Official SEOW

Well i think this could work...

-One option is that if we plan mission like we do know.
-Then we generate IL-2 mission like now. Fly it and shot 1 or 2 ground objects of. Let AI make their own battle making battle immersion for pilots.
-Make analyze and record all Airplane kills for ground units.
-Generate SH/tank battle and take that ordinance from that front that Airplanes has destroyed. Then make war and no peace.
-Analyze that and we have one mission ready....

And so on...

And if you want you can change setting like if in IL-2 mission tank is destroyed after 75% time from that mission it'll be destroyed after SH/tank mission is played...


I'm not sure how SH/tank mission could do plane losses...

Some thinking out loud on the subject here.

Something to consider but not necessarily a good meld of IL2 and SH series is to keep the action seperate where possible between the different platforms.

Pacific theatre seems a likely place where this might work. Lots of water, supply convoys attacked in remote locations etc.

At the least shipping supply lines and sub action be handled by SH4/5 as much as possible.
IIRC from SH3 days AI aircraft come out of nowhere and attack but only when you were in range of a land airbase or CV.

Scenario:
SEOW MP commander gets recon of some transport ships from an IL2 flown recon mission.
If in range for a nearby sub then specific mission is planned in SEOW MP generated for SH with the ships and transports in correct locations and headings as per SEOW current plans. If transports are covered by a CAP then I beleive SH can handle this to a degree with AI aircraft IIRC. I remember from SH3 missions being attacked by Sunderlands, Martlets and Hurricanes. If you shoot one down then one gets taken away from closest appropriate enemy airbase?
If attached, a destroyer escort of the transports will definitely engage you in the sub and the fun starts. The two or three hour of mission time goes by and the SH mission results used to update position of ships and status in the MP.
If however this convoy is spotted and an IL2 attack is planned then this takes priority and only once the outcome of this engagement is completed and analyzed could a possible sub attack be planned and made in Silent Hunter in the following campaign hours.

Hard to imaging how to handle a ground battle with the tanks and troops using one platform and integrating this into the air war above. The two are so closely related that maybe only a small area of the battlefield should be regarded as being a cross platform zone.

Maybe even different platforms used for different combat sectors?

If action is planned using one platform then it is that platform which will use up that time block of the day in the campaign.

Campaign gets clock advance to the end of that platforms combat action.

I like the idea of a multi sector/multi platform and certainly merits some more investigation into how the various games around handle things and see how they could be worked in together. Maybe only suitable for certain scenarios or parts of a campaign but would be great to try and do even if only for some small battles in a campaign to start!

II/JG54_Emil wrote: About the "how would the ToW/SH player feel if...?" question:
Well, how would the SH/ToW player feel if he doesn´t have a campaign platform in the first place?

Having a campaign that is broken, is usually more frustrating than not having it at all. It depends on the person really, but I don't believe that there is a universally true answer to the dilemma: is it better to have a broken thing, than no thing at all?

Paddington wrote:Well i think this could work...
....

I'm not sure how SH/tank mission could do plane losses...

I agree both on the solution, and on the problematic issue at the end.

Could control points on the MP be designated TOW battle areas & once one gets 'in dispute ' a battle is fought & the outcome then affects the MP in some way . Possible example is an expanded result zone where losers ground units within that area( say 20-30km radius or even greater) are depleted by a predetermined %. The number of & type of units withinin the MP control point radius @ time of dispute can affect the setup/balance of the TOW battle .As we have to be careful not to overload IL2 ground maybe 1 platoon of 3 T-34s could = 5-10 in TOW.

I've not touched on TOW before,not sure what its capabilities are.

Hi Ikey,

Anything is possible. We were looking at SH, RO and TOW last night to see if they really were suitable for multiplayer coops. I think the jury is still out on that - more research required.

Cheers
4S

What is RO?

RO = Red Orchestra

Darkest Hour (a RO sequel) is also being looked at.

Cheers,
4S

Emil RO /DH is fun & good for a shootfest but sofar I've only found it to be based on small battle maps ie a town & apart from possible squad teamplay I havent noticed any progression to a larger scale.

The problem with RO/DH is the useless AI . You'd need to ensure both sides were manned up with humans & then it would be ok, for a small group I'd say forget that & look elsewhere.

PS I'll be returning to the fold in near future.
cheers
Ikey

I think an 1st person shooter doesn´t fit in the picture.

A tactic shooter like ARMA 2 or Operation Flashpoint, both contain large maps, with a WW2 mod would do it for me.

I don´t see a big necessity for any shooter since they usually use small maps (withexception of ARMA2+OPF) and low strategical impact.
The only thing I can think of is fight your way back to friendly lines and not loose your life in the SEOW campaign.


What I really like about 4Shades idea is the interconnectivity of many different games/simulations and thereby creating a plattforms/game(SEOW) that something very new to the rest of the gamer world.

I see a lot of potential for big successin it. If you were interested in profit you could certainly make some.

At the least the SEOW community would grow a lot.

For this idea to work we would need aternative game platforms that each, individually:

*) Are credible military sims in their own right.
*) Support multiplayer coop.
*) Have easily written/parsed file formats.
*) Support many of the object types that we have in IL-2.
*) Able to be deployed in (or at least near) the map areas we have in SEOW.

I have some preliminary comments on some platforms. Maybe I am wrong about some things, but in the interest of learning more I will post here and let people comment where they can:

Sea War: Silent Hunter
A credible submarine sim, but the choice of useable submarines is very small. Only 4 player mode, unless there is an expansion mod? Missions deployable the world over. Only subs are able to be commanded by humans. Mission files in ASCII.
SEOW Rating: possible

Ground War: Red Orchestra/Darkest Hour
Popular WW2 FPS, good fidelity of combat, wide range of scenarios and army unit types etc. Mission editor UnrealEd, not sure the missions are easily programmable. Designed for arcade play, re-spawning, bots etc. Maps very small. Supports 50 players maximum.
SEOW Rating: unlikely

Ground War: Theatre of War
Credible combat sim. Mixed strategic/FPS views, excellent unit types list, wide range of scenarios with variants for North Africa, Western and Eastern Europe and the Pacific. Maximum 8 players, XML-based file format, but complex data structures.
SEOW Rating: possible

Ground War: Operation Flashpoint
Credible FPS combat sim. Mods available for WW2 scenarios. Multiplayer support (not sure about max player limit). Not sure about file formats, but a wide range of maps/scenarios should be available.
SEOW Rating: possible

Cheers,
4S

http://www.moddb.com/mods/sbm2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7GS38ddjKQ
Schnellboote mod for SH3, good for European theatre.
Is probably included with GWX mod for SH3.

http://www.moddb.com/games/men-of-war
Men of War, truly excellent wargame with the 3rd party dynamic campaign generator!
1vs1, 2v2, 4v4 or 8v8 players, good map editor but for smaller scale battles.

I think that Operation Flashpoint doesn't actually have a player limit at all.
I've seen many 32 to 64 player games but these where usually DM or CTF games, don't know what the limit is for co-op game,24 to 32 maybe.

Supports units (AI or human controlled) in total of 62 or 63 groups that can have 12 units in them so the max number of units together is somewhere about 750 units. (infantry,tanks,ships,aircraft)
Mission editor is easy to use and has plenty to offer.
Bonus is that OPF runs great with the PC:s we have today in use.

Tow maps felt to me quite small or it just had poorly planned missions that had all the units set too close together at the mission start.
My units where often shot to pieces with enemy artillery fire before i could command them...

Anybody remember this game, it supports infantry,tank,air and sea units.
Battlefield 1942
And a great mod to use with it:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/battlegroup42
Could be good for ground battles without aircraft as it has many different maps from all over the world.
(Yesh it's a bit arcade but still good fun!)

Wowza. Some cool ideas in this thread.

I think the best fit for expanding platforms would be a port for Rise of Flight.

None of the core concepts would need to be changed, all the work would be in creating the data for the new map, aircraft, ground objects, etc. After that it would require new algorithms for generating the mission files and finally a new parser for the game log files.

Very in reach if there were someone to dedicate some time to it.

Agreed, but ROF would probably have the least interesting ground war by its very nature.

Cheers,
4S