1st Multisquad Campaign Battle of Britain

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

Hi Gents,

Thanks to 5.JG27 for hosting these events, I really hope the game's problem's, CTD's etc, are fixed soon....

I'd like to add/suggest some points that may be helpfull for any future events.

There's quite a few people about that have been involved with events for the last 10 years or so, in Aces High, Air Warrior and the like. For us it's easy to see where 5.JG27 want to get to, and, hopefully, we can help them get there

Previous event procedures that have worked really well go along the following lines, and I "suggest" these ideas here so that the responsibility for events is shared, to make it easier for all those involved, rather than one or a few people doing too much work, and, it means that everyone's aware of just what exactly the event is all about. You can also add the possibility of one side "winning" by achieving certain aims or scores!

Indeed this sounds good but currently without stats is unachievable. I know of at least three seperate stat systems in the making. We will know more later.

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

The first thing that needs to be done is a small group of people get together and agree the "Rules" of the event. This might sound a bit formal but it's THE most important thing to do, by making rules you can make sure that there is;
Gameplay - everyone should get into a fight and have fun.
Fairness - correct balance of sides remembering gameplay.
Historical accuracy - correct plane-set and accurate tactic's, but you have to ensure gameplay and fairness, i.e. an accurate pearl Harbour event would be boring for the USAAF side!
So, the rules are to ensure all the above in the right amounts!

Agreed and this test run was also to establish who these people might be.

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

Another important part of this initial meeting is to set up the Command Structure for each side, there's usually a commander for each side and he has 1 assistant, an XO, then each unit must have 2 leaders, a Unit commander and his XO. This, and the other rules, all leads into....
which airfields are in use
What and how many of each plane type will be used
which "historical units" are going to be replicated
how everyone registers
how many people will play each side
how many people are in each unit

Right but now we are talking really about the set up. Command points to spend or not, allocated historical orders of battle etc.. There are a few different ways of doing it with varying amounts of work.

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

Now, if you're going to allow "walkons", we come to the most important person. Walkons are people who are going to turn up to fly without pre-registering. They are usually assigned a empty plane slot, if the registered people don't turn up through illness or have to go shopping with the missus!

These walkons are held in a "place" for each side they are then "shepherded" by one person, the "walkon marshall", the walkons are TOLD where the spare seats are, so they are assigned a plane, i.e. they're not allowed to do what they want, they stick with the overall plan as part of a unit. (much as we've already done but a bit more controlled to maintain agreed numbers for each side).

This all easily done, in the past I've been involved with events that regularly had 200 people in them and once we had 380 planes in the air at once!!

I dislkie the idea for one reason, it means not everyone can fly. I asked specifically in the beginning for total number of pilots merely so I could disregard it and take the average... Because we cant all attend all the time.

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

By agreeing the rules it also allows the map/mission makers to know exactly what needs to be included, and what doesn't! It also allows the maps to be written sooner and tested to make sure everything works as planned, such as time of day, weather, clouds etc.

One of the things Im thinking of next time is the red or blue commander gives me the AI bomber flight as a mission file to be loaded into the mission via script. This way I can recieve both sides missions and stay neutral. This would also relieve us of time as you stated earlier and allow others to be more involved. Obviously this will depend on which set up we choose for the future.

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

The Rules also allows for the side CO, his XO and the unit commanders and XO's to make a plan, they know the rules = restrictions, their resources = the unit sizes, how many pilots and which airfields are available, which targets they're attacking or defending and the scoring system if there is one

This plan can then be given to everyone who is assigned to that event "unit", this means everyone knows there is a plan and that the plan is made in plenty of time before the event, not in the last 20 minutes before the start time!!! As in real life it allows people time to practice a new skill, such as dive bombing or carrier landing!

Yes and the easst way for this (which is currently under developement on our forums) is a permission protected area for red/blue respectively...

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

I would say the time frame for all of this is about a month, remember, you have to decide a lot of this before you advertise the event with exactly how many places there are for people to register for, on each side, in each plane type.

Yes that reasonable, two weeks was used this time as the whole thing was preset, were it not for a few problems it would have been smoother.

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

Once CO's and XO's are in place, the plan discussions start, these can be lengthy (plenty of friendly arguments about tactic's - which is why the rules are important), then all the plans have to be sent to every pilot in each unit.

If it was done on one forum (maybe by unit commanders talking with an over all commander) this would not be a problem. The plans could then be displayed there "for red/blue eyes only or taking to each units forum...

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

Lastly, the rules can make sure everyone understands the start time, and they have to ready well before then, it is common to have everyone in the passworded server an hour before the Take-Off time, plus, with more "control" you can have staggered take-off times, often it's bombers that need to be allowed to take off before any fighters, as in real life!

Agreed however with the CTD's you probly wouldn't be able to last an hour on the menu

Its certainly something would do in future.

Originally Posted by 56RAF_Witch

That's about all I can suggest at the moment. Hopefully some of it will be usefull to make sure the events continue and that they get better and better.

Thank you for you kind, well laid out suggestions, if we need any ideas we will be sure to put it to the online community. I may be very well posting some conundrums here on 1c for everyones views.

As soon as the next patch is out and the CTD's are pretty much gone and we have stats implemented, we will run another campaign!

Thanks everyone for your support, patience and participation.

S!

5./JG27 & 9./ZG26

[CaptainDoggles]

Good campaign guys, sadly I missed the final mission due to RL commitments but I enjoyed the previous missions.

I think going forward it would be fun to move into pseudo-historical territory and allow each side to plan their own missions, perhaps assigning points at a team level, based on targets protected/destroyed.

[Sven]

I can already answer that with a no Doggles. We like to play a scenario that happened in the past, not what could have happened or what people like to do. That's one thing we've always tried to achieve in our missions and previous campaigns and we get most satisfaction and enjoyment out of it. 100 % realism is of course not achievable but when we can, we implement it.


That does not mean we're not interested in pseudo-histocial campaigns but they will not be made by us.

[CaptainDoggles]

Originally Posted by Sven

I can already answer that with a no Doggles. We like to play a scenario that happened in the past, not what could have happened or what people like to do. That's one thing we've always tried to achieve in our missions and previous campaigns and we get most satisfaction and enjoyment out of it. 100 % realism is of course not achievable but when we can, we implement it.


That does not mean we're not interested in pseudo-histocial campaigns but they will not be made by us.

Interesting perspective. What happens when you run a historical campaign and the outcome isn't historical? e.g. the Dieppe raid is actually successful, or the Allies don't actually get away from Dunkerque?

Do you declare the campaign to be a failure?

Do you set up the initial conditions so that the outcome is a foregone conclusion?

Understand I am not advocating a "secret weapons of the luftwaffe" campaign.

[Sven]

We give you an historical start and objectives which were targeted historically, you are to achieve the goals the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe has ordered your JG to do.

The next mission does not take your failure/success into account, it bases itself on what happened historically.

Then there are people who say, but what's the use of achieving the goal then?
Well, maybe you want to experience what the RAF/Luftwaffe did that day?

Our goal is to achieve fun, realism and teamplay. I don't really care who actually wins the campaign. You can merely draw conclusions on how close you performed to the real deal.

Obviously we can't know everything to the detail what happened back then, but we try to get a close as possible, feedback is of course more then welcome, especially when it comes to RAF activities.

--

I know ATAG got stats running so a campaign where mission results matter for the next mission isn't too far away I guess.

Understand I am not advocating a "secret weapons of the luftwaffe" campaign.

Yes I know what you mean.

[CaptainDoggles]

Then there are people who say, but what's the use of achieving the goal then?

I just think campaigns like this are more engaging; pilots get a chance to feel like their individual actions actually have an impact (or more of an impact) on the outcome of the mission.

My opinion is that if it doesn't matter what we do during the mission it might as well be a regular dogfight furball, that's all.

[SEE]

Would it be possible for future missions to tally the losses incurred?

I really enjoyed the last mission but as players drop out of the server (for various reasons) I found myself the sole remaining Spit from the flight. In those instances should a player try and join another flight and jump into their TS channel?