Red Pill screenshots #7 - Bits and pieces
 

Another month, another round of screenshots from various aspects of the new air/naval wargame; Everything from satellite overlays to airbase ops to buddy-lazing:
http://www.warfaresims.com/?p=1218

It's looking really good! :yeah:

Harpoon with whole world maps, textured land and elevations. It looks like H3 scenarios can be imported.
-Pv-

Quite more than that. Red Pill is a clean-slate project that aims to transcend the limitations of existing legacy air/naval wargames.

Unfortunately this is not possible. Red Pill's internal object model has many differences from [what is publicly known about] Harpoon's object model.
In addition, the scenario file format of H3 is encrypted and its structure has never been published. So any direct conversion is impossible.

That said, one of the definite goals of Red Pill is a stellar improvement in the scenario-authoring experience. A lot of features and tools (some of which are shown in these screenshots) are aimed towards making the scenario author's life a lot easier.

The improvements in this regard have already been met enthusiastically by members of the Red Pill team who were previously A-list scenario creators in the H2/H3 community. Their feedback and experience is making a strong project even better.

The good times are ahead.

Thanks for sharing this news. I am looking forward to it's release, as that type of sim is right up my alley. :up:

I'm definitely interested. The scenario authoring tools sound excellent. The ability to use imagery is really fantastic too.

Will there be settings regarding training or readiness of forces?

I remember one of the things that irked me in H3 and JFC was outdated and outclassed aircraft taking on and often beating more advanced aircraft. I remember one scenario from H3 where a couple of Somali MiG-17s took out a dozen US Navy fighters, seemingly due to random die rolls and/or lack of micromanagement of a dozen F-4s on my part... how much of an issue will this be in RP?

How will arming planes work? Set loadouts? Can players pick and choose down to the individual platform level?

Any capability to model WX or MX conditions?

Will there be a demo/beta demo?

How moddable will it be? Can I add/build notional platforms in my database if I want to?

Any provision in the near or far term for 3D ship/plane/structure/etc models? Not important to me, but it'd be a nice "to have" sometime down the road.

Instances such the one you describe are fairly common in legacy wargames due to a combination of factors, such as:
* Absence of realistic kinematics (e.g. you shoot your BVR missile at me, I turn on a dime, insta-accelerate and insta-drop to the deck = I evade a missile I wouldn't be able to in RL)
* Absence of realistic sensor & weapon characteristics & limitations (e.g. I'm an F-111 going supersonic down in the weeds and a MiG-21 can detect and shoot me as easily as if I was a B-52 in the clear blue sky.... yeah right)
* Absence of common-sense AI in fighting priorities (note to F-14 jocks: When out of long-range AAMs, don't wait until you're out of Sidewinders and gun bullets, *head the hell back home*!)
* Simplified modelling of fixed & expendable countermeasures
* Ridiculously simplified air operations (any airbase can launch/recover dozens of aircraft in one go, and you cannot paralyze it by hitting its taxiways or parking spaces as in RL)

All of the above factors, and more, have been rectified in Red Pill and air confrontations are significantly more sophisticated and believable as a result. The little guy still has a chance, but this time not by ignoring the laws of physics.

Yes, and loadouts are more flexible now. You can, for example, load an aircraft with a strike loadout even if it's missing a Sidewinder or a fuel tank.

Please elaborate.

There will almost certainly be a public beta.

These are still TBD items.

Sounds great. Too bad it doesn't sound like training will have an effect on combat, but your aerial combat system might very well make up for that.

Semi-related, do you model doctrines? Like some countries rely on ground control intercepts to direct aircraft, others are a little more flexible. Or the AI uses smaller missile boats inshore, where they might be harder to detect, instead of steaming them out into the open ocean.

Awesome, and with a very cool bonus for flexibility.

Sorry - WX = weather, MX = maintenance. I was curious to know if/how weather affected gameplay (would an SS-N-22 be effective if the targets were steaming in a heavy sea state?) and if maintenance issues would affect platforms (i.e. one of your E-2s is getting an engine replacement and is not available for tasking, or a CIWS on a ship is broken and inoperable)
Very cool!

I'm crossing my fingers for editable/expandable databases more than anything. I'd like to tinker with an LCS, for example, and see if they can be made useful. Just for my own amusement, I suppose.

I'm curious to know how ground combat might work. I realize it'll be abstracted at best, but can we launch LCACs from our Gators and land Marines with them? Use helicopters to transport SEAL teams?

Will maritime interdiction ops/ship boardings be modeled at all? I'm specifically thinking of Somali pirates boarding ships and the various navies boarding/inspecting Somali pirate ships. Might be interesting if you've got two RHIBs closing in on a dhow and shots are fired...

Yes, and we're stuffing all sorts of custom behaviors into them - use nukes or not, shoot only at confirm hostiles or shoot first and investigate later [a HUGE behavior difference], counter-SEAD evasion levels etc. If training as a discrete performance factor is eventually modeled, it will most probably be included as a doctrine option.

There is a specific aspect of our doctrine implementation that makes them extremely powerful... but that is probably worth an entire article by itself so best save it for then.

Weather - yes, and we're adding some things that no other comparable game has touched until now, such as grounding non-NAW capable aircraft (the sky is a lot less busy on nights and foul-weather days).
Maintenance - not much yet (except aircraft), but we have the hooks in place and will likely expand on it (priorities permitting).

That's not so much about ground combat (which works, and it's a blast to watch) but rather units spawning other units, which is a bit more complex than it sounds. No promises but we want it too.

If/when we do implement this, it will almost certainly be more sophisticated than a 50% die roll (cough, cough).

How far off is this project from the finish line ?

A set date is too far out to hammer down exactly. Too much depends on how much free time we can devote to development (we all have day jobs keeping us busy), which is wildly fluctuating. In addition, we don't want to set ourselves up to bust a release date expectation that we should have been smart enough to avoid in the first place. Missed deadlines have killed projects by the boatload and we don't want to be part of that story.

The related running poll in our forums shows that the overwhelming majority urges us to take our time and do it right rather than rush ahead. As long as this remains the dominant community voice we're happy to proceed as we are.

It all sounds great. I look forward to it.

So, i guess it will still be some years. But is fine with me. Thanks for the info and i would of course urge you too to take your time. I do the same with my own project, it takes long but the results are so much better.

What about electronic warfare? In JFC it was pretty neutered - the EA-6Bs could only jam one or two targets at a time, and I don't think the ships were capable at all. Besides that, marking a jamming target was kind of a pain in the ass.

How will Red Pill handle electronic attack, electronic defense, home-on-jam weapons, ECCM, etc? And what about active and passive countermeasures?

Also, I seem to recall that the time period covered extends from 1965-2010. Is that right?

Re: the EA-6B limitation - it's not unreasonable. Even sophisticated OECM systems are limited in the number of sensors they can effectively jam concurrently, particularly if the EA targets are widely separated.

In one word, comprehensively.

Our current DBs span the 1950-2015+ timeframe. We may later extend the coverage on either side of the scale.

Thanks for the quick replies.

I'm most interested in 1950-1980 for ships, so your databases are right up my alley.

Has there been any discussion of ASW? Kinda curious to see what you have planned in that department.

Yes, and we hope to be able to show some material on this section on one of our next screenshot articles.

I love ASW! There is nothing like looking for the needle in the haystack with combined forces, slowly tightening the noose. :)

Enemy submarines always add an extra thrill to surface operations as well.

Okay, some more random-ass questions from me:

How will a ship's air complement be modeled? By that, I mean how will you populate, say, an aircraft carrier with aircraft? Will it be set types and numbers, or will the scenario designer be able to tweak them (maybe swapping AV-8Bs with AV-8B+, or CH-46Es for V-22s?) One of the things that constantly annoyed me (IIRC) about JFC was the hard-coded aircraft for ships. You plop down a Nimitz and you're stuck with whatever the designer gave you, even if it's out of date for the time and place of your scenario (F-14s in 2010, for example).

Will aircraft from ships be able to land at land bases? Or any kind of alternate landing facility, like another ship?

Are you guys taking donations/investors?

You can place any aircraft on an airbase or carrier as long as it fits. Each parking space (both indoor and outdoor), runway access point, elevator, catapult, runway etc. has a specific space budget (e.g. 12 small aircraft or 6 medium ones or 4 large ones or 1 very large one or any combination of them). As long as this space is not exceeded you can pretty much place any aircraft.

Carrier-capable aircraft can operate on carriers, and also on any land runway suitable for them (each aircraft has a specific runway size/length that must be satisfied by the intended runway - you cannot land a B-52 on a mud strip).

We don't have any formal donation mechanism in place yet, but we hope to do soon.