posted 07-22- 07:04 AM               

http://www.alxpoll.com/cgi-bin/poll.cgi?user=326392

We will have new poll questions from time to time as we prepare for SDOE WAR II.

Thanks Guys!

posted 07-22- 11:35 AM               

------------------
Kopper

Fortunae Nihil
(Nothing to Chance)
OPPs Making SDOE a Dangerous place.
One plane at a time.

posted 07-22- 12:31 PM               

I don't know what you mean Kopper.

posted 07-22- 02:29 PM               

We the fly the 1st of the 3 missions (one from each theatre) of the campaign at 4:00 p.m. GMT.

posted 07-22- 03:11 PM               

I don't want to sound overly critical but even the planes in the present war are poorly matched. It is the common belief of allied pilots that the only way to kill a ME 262 is to wait until it lands. Due to the small size of our combat arenas and the unlimited fuel allow to the 262 it is impossible to mount a successful defense. Flown by competent pilots the ME cannot be stopped from hitting any target they choice. After many hours of flying online I have concluded that only two well matched planes are the 109g and the spit9. That is assuming the pilots have equal skills. That said I think that careful thought should go into making the next war more strategic by allowing only a select group of planes in any mission. Here are some of my rules of thumb.

I will not build any mission for bombers that contain a 190 for example. The online damage model does not allow the covering fighters to realistic prevent a determined 190 from destroying a bomber.

Bombers are only to be used if the bomb bug is not an issue. By that I mean that the success of the bombers is determined not by targets destroyed but by the success of the fighter cover in getting it to and from the target.

ME 262's should only be placed in missions that force them use some skill other than their speed. I will not use them if a heavy bomber is in the mission. I would not allow them to have more than 400 lbs of fuel because the 262 should not be able to fly to England and back 6 times. I love this plane but it makes for terrible boring missions. It saw little actual use in the war and was configured as a bomber killer. AS stated earlier these kinds of planes cannot be used in Missions with heavy bombers due to the limited size of our world and the online damage bug. If cannot be used effectively against fighters because its guns are configured to kill slow moving targets not to make deflection shots.

Don't put the 190a4 and 38's in any mission because they are not configured to fly within the same FM as the other planes.

Don't use the corsair because one it is over modeled and two it a huge fps killer and many people do not have the machine required to fly it.

Never use wind in the missions because there is something wrong with the take off procedures for most planes. Although I have largely been able to over come this it is still a bad thing. The takeoff procedures required are almost the reversed to what they should be. The following is quote from a German pilot "I taxied to the runway lower the flaps and pushed the stick forward as I gained speed pulling it back after I reached take off speed" try this in SDOE and you will be in a ditch. I don't know how big a problem this is but a new but somewhat experience SDOE pilot will make the mistake off following the correct procedures for take off every time.

Flak can only be used to a very limited degree because it is to accurate. Protect your bases with AAA instead.

No mission should be designed to be flown with the hud on. Coordinated and well planned missions are destroyed by the ability of the enemy to determine the disposition of your planes to easily. I have bombed successfully with out the hud and our famous bomber pilot Hawker prefers that it be turned off.

Target destruction factors should never be set higher that 20%.

With the hud turned off flak should be placed so it can be found by pilots. Some land mark is required I prefer to use a farm house. This is needed because it often needs to be a factor in the success of an attack and is too hard to find.

Never have a mission with more than 12 and 10 is better.

I think that you will find that enjoyable missions can be built around the limitations that we face. The above is just a short list of requirements I'm sure that others will not agree with all of my points and have their own to add.

You have done a great job with the war and have accomplished something that no one else has been able to do for as such a long period of time. That is you have increased interest in SDOE more than I could have dreamed.

Thanks

posted 07-22- 03:29 PM               

Thanks for those kind words of praise.

Any excitement the War has brought to SDOE is because of the flyers and Commanders involved. I'm just a facilitator. I have no real talent, however the War Department does have some very talented people, like Esox (web Guru) and Gecko (writer extrordinare and recorder of War events). They, along with the participants in the war, have made, and continue to make the War a fun and challenging adventure every week.

As to your other points regarding your problems with matchups etc. This is the 1st War. It was always intended to be as simple to run as possible; as we all learned just what we could and couldn't do. However, now that we have our feet wet, we have taken what we have learned from the 1st war, and added alot of new innovations and changes for SDOE WARII.

I can't say that all the points you raised will be addressed and all your solutions you offer will be incorporated, but I do think you will find the next War to be even more challenging for the participants, and ultimately more rewarding for the side that emerges victorious.

Thanks for your input.

PR=FC=

posted 07-22- 04:36 PM               

One way to handle the uber-262 is to make them very expensive to buy. If the Axis buy several early on they'll have early success but then run out of money later in the war.

Maybe also put an arbitrary limit on how many they can own at any one time. The in-game rationale being that it has exotic spare parts or experienced ground crew that are hard to come by. Maybe they can only fly in one theatre each weekend.

posted 07-22- 04:43 PM               

You are right on target, and for SDOE WAR II the frequent use of planes like the (uber?) Me262 and the He100d will, if not evaporate, become extremely diminshed.

Once again, the 1st War was almost a test run for the whole war idea. We were, and are still learning what we can effectively manage and record during a war. Now that we are all experts. we feel that we can incorporate alot of innovations into SDOE WARII.

Look for the next War to be more historically accurate as to when planes appeared, and make much better use of the ground installations, i.e. Factories, Steel Mills, Oil Refineries, etc. and what they add to the War.

Even without all these new changes, the current War has been a boat load of fun so far, and it's just now getting really interesting!