S3 Series

Thursday:
This screenie is the 4th torp hit on a Japanese DD with a Type 91 Mod2 torpedo. The screen showed the 4th hit, and the sound event of the explosion was played, as it was on the first three hits. A fly-over of the ship showed no visible damage following (4) direct hits with torpedoes. It could be that damage files have not, yet, been loaded into the S3 Arena.

...and yet we had no problem strafing down ships w/ 50cal last frame. Hmmmm.

I thought I heard that we lost all of our carriers to strafing too. (can someone confirm that?) Will the hardness settings be the same for Frame 2?

I don't have a fancy screenie, basically because there was nothing to capture......When I first read that the new weps settings had been transferred to the S3 Arena (and somewhere else also) I went into the S3 Arena to do a "guns test" on the F4F-4. On more than one occasion, I selected the smallest of the freighters to pick on. To the best of my shooting ability, I put 100% of my MG into the wheel house of the little guy. NUTHIN'! I would urge our strike types to go into the S3 Arena and conduct some testing so that our Frame CO can have some idea if the entire Cactus Air Force has to attack only ONE ship, or whether or not there is a chance to go for several. We know that we can kill objects that happen to live on land.

Sorry guys away on the road right now.

I will make the ships less hard with a boat tuff setting but they wont be strafed down, you will have to use ord on them.
I believe thats how its setup in the MA right now. MA guys can confirm this.

The idea is that there is no confusion in settings between MA and S3 as regards to planes and weapons. Makes things easier for everyone. A change in the MA is a change in the S3.
That being said the object file will remain different between the S3 and MA and this will effect the static ships etc.

Thank you Jabo,

Can you confirm what "tuffenss" the DDs and carriers will be set at?
Are only static ships reduced? How about fixed land objects?

<S>

PS, can you turn down the high explosive coconut palms that claimed the lives of many good men?

So, expect lower boat tuff. However, assuming that the "reduction" of boat tuff is in some way "proportional", it still would take more 100 lb. bombs on an F4F-4 than could likely ever score hits on boats to sink one and we already know that strafing boats will not work. Note that a single torpedo does more than TEN TIMES the damage of a 100 lb. bomb. There is NO REASON for a F4F-4 to be an attacker on either moving or static shipping.



Our Ordnance Officer and 328th Squadron Leader advises that the combat engineers could get rid of all of the palm trees and apron-parked aircraft in the whole theatre with one roll of det cord.

EDIT:
It has to be mentioned that the "tuffness" of various elements of our game have been adjusted from time-to-time to correspond with the Series presented. If one takes a long look over any number of past Events, it will be noted that, in general, that the end score of both "sides" was pretty close. Occasionally buffs are harder to kill, occasionally lots of ground objects are required to close fields. Typically there is a "wrinkle" somewhere. However, the "wrinkles" are always somewhere in the Rules if one looks far enough. Squad COs and Flight Planners have to pay attention to what scenario is presented and how that can be accomplished with the colleagues and the airframes available. Testing of the Arena has always been a part of the program as everyone KNOWS that it will be different from the MA. These elements are what have always made S3s the "special events" that they really are.

Before everybody gives a huge round of applause that the MA Settings will also be the S3 Settings just because testing under "S3 conditions" is just too tedious, please consider the possible limitations that this may impose upon our Janitors who have all been doing a great job of "evening things out" for a very long time.

Not that anyone else would really care, but I've developed a "S3 maxim" which I have used with our Squaddies for quite some time. Namely: "As long as the Janitors can keep both "sides" complaining vociferously that each is at a true disadvantage, the Janitors must be doing something right".

<S>

I think we can adjust the static settings for ships to correspond to the weapons settings of the MA. For some reason the MA torpedoes are low strength compared to other bombs. It may be a very effective weapon in the MA. So we will lower the settings for the static ships so torps can be of use. Not sure what the boat tuff is in the MA but if it takes 2-3 torps to sink a carrier in the MA we will adjust accordingly. But I am pretty sure you cannot strafe down the AI ships now in the MA due to the weapons changes so I would not count on strafing down any AI shipping. Good bomb and torp attacks will work. Its nice having static and AI ships because it keeps everyone guessing. Real combat didnt see set amounts of ord doing set amounts of damage, it varied wildly.
I will dedicate saturday to ironing out the object points and posting a new one for everyone to see. Good news is anything you see in the MA as regards to plane vs plane action is the same in the S3s. So it allows good practice for events and this includes the new FMs.

What are those new FM's you guys keep talking about? Will all FMs be revamped or just the a6m3-f4f4?

Try testing now.
S3 settings the same as MA settings so you should be able to compare arenas, planes etc much easier now.
You should see your weapons being more effective now.

Talk is all fighter FMs are going to be revamped like the bomber and strike ones but it will take time to get them right.