NEZ: a Mig-29 can and will shot down an F-22..

[Eboreg]

I'm actually very interested on the "if not when" approach to unit detection since coding in RNG should actually be very simple to put in on the coding side of things. (Even if the DB designers are going to end up hating your guts...) I'm also not too worried about the strain this would put on computers since I have worked with code before and I regularly see the massive monstrosities of code I build execute in less than a hundredth of a second. I must also note that I do stand quite a bit to lose from this arrangement because my usual wave-cheesing tactics are going to be screwed six ways to Sunday by this fix. Also of note is the fact that, generally speaking, the more advanced the planes you're controlling, the more you'll have to micromanage them and the less you get so micro-managing stealth fighters just that little bit more doesn't really concern me that much...

[SeaQueen]

What I’m pointing out is that MAR changes depending on the threat, and it’s very likely that in the course of a scenario your unit will encounter different kinds of threats with different MARs.

Ah! There's the problem. That's now how that works. In real life, fighter pilots spend a lot of time being briefed. In this case, before the mission, they would be briefed on the most dangerous expected threat by their intelligence people, and plan around that. If the most dangerous threat was AA-10s, for example, they would probably assume every enemy fighter had them and plan accordingly. If there were two bases threatening you, with two different regiments, one armed with AA-10s and the other armed with AA-8s, the fact that there were threats armed exclusively with AA-8s would probably not change anything. If you plan to range the threat using AA-10s then you'll easily range the threat armed with AA-8s.

A lot of what fighter pilots do is plan. One of the properties of a good plan is simplicity. You want to analyze the situation and keep it simple, because when you're flying you've got a ton of stuff you've got to keep track of in your head. There just isn't head space for every single possible threat and the properties of every single threat WEZ. You want to figure that stuff out on the ground, and build the plan around it, so you don't need to spend thought and energy worrying about things that don't really matter.

[Gizzmoe]

What I’m pointing out is that MAR changes depending on the threat, and it’s very likely that in the course of a scenario your unit will encounter different kinds of threats with different MARs.

Ah! There's the problem. That's now how that works. In real life, fighter pilots spend a lot of time being briefed. In this case, before the mission, they would be briefed on the most dangerous expected threat by their intelligence people, and plan around that. If the most dangerous threat was AA-10s, for example, they would probably assume every enemy fighter had them and plan accordingly. If there were two bases threatening you, with two different regiments, one armed with AA-10s and the other armed with AA-8s, the fact that there were threats armed exclusively with AA-8s would probably not change anything. If you plan to range the threat using AA-10s then you'll easily range the threat armed with AA-8s.
[...]

You are right, but that's not the point of musurca, CMO is not real-life. The AI can't be briefed per se, only by intricate scenario design.

[thewood1]

I would say that scenario designers do exactly that. Setting the units WRA is the equivalent. Thats a great way of thinking about it.

[musurca]

In real life, fighter pilots spend a lot of time being briefed. In this case, before the mission, they would be briefed on the most dangerous expected threat by their intelligence people, and plan around that. If the most dangerous threat was AA-10s, for example, they would probably assume every enemy fighter had them and plan accordingly. If there were two bases threatening you, with two different regiments, one armed with AA-10s and the other armed with AA-8s, the fact that there were threats armed exclusively with AA-8s would probably not change anything.

I hear what you're saying here. I guess I question if that's absolutely true over the whole of an ATO that covers dozens of squadrons spread across a vast geographic area, across nationalities and combat doctrines, as well as (this is an important point) across all historical eras covered by CMO -- but forget that, let's say I accept what you're saying for a moment. If this is how they'd be briefed, there's no reason why CMO couldn't provide an WRA option that is a conservative range from "the most dangerous expected threat" in the hostile OOB, whatever that is in the scenario. This would still be a great STARTING PLACE to set as a default WRA when updating older scenarios (as opposed to the current "set WRA to NEZ" checkbox), as well as when managing huge scenarios. It would lead to behavior and tactics that would appear far more reasonable by default, and there would still be plenty of room for players who want to go down the rabbit hole of optimal ranges to fiddle with the settings.

(How you'd calculate "most dangerous threat" is an interesting question but if you go by the method you describe in your hypothetical briefing, you could just use longest effective range of AA missile in the hostile OOB as a metric and it would probably be fine in most cases.)

As @Gizzmoe says, "CMO is not real life." That's right-- it involves abstractions. And I think a setting like that is a fairly reasonable time-saving abstraction that takes into account events that take place before the scenario starts, such as, as you point out, the way that pilots are briefed.

I would say that scenario designers do exactly that. Setting the units WRA is the equivalent. Thats a great way of thinking about it.

Yes, that's true-- but one big issue is that there is a vast number of older scenarios for which WRA was not set with these concepts in mind. Most of us agree that a retroactive "WRA at NEZ" isn't a great default to update those scenarios because it causes aircraft to go for kills with reckless disregard for their own survival, as if they were piloted by drones, not human beings. I'm suggesting that there's probably a better default WRA that takes into account the conservative range of the most dangerous AA threat in the enemy's OOB, which gives older scenarios better default behavior, saves time when playing larger scenarios, and also provides a good starting point for beginning players. (And scenario designers can still do their own thing if they want.)

[thewood1]

I don't agree that "most" of "us" is a fact. Besides that, the NEZ vs old default max range WRA is a significantly better choice for older scenarios. Because it is dynamic. If I'm reading this correctly, thats what the discussion at the core for "most" of "us" is about. I think "some" of "us" are forgetting that an NEZ is different automatically based on type of target. The max WRA isn't. Its firing at max range all the time. No dynamic or target-based adjustment whatsoever. If you test it out with an F-15C with an AIM-120C-7, you'll see that the missile leaves the rails within 10nm against an Su-27. But it fires at around 75% of range on a Tu-95. In pre-tiny, The AI did exactly what you said. Post-tiny, WRA is very much more target-based.

The one human tactic that NEZs prevents is the hovering of a fighter at the range of an opponents missiles and dodging in and out to exhaust the enemy's missiles. The AI on NEZ prevents that. Based on my testing the other thread, the odds of getting any kills beyond 20nm for most missiles makes it a poor tactic to try launching AAMs of your own at long range against fighters.

[Gizzmoe]

Based on my testing the other thread, the odds of getting any kills beyond 20nm for most missiles makes it a poor tactic to try launching AAMs of your own at long range against fighters.

Yes, that's a poor tactic if you wanna get a kill, but as you know longer-range shots can be a good and viable tactic to suppress and force an opponent into defensive. The enemy AI can't do suppression shots when a scenario was updated with just the generic "Set WRA to NEZ" and nothing else was done.

[thewood1]

The issue is that those "suppression" shots are all they can do. A human player and the AI take advantage of those shots. And its not dynamic. No matter what aircraft I have, I can force my AI opponent to waste all of its shots. If I'm a player who likes micromanaging, I can do that all day long. With NEZ, if the human player takes long shots all the way through, the human will sooner or later end up at a disadvantage of being out of missiles while the AI is fully loaded. In another thread here, I have shown exactly how that happens frequently at a max range WRA. AI Mig-23s with NEZ settings let F-15s with AIM-7s fire all their missiles at WRA max range and then close in. You can talk about suppression all you want. But suppression means nothing if you're out of missiles and the enemy is a fully loaded fighter.

Is the all NEZ perfect? Most likely not. Is it better than the AI predictably firing all its missiles with single digit chances for a kill, as in pre-tiny? I would say it is. The NEZ change has forced players who micromanage some of the abstraction, to at least think a little beyond the current missile shot. And thats the point of this specific game. Its not a flight simulator. You have to think about more than the single missile in the air and the single AI enemy. Is it perfect? No. But the new missile physics combined with NEZ as the default, make you think a little more like a commander than a pilot.

I'll also come back to having not seen any scenarios where this change breaks the scenario. If a player reads through the changes and doesn't adjust their tactics, thats on them. In fact, as both a scenario designer and a player who is not a micromanager, it makes my job a lot easier. Since the start of the tiny beta, I have to do a lot less WRA management monitoring of ROE/WRA than ever before. I find NEZ a much better default than max range.

[Gizzmoe]

With NEZ, if the human player takes long shots all the way through, the human will sooner or later end up at a disadvantage of being out of missiles while the AI is fully loaded. In another thread here, I have shown exactly how that happens frequently at a max range WRA. AI Mig-23s with NEZ settings let F-15s with AIM-7s fire all their missiles at WRA max range and then close in. You can talk about suppression all you want. But suppression means nothing if you're out of missiles and the enemy is a fully loaded fighter.

Correct, but in your example the human player is incompetent and has no missiles left after suppression fire, that's not something that would happen to a halfway seasoned player.

I find NEZ a much better default than max range.

Absolutely, but it creates other challenges for the AI that haven't been solved yet.

[SeaQueen]

I hear what you're saying here. I guess I question if that's absolutely true over the whole of an ATO that covers dozens of squadrons spread across a vast geographic area, across nationalities and combat doctrines, as well as (this is an important point) across all historical eras covered by CMO -- but forget that, let's say I accept what you're saying for a moment.

It depends. This would be for the mission. Note, that by "mission" I do not mean a CMO "mission," in the sense of something you create in mission editor. I mean it in the sense of an integrated set of CMO "missions" that all contribute to a common objective.

If this is how they'd be briefed, there's no reason why CMO couldn't provide an WRA option that is a conservative range from "the most dangerous expected threat" in the hostile OOB, whatever that is in the scenario. This would still be a great STARTING PLACE to set as a default WRA when updating older scenarios (as opposed to the current "set WRA to NEZ" checkbox), as well as when managing huge scenarios. It would lead to behavior and tactics that would appear far more reasonable by default, and there would still be plenty of room for players who want to go down the rabbit hole of optimal ranges to fiddle with the settings.

(How you'd calculate "most dangerous threat" is an interesting question but if you go by the method you describe in your hypothetical briefing, you could just use longest effective range of AA missile in the hostile OOB as a metric and it would probably be fine in most cases.)

Keep in mind, at some point a scenario is so huge that CMO is no longer a good tool for playing out scenarios of that scope. At some point, a commander controlling a force that big wouldn't really be interested in the kinds of things that you control in CMO. You run into the "too many hats" problem and the scenario is no longer realistic. You really need to be playing a different game to understand the problem at that level. Part of commanding a very large force is breaking a problem down into manageable pieces and delegating that piece to someone else. CMO is very much a tactical simulation, and if your interest in higher levels of warfare, then CMO doesn't really illuminate that well.

Assuming you're not at that point, however, how you'd determine the most dangerous threat is part of where player skill and knowledge comes in. Maybe a missile has a very long range, but for some reason the Pk is so low that you figure it's basically no factor (for example, it's old technology and electronic warfare makes it essentially no factor), and so you might choose some other weapon range to plan around. There may be multiple ways to think about what is "most dangerous," and allowing the computer to choose that is delegating your decision making to a computer programmer. Their decision might not be your decision, given the tactics you want to employ, and so I don't think a "most dangerous threat" button is a great idea. There's judgement involved there.

As @Gizzmoe says, "CMO is not real life." That's right-- it involves abstractions. And I think a setting like that is a fairly reasonable time-saving abstraction that takes into account events that take place before the scenario starts, such as, as you point out, the way that pilots are briefed.

There is the database viewer. You should be able to study the order of battle of the enemy presented to you. I spend more time planning a scenario than I often spend actually playing. That's not unrealistic, either. Spending hours planning and briefing a 2 hour VUL and then several more hours debriefing it after it's over is a huge part of air war. If you want to understand how an air battle works, and the decisions that entails, then there's not really a short cut to doing your homework, analyzing the threat, and choosing your tactics accordingly.

Yes, that's true-- but one big issue is that there is a vast number of older scenarios for which WRA was not set with these concepts in mind. Most of us agree that a retroactive "WRA at NEZ" isn't a great default to update those scenarios because it causes aircraft to go for kills with reckless disregard for their own survival, as if they were piloted by drones, not human beings. I'm suggesting that there's probably a better default WRA that takes into account the conservative range of the most dangerous AA threat in the enemy's OOB, which gives older scenarios better default behavior, saves time when playing larger scenarios, and also provides a good starting point for beginning players. (And scenario designers can still do their own thing if they want.)

I think it's also important to keep in mind that many scenarios are not the most wisely designed. I'd venture to say that most scenario designers that put their stuff out there have not been exposed to the kinds of planning one would encounter at a Red Flag or some other exercise, for example. As people's understanding of the game evolves, and the game's models evolve, I think it's worthwhile to not take the lazy solution and set every old scenario to some "default," but rather critically analyze scenarios that are of interest and adjust them in ways one might suspect are smart. It's maybe not the expedient solution, but I think in the long run it'll be more satisfactory.

[BDukes]

NEZ is a step ahead, and as of yet, no designer or player has screamed or yelled too loudly about it. I haven't had any clear WTF moments. So I think baring some db fixes to some propulsion and burn times it is not a big thing. Honestly, I think I think we all knew there were going to be data issues and post-release is the wash it would come out in.

Hoping on the AI side we can adjust WRAs via lua. Just looking at the documentation you can certainly get it but no sure you can set it. This would do the trick for me in terms of providing some variability. No rush.

Mike

[Gizzmoe]

Honestly, I think I think we all knew there were going to be data issues and post-release is the wash it would come out in.

Yup, with all those massive changes in Tiny that was inevitable. CMO is heading into a great direction, and I am sure everything will work out fine eventually, I just need to be more patient

[Gizzmoe]

As people's understanding of the game evolves, and the game's models evolve, I think it's worthwhile to not take the lazy solution and set every old scenario to some "default," but rather critically analyze scenarios that are of interest and adjust them in ways one might suspect are smart. It's maybe not the expedient solution, but I think in the long run it'll be more satisfactory.

+1

[BDukes]

As people's understanding of the game evolves, and the game's models evolve, I think it's worthwhile to not take the lazy solution and set every old scenario to some "default," but rather critically analyze scenarios that are of interest and adjust them in ways one might suspect are smart. It's maybe not the expedient solution, but I think in the long run it'll be more satisfactory.

+1

Come on. You've been on this planet long enough to know there are those who suggest a bunch of hard work and those that actually do it.

This is largely done by the community when they play. This is not any different than the unwritten social contract normally experienced when you play any scenario. I don't expect Matrix to do this. Nor do I expect you or SQ to take it on. This is not lazy. This is because we have jobs and lives.

Mike

[Gizzmoe]

As people's understanding of the game evolves, and the game's models evolve, I think it's worthwhile to not take the lazy solution and set every old scenario to some "default," but rather critically analyze scenarios that are of interest and adjust them in ways one might suspect are smart. It's maybe not the expedient solution, but I think in the long run it'll be more satisfactory.

+1

Come on. You've been on this planet long enough to know there are those who suggest a bunch of hard work and those that actually do it.

Of course, that is not our job

This is largely done by the community when they play. This is not any different than the unwritten social contract normally experienced when you play any scenario. I don't expect Matrix to do this.

You don't expect any scenario updates to balance stuff from Matrix/the devs even for paid content? A week ago a fellow customer/gamer questioned the balance of the paid scenarios, Dimitris said he was wrong, because they applied NEZ to all official scenarios and that this apparently rebalances everything... BS, it's not that easy, at least be honest to us, a "Wrong again" won't do, dear devs, admit that is takes time and work to balance, there's nothing wrong with that.

My biggest concern is, apart from me hating these brand new and "ultra realistic" mechanics, that I highly doubt that any of the scenarios, or the campaigns (which I have paid good money for) have been re-balanced to cater to the changes.

Wrong again. Kushan has painstakingly rebuilt all official scenarios (incl. all DLCs) so that AAW weapons by default use the No-Escape Zone range setting.

[thewood1]

He did not say it unbalanced the scenario. He didn't bring a real scenario to demonstrate. He launched straight into a rant. Again, my point, its not about balancing/unbalancing scenarios. Its about changing tactics to align with the game. All games evolve that have been around for 10 years. Its why "most" of us play CMO.

I have yet to find any unbalanced scenarios. When I asked the OP about them, I just got some more ranting. You are now asking about unbalanced scenarios. Do you actually have one to show? Or are you just conjecturing?

[Gizzmoe]

He did not say it unbalanced the scenario. He didn't bring a real scenario to demonstrate. He launched straight into a rant. Again, my point, its not about balancing/unbalancing scenarios. Its about changing tactics to align with the game. All games evolve that have been around for 10 years. Its why "most" of us play CMO.

I have yet to find any unbalanced scenarios. When I asked the OP about them, I just got some more ranting. You are now asking about unbalanced scenarios. Do you actually have one to show? Or are you just conjecturing?

I wasn't asking about unbalanced scenarios, the OP was, there are more than 100 official scenarios that have been updated to the new system/db, and of course I haven't tested them all as you can imagine. Maybe Seaqueen and others will add a .save. All that am "worried" about is that the current WRA could need some diversity, as I and others have mentioned before.

[BDukes]

You don't expect any scenario updates to balance stuff from Matrix/the devs even for paid content? A week ago a fellow customer/gamer questioned the balance of the paid scenarios, Dimitris said he was wrong, because they applied NEZ to all official scenarios and that this apparently rebalances everything... BS, it's not that easy, at least be honest to us, a "Wrong again" won't do, dear devs, admit that is takes time and work to balance, there's nothing wrong with that.

I was talking about the community scenario set. Paid content should be updated by the devs if there is a major issue. The only way we'll know is if people play and complain. I'm not seeing much, so not sure if the house is on fire at this point.

My biggest concern is, apart from me hating these brand new and "ultra realistic" mechanics, that I highly doubt that any of the scenarios, or the campaigns (which I have paid good money for) have been re-balanced to cater to the changes.

Wrong again. Kushan has painstakingly rebuilt all official scenarios (incl. all DLCs) so that AAW weapons by default use the No-Escape Zone range setting.

[/quote]

I'm not going to defend a response that I don't know the inside baseball about. What I will say is that if he didn't think anything was wrong, of course, he'd respond that way. If he gets a bunch of actionable feedback that there is something, I expect him to act otherwise. That's reasonable right?

M

[BDukes]

He did not say it unbalanced the scenario. He didn't bring a real scenario to demonstrate. He launched straight into a rant. Again, my point, its not about balancing/unbalancing scenarios. Its about changing tactics to align with the game. All games evolve that have been around for 10 years. Its why "most" of us play CMO.

I have yet to find any unbalanced scenarios. When I asked the OP about them, I just got some more ranting. You are now asking about unbalanced scenarios. Do you actually have one to show? Or are you just conjecturing?

I wasn't asking about unbalanced scenarios, the OP was, there are more than 100 official scenarios that have been updated to the new system/db, and of course I haven't tested them all as you can imagine. Maybe Seaqueen and others will add a .save. All that am "worried" about is that the current WRA could need some diversity, as I and others have mentioned before.

I'd shelf the worry until more than one person screams.

Mike

[Gizzmoe]

I'd shelf the worry until more than one person screams.

Yes, but there IS more than one person screaming about that