bartbert
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Posts posted by bartbert
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You can find out about some of the changes we plan to implement within the next few weeks here: http://downinflamesonline.com/DiFPortal/Default.aspx?tabid=83
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You can try the following article to see if it helps:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q240429/
Also, if your firewall supports something called UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), you should try enabling it because it allows your computer to automatically request that ports be opened for temporary use and then they get closed when no longer needed.
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You might want to see if there is an error log with an entry around the time that the problem occurred. It sounds like some non-fatal error happened that prevented the program from finishing the sequence of displaying the bailout and cleaning up the leader "debris".
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Several players have reported a problem where the wingman image is cut off such that you can never select them as a target. Apparently, this is primarily a problem with local games rather than online games.
The problem seems to be related to having the screen DPI set to 120 instead of the default of 96. I'm still trying to figure out why this would only be a problem with the local game, but a workaround is to set the DPI back to the default of 96 by doing the following:
Right-click anywhere on your screen desktop and select Properties to bring up the "Display Properties" screen. Click on the "Settings" tab and then click on the "Advanced" button. There should be a drop down list of DPI settings you can choose from. If "96 DPI" is not selected, pick it from the list and then click OK. It may tell you that you need to restart the computer after making the change.
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If you purchase a card, it gets dealt to you in your initial hand, and the skill is immediately expended. I'm afraid there is no option to hold it back for future use. So it didn't matter which of the cards you had played.
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The levels of victory are based not only on ratio of victory points, but also on the ratio of the starting point values.
If you start the battle with a substantial advantage in terms of the aircraft and pilot values, then winning by a substantial margin is more or less the expected outcome.
If you start the battle with a substantial advantage, and end up losing, then it is considered a substantial defeat because you did significantly worse than expected.
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The psychology for campaign escort missions is somewhat different than a non-campaign escort mission.
In a campaign mission, you don't get to pick your starting altitude, so you may find that you're in a pickle right from the start. However, your primary goal in a campaign mission is to protect the bombers (if you're escorting). If they survive, you get points. Otherwise, you get nothing, or the other guy gets points. If an enemy interceptor gets position on your escorts, climb (preferably) or dive away from the bombers and hope that they follow you. Even if they shoot you down, it may take them a turn or two to get back to where the bombers are, which may allow them to survive and drop their bombs.
If you're playing a non-campaign escort mission, your attitude will shift a bit. You still would like the bombers to survive because you will get extra XP if they do (and will lose XP if they don't). However, you don't want the pilots that you've been carefully nurturing to get killed, so if it comes down to a choice between your pilots or the bombers, you will probably let the bombers take it on the chin.
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Yes, there is a (massive) Leyte Gulf campaign being tested right now. Other campaigns you may see being tested over the next few weeks are Crete, Flying Tigers, and Coral Sea.
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From your description, it sounds like the Half Loop should have changed the lone enemy leader from being advantaged on the Bot leader to being disadvantaged to you. I'm not sure why it didn't play that way in your case, but we'll keep an eye on it.
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One of the things we're looking at doing is to change the way XP are distributed after a battle. Right now, each pilot only gets XP for what they personally shot down, except for escorting bombers.
We're considering going to a system where the XP are distributed based on the relative experience of the leader and wingman. So, if you had a leader with a lot of experience with a brand new wingman, the wingman would get most of the XP (like maybe 80%). This would simulate the more experienced leader passing on his knowledge to the new wingman, and would help the wingman advance more quickly.
As the experience of the leader and wingman become more equal, the XP would then be distributed equally as well.
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The Battle of Midway took place in early June of 1942 around the small island of Midway in the middle of the Pacific. Japanese carrier-based aircraft battled American carrier-based and land-based aircraft in a vital battle for control of the Pacific Ocean.
A new feature to this campaign is the concept of "Unknown Targets". Sometimes you will see a target with a question mark instead of the normal target values. You will have to decide whether you want to assign pilots to the attack or defense of this target without knowing for sure what is actually there. Once both sides have assigned their pilots, the target is revealed. It could be a carrier with fuel and armaments strewn across the deck (ie, a x2 carrier), or it could be a worthless "No Target".
[ November 18, 2005, 07:07 PM: Message edited by: bartbert ]
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There are descriptions of all the skills on page 15 of the Manual (there should be a link from the Windows Start button under Battlefron/Down in Flames). This only applies if you have the full version, since the demo only comes with a quick help guide.
You can also see a description of each skill from within the game by going to the "Manage Pilots" screen, click the "Purchase Skills" button, and then clicking on the skill and looking at the text that appears towards the bottom of the screen.
After reading through the skill descriptions, if you still have questions as to what a particular skill does, post it here and we'll try to get you an answer.
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It could very well be that the Military Cross is not frequently awarded because other medals are being awarded instead.
Each medal is given a value (or priority) from 10 (Victoria Cross) down to 1 (Wounded Badge). When checking for medal awards, the highest value medals are checked first, continuing on down to the lowest value medals. As soon as a medal is awarded, no further checks are made.
The Military Cross has a value of 2, so it's pretty low on the list. I suspect that other medals are being awarded before it gets to checking the Military Cross.
Some medals can only be awarded once, while most others can be awarded multiple times. Maybe we should just make them all be awarded just once, so that eventually you could win all them.
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I'll see if I can shift things around a bit on the BoB map. London is kind of cramped.
I thought about putting some kind of target-vs-bomber table on the web page, but it seemed like putting it on the map would be easier for players to figure out how to assign their aircraft.
From what Dan told me, he thought that for the most part the bomber's bomb points capture most of the effect he was after. For example, given a bomber muliplier of 1.0, a Light Bomber element can only do a maximum of 4 bomb points while a Heavy Bomber element can do 12 points. So if you're going after a big target, a Heavy Bomber will be the logical choice.
What we're trying to capture with the bomber multipliers is to show those situations where a bomber was particularly effective, or particularly ineffective at attacking a target.
B-17's were present at Midway, but I don't think they did any damage. Yet a handful of dive bombers were able to wreak havoc.
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We have been testing a new feature in the upcoming Midway campaign that has unintentionally spilled over into the other campaigns. So we'll go ahead and announce it as a new feature now.
Every target now has a "Bomber Factor" for Light, Medium, and Heavy bombers. This factor gets multiplied by the bomber's bomb points to arrive at the final bomb points.
For example, a heavy cruiser target has a Light Bomber factor of 1.50x, a Medium Bomber factor of .50x, and a Heavy Bomber factor of .20x. The target is a 3/5, so it normally requires 3 points to damage, and 5 points to destroy.
If an element of Light Bombers were to attack such a target, their bomb points would be multiplied by 1.50. So each undamaged bomber would be worth 2 x 1.5 = 3 bomb points.
An element of Heavy Bombers attacking that same target would have their bomb points multiplied by .20. So each undamaged bomber would be worth 6 x .20 = 1.2 bomb points.
The bomb factors show up on the campaign map above the target icon, so you can readily see them. Hopefully, this will make the campaigns a little more "realistic", and give players something else to consider when assigning aircraft to regions.
Hopefully, this "hidden" change didn't screw up too many campaigns for you guys. I'm aware of at least one Singapore tournament game that this played a part in changing the outcome. We were so focused on testing the Midway campaign that we forgot that it might affect other campaigns. Ooops! Sorry guys!
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It could be server related. There was some kind of service pack or security update done recently. If it seems to be a trend, I can request that the server be rebooted again to see if it helps. Is anyone else experiencing a higher frequency of disconnects over the past few days?
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Every In My Sights (IMS) and Out of the Sun (OTS) card has two important values: Bursts and Damage.
Every aircraft is also rated with a Burst value (usually 0 or 1, but a few have 2). Leaders can improve their aircraft's burst rating temporarily by getting an improved position (+1 for advantaged and +3 for Tailing).
So, you have to compare the burst value of the aircraft (modified for position) to the burst value of the card in order to determine whether the card can be played. If the burst value of the aircraft is equal to or greater than the burst value of the card, then you can play it.
Also, the burst value of the aircraft is "expended" as you play cards with a burst.
For example, if your aircraft had a base burst rating of 1 and he was tailing the enemy leader, then he would have a total burst rating of 4 (3 + 1). If he then played an IMS 2-Burst:2-Damage card, he would have used up 2 of his available 4 bursts. He could then play another 2-Burst card, or two 1-Burst cards, but he could not play a 3-Burst card.
There is a wingman skill called "Spoil Aim" which casues the enemy leader's burst value to be reduced by 1. So in the above situation, the tailing leader's total burst rating would be 3 (1 + 3 - 1) if the enemy wingman had the Spoil Aim skill.
I don't know what the particular circumstances were for you in the games you were playing, but I suspect that you had high value burst cards (probably 3-Burst) and weren't able to play them because you didn't have the burst rating for your aircraft.
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Yes, you really need to watch out for pilot fatigue. You are allowed to create up to four sets of pilots per nationality. When one set of pilots are flying, all the others of that same nationality are "resting" and recovering fatigue, so rotate through your pilots to keep them fresh.
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Remember that if you can't remember what a particular does, you can always right-click on it to get a pop-up description of the card, how it is used, and it's rarity.
As noted above, there can be a lot to consider when deciding what cards to play, or even IF you should play a card. Just because you can play a card doesn't mean you necessarily should.
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I KNEW I left something out of that last update!
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The Japanese aircraft Ki-102 Randy is now available for download. This aircraft never really saw production, but was designed to be a high altitude night fighter. Now you can see how it would have fared.
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The AI does some stupid things sometimes, and it is something we are working to improve with a more scientific approach.
The rest of your comments are more in Dan's domain because they are game system related, but the idea of relative ratings is interesting. I just wonder what happens in a multi-aircraft fight when you switch from type of aircraft to another. Does your hand size change instantly?
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Yes, I think it would be possible. What we haven't figured out is how best to display the information.
Opening up a separate window is one possibility, but it seems like that might be too many windows (since you could open up a window for every pilot).
Another possibility that we have discussed is to display a set of icons, perhaps directly above or below the pilot's name. When you hover the mouse over the icon, it could display a tooltip with the skill's full name, and maybe if you click on it, it could display what the skill does.
There are two things holding us up from implementing the icon approach. One is getting a good set of icons. They would need to be pretty small (16x16 pixels), and it's harder than you might think to come up with good icons. The other thing is just making sure that there is room for the icons. Some of the high-end pilots can have quite a number of skills.
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Yup. Makes sense.
I'm not sure when it will happen, but I think the logical evolution for DiF is to come up with some kind of mega-campaign system, which would incorporate some of these ideas.
There would be some higher level decision making as to which targets need to be attacked (or defended) in order to achieve the larger war aims. That's where the effect on the production system could come into play.
These campaigns would probably play themselves out over the course of days, or possibly weeks, with missions taking place around the clock. Some of those missions would have the AI running both sides, while others would have players jumping in to fill the slots.
In the works
in Down In Flames
Posted
Oh my god, look what the sheep... I mean cat dragged in. Harv must be settled in for the long winter (mouse in one hand and a bottle in the other).
Good to hear from you, Harv. Time to show these young whipper-snappers a thing or two about flying (or was that dying).