inf assault

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by c_of_red

AFAIK, helios don't see things ( observe, search) as well as leg units. Sort of between a ground vehicle and a leg unit. Or at least that is the way the original SP2 worked. Not sure if that was changed or not during the port to windoze. What little testing I have done says 'no', but an 'expert' told me I was wrong. I think it is confusion created by the term 'spotting'. which in the real world means seeing something but in the SP world it means calling artillery and nothing else. I suppose that helps keep the confusion level down, at least if everyone is aware of the jargon.
A thread at the blitz went past the post limit on this topic. It seems every SP player ( about 15,000 on the 'net, and growing) has an opinion on this topic.
No absolutes in SP. I like to 'hide' my FO's, 2-man scouts, sniper teams and snipers. By hide I mean find a hex with concealment (cover is better, but sometime Mars isn't that helpful), redline your weapons and stay quite as a mouse at an Ally Cat convention. I have had enemy tanks park in the same hex. I have had AH's hovering over an FO while it called in arty.
So you never really know how much of the enemy you are seeing at that moment. Nor do you know how much of your force he can see.
FoW.

Yup, if you "redline" your weapons it's actually fairly easy to keep units hidden. In fact since I use the CD version I spend a lot of my set-up time assigning ranges and fire limits (via the armor min/max and unit type settings) telling my units who they're allowed to shoot at and when.

And yes, helos are HORRIBLE at seeing (not spotting for arty) non-firing enemy units. But I've found them very good at seeing those units that do fire.

One thing that undoubtedly effects this massively is that I've modified my non-transport (i.e. Light Attack, Attack, and COIN) helo formations so that they have a bonus to their experience and sometimes morale.
My reasoning is very simple. The "best" helo pilots are the ones that fly the attack helos, "average" pilots fly transports.
Given that I play the USMC 90% of the time I'm not playing a pre-set scenario the base morale and experience is already 80 so adding 8 (a mere 10% increase over the base) to this virtually guarentees vet status to my helos. Yeah, the unit cost goes up slightly, but supposedly the game balance isn't effected because the total unit cost for each side doesn't change...I will have less units in terms of total numbers then I would have. So far my testing and experiments are giving me pretty much the results I want and expect.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

My reasoning is very simple. The "best" helo pilots are the ones that fly the attack helos, "average" pilots fly transports.

It's a valid point and somewhere on the to-do list is a note to give some consideration to this idea for ground attack airstrikes and attack helos.

Don

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by DRG

It's a valid point and somewhere on the to-do list is a note to give some consideration to this idea for ground attack airstrikes and attack helos.

Don

WOW!

Not only do I not get shot for making such a statement I actually get a sideways complement.

>feints<

[Imp]

Come now Suhiir you ladys have a way of doing these things, if by the time Don gets round to looking at it he thinks it was his idea balance will be maintained.
I have come to accept that half of my "great ideas" were never mine at all it just dawns on me later I have been bushwhacked .......again

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by Imp

Come now Suhiir you ladys have a way of doing these things, if by the time Don gets round to looking at it he thinks it was his idea balance will be maintained.
I have come to accept that half of my "great ideas" were never mine at all it just dawns on me later I have been bushwhacked .......again

Shushhhhhhhh....
Don't tell anyone you'll ruin the "balance of power" between the sexes !

[Imp]

"Balance of power"!!!!
Not a betting man but I know where my money is going on this one.

Behind every good man........
I can approximate multi tasking if I try.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Imp

Come now Suhiir you ladys have a way of doing these things, if by the time Don gets round to looking at it he thinks it was his idea balance will be maintained.
I have come to accept that half of my "great ideas" were never mine at all it just dawns on me later I have been bushwhacked .......again

It was brought up in mid to late April but it's been kicked around before if a para unit rates a bonus then perhaps "elite" status should be given to pilots entrusted with multi-million(billion) dollar aircraft.

Don

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by DRG

It was brought up in mid to late April but it's been kicked around before if a para unit rates a bonus then perhaps "elite" status should be given to pilots entrusted with multi-million(billion) dollar aircraft.

Don

Overall I obviously agree.
However this could be a bit of a ticky situation in that in some (mostly third world) nations the main qualification for being a fighter jock is social/political connections.
Fortuantely for me I'm only looking at one OOB not all of them.

I'll wish Don and Andy luck with this project - they'll need it.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

Overall I obviously agree.
However this could be a bit of a ticky situation in that in some (mostly third world) nations the main qualification for being a fighter jock is social/political connections.
Fortuantely for me I'm only looking at one OOB not all of them.

I'll wish Don and Andy luck with this project - they'll need it.

Yes we are aware that for some nations being the presidents second cousins son counts far more than it should when the "good jobs" are doled out and the overall capability of the pilots may be that they can get the aircraft into the sky and down again without breaking it and that ability is "good enough" for the yearly flypast on armed forces day but in real combat he's last less than 3 minutes


That said there are a number of ways to look at this and I am confident that no matter what we do some bright light will disagree but that's been the nature of this project from the beginning.

One way would be to look at every nation listed, do some research and make adjustments to the experience/morale ratings based on how that will translate into the game once all the random factors are taken into account. That way one nation might get +5, another +10 and another +3 and maybe another gets -2. That way is, to be frank, a PITA because the random toss most of that detail work out the window. What we would try to do at it's most basic is decide if under most circumstances do we want to boost the ability of a standard pilot up one level beyond where they are now. For example if the pilots for a nation are appearing half the time as "corporals" ( so experience below 80 ) adding 5 to that nation would ensure that the vast majority of pilots would have experience levels above 80. A nation that starts out at 55 experience getting that extra 5 won't do much of anything but a nation that starts out at 55 would fall into the category of nations discussed in the first paragraph. Even +10 would help that much whereas +10 for the nation that starts out at 80 is still going to keep most pilots under elite but give a few that status. In cases like that just adding +10 experience to all strike elements / attack helos for all nations gives us what we want.......the good nations get a good boost that pushes them up the ladder and the mediocre ones get a boost but it doesn't push them to the next level.......

.........and that saves a whole lot of time deciding if Angola should get any kind of increase or +5 or +10 because any one of those isn't really going to make them all that effective relative to a USMC/Navy Pilot even though both nations may have +10 experience ratings for their strike elements.

OR the +10% rule could be applied so that a nation with 80 experience gets a +8 and on with 60 gets +6 but that really doesn't do all that much in the big scheme of things that a flat +5 or +10 doesn't do as well and it's much simpler to apply ( most times simple is good )

Don

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

WOW!

Not only do I not get shot for making such a statement I actually get a sideways complement.

>feints<

feint (fnt)
n.
1. A feigned attack designed to draw defensive action away from an intended target.
2. A deceptive action calculated to divert attention from one's real purpose. See Synonyms at wile.
v. feint·ed, feint·ing, feints
v.intr.
To make a feint.
v.tr.
1. To deceive with a feint.
2. To make a deceptive show of.

So, I'm curious now what form this "feint" is going to take

I hope I don't faint........

Don