I remember those manual reports in VEF1 but do not remember when you could fly again if shot down, i.e. what the DID restrictions were. Do you remember? Maybe DID was adopted in VOW only, not Vef1.

Yes, I mean the same. Now with the new CloD engine you do not have to wait in HyperLobby for other players to occupy slots. You can join a server and fly without waiting.

The only "advantage" of the old system was that you new in advance who flies against you and that the opposing team is more or less equal in quantity. I think this killed all the immersion making those flights looking like organized duels instead of unpredictable real-life air operations but for those who like it it is still possible to make an ingame interface a-la HL where they will wait for other team to occupy slots.

Thus, there will be several types of mission in the same server:
- free flight - dogfight Rambo style - spawn an aircraft and go.
- team flights - join a temporary squad of unknown players and generate a mission for you (some simple missions only)
- squad flights, unknown opposition - registered squads generate more advanced mission for themselves. Mission targets must be close to some "hot" locations to ensure that some opposition is their.
- squad flights with known opposition - same as above but wait till an opposing squad occupies places in your sub-mission before starting the sub-mission (old HL-style)

The advantage of the new system is that several missions happen in the same airspace like in real life. No artificially separated and unrealistically predictable coops any more.

A team of 2-3 C# programmers is needed to make this happen (a good coop-based war needs the same probably).

oh yes, the times of the manual report to the host on the debriefing screen in IOW1 and VEF1.
ancient times :D

it took a lot of time till the COOP online wars had reached thier last abilites. It took some effort ion logfile programming and some smart community propgramming of these OnlineWAr status programs !!

But dont think such COOP based onlone wars will appear again , at least not with this , limited in my opinion, BoB scenario......

The future , as already mentioned, will be 24/7 dedi servers with scripted missions. The game and the smart guys in the community just have to get behind it ;)

And, i would miss the AI.... i think about the last build missions for VOW R , when we had 16 bombers, 12 escort fighters and 16 interceptors in the last build missions. Huge immersion.
The coop missions of the first online wars were much smaller in planenumbers , they had to be :D
but even in these early days we had most time 9 AI bombers in escort/intercept missions.

I do. You flew under a persona that was given to you in D.I.D.. Say my name was Heinz Schmidt I fly six missions then on the seventh I'm killed. That's it for Heinz Schmidt he's been killed so you have to wait a day for your replacement persona to come to your squad. Erich Henze or who ever. If you died you were out for a day so you were more careful and tried to look after yourself better, like in real life. By the way D I D stands for DEAD IS DEAD

Thank you! That was a great idea. Hope we have enough players in CloD one day to adopt similar restrictions.

It was. One thing I remember was always making sure I was up high and never getting into a fight with anyone unless I was sure I could get him and then when I did fight my hands would be shaking so bad it was like we were in a real dead is dead match lol.