A Scenario
 

You have just flown a mission and being shot down, but just before you get shot down you hear that you airfield is under attack. You know if you respawn in a plane you may get shot down before you take off so instead you respawn in an AA position. There you are in a AA position shooting at all those lovely planes. Theres a different perspective on things.

sounds good. would make the online game more entertaining as you could actually plaster base campers instead of just getting taken out on the tarmac.

Sorry to be a stick in the mud...but just sounds like battlefield 1942 nonsense to me...
Concentrate on modelling the Aircraft right...the FMs..the DMs..the AI
Don't worry about letting people ride around in jeeps or fire AAA guns...Arcade nonsense!

You know that we will have manable AAAs in SoW:BoB? ;)

It's very interesting to see how many people ask and even demand new screenshots, yet it seems a large portion of the posters here don't even know the screenshots, videos or facts that were allready released. :confused:

I was sincerely hoping that Oleg had forgetten about that kind of nonsense!
Too much effort to include realistic Start up sequences and realistic CEM...but enough effort to put in something completely "Arcade" - that doesn't bode well!

Surely this depends on how the ground AA is modelled for users. If the weapon is modelled well then it may not be as easy as expected to bring down a well-flown attacker. On-line it may become a fad to knock out human-controlled flak ;)
I look forward to Dart's video on the subject

B :)

I wouldn't turn it down like that. Surely this is a pure flightsim, but you can also man the gunner-positions, for example. That doesn't mean you jump around in the plane Arcade-Style, nor does manning a FlaK neccessarily means having a Pilot with a pistol jumping out of the cockpit and running over to a FlaK.

But it would add more options to approach the game and then, it's not like Oleg or Battlefield1942 had invented that. IIRC Aces High has implemented this feature with quite good results.

possibly too much effort for a feature that would be used a couple of times, then discarded by the majority as being too much faffing prior to being airborne. SOW is primarily an air combat simulator, not mechanical procedure simulator. although that's not to say that i wouldn't appreciate such a level of detail, but, for me, it falls into the same level of importance as manning AAA, well slightly lower. like i say, be fun to defend your base.

HAve you been flying online? If thats the case then you must have been attacked at least once on the ground and iritated by it. I'm personaly looking forward to the option of shooting the vulcher down myself.

Well i would be glad to have. Yes it is a flightsim, but guess what, not getting shotdown by AA ( yours or theres ) was a reality in war and would always be a side track when you get a little worn out from being in the air, also bring in a differnt point of view when watching the game while having a quick cuppa or schooner.

I have DVD copies of training films for most of the US fighters. I will guarantee that after using a detailed, 100% accurate start-up routine one time, 99.99% of users will never use it again. It's a complete waste of time to model it. In fact I would say it's impossible to do it, as every plane has totally different controls, in different places in the cockpit, and has a procedure unique to itself. No way to transfer that to a keyboard. And don't even start about "clickable" cockpits. That's even more unrealistic, given the limitations of monitors and our very restricted POV.

A flak gun is easy to model by comparison, and a hell of a lot more fun.

If cockpit procedures turn you on, go "fly" FSX. If you can stay awake while doing so that is.

+1.

CEM and start procedure : 10 000 things to configure.

Flak gun : Modelize the seat of the gun and the gunsight and that's it.

Of course...realistically simulating (as far as is possible given technology limitations) flying and fighting in a world war 2 Combat Plane interests me...
If i just wanted to zoom around going badda..badda...badda at the bad guys i'd fly Blazing Angels or some such...as it is i play a Combat Flight Simulation and was hoping that the next generation of this game would significantly increase the realism and immersion...
These old prop planes were tough birds to fly and often had high pilot workloads...i'd like that reflected in the game!
I appreciate that not everyone wants all the bells and whistles modelled...buts its possible to turn them off in the options menu anyway...
I am afraid that when i hear about AAA guns being modelled so people can "jump" into them and engage incoming aircraft it makes me wonder what direction things will be taking with BOB-SOW

I'd also like to see IL2 become a Simulation rather than a game that simulates a few aspects of aerial combat in WW2. I think it's all just a matter of how things are implemented. This here is an excellent example of modelling a modern aircraft to all extends with a fully functional and interactive cockpit. You can have it as complicated as shown in this first part of this producers note, but you can also just click one cheat button and there you are ready to start.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=E3uK2d...eature=related

The AAA simulation is a really handy thing for online-playing, because you have a lot of baseraids depending on the server and if there is just one airbase and the enemy got the upper hand, there is literally nothing you can do than just not spawning or spawning a bomber to use the guns to defend yourself. I doubt this will turn away the focus from the flightsim-part and nobody is forced to use the AAA. But it IS a good OPTION!

I look forward to the first whines about being shot down by friendly human-manned flak at your own airfield :-D

Lol me too!! :D

I don't think they should model everything to the detail that ED is doing with DCS, startup procedures are certainly not needed I thinks...
CEM and such that the pilot has to work while airborne should be modeled though I think.

Well, it will be funnier, because a human guy won't be aware like the AI that can score hits through clouds, etc...

I don't want to be the guy beeing strafed on the ground while aiming at another aircraft....

I just hope you can PK flak gunners now when 108 rounds explose all around. Not like in the actual modelling.

The AI seeing through clouds (period) would be a major failure to improve on IL-2, IMO.

Fixing the all-seeing AI to force LOS restrictions trumps grass on the ground, etc.

Also, instead of seeing AAA guns explode when strafed, a more realistic approach would have the crews suppressed or killed. The gun itself? You'd not see it burning like il-2, it would simply not be shooting any more.

The argument we usually see for poor ground AI, and poor ground DMs is "this is an aircraft simulator, not a XXXXXX simulator." That argument is only valid to the extent the simulator is aa air to air FIGHTER simulator, and not a bomber simulator.

As soon as the player is tasked with attacking ground targets, the ground targets need a certain fidelity in terms of DM. etc, or the whole thing falls apart, IMO.

This is clear in Il-2. Bombers/ground attack planes work best in il-2—aside from their poor AI having them make multiple passes til dead/out of ammo—as AI planes that are only in the mission for show. Some reason for you, in a fighter, to fly. "Escort the bombers," or "intercept the bombers."

Once you ARE the bomber/CAS plane, you need the targets to be realistic at a certain level. AAA, and many ground targets need to be slightly more realistic than Il-2. Ships, OTOH, need to be grossly more realistic, both in AI capability (ships simply must evade attacks, DM need to be more than X bombs sinks ship in 1 minute).

tater

Agree 100% tater.

There is nothing more frustrating than bracketing a flak implacement with 1000lb. bombs and having the thing still shooting back at you. Even if the gun crew was not killed outright, they would be incapacitated to the point of total ineffectiveness. (Burst eardrums, etc...).

True, but the gun would likely start shooting again after a while.

The same is true for open mounts on shipping. Suppression is important. Destroying a gun (like the kind of credit you get on a mission in Il-2) should require the type of damage that would actually make the gun inoperable, not just kill X% of the crew. Shack it with a bomb, gun destroyed. Get close with some big bombs, maybe it's out of action effectively for the rest of your mission as a pilot. Strafe it? Crew hits the slit trenches, some get killed/wounded, and the gun is back in action shooting at you as you egress.

tater

I usually do this By hopping in a B25 on the apron.:wink:
That being said, I think manned aa may be an option in SOW

Hopefully, it will include manning the guns on the Carriers. It's the same as protecting a land base. Better yet, on all of the ships.