Matrix Games Forums

This a repost of one in the AAR sub-forum, but for any of you who don't go there regularly this is for you:

Many of you have invested a lot of time and effort into writing up great AARs for the Northern Fury scenarios, and we appreciate that.

So in an effort to show that appreciation, we've collected all of these platyest reports and AARs into one place, organized them a little and made them easier to find (harder to lose).

This is still a work in progress:
-If you find any errors or omissions please let me know
-As more AARs and playtest reports are added I'll do my best to keep the site updated
-I still haven't figured out how to add video AARs, so once I do that, those will be added as well.

The page is a dropdown from the main Northern Fury webpage, they are organized by Theater with 4x subsets for Northern Fury and there is a page for each scenario. The writeup is a cut out of the scenario description with a few comments added.

Here is a link directly to the scenario page: http://northernfury.us/aar/nf/nfpart1/

Your feedback is welcome as I want to make this readily accessible to all. Most importantly if I've missed any or gotten anything wrong, please let me know and I'll fix it.

Bart

Hello all,

One of our French readers (Thomas Diana) has translated and reposted our blogs about turning a story into a book.

You can find the French translation on his website here: https://blogconstellations.home.blog/20 ... -au-livre/

If you want to read (or re-read) the blogs in English, you can always find them and our other blogs here:

Story to Book, Part I: How does a story become a scenario? http://northernfury.us/blog/post5/
Story to Book, Part II: How does a scenario become a scene in the book?: http://northernfury.us/blog/post6/

He's done a review (a while back) of the book (Mr Google can help the non-French among us) as well: https://blogconstellations.home.blog/20 ... dunzel-vo/

Thomas has also written some Alternate history and translated it to English: His Webpage has the links to the original French versions and the English translations can be found here:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=At-Edge-Abys ... nb_sb_noss

I only had partial French instruction (and really wished I'd taken the more useful Spanish instead), but I still immediately recognized " Tempête rouge de Tom Clancy ". [:'(]

Bought!

Thankyou. Enjoy!

Folks

In response to a number of queries from around the bazars, here is a quick update on book #2

Thanks to everyone who continues to be excited about the story we're telling in Northern Fury! A lot of you have written to ask us about the release timeline for the next book. We wanted to give a bit of an update on our progress.

In short, we're working towards a release date of early next year. We're very proud of H-Hour and are committed to ensuring the follow-on books are of the same caliber. The gap between books has been longer than we'd like due to some professional and family factors for both of us, but it's important for us to put out a quality story rather than a rushed one, which takes time and effort, as I think everyone out there knows. We continue to be amazed by the support and encouragement we've gotten from you all and that makes us all the more eager to get the rest of the exciting story we're telling into your hands in its best possible form.

We're not ready to announce any firm dates yet, but wanted to assure everyone that it's coming and that we know it will be worth the wait!

We really appreciate the continued support we get from all of you on this forum, particularly the playtesters. So although we cannot give you a date yet we ask for your continued patience.

Bart & Joel

Glad to hear it! Take as much time as you need.

Glad to hear that! One cannot rush quality, and the work of art you guys are creating is definitely of that sort.

By the way, who came up with that sunbathing in eve and adam's outfit? You can't make this up

If I recall correctly, that was Joel who came up with that one. He does most of the character development and I think he does a pretty good job at it.

Glad you enjoy the story.

Take your time, guys, H-Hour was a blast!

The original was great and I'm glad to see the next one is in progress. You write 'em, I'll buy 'em.

Cheers,
CB

Thank you for the kind words CB.

Making great headway on book 2, there will be a name change announcement in the coming weeks as we fine tune the story, the original one we had picked just doesn't work any more.

B

Hay everyone

We thought we'd mark the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev this week with a quick blog. http://northernfury.us/blog/post28/

He plays a significant role in our story, because of his absence. In chapter one, the exact point our history diverges from reality is when Gorbachev's life ends. Alternate histories by their very nature are speculation, and we examine a possible world without him, while we know how the world evolved with him. An interesting comparison.

Got the audiobook, the accents attempted by the narrator make me want to stick pencils in my ears. It's Don Cheadle doing a cockney accent kind of bad. I'll get the ebook next time.

Our voice actor was working his first major project and learning the ropes of how to do audiobooks. Also our first time dealing with audiobooks. Many like the accents but many, like yourself, don't. They will be toned down and more moderated next time.

Sorry you had that experience, hopefully you enjoyed the story

B

Just updated our webpage with all the great reviews on scenarios we've been getting lately. Check it out: http://northernfury.us/aar/cf/

Out of curiosity, I converted and updated Northern Fury scenarios to Tiny/DB 497a.

I proceeded to get my butt whupped, almost every scenario against the Soviets turned into routs unless the might AIM-54 was available and in large numbers. The NATO advantage in Radar is not a meaningful one with every fighting happening well within detection range, and the once mighty AMRAAM is badly outranged by the plentiful R-27, never mind R-27ER and R-33. After a while, it became apparent that the default WP engagement profile was set to engage at much too far, and you could waste all of their missiles and close in for NEZ shots with your own missiles. While effective, it was extremely micro/time intensive and felt "gamey". After all, human pilots would be smart enough to know to hold their shot if their previous 3 shots were fired at ineffective range.

That said, unless matrix allows the option of allowing players to revert to the old missile dynamic, existing NF missions will suffer significant balance issues.

- The power dynamic has shifted to PACT quite significantly, AMRAAM A has lost 13 miles of range. Other than the Phoenix, Pact enjoys superior AAM's. R-27ER/R-40 have decisive range advantages. Without exploiting the AI, a number of missions will become very difficult.

- On the other hand, the default ROE causes the AI them to waste most of their shots if both sides have (now very effective) auto-evade on. AI ROE needs to be changed to hold some missiles for NEZ range, otherwise the player can quite easily reduce the AI to IRAA only with some juking. Some testing with the editor shows that holding the longest range missile at NEZ and shooting other missiles at 50~25% of range is the hardest to deal with.

- Ground-based AA is neutered to a significant degree. Strike Fighters can casually fly into S-300 range and HARM them.

- Conversely, you can forget about defending your carrier in any mission where there is an escorted strike. Your F-14's have to both clear the escorts and shoot down all the backfires, the Hornet are of no help unless the strike is unescorted Su-24 or something, and you don't have the time to waste all the AI's R-27/R-33 before closing in with AMRAAMs.

- the Mig-31 is a demon from hell with auto-evade on. In testing, the only missile that can catch a Mig-31 is an AIM-54 shot from knife fight range. Offer a sacrifice and hope it wastes enough R-33's to allow your more valuable aircraft to do their job.

Thanks for taking the time to do that. I've been worried about the balance for some time now and Joel has pointed out that a few of the earlier scenarios have become very difficult.

To be sure, in the early days I gave the Sov any advantage I could to make them more survivable. The fearsome Su-27 could be easily killed by an AIM-9 wielding F-16 in most circumstances when handled by a good player and the Mig-31 had to stay way back, dump its missiles and run. Much of that has changed. OOBs need toned down, missile stocks have to be adjusted, basing needs to be rationalized, WRA needs to be fine tuned etc.

Currently, when played on the DB they were designed with I think it is still probably workable, but there are still some issues.

Several have asked if I intend to 'remaster' the scenarios. My answer so far has been maybe, someday. I'm thinking, and have had some serious discussion with Joel, that that time might come sooner.

What does remaster mean? This probably means different things to different folks, but to me it means:

-Updating the DB
-Using more and more effective Lua to get things done
-Fixing a bunch of minor issues which have cropped up
-Adding texture and depth where possible
-Revisiting cargo when appropriate
-Rebalancing - this is the time consuming bit
-a general clean up

So with about 80 scenarios complete so far, that is a bit of a task. Each will take from a few hours to a few days or more to mechanically do the work, a week or so of my testing, a month or so of community testing then touch-ups and release. So at one a week it will take nearly two years and there will be an average of 4-6 in testing at a time, a major commitment of time.

But I'm still trying to release new scenarios: 1 in testing and 2 more in the Med, 2 more in the the IO, 12 more in the North Atlantic and 9 left in the Pacific. And we have the issue of getting the books written and published, not a small task which we are not very quick on.

Therefore, I am not eager to start the remastering project while there is still new stuff to be done; however, I acknowledge that the need is there.

Well that was a long winded whinge to say, thankyou, I got it.

B

Just out of curiosity.
Even if the scenarios are not updated to the latest DB, the model for the AA missiles range still changes if played with "tiny", doesn't it?

What I mean it's that I still don't get what changes of those being introduced by "tiny" are "core" and what are "DB related".

And I appreciate the time taken to do the testing and the honest answer.

Keep up the good work everyone!

mikerohan wrote: Tue Jan 10, 2023 8:20 pm Just out of curiosity.
Even if the scenarios are not updated to the latest DB, the model for the AA missiles range still changes if played with "tiny", doesn't it?

What I mean it's that I still don't get what changes of those being introduced by "tiny" are "core" and what are "DB related".

I'm really not sure, will require a bit of experimentation