Some thoughts about SEOW
Posted: Tue 01 Jan 2008 7:52 pm
Hello and Happy New year everyone.
Thank you 4Shades for your tremendous ongoing development with SEOW. Over the recent couple of years I have had increasingly more to do with this system and it is really in a league of its own !
Here are some observations resulting from this time. (and none are actually intrinsic to SEOW although it is effected by them)
Thoughts about Playability (generally Lag):-
Ground unit limitation.
We have found on the 102nd server (and it is no slouch in terms of connection speed) that it is necessary for both sides to agree a limit for the number of moving ground units per side or the mission can become unplayable (about 60 total on 102nd although this obviously depends upon a number of variables, the server, aircraft numbers ,AAA rof etc etc.)
Aircraft in mission limitations:-
Again if this is unlimited (although the 32 player co-op limit is a factor anyhow) the mission generated can become unplayable.
WHY NOT ADD A 'PLAYABILITY' TAB whereby these numbers can actually be set and monitored for each side by the SE control program itself and transferred into the planner so that players cannot exceed them ?.
If they could be set separately and different for each side it would solve the problem , relieve bookkeeping and the need for 'inhouse rules'....and it could even be a feature (eg..if there was a 60 ground unit movement limitation, perhaps the Axis could be set to move 35 max, the Russians 25 to reflect communication and command and control differences.) Likewise sides could have differant maximum numbers of player flyable's and AI aircraft set depending upon what is being represented .
The problem with fighting a whole theatre war:-
SEOW can become quite competitive, both sides usually have many aircraft more available to fight with than those available to fly during a mission.
The consequence of this is inevitably that both sides fly all of their best aircraft until there are none left, then fly the next best etc etc.... This is not at all realistic and detracts from the simulation. I have experimented with two different solutions to this:-
i) The most elegant solution may be to increase the rearming and refuelling time (depending upon aircraft available to planes in each mission ratio). Perhaps a 'Playability' tab could have rearming 'multiplier' (X2 X3 X4 etc ) available so that it is not necessary to change the DB manualy. This has an effect of cycling planes used much more (alhtough its not a complete solution),even pilots have to sleep and damaged aircraft be repaired !.
ii) Perhaps the most 'realistic' solution would be to introduce some kind of 'proportionality' feature. We had some very involved discussions about this as a result of a Provkharovka campaign...I proposed an enforced 'proportionality' of force types ratio ...eg if a force has 60% Level bombers they have to use that proportion during the course of a time period (not necessarily a single mission).
(I went into this in tremendous detail in some discussions we had on 242Sqn forum, I can forward it if anyone is interested.)
I would be surprised if people had not experienced, some or all of the above and I was advised that it may be a good idea to raise this for discussion here.
As SEOW becomes increasingly popular in some circles, I think it will be the above (and how they are addressed, or worse not addressed... currently by 'in-house' rules) that will colour most peoples perception of the system far more than all of the features and the actual power of SEOW.
Add it in and people don't have to use it however its inclusion will make people consider these absolutely vital aspects at the beginning, rather than when it becomes a dissapointing 'problem'.
Thank you 4Shades for your tremendous ongoing development with SEOW. Over the recent couple of years I have had increasingly more to do with this system and it is really in a league of its own !
Here are some observations resulting from this time. (and none are actually intrinsic to SEOW although it is effected by them)
Thoughts about Playability (generally Lag):-
Ground unit limitation.
We have found on the 102nd server (and it is no slouch in terms of connection speed) that it is necessary for both sides to agree a limit for the number of moving ground units per side or the mission can become unplayable (about 60 total on 102nd although this obviously depends upon a number of variables, the server, aircraft numbers ,AAA rof etc etc.)
Aircraft in mission limitations:-
Again if this is unlimited (although the 32 player co-op limit is a factor anyhow) the mission generated can become unplayable.
WHY NOT ADD A 'PLAYABILITY' TAB whereby these numbers can actually be set and monitored for each side by the SE control program itself and transferred into the planner so that players cannot exceed them ?.
If they could be set separately and different for each side it would solve the problem , relieve bookkeeping and the need for 'inhouse rules'....and it could even be a feature (eg..if there was a 60 ground unit movement limitation, perhaps the Axis could be set to move 35 max, the Russians 25 to reflect communication and command and control differences.) Likewise sides could have differant maximum numbers of player flyable's and AI aircraft set depending upon what is being represented .
The problem with fighting a whole theatre war:-
SEOW can become quite competitive, both sides usually have many aircraft more available to fight with than those available to fly during a mission.
The consequence of this is inevitably that both sides fly all of their best aircraft until there are none left, then fly the next best etc etc.... This is not at all realistic and detracts from the simulation. I have experimented with two different solutions to this:-
i) The most elegant solution may be to increase the rearming and refuelling time (depending upon aircraft available to planes in each mission ratio). Perhaps a 'Playability' tab could have rearming 'multiplier' (X2 X3 X4 etc ) available so that it is not necessary to change the DB manualy. This has an effect of cycling planes used much more (alhtough its not a complete solution),even pilots have to sleep and damaged aircraft be repaired !.
ii) Perhaps the most 'realistic' solution would be to introduce some kind of 'proportionality' feature. We had some very involved discussions about this as a result of a Provkharovka campaign...I proposed an enforced 'proportionality' of force types ratio ...eg if a force has 60% Level bombers they have to use that proportion during the course of a time period (not necessarily a single mission).
(I went into this in tremendous detail in some discussions we had on 242Sqn forum, I can forward it if anyone is interested.)
I would be surprised if people had not experienced, some or all of the above and I was advised that it may be a good idea to raise this for discussion here.
As SEOW becomes increasingly popular in some circles, I think it will be the above (and how they are addressed, or worse not addressed... currently by 'in-house' rules) that will colour most peoples perception of the system far more than all of the features and the actual power of SEOW.
Add it in and people don't have to use it however its inclusion will make people consider these absolutely vital aspects at the beginning, rather than when it becomes a dissapointing 'problem'.