Matrix Games

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Why is it that the 1st thought that always strikes me whenever I read one of these "this game is borked" threads (which this did NOT start out as one , merely CB soliciting information) is "why do we bother playing?" .

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
The point I want to make is have we really exaimined the "problem" to make sure that there is , indeed, a problem? And by problem , I don't mean an unpleasant result from our point of view. Or are we , once again visualizing a problem because "it's always been there". Just because someone got his behind "toasted" in UV ten years ago doesn't mean 1) that there is necessarily a flaw in the game or 2) that it hasn't been fixed in the litterly thousands of fixes,patches, and other adjustments to the game.

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Why is it that the 1st thought that always strikes me whenever I read one of these "this game is borked" threads (which this did NOT start out as one , merely CB soliciting information) is "why do we bother playing?" .

Because your being way too serious. This isn't a "ITS BORKED" thread. CB asked a question. He got an answer. The Devs have known for a long time that Night Bombing has some issues. It was improved a bit. However game "development" ended long ago. Bug fixes are now pursued on a strictly volunteer basis by MichaelM. Occasionally he'll throw in an easter egg or two and tweak things minorly. However major game changes. No.

As such, "player" views on Night bombing have variance. Hence some use House rules, some don't. And amongst the HR's....approaches can and are different from player to player. As long as both sides are satisfied with how their playing, its all good.

AE will never be perfect. But its overall a good product. Otherwise people wouldn't play it.

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
Another complaint is that B-17's are devastating to Japanese fighters at night. Well, they certainly were in daytime. (I suggest one read Saki's account in Samuri of his unit attacking Colin Kelly's B-17D and the frustration they had in trying to bring down this single , underarmed plane. ) Imagine attacking a box of B-17E's at night, where NOT having the advantage of being able to plan your attack, you suddenly blunder into range of 20-30 50 cal MG's. In an Oscar. Sounds like flying confetti to me.

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

what I was asking was basically, HAS THIS PROBLEM BEEN CONFIRMED? And also WHAT RESEARCH HAS BEEN DONE ON IT?

The questions have nothing to do with "Your being too serious". It has everything to do with "IS IT REALLY A PROBLEM"? You say that the "Dev's have long known" about this problem. OK. Is there any discussion on the forum , that you are aware of that is pertinent to this issue? Or are you speaking as one of the developement team? (I'm not being a smartass, I really don't know. Were you a developer? --If so , let me divert for a second and say Thank you!).

Basically I'm only asking the same question that I ask everytime someone complains about an issue...Is this still an issue? And what do we know about it? Or rather , how can I find out more about what has been said/done/researched/explored already?

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ORIGINAL: Nikademus

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

what I was asking was basically, HAS THIS PROBLEM BEEN CONFIRMED? And also WHAT RESEARCH HAS BEEN DONE ON IT?

The questions have nothing to do with "Your being too serious". It has everything to do with "IS IT REALLY A PROBLEM"? You say that the "Dev's have long known" about this problem. OK. Is there any discussion on the forum , that you are aware of that is pertinent to this issue? Or are you speaking as one of the development team? (I'm not being a smartass, I really don't know. Were you a developer? --If so , let me divert for a second and say Thank you!).

Basically I'm only asking the same question that I ask everytime someone complains about an issue...Is this still an issue? And what do we know about it? Or rather , how can I find out more about what has been said/done/researched/explored already?

I'm speaking as myself. Since I was a developer, you can take that as "speaking as a developer" I've also been playing working modding the game since Uncommon Valor days so its all wrapped into one where I am concerned. I am not at liberty to speak on behalf of the ENTIRE Dev team nor am I an official spokesperson. (the closest to that would be Joe Wilkerson) As with players, opinions vary somewhat between dev members. You've heard me mention "Joe" JoeWilk was a dev and Project manager. He and I both came up with the HR on nightbombing together. If Joe didn't share similar feelings about NB then there would have been no house rule in our games since we only HR'd items we mutally agreed needed them. So you have at least two devs who felt NB had some "issues" I can disclose this because its public knowledge. The last AAR we did together clearly lists our HR's on page one. I've not discusssed it in depth with Ian, the air team lead though IIRC he also wanted to "do" things about NB but there were only so many items that could be addressed when AE was in pre-release development. NB took a low position on the totem pole in favor of greater concerns. You can email him for his views if you like. Yes i have done homework on the issue. I've done alot of homework in the past few years on air ops in general. Partially for WitP. Partially for my own interest. That doesn't make my views God like, but i'd like to think they are at least "informed"

Hence.....I do play with a HR to curb night bombing in the game.

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ORIGINAL: aaffins

quote:

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
Another complaint is that B-17's are devastating to Japanese fighters at night. Well, they certainly were in daytime. (I suggest one read Saki's account in Samuri of his unit attacking Colin Kelly's B-17D and the frustration they had in trying to bring down this single , underarmed plane. ) Imagine attacking a box of B-17E's at night, where NOT having the advantage of being able to plan your attack, you suddenly blunder into range of 20-30 50 cal MG's. In an Oscar. Sounds like flying confetti to me.

My previous comment wasn't meant as a complaint, just an observation of where the results were very different from what I was expecting. Intercepting 4E's during daylight with A6M2s seems to yield about a 1:1 kill ratio. Intercepting with Ki-45s seems to improve that to about 2.5:1. So when I intercepted at night and lost 4 Ki-45s and 6 A6M3s (flown by 75+ exp pilots) without downing a single bomber I thought that seemed odd. Now granted I have not experimented with this, it could be I just had one very unlucky result, but it was one of the stranger results I've gotten in several years of playing this game.

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
You might not consider being a devloper as being God-like, but to we , your worshippers.... I would consider your view to be much more than informed, I'd consider you an authority! (And be forewarned! Now I know who to contact when I need an "informed" opinion! ). And again, thank you , both for your work on this game that means so much to us, and for your continued assistance!

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Andre and I came up with rule. No large scale night bombing till 30 June 1943.After that no restrictions. Prior to that , no more than 24 planes , only bombing when moon is 50% or greater. Does that sound reasonable to you?

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As I hadn't been convinced that it was a problem (I am now) I'd argued that the RAF had been doing strategic night bombing since 1941 en masse , there was no reason they couldn't do it by 1943 in the IO. I also intended it to be Night strategic bombing (Although airfields are pretty easy to hit , so air fields could be hit). I had in mind Wellingtons, Liberators, B-24's and later B-29s. Andre and I try to be as "historically reasonable" (that is , not to do the same thing that was historically done, but what was reasonably historically possible). Would that fit in with what you would consider a reasonable house rule?

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ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

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ORIGINAL: aaffins

quote:

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
Another complaint is that B-17's are devastating to Japanese fighters at night. Well, they certainly were in daytime. (I suggest one read Saki's account in Samuri of his unit attacking Colin Kelly's B-17D and the frustration they had in trying to bring down this single , underarmed plane. ) Imagine attacking a box of B-17E's at night, where NOT having the advantage of being able to plan your attack, you suddenly blunder into range of 20-30 50 cal MG's. In an Oscar. Sounds like flying confetti to me.

My previous comment wasn't meant as a complaint, just an observation of where the results were very different from what I was expecting. Intercepting 4E's during daylight with A6M2s seems to yield about a 1:1 kill ratio. Intercepting with Ki-45s seems to improve that to about 2.5:1. So when I intercepted at night and lost 4 Ki-45s and 6 A6M3s (flown by 75+ exp pilots) without downing a single bomber I thought that seemed odd. Now granted I have not experimented with this, it could be I just had one very unlucky result, but it was one of the stranger results I've gotten in several years of playing this game.

Out of curiousity , what were the moonlight conditions?

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ORIGINAL: aaffins

Is there a way to check that from the ops reports and/or combat reports? It does say clear sky, but I believe that's weather related, not moonlight.

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

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ORIGINAL: aaffins

Is there a way to check that from the ops reports and/or combat reports? It does say clear sky, but I believe that's weather related, not moonlight.

Moonlight status should be on the front (main) map page-on the status bar below the buttons, near the top.

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ORIGINAL: Numdydar

We are in March '44 (I am Japan) and after both us us used night raids for a while, came to the conclusion that night bombing is too messed up to even bother with. So we just agreed to not use it at all. Makes things simpler all around Neither of us has missed having it and really do not see it as having a major impact on the game.

Also remember, the reason that night bombing was used at all was so the planes and crews would have less losses than daylight raids would have had. As we do not have to write letters home, this is not an issue for us. So for my oppenet and I it was much easier to just ban the whole concept. In a game of this complexity, reducing an aspect of it that neither of us seems to have that much of an impact helps move the game along. Of course others may want to do things differently

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ORIGINAL: Numdydar

In RL this was done to reduce losses. Our pixils, bits and bytes do not care

As the Allied player with a fixed number of B-29s delivered during the war/game you care very much.

As Japan. I really canot see whether I get bombed at night or durning the day really matters lol.

As I said, other may wish to do things different but for us worrying about moonlight levels, only a certain number of planes etc. seems to over complicate and already complex game for very little real in game benefit. Other than it was doen in RL so we must do it in the game even if we have to create even more rules to do so . That just did not work for us.

I'm on record many times as not being in favor of HRs. I only made my comment to illustrate that not many players on either isde ever see 1945. Some things are very different then.

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ORIGINAL: Miller

The results of night bombing are not a problem imo, however the fact the Allied bombers shoot down any night fighters at a rate of 5:1 is...........

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ORIGINAL: aphrochine

Effectiveness depends on a few factors. Airfield strikes devastate overstacked or near limit airfields. Port strikes dont typically do much imo. Strategic bombing is OP, day or night. Our game doesnt have any house rules but it's not very difficult to drop 100-200 points of industry in 2-3 days with a couple dozen 4Es.