Friday 2010-02-25 Development update:Interview by Grégory Lemasson/Discussion Thread

[zapatista]

Oleg,

thanks for the update and interview

2 questions:

1) the re-fueling and re-arming issue:

A) this has been extensively discussed in the last few years at ubi forums, simhq, and the other main flightsim forums. the conclusion was that historical evidence presented confirmed it is possible, and was done in real life, to re-arm and re-fuel a spitfire or hurricane in under 15 min during the busiest periods of BoB (iirc) when every aircraft counted and they had to relaunch aircraft as fast as possible on certain days !

i even still have the historical video footage that shows the whole rearming procedure for the spitfire or hurricane (one was easier then the other, iirc the hurricane was significantly faster then the spitfire because the ammo boxes in the wings were more accessible). with that footage you can time exactly how long it takes, it was either 9 or 11 minutes, using the normally available ground crews for that situation (they had a team of 2 men working on each wing, so 4 ground crew per aircraft)

note: historically you didnt usually have 15 aircraft all land together for quick refuel and rearm, but it was aircraft coming in solo or in little groups of 2 and 3. when a whole squadron came back from a mission and were debriefed, aircraft made ready for next flight etc, this would take much longer obviously, but that is entirely different.

if you have any doubts about this, then let us present some of those facts to you so it can be implemented, it makes a BIG difference in coops and online play, even for stand alone missions in solo play. obviously if you would land a plane at an airfield that has been extensively damaged by a recent enemy bombing raid, the airfield would be disorganised and crews and supplies might be damaged or destroyed, but that should not determine how quickly this can happen at a normal airfield. maybe add a pilot command to airfield "stand by crews for refueling and rearming", so that once landed and taxi to the pit spot, it can be done in historical time. if we dont pre warn the airfield, and it is chaos on the ground, maybe it can take longer.

in the options for re-arming refueling we also need a setting to choose for ex
a) realistic refuel rearm = 15 min
b) accelerated refuel and rearm = 3 min
etc..

B) if landing a damaged aircraft, or one that needs to be refueled or rearmed, we also need an option of "choose other available aircraft at airfield", with a small delay before we can start the new aircraft (equal to the time needed to walk/run to the next aircraft, and not have the instant refly we have now when selecting an aircraft for ex)


2) for the new complex engine management, will we get messages of the type of problem encountered ? eg:
- icing of wings/windscreen
- low oxygen for pilot
- "right wing ammo box exploded" etc ?

if you physically sit in a real aircraft, you get a lot of clue's physically with your body senses about what it happening to the pilot and aircraft, sitting behind a pc monitor we dont experience this. for ex low on oxygen an experienced pilot notices before blacking out and does something about it, similar with vibration of flaps are not retracted (or gear) etc.. the game software needs to SIMULATE this pilot awareness, if need be with some basic msg's flashing on screen (as an on/off option in preferences, so the fake-real people who want to fly deaf dumb and blind can do so to)

please consider