Give me some "holy sh... did that just happen" ideas

[CH_kurkio]

Originally Posted by luthier

We're trying to spice up the single player experience, so I'm trying to come with either more exciting mission types, or some one-off mission events, surprises for the player that can happen under the right circumstances.

Once upon a time I used to make missions for CFS2, a whole campaign based on VF-17 actually. And one thing that was good in CFS2 was the mission builder. For example you have triggers, they can be area triggers for example. With these one could give the player the choise wether to go back to fight or fly home (ok, CFS2 also had the skip/jump option) or the triggers could be used to spawn more enemies or so that the enemy base holds fire until you are in the assigned area.

And another thing would be nice, random trigger. For example you fly to a certain area the trigger is used and here comes the random trigger, you have stationed 3 planes near the area where the player is, but the random trigger says wich one is spawned, not all just one and all of the 3 can have different planes, skill, altitude etc. With this randomisation the same simple mission is actually three missions in one.

-CH-

[fuzzychickens]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...0976189633970#

Cannon ammunition in fw190 wings being "ignited" p51 50 cal fire.

Look at some of this footage. I think catastrophic failures like these with realistic probability of occuring would be absolutely heart racing when they do happen. Combine that with a nasty boom and shockwave through your "buttkicker" feedback mounted to your flight seat - woo hoo!

You can just about feel the intensity of some of those violent explosions.
I think it is currently modelled in IL2 but the wing just kinda pops off - no satisfaction.

Surely the fw190 wasn't the only plane this occurred on. What about planes carrying bombs? Did any catastrophic events occasionally occur there?

Also, I second the previous poster who mentioned the running into flocks of birds - that would be realistic and intense.

[Alien]

Oh, and VERY SIMPLE commands by manouvers. I mean, i.e. reaction on friendly fire. You sweep your wings and then see your friend leveling with you, taking hand to canopy and flying away. It would be very nice to see

[SlipBall]

I think that Feathered_IV has the answer to what would make SOW stand out and be a rewarding gaming experience...please concider his points

[Feuerfalke]

Well, considering the initial wish:

This is what I always felt was important for SP-experience:

It's an absolute immersion killer, if you can be sure you're alone in the sky, maybe one other friendly squad and 1-4 enemy squads, maybe, but groundtargets only at your base and in your targetarea.
In games like Falcon, however, you have a feeling of being part of an actual war going on. There are numerous other plans and groups acting together, bombing targets, capping, etc. Also the enemy territory is never empty. You see convoys heading for the front, ships on the sea, and literally hundreds of units fighting on the ground along the fence-line.
It makes a huge difference, e.g. when just flying from Germany to England staring at the sea below and actually seeing or even reporting shipping and watch other units attack those. Maybe even submarines or speedboats nearby.
On the british side, what about squadrons being on alert. When your group runs into trouble, you can call for assistance.

In SilentHunter this also combines with being witness of important battles or operations. That's also definitely great for immersion.

As part of that, the most thrilling and intense moments I had, were when going into combat, taking of or enroute to the fence-line and you see other planes returning, smoking, engines out, attempting belly-landings, etc.
Also damages to groundunits, equipment and buildings staying that way over missions.

[slm]

Three ideas:

-a bit more AI added to ships. If they notice a bomb/torpedo attack they could do some evasive manouvres, instead of staying on the path planned in Mission Builder. Like here:

http://users.swing.be/navbat/edito/navires/yamato2.jpg

-plane damage modeling effect not in IL2: in some planes when getting enough damage, the landing gear would go to landing position while flying and slow down the plane

-add a small explosion object to mission builder. Person making a mission could place such object inside buildings, static ships, fuel trucks etc. When it is hit during game, it would produce an explosion. The strength could be set in mission builder.

This way you could simulate things like ground attack hitting an ammo dump, fuel truck etc. Player couldn't see this effect in advance, because the object would be hidden inside bigger objects.

[choctaw111]

Ilya, simply the best thing I can imagine, is to be in a virtual world that is believable, meaning a living breathing environment at the airfield, and even on the rest of the map.
The smallest sign of life on the map would be a huge plus.
What if we were flying over the countryside in France and occasionally see some people walking around, especially over a target, or even chickens, cows, birds. These are things you really don't need in a combat flight sim, but if you did find a way to put these things in, it would give a "holy sh**, did that just happen" kind of feeling.
What we have now are targets that are devoid of life. Just a bunch of objects we can destroy with some 3d gunners that really don't add life to the environment.
How about bridges and other objects that actually collapse when destroyed, not just a destroyed version versus an undestroyed version of the same object.
When I blow up a bridge, I want to watch that sucker fall into the water. When I blow up a tank, I want to see the turret pop off sometimes. When I blow up a car or truck, I want to see it flip over on occasion. What we have now are vehicles and trains that all blow up the same way. There needs to be some surprises when you blow stuff up.

[Snuff_Pidgeon]

I think a nice idea might be to have some kind of dialoge with your mechanic ie.As your aircraft gets some flying hours up, you might notice your engine supercharger needs tunning or motor might be running a little rough or engine hoses and pipes wearing out.Also the availability of different grade octane fuels or even cotaminated fuels.Or in other situations your mechanic might be not so experienced and makes mistakes!In other words i suppose a serious ground check before flying, also a ground gun convergance target would be cool..

[Romanator21]

Feathered's ideas are great, but I won't expect them in the first iteration of the release. Maybe after some patches. Remember, the most important and foremost thing is basic codework, then everything else falls into place.

Still, I hope to see them!

I like the idea of first person bail out, but I think (but I have no clue really) that this will take too much time/resources. It would be simpler to just use a cut scene rather than modeling the character doing all this stuff. I think cutscenes could be used in the example where someone requested driving a kubelwagen to their plane.

I like the idea of modeling hypoxia, and hopefully better modeling of becoming wounded. Blood does not need to be animated, but maybe, more blurry vision rather than red out, delay/ difficulty in the movement of your head. AI that makes friendly fire is a great idea that I hope to see, especially for rookie pilots. AI that can't see through their plane/clouds/into the sun. Also would be great if when AI was looking at his wingman to his right in a close formation, he might not see you coming from his left, even if it's in his normal field of view.

I hope there will be angular momentum modeled to some extent. If a bomber loses a wing, it will slowly lurch over and fall, not just instantly tumble like a leaf in the wind. Also if the planes do start to spin quickly, some G induced break up. On the idea of inertia, 'heaviness' of moving a machine gun around by the player: mouse movements dampened/delayed making aiming more difficult/realistic.

But above all: AI, DM, and FM. The nice animations can follow later when there's time and when there is a place in the engine.

[Oesau]

Missions by their very nature are repetitive; brief, take off, fly to wp1, 2, 3, 4, action, land, debrief.

As stated what changes this are triggers, events etc so you can always through in different possibilities and variations on the mission by adding in % probably factors. Allowing mission triggers to control weather changes (if possible in the weather engine), failures, events by flying into different patrol zones that you weren’t briefed to.


Of course we do not know what mission tools are available for SoW so it can be difficult to provide some ideas that may be feasible.
However single player missions that have dynamic components can really provide some interesting missions that have a brief, but will be different for say… at least 4 times.

The method of brief and debriefs will be interesting to see what happens in this space (personally would love to see a mission planning components with the ability to print the map out with the waypoints drawn out etc etc).