I love this thread. I think the points system will be very helpful in creating a more competitive “tournament” style game option ala “X-Wing Miniatures” for Wings of Glory that just doesn’t exist today. I think that if we can figure out the official formula, we might be able to develop more “Ace Abilities” that can allow for more customization in squads and allow players to use the planes they have without feeling imbalanced when they fight players that have more powerful aircraft.
I ran through the formula that Andrea provided and came up with the following. I’d like your feedback to see if I’m on track:
• “A” Deck Cost: 48 points
• “B” Deck Cost: 24 points
• Hit Points: 2*# of Hit Points (i.e; 16 hit points = 32 point cost)
• Ace Skills:
o Acrobatic Pilot: 8
o Daredevil: 6
o Height control: 6
o Good at Escaping: 7
o Lucky Pilot: 7
o Chivalrous Aptitude: -5
o Strong Constitution: 5
o Super Ace: 8
o Bullet Checker: 8
o Incendiary Bullets: 6
o Technical Eye: 5
o Itchy Trigger Finger: 6
o Perfect Aim: 8
o Sniper: 8
o Rookie (No Ace Skills): -10
I created a spreadsheet in Excel to subtract these points from the total cost of each aircraft to find the cost for each Maneuver Deck. In some cases, the math didn’t come out exactly, so there might be other things going on here. Also, some of the maneuver decks seemed to be priced a little higher than I expected, so maybe there are some calculations for climb rate as well? Here’s how things came out:
Maneuver Deck:
• A Deck: 5 (Spad XIII)
• B Deck: 4 (Albatross D.Va)
• C Deck: 8 (Sopwith Camel)
• D Deck: 12 (Fokker Dr.1)
• F Deck: 11 (Hanriot HD.1)
• H Deck: 3 (Ufag C.I, DH4)
• I Deck: 5 (Nieuport 17/23)
• J Deck: 4 (Albatross D.III, Pfalz D.III)
• K Deck: 0 (RE8, Rumpler C.IV, Breguet XIV,L.F.G. Roland C.II)
• L Deck: 20 (Fokker D.VII)
• M Deck: 17 (Sopwith Snipe)
• N Deck: 12 (Se5a)
• O Deck: 17 (Siemens-Schuckert D.III)
• P Deck: 4 (Airco DH2, Halberstadt D.III)
• Q Deck: 6 (Aviatik D.I)
• R Deck: 1 (Nieuport 16)
• T Deck: 0 (Fokker E.III, Morane Saulnier Type N)
• U Deck: 12 (Sopwith Triplane)
I think the next step in testing the balance of these maneuver decks would be to take planes and swap maneuver decks to see if there is an increase in the performance by making this change. Theoreitcally, if I were to give an Albatross D.III (80 points) an “L” Deck like the Fokker D.VII, it should be worth 96 points (80 +20 for the “L” deck, minus 4 for the “J” Deck) and basically be on part with a Sopwith Snipe (97 points). Obviously this would be ahistorical and I’d never do this in a real game, but it would be an interesting exercise to see how balanced the decks really are.
At a glance, a few of these decks seem to be priced a bit oddly. For example, are the “R” and “T” decks so bad that you should be given points for taking them? If I gave the Fokker D.VII a “T” Deck, it would be worth 78 points (100, minus 20 for the “L” deck, minus 2 for the “T” deck). That puts it in the ballpark of the Nieuport 17 and slightly less effective than the Albatross D.III or D.Va. Does that sound right? What if you gave the Fokker D.VII the “K” deck used by the RE8. In most cases it looks like that would be a “0” point option, so the Fokker would cost 80 points. Would an 80 point “K” deck Fokker D.VII be more effective than a 78 point “T” deck Fokker D.VII? My gut says that they “T” deck Fokker would consistently be better.
Finally, I’ve toyed around with 300 point limit lists using this point system. The question I have is this: If your objective was to win a tournament and using any squad possible within the rules was allowed, would you rather take the list with 3 Fokker D.VIIs , or with 7 Morane Saulnier Type Ns? I realize that’s an absurd matchup and if I were doing a tournament, I’d probably limit to “early war”, “mid war” and “late war” scenarios, but at the same time, I want people to be able to use what they own. If such a matchup were allowed, which of the above two lists would you expect to win? I think my money would be on the player who brought 7 aircraft.
I love the concept and would like to work through it a bit more to see if it’s something I could adopt for a tournament environment. I’d love to hear you guy’s thoughts!
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