Wishlist thread

[Oleg Mastruko]

My list


Necessary tweaks:

- LARGER MAPS. AI may play fair and not chase you to the very end of the map but human player will. Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz maps are too confined to the south and if USN player wants to retreat towards Australia or Noumea he simply can't do it, he can be "artificially cornered" if IJN player decides to exploit the small map (I've had it happen)

- During the strike animation, it appears as if damage animation in bottom left sometimes gets reset to zero. Heavily damaged ship suddenly becomes "clean" (only to be damaged, again). Is this intended for some reason?


Suggestions (kinda like one man's opinion for what it's worth - you're free to disagree):

- The "turnover" time to land the returning strike, rearm and refuel it, and send it out again seems too short, as many posters already noted. Rearming a *returning* strike to send them out *again* should take longer (just my gut feeling). Same for landbases, especially small ones.

- In the same vein, landbases rated for low number of aircraft are too efficient when overloaded, serving too many squadrons and too many aircraft. Now, it is my impression AI will never overload a small airfield, but the human opponent can and will. When he does, it is my impression penalties for overloading are negligible, in any case too forgiving.

- I think airstrikes vs landbases should produce more damage. What about the destroyed aircraft?? Apparently there are none. Honestly I don't care about the damage to the airfield, but I'd like to see some aircraft destroyed on the ground, otherwise airstrikes vs airfields really don't make any sense at all. In the same vein - do naval bombardments produce any damage to the airfield/aircraft? They should.


Welcome improvements:

- What about long range CAP ie the ability to project CAP over friendly force some distance away?
- More maps
- Randomized (to a degree) starting positions
- Record & Replay feature

PS. BTW I don't think the game needs to take care of the wind, that's too tactical for this scale.

[RyanCrierie]

I have not expressed myself that well, but this good game could be so much more.

Well, it could be easily possible to lengthen the recovery cycles and launch cycles to be more in line with reality; e.g. you could easily launch a small flight of 4 aircraft in a couple of minutes; but any big 40+ aircraft formations end up taking a while to do...same with recovery ops...

[MarkShot]

The original game does give you a lot more information on strike packages that have been set up. Pursuant to my first post which launched this thread.

[RayWolfe]

Hi Mark
It's still there. Try Briefing Screen/Squadrons.
So far, I cant find any parts of the original that are missing in the new but getting to it is not intuitive for someone like me (old and set in his ways) and who has been playing the original from day one until last month!
Cheers
Ray

[Gregor_SSG]

As Ray said, on the Briefing screen, between the Squadrons and the Strike History buttons you can learn just about anything you want to know.

Gregor

[MarkShot]

Missing - extended range strikes:

tm.asp?m=1492134

Also, see page 42 of the CCAW Manual.

[MarkShot]

More strike package details from CCAW.

[1275psi]

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG

Just to let people know that we are reading and considering all the messages here. It's a bit too early to respond to all of them, but there are some I can answer now and and also some guidance I can give on how we are likely to approach design issues.

In general, requests for more information, where people are asking for details that the system already has or can easily work out are more likely to be possible than requests for more detail, where the whole system would have to be redesigned. Similarly requests to deny or delay information can sometimes be easily accomodated. Please note, these are general statements only, not specific promises at this stage.

For instance, the question was asked about designating SBDs for CAP. As far as I know, this was only done once or twice, on an emergency basis, where planes that were already in the air, and that would have otherwise orbited their carrier at a discreet distance were told to have a go at incoming strike aircraft.

We don't think its worth redesigning a significant part of the game to account for a chance ocurrence that had no significant effect on the outcome of a strike.

Similarly, Carriers turned into the wind all the time, to launch and recover CAP, searchplanes and ASW patrols. We see this as a routine ocuurrence which didn't affect the big picture of carrier battles. The big picture is all about how you place your forces relative to those of the enemy, and how you handle them when those relationships are established.

Carriers at War concentrates on the big picture because its more important and we believe, more fun. The abstractions that we use make the game quick and exciting to play but leave the player with plenty of tough decisions to make. They facilitate both single and multiplayer games. Our approach makes the game scale better, so a huge scenario like Philippine Sea is still eminently playable.

The CAW design philosophy also make it harder for the human player to use cheesy tactics and arcane rules manipulation to outgame the AI. In Carriers at War, you trade blows on a more or less equal basis with the AI, and this actually makes for a much better game in the long term.

Gregor

Thanks for the reply
And really this is why Matrix is tops, you do listen
I think your views are probably valid for what CAW is, just was after something more intricate when I bought it, I remain hopeful that one day Matrix will come up with the "ultimate CV game" .
In the meantime, CAW will remain for me a nice quick way to fill an hour or so, really appreciate the effort and the forums

Herbie

[Adam Parker]

Mark are those light blue graphics on the screen TG movement trails?

We don't have this in the current CaW do we - ie: any info on course heading and speed of friendly TG's or sightings? I like this, maybe we can have a "show historical movement path" toggle like you get on a CiC screen?

Another wish:

When you click on a friendly TG the movement dots/way points of the previously selected TG are toggled off, which makes it a memory game when coordinating TF movement. Could we have a "show all TG movement orders" button?

[MarkShot]

Adam,

Sorry, dissappoint you, but those are land masses. No movement trails.

However, the right hand screen displays (subs, search A/C, strike A/C, ...) do generate a line drawn from the display panel to the object on the map. You are seeing that in the previous screen.

However, an ability to turn on TG/TF trails like available on the Sub Command map might be an interesting feature.

---

Has anyone asked for a replay facility yet? That would be cool. Also, it would be cool if it was handled like Sub Command where you could either see what you "thought" at the time or "show truth" meaning no FOW.

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: MarkShot

Adam,

Sorry, dissappoint you, but those are land masses. No movement trails.

LOL! You think your eyes are bad [:D]

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Please put a B-17E in the game.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Another doctrinal suggestion for the 1942 battles...

Limit the CAP over IJN carrier TG to half of the fighters available to the group.

Doctrine dictated that the other half be reserved for ATTACKS.

Defense was looked up as a secondary and unworthy chore at this point in the war.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Duck Doc]

I second this one or to say it another way:

I would like the option of leaving the animation off & only displaying the strike result graphic as is already shown as the animation is playing.

Also I never played the original but I really like information screens showing strike package composition & status Mark has shown from the original. I know the move is toward eye candy but I would urge a retro re-make of the game to include what was in the old.

I would also like to see times included in the various phases of aircraft prep for a strike i.e. time remaining for fueling & arming, time before launching.

How about detailed status of CAP's & their combats?

What about differentiating between loading armor piercing & non-armor piercing bombs? I suspect this has been mentioned but I may have missed it.

ORIGINAL: hobbes

Option to turn off premature combat result graphic (result of strike is displayed before actual bomb run animation)

Cheers, Chris

[RyanCrierie]

Can you make Strikes on Ports or land targets have animations, like attacks on ship targets?

[RyanCrierie]

Oh, small feature request SSG; when you're laying down map hex designations in the map editor, like Open, Forest, Impassable, etc can you make it so that rightclicking lays down a "blob" of five hexes; making laying large stretches of ocean much easier?

[Unhappy]

I wish...

That the 'Startup Warcards' were not activated until AFTER the player hits 'Start Game'.  That way the scenario designer could use some of the Startup Warcards to change the initial dispositions and aims of each sides' forces, introducing some variability and unknowns into the game.  Also, this would require adding % possibilities and threadout values to the Startup Warcards  to accomodate the initial 'branching.'

For example:

Shift TG Location - to alter the starting location of Taskgroups
Alter TG Mission - so that the player would not know definitively ahead of time what the enemy was attempting to accomplish
Transfer Warships - to alter the make up of Taskgroups
Transfer Squads - to redeploy aircraft to different airbases
Delete forces - (maybe) to remove some forces the player thought would be present from his force pool or the enemies (surprise!)
Conditional Missions and Conditional Ship Preservation - to alter the victory point value - thus the player might need to change their strategy to suit these changed conditionals
Change Naval/Change Air VPs - like above
Redeploy submarines - so that a player could never know for sure where they would be lurking

As an example...it is the fall of 1942 - Japanese forces are spotted steaming Southeast from Truk, the group includes a large invasion fleet, you believe they are headed to Guadalcanal, but maybe they'll go for Pt. Moresby...or northern Australia?  OK - far out example but the uncertainty would add to the game.  The initial forces could be altered for each possibility.

Some of these warcards may need to trigger a pop-up window to inform the player about changed conditions - these could reflect FoW, imperfect intelligence, Acts of God, Ship breakdowns, unforseen events whatever.

I realize implementing some of these warcards would necessitate a large amount of branching - especially altering TG Mission - and a corresponding increase in the amount of 'work' the scenario designer would have to do in the Warroom.  However, it would introduce some variability (and excitement) into the game that I believe players would appreciate.

Thanks.

[Owl]

I think it's been discussed before but if so I'll kick the dead horse - I would like for a carrier fleet to be able to continue to close (or open as the case may be) range to a target while the planes are in the air.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG

For instance, the question was asked about designating SBDs for CAP. As far as I know, this was only done once or twice, on an emergency basis, where planes that were already in the air, and that would have otherwise orbited their carrier at a discreet distance were told to have a go at incoming strike aircraft.

Hi Gregor,

The SBD was used routinely on IAP (Inner Air Patrol). They were pressed into service early in the war because U.S. carriers were equipped with so few dedicated fighters. While certainly not as effective a fighter as the Wildcat, it did have two forward-firing fifties and more than enough speed to catch a Kate lumbering around with a torpedo under its belly. As time went on, and the number of fighters doubled (and then tripled), their employment in the air-defense role was curtailed. My suggestion was based on the fact that CaW already makes provision for multi-role a/c, and this is something that would likely cause the programmer no great consternation.

Thanks for sharing,

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[82nd Airborne]

apologies if these are repeats
1-after I've had 89 dive bombers nearly obliterate the 2 tankers and 1 DD, can my search result please change from saying there is a CV in that group?
2-fix the CAP not launching
3-a strike package recap screen to see at a glance what is heading where and when it will be there and back
4- a strike result recap that shows , along with the damaged ships, a graphical representation of CAP fighters faced, planes lost by type
thanks