A couple of thoughts

[Guest Mike]

1/ Another case of poor AI decision making - shooting at a completely undamaged bomber in the last turn rather than one that was only 1 point from smoking

2/ Some aircraft were notoriously slow climbers or divers - eg the eary Spitfires and Hurricanes famously had to roll to prevent their engines cutting, the Buffalo's main problem was crappy climb performance in the context of having to intercept Japs at 12-15,000 feet with no radar warning - and it's supercharger wasn't much good above there either (I'm reading a book about a Kiwi pilot who flew Buffalo's at Singapore and Hurricanes in India & he reckoned the Buffalo was better than the Hurricane below 12,000 ft, and he out-doce a Ki-27 at least once in a Hurri...which perhaps isn't a great surprise!!)

I think there is room for aircraft characteristics of "slow climb" and "slow dive" - in which case the plane has to lose 1 extra card when trying to follow an enemy changing their altitude?

3/ Lastly the long shot for v2 perhaps!

I think it might be a bit better to have relative valuses for each characteristic rather than having absolute values.

Eg if a "standard" fighter might be Airdrame 2-3/3-4, Performance 6, Hp 2, Bursts 1, Wingman offence 2, Wingman defence 2

Then each aircraft would be rated on how different thye are from these stats.

Eg a Gladiator would be -1 - -2/0, Perf -1, Hp -1, Bursts -1, Wm At -1, Wm Def -1, and so on.

What's the point?

Well aircraft would then differ in stats by the difference between their modifiers, starting with hte general case.

Eg 109B's vs Ki-27's would start very close to a "full hand" each rather than smaller ones.

Eg the eladers would get 1 burst each, because there's no difference between their ratings - they're bnoth at -1, so they cancel each other out - both get no modifier.

Hopefully this would make games between the lesser aircarft a bit more interesting - the poor ol' wingmen in P35's and 109B's, etc with their 1/1 are a bit pathetic - even in the context of those aircraft.

[bartbert]

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?

[Guest Mike]

I'm not sure what you mean by switching from one aircraft to another - do you mean like in a campaign game whre you might have 2 different enemies with different characteristics, and you go from targeting one to another?

I would imagine you do not change hand size - instead the hand sizes are set for all aircraft in the game at the start by reference to the common standard.

Eg if you've got a Spit 1 and you're fighting against a 110 and a 109B then the "standard" aircraft might be the 110C, with the hand sizes of the Spit and 109B determined by reference to that.

Hence the 109B will have a different hand, and will be at a different set of disadvatages viz the Spit - but the Spit's hand won't change if it changes target.

Another possible benefit is that it might reduce teh "kill the wingman" syndrome just a little. I got my first flight in a Spit XIV (or is it XVI??) last nigth and my leader started with 14 cards - shooting down a wingman with his 3-4 was little or no problem - I had enough of everything that it didn't matter what defence he had - I jsut ran him out of defences with a couple of IMS1:1's, then hit him with a 2:D - too easy.

This would not be enarly so easy if leaders were limited around the 5-8 card range vs similar level opponents - it would allow a 2-3 def wingman a better chance.