Tides of War

Ok, so Enigma may not be the FIRST to have ships and planes, but I'm sure it will be the best by far.

The best by far to me would be Battlefield 1942, thats my opinion. If you have the right system it looks really good. Although there is more detail on vessels in Enigma.

For planes to me it is a VERY touchy topic, there are going to be people who want planes, some who dont, and others who just dont care.

Now for the game idea that can be intergated into Enigma, good idea. But how would you play online with someone who dosnt have the other game? It would be very unbalanced if you can get into planes, but since the other person dosnt have the game cannot.

However if they make it so the you must own both games to play on the server, (If you dont have it you have to play with other people who do not have it) then the amount of people in servers will drop rather rapidly.

For the plane idea though im all for it, as a Navy has its pilots, but I think if it is made it should be VERY basic, as planes then would not be close to as easy to fly as a jet plane, controls should be sluggish, wind moves the plane around (Likes it moves the waves) damn thing could break at somepoint because some idiot put the wrong screw into a part. etc/

A plane in that time period during a sea battle would be a difficult thing to fly, and i think should be reflected in that way.

Ok, so Enigma may not be the FIRST to have ships and planes, but I'm sure it will be the best by far.

The best by far to me would be Battlefield 1942, thats my opinion. If you have the right system it looks really good. Although there is more detail on vessels in Enigma.

For planes to me it is a VERY touchy topic, there are going to be people who want planes, some who dont, and others who just dont care.

Now for the game idea that can be intergated into Enigma, good idea. But how would you play online with someone who dosnt have the other game? It would be very unbalanced if you can get into planes, but since the other person dosnt have the game cannot.

However if they make it so the you must own both games to play on the server, (If you dont have it you have to play with other people who do not have it) then the amount of people in servers will drop rather rapidly.

For the plane idea though im all for it, as a Navy has its pilots, but I think if it is made it should be VERY basic, as planes then would not be close to as easy to fly as a jet plane, controls should be sluggish, wind moves the plane around (Likes it moves the waves) damn thing could break at somepoint because some idiot put the wrong screw into a part. etc/

A plane in that time period during a sea battle would be a difficult thing to fly, and i think should be reflected in that way.

If you've ever played IL-2 Sturmovik then you'd know that those features can be incorporated into a game.

Here are my two cents... Though given the current exchange rate they might be worth a little less...

I love games that manage to have depth in them. Now besides the obvious pun about ships and depth... what I mean about depth is namely games where there are many layers/levels of complexity and opportunity. Say you have a random, run-of-the-mill First Person Shooter (FPS) game. A dull game would basically be one where everyone was perfectly the same, could get all the same weapons, and the entire game becomes basically a point-click-boom game. In a FPS with depth, there would be many layers of differentiation to make the game more varied and interesting. For example, instead of just two sides, have 3. Instead of good guys vs. bad guys, have people versus animal/aliens/non-humans. Instead of having everyone being a guy with a guy, make some people gunners, others medics, engineers, civilians, etc... Games with depth like this tend to have very wide appeal especially when the game encourages that variety. If in that FPS game mentioned before players could be medics but saving lives earned them nothing, then no one would use that feature. But in a game where great care has gone into details like engineers can create traps or devices, and medics can heal ailments, or any instance where sustained positive efforts are rewarded with increased abilities, the games tend to be very fun and popular.

Woof... OK all that being said. I think adding complexity and new options is always a good thing. Things can get overly complex or new options can be redundant (i.e. having both doctors and medics in a game). However most MMGs tend to keep things simple which makes the diversity even more important. I think adding user controlled planes is a great idea and I can think of now really good reason why it shouldn't be included. The planes in Enigma are fast and agile but, they can hardly do much damage to ships especially when they are by themselves. This is important, as a single user is unlikely to be able to command a swarm of planes single-handedly and thus will reduce the usefulness of flying to what it should be, mostly for scouting. Air attacks on ships are effective, don't get me wrong, but the number of planes needed is relatively large. For a even a medium sized group of semi-defended ships, the number of planes to effect any serious damage to the group is surprisingly large.

I disagree. One pilot can sink a sub if he's good. I would also think torpedo bearing planes could do significant damage to some similarly sized vessels.

That is true that one pilot sink a sub if he/she is good or lucky... But the sub commander who have to be somewhat dense or unlucky to let one plane get the better or them like that. But still I don't see what the particular problem of having a plane being able to sink a sub is. I mean a sub can't take that much damage anyway so the fact a plane can sink one doesn't seem all that reprehensible... I mean its more crazy to say that the machine guns of a plane do actual damage to steel armored ships then the fact bombs and torps do.

Torpedo attacks via planes would make things much different, I agree with that. The potential lethality of air attacks would great increase with torpedo attacks. However I also am considering the ammo capacity of a single plane at that point. A good pilot might be able to weave through flak well enough to drop the torp correctly and the ship might be slow enough to take the hit... but how many torps will it take to do the job? Most ships take several torps to go down, most plane could carry only 1 torp maybe 2 for very large planes (therefore slower and easier targets). I just still don't see user controlled planes as throwing the game all out of whack. The won't be able to hold territory, they will be fragile, and they will have a small ammo supply compared to full sized ships. Will they have an impact? Yes but, no more so then the introduction of another new class of ship. I consider them not unlike the MTBs in that regard. Fast, good hitting power, but weak hulled. Great for scouting or raids but, not up to much else.

That is true that one pilot sink a sub if he/she is good or lucky... But the sub commander who have to be somewhat dense or unlucky to let one plane get the better or them like that. But still I don't see what the particular problem of having a plane being able to sink a sub is. I mean a sub can't take that much damage anyway so the fact a plane can sink one doesn't seem all that reprehensible... I mean its more crazy to say that the machine guns of a plane do actual damage to steel armored ships then the fact bombs and torps do.
Torpedo attacks via planes would make things much different, I agree with that. The potential lethality of air attacks would great increase with torpedo attacks. However I also am considering the ammo capacity of a single plane at that point. A good pilot might be able to weave through flak well enough to drop the torp correctly and the ship might be slow enough to take the hit... but how many torps will it take to do the job? Most ships take several torps to go down, most plane could carry only 1 torp maybe 2 for very large planes (therefore slower and easier targets). I just still don't see user controlled planes as throwing the game all out of whack. The won't be able to hold territory, they will be fragile, and they will have a small ammo supply compared to full sized ships. Will they have an impact? Yes but, no more so then the introduction of another new class of ship. I consider them not unlike the MTBs in that regard. Fast, good hitting power, but weak hulled. Great for scouting or raids but, not up to much else.

You do know that I'm for the inclusion of pilotable aircraft in Enigma, don't you?

Torpedo attacks via planes would make things much different, I agree with that.  The potential lethality of air attacks would great increase with torpedo attacks.  However I also am considering the ammo capacity of a single plane at that point.  A good pilot might be able to weave through flak well enough to drop the torp correctly and the ship might be slow enough to take the hit... but how many torps will it take to do the job?  Most ships take several torps to go down, most plane could carry only 1 torp maybe 2 for very large planes (therefore slower and easier targets).

You mention an interesting point. If Enigma 2 sticks to the same torp. system as in ERT 1, then the number of torps it takes to sink different ships would be something like this:

PT: 1

CV: 1-2

DE: 3-4

DD: 4-6

BB: 200!!! (see this thread)

Subs: 1

If you were to try and sink a BB with a bunch of torp. planes, you'd need a couple hundred of them! If torpedo planes are pilotable in ERT2, then the torp "ratio" (for lack of a better word,) needs to be made more realistic.

Perhaps now is a good time to point out a couple of changes that are coming:

1) Singleplayer will have the ability to play at various realism level - simplest level will use the Hull Damage values we have now (except the BB's probably). You can also play with High realism and have to worry about flooding, fire, equipment damage, etc.

2) Multiplayer will have the same capabilities, but the server host will set the options that all joining players will have to default to.

A Player won't be able to do any more damage than the planes do now, the only difference would be the chance to use better tactics.

East,

I just had a thought..

If the server HOST of a 12-16 player multiplayer game can choose values for everyone such as low or high realism, then I would think that people could also be very interested in setting values for different game vehicles for scenario reasons. BEING ABLE TO SAVE A PROFILE ONCE CREATED WOULD BE A BIG PLUS.

EXAMPLE #1: Todays 12 player game would be a group of friends hunting a wounded ship.. for rescue, boarding, sinking whatever..

The server host sets the wounded ship to a random hidden location with values to determine its role to be played..

PRESS REALISM (HIGH-MED-LOW-CUSTOM) click a button sets all players same. Custom allows individual units to be changed.

If you press CUSTOM, you get to choose which player unit, then set specific values for that unit..

TEAM- (red, green or blue, unidentified, or team three would need a new color)

FIRE-(choose compartment - hull damage % continues to go down)

FLOOD- 0% per minute

CREW FATIGUE-50%

CREW LOST-10%

HULL DAMAGE-50%

PROP DAMAGE 0%

ENGINE DAMAGE-0%

WEAPONS DAMAGE-0%

FUEL-50%

AMMO-ZERO-LOW-MED-FULL (zero if damaged)

ENGINES-0%

SPEED-0

DEPTH-0 (for subs)

The players choose to send several scout planes, MTB's, or any combination to solve the problem before the timer, or ship hull damage/fire causes it to sink.

EXAMPLE #2: Todays 12 player game would be 3 subs, one milchcow, waiting for a convoy of 6 player freighters and 2 DD's to cross certain way points. The 3 subs have to load from the milchcow and move to their ambush positions before the convoy arrives.

PRESS REALISM (HIGH-MED-LOW-CUSTOM) click a button sets all players same. Custom allows individual units to be changed.

In this case just press HIGH, MED, or LOW realism for all players, get going quickly.

interesting idea...we'll add it to the evaluations.