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#3176449 - 01/10/11 11:59 PM Building Midway  
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zerocinco Offline
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Tchepone, Laos
When we first started this stuff, a detractor said that missions were easy to create and that you could make one in a few minutes. In reality, a recreation of a real event takes a very long time to do. There are missions in Yankee Air Pirate that took a month and others that took 6 months.

We are working on Phase Two which will start in Darwin, Australia but will spend most of its time in the Coral Sea, north of Midway and in the Solomons.

I thought a couple of shots of the building of Midway might be interesting.

First, Edward makes the basic scenery from aerial photos from the time, not Google Earth.



You may notice in-game that the longest runway is not lined up the same as the photo. Making runways work and objects appear where you want them is a mathematical equation that is a lot easier if the runways are N-S or E-W.



Then we place the objects from contemporary drawings. The colors? They come from walking around Pacific atolls while my cargo plane was being unloaded and refueled. Coral sand, mangroves and coconut palms are pretty much the same everywhere.



Then Sand Island is laid out according to drawings from the time of the battle.



And, finally, the island is populated correctly.



It takes just a little more than "a few minutes" do to it right. Considering that most of the Battle of Midway will be out at sea, it is tempting to just put something together but we will stage the attack on the island and several missions from it, too.

Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#3176522 - 01/11/11 01:46 AM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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Lifer
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Looks very nice zerocinco.
Populating the maps in IL-2 with the stock objects on it is time consuming enough. I can't imagine the difficulty of starting from scratch with a blank template. eek2


Wheels


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#3176581 - 01/11/11 03:42 AM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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If you want to give the player the view of a Japanese dive bomber pilot had, you have to put things where they were.






Building the Other WWII on the Other flight sim might seem to be a wrong call but it allows us to do this. It could use higher resolution on the terrain tiles to match the high res buildings in these screen shots. I never notice this sort of thing in motion or when I am supposed to be hitting a target. But that's just me. I suspect a lot of people judge their gamplay on Pause.

Now back to Edward who will pull trees out of the runways with tweezers and it's ready to tear up.

#3176921 - 01/11/11 05:11 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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Yes plz get the Seabees to chop the trees down. I have palm leaves in my gear.

#3177179 - 01/11/11 10:08 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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This is what I luv about this sim. The incredible, almost fanatical, drive for accuracy. Brilliant!! smile Hearty congratulations.


"Somewhere out there is page 6!"
"But Emillo you promised ....... it's postpone"
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#3178047 - 01/12/11 10:15 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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Taking some CAT tests and positioning around Midway off the Fighting Lady.








#3187686 - 01/24/11 06:48 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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Awesome. Are there going to be any Cat missions? What about Lady Lex?

#3187972 - 01/24/11 10:08 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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zerocinco Offline
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There are several Catalina missions planned. The Lexington will be at the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Saratoga and the Wasp will be at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.

#3190941 - 01/27/11 11:59 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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zerocinco Offline
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Tchepone, Laos
New toy.





Need to make a bomb. Done in a couple of days.

#3191148 - 01/28/11 05:54 AM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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Fantastic! The "Slow But Deadly" lives!

Need a bomb? That is "da bomb!"

:-)

Last edited by kverdon; 01/28/11 05:56 AM.
#3191958 - 01/28/11 11:36 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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zerocinco Offline
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Tchepone, Laos
Test shots.





#3192002 - 01/29/11 12:24 AM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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Lifer
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Now that's an SBD skin. biggrin

I always seem to hit there too. I never lead enough to hit the front end or the middle of the ship.


Wheels


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#3202236 - 02/08/11 07:17 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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Originally Posted By: zerocinco
When we first started this stuff, a detractor said that missions were easy to create and that you could make one in a few minutes. In reality, a recreation of a real event takes a very long time to do. There are missions in Yankee Air Pirate that took a month and others that took 6 months.



(slips in slightly winded to add perspective, fashionably late...)

You're not kidding. Using Jane's old mission builder tools years back built more than missions.. it built character. I did only two historical missions for Battle of the Bulge era and that was exhausting enough.

What folks need to understand is that if you're trying to recreate history, the slightest detraction or perceived inaccuracy can ruin the show. There are many cuts and retakes required while sitting in the director's chair. However, it's quite rewarding if you're able to reach a satisfactory notion of what it might have been like at the time.


It's a Game. smile
#3202706 - 02/09/11 04:21 AM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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I just worry that Phase 2 is a bit too ambitious. I would think that if they ended Phase 2 at Midway, what with the Darwin Raid, Burma AVG Missions, Doolittle Raid, Coral Sea and Midway, THAT would provide plenty of content. Guadalcanal and the carrier battles about could fill an entire phase to itself!

keep 'em coming,

Kevin

#3203172 - 02/09/11 05:27 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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zerocinco Offline
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Funny you say that. As we start to assemble things and theory gives way to stories, it seems you are right. The place to stop might be Midway.

A logical set of tales might be:

First Darwin Raid: one or two missions frin AKAGI, KAGA, SORYU and HIRYU
LEXINGTON in action off Rabaul. two missions
ENTERPRISE attacks Wake Island. two missions
Flying Tigers attack Chiang Mai. two missions
Doolittle's Raid from HORNET. one or two missions. maybe ENTERPRISE fighters strafing pickets.
Battle of the Coral Sea.

TBD's/SBD's sink Shoho
D3A1's sink Neosho...maybe
Wildcats defend fleet...a couple of times
Zeroes defend fleet
SHOKAKU hit
ZUIKAKU loses it's aircraft
LEXINGTON sunk
YORKTOWN hit

Battle of Midway.

TBF torpedo attack from Midway and CAP defense.
Zeroes fighting Wildcats over Midway and vice versa
Bombing of facilities on Eastern Island
Bombing or strafing of facilities on Sand Island
Zeroes defending fleet against USN torpedo attacks
Zeroes defending fleet against USMC SBD attack
TBD torpedo attack on KAGA or HIRYU.
SBD attack on the AKAGI
HIRYU attack on YORKTOWN
HIRYU torpedo attack on YORKTOWN
HIRYU bombed

We think we can put on the battle without boring players with repetition or too much open ocean. What we want to do is let the player see what happened in the eyes of the pilots that books cannot show...like having your carrier sunk while you are on patrol, or facing massed firepower from SBD tail guns. Preliminary test missions diving from 15000 feet really gets your attention as does facing AA while skimming the ocean on a torpedo run. There are so many myths attached to the story that they hide the more interesting truths. Here's one: Everyone knows that the decks were crowded with aircraft about to launch to destroy the American fleet with bombs and fuel everywhere...except that is not true.

We have to tell the Big Picture story in two paragraphs and then let the game do the rest.

After that, Guadalcanal should be a separate tale...maybe combine the whole Solomons/New Guinea missions into one South Seas phase. We just don't want this to go on forever with too many Phases. I think we can trim some in the later years when Japan was so far behind in production that the story, in many cases, is better told from the Japanese side.


Last edited by zerocinco; 02/09/11 05:36 PM.
#3203207 - 02/09/11 06:03 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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Looks like a good list.

I few possiblities is you had the time:

PBY search for Japanese Fleet (Strawberry 5)?
SBD Attack on Soryu (Best vrs Gallagher?)
SBD Attack on Mikuma/Mogami?

ok, I'm trying to sneak in a few more SBD missions, what can I say :-)

Kevin

#3203229 - 02/09/11 06:32 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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zerocinco Offline
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We are looking at those. The PBY is in the next set. We just haven't settled on a story that is exactly right. You take off and land in the lagoon but we would like for the player to do more than just fly around. Going after the Akebono Maru with a torpedo at night, while good in real life, so far is lousy in game play.

We think having Lt. Best pop the Akagi makes the most of what the engine will allow so that one is set. After that, it's McClusky on the Kaga or Leslie on the Soryu.

We do all the missions then perfect the ones that show promise. If it wasn't such a job making them work, we could send all of them out as bonuses without making the "official" list too repetitious. I agree that the SBD missions, once you are flying them, are a lot of fun and I don't think people would be bored with it as easily as some other mission types.

And, we had the Mogami on the list but might be forced to cut back some. It all depends on time, money and if the mission is too much like another mission.

#3210556 - 02/17/11 08:25 PM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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zerocinco Offline
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After reading "A Dawn Like Thunder", we moved the pilot's gun to the nose as a .30 cal,



made the ball gunner rotate with the ball



and put the bombardier/radio operator down in the tail.



Torpedo 8. Amazing tales.

Also, we got an eye witness view of what was on Eastern Island the day of the battle. We were close but not exactly right.

#3216871 - 02/24/11 08:00 AM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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zerocinco Offline
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Tchepone, Laos
Busy now. Painting Yorktown, Hornet and Enterprise and SBD, soon B-25B, then Saratoga, Lexington and Wasp.

Sorry it took so long, Hinch. They are going to be beauties. Separate map just for the bridge and gear.





Perfect scale.


#3218703 - 02/26/11 12:54 AM Re: Building Midway [Re: zerocinco]  
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zerocinco Offline
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Tchepone, Laos
It's snowing in LA. May as well paint a ship. Big chunks done.

Hinch, what color are those walkways around the flight deck?







8, this third wire stuff isn't going to work with this TBF. The ship needs MORE WIRES!


Last edited by zerocinco; 02/26/11 12:56 AM.
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