bartbert
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Posts posted by bartbert
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The AI does not draw better cards than human players. That is, we do not let the AI "cheat" by drawing specific cards from the deck. However, we do have a range of AI pilots that we can choose from that have various skills. Those skills may allow the AI pilot to draw extra cards, dive or climb better, etc. So it may seem like the AI pilots are drawing better cards, but it's more likely that they are making use of skills that give them an edge.
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The answer to your first question is Yes, you can see what your opponents point value is when you look at the list of games available to join. One of the columns toward the right is the point value. Depending on your resolution, you might have to scroll to the right to see it maybe.
The answer to your second question is that you are awarded points based on the value of the pilot that you shot down (or damaged). So if a 10-point pilot got shot down by a 5-point pilot, the lower value pilot would receive 10 points. If it were the other way around, the higher value pilot would only receive 5 points.
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I would think it would run on that kind of machine, although perhaps not very fast. Is it also a Win XP OS? Are you sure that it has both the 1.1 .NET Framework and DirectX 9.0c?
.NET tends to like a lot of RAM, so sometimes adding more RAM can have as much beneficial effect as a faster CPU.
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I'm afraid there won't be a hotseat mode, and multi-player games must connect to the Internet.
The game is designed to move back and forth between players rapidly, which would make a hotseat mode difficult. Sorry.
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Performance is the maximum number of cards that you can draw up to. As has been pointed out, the number of cards in your hand can exceed your performance. This is usually because of diving, although some skills can do that for you as well.
Suppose that you have a Performance of 6, a Horsepower of 2 and 5 cards in your hand when it comes time to discard and draw. If you don't discard anything, then you will only be able to draw one card, even though your Horsepower is 2. That's where your Performance limits you. If you discard a card, then you can draw 2 cards.
As PeterK pointed out, if the number of cards in your hand plus your Horsepower is less than or equal to your Performance, there is no reason to discard anything.
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Those are some excellent suggestions, and I think a lot of them are easy enough to get into the final release. I'm glad you're enjoying the game, and thanks for the great feedback.
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That is correct. You need DirectX 9.0c
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Heh. Yes I suppose if you take the missions very literally, then it does seem kind of odd. But the game is very abstract in a lot of ways, and the missions are not really very connected except for the accumulation of fatigue. Very few pilots in WWII flew in both theaters of the war, but the game can switch you back and forth from one mission to the next in order to provide more variety. If you play online, you may even fight against your allies (ie, USA vs UK or Germany vs Japan), depending on what your human opponents are flying.
If you want something that does give a little bit more of a connected feel (and some historical flavor), then you might want to try the Dunkirk campaign game. The campaign games give each player a fixed number of pilots and aircraft that have to attack or defend areas on a map over the course of several turns. A pilot who flies one turn will be more fatigued for the next turn, and if a pilot dies, he's out for the rest of the campaign.
Some players will prefer the "role-playing" aspect of the dogfight missions, and won't worry too much about whether the match-ups are historically accurrate or not. Others will gravitate towards the campaign games because they prefer match-ups that are more historical, and because they like the strategic planning.
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With regard to the fatigue penalties, what you need to do is create 4 sets of pilots (leader and wingman). When the first set of pilots is fatigued to the point that they are suffering penalties, you give them a rest and use the next set of pilots for awhile.
Each time one set of pilots flies a mission, the remaining pilots (for that particular nationality) will recover from fatigue. The idea is to force players to rotate through a set of pilots. Otherwise, players would just fly the same set of pilots over and over until they either died or became uber-pilots.
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You can only play a Scissors card as an attack if you start Disadvantaged. Since you were Tailed, the Scissors card was not available.
You can always right-click on a card and get a pretty good description of when and how it is used.
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I understand what you guys are saying. Again, I don't speak for Battlefront, but I would think any software company would want to release a demo only when they have the actual product ready to sell. Any sooner than that, and it seems like you would be diluting the main point of a demo, which is to sell the product. At any rate, hopefully you won't have to wait too much longer.
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As the developer on this project, I can give you my perspective on the question, but I don't speak officially for Battlefront.
If you have been teased, it certainly hasn't been intentional. We'd love to get the game out into players hands. Some of the delay is just the normal stuff you run into with software development. We'd rather release a stable product late, than an unstable product on time, and I think most players would go along with that.
Another source of delay was that we added campaigns into the game rather late in the process. We felt that it really added a lot of value to the game, but of course it required more development and testing, which pushed things out a bit more.
Finally, you have the fact that Down in Flames is the first game for Battlefront in which they are providing a game server, which will facilitate players hooking up with other players in a Lobby area, running the games, etc. This client-server model is a much more difficult undertaking than the peer-to-peer model. It requires Battlefront to proceed cautiously to make sure that the game server can handle the load and provide players with a fun experience.
That's kind of where things are right now. Since it's a new model, we're feeling our way along. I can't give you a date when it will all be ready, but I can tell you that we're still working steadily to get this into players hands.
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One thing to keep in mind about all the campaigns is that we had to try to work within the list of aircraft available in the initial release. As such, there were some compromises that had to be made in order to produce campaigns that were interesting for both sides to play and that were reasonably balanced. As more aircraft are added down the road, we'll have more options available to us in terms of historical accurracy.
Campaigns are not editable, but they are mostly database driven. So we can add new campaigns by loading the correct data in (regions, targets, pilots, etc.), and then push out a few map images.
[ January 13, 2005, 06:33 AM: Message edited by: bartbert ]
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The guy coding the game is frequently wrong. Just ask my wife.
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Dead pilots do not show up on the main Leader Board. However, we don't delete their data from the database, so we will have the ability to do a "Hall of Fame" type listing of the greatest pilots dead or alive.
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Being able to have custom graphics for the aircraft is definitely on the "wish list" for a future release. We know how much people like to personalize these things.
Medals and Ranks have no effect in game terms. They are purely for bragging rights at this time. Getting promoted to higher Ranks is based on how successful your missions were and a random factor. The higher Ranks get progressively more difficult to obtain. Medal awards are based on achieving certain criteria during a battle and the more valuable medals (Victoria Cross, Medal of Honor, etc) will be awarded infrequently.
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There are indeed two major types of games. What we call "Single Mission" games are the ones where you play with a pilot that you have created. As the pilot flies missions, he gains experience points (XP) and can cash those in to purchase skills, and he will also be able to fly better aircraft.
"Single Mission" games can be either a "Dogfight" (fighter versus fighter only) or an "Escort" (one side escorts a bomber while the other side intercepts). "Dogfights" can be either 1-on-1 (2 players) or 2-on-2 (4 players). Any slots not taken by a human are filled by the AI. "Escorts" are always 2-on-2, but the bomber slot is always controlled by the AI, so you could have at most 3 human players. Both "Dogfight" and "Escort" games count toward Leader Board stats.
Campaign games give you a set pool of pilots and aircraft that are available for a given campaign. The pilots have pre-set skills. Your pilots from "Single Mission" games do not show up here because it would have been very difficult to balance the campaigns with that kind of variable thrown in. Pilots in campaigns do not gain XP and skills, although they do gain fatigue. The reasoning is that the focus of the campaign game is on managing your resources (pilots and aircraft) to control objectives on the campaign map. The focus of the "Single Mission" game is individual pilot development.
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Campaigns are an online feature only, but you can play against the AI or against a human.Can you play the campaigns solo against the AI locally (i.e. offline)? -
It's a turn based game, so when it is the 110's turn, he can play an IMS for the rear gunner, and the Spitfire could respond to avoid being hit. When it is the Spitfire's turn, he could play his own IMS cards and the 110 could try to respond to those.Spit on tail of 110 the 110 cant counter so plays a IMS card (for the rear gunner), does the spit now get to manover to counter that or can the spit also choose to play an IMS card so they both end up shooting at each other. ?
Yes, aircraft with a burst rating of 1 or 2 could play 1-burst or 2-burst cards from a neutral position. Maneuvering to more advantageous positions increases your burst rating, which gives you more options on what you can play.Also on shooting can you fire head to head as some aircraft have a burst rating of 1 or 2
Bombers never initiate an attack, but when targeted by a fighter they draw a mini-hand based on the bombers defensive capabilities. When fired on, bombers can't play cards like barrel roll, etc, to avoid being hit, but they can fire back with their own IMS cards. In addition, some cards are designated as "Spoiled Attack" cards which cause the fighter's current attack to be cancelled. A typical sequence might be that a fighter plays an IMS 1-burst 2-damage on the bomber. The bomber takes 2 hits and responds with a 2-burst 2-damage card. The fighter responds with a barrel roll and avoids being hit (the bomber cannot respond to the barrel roll). The fighter then plays another 1-burst 2-damage on the bomber, but the bomber reponds with a 1-burst 1-damage that is also a "Spoiled Attack". The fighter's attack is cancelled and the fighter must also respond to the 1-burst 1-damage card to avoid being hit.Since fighter attacking bomber combat is not described I can only guess how that portion of it works.
The Leader Board is for online games only. Kills for human and AI opponents count equally, but the AI plays a pretty mean game.The leader board, is that kills while scored while only playing online, or is that character kills scored both on or offline.
If there are only 2 human players in a 2 versus 2 battle, then the human players will always be put on opposite teams. If there are 3 human players, then you would have 2 humans versus 1 human and the AI.The AI also makes it interesting in that Co-op missions are possible against a pure AI ?
There isn't a simple answer to this one. It is certainly possible for two elements to gang up on one opposing element. Your wingman is there to protect the leader, so there are circumstances where you may be able to attack the wingman, but not the leader. Once the wingman is gone, the leader is definitely more vulnerable. The sequence is such that play alternates between sides, so you typically won't have both elements on one side going first followed by both elements of the other side.In multi element dogfights can both of your elements “gang up” onto say the leader of element 1. or if there are two elements a side do they pair off first ? as in 2 pairs chasing 1 guy -
Dan will have to answer the questions about turbo chargers and such, but I can address some of your question regarding game play.
When playing games locally, the only option is to play against the AI. If you're playing online, then you can play against other players, or against the AI. That's true whether you're playing regular dogfights or the campaign game. In regular dogfights, you can have up to four elements involved, and some of those could be human opponents while others are controlled by the AI. The campaign game is only two player, however.It was not obvious that there is a single player game, im pleased to see there is.
Yes, all bombers are controlled by the AI. Your job will either be bomber escort or interceptor.Would I be correct in assuming bombers are non players units ? basically targets ?
As Kiith surmised, the Bf110 allows you to play 1 Burst cards (either "In My Sights" or "Out of the Sun"), even when they are disadvantaged or tailed. Normally you would have to be at least Neutral to fire.Would also like to see how a 110 works under attack as it has a rear gunner but is a player plane, the only multi crew one i think.
Agile aircraft have the special ability to play any card as a "Scissors" under the right circumstances.Would also be interesting to see what “agile” does for you.
Playing online does allow your pilots to participate on the "Leader Board". This is basically a ranking of all the pilot's Kills and Experience Points. By default, we look at monthly totals, but you can also look at daily, weekly, and yearly totals.The online portion looks interesting could their be a pilot character scored online only?. Be willing to bet that kind of player character would have far more personal value than running up a score against the AI, see who the true aces are LoL -
When you create a pilot, you choose a nationality and that determines what aircraft it can fly. So they are not interchangeable. You start out with no experience or skills, flying the lowliest aircraft, and work your way up to the legendary pilots that Dan and Harv sent into battle in the AAR.
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They probably weren't the same, but I can see how it might appear that was the case. When you create your pilots, you get to pick the pictures that go with the leader and wingman. You could choose the same picture for both of them if you want, but that's up to you.One quick question though, how come the the pictures of the pilots are the same for both the Leader and Wingman?During the game, you will always see the picture and stats of the active aircraft. If your opponent's leader is attacking your wingman, and you're waiting for him to play a card, then his leader is the "active" pilot and you will see his picture displayed. When he plays his card and it is your wingman's turn to respond, then you will see your wingman's picture displayed.
You can also click on any aircraft at any time to see that pilot's stats.
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As far as processor, I'd say that any P4 should be up to the task, and P3's that are around 750 MHz should be Ok as well. Slower processors will just mean that the animations will be a bit choppier, but it will probably still play. I don't think I'd try it on a P2.
As with most games these days, more RAM will give you better results as well. 256 MB to 512 MB is pretty common these days, but on Windows 2000 and XP, even 1 GB would not go to waste.
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Heh heh. That's very funny. Now lemee see if I can find that code to put back into the game. I think it went something like this:
If Pilot = Dan's Then
call function PlaneGoesBoom()
End If
Corrupted Pilots???
in Down In Flames
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I'm afraid we didn't communicate this very well, but the Demo version of the game puts a 100 XP limit on all pilots. We allow you to continue accumulating Kills and XP for the purposes of the Leader stats on the web site, but as far as purchasing more skills, you have hit the end of the line until the full version is released. Sorry, but we had to come up with a few reasons for folks to buy the full version.