnight for helping me out tonight.
Blimey, you are getting through these versions quickly! [:)]
Yeah, I was trying to beat the new patch that is out today.
Profile in Courage new version 2.4 uploaded. Just a couple of last minute tweaks; mostly related to pop-up messages but primarily moving the Marines fighters appearance up one turn. I've had a little developer's remorse in that this scenario may be a bit tough now.
Anyway, I say "last minute" because I wanted to finish it with the 5.2.3 scenario editor. Now it's on to 5.2.9. A new patch is always a potential adventure for modders and their existing creations, let alone new ones. We'll see! [:)]
