SEOW v7 Planning

[PA-Dore]

3. Army_Units table: new field "Max_Platoons"
To limit the number of platoons per organizational division. Maximum value is 64 (default), minimum is 0. :

Great feature

About Shared kills no modification needed in any Pilot table?

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

I haven't even thought about shared kills yet. I don't even know how they work!

[Kopfdorfer]

Regarding Item 6 - Ground Unit Skill progressions.

Would it be possible to add a layer of logic to Anti-Aircraft fire based on experience/skill called "Correct Target Identification" or something similar so that AA Units do not always correctly identify friendly vs enemy aircraft.
This was historically a significant issue that to my knowledge has not been included in IL2.
There were serious reasons why :
1) Germans painted parts of their aircraft underbellies, noses and wingtips yellow
2) Fighter cover and enemy fighter attacks ceased on bomber formations in areas of heavy flak
3) Ground attack ANYWHERE was a dangerous proposition

I don't know how difficult this would be , but I think it would really enhance immersion.


On a side note , experienced Artillery (any guns meant here) units should have a significant advantage in how quickly they can load and unload on transport , how quickly they can prepare weapons for firing , how many rounds per minute they can fire , and effectiveness of camouflage and defensive fortifications, not to mention effective target selection (probably the toughest to implement) , and effectiveness of fire/damage results.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Good luck with your evolutions , 4Shades.

Kopfdorfer

[242Sqn_Chap]

Support for the new Waypoint type for aircraft in 4.12, Artillery Spotter.

The way this works in il2 itself is that the spotter aircraft reduces the inaccuracy offset factor spread (its randomized) for all artillery type objects within a radius of the Artillery Spotter WP aircraft. Works for both ai and player flown aircraft according to FC.
(edit:- effects ships also)

Its a very interesting way to finally give a purpose to the light spotter aircraft like Fi156's, Stinsons, U2VS etc.
I don't think the factor is huge so it shouldn't have a massive effect or be a game changer, but it should finally give purpose to plotting/flying/protecting these light aircraft. (which after all is the origin of air warfare !)

Think of it more as an officer/observer being able to relay the tactical information to the ground that they can see from their perfect vantage point , which enhances the ability of ground forces to fight slightly, rather than as literal calling in of barrages.


p.s Hi Kopfdorfer, nice to see you here

[II/JG77Hawk_5]

So this is directly used with artillery barrages and if the spotter waypoint is set to the barrage point and your circling above, the object hit accuracy goes up?

If this is so I'll be flying theses regularly!!

[Loon]

And if it also works for ships, embarked floatplanes aboard capital ships becomes more useful and needed, I guess.

[242Sqn_Chap]

So this is directly used with artillery barrages and if the spotter waypoint is set to the barrage point and your circling above, the object hit accuracy goes up?

Its not linked to artillery barrages which could be a little confusing.
That is something that we added in hsfx and this is a default 4.12 feature.

But it effects other firing, anything stationary firing (automatically part of Artillery.class in il2) and ships, moving or stationary. It may also effect moving tanks and cars (I am not sure about that, but can check). So it improves 'conventional' ground units combat accuracy slightly across the board when the spotter aircraft is in position and within radius.

So its a little different to how one may envisage it:-

Think of it more as an officer/observer being able to relay the tactical information to the ground that they can see from their perfect vantage point , which enhances the ability of ground forces to fight slightly, rather than as literal calling in of barrages.

For ships it can be thought of as simply a spotter plane calling in the fall of shot and thus enhancing accuracy.

[242Sqn_Chap]

Ground Objects Experience now also effects accuracy.

This is what I was told about it by FC.
Its not written anywhere, it was only because I was able to chat to him for a couple of hours at Zagreb airport earlier this year that I know about this at all.

Rookie:- Should be less accurate

Normal:- About the same as it always has been

Veteran:- Spread of shot should be 'close to historical' according to FC

Ace:- The most accurate

All of this definitely needs testing though 'in the field'. Be it in FMB or in campaigns.

Its il2 native. it doesn't require anything new to support it...although I see that it is penciled in to expand the ground experience area to more fully cover it.
(I would say test it in game a bit first though.. really see how effective it is and what it does, because the basic routines in il2 still remain the same, a ground object will still fire into the back of a ridge for sustained periods of time, just like it always has. That's not because of accuracy. il2 is not combat mission and still has simple ground mechanics. This is just one small change and it will not magically correct all of the problems of ground combat , although it may improve some aspects of it slightly and be a way of finally representing unit quality.)

note:- Neither this or Artillery Spotter WP will effect the barraging artillery as we have it. That is external to the shot mechanics that are native to il2.
(Barraging Artillery are actually functioning as rocketry, and very cool it is too !).

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Easy to put a new aircraft waypoint type in, Charlie.

Kopfdorfer suggested some things that can be achieved by game mods (not throught SEOW), but one thing that we can emulate in SEOW is:

effectiveness of camouflage and defensive fortifications

We can make Ace ground units less susceptible to recon detection, for example.

Good discussion, everyone.

Cheers,
4S

[242Sqn_Chap]

Easy to put a new aircraft waypoint type in, Charlie

Excellent, and a field so as to qualify only specific planes to be able to use it ? (a la Photo-recon without the photo's)

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Yes. I am thinking a waypoint descriptor "O" for "Observer", and a new column in Object_Specifications called "Artillery_Observer", with values 0 or 1.

[Kopfdorfer]

Hey 4Shades,

Not intending to nitpick , but I suggest that using AO or AAO (Aerial Artillery Observer) would keep the O (Observer) free for when a ground based unit is given the same capabilities - and I suspect that in the future some enterprising SEOW modder will want to do so.

Just a suggestion.

With All Respect
Kopfdorfer

[=gRiJ=VaronRoJo]

No it doesn't register bomb weight or explosive charge. But it does register the amount of damage per hit. We still have to turn that into score points in order to include it in the Statistics.

Hi, 4Shades

I think It could be done, with a very simple idea.

The event log shows those bombs and guns impacts that are bigger than a fixed threshold, and when all of this impacts are bigger or equal than "1" the object is destroyed. The evenlog messages contains (BallisticDamage / ExplosiveDamage / ExplosiveDamage:NearMiss) strings, example:


12:02:38 ExplosiveDamage 26_Static Body 0.03600626 damaged by g01300 at 86101.55 34504.26

So, it could be possible to assign a total value to a Factory Plate, and give the following points to each bomb or gun impact:

Value of the Impact in the Event Log * Total Points of Factory Plate

Last impact should have all the remaining points of the Factory Plate (in order to compensate those little impacts that are not shown in the
event log, a kind of special gift to the last lethal player )


hope this could be help, thanks for all your fantastic work

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Yes, that's right VaronRoJo, we need to establish a total point value for each type of factory plate. Any good ideas?

[=gRiJ=VaronRoJo]

I've one, don't know if it is good

I think it should be proportional to the total strength of the Factory Plate, and this is defined in the ship.ini File:

[strength_FactorySmall]
MinHitExplTNT 35
NumHitExpl 180

[strength_FactoryMedium]
MinHitExplTNT 45
NumHitExpl 190

[strength_FactoryLarge]
MinHitExplTNT 50
NumHitExpl 280



so maybe the total point could be:

Total Point = NumHitExpl * MinHitExplTNT * FIXED_VALUE%

and this FIXED_VALUE (maybe 15-20%) could be modified through DCS in each campaign, and maybe all the strength parameters directly in the DB.