Guest Mike Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Last night watching a Spitfire XIV and a Spit V side by side in a dogfight - the Spit V is 1/+1. But the Spit XIV is 0/+1 - it has worse firepower than it's predecessor!! nothing terribly unusual about that of course - but usually a reduction in numbers of guns means heavier ones are fitted to do more damage. In this case the aramaments are - V has 2 cannon 4 .303 mg's, - XIV has E wing with 2 cannon and 2 x .50 mg's so the XIV has a heavier armement, but gets nothing for it - indeed it loses out. This made me think there's a flaw in the model somewhere. Are 2 extra .303 machineguns really worth that much?? I don't think they are. I focused on the neutral aspect - In "reality" the Spitfire XIV or an aircraft with 2 machineguns COULD take a shot when "neutral" - even if there was little chance of inflicting damage. In DiF they can't shoot unless advantaged (asuming no skills involved). An 8-gun armament doesn't actually give you any more bursts in real life - that is dictated by the position you are in - it gives you more damage if you _do_ hit. So if numbers of guns shouldn't give you more bursts then what should? Your position relative to the enemy of course - so how about discarding burst differences and every a/c gets 1, 2 or 4 bursts depending on position (as modified by skills)? But then it would be too simple for the smaller fighters to simply hold some 1:2 cards so they could always get a damaging shot - I'd like to see them with a major chance of taking the shot.....and missing entirely! So I see a need to change the system for holding shooting cards - shooting cards are drawn only when you choose to take a shot! Voila - problem solved! If you have a Nate or a Bertha you CAN take a shot at neutral, but you have a high chance of getting a 1:1, so no effect 'cos of the -1 modifier! (or a 2:? or a 3:? that you can't use as you only have 1 burst) The computer would draw shooting cards until it equaled or exceeded the number of "bursts" you had available - eg if you had 4 bursts it might draw 2 x 1:?'s and a 3:? and then stop, or a 3:? and a 2:?, or 4 x 1:?'s, etc. The major change is obvious - you would no longer hold shooting cards in your hand - instead they'd be drawn fresh every time you attacked. A refinement of this could be to have different "shooting decks" for every different combination of armament. Eg an armament of 2 x rifle-calibre machine guns might get -1 on every card as it does at the moment, but an armamant of 1 x heavy mg and 1 rifle cal mg might instead get -2 off every card that does more damage than it has bursts - ao all the 1:1's, 2:2 and 3:3's are unmodified giving it many more cards it can use. There are lots of little modifiers that can be used to give all sorts of levels of damage to differentiate wierd and wonderful combinations of guns flown. Ihis sounds complicated but the rules would be in the computer, and the player would be presented only with the final results - if you draw a card with damage then you get a card that says "No effect", or "1 burst - no effect", or similar. the manual would simply say "more and heavier guns can do more damage when they do actually hit the enemy"...or similar WingmenHow would this affect wingmen? Well they'd no longer have any shooting cards to clog up their hands so would be more defendable. I'd suggest that wingies should get variable numbers of shots depending upon their leader's position as I mentioned in another thread - wingmen get to shoot at someone who is tailing their leader, or at the wingman of someone doing that. they get to shoot at the wingman of a leader who their own leader is tailing. The number of shots they get would be limited, and if they're shooting at a leader they should be distracted by THAT lear's wingman to reduce the number even more! I'd suggest starting with 2 shots for wingman vs a leader if the enemy leader has a wingman - they should be able to get a marksman skill, and be affected by "spoil aim". If there's no enemy wingman then they should get 4 shot, +1 for marksman. Vs wingman then 2 shots if your leader is trailing, otherwise 1. Other than these situations they don't get to shoot at all. AMMUNITION - another related subject is ammo. We probably all know that a/c carried limited ammo, but there were some extreme cases that made significant differences in real life that aren't in DiF Eg: 1/ Spitfire IIb and Vb - the cannon for these a/c had a 60 round drum of ammo. From the VC onwards the Brits developed a belt feed and the ammo supply doubled to 120 rounds per gun. 2/ A6M2 and A6M5 - these a/c both appear to have the same armament, but the M2 only had 60 rounds per 20mm, the M5 had 120 and also had a much better mark of gun 3/ Fw190A4 - formidably armed with 4 x 20mm cannon and 2 machine guns - but the 2 cannon in the outer wings only had 55 rounds per gun! The inner cannon had 250 rounds, the machine guns 1000 rounds These are the 3 I know of, and I'm sure ther eare others. So some a/c could have an "out of ammo" card in their deck that stops them using part of their armament - in each case above it would be 2 x 20mm cannon that would stop working, leaving the planes with reduced armaments of machineguns only (A6M2 and Spit IIb and Vb), or 2 mg's and 2 cannon for the FW. To keep it "real" I'd suggest the out of ammo card could only be drawn in the last 2 turns of a game - so you dont' have to worry about flying your Zero 6 turns with only 2 machineguns!! Alternatively - we could keep track of ammo! If each burst = 1 second of shooting, or 1/2 second, then the amount of ammo used for each gun could be calculated as it is used, and deducted from it's load. This would be my preferred solution, but then I don't have o code it!! I'm happy to help research ammo loads tho! HEAD ON ATTACKS - we can't do these at the moment, but this system would allow it - if you are neutral you can specify your attack as "HEAD ON" - in this case you get 4 bursts (or maybe 3.....more than 1 certainly ), but so does your target! Cards are played alternately starting with the attacker, only IMS cards can be played (how do you attack OOTS head on???), 2:D cannot be played (fuel tanks are no longer a significant target head on), wingmen (spoil aim) and marksman skills do apply, and damage is applied imediately. The first evasion card plays finishes the attack - with the evader placed disadvantaged to the other player!! If the attacker is at an advantage he can now finish any shots not yet played up to the maximum for beign advantaged (eg he might have played 2 shots and has marksman, that would give him 3 shots at advantage so he has 1 left) Keeping out of the sun IMO height is not enough of an advantage in the game. It is perfectly good to lurk at v.low with Zoom climb then leap up to attack a wingie. I'd like to see height rewarded a bit more by only allowing OOTS cards to be used by a/c that have reduced altitude this turn. Alternatively get rid of all OTS cards, and make the 1st shooting card played by an aircraft that has dived OOTS, with a +1 damage modifier. Epilogue I know these are proposing a major changes but I propose it more to get minds thinking rather than expecting it to happen tomorrow. Soem of these could be optional or "advanced" rules too. [ January 23, 2006, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Verssen Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Well, I'm not sure about revising the system, but you did catch an error. The Spitfire XIV should be rated at 1/+1/0. I will send an updated spreadsheet to Brian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 A-ha! so all that typing and cogitating is useful after all!! And Six will find the Spits jsut a little tougher from now, which has to be a good thing! Thanks Dan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zanadu Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 On the ammo question. The Hurrican II with 4x20mm carried 90 rds/gun (about 8 seconds of fire. The P38J/L carried a single 20mm with 150 rds (about 13 seconds of fire) and 4xhmg with 500 rds/gun (about 45 sec.). On the other hand, I believe that the 30mm cannon was considered virtually useless against fighters due to the slow rate of fire. It was devastating when it hit, but actually getting hits even on a B17 required an aimed burst, or you were likely to put shells on both sides of the a/c without hitting. Against something as small and agile as a fighter ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 Haha Mike I was waiting for you to state your case for the Spit. Its why I posted that as I couldnt believe you were silent on the issue. But what was that? Has Kuroi returned? Personally I would rather read a ceral box than that babble you wrote up there about Spitfire this, Spitfire that... Blah Blah Blah. We all know now that the J2M is the best plane in the game. Blah Blah Spitfire this, blah blah Spitfire that, OTS3:4 from a J2M and Spitfire goes SPLAT!!! I am surprised no one has noticed that that the Hurricane II has a better Defensive rating when DAMAGED that when ok. -Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 Originally posted by Zanadu: On the ammo question. The Hurrican II with 4x20mm carried 90 rds/gun (about 8 seconds of fire. The P38J/L carried a single 20mm with 150 rds (about 13 seconds of fire) and 4xhmg with 500 rds/gun (about 45 sec.).Yes there could be quite different ammo loads - the Mosquito had 400 rounds per gun for its 20mm cannon, and 1000 for each of its machineguns! On the other hand, I believe that the 30mm cannon was considered virtually useless against fighters due to the slow rate of fire. It was devastating when it hit, but actually getting hits even on a B17 required an aimed burst, or you were likely to put shells on both sides of the a/c without hitting. Against something as small and agile as a fighter ... It was good enough to be able to shoot down at least soem of them some of hte time! In DiF the 30mm cannon on most fighters are not counted in the burst rating - instead they contribute to the Hvy Cannon rating - they give a higher chance of drawing a 2:D card. J2's are no better than 410's - neither of them ever get to hit Spitfires Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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