TBF Avenger and other planes

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Furio

The problem of balancing – or unbalancing – is around from day one, I believe, and is hard to control.

I'd say impossible to control. There were actually very few periods of the war where both sides were evenly matched in quality and quantity. And, they typically only lasted a few months before something changed to "spoil" the even match up - drop in plane numbers and/or pilot quality, failure of supply lines, or introduction of superior aircraft.

For example, early phase of the Battle of Britain were fairly well matched in planes and pilot quality. Towards the end, the RAF was starting to hit bottom in terms of available fighters and trained pilots.

Same thing for the other evenly matched theaters you mentioned, except that the Allies won the supply battle and were able to get more and better planes into the air.

On dogfight servers, you can only really have parity by having equal numbers of competitively matched fighters, although a few people will always take bombers or other "non-competitive" planes as a change-up.

For historical missions and campaigns, you don't have to worry about balance as long as you tell the player up front that the odds are stacked against him. That will weed out the people who just want to fly a hot rod and kill things, and select for the masochists who enjoy doing things like flying the Brewster Buffalo against a pack of Veteran A6M2 at 10:1 odds (or the D3A1 against a pack of Veteran F6F at 10:1 odds).

Originally Posted by Furio

In the last days of war, Luftwaffe suffered from lack of experienced pilots and fuel. Again: how can you recreate this situation with simple mission building tools and AI planes? You should include missions with player’s plane sitting on the ground with empty tanks…

That's a bit too brutal. For any good campaign, you need to take a bit of dramatic license to make things challenging for the player while still giving the "overall impression" of the tactical and strategic situation.

For example, it would be more "interesting" to have your hapless Luftwaffe fighter jock like sitting on the end of the runway with 10% fuel, with an entire squadron of Average to Veteran P-51 screaming down to strafe the airfield. Basically, the player is screwed unless he chooses to not complete the mission, but there's a tiny chance that with luck and skill he can somehow survive.

Originally Posted by Furio

What-ifs are a viable and attractive way out, with many enjoyable possibilities. It’s a matter of measure, I think. Fantasy planes, many of which populate 1946, should be avoided, I believe.

Generally agreed, but what constitutes a "fantasy" plane? There were plenty of planes that were promising prototypes that never made it to combat service for reasons that we might consider to be stupid, or because of tactical or strategic factors beyond the designer's control. He-112 with DB-601 engine, Fw-187 Falke, PZL.50 Jastrzab?

Originally Posted by Furio

That’s a limitation deserving a solution, I think. The same side switching happened in Finland, France (twice, in theory), Romania and other places (such as Slovak insurgency) and countries (such as Croatia). And I didn’t mention what if side switching, such as an anti-Soviet alliance, actually considered by Winston Churchill…

Agreed. There should also be the option for allowing "blue" nations to be switched to "red" and vice-versa. This would allow for USSR vs. US battles - either accidental encounters like those that occasionally happened in 1944-45, or intentional "Cold War gone hot" set-ups.

It would take a lot more work, but it might also be possible to have a third side as "green" or some other color - just like in multiplayer coop missions. That would allow for the odd three-way fight, like US vs. USSR vs. Germany or France vs. Germany vs. Switzerland (fleeing French pilots attempting to get to neutral Switzerland, with Luftwaffe pilots attempting to shoot them down).

[Furio]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

I'd say impossible to control. There were actually very few periods of the war where both sides were evenly matched in quality and quantity. And, they typically only lasted a few months before something changed to "spoil" the even match up - drop in plane numbers and/or pilot quality, failure of supply lines, or introduction of superior aircraft.

For example, early phase of the Battle of Britain were fairly well matched in planes and pilot quality. Towards the end, the RAF was starting to hit bottom in terms of available fighters and trained pilots.

Same thing for the other evenly matched theaters you mentioned, except that the Allies won the supply battle and were able to get more and better planes into the air.

On dogfight servers, you can only really have parity by having equal numbers of competitively matched fighters, although a few people will always take bombers or other "non-competitive" planes as a change-up.

For historical missions and campaigns, you don't have to worry about balance as long as you tell the player up front that the odds are stacked against him. That will weed out the people who just want to fly a hot rod and kill things, and select for the masochists who enjoy doing things like flying the Brewster Buffalo against a pack of Veteran A6M2 at 10:1 odds (or the D3A1 against a pack of Veteran F6F at 10:1 odds).

As we say in Italy, and surely elsewhere as well, devil lives in details. What do we mean with “balanced” or “unbalanced”? Considering that between black and white there are countless shades of grey, I would try to write some numbers, at least for a discussion basis. So, I would define “unbalanced” a situation in which one side has less than 25 % average possibility to complete each mission of a campaign. A ten missions campaign against three to one odds for each mission is an impossible one, in my opinion, or a very boring one if the player hit “refly” button after each death. Things change, clearly, if the player is only required to survive, but even then there’s a limit of reasonability. I’ve mentioned the odds faced by Japanese torpedo bombers from early 1944 onwards. They’re so low that ultimately only two options remained: stay on the ground or take off for a suicide mission. For this reason, I believe that late war, flyable Japanese torpedo bomber types are useful for a “what if” campaign only, with non-historical balancing.
At the other end of the spectrum, I would consider balanced a situation in which each side has at least 50% possibility to complete each mission of a campaign. It’s still very, very hard, with one to one odds repeated for a number of missions up to the end of a campaign. A less demanding one would probably require an average of more than 90%. If the number looks too high, just think about the 25 missions cycle of a B17 pilot over Europe.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Generally agreed, but what constitutes a "fantasy" plane? There were plenty of planes that were promising prototypes that never made it to combat service for reasons that we might consider to be stupid, or because of tactical or strategic factors beyond the designer's control. He-112 with DB-601 engine, Fw-187 Falke, PZL.50 Jastrzab?

Again, we are talking about shades of grey, or devil in details. My opinion is that operational types only should be available in game, with priority for types that had widespread use, regardless of their successes or failures. Just try to count experimental or what if types available and play the game of substituting them with important, missing types. Griffon Spitfire in place of I-185, Meteor in place of swept wing Me262, Helldiver in place of Mig 3U, and so on…
To sum it up, I would have preferred Battle of France in place of 1946, but that’s my opinion, and I’m probably wrong if we talk about development costs and commercial strategies.
Moreover, I understand that I185 and other types were a labour of love done by volunteers, to which I’m simply grateful. Thanks, guys!