Matrix Games Forums

OK. We have scenario mods coming out the ying yang. Getting confusing and must be giving Spooky headaches. Despite confirmation that a concerted effort be made regarding the mod which we (Don Bowen/TankerAce and myself) are doing, itself originally inspired by Mike Johnson's (aka Lemurs!) efforts and subsequent absence, a way around GGs hard coded "respawning feature" and now, Andy Brown's fabulous MapMod, we still have little cooperation and innumerable scen mods popping up.

Are we going to cooperate on the "Sans Pareil" scenario or what?

Mike, you in?
Andrew, you in?
Justin is doing the art when he has time out from Plan Orange and school.

Don Bowen will be the editor in chief but we should all take responsibility for a portion of the project. Best way to do this? I believe Don is OK sending us a CD with our current scenario status. We need to all know where we are and what needs to be done.

Seems we are all going off in different directions when we could be building what we all want cooperatively.

Don Bowen will be the editor in chief but we should all take responsibility for a portion of the project. Best way to do this? I believe Don is OK sending us a CD with our current scenario status.

I'd be more than happy to do this and I have the time (and the CD burner). There are several others out there that are obviously well qualified and experienced and I'd willing defer to one of these.

I am primarily an OOB guy with an excellent library and a penchant for detail.

Below: six variations of 1930s Japanese freighters for the Ron/Don/Tankerace scenario. Varying size, capacity and speed.

so when do u think this combined scenario u guys are working on will be finished??? it sounds great!!!

Heck yeah! I emailed you Ron about getting some kind of chat session going that we can all read so we can get some kind of start on this.
You never emailed me back so i was unsure what was going on and I released my mod.

Let us figure some things out and get started.

Mike

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

so when do u think this combined scenario u guys are working on will be finished??? it sounds great!!!

My best guess would be a scenario based on the japanese invasion of china in 1936(Is that the right date?) [:'(]

Am i right?[:D]

I suppose we should outline what we are trying to accomplish here. This is going to be mainly an "as historically based as we can get it" scenario.

As stated earlier, we wanted to continue what Lemurs! started regarding bringing the OOBs up to snuff. I also wanted a way around the respawning feature and this scenario provides that by including all the ships ommitted from the OOB due to the naming issue. The way it is accomplished will allow players selecting this scenario to use the respawn or not. We can't disable the respawn feature, so it will be up to the players to keep respawned vessels out of play if they don't want it or keep the historic vessels out of play (they will be recognizable by a * next to their name) if allowing respawn. Now with Andrew Brown's map, the time do this scenario is at hand. This scenario will work for the stock long map and Andy's.

Regarding the OOBs...

More is better for the Japanese. Since Japan's units have no real requirement for withdrawl as all remain in theatre, every effort is being made (by Don Bowen) to include all Japanese vessels. He has actually run out of ship slots for Japan!

For the Allies, the lack of a universal withdrawl feature hampers/skews historical unit availability and more often than not places Japan at further disadvantage because many units included were only available during certain periods during the "War in the Pacific"(TM)[;)] Not a whole lot we can do here except not include some units, be they land, air or naval. What would be really cool would be if 2by3 would expand the British Royal Navy withdrawl requirement to include the other navies and the merchant fleets. Even more cool would be a withdrawl requirement for land and air units as well.[;)]Please....[:D]with loads of sugar on it.[:D][:D]

The game will also receive reinforcements to the conclusion of the time allowed. These OOB additions will be based on realistic unit availability dates. Some new units will be included, for example, "Tiger Force" from Bomber Command with Lancasters, P-80s, F8F Bearcats, Ryan Fireballs, USS Hawaii, last two Iowas, Montanas. All Japan's cancelled vessels will be included also, Japan's success governing if any will be built.

We'll continue outlining what we are trying to do here. Any input is welcome.

ORIGINAL: Lemurs!

Heck yeah! I emailed you Ron about getting some kind of chat session going that we can all read so we can get some kind of start on this.
You never emailed me back so i was unsure what was going on and I released my mod.

Let us figure some things out and get started.

Mike

Darn, must have slipped through the cracks over Christmas. Excellent. Should we set a CHAT ROOM time?

Pry is also working on a scenario and it includes a more detailed approach to air units. Maybe we can all hook up.[:)]

Given that this is more a PBEM suited endeavour, we could also explore the Russian Pacific Fleet. One of the reasons it was omitted originally may have been the complication of incorporating it with the AI regarding active/inactive status.

Let us figure some things out and get started.

Great!

The rough outline we have in mind is:

Use Andrew Brown's new map and new bases.
Tweaked devices (like a new Honey Tank variation that upgrades to Grants for use in British Armored units)
Greatly expand war and merchant ship classes for detail (which plays very well, by the way)
Lots of new artwork (we already have Tankerace's)
Reworked aircraft, especially with the added carrier-capable slots (we badly need a combined Allied and Japanese top, side, and top-alpha so everyone can play every scenario)
Thoroughly researched and detailed OOBs – ships, Air Groups, LCU (someone will have to help with Leaders and Pilots)
Improved TOEs (lots of good ideas on the forum, need to pull them together. Volunteers??)
“Borrow” improvements from several released scenarios - especially Andrew Brown’s and yours (Lemurs)

Here's some more merchant ships: Three variations of the U.S. World War I Liberty Ship - West Coaster, Hog Islander Type A (cargo), Hog Islander Type B (Transport). There was also a slightly larger Submarine Boat type but I don't have any reference data on it - I'd appreciate help if anyone does.

Ron,

We certianly appreciate seeing a group launch a "shareware" project.

Two comments.

1. Less is more ... when you are blue-sky-ing ... consider anything and everything. But when you nail down your scope and resources and timeframe ( and nail down all three together so everyone knows what they are signing up for ) keep it to the minimum to accomplish your overall goal IOW prioritize ruthlessly and only commit to deliver the minimal items that meet your goals - you will add things whether you want to or not but if you "commitment" list doesn't satisfy your stakeholders ... ask for more resources (or time).

2. What is currently called Japanese production ... is a zero-sum game (no pun intended) in other words the Japanese don't get any options to expand anything beyond its historial proportions ( I'm thinking air here cause that is mostly what matters )... i.e. I can't decide that carrier planes aren't worth it and build 50 Jack Sentai instead even if I wanted to. Over to ships ... I can't accelerate PC ... which is the one thing I'd want to do most IRL ( escourts to fight the USN Subs ).

Those are my two primary inputs.

Joe W.

Guys, if some of you modders work together and release something like a combined mod...that would make my day for sure. Keep it going!

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Pry is also working on a scenario and it includes a more detailed approach to air units. Maybe we can all hook up.[:)]

Damn Ron - four posts while I was typing one. I feel positively inadequate.

I've seen Pry's scenario and the squadron level data looks great. Some of it is in the scenario.

One of the problems we are running into is the limit of Japanese ships. Only 2999. Sounds like a lot but we used nearly 120 for the missing Japanese Landing ships. We also had added about 50 Japanese PTs but these are going to have to go due to space problems - not a big deal as they were slow and not heavily used. Some of the captured ships may be deleted too (who knows, they may not have been captured) so we can add the Japanese Standard Type A War time building program (about 140 ships) along with a bunch of additional (and valuable) pre-war merchants.

Japanese Type ES LST, Type T 1 Landing Ship (implemented as an APD), Type T-101 LST.

I smell my lovely extra CV's that the real life dummies canceled coming in.[:D][:D][:D]

I will gladly play test it. Won't we Ron?

P.S. The PT boats can be tossed aside. With Ron's little ASW fix in play they are next to worthless anyway.[:D]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

I smell my lovely extra CV's that the real life dummies canceled coming in.[:D][:D][:D]

I will gladly play test it. Won't we Ron?

P.S. The PT boats can be tossed aside. With Ron's little ASW fix in play they are next to worthless anyway.[:D]

The fix I only tried with the Mk8 torps on US PTs. If PTs use non specific torps, then I can't alter the accuracy.

I want to try adding armor to subs based on pressure hull thickness/test depth as well, as our last ASW engagement had an incredibly high hit percentage despite my adjustments. This will allow durability to come down and make subs less exhorbitantly expensive for Japan to manufacture. Apparently DCs can penetrate very small armor ratings despite having a 0 pen rating. Whether or not it will actually work is another matter.[:'(]

Well, I don't use PT boats anyway in our games. We never seem to get beyond my offensive period anyway.

Let me know when you make the changes and send me the fix and we will test it.

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Well, I don't use PT boats anyway in our games. We never seem to get beyond my offensive period anyway.

Let me know when you make the changes and send me the fix and we will test it.

Only the Japanese PTs will be omitted. The U.S. ones will still be there plus the British Units of the 2nd MTB Flotilla (at Hong Kong) and the Q-boats of the Philippine Army Offshore Patrol.

I should let everyone know that there was a fully functional scenario under version 1.2. The decision to rework it was prompted by the release of the corrected scenarios in V1.3 and the mass of errors uncovered by witpchk. Then the availability of new data sources let to an explosion in merchant ship classes.

By the way, there are a number of wonderful people that have greatly helped me (and all of us) and richly deserve some thanks:

Michael McFarland for WITPchk (absolute proof of how clumsy I am) and WITPLoad. These two tools have greatly helped in finding errors and analyzing data. I have 72 meg of Access Databases built from WITPLoad extracts and they are a great help.

Spooky - his web site is download central for all of us. His site is well organized, frequently updated, provided at no charge, and absolutely indispensable.

My personal thanks to these two fine gentlemen.


USMC Standard TYpes: C1 Cargo Ship, C2 Cargo Ship, C2-S-A1 Special Cargo Type, C3 Cargo Ship, C3-P Type as an APA, P2 Type Transport (Admiral and General Classes)

No worry's Don. I assumed that by now you know I am a Japanese player.

I like the thought of playing the underdog and winning the war. Not by points either. By kicking the Allied players butt all over the map any time he sticks his head out.

As long as I get my extra CV's included, I will be happy. I want to have to make choices on what to build and what to stop. I may not be able to build them all, but having the choice is the best side of it.

I will live with the 2 extra Taiho's that the dummy's ordered and then cancelled for 11 and never started in early 42. I figure their arrival date at or around Oct 44 and Dec 44.

This is going to be great.

My contribution to the project will increase once War Plan Orange is done, or at least in testing.

On WPO note, all ships, classes, and ship graphics are now completed. I just have to finish A/c graphics, LCUs, and building the smaller scenarios.

Also, 2 WPO graphics will be in this project, the Cruiser Tokiwa which was a minelayer in WW2, and the Panay class gunboat.

This is probably going to be the WiTP scenario to play. One can only hope it becomes official.

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

This is going to be great.

My contribution to the project will increase once War Plan Orange is done, or at least in testing.

On WPO note, all ships, classes, and ship graphics are now completed. I just have to finish A/c graphics, LCUs, and building the smaller scenarios.

Also, 2 WPO graphics will be in this project, the Cruiser Tokiwa which was a minelayer in WW2, and the Panay class gunboat.

This is probably going to be the WiTP scenario to play. One can only hope it becomes official.

Yep - they're in there, along with all the excellent graphics that you've previously done. Here they are, Tokiwa with her aft turret removed, a cargo boom added, and mines aft. Panay is unaltered: