ATAG Dedicated Server is up!

[bw_wolverine]

Originally Posted by klem

Played a new map on ATAG last night. Really good.

Lets separate the arguments.

1. As many Spitfire IIa's as you want. That's nice for a change and is welcome on the occasional map. LW whiners queue over there >>> But perhaps there should have been (more/some?) 109E-4s for balance?

2. A good feel to the missions, I like the information given (even if it is in 'banner' form). Enough AI bombers including a low level raid which was intercepted and decimated by about 5 RAF; no LW escorts.

We could use a couple more maps like that. Maybe 1 in 5?

I've played it a few times now. It's not bad except for the fact that it seems many blue pilots quit the server when it comes on.

Though, not before some smarmy comments about the Spit IIa and its advantages. And from a surprising source considering....

The ratio of Spit IIas to Hurricane Rotols/Spit Ias on the server at the time was 2 to 1. The ratio of E4's to E3/1's was 3 to 1.

Is there a limit on the E4 on that map? There shouldn't be.

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by bw_wolverine

Is there a limit on the E4 on that map? There shouldn't be.

E4's are limited to about 6 I think.

[klem]

Will ATAG move to the beta patch on its imminent release? Or will it wait for Steam release?

Release is probably next week
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=31097

[ATAG_Bliss]

Beta definitely!

[klem]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Bliss

Beta definitely!

Good !

[bw_wolverine]

New mission:

Aparently the 2nd British Bomber Flight gets destroyed many many times? Not sure if this is a bug or not. Pretty much like clockwork it came up every five minutes or so, along with Objective 11 Complete!

[Ataros]

S!, ATAG team!

I think some experienced C# coders are working on missions for your great server now. I hope the upcoming patch will fix CTD issue and allow more bombers flying in formation. As many people are missing COOP-style missions I have a suggestion for your server that can possibly make gameplay even more objective-based and incite more organized squads to participate making it truly tactical experience:

- a squad or any group of pilots on comms spawn in fighters/bombers at a same airfield. Probably there should be a limit like not less than 5 players must spawn together for a mission.

- anyone of them uses Mission Menu to command the server to spawn a group of AI bombers at the same airfield. This person becomes a flight-leader. Script checks how many players are present within a certain radius of the leader.

- number of AI bombers equals from 2x to 1x of number of human players. Bombers can be spawned on the ground or in the air in 5-minutes flight time from airfield with airfield being their next waypoint (to allow takeoff time for human players). Bombers may have standard mission targets for now. Later it is possible to allow flight-leader to select bomber types, target, loadout, altitude and even one - two waypoints as well as secondary pbjectives. The ratio of bombers spawn is varied from 2x to 1x (or less) of number of human players to prevent performance issues because of huge group size.

- friendly team is informed of the mission to gain more escorts

- in some time enemy team is informed of incoming flight to allow guarantied opposition in old-style COOP fashion. Flights without guaranteed opposition may became very boring quickly and will not attract many squad-players. High competitiveness is one of reasons COOPs were so popular among squads.

- 5+ players which participated in the mission creation are not allowed to create new mission for at least 15 minutes to prevent bomber spamming

- squad-based statistics is introduced to incite squads to get organized and create missions. Squads and pilots should get more points for flying squad-created missions or intercepting squad-created missions (for kills within a certain radius from the AI bombers)

- optionally a squad is able to announce a mission in several minutes before its start to invite more players into it. More players allow to spawn more bombers.

- individual pilots who are not on comms may gather a group of 5+ players via chat and create a mission

This activity may be added to current server missions, no need to get rid of current objectives of cause.

At a later stage recon and other types of missions can be added.

AFAIK technically it is possible to implement this now. If the bug breaking the menu for one of sides when number of airgroups exceeds certain number still exists, it is possible to limit number of flights by script, schedule flights for every 20 - 30 minutes, announcing countdown to start time. This will keep number of airgroups low fixing the bug and allow everyone who is interested to participate.

An autobalance script may reduce number of bombers available to one side (and increase fighter respawn time) depending on balance to prevent team stacking.

The main idea behind this is to give players and incentive for flying organized missions together. The incentive is quantity of bombers they can spawn. The more players is gathered the more bombers are available for a particular mission.
I hope squads and players like the idea.