I would like to see a failure cascade when a aircraft takes crippling damage. For example the loss of a strut causing other components to loosen and break on a targetted plane over the next 10-30 seconds. Damage exacerbated if the aircraft maneuvers heavily.

Heat-of-battle psychology: Maybe pilots who bail from perfectly good aircraft when there's an enemy on their six due to the fear and panic. Also, it would be nice if pilots had some kind of a morale level dependent on how many of them are involved in the dogfight compared with the number of enemies. A bomber formation that encounters a large interceptor force might just ditch bombs and turn for home. The last few outnumbered fighters in a dogfight may try to disengage - focusing on defensive maneuvers while they head homewards.

Some of this psychology stuff is less important in BOB than in other SOW releases, perhaps? It'd be nice to get it into the game early though.

Another related idea is to have some missions give a bonus to pilot morale. The briefing could have a "This mission MUST succeed" element. A flag is set that gives the pilots greater moral strength and willingness to take on the odds. The mission objective is vital, so Bombers will be more likely to press on into danger. Fighter pilots will be more willing to fly into massive formations of bombers and escorts. To a certain extent this mission flag will be a given when the mission is "Homeland Defence", so the RAF in BoB (and also the Polish Airforce in 1939 and the Luftwaffe of 1944, given other scenarios) will be given the aggression their role requires. Apart from the odd LMF of course. :)

T.

To much to filter through it all, but some simple stuff that might make you go Geez, did that really just happen.

Since its going to take place far more often over the water, how about better ditching effects. Rooster tails up over the hood and wings with occasional flips and cartwheels, canopies being ripped away, cockpits flooding in a mass of churning bubbles, that sort of stuff.

An occasional tire blow out on a hard landing that can throw a little rubber or the whole wheel into your wingy if landing in formation. Might give him a scare with blown out tire or dirt chunks flying toward his face.

It makes visually inspecting each other for combat damages a must if loose panels and fluids leaking can damage or impact others in a formation. Fly formation wrong with a fluid streaming wingy and your undamaged plane gets an oil slick canopy type of thing.

Hot brakes and wheel fires resulting if you ride and over abuse them, an overheated wheel blowing off like a rocket once in a while on the parking ramp.

Hung ordinance, can't get rid of it due to combat damage, or over stressing the racks, occasionally the arming mechanism malfunctions and it's hot, you've got decisions to make.

Foamed runways or fire trucks upon radio request, to douse you with fire suppressant. They can save your butt and plane if you play it cool, follow their instructions, when and where. Perhaps limited it to major bases with major support facilities.

Detailed night lighting at airbases, can set it to various degrees depending on how the war is going, weather, or mission requirements. Lights upon radio request type of thing, if in the mission orders for that sector.

Wet runways lose friction accordingly, and if very fast, planes can hydroplane giving a nasty surprise especially with crosswind effects.

Early oxygen systems were highly susceptible to freezing, beware those warm wet humid rainy days, with rapid climbs to freezing altitudes.

Radios that quit with a bullet hit, no more wingmen interaction once they separate visually.

Sea mine sweeper and sower capable aircraft preforming their missions in the sea lanes and coasts.

Check out this video about the Westland Lysander:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REZXvuULHMM

I hope the aircraft will make it into the sim

I recently finished reading of the adventures of the SOE and OSS in Europe, and I can't wait to be able to play my part as an intrepid RAF pilot assigned to support these important activities. I'll wait for SOW though, as I want to taste the adrenaline as I do forth into the unknown, in a fassion only a master like Oleg Maddox can provide.

I never fail to wonder at just how awful FSX looks.

Oh,and how's that DM?

Oh, that's right, it doesn't have one.

:roll:

Constantly amazed that people actually buy 3D models that have no use in what is really a flight proceedure simulator.

To each their own I guess.

I'll try to answer this one.

The fact that FSX has a lot of shortcomings (even in certain FMs) and is not a combat sim, doesn't detract from the fact that it has a few features a combat sim would benefit from, like for example the ability to actually model proper operating limits. This is not a procedure, it's just operating an aircraft in a semi-realistic manner.

A procedure is following certain rules during flight, from taxi to landing, like for example VFR/IFR flight plans. And yes, even during WWII they did follow procedures to an extent. How else would they recover a few dozens of aircraft (a lot of them damaged) after a big sortie and make sure they wouldn't crash into each other? They did all those nifty stuff like peeling off the formation at predetermined intervals to add some spacing before coming in to land, giving priority to damaged birds and so on. It's still a landing procedure, they just didn't have to fly a radio navigation assisted arc to land because they didn't have the means to do so (if they would they probably would), but they still didn't just barge in and drop the plane on the nearest available piece of open ground like we do when flying online.

What i'm trying to say is, don't confuse the scheduling, computer systems programming and mostly hands-off computer assisted flying of an airliner flight with the flying of a vintage warbird, or even a small general aviation prop driven aircraft by hand, it's two completely different worlds. I've had a 10-hour FSX flight in a Catalina over the carribean sea on a friend's PC (we took turns flying it during the course of a couple of evenings, since you can save mid-flight in FSX) and there was enough stuff to keep me sufficiently busy that i was not bored in the slightest. No autopilot, fancy electronics or strict flight plan restrictions, just VOR to VOR navigation with a GPS for backup (not precise enough to navigate by,just a "how longer to the next waypoint" device), manual flying through varying weather conditions (turbulence, clouds, etc) and engines that will overheat and seize (or worse) if you go over 120 knots. Yes, your car can probably go faster than a Catalina :grin:
That's when i first thought "it would be so cool if i had to monitor a few things this way in SoW, it would give me something to do and think about during the transit parts of each sortie and help form an attachment to my virtual ride, especially if weathering and aircraft stress accumulates over multiple sorties.".

Even if things don't go boom in FSX it's still interesting to see how complicated these things were to operate if you wanted to be a threat to your enemy and not yourself, which lends an extra layer of appreciation for the dangers of WWII air combat. Namely, the dangers of screwing oneself up beyond the point of RTB capability, but without receiving a single bullet hit. I like this challenge for a next-gen combat flight sim (as well as the workload that will help fill the time during cruise to and from the target area) but as you said to each his own, that's what difficulty settings are for.

I'm really happy that the inclusion of such features in SoW has been more or less confirmed in the check-six.fr interview, because we're finally going to start seeing an evolution of flying styles and tactics that has been missing from vintage era combat flight sims. People who don't like it will be able to turn it off anyway. As for those who like it, it will be so much fun to see something resembling an aviation film or even actual footage from WWII, people will be flying that way because the added complexity will make it a necessity to do so.

Today this necessity is missing. I mean, think of all those awesome IL2 movies that we've seen over the years with formations, attack profiles and aircraft that accelerate before attacking (because they were not at full throttle all the time during cruise to begin with). How often does one have an actual incentive to fly that way on our PC? Most of the times it's staged and flown this way to create a movie that resembles what we see in guncam archive films, but nobody would ever fly that way online. The reason?

In IL2 some things are so easy to sidestep and carry no penalty whatsoever that you actually gain an advantage by doing the non-realistic thing. If engines don't seize and burn by keeping them at full boost indefinitely (courtesy of the resettable overheat timer mechanic), then it's no wonder that people will keep the throttles firewalled and just cut back once every few minutes to reset the timer. However, if the simulation is complex enough the evolution will come naturally, because people will have to fly in a way that helps them manage the workload involved. This is not a cheap shot at IL2, because IL2 is friggin excellent for a title that's running on a 10 year old engine. However, a next gen combat flight sim that models these things the way IL2 does will not be excellent, it will be lacking. It's a matter of relative timing and release dates compared to available technology.

To put it in perspective, a lot of people who fly warbirds in FSX can't stop thinking "man, i wish i had these extra features on an IL2 FM/DM in a combat setting" most of the time.
This is why people buy expensive 3D models of warbirds for FSX, because there's not yet a single simulator that does the whole package. Hopefully this will change with SoW.

Currently, IL2 models the aerodynamics and DM that FSX doesn't do that well (or completely lacks in the case of DM), while FSX models the mechanical workings of the airframe that IL2 doesn't do in depth. It's just like it has happened in the past, in European Air War i only needed a throttle since pitch and mixture was automatic in all aircraft, then IL2 came along and suddenly i had prop pitch and mixture to read, learn and think about...and i thought "wow, nice". This is what i hope will happen in SoW as well, when i'll see the FM/DM excellency coupled with a new ingredient, the mechanical inner workings of my virtual aircraft. If SoW does this well, then i guess a lot fewer people will be buying warbird add-ons for FSX ;)

I've actually flown the P-40E add on when I had FSX installed.

It was a nice plane, but after 30 minutes of flying around my home town and Toledo Ohio, I was left wondering what else there was to do with it.

Not knocking the model, just it's application. To me FSX is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Another time I was online with another of the BlitzPigs and we flew CF-18s around his neck of the woods, Vancouver BC. After looking at the scenery for 45 min. or so we both said almost simultaneously on comms... "Now what?" Ummmm... "Land?"

I guess it's just not for me. To each their own though.

I do have to admit that if armed aircraft were possible in FSX it would be fun to shoot down an airliner or two on one of those uptight air traffic control online sessions, just to hear the wailing on comms. Now that would be fun.

Lot's of great ideas in this thread.

When a pilot bail over enemy territory,a cutscene appears where he is being arrested by enemy ground forces.

I dreamed one day that I bailed a plane on IL2 and I got on first person view from the pilot and I was holding a gun!Started shooting the tanks that were near me and planes passing by...

+1 No interest in FSX whatsoever.