One thing I'd like to see is times where mission breifings aren't all that they could be. Instead of "Find a train in this location", it's "Find something to blow up", or "we *think* an attack is coming, better take off just in case."

Also, times where maybe you've done your patrol, you're about to land back at base, and the radar stations pick up an incoming attack. No time to land, rearm, refuel, so you have to turn right around and engage the new formation.

Also, as mentioned earlier: Other engagements happening while we are flying. That's one thing that kills IL2 single player for me. No other planes, no other ships, no ground targest beyond flak...It isn't war so much as jousting.

This could result in some interesting situations, like some of your escort fighters diverting to intercept an enemy bomber formation that has been spotted.

You know of course, that you can create a mission as busy as you would like?

You do get that in IL*2 in the Forgotten Battles missions. I prefer the Forgotten Battles missions for their unscripted nature. I do play the 1946 missions, but after the first time you know where and when the enemy are coming.

Good call Ilya - a few have called up systems failures but there are some subtle ones that could add atmosphere, here are some suggestions:

1. An unexpected noise - something starts to clatter in the back of the cockpit, you cant make out what it might be... just makes you nervous, need to go through a systems / control check again.

2. Static over radio - can still hear but it's not clear, adds frustration to the heat of battle.

3. Morale failure, your wingman calls an engine failure and proceeds to RTB, do you let him go and proceed alone, or do you see him back to base?

4. Fatigue, your wingman falls asleep behind the stick - you have to wake him up through frantic radio calls.

Thanks for asking, Ilya. My thoughts are that a big ol' dose of the unexpected is always good- missions that don't go as briefed; changing conditions that demand a DECISION by the pilot (with the attendant consequences), finding that the 20 109's you just went out to intercept are 50! That sort of thing. And I wouldn't worry about making such events play-balanced- David vs Goliath is very interesting!

Other things that would be interesting: As you taxi in or out, a flight of (whatever) comes in low and fast, makes a snappy break and comes round to land; A training aircraft blundering into a dogfight; CAPing your downed comrade in his raft, as you try and cover the rescue boat or plane so that they can make the rescue before the other side can capture him.

A bomber intercept with hundreds of aircraft in a very small volume just HAS to be exciting! With tracers, collisions, explosions, smoke and debris flying around it makes for an incomparable picture.

But, the one thing that keeps coming back to me is that you guys just HAVE to leverage the weather abilities of your new engine. Taking off into a fog, breaking out into a brilliant sky above, or having to shoot a GCI approach to land after combat, possibly damaged, possibly in formation. Or shutting down your plane to see the first snow starting to fall- gentle and delicate after the stress of combat. Or trying to beat a thunderstorm to the field.

And having the weather worsen during a mission. One scenario that would be cool would be a bomber intercept in the midst of rapidly growing thunderstorms. Around the clouds and through the valleys between, lightning, turbulence and heavy rain when you inadvertantly penetrate a cell, popping out of a cloud to find yourself point blank with an enemy formation. That would be awesome!

How about an airshow mode? Fast-forward from the war to modern times and have the games' aircraft all staged for the greatest airshow ever. Or a setup for a spot landing contest?

There's so much that could be done. Thanks again for asking our opinions! I can't wait to see what the finished product will be!

One idea: I imagine pilot's would not have the same plane for every flight. It would be nice if a damaged plane is returned you get another on the field which may have different weathering/performance issues. The damaged plane could appear in a hangar for repairs. If during a mission only a few non-damaging bullet holes are made that these remain for the next mission or two, or are patched in some way. It would also be nice to see that in a flight, the numbers are not totally in order. Ex, in a flight in IL-2 all aircraft are marked 1, 2, 3, 4 and fly in that order. If one has MatManager, then you can have a flight numbered 5,2,9,3, etc. For Bob, maybe the change in letters: ex. FH G, FH L, FH A, FH, Y.

I think there are a lot of 'Holy sh..' moments in ground strafing...

Watching Youtube, usually when strafing ground targets you'll see some smoke or maybe fire, but every now and then, you'll get a 'HOOOOLLLYYY SHHHIIII' gigantic fireball and shockwave and see the pilot frantically yanking back and away from the towering inferno:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t8nlIaQJaI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKomzCUZZDw

There're tons of stories too of pilots clipping trees and getting branches stuck in their wings, knocking off chimneys, sawing off the last half of their propellers from flying too low, and even flying through and out of those huge fireballs.

If Storm of War allowed that kind of stuff, I bet you'd hear all sorts of 'I can't believe I made it out of that!' stories. :)

And you could make real-time bail outs. I mean when Heinkel is being shot down on 3000ft it's almost impossible that every crew member will bail out in the time. It would be very violent, but reallistic view, if you see Heinkel shot down by you and only 2-3 men bailed out.

My holy sh%$ list!
 

Well, i will give you my personal list, even if some of them wouldn't be needed in Bob because of the scenario.

1) Firefighters. See firefighters trucks throwing water to aircrafts, hangar, or what ever, that is burning. See it when you will take off from an airfield that was recently attacked.
Or see it when you land on an airfield that just been atacked.

2) Have to use aircraft that are partially damaged (for example on a mission after being your airbase attacked), or even have some instruments missing because you don't have spare parts.

3) See trucks or tanks cross rivers in open field, in areas where the depth allow it.

4) Seeing "movile bridges". I don't know the term in english, i'm referring to armored vehicles that are modified to carry a folding bridge. And see them actually working, with tanks and vehicle passing over them after it defolded its "bridge".
My apologies for not being clear here, i don't know how to explain it well in english.

5) Ugly one! Have malfunctioning bombs. You drop a bomb and it doesn't explode. Its very realistic, but nobody wants it to happen to him :D.

6) Minefields: Have minefields where if you have infantery and or vehicles and tanks, you see the explosions and destruction cause by the mines.

7) Power generators. You destroy one with bombs or rockets, and lights turn off. Or something else stop working, like a radar or radio station for example.

8) Vehicles moving at night with ligths, and turn them off when they hear an aircraft near by (vehicles near the combat front), or are attacked by one (vehicles that are in areas that are unlikable to be attacked by an aircraft).
Can't be sure how realistic would this be, don't know if troops vehicles or civilian vehicles traveled with lights on during night when they are away from the front.
Movies are not a accurate source of information :D

9) Submarines: seeing submarines perform emergency sumergions when they spot bombers or several aircraft together flying towards them. But if they see a lone fighter, either submerge or decide to try to shot you down.

10) As the video posted bt mkubani, seeing secondary explosions of ships, holes made by torpedoes. Or even ships that brake in half.

11) More accurate aircraft operations. If 40 aircraft could be on the deck of the carrier and take off, i want to see that, and be part of that.

12) Silly one :). When you land after a mission, you could go out from your aircraft and walk to the building where the debriefing room is, and when you enter the building the mission stops automatically and you are on the debriefing room.
Of course, if you dont want to waste time, you can press escape and choose MISSION OVER like we do with most sims.

13) Ammunitions depots that explode and cause damage to near by buildin with all the explosiones and proyectile being throwed anywhere.

14) Very large, thick and dark smoke columns created by fuel on fire, either on ships, refinarys, fuel depots, and so on.

15) Ships AI. Ship that maneuver and react according to the situation. Complex enough to see ship battles, with ships trying to get the better firing position and formation to defeat the opposite side.
Not just SHIP1 goes straight from A to B at a fixed speed, SHIP2 goes from C to D also at a fixed speed, and they shoot each other while in range, after that they continue theyr way.

16) Ships peforming evasive maneuvers while being bombarded.

17) Hear the "pig" of the squad (there is always a pig and other pesonalities in every group) perform "unpleasent" sounds on the radio. :)

18) See a dog walking thru the base and pissing on aircraft wheels. :D

19) A damn and very disturbing insect flying inside your cockpit because it got stucked inside during take off. :rolleyes:

20) Dolphing swiming along ships, whales swiming on the sea, shark atacking downed pilotos :-P

21) UFO kidnapping bombers crews. :grin:

22) If you are shot down, being able to climb to the aircraft of another player, and be transported back to base.

23) Get airfields with cannibalized aircrafts, or partially damaged.

24) Aircraft being destroyed inside of hangars

25) People running around in an airfield under attack.

26) Better damage model of bridges, and realistic size of bridges. On IL-2, eveng on the bigger bridges, a fighter have's not enough space to go along the bridge.

27) See vehicles and tanks go on the same road, or route, on opposite directions at the same time, crossing each other side by side.

28) Troop camps with camouflaged nets over tents, AAA units, trucks and tanks.

29) Damaged aircraft that have crushing failures of structures because of a hard maneuver, that on a normal situation that aircraft could stand it perfectly.

30) More realistic harbours, with ships docking and undocking, cargo being transferred. In other words, like with airfields, have ALIVE harbours.

And i will finsh here for the moment. :)

It seems to me that the following seems to be of interest to a lot of people:

Human activity on the airfield during:

1. taxiing,

2. landing,

3. attacking,

In my opinion, that kind of extra activity would really "fill in the gaps" and set the simulation apart from everything that has come before, and add a tremendous amount of immersion and interest for the offline player.

Of course time and resources surely would govern how much, but I don't think it would take a lot of "activity like this" to really make everyone excited and bring some life to simulations.