Database Design, Opinions Sought

[Pappystein]

Hi all. I am seeking opinions from people who create or would like to create scenarios for ANW. The purpose here is to see if all the development work I have put into a new Database is for naught or is there something that I could improve to make it better.

 

The subject in question is an Optional Rule that has been in the Miniature game since I got involved in that side (Harpoon 4 in the late 1990s.) Pilot Experience. Bringing Pilot Experience to Computer Harpoon would greatly increase the realism and allow things like the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, MiG Alley in Korea, or how about the Six Day War in 1967. In each of the examples above, and in many others I can name, Pilot experience is the PIRMARY reason one side defeated the other. For example, the altitudes where the Marianas Turkey shoot occurred, the Zero was a more Dominant aircraft than the Hellcat it fought against. A reverse example is an IJN Flight Ensign in a SINGLE N1K2 Shiden-Kai fighting off an ENTIRE SQUADRON of novice F6F Hellcats, killing one and escaping.

 

In the Minis version of the game the Pilot experience affects chance of accidents, range performance and to a lesser extent combat performance. Now I cannot represent many of those factors in ANW but there are some that I can expand that were limited in the Mini rules because of the amount of math involved . After all, we play the game on some of the best calculators in the world right?

 

I will use the Chinese J-20 "Stealth" Fighter as an example of what I am doing.

1) Instead of a single J-20 Entry, there are FOUR J-20 Entries; J-20|Novice, J-20|Experienced, J-20|Veteran, J-20|Ace. Anything after the "|" Symbol will not show up in the basic Harpoon3.exe, only in after action reports and in the editors.

2) Each entry has a Different DATA (ability to escape attack,) Each weapon (be it built in like a mount or launch-able like a Missile,) has it's own version as well. to Describe how this looks:

J-20|Novice has a DATA of 4.0, Gsh-301 (PRC)|Novice has a ATA (Ability to hit an air target) of 2.0, a Rate of Fire of 15, and a maximum number of shots of 4.

J-20|Ace by comparison has a DATA of 5.25, Gsh-301 (PRC)|Ace has an ATA of 4.0, a Rate of Fire of 10, and a Maximum Number of Shots at 7.

 

In the above Examples, during a Dogfight the Ace version is 4+ times more likely to shoot down the Novice version than the Novice is the Ace.

 

That being said, as a Scenario designer, this would increase realism of Air combat, at the cost of some small issues.

 

Issues:

1) Logistics in the game becomes much harder to implement. There is FOUR of every weapon type to stock in Magazines and depots.

2) 4x weapons = 4x work to create weapons (well not really.) but still that is a LOT more entries that need to be tracked, validated, adjusted etc by the Database editor.

3) The Game engine will not allow mixed groups of aircraft to fly together. Thus a J-20|Ace will not be in the same formation as the J-20|Novice. They can be on the same mission together but now on the same “group”

 

So with that being said, What do you all think about this?

 

Craig P

Database Editor

Database Auditor

[broncepulido]

I think we have commented this idea some time ago. I think is a very good idea, but I probably not will play or edit ANW, more with that limitation of the GE is not capable of fly different plane types in the same flight .... But I think is basically a very good idea, of easier implementation in the Classic game, number of loadouts limitation aside ...

[Pappystein]

I think we have commented this idea some time ago. I think is a very good idea, but I probably not will play or edit ANW, more with that limitation of the GE is not capable of fly different plane types in the same flight .... But I think is basically a very good idea, of easier implementation in the Classic game, number of loadouts limitation aside ...

 

Actually I have to duplicate the loadouts 4 times because each WEAPON has it's own rating as well (Eg Novice, Experienced, Veteran and Ace.) Currently I am building an airplane for my private WWII database, the TBY Sea Wolf which entered into service at the end of World War II. I have 12 Bomb Loadouts for the Novice version of the Plane, 12 Bomb Loadouts for the Veteran version etc. I have never delved into Classic enough to understand HOW bombing and what not is done, But in CH2/CH3/ANW the Game engine does calculations completely based upon the weapon. Thus I need to create 4 of every weapon used on aircraft.

[Mgellis]

While the idea of adding pilot experience to the mix sounds interesting, I don't think it's worth the time and effort you would have to put into it to pull it off. It might be worth doing it for a small number of platforms (e.g., the 10-20 most common fighter aircraft), but even here I would stick with just "Average" pilots (the standard entry) and "Ace" pilots.

 

I have an alternate suggestion, which is completely selfish, so please don't get mad. If you want to do something cool with the ANW database, and you feel confident of your abilities to work with the database (something I do NOT feel about my abilities with computers, knowledge level of actual ships, etc. otherwise I would do it myself) just help Gunny add as many of the new platforms suggested to the HUD 4 as possible. I'll be blunt...it would be great to have multiple levels of pilot experience with some of the aircraft, but I would have rather have 50 entirely new ships, aircraft, subs, etc.

 

Mark

[TonyE]

The library of H3 scenarios I've written is tiny so take that into account.

 

My thoughts follow closely with Mark's. The amount of effort required to maintain the different skill levels is huge and if it were my time to distribute it would go towards adding and maintaining platforms in the 'traditional' style. I would rather see a F-14 from four different time periods than one F-14 equipped with four different skill levels.

 

If you are really serious about skill level, have you had a discussion with Russell and/or Don about how much it would cost to get the feature implemented in the game and in what time-frame? I'd throw a couple of bucks into the pot for such a capability AND freeing up your time for other edits.

[Pappystein]

Mark,

 

I am already in a collaborative effort with Francois. However that means I feed him data that he still has to enter. I was in a similar effort with Darren before Francois so...

 

The DB editor has no way to collaborate built into it. This leads to DB errors down the line. Before Jon R left the community in 2000-2001 he was working on developing a collaborative version of his Editor for me. This collaborative editor was never finished, but it allowed a more graphical import functionality that would have allowed multiple editors for the same database. That being said the final version of that editor had a lot of issues still that needed to be worked out but real life got in our way.

 

Thus all I can do is generate Statistics and send them to Francois. IE validate the work he is doing. I sent him an Audit of the Entire MiG-23/-27 family the other day, including two Hypothetical subvariants of the -23MLD, along with a full construction of the entire Su-17 family (-17,-17M,-17M2,-17M3,-17M4, -20, -22, -22M -22M3, and -22M4 along with 2 hypothetical versions.) Oh and the Yak-28 family (Firebar, Brewer.)

 

At the same time I am trying to figure out how to downgrade the radar Cross section performance on most of the "Stealth" Aircraft to be more realistic. Currently all the "Stealth" aircraft in the database excluding the F-22 and B-2, are TOO Stealthy... None of those other aircraft are actually Stealthy per Harpoon4 Mini rules.

 

Besides, my current personal project is yet again a World War II Database. But that will be a long time coming. CHarpoon3 still has a lot that needs to be improved before WWII will be playable (Game intelligence/ Intelligence sharing primarily.)

 

 

Tony, I am going by old information here but IIRC Russel said Pilot experience and or Squadron grouping (rather than Aircraft type grouping) would both be rather hard to implement due to many factors. But That was almost 5 years ago now (Shortly after he first came on board) when we talked about that.

 

 

Hope that clears up everything.

 

BTW in tests I was able to reproduce the 1 Shiden V 10 Hellcat Scenario the other day. A historical fact of World war II that one flight Ensign of the IJN in 1945 flying a single N1K2-J Shiden-Kai fought off 10 F6F-5 Hellcats and shot down one or two of those numbers. In my scenario the Ace Shiden shot down 4 Novice Hellcats before he was shot down as well.

 

Craig P

[Mikawa]

I went a different path with my database. I made pilot quality a logistically settable sensor. saved all the load out duplication. At set up, there are '4' 'Aces', '16' veterans and '36 novices at the airfield. If he gets home alive, you still have 4 aces. If he gets shot down, you now have 3.

It works for me.

[Mikawa]

I just saw the date.. sorry folks.

[TonyE]

I just saw the date.. sorry folks.

The enthusiasm is great, the audience is minimal at best .