Matrix Games & SSG Announce Carriers At War

[SwampYankee68]

Just thiming in to say GREAT NEWS!  I had been hoping for this.  I played UV but did not LOVE it, and the whole time I was yearning for CaW
 
Now, if someone would re-do the SimCan modern naval wargames I will be exctatic!

[David Sandberg]

Another old-time CAW player here. I'm thrilled to hear that I finally may get to play this game again, after many, many years away.

I do have a question: for me, the one annoying thing about CAW was that, during the time a carrier TFs planes were in the air, the TF was frozen in place, unable to move, until the planes returned. This invariably led to surface clashes later in the game between carrier TFs and probing squadrons of cruisers or battleships, since the latter could keep continuously closing the gap with the carriers while the latter were rooted to a single spot at times because they had launched an airstrike. (Which wouldn't be a problem if the carriers never launched any airstrikes ... but then what good are they?) Might this quirky behavior be improved upon with the forthcoming CAW remake? I sure hope so, because that one change from the original would single-handedly guarantee my purchase.

[TheHellPatrol]

[:D]I must say this: it looks superb! The graphics/interface scream SSG. A must buy IMO, i've heard of it (CAW) but never had the chance of playing it. My DOS days were spent on Stonekeep, tank sims...and UFO:XCOM!

[Gregor_SSG]

ORIGINAL: David Sandberg

Another old-time CAW player here. I'm thrilled to hear that I finally may get to play this game again, after many, many years away.

I do have a question: for me, the one annoying thing about CAW was that, during the time a carrier TFs planes were in the air, the TF was frozen in place, unable to move, until the planes returned. This invariably led to surface clashes later in the game between carrier TFs and probing squadrons of cruisers or battleships, since the latter could keep continuously closing the gap with the carriers while the latter were rooted to a single spot at times because they had launched an airstrike. (Which wouldn't be a problem if the carriers never launched any airstrikes ... but then what good are they?) Might this quirky behavior be improved upon with the forthcoming CAW remake? I sure hope so, because that one change from the original would single-handedly guarantee my purchase.

Carriers do have to stay on station after launching a strike, in order to be able to recover that strike. I can't say that I've ever had my Carrier Task Groups unduly harassed by surface groups, (during daylight hours, anyway), since those groups without air cover are very vulnerable to air attack.

Gregor

[David Sandberg]

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG
Carriers do have to stay on station after launching a strike, in order to be able to recover that strike. I can't say that I've ever had my Carrier Task Groups unduly harassed by surface groups, (during daylight hours, anyway), since those groups without air cover are very vulnerable to air attack.

Thanks for the response. Most of the time when this happened to me, it seemed to be that the surface groups caught my carriers during the night after a strike ... however, when I had scouts aloft to see the surface TFs in question, I recall that they closed much of the range with my carriers while my airstrikes were aloft and the carriers were "anchored" in this way, which invariably led to them catching up with me for a night engagement.

I think that in the real world carrier TFs didn't stay in a single location while an airstrike was aloft, did they? Didn't they instead instruct the airstrike pilots as to the fleet's planned movements between launch and recovery?

If possible, rather than anchoring the fleet while airstrikes are aloft, I'd love to see the launching TF required to select a course and speed (to be held during the airstrike's flying time) at the same time that they create the other parameters of an airstrike (essentially simulating the "pilots briefing" mentioned above). The task force then automatically turns to and maintains that course and speed as soon as a strike is launched (i.e., the planned course and speed are "locked in" until the strike is recovered). This way, the maximum range of the strike and recovery location could be calculated with the movement of the fleet between launch and recovery figured into the strike parameters. This would at least make it possible for a carrier to launch a strike and then retire. The obvious tradeoff of this adding a bit to the distance the strike would need to fly ro reach a more distant recovery position, and hence lessening the total range available to the strike aircraft, would make for an interesting tactical decision. And consider the alternative of ordering the carriers to continue to close on the enemy position while an airstrike is aloft, hence running a greater risk in order to give the strike a little additional range boost and a bit earlier of a launch time!

If I'm mistaken and this would not be a better reflection of what carrier TFs actually did when launching airstrikes during the war, I hope someone will illuminate me, 'cause I'd love to understand the reality of these wartime decisions better. Otherwise, I'll keep my fingers crossed that SSG might find themselves in a position to give this concept some thought.

[Ursa MAior]

I agree with David that this has to be chnaged since it does not reflect real time events. In many occasions serious losses were tkaen (at minimum in planes) when the returning planes have not found the carriers where they were supposed to be. Either due manuevres taken to aviod sub or aerial attack, or by plain navigational errors.

[Fishbed]

very interesting, thanks a lot!
 
Real time... sweeeeet.
You know, I once dreamt playing a game which would mix the complexity of CaW and the smoothness of the strategic module of 1942:The Pacific Air War. Sounds like I will not oblige to play it in my dreams anymore [8D]

[bradfordkay]

Fishbed, CAW is not a strategic game. It focuses on the carrier battles of WW2, and is too limited in time and scope to cover more than the few days of any particular carrier operation... think of the naval battles of Guadalcanal or Coral Sea as the scope of the game.

[Gregor_SSG]

Rewgarding the behaviour of carrier TGs during a strike, this is one of many apsects of carrier warfare that we have chosen to simplify. I think that your solution of requiring a course and speed setting would require far too much mathematics from most players, (including me), and would result in most squadrons under my command running out of fuel and splashing, resulting in my subsequent 'promotion' to the Aleutian islands.

In the same way, we don't require the player to manually move planes through arming and fueling or choreograph the flight deck operations. You get to make the critical decisions about where and when to send strikes and not worry about the rest.

As far as surface combat goes, I've played hundreds of CAW games and never had my carriers seriously inconvenienced by surface combat in daylight hours, so I don't think its a huge problem.

Gregor

[ravinhood]

Gregor are you or did you have the setup placements of the TG randomized or at least a few different variants of starting positions? I can't totally recall if the origional was like this, but, I think it was. I know "Carrier Force" was and I might be confusing the two.

[JeF]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed
You know, I once dreamt playing a game which would mix the complexity of CaW and the smoothness of the strategic module of 1942:The Pacific Air War. Sounds like I will not oblige to play it in my dreams anymore [8D]

Fishbed : we have this in common. I'm frustrated that I did not see that game before.

bardfordkay: FYI, the 1942:The Pacific Air War was a flight sim dedicated to the pacific theater. The so-called strategic module is more or less on the scale of CaW : battles lasted a couple of days. You planned CAP, searches and strikes. You could then jump in the planes and go fight with your men. Surface combat was mostly abstract. No land combat.
IIRC, battles covered Coral Sea, Midway and the Marianas.
It was basic, not highly detailed, real time, but not MP, as the game paused when you were planning your things.
Ho ! And it was able to compute the return path of your planes, even if the TF moves.
Sometimes, strikes were aborted if safe return would be compromised

Now, I'm not advocating that the game should be delayed because of this. I just say that, certainly with a little thinking, this can be done intelligently (read: without asking trigonometry computing from the players).

Cheers,

JeF.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: David Sandberg

Another old-time CAW player here. I'm thrilled to hear that I finally may get to play this game again, after many, many years away.

Same.
I owned every CAW title, even the very first, and entered the data for all the RUN5 scenarios I could find in France (it was so hard to have RUN5, I still have all of them), it was GREAT !!!!! I am thrilled

I do have a question: for me, the one annoying thing about CAW was that, during the time a carrier TFs planes were in the air, the TF was frozen in place, unable to move, until the planes returned. This invariably led to surface clashes later in the game between carrier TFs and probing squadrons of cruisers or battleships, since the latter could keep continuously closing the gap with the carriers while the latter were rooted to a single spot at times because they had launched an airstrike. (Which wouldn't be a problem if the carriers never launched any airstrikes ... but then what good are they?) Might this quirky behavior be improved upon with the forthcoming CAW remake? I sure hope so, because that one change from the original would single-handedly guarantee my purchase.

I chose to express my happiness of seeing Matrix allowing such a great title to be re-done because of what is written here.
For me, it was the worst design feature of CAW, and I hated that. It seemed so unrealistic.
During WWII, Carrier Task Groups kept on moving after having launched their air missions, and given the scale of the game, the speed of the TG and given the length of the air missions (at least a couple of hours), this is really unrealistic to have the CV stop moving on the map in CAW. I would have bet that a re-done of this hugely great game would have got rid of that feature. I would have hoped that some sort of AI routine would have been created to made the TG react realisticaly in the moments between having launched their air groups and recovering them.

[Fishbed]

Rewgarding the behaviour of carrier TGs during a strike, this is one of many apsects of carrier warfare that we have chosen to simplify. I think that your solution of requiring a course and speed setting would require far too much mathematics from most players, (including me), and would result in most squadrons under my command running out of fuel and splashing, resulting in my subsequent 'promotion' to the Aleutian islands.

In the same way, we don't require the player to manually move planes through arming and fueling or choreograph the flight deck operations. You get to make the critical decisions about where and when to send strikes and not worry about the rest.

As far as surface combat goes, I've played hundreds of CAW games and never had my carriers seriously inconvenienced by surface combat in daylight hours, so I don't think its a huge problem.

Gregor

As Jeff says, one of the great qualities of the Carrier Battle module of 1942:PAW was the computing of the returning path for the air strikes. They would go back to the supposed calculated location of their homeplate, and then start to look for it if it wasn't there (if not that far away, they may get guided home - but they may lose themselves too). That was quite well made...

[bradfordkay]

"bardfordkay: FYI, the 1942:The Pacific Air War was a flight sim dedicated to the pacific theater.":


Funny, I actually had and played 1942:The Pacific Air War. I guess that I only played the sim aspect and never touched the "strategic" (the way you describe it, I'd call it operational as opposed to strategic) portion of the sim...

[Fishbed]

Yes it's rather operational. It was roughly the same scope as CAW (control all the air and naval assets for several days), but not with the same depth of course. When it came to ergonomics, in a way, it was also a little more pleasant to play, more intuitive (thanks to the experience Microprose had already with the similar module in Task Force 1942, a couple years before, which was centered around the Guadalcanal campaign and even included ground warm but no carriers). Even if this wasn't the top-end-top-notch simulator CAW was, well there were nice features for such a game: the way they updated contacts (thanks to the game logic dating back to TF:1942), the way the attack and return itineraries were computered, the possibility to make battles a little spicier checking the "random positioning" box, the way real-time reports were done that got you in the bath (enemy carrier hit!) if you were not in already thanks to the jump-in-the-cockpit mode. Well of course this module was more an addendum to the simulation than a real game by itself, but it behaved fairly well in my opinion when it comes to satisfy to his function.

If I remember well, this module in 1942:PAW was named Carrier Battles, and allowed you to play the Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz and the Marianas. While the Philippines got available in the extension, I don't know if they ever designed a scenario for the Carrier Battles module.

[David Sandberg]

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG
Rewgarding the behaviour of carrier TGs during a strike, this is one of many apsects of carrier warfare that we have chosen to simplify. I think that your solution of requiring a course and speed setting would require far too much mathematics from most players, (including me), and would result in most squadrons under my command running out of fuel and splashing, resulting in my subsequent 'promotion' to the Aleutian islands.

Not to drag this out any longer than necessary, but I just wanted to clarify something: my thinking was that the program itself would perform the mathematics, and then simply enforce the calculated limits when the user is setting the strike parameters, rather than require the user to do any math themselves (which I agree would be too much to ask of gamers). The math is not particularly difficult to accomplish in software ... in fact my freeware InterCalc utility does math that is similar to what would likely be required here (if anyone is interested, try googling for my name and "InterCalc"). As far as the user is concerned, my expectation would be that their inputs into the "course and speed" fields/widgets would either be restricted by the software to values that would permit recovery ... or else a big red 0 could show up for Time On Target when the current settings wouldn't permit recovery. (I seem to recall that "Time On Target" is already updated by CAW with adjustments to the parameters for plane types, weapon loadouts, etc ... there would simply be two additional parameters for fleet movement included in the equations.) E.g., if the selected target is at such extreme range that it can only be reached by having the fleet head straight for it after launching the strike, the fleet movement widgets would default to values that allow the strike to be launched, and player adjustments limited (or at least flagged via TOT) accordingly. So, no math for the player .. that was my idea.

I may not be remembering precisely how airstrikes are set up in CAW, as it has been a VERY long time. So perhaps I've made one or more assumptions with this proposal that aren't valid. Anyway, I just wanted to throw the idea out there, 'cause I think the new version of CAW could be even nicer if it could somehow do away with the "launch planes and then drop anchor until they return" quirk.

Thanks for all of the follow-up comments, by the way. It's interesting to see how other old CAW players' experiences compared to mine.

- David Sandberg

[dudalb_slith]

Best News in Ages!
Question: What scenarios will be included? Hopefully The Phillipine Sea will be included.
I am hoping that maybe a exapansion will include all the scenarios in Complete Carrier At War,including the Atlantic and Mediterrnean theaters. It is the only game that gives a chance for the Carrier freak to sample carrier warfate in the Atlantic and the Med.

[Ron Belcher]

Gregor,
   Not to sound cheap (for I owned two copies each of CAW / CAW2 / Editor). When the upated version gets released,
will the older version be a free download off of Matrix.com?  As is the case with Pacific War by G. Grigsby, respectively.
Thanks.

[Gregor_SSG]

ORIGINAL: tactician93612

Gregor,
Not to sound cheap (for I owned two copies each of CAW / CAW2 / Editor). When the upated version gets released,
will the older version be a free download off of Matrix.com? As is the case with Pacific War by G. Grigsby, respectively.
Thanks.

I hadn't thought about that, but my first response is that it might raise a number of issues about getting the old game to run which we don't want to deal with. The dedicated people who have already solved those problems are a self-selecting group who have both the motivation and the technical skills to run things like DOSBox. We can't expect that to be the case with a generally available download.

Gregor

[David Sandberg]

My main problem with my old copy of CAW is that I haven't figured out how to fit a 5.25" floppy disk into a 3.5" drive.  It doesn't seem like folding the disk in half would work.