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

[briny_norman]

For me, the best way to make immersive missions is to make an immersive environment around those missions. I.e. create a detailed squadron environment with lots of things to do and see between missions:

BRIEFINGS:

- Detailed mission briefings conducted by an officer in a barrack surrounded by your squad mates. The briefing settings could change from time to time, sometimes they would be in the barrack, sometimes outside in the sun. And the setting would change graphically if your squadron moved to another airfield.

- VERY thorough de-briefings. Most cool thing in the world is going over your mission afterwards, seeing the flight path and having important events marked on the route such as kills, crashes, shot down squadmates and more (as much as possible). Maybe even having the possibility to see the route and events of all members of the squadron - this would immersive the player much more into the squadron and make the other members feel much more alive.

AWARDS

- Awards ceremonies.

- "Decoration certificates" would be available for viewing afterwards that stated the circumstances of the award - "On the 4th of July SqrLdr Ewing singlehandedly engaged a large group of enemy fighters to protect a returning recon plane..." etc.

- AND PLEASE!!! Follow historical award paths. Make it possible for allied pilots to be awarded bars to their DFCs.

- Make the awarding mechanisms much more dynamic - don't just limit it to number of kills (i.e. 5 kills = DFC, 10 kills = DFC+bar, 20 kills = DSO etc...).
It would be immensely cool if other more dynamic factors could be taken into account, like some sort of "bravery tally", where you would be awarded hidden points for certain heroic actions or completing certain missions and when you reached a certain score you would get an award - which one maybe depending on what you have already.
This mechanism could also be tied to the "special" missions showing up from time to time where completing them or doing especially well would make you much more likely to receive a decoration.
Perhaps missions could be rated for difficulty in this system and completing difficult missions or just doing well would earn you more "bravery points".

SQUADRON MANAGEMENT/ENVIRONMENT:

- A cool, chalkboard-type kill board.

- A detailed "diary" of the players career, with summations of all missions and a detailed "kill-book" with plane type, date, place and more.

- Being able to browse through the pilot dossiers and see your squadmates' personal details. Kills (with dates), decorations etc...

- Being able to see the line-up for each mission, which pilots flying where in the formations etc. And make the pilots names appear as icons inside missions instead of just a generic name like RABBIT 1. Might not be everybodys taste, but would add to the immersion to know which of your fellow pilots are going down in flames before your eyes...! (make this sort of thing switchable in the settings).

- Being able to change the formation, loadout and which pilots fly which planes (if you're the squadron commander, of course).

- Introduce things like fatigue and different skill ratings for pilots in the squadron, that change dynamically and that you have to take into consideration as commander. CFS3 tried something like this, and it was a sympathetic attempt, but they never got it quite right. I'm sure Luthier would!

MAPS & INTEL

- Being able to follow the day-to-day progress of the battle (with/without FOW) on an operational style map. Would be very engrossing to be able to see the RAF being pushed further and further back, airfields going through different stages of damage, radar stations going on and off line.

- Use videos and newspaper articles to highlight important events in the campaign (like new tactics being used, an important speech from Churchill, Eagle Day, newsreels etc, etc...).

- A map and dossier over all aces on your (and perhaps the enemy's) side. Might not be realistic but would be very fun to follow the progress of aces from other squadrons. A kill-board with the top aces of the campaign and their status & location would have to be there too. The kill-board/ace dossiers could be dynamic or just contain historical information. I'm sure you could get some forum members to find all the information you would need to make such a dossier, map and kill-board.
Just imagine how cool it would be to follow and try to match the day-to-day performance of Werner Molders or Josef Frantisek...!!!

MISSIONS

- Make it possible for mission designers to start some missions in the air so they can set the player up in certain situations, fx. as stumbling into a big bomber formation or being ambushed.

- Have a great variety of missions with a great variety of action. Some missions will be very low on action, perhaps just an interception of a lone recon plane by you alone or a scramble to catch a wounded bomber or even a wild goose chase!

THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE:

The most significant feature of all would be to make all of this moddable.
Make it possible for the campaign designers to make their own squadron management, campaign environment, add their own features and statistics, their own graphics and menus.
This would ensure that everybody could get what they wanted - and you could concentrate on the core of the game and let the community design THE CAMPAIGN MODE TO END ALL CAMAPIGN MODES!!

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That's all I could think of right now. If you need inspiration just look to the Red Baron series. It nailed many of the features I mention above.