Matrix Games Forums

Here are the first 4 pages of the 5th tutorial.

I have switched around which colors will appear as backgrounds for each tutorial, but the color doesn't change within the tutorial - it is the same for all the pages.

The unit data panels still have some problems. I am reluctant to make them larger (wider) but I might have to resort to that to have a display that is clean, orderly, and complete.

4th and last in the series.

Page 5 is more submarines; 6 is naval units transporting other unit types, 7 and 8 are convoy pipelines, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are task forces (groups of naval units).

About Page 1 :
It can be bizarre to speak of a "weak defense" for a BB and the reverse for a CA.
It would be better to say that the BB has a low defense number, which means a very good resistance to damage, and on the contrary, a CA has a high defense factor, which means a low resistance to damage.

About Page 4, I feel that it would be better to first talk about normal submarines and in the next page about specialized submarines. It gives the feeling that specialized submarines are preponderant, and they are not. In a regulare WiF game, you only see a couple of Milchcow, Snorkel, Supply, and nearly never Walter or Missile subs.

Wouldn't it be good also to reminde the learning player of the scale of the units ?
That is, :

· 1 SCS or CV = 1 capital ship plus 4 to 6 DD.
· 1 SUB = 30 first line submarines.
· 1 TRS, 1 AMPH or 6 CP = 1 million tons of merchant shipping (100 to 300 ships of 3,000 to 10,000 tons).
. 1 ASW = around 5 to 20 DD/DE/corvette type units.
. 1 ASW-CV units = around 6 CVEs.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Here are the first 4 pages of the 5th tutorial.

About the ships' graphic as displayed on this screenshot :
I also remark with delight that the range & movement are both centered now, that's great [:)].
But, would it be possible to lower the ship's graphic a few pixels, so that it is more centered within the space left between the name, and the movement factor ? Even in the case of thename taking 2 lines, we can see here that there is room left below the graphic.

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Here are the first 4 pages of the 5th tutorial.

About the ships' graphic as displayed on this screenshot :
I also remark with delight that the range & movement are both centered now, that's great [:)].
But, would it be possible to lower the ship's graphic a few pixels, so that it is more centered within the space left between the name, and the movement factor ? Even in the case of thename taking 2 lines, we can see here that there is room left below the graphic.

As I mentioned when I said I was going to center the movement points, somewhere between 700 and 800 naval units now need to have their bitmap images tweaked. I have written a program to do that. It takes as input 3 #s: the unit #, pixels left/right, and pixels up/down, where left and up are entered as negative #s.

I'll be looking for volunteers someday to do that. Not today. I first want to redo the placement of the names that take two lines because they are too close together (on top of each other).

ORIGINAL: Froonp

About Page 4, I feel that it would be better to first talk about normal submarines and in the next page about specialized submarines. It gives the feeling that specialized submarines are preponderant, and they are not. In a regulare WiF game, you only see a couple of Milchcow, Snorkel, Supply, and nearly never Walter or Missile subs.

Wait until you see the second page on submarines.

ORIGINAL: Froonp

About Page 1 :
It can be bizarre to speak of a "weak defense" for a BB and the reverse for a CA.
It would be better to say that the BB has a low defense number, which means a very good resistance to damage, and on the contrary, a CA has a high defense factor, which means a low resistance to damage.

Hmmm, I need to read the rules again.

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Wouldn't it be good also to reminde the learning player of the scale of the units ?
That is, :

· 1 SCS or CV = 1 capital ship plus 4 to 6 DD.
· 1 SUB = 30 first line submarines.
· 1 TRS, 1 AMPH or 6 CP = 1 million tons of merchant shipping (100 to 300 ships of 3,000 to 10,000 tons).
. 1 ASW = around 5 to 20 DD/DE/corvette type units.
. 1 ASW-CV units = around 6 CVEs.

Maybe. But that seems like a lot of detail that isn't needed to play the game.

I'm thinking it would be useful to somehow indicate the range of numbers to be expected for each factor within each class so that when someone sees an "5" attack strength they know it's weak for a battleship but fantastic for a cruiser. Yes, its more work for the design team and I don't know how or where the information would be presented but I think it would help new players get a better handle on the thousands of units they are playing with.

In the last two submarines the data for range seems to be overwriting the following "ASW" text  [&:]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

I'm thinking it would be useful to somehow indicate the range of numbers to be expected for each factor within each class so that when someone sees an "5" attack strength they know it's weak for a battleship but fantastic for a cruiser. Yes, its more work for the design team and I don't know how or where the information would be presented but I think it would help new players get a better handle on the thousands of units they are playing with.

Good idea.
I made it using MS Excel, as I have the database of all WiF FE counters, I filtered down to only those used in MWiF.
I transformed it in a JPG for seeing in this Forum.

nice [:)] little table ...

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
I'm thinking it would be useful to somehow indicate the range of numbers to be expected for each factor within each class so that when someone sees an "5" attack strength they know it's weak for a battleship but fantastic for a cruiser. Yes, its more work for the design team and I don't know how or where the information would be presented but I think it would help new players get a better handle on the thousands of units they are playing with.

I will do a bit of this in the last 4 pages of this tutorial when I present task forces for 5 different nationalities.

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

In the last two submarines the data for range seems to be overwriting the following "ASW" text  [&:]

I've commented on this several times - the UnitData panel has several problems.

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft
I'm thinking it would be useful to somehow indicate the range of numbers to be expected for each factor within each class so that when someone sees an "5" attack strength they know it's weak for a battleship but fantastic for a cruiser. Yes, its more work for the design team and I don't know how or where the information would be presented but I think it would help new players get a better handle on the thousands of units they are playing with.

Good idea.
I made it using MS Excel, as I have the database of all WiF FE counters, I filtered down to only those used in MWiF.
I transformed it in a JPG for seeing in this Forum.

Interesting, but way too much detail for the tutorials. And just think about what hasn't been mentioned in the tutorials so far.

Interesting, but way too much detail for the tutorials. And just think about what hasn't been mentioned in the tutorials so far.

I know, but you can pick only a few data of a few types of ships :
- A BB Surface factor is most of the time 5-9, and it's defense factor is most of the time 1-4.
- A CA Surface factor is most of the time 2-4, and it's defense factor is most of the time 5-7.

I did the same calculations for Land units and Air units.