bartbert
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Posts posted by bartbert
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The Me-262 won't be in the update because there are some special rules that will have to be implemented for jets. The Heavy Cannon enhancement brings us one step closer to making the Me-262 possible, though.
I'll talk to Dan about putting together an updated Manual with the new aircraft statistics.
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San~Raal,
I sent you an e-mail about the problem you're having. I think I know how to resolve it, so let me know if you got the e-mail. Thanks.
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When you're playing with low level pilots, it's not uncommon to end the mission where nobody scored any points for damages and kills. We included a few "free" points so that your pilots at least get something for flying. We gave the AI pilots an extra point as a way of compensating for the less than optimal play AI pilots sometimes do.
Early versions of the game actually did award points for turns spent advantaged and/or tailed and other events that occurred throughout the mission. In the end, we threw all that out in favor of a simpler system based on damaged and destroyed aircraft because that's what players expected victory or defeat to be based on.
We don't award XP based on the Victory/Defeat status of the mission, but we do award "Rank Points" based on that. You will move closer to your next promotion for a victory than for a defeat.
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It is true that the IMS 1:1 card becomes unplayable for the Spitfire I. However, any 2-Burst card is playable from a Neutral position. Overall, I think it is probably a wash.Originally posted by lakespeed:Ok, so I have a question. You mentioned the Spitfire now with a +2/-1 rating. Does that mean there will still be IMS 1:1 cards in the deck for the Spitfire to use? If so, doesn't this hurt the Spitfire by cutting down on the number of "useful" cards it has?
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If I'm understanding your message, you're saying that the medals show up on the web site, but when you go to the "Manage Pilots" screen in the game, they don't show up?
If that is what you are referring to, then the answer is that there is always a bit of a delay between when new medals show up on the web site and when they show up in the Manage Pilots screen.
We can update the server in "real time" so the medals show up right away. For them to show up in the Manage Pilots screen, we have to compile an updated version and push that out through the auto-download. We have a new update coming out soon, so you won't have to wait for your medals too much longer.
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We'll be releasing a few enhancements on Sunday. Here's a few of the details: New Enhancements
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I only have to do this for another week!? Woohoo!
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You're welcome. Glad to hear it was helpful.
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We have actually discussed having a tournament where the prize would be having a "dead" pilot returned to action.
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The good news there is that Battlefront is working on providing the ability to download their games, and I suspect that will be in place well before the expansion is available.
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I don't know what the price on the expansion packs will be, but I would guess that they'll be in the $10 to $15 range, depending on how many aircraft are included.
You'll be getting a whole set of aircraft all in one shot, and as Sixxkiller mentioned, there is a fair amount of work that goes into each aircraft.
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Right now, the plan is to release other nationalities such as the Soviets in expansion packs. We haven't decided on a date for the first expansion pack yet, but I know Dan has been working steadily on the aircraft for it.
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If a pilot has and Escape Death, it really shouldn't be possible for him to be killed. The process goes as follows:
1. Check to see if the pilot fails to bailout safely (about a 30% that he will fail).
2. If the pilot bails out safely, but the guy who shot him down has the "Target Pilot" skill, there is a chance that the safe bailout will be cancelled.
3. If it is still a safe bailout at this point, the pilot is out of danger. He floats to earth and lives to fly another day.
4. If it is an unsafe bailout at this point, the only thing that will save the pilot is the Escape Death skill. If he has an "ED", it is expended, and the pilot lives. If he doesn't have an "ED", he is dead.
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I like the idea of a variable number of turns for some of the longer games. Anything that forces a few more tough decisions is always a good thing.
We tried giving the defender the points for any area where the attacker doesn't show up, and found that it didn't work very well. The problem is that the defender no longer has much incentive to defend the low value areas. He can basically concentrate on defending the high value areas, and hope that he picks up a low value area here and there due to the attacker running out of fresh pilots.
From a "realism" standpoint, it probably would make sense to award the points to the defender if nobody shows up. After all, the defender has achieved their goal of not taking any damage to the area. But from a game standpoint, the decisions are much tougher, and therefore more interesting, if the defender has to fight for every area.
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That's interesting. How did you figure out what the problem was? Was this a Windows ME system?
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I'll take a look and try to make sure that no sound files get played if the sound preferences have been turned off.
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If you send proof of ownership (i.e., order number, customer number, or full shipping address) to difadmin@battlefront.com we can get you access to a manual download site. Then you could download the files at work to CD or thumb drive and then apply the update manually to your home computer.
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We slipped that change in about a week ago without any fanfare to see if anyone noticed. As you mentioned, the Bots will no longer dump cards under certain circumstances.
When it does discard, it uses a more scientific approach in deciding which cards to dump. Basically, it assigns a value to each card in its hand based on the current situation (i.e., position, multiples, etc.) and then gets rid of the lowest value cards first.
We'll be improving other decision making logic such as changing altitude (the Bots will no longer aggressively pursue), and choosing cards to play.
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Looking for a successor to the Messerschmitt Bf-110, the Messerschmitt Me-210 was designed. However, it's design had problems, and by the time it had matured to a good aircraft it had a terrible reputation from which it could not recover.
Nevertheless, the Bf 110 needed a replacement, for it had grown obsolete from the Battle of Britain onward.
Using the Me-210 as a starting point, and changing the designation for psychological reasons, the Me-410 Hornisse was quickly completed. The Me-410 was different from the Me-210 mostly in it's powerplant, and modified wings. These panels included automatic leading edge slots, updated ailerons, trailing-edge flaps and radiator flaps. The first Me-410 prototype was a modified Me-210 pre-production aircraft.
Flight trials proved that the Me-410 didn't have the problems of the Me-210, and performed excellent with good handling. This, combined with experience with the Me-210, was reason enough for the Me-410 to be ordered into production only a few weeks after the first flight.
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If "Out of Ammo" was going to be a card that is dependent on the type of aircraft, it almost seems like you would have to move towards "custom decks". That is, instead of aircraft drawing from a common deck, each aircraft gets its own deck which reflects the attributes of that aircraft.
I've always thought that this could be another interesting way of differentiating aircraft. For example, aircraft with high turn rates might have more Tight Turn cards in their decks. Aircraft that were poor at diving might have fewer Vertical Roll cards in their decks.
You might even come up with new cards, such as a "Boom and Zoom" card that allows an aircraft to dive a level, fire once, and then return to its starting altitude.
This is all "blue sky" stuff right now, though. But I suppose if there were enough player interest in a particular idea, we could at least look at the effort involved.
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What if you made an "out of ammo" card that you could play as a reaction card to an "IMS" or "OOS" card? It would be like playing a "No Response" (so you would take the damage), except that it would cause your opponent to have a -1 Burst for the rest of the game or something.
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We have had internal discussions about how we could put the player pilots into a larger campaign context that is somewhat similar to what Ludo proposed.
The general idea was that there would be some campaign, such as the Battle of Britain, that would run for perhaps a couple of weeks.
During that period, the system would randomly generate missions appropriate to the campaign, and players who were currently logged into the Lobby might see a system generated message show up in the chat window such as, "Incoming German bombers targeting London factories! Scramble two fighter squadrons!"
Players could then choose to join this system generated mission with either German or British pilots. The aircraft would be pre-determined, and the pilots might have to meet certain conditions (we haven't really thought this through completely).
The mission would be resolved one way or the other. Either by the players who joined the game, or if nobody joined the game, then the AI would play both sides and determine a victor. Then some kind of campaign map would be updated to indicate the progress of the campaign based on the outcome of each battle.
After a certain time period, or maybe after a certain number of battles, the campaign would end, and victory would be declared based on points, or targets destroyed, or something. Then a new campaign would start up.
You guys will definitely be seeing the enhancement for differentiating aircraft based on armament before too long. Dan feels that it still needs more testing at this point to make sure we haven't thrown the balance way out of whack, but it's getting there.
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I am in agreement that there needs to be some way for players to participate in a tournament without having to retire one of their pilots. I'm not sure what the solution should be at this point, but we'll figure something out.
As far as the fatigue problem, I tend to think that four pilots is enough. It is actually intentional that you might have to occasionally fly a fatigued pilot. If it's happening too much, we'll take a look at it, but it builds character to fly fatigued once in awhile.
I think some players forget that they don't have to always fly the most powerful aircraft available. If your pilot is fatigued, you might want to have him fly one the earlier (and less lethal) aircraft so that your opponent will be similarly equipped.
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When wingmen attack a bomber, they get their Offensive cards plus their Defensive cards minus one. When a leader attacks a bomber, they get a +1 burst against Light and Medium bombers. They get an additional +1 burst (for a total of +2 bursts) against Heavy bombers.Originally posted by tornado:On Escort missions against the AI I always start my fighters at Very High - more times then not my bombers are at High. Occasionaly they are at Medium or very high(seems that I remember I even had them pop up at low one time). It would be very nice to know what altitude the bombers would be at before you selected your starting altitude. As far as the extra card(s) for the AI Wingman - it seems that a read a thread in which Brian stated that enemy WM get a card "bonus" (my word-not his) when doing an intercept mission. It takes the number of offensive cards allowed PLUS the number of defensive cards, or some such. I can't remember which topic it was under. And it is possible that I am totally misinterpurting what he said (I do remember that he addressed it)-so, Brain if you read this- HELP!
lol - I see Stalin's Organist beat me the punch on posting - as usual.
As far as a bomber's starting altitude, it breaks out as follows:
Heavy Bomber:
Very High = 15%
High = 35%
Medium = 50%
Medium Bomber:
High = 20%
Medium = 45%
Low = 25%
Very Low = 10%
Light Bomber:
Medium = 15%
Low = 55%
Very Low = 30%
New Enhancements coming soon...
in Down In Flames
Posted
Ok. I cashed in the Spoil Aim skill for that pilot.