G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)

[barney]

@simon33:

Can I ask why the XML has different units for each faction, e.g. “Russian_infantry”? Why not just “infantry”?

It’s so the “Sphere of Influence” will work. Germany and Italy are allied and so are the western allies so they don’t need to be separate. Probably eventually give everybody their own dudes. It makes things much more flexible. Especially if you only want certain countries to have certain techs

[barney]

I guess if you really wanted you could have Russia and Japans roster stay the same and then when “Sphere” is on switch to the nation specific roster. Wouldn’t be that hard to do

[Black_Elk]

Aha that makes sense! Nice

Given that I didn’t even notice until Simon mentioned it, I think it’s probably fine for now. If it’s only for sphere of influence we could clean it up I guess with a switcher like you mentioned.

For now I was just playing around with the VC centers, and convoy/blockade flags. I think the medium flags definitely look better at 100% zoom. Though many players probably zoom out to 75% or somewhere around there. In which case you see a tiny bit of clipping on the edges, but I think it still looks a bit easier to read at a glance.

[barney]

yea i wish they had one between small and medium. I left the info off because that really clutters things. You’ll need to add a convoy flag for canada. I moved all the VCs around but some there’s just not much room. The convoys could probably be moved around a little more for the medium flags

[Black_Elk]

If you want I could make some flags. In the past in order to resize roundels I usually had to crop a new exterior circle at the desired size, since they never resize properly amd the circle always just morphs when shrinking them haha. Might take a little bit, but at least we’d have something between Medium and Tiny.

I thought medium looked pretty decent though

[barney]

yea just checked it out. medium looks pretty good. Would be kinda nice to have though. Never know where they might come in handy. But yea I wouldn’t make it a priorority or anything.

[CWO Marc]

@Black_Elk:

If you want I could make some flags. In the past in order to resize roundels I usually had to crop a new exterior circle at the desired size, since they never resize properly amd the circle always just morphs when shrinking them haha. Might take a little bit, but at least we’d have something between Medium and Tiny.

Here’s a trick that sometimes helps.  Save as a picture file the image that you want to resize (if it isn’t already a picture file).  In Windows Explorer, double-click on the file to make it display in Windows Photo Viewer (or whatever equivalent is on your system).  Click the Minimize square in the top right corner to make the window display as less than a full screen.  Next, grab the bottom right corner of the window with your pointer and manually shrink the size of your window to whatever size looks correct; you’ll find that the whole picture shrinks smoothly, without any distortions.  Once it looks the right size, take a screenshot, paste it into Paint and edit out the surrounding junk.  You may need to experiment a few times to get the right size that you’re aiming for – there’s a certain amount of hit-and-miss involved in this technique – but in the end it should work out.

[Black_Elk]

Wow that’s genius CWO!

Haha you have no idea how much time that probably would have saved me in the past, when I was making those things for the Great War game. Totally going to use this method! Good looking out man

[CWO Marc]

My pleasure.  As an added refinement: Note that there’s a limit on how small you can make the window and thus – at first glance – on how much you can shrink the picture in this manner…but there’s a way to work around this limitation if you find that you can’t get the picture small enough for your purposes.  The trick is to start out with a larger image.  Instead of having, let’s say, just an image of a roundel (to use that as an example) that occupies 100% of the space of a picture file, paste your roundel into a blank Paint document that includes lots of white space (so that the roundel occupies, let’s say, just 25% of the picture file) and save it, then display-and-shrink that image.  In that modified picture, the roundel will be inherently smaller than in the unmodified one, so you can achieve a higher reduction factor when you manually shrink the window.

Also note: when you’re using this technique, and you’re starting off with a nice, clean initial image that you’re re-saving at any stage of the process, consider saving it (at least for initial working purposes) as a PNG file so that the image stays crisp.  If you save it as a jpeg (or worse still, a gif), the image will deteriorate.

[Black_Elk]

Nice! I will rock some flags soon as I finish up the other elements.

I just fixed all the VC centers, so all the new VCs now display in more sensible locations for stuff we discussed earlier. Also fixed the stuff that was still wrong on the OOB map like Honolulu. It’s not 100% dead on, because otherwise it would be covered up by the starting fighter unit, but at least the tip of the V now touches the island of Oahu, instead of being all smack dab in the middle of the big island hehe. A couple other compromises were made as well to avoid having VCs covered by units, but for the most part they are pretty close to where they are supposed to be. Everything except the VC in British Columbia which for whatever reason cannot be moved, no matter how hard I try. But I think they look a lot better now, for the most part.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/gck41k

Found a color that I think works well for Pro Allies Neutral. It’s slightly lighter than True Neutral, to contrast with the default Pro Axis color which is darker.

Sent both these to Barney. Maybe we can push out another link to sendspace with the cleaned up stuff.

[barney]

yea let me know if you want an updated version. Gamerman1 got lost in the shuffle and I want to credit him for his Normandy idea. Had ya in earlier Gamer but got some files crossed so we lost ya :)

[CWO Marc]

Here’s a demonstration I’ve prepared of the picture-resizing technique I mentioned.  For illustrative purposes, I used two composite flag designs that I put together for fun a couple of years ago: an “Allied Major Powers” flag and an “Axis Major Powers” flag.  Both flags are the same size in the original files, but you can see them here being shown on my desktop in three different display sizes because I’ve manually adjusted the size of the photo viewer’s window.  Note that smallest sample and the largest sample are both the same flag (in fact the same file, opened twice), and that the round disk in the centre shows no distortion in either version.

[Black_Elk]

Sweet! That method is going to save me like half a dozen steps over the way I used to do it in the past!

[Imperious Leader]

you guys should use dropbox. Their is no spam messages and you can load up any file

[simon33]

Zero complaints? The way transports defended battleships in classic was ridiculous!

A2D2 fighters in air raids should be universally accepted!

I’m wondering why AA Guns have a first strike capability in SBR. What if the AA Gun shot simultaneously to the bombing? Isn’t it possible that bombers are shot down after they release their payload?

[Black_Elk]

I think the c7 defenseless transport is here to stay for most players. That c8 classic option was included for a shrinking minority, but one which has been vocal at various points about their disappointment with the new unit post v3. It was easy enough to include. So I can’t really see the harm. Most will ignore it I think.

I agree A2/D2 is optimal if using an OOB bomber (or one that is modelled on the basic c12 attack powerhouse, especially if it has an A1 in the dogfight.) But trying to make something universally accepted, by providing no alternatives kind of runs counter to the idea of flexibility for a customizable unit roster. Those dogfighting values assume an otherwise fairly standard OOB roster in the air. Right now it has OOB as the default, but I think A2/D2 would be a go to for pretty much everyone.

Any alternatives to the OOB AAAgun, should probably be explored. It’s surely the least popular unit in the purchase roster and among the most frustrating units in the game for many players. I’m fully down to explore alternatives including one that gets a different kind of shot than first strike.
:-D

Ps. As long as we’re thinking about those, a tech add for an oldschool style aaagun might be interesting (one that always fires during combat movement). Sure it received innumerable curses in it’s day, but I can imagine it being interesting with cheaper aircraft. It used to be a somewhat more effective counter purchase to the air war conducted by an opponent, since it could be used to close off air transits. Not that I’m chomping at the bit to go back, but it might not be bad to have as an option.

[Black_Elk]

My ultimate goal for this idea would be a digital form of A&A where players can do essentially everything that a player on the table top could do. But on the fly, without having to learn how to hack apart xml files, or parse the deep inner workings of the machine.

Expanding the functionality of the Edit Mode or the Game Options remains the dream, this is clearly just a backdoor, still limited in terms of what can be done, but at least its a lot closer to the table top for a few HR ideas mentioned in this thread. I’m still thinking about it not necessarily for what is the best fit right now, but what might be fun to have on offer in the future. I still think it would be cool if we had a recurring income bonus in the game menu, the way we have one for the AI (but for players as well). It would be cool if that could go to individual nations the same way a bid can be awarded, but I think it would be better in general if more stuff could just be done with the Edit Mode alone. To cover pretty much everything that can be done from the launch screen as well. Ultimately it would be coolest if all of this stuff had a separate HR edit tab (with different categories for units, or map features), rather than using the existing Tech Add system. But it just seemed expedient for the moment, since that one was already in place, and I have no clue how to create anything similar to do the job in a more direct way or who to talk to about it anymore.
:-)

[baron Münchhausen]

@simon33:

Zero complaints? The way transports defended battleships in classic was ridiculous!
A2D2 fighters in air raids should be universally accepted!

I’m wondering why AA Guns have a first strike capability in SBR. What if the AA Gun shot simultaneously to the bombing? Isn’t it possible that bombers are shot down after they release their payload?

Once upon a long time ago, there was no Destroyer unit.
It is a totally different paradigm now.

Even more if your naval fodder unit is at 5 IPCs and Subs at 6 IPCs.

Ask the question the other way around:
do you still need all of these special rules to prevent taking an 8 IPCs TP as casualty at owner’s choice?

Do you really think it will change the game so radically?

Would you built an entire naval fleet around 8 IPCs fodder TPs and Carriers, instead of a more well rounded one with attack and defense capacity: DDs and Subs ?

With all the new possibilities, balance will be certainly affected anyway.
Adding this one, worth a try IMO.
At least from a tabletop and educational POV, KISS is always better.

On AA in regular combat, I played with it too. Simpler, but have to roll up to twice @1 each combat round against aircraft. But my aircraft was Fg A2 D2 C7, always hit aircraft first.

Can work but need to be a competitive defensive unit compared to an Infantry.
Something like allowing always two roll @1 per AAA unit, each combat round.
That way, even with no attack capacity, it would keep similar odds to hit as an Infantry.
It can be easier to pay 4 IPCs for it (similar to artillery)

Of course, it is much harder to change in Triple A. AA gun phase always precede regular combat is hard coded in engine.
But, if it becomes a feature that an AA unit can directly hit an aircraft in regular combat, then there will be no xml barrier to try my Fg hitting planes above and a TcB able to directly hit costlier ground units first (tank buster). To get an increase feel of aircombat above battlefield.

[Black_Elk]

For me, I think it would be hard to go back to the classic transport, just out of sheer force of habit. I am now used to writing them off. Not having to track that hitpoint and defensive pip does make it simpler to make faster calculations in my head. I don’t know what kind of fodder spam might result or not from using the C8 transport or how it would effect the composition of the USN or IJN over the long haul.  But that said, I can’t see any reason not to include it as an option, if it’s only like a couple lines and one tech add. So that’s why its tossed in there.

Since I was recently reminded of CWO Marc’s list describing the political situation of the game map relative to the actual war…
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36590.30

For anyone not really familiar with tripleA’s edit mode, this is an example of the sort of thing you can do with the map.

Here with a new color for Pro-Allies Neutrals, its simple to say, change Liberia to be Pro-Allies on the fly.
Or in South America, you could make Paraguay Pro-Axis on the fly, or Bolivia Pro-Allies, things of that sort, and its basically just a couple clicks.

Brazil shows the diagonal relief (which indicates which tiles are pro-side in the OOB game) but at least here, the colors are different, so it’s easy to tell all the neutrals apart, even without the reliefs.

[Black_Elk]

Again for those who haven’t really used TripleA, here is another example of what you can do to the map via Edit by adding Convoy and Blockade zones. Shows the little flags we currently have at Medium size, indicating which additional sea lanes can be contested…

The HR stuff regarding units, VCs, capital capture, NOs etc, are similarly handled via an edit.