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

[Daniël]

Originally Posted by 1.JaVA_Sharp

it's been mentioned in some form or another in here before:

prototype testing:

for instance 19 squadron RAF was the first squadron to get cannon armed Spitfires. They were so disliked(due to the cannons jamming all the time) that eventually they requested and got their machine gun armed Spits back.

I'm wondering if this could be shown/reflected in a campaign?

second example; according to Alfred Price's The Hardest Day there was at least one Hurricane which had a 20mm slung under the wing. Could something like this be developed as a 'special mission'?

And secondly the end of the battle saw the beginning of the Blitz. maybe a little night time hunting with a Beaufighter, or the early attempts with Spits and Hurries?

and finally, athought about an older sim which also had a lot of mods made. European Airwar.

One of the commands you could add in there was extra squads =* with the * being a number up to 5. I'm wondering if something like this will be possible in SOW as compared to Il2 this might actually show reinforcements heading in to attack the enemy....

About the Beaufighter: I think Oleg said that it wouldn't be flyable, but I'm not entirely sure.

[AdMan]

Originally Posted by Daniël

A German flying suacer?

oh yeah

[bf-110]

Originally Posted by horrido

oleg, dont forget this: when the pilots of the Luftwaffe gives the order of attack. said in the radio: "Horrido!". Horrido is a Latin word meaning frightful or frightening. Perhaps the Luftwaffe meant for it to mean "Fear me!"

Horrido is the equivalent of Tally Ho. i think

For what I read on luftarchiv,Horrido is from a saint,patron of aviators.

VRIL,heh,nice.
Haunebu would be better.Fitted with a Flak 88 as it was originally intended.

[Schallmoser]

In fact the real origin of horrido seem to originate in the very old German hunting tradition. Back then the hunters would say "hoch Rüde hoch" which means "get up my dog, get up".
Till today horrido is commonly used as a greeting between hunters in Germany.

Concerning military e.g. Luftwaffe, but also in ancient times horrido is and was used as battle cry.

here is the link to the german wiki page with more reference:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horrido

Oh, and I forgot, tally-ho seems to have almost the same kind of origin:

Tally-ho dates from around 1772, and is probably derived from the French taïaut, a cry used to excite hounds when hunting deer. Which in turn derives from taille haut![1] meaning raise swords cried by French commanders upon mediaeval battlefields upon the final assault.

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally-ho

cheers,
Schallmoser

[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!!

.................................................. ......................

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.

[Erkki]

The Luftwaffe equivalent for Tally-Ho! was Pauke-Pauke!

Horrido! was shout when a pilot thought he achieved a victory. A pilot who would see this E/A go down, would confirm: Abschuss!

[Alien]

Oleg, luthier, please read what MUST to be in SOW:

I want some AI special moves, i.e. 1 in the 1000 pilots would cheat player. If you don't know what I mean, read: You fly in your hurri or spit in ground cover mission, and you see some stukas. You attack one and it falls. Then, the second one dives during attack into the VERY LOW clouds (not more than 3000ft) and when is in, drops his bomb and stays in the cloud. When you get out of it you see a ball of fire and alot of smoke and dust on the ground, so you naturally think that you shot him down, and fly away. But after about 2 minutes he just disengages with max speed
Or something similar

But for this kind of cheat the ,,Enemy Aircraft: Destroyed" has to be deleted.

[ECV56_Lancelot]

Hearing on the radio a rookie pilot to vomit once the air combat has finished and the flight is returning home.

[Zorin]

Originally Posted by ECV56_Lancelot

Hearing on the radio a rookie pilot throw out once the air combat has finished and the flight is returning home.

Why would he do that?

[robtek]

Read "throw up"! aka " to vomit"