Add to yesterdays' concepts:
German Bases: a couple of disks representing German starting and ending
locations (bases will be important as disks will have to land before their
endurance is used up or be destroyed)
Radar bases will also have an influence on the AA defense rating of the
City on Night turns.
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Air Combat Concepts:
First, think of disks as formations. This eases a lot of considerations.
At this scale, you don't have to worry about ranges, deflection or attack
position. A fighter Disk would represent 4 aircraft and a battle pile
would be a dogfight. All the issues in air combat that give an attacker
the advantage would be represented by the simple Diskwars concept of
pinning. In fact, I'll call the pinner the "advantaged disk" and the
pinned disk the "Disadvantaged disk"
Fighter Stats
Attack strength becomes "Advantaged Strength"
Defense strength becomes "Disadvantaged Strength"
Toughness as in Diskwars
Speed as in Diskwars
Wounds become "Endurance": this would be the biggest change. All fighters
would have wounds and the number would be much higher that in diskwars,
making would counters impractical. Instead Numbered chits would need to
be supplied so that a single chit could represent the endurance "hits" a
disk has taken. Endurance would represent several things: range (a
critical factor for Luftwaffe fighters)--each turn in the air the disk
receives an "endurance hit", crew fatigue (when "unhealed" endurance hits
are carried over into the next turn), and actual battle damage. As said
before, a plane that does not make it back to base before it runs out of
endurance, or else it is destroyed.
Key idea is that combat between fights will resolve as in regular
diskwars.
Bomber Stats
Bomb Strength: Number of bomb disks dropped over target.
Defense strength: Low number, works like AA fire rather than Fighter fire.
Toughness as in Diskwars:
Speed as in Diskwars:
Endurance as in Fighters, only bombers will not get hit for every turn in
the air. Endurance hits effect Bomb Strength.
Fighters apply their full combat values in combat to their target, but if
they have the choice, they must chose which strength (Advantaged or
Disadvantaged) they will use. Unlike Diskwars they will not be able to
use both in the same combat.
Bomber use the same combat strength all touching enemy. They would toss
chits once and apply appropriate hits to the enemy disks of their choice.
However, they have to be evenly distributed: 1 wound to a target until all
have taken 1, then 2, etc.
I envision high endurance numbers. I.E. I don't expect disks to die in a
single combat except under special circumstances (overwhelming odds or
fatigued units). This leaves substantial problems with pinning. As with
Diskwars pinned disks don't move (they are locked in a dogfight). However,
a static battlepile would not be fair or aesthetically pleasing. So we
allow to fighters two options when pinned.
1: Disengage option. A fighter may remove itself from the battlepile.
Once having done this, it must head home by the shortest route. It can no
longer voluntarily initiate combat. A disengaging fighter gets one
additional flip on the turn of disengagement.
2. Challenge Option. Fighter player flips a chit. If result is good,
the fighter is removed from the pinning position and can pin any one of
it's former attackers.
Either action would place an activation on the disk on the completion of
the action.
Realistically, Bombers cannot be pinned. Game play wise, it might be
necessary to allow them to be.
example of endurance.
ME109 with 8 endurance. After two turns escorting a flight a bomber, ME
109 is jumped by some Spitfires. In that combat round the ME109 take
enough battle damage for another Endurance hit. In his turn, ME 109 wins
the challenge option and moves to the advantage. He takes no battle
damage, but takes one more hit for being in the air another turn. The
Spitfires disengage, leaving the ME109 with a decision: He can escort the
bombers one more turn towards the target, which would leave him with just
enough endurance to get home. But if any combat occurred a single
additional Endurance hit would make a dip in the Channel inevitable. Or
he can take the safe route and go home immediately with a two endurance
buffer in case he is jumped by the British on the way out.
Note that I do envision endurance hits having an effect on combat values,
making fatigued aircraft less effective in combat. The exact effect I
haven't tried to determine yet.
Craig Mills
Senior Developer
Northwestern College
3003 Snelling Ave N
St Paul, MN 55113
Phone: 651-631-5373
Fax: 651-631-5269
E-mail: cwm@...
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