LW/Ami Missions
 

Seeing as it is that the LW/Amizaur realism mod is bound to become popular, I will be creating new versions for my missions previously released for DW 1.01 (Taiwan ARG Escort, AEGIS sucker punch, Marines Winchester, and Rough Riders). I will also be releasing a LW/Ami version of a mission previously released only to NCHQ, Black Market Boomer.

These missions will feature altered acoustic conditions, starting positions, and whatever else I think needs to be changed to keep the missions playable. This ideally means engagement in 15 to 30 minutes of game time, depending on the tactics employed and objectives of the mission. I think these missions will actually prove to be better when played under this mod since there will be a lot more sneakiness involved.

I hope to complete this work in 3-4 weeks.

As for all you other misson designers, I encourage you to support the LW/Ami mod by making or altering missions to accomodate the new detection ranges of the mod. It's time to move DW forward! :arrgh!:

Thank you Molon for starting this thread. It is something I have had in mind to do since v2.0 was on the horizon.

Amizaur and I are committed to supporting mission designers as much as possible. With this in mind, I will expedite my work on the complete unit information tables so that you know the exact parameters of each platform you have at your disposal in the Database, as well as, hopefully, write a short guide for mission design with our mod based on practical design experience and playtesting.

Please let me know if there is *anything* at all we can do to support your endevours in mission creation. :) :up:

I will post some thoughts tonight, after I have played around with creating some MP missions for use at the HyperLobby LWAMI Mod Meet, tomorrow, Thursday, 13:00 GMT.

Soon, we may have our own separate place to discuss these matters. ;)

Cheers,
David

I made some MP missions (5 released and 2 near release) for DW, and before your MOD, US won 4/5 of the time.
I tought it was balanced, but the "too much easy" way the buoy and helos detected subs made it really difficult for red side.

On the tonight test (i tested it yesterday also but with only 2 other guys instead of the usual 5 to 8 we have on our matches), I could see missions are now very well balanced, just because it's much harder for US to detect subs.

So finally I haven't anything to change on my scenarios !
happy for that ...

here is the url to download them if you want to take a look =>
http://okof4.free.fr/missions/DW/

scenario is from 45mn to 2h30 of game
Usually around 1h.
Give us some nice fights :|\

Well, I haven't had a chance to do any mission design in the last day.

I will add some thoughts.

I have noticed that many "arena" style missions use high sea state to reduce detection ranges. This has made many of the missions we've run with the mod have VERY limited detection ranges, since now that we have turned down the sound inputs into the acoustics engine, all of the built in acoustical features, such as layers and more generally the type of acoustic environment, that previously had very little effect, now have a fairly strong effect in changing sonar performance. So I think now these kinds of missions can be defaulted to a more calm sea state and worked from there, rather than starting with the premise that the mission itself has to reduce detection ranges to compensate for the game engine.

Also, I'm not sure at this point which kind of missions provide the most satisfying experience in MP, arena or realistic. I can see how in the stock DB, arena style missions with conflicts occuring basically at standoff ranges would be prefered, with it being very hard to construct a MP mission that is fun, playable, realistic, AND balanced. However, encouraged by OKO's thoughts, words, and missions, I am beginning to think that designing realistic missions of MP, with each platform having specific mission tasking is a good way to go now for mission design, and also could put specific platforms in interesting situations (eg. you can play as the SW BUT you've got to deal with two bears and an Udaloy in addition to a minefield and three Akulas etc.).

I'm excited. I want to learn the Mission Editor well enough to start producing quality missions with names other than "Torpedo Seeker Test II" and "Detection Parameter Check IV." ;)

What do you expect, me throwing a 100 maps through the drain? :hulk:

Have to redo distances, but first have to figure what the best start distances in different conditions will be with the mod.

Was that for me, Fish?

My thread wasn't directed at the SW, but at the community in general. Leauges have to decide on their own if they want this mod...

:sunny: I will rework my MP scenarios but they were created with 'proximity' much in mind. :yep:

I have several SP scenarios in the garage at various stages from chasis only to complete but without wheels. ;)

Mainly the problem comes down to my 'head-banging' with triggers etc... :damn: :o :huh:

Havent tried it yet but I guess the sensor ranges within Editor will still be stock so the details promised
in the Lwami mod readme will be vital. :hmm:

Well, the followup tables and charts can be expected this weekend.

I'm not sure at this point what the best way to represent the information would be, since there are no absolutely assured detection ranges, it varies greatly by conditions. Can you give me some guidence as to what your "ideal" unit and sensor table might be? I'm thinking a table with unit details including sensor assignment and then a separate table with the detection ability of each of those arrays under a single or couple of standardized conditions? Would this work for you?

I'm sorry to have made more work for mission designers than before, but I think its worth it! ;) :D

No ML, more in general.

Did a first test, a map played on two pc's one with stock, one with LWAMI.
With a Akula I had a visible contact in NB 10.8 nm stock game.
On the other pc, LWAMI, I had to close distance to 5.7 nm to get the same visible contact?
I must say, don't like that outcome for the following reasons:
One, gone be very difficult to find places where you can use the environmental to play hide and seek. A few seamounts and a litle island.
Second, the kilo will be useless in the future when the sonar bug is fixed.
Looking at the Akula sonar, with the mod as it is now, the Kilo need a blind stick to find a Seawolf in the water (gone be difficult anyway with the patch).
Third, the seawolf have to come dangerously close to the Akula.
Fifth, and now I am coming on slippery ice, I don't think this is real world distances. :shifty:

Now, this was just a quick test, more coming. :lol:

Fish, for these reason I am coming to the conclusion that perhaps "arena" style missions are not meant for the mod and designers should focus of realistic mission tasking, to exploit or expose weaknesses in individual platforms, since the mod goes a long way towards removing the "generic" feel of the various platforms in play in terms of sonar performance.

The focus of the mod has shifted subtly from v1.xx to v2.xx. Originally, my plan was to address gameplay and playability issues only, when it came to light that Amizaur and I could do a "realism" mod with reasonable expectation of success, we both were excited about the prospect of shifting focus and that is what we've done. With this in mind, does it seem unreasonable that "realistic" missions would be the better way to go with a "realism" database as opposed to "arena" style death matches? :hmm:

Keep in mind, this is why we've included the quick install/uninstall... perhaps you can use stock db for arena style missions if you like them (personally I don't with the stock db, I like having to search around and my online opponents enjoy the hunt, several times we've never even fired on each other and still had a good time in the dive and considered it a success, now with deathmatches this could be hard case to make) and then make realistic MP missions with tasking for the realism DB.

Personally, I can live with the decline of arena matches for the mod if the reward is smoothly playing, balanced, ultra-realistic MP missions. I can live quite happily. :rock:

Fish, when you list detections such as this, you HAVE to give us acoustic conditions or it is not meaningful data. The mod makes certain acoustic factor MUCH more significant in determining detections.

So you might not have linear or even constant effects here in determining detection range differences.

Anything I can help you with (concerning triggers)? I'm always interested in other people's SP (and MP) missions. :yep:

Both subs above layer.

SSP in the LWAMI mod.

http://home.hccnet.nl/wico.p/LWAMI-ssp.JPG

I played the same map on two pc's.


SSP in stock sonalysts.

http://home.hccnet.nl/wico.p/Stock-SSP.JPG

Test with two Seawolves, map identical. SSP convergence zone.

First with your mod, a sub at 5.9 nm.

http://home.hccnet.nl/wico.p/LWAMI%201.JPG

Nothing visible on NB.

http://home.hccnet.nl/wico.p/LWAMI2.JPG


Now with stock game.

http://home.hccnet.nl/wico.p/Stock1.JPG


Visible on NB (not on the pic but I could assgn a tracker).


http://home.hccnet.nl/wico.p/Stock2.JPG

To be honest, Iwish I had a good solution for you. However, in creating the mod we have really opened up a whole new world in terms of what we can see in DW, I think anyway. I myself am extemely inexperienced in both mission design and practical tactics. My expertise in DW is strictly related to DB modelling at this point.

As such, a lot of heuristics were employed in figuring the "playability" aspects of the mod. The realism part was a process: Amizaur had realworld data and he and I worked to model it into the DB. Adjusting the bits of that for gaming was a matter of trial and error that is very much still going on.

We ARE confident about the sound levels. This has been fit from the best real-world data available. However, what I am not confident about are the settings on the passive sonars. Some may need to go up and some may need to go down in sensitivity; I personally have been very fortunate in the past day or so to run into an ABSOLUTE GURU of SC/DW modelling who is not necessarily part of our family here at subsim, and he has told me much about how the sound engine actually works.

However, to incorporate the information he has given me is going to take sometime and the effects on gameplay will be subtle, but important, especially for the things you are talking about. Specifically, increasing sensor performance on a curve for decreasing range NOT related to increase in relative noise level at the sensor surface.

So, I'm saying, in more simple terms, we are in the very middle of a work in progress and I'm neither an expert in RL or in DW. So we have to ask those who work on missions for the mod to consider themselves part of the process of exploring the real capabilities of the DW engine.

Amizaur and I (at least I know for myself) can primarily only mod because of real life time restrictions. This leaves direct testing the mod at position number 2, and play-testing of the mod at position number 3. Experimenting with mission design is whole separate issue that because of time and knowledge I know I can't fully explore. But together, mission designers and modders, we can work this out so everyone can spend hours and hours diving in the very near future, in the Alesian ASW killing-fields that DW could be. :up:

I personally thank you for your support and efforts in this direction! :rock:

Cheers,
David

The data you posted is consistent with our design intention. The SW does not increase sound level until it reaches 4kts, so at 6kts the increase in speed is not significant for sound level and that is about the same for both DB's, but for different reasons (in stock soundvsspeed is not very big effect).

So the SW in stock db in that situation is about at NL 64, and in our DB it is about at NL 57, and given the log scale of the sounds, that would produce those detection ranges.

If you don't think that is right then I'm not sure if there is anything I can do to convince you, unforunately. :hmm:

But I'll keep trying! :D

My first impression is this mod is not workable on a longer range. Sure some enthousiastic people will use it for multiplayer, but not for long in my opinion. They will be bored at some time, when we make ultra-realistic multiplayer maps.
Cruising around for two hours, not finding anything, well most will go for the stock game.
And when we want to have some action we have to put all platforms in a bathtub.
So, it's your and Amizaur's mod, and a very good one I think, hat of, you can do with the mod what you want.
But in my opinion, as it is now, the detection ranges are not what people want in multiplayer.
I do this for 6 years now, and I think (not being arrogant I hope) I know more or less what people like.
I have read hundreds, or better thousands of dive reports.

EDIT, I am a slow writer, sorry. :cry:

PS: I will work with different speeds later tonight.

As with any hobby, you get out of it what you are looking to get out of it.

We mod, you design, everyone plays. Some play as MH-60 and Akula, some only dive SW, some only play K335 and no other sub and others play each platforms three times a day.

I never make judgements.

Please enjoy the game as you see fit and let me know if I can help! :rock: :up:

I won't ask you to do. :)

Some times live forces you to do.