Yes, it would be a whole new experience if we could take part in dynamic online campaigns and get our hands dirty not just with flying, but also with mission planning and some form of resource management.
In most of the objective based DF servers for IL2 that focus on realistic gameplay, there are maps running for 2-3 hours where each team has their offensive and defensive objectives, a pool of available pilots and a pool of aircraft.
Imagine this taken a bit further. For example, the map doesn't come with pre-determined objectives anymore but with a set of victory condition triggers, then it's the player's job to plan their own mission in a modified mission builder interface. Think of it not as placing 3d objects, but waypoints, selecting/advising armament and loadouts for the flight and maybe even writing a bit of a briefing. Then, on each team's lobby the virtual pilots can see the list of available missions, click on them to read the briefings and decide which one to fly.
The map itself doesn't last 3 hours but 3 weeks, the pool of available pilots is bigger and also replenished at set intervals to simulate the arrival of new pilots from flight school, same with the aircraft pool that now also tracks specific types (so for example you might run out of Spitifires and be forced to operate mostly Hurricanes) and a fuel and machinery/tooling pool is now added. This doesn't have to be overly complex, after all it's not a resource management strategy game.
However, just by introducing some form of automatic resource flow based on parameters set by the mission builders, it will give the virtual pilots that much more meaningful things to do. For example, the axis team could make a concentrated effort to hit oil storage facilities or refineries over a period of consecutive days, forcing the allied team to fly with reduced fuel loadouts. Similar things could happen with the supply of ammunition for reduced ammo loads, or machinery supplies that put a delay on how fast a damaged aircraft is considered as returning back to the pool of available aircraft, etc. Think of it like the kind of campaign found in Falcon4 and the Rowan sims, but in multiplayer mode.
If something like this happens, it will be possible to draw in a different set of players who are interested in not just the combat/tactical aspect but also the strategic/planning one. For example, there are people who enjoy playing the role of air traffic controllers in multiplayer sessions using civilian sims, imagine how big an advantage it would be to have someone experienced like that in the radar plotter's seat, guiding your flight in a multiplayer session. Of course, it wouldn't be mandatory for everyone to dabble in that aspect. As long as each team has a few people who like planning stuff, the rest can just fly the missions provided or make their own ad-hoc sorties. The beauty of it all is that it provides a common meeting ground for those who just want to fly and those who want objectives, it's like fusing the offliners, the DF crowd and the co-op crowd into one gameplay mode.
I know these ideas sound crazy, but they are neither demands nor expectations, they are just ideas. However, the bits and pieces and hints dropped during the development of SoW lead me to believe that we'll see some kind of expanded feature list that isn't usual for flight sims up to now, in an effort to not only broaden the gameplay but also draw in customers from other genres and that's a very clever move.
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