spw@w and spww2 ver 3.0

[Paul Vebber]

To be honest I have not had the time to do much long camaign play...I know several playtesters have. I am pretty sure the limit is 140.

Units experience affects a great many things, form how many shots it has, to its OPfire, to its casualty rate and ability to "stay with" a damaged vehicle. Hit chances, spotting chances, chance of being spotted, etc all use exp as one of the key inputs. Once you get above 120 you are really dealing with "supermen".

Someone is redoing a Wittman scenario I believe for SP:WaW

Campaing players will also want to keep a finger on the "F9" key..."bail out". No more shooting at your own tanks to get that favorite elite crew to bail from an imobilized vehicle

[Harry]

Thanks Paul for your answers!

But I have more questions or ideas:

1. Sorry, but the "Bail-Out"-Option I have never missed, what I have missed is the reverse gear!
Consider this situation:
You are driving your tank and suddenly AT opportunity fire occurs. Now you decide it´s better to get out of this place and hide your tank behind a house. Two ways to go. First if you have smoke-discarger, pop smoke and hide behind a house. But what if you haven´t got smoke. You have to drive the tank back and then behind the house. But the SP-Engine do now something naughty. It turns the tank 180 degrees. Then move it one hex. When the tank enter the new hex, op-fire may occur, hitting the tank at his woundest spot, the rear! If he drives revers, he may have survived this, because of its front armour. My suggestion: You can drive revers at 2x or 3x or 4x movement costs. Or restrict this to one or two hexes per turn.
To change the gear press F8.

2. An time consumting procedure is to shift artillery. I think a better solution is this:
Plot your "hot-spots" in the deployment phase. Then if you want to fire artillery, plot them where you want them. The game automaticaly calculates the delay depending on the hot-spots. No more click-orgy!
This should be fine tuned on previous plotted artillery, aso.

3. I wonder how the defence bonus for the russians work :
You wrote: ".... They have their normal propensity for "fanatical defense" - ie in defend situations they can spontaneously rally in certan situations. ..."
Do you mean assault-defence games (very unlikely played) or do you mean SP3 defence stance( this would be very good)?

4. How do we achieve hull-down status. Is this a combination of defence stance(find the best spot for vehicles) + terrain?
The "dug in" message can then be taken as "hull down" message. Or something else?

5. Can maps be greater than large SP3 maps?


Harry


[This message has been edited by Harry (edited 04-17-2000).]

[chemninzt]

Hello to all here at spw@w. This is my first message here. I recently found out about spw@w in development. I thought to myself—“ Awesome! I have been waiting for something like this for a long time now!” I am an sp3 enthusiast, and have been playing it for about 2 years.

But I wanted to respond to Harry's point about the hull down status of tanks, because it has seemed to me from playing sp3 that, the game basically ignores hull down in some (and possibly all) situations. The sp3 game manual makes reference to achieving hull down status, yet it seems like several possible situations for hull down status are over looked in sp3.
I could be wrong about it--so I am curious to hear all you veterans’ opinions--but Number 1, it seems that tanks firing from X lower elevation to Y higher elevation are firing at, hull down units, given that Y equates to a certain ratio to X. Despite the fact that the particularities of terrain such as each little bump and hillock is not modeled, in sp3 and that hull down status is dependent entirely on an angular equation of Tank A to Tank B, how will this be dealt with in spw@w? The second situation I would mention is when a Tank is firing from behind a stone wall or other obstruction at a tank on or lower than it’s current level. Since stone walls are a new addition to spw@w, will tanks be given any hull down advantage for being protected by them, and if so will tanks firing from higher terrain levels at tanks behind stone walls be distinguished from tanks firing at the same or lower terrain levels at tanks behind stone walls?

[Paul Vebber]

Sorry, but the "Bail-Out"-Option I have never missed, what I have missed is the reverse gear!

Nope, no reverse gear. Our reasons are several - First, the game is not meant to be "tank driving". Get Combat mission if you want fine detail control of every tank;-) Second, there is little indication that real tankers use reverse in the ways players would use it - especially when buttoned and its impossible to see well to the rear. Third, if you use the terrain properly, you can duck back behind cover without exposing yourself to rear opfire. Fourth the new angle effects make horizonatal angles more realistic, so youare not as vulnerable as before making a slight retrograde.

We may add a limited option later, but with rare exceptions, tanks didn't go more than a few 10s of yards in reverse - often that had disasterous effect. A risk of immobilization would be high if you tried it.

2. An time consumting procedure is to shift artillery. I think a better solution is this:
Plot your "hot-spots" in the deployment phase. Then if you want to fire artillery, plot them where you want them. The game automaticaly calculates the delay depending on the hot-spots. No more click-orgy!
This should be fine tuned on previous plotted artillery, aso.

This one we are stuck with. We have grouped OBA into section or battery sized units so the number of spots to move is lower. Its a pain but one we could not easily fix.

More later...

[Paul Vebber]

I wonder how the defence bonus for the russians work :
You wrote: ".... They have their normal propensity for "fanatical defense" - ie in defend situations they can spontaneously rally in certan situations. ..."
Do you mean assault-defence games (very unlikely played) or do you mean SP3 defence stance( this would be very good)?

As these are "stereotypes" as much as "characteristics" meant to give some flavor, we look on the root of russian defensive tenacity as a function of the operational, rather than tactical defence. Thus the benefit is based on scenario type, not tactical stance.

I strongly disagree that the only thing folks will play in SP:WaW is meeting engagements. Long Campaign players will have a wide variety of scenario types to deal with! Wild Bill's Raiders are hard at work on scenarios that feature the full range from amphibious assaults to river crossings.

The defend stance to us is a "transition phase" from actively advancing - to being "dug-in" or achieving an improved position, whether it be from actually taking spade to dirt, or through clearing fields of fire, surveying likely approach lanes, and using the "micro-terrain" with in the hex to best advantage. Engineers keen eye for defensive works, speeds the process for adjacent units. But a Russian taking cover in the rubble of Berlin, will not get the extra benefits for fanaticism that he received defending the gates of Moscow...

4. How do we achieve hull-down status. Is this a combination of defence stance(find the best spot for vehicles) + terrain?
The "dug in" message can then be taken as "hull down" message. Or something else?

"Dug-in" status is the result of several turns of of preperations (in defend stance) and "in hex" movement of various sorts that result in a unit having several combat advantages. In terrain types like woods, wall, bocage, orchard, building rough and on hilltops to lower units, a vehicle that is "dug in" is also "hull down".

Hull down has the effect of mitigating some hits all together, reducing the size for hit calculation to 1/4 the normal and allowing only turret hits to anything that is not artillery bombardment or a mortar.

Agian we are looking "general effects" and not modeling specifcs so a tank "dug-in" in a wall hex, is not limited to a specific "hexside" but assumped to be moving among several potential cover "sweet spots" within a hex. This is as much a game sytem limtiation we have to work around as anything, but in the "big picture" the results work out well. We are assuming abit more abstraction in terrain - but allow lots of units to be moved quicky - you can even turn them over to computer control now and they will go to there obectives in some semblence of order

5. Can maps be greater than large SP3 maps?[/QUOTE}

Nope, the 100x80 hex limit is still in force. THat is a pretty big area by WW2 standards though. You can fudge it a littel and assume teh hex is as big as 75m if you turn hitting down 25% or so and infantry toughness up by 20-30 points. You can assume movement rates scale with time a bit. Same with smaller scales, up the hit chances 30% and make infantry 20-30% more vulnerable and you can go done to about 30 m per hex on your map.


[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited 04-17-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited 04-17-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited 04-18-2000).]

[Harry]

Thanks again Paul!

But I´m not empty yet!

1. The "Bail Out" Option:
Will the following trick work?
Tell your guncrew to leave, move them to a secure place, then return when the bombardment is over. The gun still works!
In other words: Is it possible to damage guns and vehicles if the crew has left?

2. Debriefing:
I´m sometimes confused of the result of a battle, when it comes to points. I have a hard time to figure out why he get´s so much points. My wish is a more detailed explaination of points like that:
German losses:
Tanks 430 Points x 2.0 (Modifier) = 860 P
Infantry 200 p x 2.0 = 400 p
Artillery 230 p x 2.0 = 460 p
Trucks/APCs 300 p x 2.0 = 600 p
aso.
Total: 2320 Points
The same for the other side.


Harry