Starfire Historical Mod Available (Major Mod)

[Mikematotski]

Yes, the difference between putting ground_def_eff in each INC file vs using the variable in misc.txt is that it actually works in the INC files.

So you mean they don't work in misc file ? My test has proved different ! In fact to change the GD has great impact on the battles. What is difficult is to change a random outcome in the battles and random losses. I cant get it but when you repeat a fight it almost allways turn out with EXACT same result.

In my opinion the way I have paratroopers now works very well. Sure you can "take" a province with them - that represents the paratroopers capturing important bridges, etc. But one or two paratrooper brigades/regiments are not going to be able to hold a province (counter attack by a couple divisions should wipe them out). How else would you do them?

To make paratroopers and transportplanes chep you will have the possibility to use them in mass... this was never done in real ww2 because of the fact they where very expencive, long time to tran and used a LOT of planes. So the conclusion is that airborne operation where used very seldom and I think that should also be the case in game. So a high price is for these two units should be right in the game.

Captain Jack
May the force be with you....

 

[Mithel]

There are three variables in misc.txt to adjust "blocking" of hits. Two of the three do make a difference (the middle one "defended" does not impact the game), thus to get those values adjusted I resorted to adding the line in each INC file.

Paratroops and their transports are very expensive in Starfire, I can't imagine anyone using them in large quantities. That's exactly why I made the change to prevent players from using them in quantity. Starfire paratrooper divisions are now more like regiments/brigades not divisions! (you need to build three of them to roughly equal a division)

 

[unmerged(38702)]

Anything happening in your mod Mithel?
Just keeping your thread higher

 

[Mithel]

Mostly waiting for Paradox to release v1.2. I've reviewed the Province.csv and economy issues with several others and once again it's very inaccurate and requires a complete revamp. But that's a huge amount of work and I won't do it until v1.2 is released. Also it's apparent the OOBs have some issues. Again I'm waiting for v1.2. Most in need of work is the AI files and I'm definitely waiting for v1.2 before doing work on that. Starting to sound repetitive?

All in all it will take a massive amount of work to mod HoI 2 to the level I desire. And I've come to the conclusion again that even after all that modding I'll have an "unsatisfactory" simulation, thus with the encouragement of several others I've shifted the bulk of my WWII attention and efforts to kicking into high gear my own project and writing my own simulation (expect a website up for it within the next two weeks).

Paradox has a great game, enjoy it.

 

[Mikematotski]

Defence/attack effency

Hi Mthel

Just a small question about the mechanics of battles in the game. I done some tests to look at the battles but I got some odd results. I place 1 inf on each side and start the battle. The defence/attack effency is for attacker 98% and the defender 99%, so far so good.
But after a month of fighting between these two units the defending units chance its effency to 87% and stays there till it lose the fight.
My question is if you know what does impact on the effency in battles, havn't got any good reason why this happen for me.
The provinces for the two units is same, 60% infra.

Captain Jack
May the force be with you...

 

[Mithel]

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. There are many factors that adjust efficiency during combat that can change: dig in amount; weather; experience; supply - you'd have to watch them carefully to see what is changing.

 

[Mikematotski]

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. There are many factors that adjust efficiency during combat that can change: dig in amount; weather; experience; supply - you'd have to watch them carefully to see what is changing.

I solved the problem, the ESE changed after 29 days of fighting for the defending unit (from +10% to -2,5%) and made the battle to swing to favour to the attacker (I didn't noticed this from beginning)... hmm...

Captain Jack
May the force be with you...

 

[unmerged(38702)]

I solved the problem, the ESE changed after 29 days of fighting for the defending unit (from +10% to -2,5%) and made the battle to swing to favour to the attacker (I didn't noticed this from beginning)... hmm...

Captain Jack
May the force be with you...

Happens alot. Logistics is almost always the deciding factor.

 

[unmerged(26510)]

Sorry, but I don't know where to post this, so I post it here:

"Please install the latest milestone". I try to run Starfire, but it wont work, I have installed and so, but it don't work. When I click on it, that text comes up.

Someone know why?

 

[Mithel]

tiger2004 - I don't know what your problem is. I'm guessing most likely you've "installed" Starfire to the wrong directory. Read the instructions again and try it again.

 

[boehm]

Your MOD sounds very interesting...I really like your idea of slowing down combat...as IMO it goes way too quick...it seems like all you do is wait for your troops to move rather than fight...perhaps thats why engineers are so popular?! However since I mostly (until now only!) play SP and I like playing Germany I am a bit concerned if the increased bonus from unitexperience coupled with more(?) experienced units due to longer fighting...wouldnt make Germany too strong? Also, doesnt the increased flanking bonus mostly work in favor of a human player thus making it even tougher for the AI?

 

[Cpack]

Hello Mithel,

sorry that I don't have the time to read all 170 posts, but a few questions:

1) You put most of the combat and defense values x10. What exactly is the effect ??

2) How to increase value of static AA of provinces, or are they worthless now ??

3) What is the effect of decreasing the ground_def_efficiency from 1 to 0,98 ? What's the effect of a value of f.e. 0.50 and what a value of 1.50 ?

Thanx for answering

 

[unmerged(12544)]

3) What is the effect of decreasing the ground_def_efficiency from 1 to 0,98 ? What's the effect of a value of f.e. 0.50 and what a value of 1.50 ?

The default V1.1 GDE (ground_def_eff) is 0.8. So actually Mithel raised it for all countries in the *.inc files to 0.98. And he lowered the misc.txt value "How effective is ground-def efficieny when applied to defence...." from 1.2 to 1.0.

 

[Cpack]

The default V1.1 GDE (ground_def_eff) is 0.8. So actually Mithel raised it for all countries in the *.inc files to 0.98. And he lowered the misc.txt value "How effective is ground-def efficieny when applied to defence...." from 1.2 to 1.0.

Ok, so base value was 0,8

But what's the effect of lowering/ raising this values ??? I don't even understand what's the effect of lowering/ raising this value on battle, losses....etc

Can anyone describe it shortly ?

 

[unmerged(12544)]

I am no real expert on that. What I can tell you is, 100% GDE means no enemy shots get through(?). I suppose that GDE 98% (0.98) means, that 2% of undefended shots get through and reduce the strength of the defender. So GDE tells you how good/effective your ground defence value is. Currently I am trying GDE of 0.92 for all countries with slight modifications to the up and downside for special countries. In general you can say that a higher GDE prolongs combat. At 0.92 I have seen no effect on losses, just on combat length of up to factor 3 in plains.

 

[unmerged(39625)]

If you want higher losses you need to give the untis higher organization.

 

[Cpack]

I'm a fan of longer battles, so to sum up, this means from the standard value of 0.8, if I set it to 0.98, the battles lasts longer, right? Or does it only means the losses are smaller.

As I understand, it means both.

What I see at my last Barbarossa, Org is the most important value, but the strengh bar only decreases a very very little.

What value is responsible for strengh losses ?? It seems that 95% of all losses are on Org

 

[Mithel]

Ok, a quickie overview of combat (again):

Stock v1.1 combat is extremely quick - in normal situations it is so fast that you'd rarely be able to even click on a combat to "observe it". Invading forces would defeat a defender in several hours (thus "conquering" hundreds of kilometers of terrain faster than all heck!). Clearly combat needs slowing down from both a realism and a gameplay aspect.

Each "hit" can be either defended or undefended. Default defended "hits" would be blocked 80% of the time (i.e. 20% hits), default undefended "hits" would be blocked 60% of the time (i.e. 40% hits). I've changed defended to be blocked 98% of the time and undefended to 97% of the time. Thus 2% hits rather than 20% hits should roughly make combat ten times longer (with the same amount of losses). I also raised the base org of all units to make them fight longer (while taking more losses). The combination of the three of these results in fairly reasonable length combats.

Is the game balanced? No... (not in stock v1.1 and not in Starfire) Does the increased combat length combined with increased experience gain make Germany too strong? Perhaps for now it does... but the experience advantage Germany had was historically and realistically the most significant advantage they actually had (if they are too strong now they should be weakenned in some other way - like starting with a more historically accurate OOB).

As far as we know there is no way to mod "strength losses vs org losses" so to have greater strength losses I raised org (so they stay and fight longer taking more losses as they fight).

GDE of 100% is actually the same as 99%... every hit has at LEAST a 1% chance of hitting.

The x10 adjustments were to Naval and Air units to keep Naval and Air the same as before (compensation for the 98%/97% values).

Are these values "perfect"? No. Are they better than stock v1.1? Yes! Significantly!

 

[boehm]

hi Im just now trying out your MOD...I really like the longer battles and new combat modifiers...However, I do think the experience gain is somewhat over the top...I have just reached 37 and have involved myself in the spanish civilwar as Germany and my airleaders gain 5xp per mission...and my inf div got 12xp from one battle...at this rate I could rotate my leaders/units to Spain trying to NOT defeat the republicans too quickly and I could build them all up to super elite status in no time...no to mention beefing up most of my leaders with a couple of skillpoints...

edit:
I have taken the liberty to tone down some of you modifiers...as I play SP and I feel that a human player will probably be able to take much more advantage of the increased gain from xp and attack from multiple directions...afterall I dont want to make it too easy! - If you are interested I will tell how it turns out...

 

[boehm]

Just played out a small war...GER intervened in the spanish civil war in late 36 - by summer 37 the war was won...(I didnt hurry that much, but figting reall takes a lot longer now...which feels good)...anyway as mentioned above I adjusted the xpgain factor slightly set the landgain xp back to default value of 1.0 and also set airxpgain to 1.5 although the default actually is 2.25....even though I did this I still ended up with manstein and Hauser skill 7 Lt. Generals...and a bunch of skill 5 and 6....and some pretty mean airleaders too. While I like you mod I think that unless its your intention that leaders should be maxed out by 1940 then I would suggest setting the xpgain factor signifcantly lower...since combats now take 10x longer...xp gain should probably be cut down significantly too...mayby not by a factor of 10 but perhaps by 5 or 3...getting 3-4 skillincreases per leader is a bit much for fighting one campaign...