What would you want in War in the Pacific 3?

[Barb]

ORIGINAL: adarbrauner
Why not , and simply, to introduce- FINALLY!- fatigue for ships crews, finally, finally!

I've done so for sub crews. +1 fatigue per day in any TF. I just had no idea how fast to decrease fatigue for disbanded subs. I'm not sure if fatigue does make sense for surface ships, though. They seem to be less long on mission. And less uncomfortable to their crews.

Fatigue for surface ships certainly.. It has been the factor in combat operations and in combat. Prime Example: Battle of Savo Island - after three days on constant high alert allied crews were put down to relax during the night. The results are pretty well known ...

But it would have to be put in a bit different way (subs too maybe): When patrolling in close proximity to home base or without enemy air/surface/underwater presence the fatigue should raise only slowly. But when on actual operations, high alert, it should be climbing rapidly. Consider 3 days high alert to be maximum to endure, then at least 1-2 days of rest should be necessary.

Also while the game allows carriers to launch numerous full strikes ( about 8 days worth for Essex class / full plane load / once a day) before sorties run out the common practice was to have 2-3 days on station with 1-2 at refueling/replenishment out of combat. And even then the parts of TF58 put to ports like Ulithi for 3-5 days to get some rest, repairs and resupply so that of the TF58.1-4 usually 2-3 groups were in "front" while 1-2 were refueling/at base).

So this would be pretty hard to code...
Also a boring sub patrol without encountering enemy ship/plane for 2 months wouldn't require much rest. Compare it with an action packed patrol with sub to be hunted by several planes daily, fight a convoy battle, evade 2-3 ASW groups and encounter a portion of carrier fleet! The guys would sure be pretty beat up after that!

[RichardAckermann]

It would be possible to further increase fatigue on actual combat. Calculating it on an abstracted alert level will be really diffcult, I think. Well, at least aside from calculating if it is enemy waters, they are in. That would give surface ships in enemy waters a quickly raising fatigue, while subs are not affected by enemy waters alone, but only actual engagements.

Adding fatigue to carries that launched strikes would be possible.
Question, too, is what kind of effect the fatigue should have. Being cought on surprise, rate of fire, gun accuracy, sub aggressiveness, fewer AC per airstrike.
Since AE does not have ship fatigue effect to copy, I have only vague ideas on how to do the effect.

[adarbrauner]

Dear Mr Ackermann

(are you the renown Ackermann of the fabled PG3 Ackermann mod?), what kind of game are you creating? how shall it look like, please?

[spence]

after three days on constant high alert allied crews were put down to relax during the night.

The crews were not exactly tucked in by their mommas: they were put in the equivalent of Condition 2 which had half of their armament manned and ready (1/2 manning of damage control and engineering stations too). That would put the crews on 6 hours ON(watch) and 6 hours OFF. The armament crews still relied on the OOD (at least) to order them to open fire. IIRC none of the OODs took responsibility to order the ship's weapons to fire and consulted their Captains first.

[Rogue187]

I think, ultimately, most players would want a game like the old Great Naval Battles by SSI. I remember playing it when I was a kid. I wasn't very good and reloaded A LOT (come on I was like 10) but this game was very similar to that game from a grand strategy point of view. AE doesn't have the tactical level aspect that Great Naval Battles had, but a future War in the Pacific 3 might be more like Great Naval Battles. It has the strategy aspect that some people like and the tactical aspect other people like. There were 4 games in the series and I only ever played the 2nd game centering on Guadalcanal.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/v ... ction=view

[Barb]

Fatigue should affect overall performance - 6 hours on/off duty is long time to stay alert and vigilant! Increasing chance of surprise is only one of the effects, it may involve effecting decision making process - turning the "wrong side", gun accuracy... Possibly even Red-on-red fire (as the enemy plane passes between ships few shells could probably go before fire is checked).

For carriers the higher fatigue would probably mean lower strike output (but this should be covered by plane fatigue/damage) and more operational losses (this should be covered by pilot fatigue). But the Game Ops losses are greatly reduced from the IRL (I presume because of a possible player bitching) And Operational losses on carriers were quite common.

To make the situation even more "funny" on the plane side imagine a usual BG(H) strike in the Pacific. Of the 4x12 squadrons a strike force of 18/21 is sent out (other crews rests, maintenance, one squadron standed down, etc.) flying 8-10 hours long mission including forming up. Add in a P-38 squadron of 25 sending 8/12/16 planes to tag along. Got into some serious scrape over target (say hard day over Rabaul in 1943?) with flak and fighters. Some bombers would be lost over target, some will end up in water, many more damaged. 2-5 planes would probably land on nearest friendly base (not home base) to save crewman, patch their ships. The rest will go back with maybe one or two more cracking up on landing. To make this mess back to any form of organization again would take few days (get ships to flyable status, replace crewmembers, cover the holes). In the other time the other half squadrons would go on, with maybe the spare squadron being switched back on while the one hit most would be grounded (or relegated to some "easy" duty like Naval Search).
IRL a crew flying on a mission like this would be spent for the rest of the day. Flying twice in a row would get crew to 50% efectivity, flying 4 days in a row would get crew exhausted.

[Barb]

ORIGINAL: Rogue187

I think, ultimately, most players would want a game like the old Great Naval Battles by SSI. I remember playing it when I was a kid. I wasn't very good and reloaded A LOT (come on I was like 10) but this game was very similar to that game from a grand strategy point of view. AE doesn't have the tactical level aspect that Great Naval Battles had, but a future War in the Pacific 3 might be more like Great Naval Battles. It has the strategy aspect that some people like and the tactical aspect other people like. There were 4 games in the series and I only ever played the 2nd game centering on Guadalcanal.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/v ... ction=view

Yeah I would love to have some tactical choices regarding naval battles. Would be great to pick up from several AA formations, ASW formations and Surface combat formations, that would affect the outcome of battle.

So instead of having just lines of ships on the screen to the left and right, one would be able to see DesDiv forward making torpedo attack, another DesDiv laying smoke, capital ships to the back.

To have some default, or "best suited for ship types and numbers" be decided by AI, but to have ability to pick your own preferred for a TF.

Also Air-to-ship attack should show the planes entering ship formation from certain angle, being fired by ships around before making attack on its target and then run away through the formation again (Sort of Top-down view).

[RichardAckermann]

ORIGINAL: adarbrauner
(are you the renown Ackermann of the fabled PG3 Ackermann mod?), what kind of game are you creating? how shall it look like, please?

No, I am not related to any known Ackermann. Plus I am sharing this account and email with Richard, who is in charge of data gathering, so I can quickly check for the results of his quest.

The game is intended to work much like AE, but with a few changes, like having a global map for stock scenario. AE scenarios can be imported, but are changed a bit on it due to some new rules. Like torpedoes use single devices per ammo, so 18(18) is 18 of 18 torpedoes left. My subs will be able to fire the # the skipper chooses - multi ship targeting and wolfpacks included. Tons of other things was tweaked. E.G. I have weather with wind speeds, real bad weather zones that grow, age, decay and move, as it is better for a forecast. And of course ingame creation of airgroups, LCUs, and ships to construct.(Optional) Sonar (active/passive), Snorkel and fire control devices. To mention a few.
It is a "just for fun sparetime" project at this time.

Rouge187: Fun that you mention that. At the beginning, I had combat like this. I own all 4 games of the series, with the first 2 being still my favorites. I also had "Steel panthers" ground combat, both hexbased and C&C style realtime. Those experimental combat concepts where dropped early, though, because they are not PBEM friendly. Realtime is not an option in PBEM, and having 30+ ground combat turns per LCU combat isn't either.

Thanks for the insights Barb. Sure helps me to figure out a decent way to add some effects to ship fatigue.

[GaryChildress]

Most of my dream modifications to WITP involve the editor.

1. At the top of my list is a more straight forward editor (especially devices) that makes it easier to plug in known historical data and get reasonably realistic results. For example no fuzzy or vague numbers like "durability" (for aircraft) or "effect" (for devices) which a scenario designer needs to guess at in order to make an item work realistically in the game. Ideally it would be nice if the editor only dealt with solid, known data (things like penetration, range, weight, armor thickness etc.) and then used algorithms extrapolated from that data to resolve combat. It would make some aspects of scenario designing less of a guessing game for some of us.

2. Also, ideally, armored fighting vehicles should be treated in the same manner as aircraft and ships (platforms which incorporate various devices from the device database). So, for example, a tank would be composed of its main gun, defensive machine guns, have various armor thicknesses, etc. and when land combat is resolved it should be similar to air combat algorithms. How many AFVs (as well as infantry squads) are lost in a particular land combat action would be resolved similar to different types of aircraft encountering each other in air combat. If a tank regiment has tanks with 37mm guns and light armor and it's up against another regiment with 75mm guns and heavier armor then the results should be relatively straight forward in the combat resolution.

3. NO HARD CODED SPECIAL SLOTS IN THE EDITOR. For example: if someone wants to make a scenario based on a map of Europe and the European theater of action, then they wouldn't have to deal with things like special slots in the location database that activate kamikazes. If special effects or events need to be incorporated, then allow them to be flagged in specific fields within a single entry. The editor should be as intuitively straighforward and versatile as possible. Ideally a scenario designer should be able to start with a clean database and add everything from the bottom up and have it work relatively straightforward.

Overall I absolutely LOVE the WITP AE game engine and would love to see it endure and flourish. Make the game engine just as applicable to the European theater as the Pacific. Heck, even make it applicable to other time periods. Get rid of the hard coded calendar so that a designer can use any start and end dates to his scenario he wants. Then we can more easily have War Plan Orange mods, World War I mods, Korean War, etc.

Refine the game engine include some stock scenarios and then let the modding community do the rest to carry the game further. I think the key to success of any good game is the versatility of its editor.

[RichardAckermann]

Actually, a partially very difficult request. Especially for things like "durability" there are alot of specifications to aircraft apart from flight performance data and self sealing tanks. Very difficult to extrapolate the resilience to gunfire from sheer values. I think one would have to add as many types of data to exceed the limit of what people other than aviation engineers can do.

Same goes for devices like active and passive sonar / radar. Effect rating is a very convenient way to give some bonus or effect. Having audio frequencies, range, sound receiver quality modeled into the editor is nightmare. Same goes for Radar devices specifications. Hard to imagine a way to do without some abstracted effect value.

Doing without hardcoding devices and locations should be possible.
Time period choosable. Want a napoleonic game amidst the 19th century? No problem at all.

[btd64]

I'm drooling. How far along are you? How long have you been working on this project?....GP

[ericv]

I would like to be able to select a bunch of units at the same time (airgroups, LCU's, bases) and with the help of filters, make a subselection and set all kinds of parameters en masse in this subset. That would do away with much of the unnecessary clicking

[RichardAckermann]

ORIGINAL: btd64
I'm drooling. How far along are you? How long have you been working on this project?....GP

I've been on this for around 2 years. Things missing are mainly map art/PWhexe data for the global game (WITP AE map art/hex data can be used for imported AE scenarios), complexity of most combat calculations, flavour and immersion messages, offmap movement, river crossing/movement, OOB & scenario design, testing of PBEM synchronity, a few interface things like sorting functions on some panels, improving the AI for single player and resolving the copyrights issue with the owners of WITP AE Copyrights (some 3 companies).
And, of course, bugfixing. A never ending work.
How good it will be in the end is also questionable. I'm not the most proficent programmer, and I did not work in the field for almost 20 years. The things I still know about programming are outdated.

ORIGINAL: ericv
I would like to be able to select a bunch of units at the same time (airgroups, LCU's, bases) and with the help of filters, make a subselection and set all kinds of parameters en masse in this subset. That would do away with much of the unnecessary clicking

I already coded a right click LCU move that does only move/follow units attached to the same HQ. So you can move around "grouped together" LCUs. LCU Target planning is also right click set for all in hex.
For other things...most of the item lists (ships,bases,LCU) are quite long. That will make a multi selection difficult. Do you have examples on what commands you want to issue? Maybe I come across a way to at least work into the right direction.

[FlyByKnight]

A more in-depth system to show control of a hex, to represent circumstances like an invading army seizing control of a base's airfield or port while the main enemy force is still in control of the hex itself.

[cardas]

- Mixed TO&E. Doesn't matter much for the US but for many other countries you are looking at air groups and land formations that should be allowed to mix and match aircraft and guns to a greater degree.

- Not hex based, use a full globe. Clearly this is beyond what you are doing but this is what I'd consider ideal. No more map distortions throwing things out of whack.

When it comes to fatigue I always though there should be two kinds: short term physical fatigue (simple lack of sleep, having to move around a bunch etc.) and long term fatigue (mental fatigue, wear and tear on the body that doesn't fully get to recover etc.). Short term fatigue comes and goes quickly, long term fatigue would build up constantly as long as a unit stays in "unsafe" areas and only goes down if it's rotated to safe civilian rear areas. Both would add simple penalties to pretty much any roll, no matter what it is.

As a general comment it's of course easy to make suggestions, it's harder to implement them and still keep it a fun game rather than spreadsheet busy-work. An idea might sound fun (at least to some) in theory, such as differentiated supply, however keeping the game fun for most people while implementing such an idea can be a tall task to ask.

[adarbrauner]

ORIGINAL: RichardAckermann


I already coded a right click LCU move that does only move/follow units attached to the same HQ. So you can move around "grouped together" LCUs. LCU Target planning is also right click set for all in hex.
For other things...most of the item lists (ships,bases,LCU) are quite long. That will make a multi selection difficult. Do you have examples on what commands you want to issue? Maybe I come across a way to at least work into the right direction.

There's way. The War in the East-West way; in those games, the hierarchical order of battle's role is tantamunt;

for example: certain air units are under the command of a definite Command unit (and they must be; and the HQ has to be close; if not, the sub units shall incurr in supply and control check penalties); then , if you select that command unit for an order, you open a clear and user friendly interface where you can select all the fighters, or all the fighter bombers , or all the recce, for one mission and order; alternatively, you can exclude or include any squadron you wish from that order; this in few words;

the higher the Command in hierarchy, the greater, of course, the number of units that can be assigned to the same order WITH ONE CLICK ONLY (do you understand this, men, do you?)

btw, the supply system in the above mentioned game shuold be "copied and reattached" to our game; not an easy feature though;

just to mention for your interest some few features briefly, the supply is governed by the HQs; +, by the availabilty of vehicles (i.e. trucks mainly, but also horses, besides trains) in the pool for resupply duty (and trucks need to be produced by the production segment of the game , very similar to the Japanese production module- from which it is derived and younger sibling;)

If you, Richard Ackermann or whoever in his stead, didn't know that, War in the East was developed by the same people and the same company who developed WITP;

(and, between commas, the WITP/WITE idea and concepts derive from the still unsurpassed cardboard game "The Campaign for North Africa"; yes, yes, we need also that theatre, the mediterranean one)

One who's well versed in WITP, can more easily and faster understand the features in that game, because he recognize their ancestors in WITP; in WITP, 2by3 developed a number of much noticeable features which remained at an embrional state although, to be furtherly developed and refined in the following series, WITE and WITW;

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: RichardAckermann

Actually, a partially very difficult request. Especially for things like "durability" there are alot of specifications to aircraft apart from flight performance data and self sealing tanks. Very difficult to extrapolate the resilience to gunfire from sheer values. I think one would have to add as many types of data to exceed the limit of what people other than aviation engineers can do.

Same goes for devices like active and passive sonar / radar. Effect rating is a very convenient way to give some bonus or effect. Having audio frequencies, range, sound receiver quality modeled into the editor is nightmare. Same goes for Radar devices specifications. Hard to imagine a way to do without some abstracted effect value.

Doing without hardcoding devices and locations should be possible.
Time period choosable. Want a napoleonic game amidst the 19th century? No problem at all.

Well, I hear what you are saying. At least it would be nice to have some of the algorithms known to modders. For example, knowing what to set something like "durability" to in order to achieve a certain average outcome or something would help, I think. I wish the editor manual was more candid in disclosing some of the mathematics behind the number fields and how results are arrived at.

[GaryChildress]

A couple other things for the wish list:

1. The ability to add new nations to the list of combatants, including the ability to include more than one Axis nation.

2. The ability to edit the random name generation of pilots so that newly added countries can have their pilots appropriately named.

[RichardAckermann]

ORIGINAL: cardas
As a general comment it's of course easy to make suggestions, it's harder to implement them and still keep it a fun game rather than spreadsheet busy-work. An idea might sound fun (at least to some) in theory, such as differentiated supply, however keeping the game fun for most people while implementing such an idea can be a tall task to ask.

I consider those suggestions vital for any game project, especially if it is a successor to some other game. Publishers and developers should always do as Rougue187 did, and publicly ask for a wishlist. There are certainly hundreds of thousands of gaming hours accumulated by players. Those are the unmatched experts of what is eligible for improvement or inclusion. I, for my part, have drawn a lot of good ideas from here. Currently, I work on a screen that will display all airgroups in range of the selected hex allowing to setup missions for this target hex for all groups tagged.

[Rogue187]

To add to my list, I would add simplification of pilot training. I am still uncertain as to what happens when you send a pilot to group (but have a delay) and still disband/withdraw the airgroup. I know sending pilots to TRACOM will speed up and increase the EXP of pilots that are being trained but I am not sure by how much. As far as I know, as the war progresses, pilots come out better trained anyway.

RichardAckermann is right. If there is ever a new version of the game, it still would have to be fun. I started another thread about the level of detail some people want by asking about the role of the player. Overall, I would mostly want to see UI improvements and less clicking to accomplish tasks. I really like some of the mods and I would want to see something similar in a future release. The squadron, ship and unit patches are amazing! And the Bellum Pacifica map is the best looking expression of the original map I have seen so far! As I mentioned before, I think the only major game change I would really want would be fully animated battle sequences as an expression of the background die rolls. I would love to watch dive bombers flying in formation, then dropping on to carriers, or battleships maneuvering to get in the best shot with hits and misses based on the die roll. Would this be easy? No! Especially a highly detailed and compelling sequence. I know there are players that would see it as unnecessary, but to me it breaks up the tedium of staring at the map.