VBAM Games Forums

1.) is the game going to see any future releases?
I saw the WWII expansion, but are there any more modern products planned?

2.) is there a way to add new aircraft to the set?
I understand that this is a dicey thing to share - people might not buy products if they can add their own - but given that there are so many aircraft out there now that you could use in this kind of campaign (and the lack of releases), is reverse-engineering the system possible at all?

ADDENDUM:
I was wondering about the reverse engineering specifically in order to do something of a "Brush Wars"-themed supplement... something that would cover the kind of COIN and light attack aircraft that you might see in a low-intensity conflict, or a war between 3rd World countries. My goal is to produce planes that might be used by 'start-up' companies, or by bigger groups for their 'less prestigious' contracts.
I'm looking at modern planes like the Yak-130, the Hongdu L-15, the Aermacchi M-346, the KAI T-50 and the Guizhou JL-9. Older aircraft I would want to include would be things like the Cessna A-37, the Aero L-39, the Saab 105, BAE Hawk, the AIDC AT-3, the CASA C-101 and the Aermacchi MB-339.

theCarthaginian wrote:1.) is the game going to see any future releases?
I saw the WWII expansion, but are there any more modern products planned?

We haven't ruled it out. Most of the team has been focusing on relaunching the campaign product line. Things were initially very slow, but MAS seems to have had a large spike in popularity lately. We originally had an expansion planned for building bases around the world and competing with other companies for control of regions. We did release a free A-7 and MiG-27 and three e-zines.

theCarthaginian wrote: 2.) is there a way to add new aircraft to the set?
I understand that this is a dicey thing to share - people might not buy products if they can add their own - but given that there are so many aircraft out there now that you could use in this kind of campaign (and the lack of releases), is reverse-engineering the system possible at all?

We do have a crude construction system but it all begins with the generation of jet in question and how it performs compared to its peers. So there is not a hard and fast system but we never had a problem creating and testing planes. AtA and AtG weapons were actually more tricky.

theCarthaginian wrote: ADDENDUM:
I was wondering about the reverse engineering specifically in order to do something of a "Brush Wars"-themed supplement... something that would cover the kind of COIN and light attack aircraft that you might see in a low-intensity conflict, or a war between 3rd World countries. My goal is to produce planes that might be used by 'start-up' companies, or by bigger groups for their 'less prestigious' contracts.
I'm looking at modern planes like the Yak-130, the Hongdu L-15, the Aermacchi M-346, the KAI T-50 and the Guizhou JL-9. Older aircraft I would want to include would be things like the Cessna A-37, the Aero L-39, the Saab 105, BAE Hawk, the AIDC AT-3, the CASA C-101 and the Aermacchi MB-339.

Yeah, I don't think that would be too much trouble. We would probably need to reconfigure something like the F-4 to be a higher cost and higher performance vehicle. What plane would be your baseline aircraft for a starting MAS?

Thanks,
Jay

GAMEPLAY:
For a 'starter' company in this concept, probably you would look at something like the A-37, Hawk T1A, Aero L-39 or the Saab 105. These are the older aircraft that would be widely available and have cheap, plentiful spares... the Hawk is still being produced, even! More modern designs would be more expensive (and more dangerous) than some of the older aircraft in the MAS base set - MiG-17, anyone?
I tried also to focus on designs that are actually in service, are in projected service, or have been recently retired by the nations that I was considering as the campaign focus. Most of the smaller Latin American nations still maintain fleets of A-37's, thought they are phasing them out. South Africa still fields two dozen Hawks, while Zimbabwe mothballed theirs in 2011 and Kenya theirs in 2012. Zambia and Venezuela have ordered 6 and 24 L-15's, respectively.


TECHWISE:
Without a doubt, the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly would be the bottom of the barrel... it is definitely the lowest tech-level aircraft. Using it as a 'tech baseline' would mean that you would only have to do a moderate amount of adjusting to the F-4 and early MiG aircraft - most of the same weapons and countermeasures apply to the A-37 and the F-4, and the A-37's less capable radar would be more on par with the MiG-17.
The .308 would be a light gun - owed entire to a ROF most accurately measured in rounds per SECOND.
The ordinance the aircraft could carry is already in the game, no need to create anything new.
It was regarded as an excellent light bomber/strike aircraft, so a small bonus to that.
STIFF penalties to evasion (low speed and maneuverability) and damage (small, light airframe).

Generally, keeping the MiG-17/F-4 as a tech baseline would probably suffice with most of these aircraft. Honestly, anything that didn't 'fit' that baseline could be discarded and a slightly more modern model considered. Trying to create a new tech baseline would be too difficult and not really justifiable - there are just too many pretty girls out there to not dance because it didn't work out with one of them.

Some of the modern so-called "COIN" aircraft are really deadly fighters in their own right... the Hongdu L-15 'Lead-In Fighter Trainer' is a full-on Mach 1.4 afterburning deign that can mount many AtA and AtG weapons fits, and has a 550+ km combat radius on internal fuel. All this, and only $14.5 million a copy - what an F-16 cost almost TWENTY YEARS AGO (and that price is probably negotiable). I'd certainly hate to be in an F-4, MiG-21 or MiG-17 and see a pair of them rising to meet me and my wingman.

theCarthaginian wrote:GAMEPLAY:
For a 'starter' company in this concept, probably you would look at something like the A-37, Hawk T1A, Aero L-39 or the Saab 105. These are the older aircraft that would be widely available and have cheap, plentiful spares... the Hawk is still being produced, even! More modern designs would be more expensive (and more dangerous) than some of the older aircraft in the MAS base set - MiG-17, anyone?
I tried also to focus on designs that are actually in service, are in projected service, or have been recently retired by the nations that I was considering as the campaign focus. Most of the smaller Latin American nations still maintain fleets of A-37's, thought they are phasing them out. South Africa still fields two dozen Hawks, while Zimbabwe mothballed theirs in 2011 and Kenya theirs in 2012. Zambia and Venezuela have ordered 6 and 24 L-15's, respectively.

I think we could put this together. I would be happy to spend some time and do something playable with this. Can you send me a GM with your email address and I can share the development forms I used. I could see a number of missions we could create. However, the one concern I have is what munitions these craft would use. Would something like a Saab 105 use modern AtA weapons or do they have something else? Are we able to reuse most of the existing arms?

theCarthaginian wrote: TECHWISE:
Without a doubt, the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly would be the bottom of the barrel... it is definitely the lowest tech-level aircraft. Using it as a 'tech baseline' would mean that you would only have to do a moderate amount of adjusting to the F-4 and early MiG aircraft - most of the same weapons and countermeasures apply to the A-37 and the F-4, and the A-37's less capable radar would be more on par with the MiG-17.
The .308 would be a light gun - owed entire to a ROF most accurately measured in rounds per SECOND.
The ordinance the aircraft could carry is already in the game, no need to create anything new.
It was regarded as an excellent light bomber/strike aircraft, so a small bonus to that.
STIFF penalties to evasion (low speed and maneuverability) and damage (small, light airframe).

I was happy with using the F-4 and MiG-17 as the baseline aircraft for MAS. It gave me a few reasonable, and available craft, with an operational history that I could use to get started. We can do the same thing here and peg the baseline to the Cessna A-37 too. Then we could develop these new craft focusing on some of these alternate craft. I was trying to go in a similar line with Worlds of MAS. Players operating out of South Africa, for example, could get that gear sold locally (assuming they didn't want to pay a premium to ship from far away). So a MAS could make a lot of money in one of these theaters if competition was low and they were flying low tech craft. This might be a good time to examine some of the ideas.

theCarthaginian wrote: Generally, keeping the MiG-17/F-4 as a tech baseline would probably suffice with most of these aircraft. Honestly, anything that didn't 'fit' that baseline could be discarded and a slightly more modern model considered. Trying to create a new tech baseline would be too difficult and not really justifiable - there are just too many pretty girls out there to not dance because it didn't work out with one of them.

Yeah, I can get behind that reasoning. I don't think it would be too difficult to make these craft work. The base rules make an assumption of difficulty which is why there are really five groups of craft and gear in the base book, which is something to consider.

theCarthaginian wrote: Some of the modern so-called "COIN" aircraft are really deadly fighters in their own right... the Hongdu L-15 'Lead-In Fighter Trainer' is a full-on Mach 1.4 afterburning deign that can mount many AtA and AtG weapons fits, and has a 550+ km combat radius on internal fuel. All this, and only $14.5 million a copy - what an F-16 cost almost TWENTY YEARS AGO (and that price is probably negotiable). I'd certainly hate to be in an F-4, MiG-21 or MiG-17 and see a pair of them rising to meet me and my wingman.

True. I need to do some research but I am curious what kind of radar suite these things can field.

I think in this case you might end up with a squadron fielding a great deal of cheaper craft with good ordnance, even if you have to hire that work out to freelance pilots. It sounds like a fun project.

How many craft are you thinking about? Do you see it working with the existing set, or reshift the baseline to something like the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly and only focus on craft that might show up in one of these theaters? I could make the argument for both.

-Jay

mwaschak wrote:I think we could put this together. I would be happy to spend some time and do something playable with this. Can you send me a GM with your email address and I can share the development forms I used. I could see a number of missions we could create. However, the one concern I have is what munitions these craft would use. Would something like a Saab 105 use modern AtA weapons or do they have something else? Are we able to reuse most of the existing arms?

YES!
Most of the aircraft I am suggesting will be able to use any of the weapons in the basic set - one of the criteria for using an aircraft was going to be that the weapons are already in the game. At least the AIM-9 and the AA-2 (in addition to all the 'dumb' weapons) can be used by all of the aircraft I was planning to work with. Many more can handle more complex and diverse weapons loads; the JL-8, for instance, can use a Chinese reverse-engineered version of the R.550 Magic (the PL-7)! Putting Chinese-specific weapons in the game would be a non-issue, as virtually all their weapons are copies of other nations' gear... a table listing equivalent designs would probably be sufficient.

As far as radar equipment, the Chinese aircraft are mounting Grifco 7 (or similar) radar sets - the sort that is mounted on the F-7 (MiG-21 development) that Pakistan is fielding... as nearly as I can find. I will do some more research before I get too far into this.

Unfortunately, work beckons - I will get back to you probably Saturday as I must work tonight and tomorrow night.

I'll be following this thread with some interest. One of the reasons I picked MAS was to run a campaign based on Kaoru Shintani's manga/anime, Area 88 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_88 ,) which is the game's premise to a tee. However, many of the planes seen in the manga are older, Vietnam era craft, such as Century series fighters, A-4 Skyhawks, and the like, or are more obscure variants (for example, theIsraeli Mirage III derived Kfir.)

Darth_Bathrobe wrote:I'll be following this thread with some interest. One of the reasons I picked MAS was to run a campaign based on Kaoru Shintani's manga/anime, Area 88 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_88 ,) which is the game's premise to a tee. However, many of the planes seen in the manga are older, Vietnam era craft, such as Century series fighters, A-4 Skyhawks, and the like, or are more obscure variants (for example, theIsraeli Mirage III derived Kfir.)

Well, keep watching this space then.
Not much news just yet... BUT you might be pleasantly surprised, eventually.

Keep watching, gents... new year, new hope.

theCarthaginian wrote:Keep watching, gents... new year, new hope.

Right! We have a fun MAS expansion in the works that I am proofing now courtesy of Jamie.

-Jay