Matrix Games Forums

This is from the attached readme file:

If you add a secondary attribute (1, or 2) and don’t put in any secondary data, you are screwed. The default is then ‘0’ and nothing will function.

Nothing here says what should go into the secondary data fields. They are there for your modding convenience and if you break it, please don’t complain on the tech thread. Only the Babes people support this stuff.

I'm thinking about running a book on who will be the first person to

• not put in any secondary data
• insert nonsensical data into the secondary data fields

and then go to the tech sub forum and pester michaelm that the game is broken.

I might also consider running a book on how strong will be the complaints that this doesn't apply to the official Matrix scenarios. Also think I would get a lot of takers on a JFB v AFB breaking out as once again one side gets assistance at the expense of the other.[:)]

Alfred

Quick question, I'm assuming that using the editor to tweak the latest scenario files with the witploadAE AA fix and saving, will not overwrite the unseen data fix in the scenario files?

ORIGINAL: noguaranteeofsanity
Quick question, I'm assuming that using the editor to tweak the latest scenario files with the witploadAE AA fix and saving, will not overwrite the unseen data fix in the scenario files?

That's right. Michael did a great job on making this all work. Been tweaking files with Sec_Data using the editor for quite a while. Nothing got dropped or overwritten yet. [;)]

ORIGINAL: FatR
I assumed the further code changes will also include provisions about AA guns having lesser effect against surface targets, judging the appropriate date already entered into the scenario?

Those changes are already there. Sec_Attrib = 1 is for AA guns with a secondary surface role. A couple cautions, here, there aren't all that many. This is for AA guns on ships that are used by the naval surface combat routine. Not AA guns in LCUs; that's a different routine. So you won't see many in the scenarios.

ORIGINAL: Alfred
I might also consider running a book on how strong will be the complaints that this doesn't apply to the official Matrix scenarios

Won't take that bet. [;)] Who knows, maybe one day it might get included, if it works satisfactorily for everyone using the mods that have it. Never can tell.

Nonsensical data will physically 'function'. Just so long as there's some kind of numbers in the Sec_ columns. I'm sure Michael will support the code aspects of this, but it's the modder's own nickel when it comes to the numbers.

Alfred just wants to be the bookie for bets about the level of whining, because he knows the house always makes money! [:D]

I have managed to confuse myself, it seems the little woman may be correct that I have a knack for doing that. If I simply use Bigbabes v8 your changes are in place and it works fine. But if I want to add this data into a current running mod I have to use MichaelM's witpaelaod to do this?

So John can we just copy the data from the DP guns  from the Babes or do we have to use the new WitpaeLoad ?

ORIGINAL: che200

So John can we just copy the data from the DP guns  from the Babes or do we have to use the new WitpaeLoad ?

I second this question...and to re-phrase:

1. If I just download new DaBabes versions, is there need to use new WitpaeLoad or will new scenarios work without using it?
2. If downloading new DaBabes versions, will the database AA changes update to existing DaBabes save or only when starting a new game?

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

ORIGINAL: che200
So John can we just copy the data from the DP guns  from the Babes or do we have to use the new WitpaeLoad ?

I second this question...and to re-phrase:

1. If I just download new DaBabes versions, is there need to use new WitpaeLoad or will new scenarios work without using it?
2. If downloading new DaBabes versions, will the database AA changes update to existing DaBabes save or only when starting a new game?

1. Nope, the Babes scenarios have all the data already in there, good to go. No need to do anything.

2. AA/DP data changes are in the Device file, so should update into existing games with no issues a 'tall, a 'tall. Messed with one particular Brit AA gun that had huge RoF differences between certain mounts and so dinked with Class armament for Battles and Didos, and fixed about 4 others, but these are all late arriving ships, so there should be no vestigal doo doo on existing vessels, like what happened with sub split tubes. Even if your game is already in '44 or '45, it won't hurt much if your ship files don't update. The old guns aren't that much different from what they originally were, so it's a case of - it won't hurt, it just won't help.

Hope this helps. J

Knew this would happen. Getting pms from folks saying why is this gun’s ceiling xx,xxx. I have a website that says it is yy,yyy.

There’s 5 or 6 different max ceilings in a gun’s specs. Many sites just say max ceiling (altitude), or max effective ceiling. Don’t say squat about which they are talking about. And, of course, all are vastly different.

In Babes, we use “Max Effective Ballistic Vertical Range” as defined by the US Army Coast and Antiaircraft Artillery (Field Manual Series FM-4) as a basis. This is a good basis for two reasons: consistency and how the game code treats high altitudes.

Consistency, because this parameter is readily available for most Allied guns from their official trial statistics. Many Axis weapons were also tested and specified to the same standards. The tube/shell/ballistic parameters of this value are very well established such that any weapon can have this value calculated from first principles from its service specs.

Game effects, because a gun’s effectiveness drops off as a function of altitude. Just because a gun a max ceiling of 41,000 doesn’t mean it can hit anything up that far. Altitude % chance drop off is a quasi inverse square function of max ceiling, and is very severe at the top 20-25%. So the code just happens to convert max vertical effective into honest to gosh max effective (imagine that, maybe GG knew what he was doing?).

This isn’t ultimate max ballistic ceiling. That is even larger, and ya’ll can see where and why we picked the effective max ballistic. And then there were the fuse parameters; fuses were set on time, and muzzle velocity, atmospherics, shell aerodynamics, and slant range were supremely important. Some guns had much better ballistic parameters than their fuse characteristics would seem to suggest. Believe me, as much of that as humanly possible is incorporated into the Ceiling value in Babes.

The Ceiling value is set up to give relative altitude based % hit efficiencies in accord with the Field Manual performance plots, and normalized to Nigel Evans’ ballistics.

Just for grins, your basic 3” M3 AA gun had many different max ranges:
Max Ballistic Altitude Ceiling: 32,200 feet
Max Effective Vertical Range: 30,300 feet
Max Effective Slant Range: 28,500 feet
Max Effective Fire Control Range: 25,000 feet
Max Fuse Time: 15 sec (M2 with M4/M5 Setting Director), at 2,700 f/s FTMV

I think on this particular gun we used max slant, because it was further limited by FC and fuse constraints.

Your basic 90mm M1A1 AA gun had:
Max Ballistic Altitude Ceiling: 36,000 feet
Max Effective Vertical Range: 33,000 feet
Max Effective Slant Range: 34,500 feet
Max Effective Fire Control Range: 30,000 feet
Max Fuse Time: 15 sec (M2 with M4/M5 Setting Director), at 2,700 f/s FTMV

On this one we used MEVR instead of slant, because it was smaller and worked better with the FC and fuse limitations.

I guess this is just a polite way of saying why we are not particularly interested in what some website has to say. Folks find something from Ft Sill, Woolwich, Sydney, etc .. we are all ears. Otherwise ....

John,

Do the Japanese 5inchers in the DD's still retain their DP status in Babes?

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

John,

Do the Japanese 5inchers in the DD's still retain their DP status in Babes?

After reading this thread, I was thinking about the Japanese DD 'quazi' DP guns. You can probably still have them DP, with horrible AA stats (which I think is historical), but still the accurate surface stats. I'm sure John and the Babes team have this thought out much better than I have. I'm looking forward to checking out the details. [:)]

In the last version of my mod i opted to change the 5in equipped Japanese DD's to their SP varients as part of a means to reduce the over effective kill results i was seeing from Japanese sea based flak. However i remain concerned over the impact this might have on enemy bomb accuracy. John's test results too have been different from mine so i'm very interested in checking out Babes for the AA variations as well as the logistical improvements. His tweaks may make the changes i made superfluous so am curious on his dark mysterious thought processes from deep within Babes MadLab....home of the deep Dark MATH. [:D]

The pale, rotting, cankerous denizens of Babes MadLab, who dance their diseased limbs away before the image of dead, dreaming, Cthulhu and his putrescent mate Math, in the vile, slimy, green, nacreous ruins of eons dead R'lyeh, got some ideas in that regard. Pm coming at ya, if you're man enuf and don't live in Arkham. [;)]

Oops; better lose your copy of the Necronomincon.

ORIGINAL: JWE

The pale, rotting, cankerous denizens of Babes MadLab, who dance their diseased limbs away before the image of dead, dreaming, Cthulhu and his putrescent mate Math, in the vile, slimy, green, nacreous ruins of eons dead R'lyeh, got some ideas in that regard. Pm coming at ya, if you're man enuf and don't live in Arkham. [;)]

Oops; better lose your copy of the Necronomincon.

You needed to have some kind of alert before posting that. I will be cleaning up around the computer table for a while. [:D]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Knew this would happen. Getting pms from folks saying why is this gun’s ceiling xx,xxx. I have a website that says it is yy,yyy.

There’s 5 or 6 different max ceilings in a gun’s specs. Many sites just say max ceiling (altitude), or max effective ceiling. Don’t say squat about which they are talking about. And, of course, all are vastly different.

In Babes, we use “Max Effective Ballistic Vertical Range” as defined by the US Army Coast and Antiaircraft Artillery (Field Manual Series FM-4) as a basis. This is a good basis for two reasons: consistency and how the game code treats high altitudes.

Consistency, because this parameter is readily available for most Allied guns from their official trial statistics. Many Axis weapons were also tested and specified to the same standards. The tube/shell/ballistic parameters of this value are very well established such that any weapon can have this value calculated from first principles from its service specs.

Game effects, because a gun’s effectiveness drops off as a function of altitude. Just because a gun a max ceiling of 41,000 doesn’t mean it can hit anything up that far. Altitude % chance drop off is a quasi inverse square function of max ceiling, and is very severe at the top 20-25%. So the code just happens to convert max vertical effective into honest to gosh max effective (imagine that, maybe GG knew what he was doing?).

This isn’t ultimate max ballistic ceiling. That is even larger, and ya’ll can see where and why we picked the effective max ballistic. And then there were the fuse parameters; fuses were set on time, and muzzle velocity, atmospherics, shell aerodynamics, and slant range were supremely important. Some guns had much better ballistic parameters than their fuse characteristics would seem to suggest. Believe me, as much of that as humanly possible is incorporated into the Ceiling value in Babes.

The Ceiling value is set up to give relative altitude based % hit efficiencies in accord with the Field Manual performance plots, and normalized to Nigel Evans’ ballistics.

Just for grins, your basic 3” M3 AA gun had many different max ranges:
Max Ballistic Altitude Ceiling: 32,200 feet
Max Effective Vertical Range: 30,300 feet
Max Effective Slant Range: 28,500 feet
Max Effective Fire Control Range: 25,000 feet
Max Fuse Time: 15 sec (M2 with M4/M5 Setting Director), at 2,700 f/s FTMV

I think on this particular gun we used max slant, because it was further limited by FC and fuse constraints.

Your basic 90mm M1A1 AA gun had:
Max Ballistic Altitude Ceiling: 36,000 feet
Max Effective Vertical Range: 33,000 feet
Max Effective Slant Range: 34,500 feet
Max Effective Fire Control Range: 30,000 feet
Max Fuse Time: 15 sec (M2 with M4/M5 Setting Director), at 2,700 f/s FTMV

On this one we used MEVR instead of slant, because it was smaller and worked better with the FC and fuse limitations.

I guess this is just a polite way of saying why we are not particularly interested in what some website has to say. Folks find something from Ft Sill, Woolwich, Sydney, etc .. we are all ears. Otherwise ....

Thanks for the explanation, looking for that Sydney data now[:D]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

ORIGINAL: che200
So John can we just copy the data from the DP guns  from the Babes or do we have to use the new WitpaeLoad ?

I second this question...and to re-phrase:

1. If I just download new DaBabes versions, is there need to use new WitpaeLoad or will new scenarios work without using it?
2. If downloading new DaBabes versions, will the database AA changes update to existing DaBabes save or only when starting a new game?

1. Nope, the Babes scenarios have all the data already in there, good to go. No need to do anything.

2. AA/DP data changes are in the Device file, so should update into existing games with no issues a 'tall, a 'tall. Messed with one particular Brit AA gun that had huge RoF differences between certain mounts and so dinked with Class armament for Battles and Didos, and fixed about 4 others, but these are all late arriving ships, so there should be no vestigal doo doo on existing vessels, like what happened with sub split tubes. Even if your game is already in '44 or '45, it won't hurt much if your ship files don't update. The old guns aren't that much different from what they originally were, so it's a case of - it won't hurt, it just won't help.

Hope this helps. J

Helps a lot! [8D]

Thanks for all the hard work!

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
John,

Do the Japanese 5inchers in the DD's still retain their DP status in Babes?

After reading this thread, I was thinking about the Japanese DD 'quazi' DP guns. You can probably still have them DP, with horrible AA stats (which I think is historical), but still the accurate surface stats. I'm sure John and the Babes team have this thought out much better than I have. I'm looking forward to checking out the details. [:)]

Yes, the ones in B and D turrets are still DPs. They spec out ok. The 10cm/65 specs out better, as do the Allied 4”, 4.5”, 4.7”, and 5”. Some of those spec out a ‘lot’ better. I limited the calculations to simple and basic stuff based on the parameters of the guns themselves. Could have got way more complex, but it really wouldn’t have made much difference. KISS.

Only thing missing from a complete description of AA effectiveness is mount characteristics. There are explicit corrections for director control and director quality, but that’s about it. If one starts looking at train rates vs eff engagement altitude and effective slant range, the trigonometry gets really fun, but the poor Japanese don’t get much AA effectiveness at all. It made more sense to just work with the “year adder” for the Allies and go backwards to 1941/42, using just the gun service specs.

RoF is also quite different given the modes and mount design (and ammo type – bagged or cased). Some guns could do 10 rpm at 10 degrees, but only 2 or 3 at anything greater than 45 degrees. Many Japanese mounts were notably deficient in that respect. They had to drop the barrel after every round; made for pretty poor engagement speed and consistency. But I didn’t get into that, either.

So yeah, many Japanese guns spec out better than perhaps they should (irl), but at least the numerical values are based on something completely consistent across all nations. If ya want to model the real differences in AA performance, here’s some fun things to think about.

Your typical J DD mount had a train rate of about 5 degrees/sec. The loading angle was about 10 degrees, so for AA work, ya had to raise the breech after every round (and hand rammed to boot). But the tube was ok. The 12.7/40 on CVs and BBs had a ‘fair’ tube with a decent RoF, but only a 6 degree train rate. Even though the 10cm/65 was an excellent tube, and could be loaded at any elevation, the mount train rate was about 15 degrees per second. Your typical 5”/38 (OBR, EBR and SP) mount had a train rate of 25 degrees/sec, and loaded at any angle (auto rammed). The Brit 4.5”/45 DD-type mount had a train rate of 20 degrees/sec, and loaded at any angle (also auto rammed).

The point of all this is that your train rate and RoF DEFINE your slant and effective engagement envelope (continuous 20 second target engagement). Do the ballistics trig, and set up the engagement cone, and J guns can only engage (moderately) high altitude and high slant targets effectively. And those are the very ones where gun effect and accuracy are at their worst. Performance “drops” as raid altitude decreases. Allied guns slew so much faster, and their cone is so much wider, that their engagement envelope is 16x (volumetric) that of Japan’s and the effective engagement cone diameter can get down to very low altitudes. And when you factor in range accuracy, it gets to where they are 64x as effective as the J equivalent. Even against the 10cm/65, the 5”/38 had a 10x better envelope, and was 25x more effective. And none of the envelope/effectiveness calculations includes FCS or RPC factors.

I only mention this to show that it was considered. But the results of an accurate model would so absolutely screw Japan, no matter how accurate it may be, that I just didn’t think it would be appropriate in terms of the game. So the decision, in Babes, was to tell the ‘truth’, but not the ‘whole truth’. So, it’s just the tubes.

Hope this helps.