Malta Engineers & Docks

[EAF51_Jimmi]

Docks are a vital part of this campaign
and IMHO are a way to win/lose it

in past missions Axis have made a great effort in trying to destroy them...
And Allies to defend them...!

the campaign has also engineers to repair docks to mix strategic and tactical attacks... Those are a key target to avoid our hard work in damaging docks is wasted by engineers repairing them...


I think you can imagine our discomfort after we found the engineers being unbreakable... (or may be you red it in the chat during the stress of the mission... **)
But after long training, and long planning reaching a target and finding it unbreakable due to the limits of the game is no fun at all...

For those like me who didn't know it i'll explain the problem better. If you put engineers in a place, seow engine will place them 30m one form the other, but if there are buildings around, it can happen that they will end inside a building, thus being virtually unbreakable!
And believe me , skilled planners always put them inside cities to defend them better...

Probably destroying just 2 engineers units to avoid Malta repairs is too easy, but at the same time not being able to destroy them at all is not fair...


I would like to listen to allied and axis opinions, and if we get some sort of agreement/workaround that suit both sides, only then give it to the admin judgment. (not before, because admin seems pretty busy running this complex and beautiful campaign, better not to stress him if we can try and solve things among us)

PS i would like to have a civil and constructive discussion on this precise issue, and not a do ut des exchange of requests, or it will lead to a never ending escalation.
At the same time i will be happy to give my contribution in another thread to any other problem allies (or axis) can have in this campaign...




**Personally it spoils me part of the fun reading comments in chat during the mission. It destroy immersion for me, but i understand that sometimes under the stress of the mission it could happen. As a rule i think forums are a much better place to express ourselves...

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Hi Jimmi,

You are correct that careful commanders can situate ground units inside buildings etc. With vehicle columns in urban areas, the way SEOW randomly generates the location of each member vehicle it is likely that some will appear close to or inside houses.

But that doesn't mean they are impossible to destroy. The IL-2 engine allows you to destroy houses with bombs and rockets. This often means the contents of the houses will be destroyed too. If not, once the house is destroyed (roof gone) it is possible to bomb or strafe anything alive inside the house. Nothing is unbreakable.

The real problem here is that the attacking pilot does not know which houses to destroy to kill all members of the vehicle column. This is a good problem. In real life, units under attack would seek any available shelter to hide and it would be very hard to completely destroy any well concealed large unit in an urban area from the air.

A final point - partial kills. SEOW does incorporate logic to reduce the repair effectiveness of engineer units that are partially damaged. An engineer unit at 10% strength takes 10 times longer to repair a bridge than a full strength engineer unit. However this logic is not used by SEOW for industrial facilities. Should it be? Maybe. Could it be? Yes, easily.

In the current Med campaign, Petr is using engineer units to repair docks manually via admin intervention. I do not know the exact logic he uses or whether engineer strength is taken into account in his method.

Cheers,
4Shades

[102nd-YU-devill]

Jimmi,

Your bombers can kill many more docks per mission than can be repaired. The engineers can be killed even in cities. Yes, it is harder but it is not impossible and I suggest you guys invest some free time and check in IL2 FMB how these things actually work.

I honestly think your requests to Classic were totally unreasonable. You want him to put engineers in the open, on an island of 10 by 10 km? That's ONE square on the map mate.

Come on, just try to do the best job you can with what you have already, and try to have fun doing it. If something seems impossible to do, well then try to find another way of achieving your objective, because maybe the impossible SHOULD be impossible and you SHOULD use different tactics.

No army is going to be in the open during an air raid. And we all well know that on Malta they had caves and shelters and whatnot.

You can quite easily sink ships. You can hit static docks. Is killing engineers really the only way the axis can accomplish their goals?
Seriously?

[=VARP=Thor]

@Jimmi

CountZero already told you why killing of engineers is not what you want.
When you realize that,your objection to Classic will become irrelevant.
If you didn't get the point,Count (or me) can tell you again.

Cheers

[II/JG77_Jack]

Great to see VARP & Stg77 guys helping and teaching the italian squads to do better.

I hope this is easily resolved because if you want to do it all realistic then build underground bunkers where all allied units hide when there is a raid.

[102nd-YU-devill]

Just for my education, can someone tell me if Italian or German units engaged in strafing or bombing from very low altitudes of targets on Malta at any time during the siege?

I do not recall encountering information that would say "yes" on the above question, so I would like to know if anyone has any information if this sort of thing ever happened?

My idea of how Malta siege campaign should look is something very similar to BIG WEEK campaign, only with sides reversed of course. Each mission, the axis should form a big flight of bombers with fighters in close escort and use their superior numbers and altitude performance to pound the shit out of Malta in a prolonged but steady bombing campaign. If axis would bring 20-30 bombers escorted by 20 Macchis at 6000m, and did an area bombing of La Valetta, I would give them pretty good chances of rendering 80-90% of docks nonoperational for most of the time. In such a scenario, repairing units being in the city and close to the docks at the time of attack would be in serious danger from collateral damage and would suffer casualties even if they were buried inside buildings. If I designed such a scenario, I would give the ability to repair the docks during the night missions and an option of hiding the repairing units in close by supply routes during day, unless the commander chooses to risk them by getting them out for repair. On a second thought, I think I would have just used automatic industrial repair on the docks as Shades implemented it in the SEOW engine. The only thing I would calculate since it is not implemented is how many times were the docks destroyed, and substract an appropriate amount of supply for each time a dock has auto-repaired.

@Shades,
maybe you can calculate a supply usage for industrial auto repair in the future, and even put an option whether commander chooses to repair the object or not? Or just use the same mechanism for repair as for the bridges, ie. needing an engineer unit. But it could be nifty to use supply for any repair just like ships use it.

[StG77_CountZero]

I would not say "teaching them" they know a loot, we just exchange ideas

My opinion is that placment of engeneer units close to thouse "forts" so they would be randomly placed in them was expected move. Its not against any rules, and even if some units are randomly placed on Sea they can be destroyed by guns or bombs also.

I dont like that kined of move, and i understand Jimmi and guys thinking this is not fair play. I would act the same way trying to see if we can avoid placment of units in thouse "forts". In my tests thouse "fort" objects can not be destroyed so you can not see where unit is in them, and know if you kill them all, like its the case with houses (when you destroy it you can see whats in it).

[StG77_CountZero]

Just for my education, can someone tell me if Italian or German units engaged in strafing or bombing from very low altitudes of targets on Malta at any time during the siege?

I do not recall encountering information that would say "yes" on the above question, so I would like to know if anyone has any information if this sort of thing ever happened?

My idea of how Malta siege campaign should look is something very similar to BIG WEEK campaign, only with sides reversed of course. Each mission, the axis should form a big flight of bombers with fighters in close escort and use their superior numbers and altitude performance to pound the shit out of Malta in a prolonged but steady bombing campaign. If axis would bring 20-30 bombers escorted by 20 Macchis at 6000m, and did an area bombing of La Valetta, I would give them pretty good chances of rendering 80-90% of docks nonoperational for most of the time. In such a scenario, repairing units being in the city and close to the docks at the time of attack would be in serious danger from collateral damage and would suffer casualties even if they were buried inside buildings. If I designed such a scenario, I would give the ability to repair the docks during the night missions and an option of hiding the repairing units in close by supply routes during day, unless the commander chooses to risk them by getting them out for repair. On a second thought, I think I would have just used automatic industrial repair on the docks as Shades implemented it in the SEOW engine. The only thing I would calculate since it is not implemented is how many times were the docks destroyed, and substract an appropriate amount of supply for each time a dock has auto-repaired.

@Shades,
maybe you can calculate a supply usage for industrial auto repair in the future, and even put an option whether commander chooses to repair the object or not? Or just use the same mechanism for repair as for the bridges, ie. needing an engineer unit. But it could be nifty to use supply for any repair just like ships use it.

Regarding the low level attacks on Docks Red side use the same type of airplane (IL-4- Welington) to do low level attack on docks in Bengazi on NE.

But if this type of attack is a problem for any side, lets open new topic and talk about it there, in the rules of campaign it also says all type of attacks with airplanes are permited over ground and you have planty of flak over targets so its attackers risk, but im open to compromises if this is problem for both sides. Like Jimmi posted he would like to keep this topic mostly about engeneers in Malta.

[102nd-YU-devill]

Dear Count,

I do want to have any discussion about the rules, nor do I care to change them. The question about Malta was intended to show that there are many aspects of each campaign that are not historical or realistic, so insisting on one issue because it is not historical is worthless if all other unhistorical issues are not put to the same standard of scrutiny.

This question is also directly related to Jimmi's concerns: I witnessed many axis planes at tree-top level above Valetta in the last mission, and those pilots were complaining about trucks in water. So instead of going for a strategic assault on Malta, which I believe was the intention in this campaign, the axis side chose to ignore historical aspects and go for chasing of trucks and jeeps between buildings in Valetta for pinpoint accuracy of weapon delivery.

My point is: only when one starts to use the game engine to his benefit, disregarding historical aspects, does this kind of situation become an issue for discussions. And this goes for both sides. To put it clearly: if you want to do something in your plane that a real pilot in WW2 wouldn't do, then you can't expect the other side to not use any tricks it can to offset your tactics.

If you only look at the rule book, you will find that there are many loopholes for both sides to exploit. Admin always tries to cover any contingency, but a perfect rule book doesn't exist, and if you try to make it you'll just end up with a "war and peace" novel of a few thousand pages.

As you say, rules allow any kind of attack, but at the same time rules do not condemn this kind of placement of units. So it is unjust to complain about this kind of placement if we are supposed to limit our conduct only by what rules say or omit.

Regarding the low level attacks on Docks Red side use the same type of airplane (IL-4- Welington) to do low level attack on docks in Bengazi on NE.

Well Benghazi is not Malta, and we did not complain about anything like the axis does in Malta. We have faced columns in towns many times, and we know how hard they are to kill but we accept that because this is a reality of IL2. And now you can also see why I am bringing up low level attacks, and that I am not against them, so this argument is completely irrelevant. But on a side note, you are very quick to make parallels between different issues taken out of context. This my friend is not the way we usually try to discuss stuff in SEOW, but since you are new to it, I won't take it against you.

Cheers!

[102nd-YU-Mornar]

I think Jimmi and Count are completely right. I fully understand them since I had very similar problem with killing HQ column in Tobruk (I could see and kill only one truck, the rest of vehicles were evidently in buildings). My opinion is that it is highly unhistoric and unfair that those engineers can`t be killed, since historicaly they accually could be killed.
So, I think that admin should adjust rules a little bit (since this situation could not be foreseen) in a way that engineers have to be on open ground and thus subject of air attack and destruction, since I don`t see any other way to solve this issue.

[EAF51_Jimmi]

Just to clarify

I'm not complaining!
I'm just speaking to my friends and former allies about a problem we found and we feel relevant.

Also let's leave "historical" word out of this. We all have too much different views of what historical is...


IMHO it's a campaign design feature we are speaking of...

Thank you Mornar for your suggestion!
I'm not asking and not expecting to have the engineers served on a silver plate for us to strike!

A final point - partial kills. SEOW does incorporate logic to reduce the repair effectiveness of engineer units that are partially damaged. An engineer unit at 10% strength takes 10 times longer to repair a bridge than a full strength engineer unit. However this logic is not used by SEOW for industrial facilities. Should it be? Maybe. Could it be? Yes, easily.

In the current Med campaign, Petr is using engineer units to repair docks manually via admin intervention. I do not know the exact logic he uses or whether engineer strength is taken into account in his method.

Cheers,
4Shades

this is a great start! (ty 4Shades for the hint!)
a partial/progressive reduction of engineers efficiency would be great.

Do you feel it's too easy to just damage the engineers to partially halt repair process?

Why don't we change the rules to 2 fully efficient engineers units to repair a dock and we agree on giving you 2 more engineers units to allow you to maintain the same repair ability per turn?
This will allow you to maintain actual repair ability and will allow us to partially reduce it...
Do you think it's a good balance?

[StG77_CountZero]

Ok Devill it seems i misunderstood your previous post regarding type of attack on Malta docks thinking your pointing out only one side used it, and i just added that both sides use this type of attack. i see now what you ment by that comment.

And i agree its imposible to look at only one thing and saying its unhistorical or historicly when in other situation we pretend or behave differantly.

Thanks for having patience with me as new guy to SEOW


Jimmi dont think we need to change anything in this phase 1, maybe for phase 2 we should try to fined better solution for this, i like idea when engenner unit is on lets say 50% strenght, then it takes them double time to repair dock or they repair it to half of what they would repair it if they are on 100% strenght.
But then its again more things for admin to track and do manualy

[102nd-YU-Mornar]

Well, I didn`t say that you asked for this, Jimmi (or would ever ask, I know you virtualy for some time now) . But, maybe admin have some other perspective on this question. Lets just remind ourselves about Malta airstart question...- one question about this and PUFFFF airstart is forbiden Not to mention other nice rule layers.

[102nd-YU-devill]

@Jimmi,

In my language and in my understanding of English, "complaining" is not a bad word, but if it will make you feel better, I can use: "bringing to our attention"

Regardless of semantics, I honestly feel that the current campaign is balanced in such a way that your objectives should primarily be docks and ships, and any engineer you kill in the process you should take as a welcome bonus for your side and a lucky hit, and not as a primary target.

Otherwise, let's assume you kill both engineer columns on Malta. That's an instant death scenario for the allies in NW since they can't be replaced. I do not believe engineers were imagined in the design process as an instant death condition in this campaign.

By the way, the health of engineers already has an impact of their repair ability in SEOW, but this is implemented only for bridge repair, and not for industrial objects.

@Count,

Ok, good, I am glad we understand each other. Communication between the two sides and mutual understanding of both points of view is paramount if we are to have good fun and hassle free campaigns in SEOW. This is why I encourage direct discussions between planners and why I would like to see people mixing more in campaigns instead of flying always on opposite sides. Flying together in some campaigns helps a lot in developing sympathy for the other side's problems and issues.

Cheers!

[=VARP=Thor]

Hi all

@Mornar

You are most likely right.I have put them in between 3 buildings and they are just in center of that area in FMB...it is probably different in game...something like your AAA in the house also in Tobruck...but good amount of explosive can handle many things;)