Todays aircraft and a question...

[Greyshaft]

The Douglas A-20A

Originally designated as the DB7, the Douglas A-20 was first flown in October 1938 when it was evaluated and rejected by the USAAC. The French saw the same demonstration and placed an order for 270 of these aircraft. In June 1939 the Air Corps re-evaluated their decision and ordered 120 A-20A. When war broke out in Europe Britain ordered these aircraft to replace their rapidly disappearing Bristol Blenheims and in 1942 the A-20A 'Boston' became the standard light bomber for the RAF. British A-20 bombers participated in the attacks on the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen when those ships made their famous channel dash from Brest to Brunsbuttel on 12th February 1942 during Operation Cerberus.

My question is ... what should be the focus of these commentaries? is it important to give speed/firepower/bombload kind of information or should I concentrate on 'Did you know" factoids like in the above text? (I don't think there is room to do both). Is it OK to do some one way and some the other?

Sometimes there are no factoids and need to resort to speed/firepower/bombload like in variants of the FW-190. and sometimes there are factoids but little hard data like in certain obsolete Czech recon aircraft. In those cases we're stuck with what we get but in other cases there are reams of information and factoids and I need to make a decision.

What do people think?

[Froonp]

My question is ... what should be the focus of these commentaries? is it important to give speed/firepower/bombload kind of information or should I concentrate on 'Did you know" factoids like in the above text? (I don't think there is room to do both). Is it OK to do some one way and some the other?

Look at the following illustration. It comes from the screenshots area of the new Matrix Games War in the Pacific series game : "War Plan Orange".
It show one convenient way to provide both kind of informations (and also show that Matrix Games must alreay have a database covering the planes & ships appearing in WiF FE).

WiF could have the same kind of informative screen showing :
- A chart with the pure data (speed/firepower/bombload/etc...) listed as in the below illo, and
- When you click on the name of the plane (or ship), you could see a dialog with some more factoids, or historical data if there are no factoids : when it entered service, how many builts, if it is known for a specific battle (Spitfire I are known for the Battle of Britain for example, as well as SBDs are known for the Battle of Midway) or some kind of other action.
- There could also be a second tab in this dialog showing showing game informations about them : For planes, this tab could show the list of aircraft units that are using this kind of plane, and where they are on the map. For ships, this tab could show the list of in games ships that are from this ship class, and where they are on the map. It would be great ! [:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
The Douglas A-20A

Originally designated as the DB7, the Douglas A-20 was first flown in October 1938 when it was evaluated and rejected by the USAAC. The French saw the same demonstration and placed an order for 270 of these aircraft. In June 1939 the Air Corps re-evaluated their decision and ordered 120 A-20A. When war broke out in Europe Britain ordered these aircraft to replace their rapidly disappearing Bristol Blenheims and in 1942 the A-20A 'Boston' became the standard light bomber for the RAF. British A-20 bombers participated in the attacks on the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen when those ships made their famous channel dash from Brest to Brunsbuttel on 12th February 1942 during Operation Cerberus.

My question is ... what should be the focus of these commentaries? is it important to give speed/firepower/bombload kind of information or should I concentrate on 'Did you know" factoids like in the above text? (I don't think there is room to do both). Is it OK to do some one way and some the other?

Sometimes there are no factoids and need to resort to speed/firepower/bombload like in variants of the FW-190. and sometimes there are factoids but little hard data like in certain obsolete Czech recon aircraft. In those cases we're stuck with what we get but in other cases there are reams of information and factoids and I need to make a decision.

What do people think?

Setting aside Patrice's comment for the moment, and answering your questions directly, ...

Factoids, by definition, are things that are untrue but many people believe. They sometimes are made up on the spur of the moment in conversation and rapidly become gospel. Examples of factoids are all the urban legend myths. The popular media has taken the word to mean "little fact" or some such, which says a lot about the popular media - whether something is true or not is irrelevant to them, just so it sounds good (and includes a picture - which can be fabricated like the Loch Ness monster picture).

Anyway, ...

Trying to design a single format that fits all plane types is most likely a hopeless task. There are too many types and they are too disparate. For some of the planes the information available will be very bare bones. For others there will be a gushing fire hydrant of words. Don't agonize over this, simply accept it and move on. For the bare bones types, give what you find interesting and keep it short. That might mean just a bunch of numbers. If you want to add more, you could do comparisons of the numbers to other plane types (e.g., "a somewhat faster climb rate than was typical for other fighters at this time during the war"). But still, that there isn't much about the plane type says a lot all by itself - doesn't it?

When there is a lot from which to choose, keep the numbers to a minimum and try to pick out different types of stories for each plane. That won't always be possible, so I suggest choosing stories about the airplane in combat as being sure to be of interest to the reader. What I am recommending is keeping the entries as different from one another as possible. These descriptions are not a definitive study of the plane type but more of a teaser to provoke the reader to look into the history himself. As they say in show biz: "Leave 'em wantin' more".

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Look at the following illustration. It comes from the screenshots area of the new Matrix Games War in the Pacific series game : "War Plan Orange".
It show one convenient way to provide both kind of informations (and also show that Matrix Games must alreay have a database covering the planes & ships appearing in WiF FE).

WiF could have the same kind of informative screen showing :
- A chart with the pure data (speed/firepower/bombload/etc...) listed as in the below illo, and
- When you click on the name of the plane (or ship), you could see a dialog with some more factoids, or historical data if there are no factoids : when it entered service, how many builts, if it is known for a specific battle (Spitfire I are known for the Battle of Britain for example, as well as SBDs are known for the Battle of Midway) or some kind of other action.
- There could also be a second tab in this dialog showing showing game informations about them : For planes, this tab could show the list of aircraft units that are using this kind of plane, and where they are on the map. For ships, this tab could show the list of in games ships that are from this ship class, and where they are on the map. It would be great !

What you are proposing heads this into an encyclopedia type reference on all combat systems in WWII. The table in the War Plan Orange picture lists 20 plane types. Greyshaft is looking at over 500 for MWIF. How many pages would you have to scroll through to see them all? Would it mean anything to a person in the middle of playing the game?

The design, as laid out when this first was discussed in the thread Historical Details, was to provide some information about units in the game. Whether that would include all units in the game was left as "probably not". Greyshaft is doing Herculean work to get the aircraft all done. [I get tired just thinking about all that he is doing.] And a couple of other forum members have offered to provide similar material on the naval units. The land units sit idly by with no commentaries at the present.

I don't intend for MWIF to be an encyclopedia on WWII weapon systems. Rather, somewhat informative about what the units in the game represent in historical terms. Simple little tidbits that can be read in less than a minute - not a comprehensive study for scholars of the war.

I like your suggestion about tying the unit descriptions back to other units in the game. How best to present that information to the player is unclear. This is also something that is not on my current to do list - so it will be added to the bottom .... way ... down .... there ----> ..............................!

[Cheesehead]

My question is ... what should be the focus of these commentaries? is it important to give speed/firepower/bombload kind of information or should I concentrate on 'Did you know" factoids like in the above text? (I don't think there is room to do both). Is it OK to do some one way and some the other?

Sometimes there are no factoids and need to resort to speed/firepower/bombload like in variants of the FW-190. and sometimes there are factoids but little hard data like in certain obsolete Czech recon aircraft. In those cases we're stuck with what we get but in other cases there are reams of information and factoids and I need to make a decision.

What do people think?

I really like your work based on the examples you have given. I prefer narratives to hard numbers and statistical data. As far as providing info on the airplanes abilities, I would like to see narratives on features comparing it to like models. For example, if the Spitfire IX isn't noticably faster than the versions of the Me109 and FW190 that it flew against, there is no need to mention its speed. But if it had a substantially superior rate of climb...then mention it. I especially like your comments on when it went into production, how it was perceived by either or both sides, unique histories of the model such as the comment about the A-20s involvement in the Channel run, the P-38s role in killing Yamamoto, etc. , and years of service. You're doing a great job and it is very much appreciated. I wish I could help, but if I spent any more time on this game my wife would file for divorce.

[Greyshaft]

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm certainly trying to avoid a bunch of boring numbers except when pointing out things like "... the upgrading of the engine to 2,500hp gave the Tiger Moth II a 550kph speed increase over the earlier version with the unfotunate side effect that all of the fabric on the wings ripped of as the aircraft passed the speed of sound." I think the combat factors on the counters will talk for themselves and I certainly don't want the commentaries to be seen as "evidence" that some of the counter combat factors are incorrect.

If 'Factoids' actually does mean 'things that are untrue but many people believe' then these commentaries aren't Factoids. I'm looking for little snippets of TRUE information that , as Steve, says, are a teaser to provoke the reader to look into the history himself. I'm feeling comfortable with how I'm going so far... just wanted a sanity check[:D]


only 121 air units to go!!!

[rotor911]

The land units sit idly by with no commentaries at the present.

The land units are corps, so pretty generic. You can't relate their game value to hardware characteristics as you can for ships or planes. And the "AfrikaKorps" in game for instance has no characteristics which would make it more suitable than other armored corps to be used in Africa and is in fact rarely if ever used there. So a historical commentary on the lines of "the AfrikaKorps was created to help Italians in Africa..." would me more confusing to the unwary gamer than helping. While reading that plane x was a short range intercepter in RL could give a clue to a beginner about its use. Just my 2 cents....

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: Rotor
The land units are corps, so pretty generic. You can't relate their game value to hardware characteristics as you can for ships or planes....

MWiF is including a lot of the artillery and other special units. I'm sure I could write a para or two about 'Dora' or the German 88's or Hummels or other specialist land units in the game.

(some of the German units... even the Corps are numbered)
SS Nordland
XLVI
88 mm
105 mm
Flakvierling
127.5 mm
105 mm
150 mm
800 mm G/D
172.5 mm
SiG II
Nebelwerfer
Hummel
50 mm
PzJag I
75 mm
88 mm
JagdPanther
JagdTiger