bartbert
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Posts posted by bartbert
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Did you ever have a wingman get killed and now you have a highly experienced Leader with a completely green wingman? This new change should help get the wingman up to speed more quickly.
Read the details here: Change to XP Distribution
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Zanadu,
It sounds like you haven't registered the base game product yet, and that is resulting in your choice of aircraft being restricted to the 4 aircraft available to DEMO players (Spitfire I, P-40N, etc.).
If you go to the "Tools/Register products" menu item, does the resulting dialog show a serial number for the base game?
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There are no technical reasons why bombers couldn't be given some of the skills you mentioned. I suspect the reasons are more philosophical. Since a bomber pilot's main job is usually to stay in formation so as to maximize supporting fire, most people would probably consider it less skillful than a fighter pilot.
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1. "In My Sights 2: 3 Hits" means that it requires 2 Bursts to play the card, and if the card is successfully played (i.e., it is not countered by your opponent), then it will inflict 3 points of damage.
2. Each aircraft has a base Burst rating which is based on the number and type of weapons it carried. A leader's base rating can be increased by improving his position. Advantaged gives a +1 Burst, and Tailing gives a +3 Burst. When a leader plays an "In My Sights" or "Out of the Sun" card, he uses up some of this available Bursts according to the Burst rating on the card. For example, the card referred to in #1 above uses up 2 Bursts. If a card requires more bursts than the leader has available, he cannot play it. Note that wingmen are not constrained by a Burst limit. They can always play any Burst card in their hand.
3. Fatigue is the only thing I know of that would result in a -1 airframe when setting up a new game.
4. The game supports both online and local play. Local games are single player only (no hot seat). Online play supports up to 4 players in one mission. Online games can be played single-player against the AI, against other players, or a mixture of AI and human players.
5. Campaign games can be played single player against the AI, or against a human opponent.
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Send the game log to difadmin@battlefront.com and I'll take another look.
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There was a problem with logging the Draw Extra Card event. A fix is now available for download.
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If you have the log file, send it to difadmin@battlefront.com and we'll take a look.
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It sounds like you're trying to register on the web site. If so, that is not where you need to go.
You should start the game in the usual way to bring up the Lobby. Then go to the "Tools" menu and select the "Register products" sub-menu. This will bring up a form where you enter your registration information. I have checked the database, and you are already pre-registered, so all you should have to do is open the form and it will pull down your registration info.
If none of this makes sense or if it isn't working, send an e-mail to difadmin@battlefront.com and we'll sort it out offline.
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Possibly. Since we didn't issue serial numbers originally, we assigned serial numbers to users based on information in the database. It's possible that both of your user accounts got "grandfathered" in based on the information we had available. About all I suggest is that you try it and see what happens.
In the future, having multiple accounts definitely won't work (unless you purchase multiple copies, of course).
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I put another update out for download that I think will resolve the problem. Let me know if it doesn't.
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Take a look in the "bin" folder where you installed the game (i.e., "C:\Program Files\Battlefront\Down in Flames\bin") and see if there is an error log file. If so, send it to difadmin@battlefront.com and we'll try to resolve the problem.
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The information will always be on the server. If you were to switch to a different PC, then you would be prompted to register again, but if you put in your user name and password, it will lookup your information and pull it down for you.
In the future, the serial number will be provided with the purchased product, either as as sticker on the CD case, or in an e-mail if you download it. Once you enter that serial number, it will always be tied to your user name on the server.
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Frenchy, you're one of those who will be "pre-registered". What this means is that when the update is released, all you should have to do is go to the "Tools/Register" menu and it will automatically lookup your registration information.
I'm not sure what the price on the expansion pack will be. Battlefront is very close to having the capability to allow players to purchase games online and download them right away instead of waiting for a CD to be shipped. The expansion pack will benefit from that capability.
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Just send an e-mail to difadmin@battlefront.com with proof of purchase info (order number, customer number or full name and address) and we can provide you with access to ZIP files via FTP download.
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Sounds good. That's about the best we can do at present in terms of providing missions that are more to your liking.Originally posted by Joe Perez:Brian,
Yes, that is exactly what I'm doing now, flying one-on-one dogfights with a "squadron" of 4 elements (to help offset the fatigue rules). Since I don't have enough points to buy any "extras" other than the essential "Draw Extra Card." The ability to choose the starting year was definately appreciated.
Joe
One of the enhancements that is high on the list of priorities (because it is frequently requested) is to provide more flexibility in the game creation process. This includes things like being able to specifiy which team a player gets assigned to, which nationalities are matched up, which aircraft are matched up, etc. I think that would make a lot of players happy, particularly those who want to try out specific matchups.
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That's a good point about the wingman. As it stands right now, I can't think of any reason not to choose 1939 as his start year. I'm thinking maybe all newly created wingmen should just get 1.0x multiplier.
The change to the way XP are distributed will probably happen within the next few weeks. We have been making some changes to prepare the way for the first expansion packs as well as a couple of new campaigns. That work is wrapping up, so we can get back to other enhancements.
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We have tried to accommodate players with this viewpoint with the recent change that allows a pilot to choose a starting year. Prior to this change, you had no choice but to start a new pilot from the bottom and work him up to better aircraft by gaining XP. Now you can pick a start year and jump right in to any aircraft you want.Originally posted by Joe Perez:Stalin-o,
The original point I was trying to make is that the differences between some planes is nothing more than a single Performance or Horsepower point, and the more extra abilities that are heaped on a pilot, the more the differences in aircraft performance disappear. Yes, you can make the point that pilot ability can and *is* the deciding factor, but I'd prefer seeing how Hurricane I's can make do against Me-109e's despite having that one less critical Performance rating with pilot ability translated into HOW the players use the cards dealt to them, rather than each pilot with close to a dozen abilities, or extra cards making that difference in performance less important, if not non-existant.
Joe Perez
I guess I don't see what's preventing you from flying missions with pilots that have few, if any, skills. If you pick a pilot with no skills, you will most likely go up against AI pilots that have no skills or maybe one Draw Extra Card.
If you're playing against humans, you can either request that they choose pilots with no skills, or if you are the one who creates the game and you choose a pilot with no skills, it will usually limit other players to picking pilots with few skills.
As far as the campaigns, I haven't counted up the pilot skills, but in general it seems like there will be 2 or 3 elements that have pilots with a fair number of skills (4 to 6), a couple more with a low number of skills (1 to 3), and then a couple with no skills at all.
I think that besides adding a little variety, it adds another factor that the player must take into account when assigning pilots to regions on the campaign map. You tend to assign your better pilots to the higher value targets. And of course it really hurts when you lose a highly skilled pilot. When players care about their pilots, even just a little bit, I think it's a good thing. It means that they have been drawn into the game more than if it was just another hunk of metal that got blown out of the sky.
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The ability to play local campaign games is definitely on our list of things that we want to do in future enhancements, although I can't give you a specific date for when that will happen.
Including a campaign designer isn't something I had considered, but is a good idea. We have kind of a crude designer for the online campaigns, but it would need to be improved to make it usable for general consumption.
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I think the idea that we're considering is that you would start out a new pilot as Polish, and he could only fly Polish aircraft. When he gains enough experience, he would convert to a "British" pilot and would start flying British aircraft.
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As I recall, the formula is (Attack + Defense -1) when attacking Medium bomber and (Attack + Defense) when attacking Heavy bombers.
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Was it attacking a bomber?
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Those skills would cease to affect the former wingman. Of course, all of your leader's skills that formerly had no effect on a wingman will now be active.
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In campaigns, the aircraft and pilot skills are fixed, so there is no purchasing additional skills during a campaign. If you haven't played any of the campaigns yet, you really should try them before passing final judgement. Personally, I think they are more fun than the board game campaigns, but I may be biased.Originally posted by Joe Perez:As far as I can see in the manage pilots section of the game, you certainly CAN buy special abilties for your pilots, in addition to extra cards. Not in the campaigns?
Joe Perez
I think if we were given a "do over", one thing we would probably do is limit pilots to maybe 3 or 4 skills. I think if it had been that way from the beginning, most players would have been fine with it. But as it is, the genie is out of the bottle and the feedback we received is that most players would not be happy if we took skills away from their pilots.
But while I agree that pilots have too many skills, I don't understand why you don't like the idea of "purchasing" skills with experience points. This is a tried and true method used in many role playing games, and it seems reasonable that as a pilot gains experience he could focus his efforts on learning specific "tricks" or maneuvers that translate into a particular skill. Why shouldn't a player be able to decide what "tricks" his pilots will practice? Why would randomly assigning skills be better?
The above is not intended as a criticism. You're entitled to your opinions. I was just curious as to your reasons. For example, some people simply don't like role playing games, and see the pilot development stuff as micro management.
Like most things in life, this game is the result of many compromises between competing design philosophies. We wanted to be true to the original board game, but we also wanted the game to appeal to a wide variety of players, not just board gamers.
We tried to put a little something in for everyone. There is some role playing aspects to the pilot development for those who like that kind of thing.
For those who want the focus to be more historical, the campaigns have a lot to offer (and most of the pilots in the campaigns have very few skills).
For those that just want to jump in and mix it up in the aircraft of their choice, we have recently added the ability to start a pilot in any year of the war, which allows them to immediately fly aircraft appropriate to their start year without having to go through the process of building up experience to unlock aircraft.
East Front - Expansion
in Down In Flames
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