Friday 2010-11-26 Dev. update and Discussion

[Dietger]

Kraken, F4 was a nightmare of bugs!
Still, it felt great to see all those things happen around you - air or ground!

>>>Work on your kills score, help keep your squadron alive, or simply try to survive. Plenty of incentives without changing history <<<

How can a mere flightsim player alter the course of history?
No one will change history nor wants to do so.
Lets dont get overbord with this. The island will be sound and save


A good researched historical campaign is a must , It will be a blast to "recreate" what once was. And "feel" after the events as they unfolded in our history.

No, winning or loosing isnt the point, at least not for me.
Its about user input - interaction with your playground.

For exaple, if you take out the radars, RAF shouldnt be able to direct the fighters for the interception , easy to understand and logic.
If you manage to destroy the German offensive capabilities - no bombing of, lets say, London! Thats the ways I want it to be "responsive-dynamic".
If, at the end of it, the screen tells you: Battle o. Britain over: RAF won. I have no objection with it.

I see it as a playground and I like it to be as interactive as possible, whats wrong with that?
Sure! you wont code this in a week or two. But its been a while now since developement started. And No, I dont like a dynamic but buggy campaign. I want one that works. Since the the battle was a mere air battle, relative simple (thats easy said I know) user input can be restricted to a relative smal number of things to play around/alter with. For the German side its mostly offensive decisions, the "user" can make or change. That means your targets! A very limited choise if you ask me nothing to complex.

That beeing said, I dont want to speculate too much either about it, until I see it.

Regards Dietger


Sorry Lads for beeing OT!

Originally Posted by Dietger

Greetings.
So, to make it worth the effort, what you do HAS TO MAKE AN IMPACT.

Cheers Dietger

If you're English, your fighter can't hold enough ammo to make a significant impact on the German offensive. We're talking about days where hundreds of planes are being shot down in the course of an afternoon.

If you're German/Italian your fighter as well, can't hold enough ammo to make a difference or your bomber can't hold enough bombs or make enough sorties a day to do the same.

Look at Erich Hartmann! The guy shot down 352 aircraft on the Russian front. The Germans has ton's of 100+ aces, and they still lost the war. For every plane you shoot down, there is a an ace on the other side to do just the same. That's why you'll never see a difference.

I could see something along the lines of you being singled out by the enemy once your kill count has reached ~20 or so.

(enemy radio chatter) "There's that devil that took out Fritz/James yesterday! He's the one that's been swatting all our comrades/blokes out of the sky. Registration number 123. . . Swarm him!"

That could be sort of cool! Not something like, "The Italians have pulled out of the conflict after you downed 35 of their pasta-planes into the drink. Good show!" Or something equally unrealistic like, "The Fuhrer has ordered operation Sea Lion to go ahead. Your efforts have single-handedly resulted in the RAF being crippled as a fighting force!"

[Flying Pencil]

Is this a photoshopped image of the SoW model??

I mean to make it look like a painting, not altering the model itself.

[IceFire]

I'd say it's a painting or a heavily retouched version of the 3D model. The 3D models look incredible... but not THAT incredible.

[csThor]

Originally Posted by Dietger

How can a mere flightsim player alter the course of history? No one will change history nor wants to do so. Lets dont get overbord with this. The island will be sound and save

Ah, now you're talking.

Originally Posted by Dietger

A good researched historical campaign is a must , It will be a blast to "recreate" what once was. And "feel" after the events as they unfolded in our history.

D'accord.

Originally Posted by Dietger

No, winning or loosing isnt the point, at least not for me. Its about user input - interaction with your playground.

For exaple, if you take out the radars, RAF shouldnt be able to direct the fighters for the interception , easy to understand and logic.
If you manage to destroy the German offensive capabilities - no bombing of, lets say, London! Thats the ways I want it to be "responsive-dynamic".
If, at the end of it, the screen tells you: Battle o. Britain over: RAF won. I have no objection with it.

In principle I agree, but I also must second what speculum jockey said ... your potential for impact will be limited. It has to be there (i.e. an ace downed, a bridge destroyed etc) but it's a difficult thing to model as it's too easy to go overboard.

[Flying_Nutcase]

Originally Posted by T}{OR

When I play SoW I which to be a part of history, not change it to what might have happened. There are other games that do that.

The thing about strictly historical thinking is that the fact that the events that occurred were not what was 'meant to be'. They were not written in stone as what had to happen. The events that transpired and decisions that were made, big and small, could have been different.

A dynamic campaign that can offer variability based on a different set of events and decisions seems pretty reasonable, in addition of course to more strictly historical campaigns. These events and decisions would largely be completely independent of the player's actions, although the player's actions would be part of the input, like successfully destroying radar stations or whatever.

For those of you with a more strictly historical mindset, what do you think about that? I'm kind of curious.

[Dietger]

Speculum and csThor,

I think it was Rowans BoB? Which had both; a complete historical part and a part where the player could setup the overall strategies and targets of the side he played on.

I expect something a long that line.
I nice historical part, to resampling histo. events.
And, if we are lucky, a possibility to redirect and asign missions or targets for what ever flight 's about to take off: Bomber, recon , fighters whatsoever.
As Necrobaron speculated there is a lot room for possibilities.
There are enough opportunity for both sides to change directives.
Oleg early on said, it wont be possible to win the battle for axis side, so I think there are limitations in terms of user input?

Untill we actually see it - we patiently wait.

Dietger

[K_Freddie]

If SOW can be adapted later to allow for:-

In campaign mode, You can play multiple rolls, from Air marshall directing/managing the campaign, pushing flags with numbers here and there, then clicking on a flag, to either join a squadron in flight, or at take off.

Once your flight is finished or you've been 'zapped', you put on your marshall cap and are back at the map - join another flight, move supplies, new recruits... you know that type of strategy thing. Here you will see the effects of your decisions/actions on a greater scale.

Doing the Air Marshall thing can make a great online campaign in mutliplayer, where you can form a military structures through which you can advance.
Endless options => Title: Air Marshal-SOW ( Remember I mentioned the title first )

Maybe Oleg would like me to develop this... nudge nudge!!

[csThor]

Originally Posted by Dietger

I think it was Rowans BoB? Which had both; a complete historical part and a part where the player could setup the overall strategies and targets of the side he played on.

This is exactly what I don't want. It is against my idea of what a flight simulation campaign must be like. Strategic decisions (which you have to take in BoB) are the prerogative of generals which - and yes, I know I am repeating myself - do not fly combat missions.

A flight sim cannot depict the layer above the regimental plane (= Geschwader or Wing). As such any flight sim campaign that tries to mingle these two very different things is a gamey crutch and I can't stand such things. There is a lot to be done when the layers of responsibility are accurately depicted (management of aircrew, tactical planning of how to fulfill the task/mission which one's assigned by the Fliegerkorps / Luftflotte / Group Command etc). What you propose is a strategy campaign that is about as immersive to me as a blank sheet of paper.

So what I wish for? Let's take Flanker's example of Erprobungsgruppe 210 and assume the player chose the rank of Hauptmann/Major and is in command of said unit. The player receives a mission target (or a group of targets) such as a bunch of CH and CHL stations in the Dover area. He receives a timeframe during which the attack has to take place (which is interwoven with the other ops of Luftflotte 2 that day) and in this case he has to plan how to employ his three Staffeln to take out the target(s) without suffering too many losses. For the briefing I see something along these lines:

"Einsatzbefehl - 13 August 1940

To: Erprobungsgruppe 210
From: Stab Luftflotte 2

You are tasked to conduct a strike against the british radar stations at Dover and Rye (map with marked target locations). The attack has to be conducted between 7:45 a.m. and 8:05 a.m. in order to reduce interceptions against our bomber forces which will cross the french coast at 8:10 a.m."

Then comes something about weather conditions, recon information, target photos and intelligence (i.e. known allocation of enemy fighter forces, enemy AAA positions etc), the aircraft pool and pilots available for that mission. Then it's up to you - you can either auto-plan the mission or do it manually.

So you can plan something but it's within believable and reasonable limits.

[T}{OR]

Originally Posted by Flying_Nutcase

The thing about strictly historical thinking is that the fact that the events that occurred were not what was 'meant to be'. They were not written in stone as what had to happen. The events that transpired and decisions that were made, big and small, could have been different.

A dynamic campaign that can offer variability based on a different set of events and decisions seems pretty reasonable, in addition of course to more strictly historical campaigns. These events and decisions would largely be completely independent of the player's actions, although the players actions would be part of the input, like successfully destroying radar stations or whatever.

For those of you with a more strictly historical mindset, what do you think about that? I'm kind of curious.

Nicely put, that sounds about right. It is on the lines that would be ideal for me. Some actions / attacks happening like they were planned, but not having big enough impact on the Battle outcome. Making out actions and input count for something.

On the other hand - total reenactment of the Battle with every single plane downed as it was would also be boring and impossible to do.