My sugestion to make server multiplayer better

[whoarmongar]

Had a blast on the Syndicate Squadron CloD server the other night.
There was 40-50 ppl on the server but comms was an issue with some with no comms some on vent and some on t/s.
Personally I dont understand why anybody would want to play without comms it adds so much.
However to get to the point of this post

It would be really great if someone (ideally on RAF side) could have an overview of all the aircraft on the map and act the role of controller vectoring players to targets.
Do you clever bods think this would be possible ? In reality all that person would require would be an overview of the map and some comms, ie vent or t/s, you wouldnt be messing with the game code, just settings and permissions server side so that that designated player and that player alone had a view of the map with all aircraft on it. Where he spawned Im open to sugestions and really have no idea if a player CAN be spawned at the moment without an aircraft, remember the idea is that this person just directs other players to enemies. If he must have an aircraft give him a tigermoth somewhere. Esentially he will be looking at the map screen and talking on t/s or vent.

Imagine for a moment if this was possible. No longer would you have endless patrols looking for enemies. This is historically inacurate and very frustrating. If the RAF had not had RDF and a good integrated control system the BoB would not have been won by the RAF, or perhaps won by a very narrow margin, but the fact is they did have these things but the game does not.

I have played on servers with 50 ppl on them and hardly seen any enemies, simply patroling on the lookout for enemies is unrealistic, historically inaccurate and rather boring.
Imagine for a moment that you were being vectored to enemies then by a human player, relationships and cameraderie would inevitable be created, im sure afer a while pilots would have "favorite" controllers. Even the Lufties would have a better game experience. Night intercepts on either side of the channel would be possible. Imagine in later scenarios being vectored to Wellingtons in you Me110 at the dead of night. it just seems so obvious and relativly easy to implement.

Expanding on this theme if only this was coded into the game maybe his avitar could be placed in a radar or section station on the map. As well as clickable airfields there could be a clickable sector station or radar station. Radar coverage should be lost as radar stations are destroyed, Imagine being the controller watching as the stukas close on you whilst you try to vector human pilots to defend yoor station damn it would be so cool.

At the moment apart from attacks on airfields and ai bombers all attacks in multiplayer are a bit contrived, An attack on shipping or radar stations has no real effect. With human controllers any attack on radar or sector stations has a very real effect.

Agreed it not the ideal role for many ppl but im sure some would love to play this role. It would add so much to the historical accuracy of the sim, add loads of immersion and im sure players would be very keen to get on vent if someone was vectoring them to bandits.

It seems to me that game developers become so fixated on developing a game that they kinda forget that the players use other software in conjunction with the game when playing it, so simple little ideas like this just get overlooked.

I would like to know what you all think of this.
Im certain that if any server had this NOW then lots of people would be on that server and nearly ALL players on comms.

The more I think about this the more I want it

Could some clever person out there make this happen ?

Discuss.

[Redroach]

Nice Idea in principle, if
a) the game has the possibility to make all own planes and 'some' (i.e. some radar simulation) enemy planes visible on the map
b) someone is willing to do that regularly.

However fun it may be in the short-term, I guess it's the hard part for longer terms.
I heard that in RL, women were good in the control-room because of their patience and their presence of mind. So maybe someone would drag his wife to the monitor, who knows?

Btw: There is a rudimentary chain home-simulation already. New squads will be reported, with square and alt.

[Blackdog_kt]

Nice idea, i like it when people take the time to think ahead a bit in terms of what we could have in the future.

As for who would do it, well, you would be amazed. There are people participating in civilian aviation sims who routinely take up the job of air traffic controller in multiplayer, to the point the FSX has a built-in tower interface with the controller radar scopes and all.

Sure, the traffic is not as much on a given day and the controlled stations are further apart than in reality, but fly-in events are organized from time to time and in those cases it gets pretty hectic: you might have as much as 100 airliners descending on a particular airport in bad weather and 3-4 controllers (approach, departure, etc) trying to keep them separated and ensure no collisions happen. In other words, some of these guys really know what they're doing, for some it might even be their actual real-life job.


If we had something similar in CoD maybe some of those who split their time between combat and civilian simming might be interested enough, or at the very least spread the word to others that would be.

[whoarmongar]

I know the rudimentary controllers exist in game already but in truth its useless.
A single report "Enemy group sector h4" for example with no subsiquent vectoring or updates is useless. Radio commands to the rest of your flight anyone ?
As CloD is at the moment you may as well rip your virtual radios out of your virtual aircraft and save some weight for all the use they are.
As for people who would want to play this role im guessing there would be lots especially at peak times but of course this is just conjecture on my part.

[Richie]

We could organize a "Bomber Night" like on Spits VS 109s. We always do it Friday night for about 3 hrs. It starts at 9 pm pacific and goes to about 11:30 or 12:00 depending on how well it goes for the attacking force. With IL-2 though you have a vast selection of missions to make up but they're always historically correct. They tend to be mostly Western Front missions though. With COD you have two I guess The Battle Of France and The Battle Of Britain. I think it could be fun if we set up communication on it.

[Ataros]

Here is a simple radar script that can be improved to show target vector and speed, show info on bombers only, show messages only to some players, etc. etc. You can do almost anything with this game engine. http://translate.google.com/translat...aysprune%3D365

I think it is possible to make a list of radar operators and show this info only to them.

[TomcatViP]

Personally I don't think it worth the try unless as a "man in the loop" feature.

Clever programming will do the job quiet well. There is no need for someone to do this. The times when we had to use "dwarfs put in boxes" to makes electronics clever is over just as the days when girls where stuck at home Redroach .

[Redroach]

sad. I would've loved the female company in a game, which, just because of the nature of things, attracts women at a rate of about 1/2 per decade
Also, I meant that sessions would take place in the evening, of course!

[Richie]

One Battle For France map would be a great idea I think. Then switch to a Battle Of Britain map. That way you get a variety. A land battle over France would be a nice change.