AWS doesnot work

[dkamerad]

Yeah OK. I guess it starts depending on if you want the sim to be about fighting or flying around looking for a fight. Both have their audience. One is substantially bigger I believe. But ultimately you want to be able to have both. Well, I want to have both anyhoo. I need to have "jump in and go here and dogfight" abilities as well.

Personally I'd argue we have this already in the form of AO's. Most of the guy's looking for go kill something make a beeline for AO's already. The old EWS system + AO's could accommodate this just as easily.

*edited for clarity*

Edited October 6, 2011 by dkamerad

[odds]

Can we get a green aws square which means friendly are in the square but no enemy cons are in the square.

Can squad members show up on map, no matter what air/ground mission there on.

Can all air units show up on map no matter what mission there on? this would help FR/Brit air a ton.

[Fabao]

Unfortunately getting rid of an alert system isn't a great answer.

What's wrong with bombers EWS? That's perfect. About the skirters, here the AWS – only in areas with no towns and only above enemy lines – would help.

Edited October 7, 2011 by Fabao

[tony803]

Right so...

• have AWS over squares where I own all of the towns (no front or foront?)

• have AWS on squares where there is nobody (figure out how to handle the seas)

• allow players to report enemies to the AWS system

• no auto AWS over enemy territory

If I can do that is that good?

It would be a definite improvement.

[jwilly]

Right so...

• have AWS over squares where I own all of the towns (no front or foront?)

• have AWS on squares where there is nobody (figure out how to handle the seas)

• allow players to report enemies to the AWS system

• no auto AWS over enemy territory

If I can do that is that good?

That'd be great!

As to the seas...historically, each side got skywatcher reports from their fishing fleet and the patrol vessels that protected that fleet and chased away other nations' fishing boats. In this game, that's all virtualized. So divvy up the seas based on coastal-land control, with all of the Channel and North Sea providing AWS for one side or the other.

[GOPHUR]

I'm not sure why this was closed...

Anyway I still cannot replicate the bug above and I've tried as often as I will. If I can get a replication method that'd be great otherwise I'll just keep an eye out for it.

[GOPHUR]

That'd be great!

As to the seas...historically, each side got skywatcher reports from their fishing fleet and the patrol vessels that protected that fleet and chased away other nations' fishing boats. In this game, that's all virtualized. So divvy up the seas based on coastal-land control, with all of the Channel and North Sea providing AWS for one side or the other.

I have no method of divying up the seas. That's largely why we have the system we have now.

[GOPHUR]

About the only way I can think to do this is:

• don't give AWS information to the enemy over squares I control
  

Problem is the water is then open to all.

[OLDZEKE]

About the only way I can think to do this is:

• don't give AWS information to the enemy over squares I control

Problem is the water is then open to all.

Open water/blue water is the killer. Basicly english factories are the game breaker.

Hummm, I don't realy know how the current aws works under the skin of things.

And I have no idea what's doable or doable but too costly.

Hummm. Maybe set water tiles as nme to all sides then add a querry "if nearest town within XXm (or XX grids) is mine then I no trip water tile aws".

[jwilly]

I have no method of divying up the seas. That's largely why we have the system we have now.

You proposed:

* Have AWS report over squares where I own all of the towns (no front or front?)

* Have AWS on squares where there is nobody (figure out how to handle the seas)

Maybe instead:

* Have AWS report to me over squares where I own any of the towns...so the front is reported to both sides, and some distance out over water is reported to the side owning the coastline in that area

* Permanently assign some squares to one side or the other, to handle areas (both land and water) where there are no strat-linked towns.

* Thus the north of England would always be British; France south of the gameplay area would always be French; Netherlands, Denmark, etc. would always be German; Germany south of the gameplay area would always be German.

* Extend that permanent-control principle roughly out to the midpoint of water areas away from the gameplay area.

* In the gameplay water area, my guess is that it would work best to have any no-town squares be no-AWS except for the Thames Estuary. The Thames estuary would always be British due to the sea-forts. CRS might design/decide differently.

Edited October 19, 2011 by jwilly

[thief]

Anyway I still cannot replicate the bug above and I've tried as often as I will. If I can get a replication method that'd be great otherwise I'll just keep an eye out for it.

Can you not monitor the AWS system on the live server?

It's happening all the time there.

And I thought one of the beta readme's said, "ghost squares are fixed now".

[GOPHUR]

* Have AWS report to me over squares where I own any of the towns...so the front is reported to both sides, and some distance out over water is reported to the side owning the coastline in that area

There is no water. Only squares with the texture water.dds and the host knows nothing about textures. There are only squares with no towns in them.

* Permanently assign some squares to one side or the other, to handle areas (both land and water) where there are no strat-linked towns.

Not sure I can. But this is probably where we have to go if we want to hide informnation.

Can you not monitor the AWS system on the live server?

It's happening all the time there.

Unfortunately irrelevant. I need to be able to replicate it while coders watch.

[GOPHUR]

Oh AWS is working now for me so I'll unstick this but I am interested in AWS changes so let's keep the thread going.

[jwilly]

* Have AWS report to me over squares where I own any of the towns...so the front is reported to both sides' date=' and some distance out over water is reported to the side owning the coastline in that area[/b']

There is no water. Only squares with the texture water.dds and the host knows nothing about textures. There are only squares with no towns in them.

Yes, exactly. A system that displays AWS to my side if I own any town in a square doesn't care if the terrain in that square is all land or a land-water mix.

[jwilly]

Can you not monitor the AWS system on the live server?

It's happening all the time there.

Unfortunately irrelevant. I need to be able to replicate it while coders watch.

It's unfortunate that (I guess) the objectively-accurate-AWS and noise/intentional-error-AWS functionality/code aren't separate modules, so you could debug one of them at a time.

[GOPHUR]

Yes' date=' exactly. A system that displays AWS to my side if I own any town in a square doesn't care if the terrain in that square is all land or a land-water mix.[/quote']

But if no one gets the water then the Brits are at a pretty big disadvantage yes?

[jwilly]

But if no one gets the water then the Brits are at a pretty big disadvantage yes?

The prior proposal depended only on AWS-square control via an owned point (town or airfield) within that square, plus permanently assigned squares to manage the periphery. That worked in my head, but I sketched up a map and you're right, it wouldn't work well enough.

So here's a modification: each side's AWS displays all the squares that contain an owned point, and the eight squares around any such square, and any squares that are permanently assigned to that side.

That, I think, works.

The Germans would be assigned permanent squares in the North Sea from roughly off Rotterdam to the North, and in the far south. The British would be assigned permanent squares up the northeast English coast and off the south coast. The French would be assigned permanent squares only in the far south.

Here's a rough map of the central Channel area, showing the farthest extent of British AWS (green line) if the British held only England, and of German AWS (blue line) if the Germans held the entire northern continental gameplay-area:

[LARGE-DISPLAY-SIZE FILE]

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t108/jwilly48519/Maps/AWSproposal.png

Edited October 22, 2011 by jwilly

[GOPHUR]

Is anyone able to replicate the bug on beta? I've been doing some testing for this and I haven't seen it.

[GOPHUR]

" squares that are permanently assigned to that side"

I don't have that though. It isn't too elegant but the big hurdle would be getting chaqnges when there is more high profile host work.

Different question. How many squares warning do you need around a factory to have a good intercept fight?

[jwilly]

How many squares warning do you need around a factory to have a good intercept fight?

He111 requires a little over 2 minutes to fly straight across one square. Suppose a minute of intercept-combat is chosen as a compromise between hunters and hunted...call that 7000 meters. If drop will occur say 5000 meters out from target, intercept must occur at least 12K meters out. That's less than one square, but assumes no search time and a perfect intercept altitude with one or maybe two passes. Canterbury is about 10K meters from the eastern square boundary over Sandwich. So, to answer your question just analytically: one 16KM square is not enough, 1.5 might be barely enough for gameplay, maybe two is getting toward unsurvivable without lots of team-fighting He111s and escorts.

If the only activation-cue you can get without unacceptable coding requirements is presence of a controlled ground point within a square, then the green line on the following map represents the boundaries of British AWS under the previously defined conditions. It barely meets the above safety distance from a few directions, but mostly it's too close.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t108/jwilly48519/AWSproposal2.png

I think what you're after is something like the orange line. To get there, you need some additional condition that activates an AWS square.

[thief]

Different question. How many squares warning do you need around a factory to have a good intercept fight?

Oh wow, that depends on so many things.

Axis vs Allied is different of course. I can only talk from the axis perspective. In tier 0 with E4 you have to lift from Düsseldorf when you see a raid S of Gilze (or Eindhoven max). You can get to the bombers altitude and not to escorts altitude (which would be perfect). I'm not in-game so can't tell how many squares that is... in tier 2 the F4 gets to altitude much faster of course - you can lift "1 square later" and still get to bombers.

Successful intercept is impossible to define. You need a warning at least 1min to quickly despawn, respawn, spam the air channels etc. 2min later first escorts should be up climbing. And you would need to catch the bombers at least 20km away from factories to shoot them at 6km altitude. +the delay 60 seconds when the bombers actually trigger the first AWS square (means they are "probably" half way through).

With He111's you need 1 square warning ANY ALT and the bomber flight is doomed

Edited October 28, 2011 by thief

[Slpr]

... Different question. How many squares warning do you need around a factory to have a good intercept fight?

to answer this question i would determine the average time of the main T0 defending planes (109E4/D520/Spit1a) to get to at least let's say 5km alt and fly from the AF next to a factory town at least 20km towards the incoming formation. add another minute or two to compensate for the fact, that pilots probably have to end their active sortie in order to lift at a factory town. that should be the minimal warning time, read from the AWS covered area. the advantage the german fighters have in climb and speed, their side looses due to their slower bombers. perhaps that variable can decrease with the tiers, so the bombers have an equal chance to reach the target. it is also possible to handle each side separate with their own settings.

my 2 cent.

so long slpr

[Enigma]

But if no one gets the water then the Brits are at a pretty big disadvantage yes?

No body bombs the British anyways.

[Enigma]

" squares that are permanently assigned to that side"

I don't have that though. It isn't too elegant but the big hurdle would be getting chaqnges when there is more high profile host work.

Different question. How many squares warning do you need around a factory to have a good intercept fight?

That's a very hard question to answer, for the following reasons:

1) AWS does not announce itself.

If you are on the front lines flying down near Montfaucon, you could potentially miss the fact that there is a red box flying all the way from Lille to Antwerp and then to the German factories. The old (and better) EWS system would announce itself when an enemy bomber was near an enemy town. When I used to be serious about factory defense, I used to always keep an eye out for the chat and if it said, "Enemy bomber spotted near XYZ" then I knew it was time for me to despawn and quickly grab a fighter for factory defense. Most of the time now, I generally catch AWS boxes when I am either: A) Already operating in their flight path and I see the AWS head past me. I know a RDP raid is coming and I am looking for it. C) I just randomly see it by chance.

We could cut down a large amount of the boxes if the announcements are brought back again. An AWS box + an announcement could also cut down on the 'mirrors' or 'echos' which confuse is, which is point 2.

2) Mirrors and Echos

Let's say the front lines are near Brussles and all of a sudden you see AWS east of Eindhoven. It's obviously an enemy factory raid, so you rush to grab altitude and then all of a sudden the box just goes away. It was a mirror/echo. This is a serious annoyance. But let's say the first one isn't an echo and it continues forward. By the time it gets within 20km of the factories, it could split up into an echo/mirror and confuse you again.

I've noticed that with the mirrors/echos I generally make my interceptions either extremely far away from the factories or right next to the factories. It's too risky to over commit yourself at the general interception range because you may get burned on a false box. As previously stated, we need to couple text announcements (like EWS announcements) on top of boxes, that way we can see and hear the difference on an echo or a real box.

If you are able to notice a box and know it is real, then you don't need that many boxes. If you see a few boxes late and you are not sure which one is real, then you need a lot of room to rule out the real ones and the fake ones.

e:

To make it better, you can maybe make text announcements only relevant to RDP bombers.

to answer this question i would determine the average time of the main T0 defending planes (109E4/D520/Spit1a) to get to at least let's say 5km alt and fly from the AF next to a factory town at least 20km towards the incoming formation. add another minute or two to compensate for the fact, that pilots probably have to end their active sortie in order to lift at a factory town. that should be the minimal warning time, read from the AWS covered area. the advantage the german fighters have in climb and speed, their side looses due to their slower bombers. perhaps that variable can decrease with the tiers, so the bombers have an equal chance to reach the target. it is also possible to handle each side separate with their own settings.

my 2 cent.

so long slpr

Not disagreeing with you, but this all depends on whether or notice the AWS while you are busy flying around on the front lines AND if you can tell if it is real or not.

Edited October 28, 2011 by Enigma

[Slpr]

Not disagreeing with you, but this all depends on whether or notice the AWS while you are busy flying around on the front lines AND if you can tell if it is real or not.

right i was under the assumption the normal warning system would be separated from the fac def.

so long slpr