inf assault

[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 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

[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

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

Typical male response - logic.

[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.

[c_of_red]

Suhair, I have yet to meet a pilot of anything that didn't think they were the best.....ever....period. So gathering data will be a challenge. IIRC, pilots in squadron are rated by hours. Not sure that is the same as 'best'.
What to you do with the Osprey, which is neither plane nor helio, but some unnatural mix of both? I had an Uncle that flew both slicks and guns in Nam. (Marines). He liked the slicks better, with the 47 being his favorite. I never asked him how pilots were assigned.

[Imp]

I think DRGs education was a lot better than mine, or more to the point it stuck. Seems quite good on the grammer & think he is going for strike 3 on the spelling.
Thank heaven hes not started on me could get 3 strikes in one post never mind one thread. Its sometimes that bad I have to go back & edit to at least attempt an improvement.
You should have seen my attempts at French

[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

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by DRG

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

Obviously you guys have batted this issue around a bit at the office. And to the suprise of no one with a working brain you've come up with a tentative solution that hits most of the main issues with such a project.

Just to throw an additional very subjective monkey wrench into the works one wrinkle I'm considering is the difference between "Strike" and "COIN" aircraft.

In general Strike aircraft tend to attack vehicle targets more often then COIN aircraft, and often have a weapon load more suited to do so effectively (for example AP VS HE cluster bombs). Also in general COIN aircraft tend to be dedicated ground support types rather then "fighters" performing ground support missions. And while of course there are many many cases where the aircraft are one in the same in both cases it's also often the case that the pilots of dedicated ground support have better training in ground support then fighter jocks hauling a load of bombs because they're not otherwise occupied do.

Unfortunately game mechanics only allow for two types of airstrikes, and the formations tab uses the same formation ID# from 1946-2020 for airfract so differences in pilot training between the two types of pilots and over time are near impossible to model in-game.

That said...one might want to attempt to consider, if possible, national (and due to game mechanics the USMC is a "nation") differences in the amount of bonus (if any) one gives "SEAD", "Strike", and "COIN" formations.

For myself I've given "SEAD" formations a larger bonus in both morale and experience then "Strike" or "COIN" formations and "COIN" formations a larger experience bonus then "Strike", and "Strike" formations a larger morale bonus then "COIN".

I'm still playtesting to determine if all this complication is worth the effort and results is a more "realistic" simulation of airstrikes in general.

Just a little something to help your head explode when you guys go back to tossing this whole idea around at the office...no need to thank me

((BTW - any chance of getting your web site guru to add a "spell check" button ? ))