Coral Sea HDM Demo Scenario

[JuanG]

I've recently been working on putting a lot of the stuff I thought up for AltWNT Mk2 to use in modifying the smaller stock scenarios, both to act as testbeds and demos for the changes, as well as to help get these changes implemented in 'bite sized' portions. The ultimate goal is a Grand Campaign scenario with all the changes (possibly based on Babes Lite if I can get permission to do so). This will be a historical scenario, not one of the AltWNT ones - these may follow later. The working name for this project is HDM.

Download links;
Scenario 132 - Version 1.21 (released 31/12/2013)
RAR: http://www.mediafire.com/download/dy06665dbyle9p1/s132%20Coral%20Sea%20v1.21.rar
ZIP: http://www.mediafire.com/download/tqaa6cw9rwcp0at/s132%20Coral%20Sea%20v1.21.zip

Installation is straightforward, simply unrar or unzip the downloaded file into your Admirals Edition folder. The ART and SCEN assets will be placed in their correct locations. The included scenario and artwork should not overwrite any existing assets.

The changes include;
-Entirely redone ship classes, including naval devices
-Entirely redone aircraft and aircraft weapons
-Bombs and torpedoes modified in a similar (with some differences) manner to DaBabes
-Tailored ship and airgroup experience levels, to conform to new planned standards for the larger scenarios

More details on these (particularly relating to Naval changes) are available in the AltWNT Mk2 thread.

Untouched from stock Coral Sea;
-Leaders
-Ground forces and Ground Devices
-Bases and Logistics
-AI (the stock AI should work fine with this scenario)

The scenario includes a very limited data set as I basically cleaned it and then only included the bits that were necessary, so only aircraft that actually appear will be in the library, etc.

Please do share your comments and criticism if you give it a try, or if you have any questions regarding the changes and their origins.

The next scenario I am planning on modifying in this manner is Thousand Mile War, which will probably be better for the surface combat aspects of this. After that, its either Guadalcanal or one of the other 'larger' scenarios.

[Symon]

Hi Juan,

Anything in Babes is available to you, anytime. Will be looking at all your new stuff. Incorporated some of your thoughts and ideas into Babes back when we were chatting about them. Appears your solution set will be still more robust. Looking forward to it.

Ciao, J

[mikkey]

thanks JuanG, I look forward to the next scenarios

[House Stark]

Always looking forward to a new JuanG scenario!

[Akos Gergely]

Good news, nice to yee you back Juan!

Cheers,

Akos

PS- small note: the Lexington version used is the one stil with the 8" twin turrets, is this intentional? It should be the all 1.1" version I guess

[GaryChildress]

Hi JuanG,

What do the dashes and equal signs in the devices database mean?

[PaxMondo]

Gary, go to Juan's original thread, they are all explained there. Link is in his first post.

[GaryChildress]

Ahhh...thanks Pax.

[JuanG]

Thanks for the welcome and comments gents.

Some responses;

ORIGINAL: csatahajos
PS- small note: the Lexington version used is the one still with the 8" twin turrets, is this intentional? It should be the all 1.1" version I guess

I just used the stock scenario #3 as a baseline, and did not double check any of the data for them. You are correct however, Lex lost her 8in/55s in April for 1.1ins and bunch of other AA. Ill make sure to fix that and double check the rest of her data.

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress
Hi JuanG,

What do the dashes and equal signs in the devices database mean?

Detailed explanation here (see Devices > Naval/DP Guns).

In brief, there are typically two symbols at the end;
The first is relative firecontrol quality compared to other mountings of the device (so for example between two different 8in guns).
The second is relative rate of fire compared to other mountings of the device (typically due to ammo handling arrangements, ammo hoists, lockers, etc.).

As not all weapons were installed in the same manner or with the same arrangements for FCS or ammo handling, these help you differentiate at a glance how that particular instance stands out. The Japanese CA's are a good example in this scenario, with each class having a different version of the 8in/50.

The symbols used are as follows;
^ is Excellent
+ is Good
= is Average
- is Poor
. is Terrible

In other news, I've decided to forgo Thousand Mile War for now and have started work on modifying Guadalcanal. So far its been 'pruned' down to only the needed aircraft, groups, ships and ship classes. Now the real work of updating the devices and then modelling and porting the aircraft and ships begins.

EDIT: And it seems Pax beat me to the punch. Thank you!

[Akos Gergely]

Alos the Macis in Rabaul and the Emily unit in Truk does not seem to be able to aquire pilots (or I'm doing something wrong...)

[JuanG]

ORIGINAL: csatahajos

Alos the Macis in Rabaul and the Emily unit in Truk does not seem to be able to aquire pilots (or I'm doing something wrong...)

Apparently if you leave a group in the database with a parent group assigned that is no longer in the database, it cannot have any pilots.

This is basically a bug caused by my pruning of the non-present airgroups. Thank you for noticing it, I will keep my eyes open for the same as I work on Guadalcanal.

I've fixed this by making both of these groups independent.

Ill be posting an updated version soon as I finish a few more fixes.

Regarding Lexington; as far as I can see her AA loadout post 4/42 was;
6 single 5in/25 (3 per side)
7 quad 1.1in/75 (all on the island, 4 fore 3 aft)
22 20mm/70 (11 per side)
28 0.5in (who knows?)

Does this look correct?

[Akos Gergely]

Hi again,

I think she had 12 5"/25 in all + 4 other 1.1" guns sponsoned out at the 4 corners of the flight deck + 1 just in front of the funnel. All in all she easily had the heaviest AA gun suit among the CVs in the USN at that time. See the pic below:

[JuanG]

Thanks for the excellent info! I did indeed mean 12 single 5in/25, with 6 per side, no idea why I talked about 6.

Update is out;
Scenario 132 - Version 1.1
RAR: http://www.mediafire.com/download/9fd04gzy07ttahd/s132_Coral_Sea_v1.1.rar
ZIP: http://www.mediafire.com/download/hg1t41w34zo39by/s132_Coral_Sea_v1.1.zip

[Akos Gergely]

Any news about the gudalacanal scenario upgraded like that? I played this Coral Sea vs one of my friends and it ws very enjoyable, we even had a surface combat with each other at PM. So can't wait for more!

[JuanG]

ORIGINAL: csatahajos

Any news about the gudalacanal scenario upgraded like that? I played this Coral Sea vs one of my friends and it ws very enjoyable, we even had a surface combat with each other at PM. So can't wait for more!

Hey, nice to hear that you enjoyed it!

I am slowing working away at the Guadalcanal scenario, currently still working on aircraft data. Progress has been slowed as I've recently moved to Germany for the next few months due to work, so there's been all kinds of distractions. Hopefully I'll be able to get aircraft data done next week or so, after which its time to start looking at all those ships...

[Akos Gergely]

Okay Juan, thanks for the effort and keep it up !

[Akos Gergely]

Any news on the Guad scenario Sir?

[Mac Linehan]

Juan -

Christmas Break, am playing Andy Mac's Babes Ironman Allied Nasty Nasty campaign. Did one turn today, then needed to take a break (have done five or so full days of campaign game playing, a turn takes several hours...<sigh>) and play a small scenario with a faster turnaround time - more immediate combat. Found this link, read the info and am excited to give it a go. Your approach and modifications appeal, so downloaded the file.

It's almost midnight (of course!) so I will go for it tomorrow.

Thanks for your excellent work - and I am absolutely sure that the math and editing was not easy.

Mac

[JuanG]

ORIGINAL: Mac Linehan

Juan -

Christmas Break, am playing Andy Mac's Babes Ironman Allied Nasty Nasty campaign. Did one turn today, then needed to take a break (have done five or so full days of campaign game playing, a turn takes several hours...<sigh>) and play a small scenario with a faster turnaround time - more immediate combat. Found this link, read the info and am excited to give it a go. Your approach and modifications appeal, so downloaded the file.

It's almost midnight (of course!) so I will go for it tomorrow.

Thanks for your excellent work - and I am absolutely sure that the math and editing was not easy.

Mac

Hey,

Hope you enjoy it!

Still working on the Guadalcanal version, had to put it on hold for a while. Picked it back up over the holidays after getting inspired after looking over all the awesome stuff done for Babes and RA in the meanwhile. At this point I am not going to give any kind of estimates as to when its done, since I can't see to keep to them for the life of me...

I've updated Coral Sea to v1.2 using data from the Guadalcanal dataset, amounting to some small changes to aircraft and airgroups.

Scenario 132 - Version 1.2
RAR: http://www.mediafire.com/download/5nwls3julbbvj1g/s132%20Coral%20Sea%20v1.2.zip
ZIP: http://www.mediafire.com/download/5nwls3julbbvj1g/s132%20Coral%20Sea%20v1.2.zip

Best wishes for the new year.

[Mac Linehan]

JuanG -

Thank You for an immediate response. Am delighted to download Coral Sea v2.

All of us have been inspired with the new releases by Andy Mac and the Babes Team. Stock is good, but you have given us an new take on a favorite scenario. Creativity is not limited to just one group, there are an infinite number of ways to change the feel of the game.

However, there are fewer who have the math and computer skills to make it so. My respect to you, Babes, Andy Mac, Nikademus, the RA and RHS Teams (and many others!) for not only following your dream but willing to do the work.

Also: All of us mod our games, I do so on a regular basis. Even just the basics - more ships, editing locations etcetera take serious time; I would not be willing to speculate how many man hours you and other have spent doing the serious math stuff.

Thanks, Juan - for your work and all that you have done for us.

El Mac (That's Mac in Spanish...) <grin>