Will SoW be boring and superficial?

[tater]

One really important AI capability required for the BoB is British RADAR.

Not some kind of icons on the map that move with GPS precision in real time, but actual RADAR the way pilots would experience it. You get scrambled. You get radio reports telling you where to go, NOT telling you where the enemy is, necessarily.

The FMB need to have the ability to control what, and how radar data is given to a given squadron. In general, they need to have the ability to have time based messages of any kind desired (ideally with a folder you can simply add audio files to). Triggers could also be used to call audio files.

Reach 20k feet, and a trigger goes off saying, "proceed NW to London and climb to angels 23." When you get inside some radius near london (applied in the FMB), a trigger vectors you somewhere else, etc.

Failure to properly implement RAF command and control would shatter immersion, IMO.

Another technical feature that affects immersion. Kill crediting.

Video game instant, perfect score keeping is very weak, IMO. Kill credits should be based upon if the plane had a gun camera in RL, if another, friendly aircraft was within some range to confirm the kill, and also if the kill was made over home territory where you can examine the wreckage.

Ideally, it would be neat to see a debriefing screen after a mission. You'd be asked a series of questions on the screen and you answer via pull-down menus.

Did you see enemy aircraft (and how many)? pull down: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5+, 10+, 20+, 40+, 100+]

Did you engage enemy aircraft (and how many)? [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10+, 20+]

Did you damage any enemy aircraft (and how many)? [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10+, 20+]

What types were damaged? [types with numbers entered by player]

Did you shoot down any enemy aircraft (and how many)? [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20+]

What types were destroyed? [types with numbers entered by player]

Did you see any friendly shoot down enemy aircraft?[list of friendly planes by ID painted on plane (RF • A, etc)]
(this would then pull up a sub menu asking what TYPE for each friendly that you saw make a shoot down)

Did your aircraft sustain damage? [Y, N]

Where were you hit? [check boxes for fuselage, wings, engine, etc]

It would use the questionnaire to credit you with kills and damages based upon confirmation rules. Damages would be taken at face value, probably. Unconfirmed kills would get damage credit. Note that online, your debrief could affect the kill crediting of a friendly player.

tater

[brando]

"..... Note that online, your debrief could affect the kill crediting of a friendly player."

For that reason I would hope that the game might include an option to pass on using this system, not that I can find anything wrong with it, just because I can imagine a lot of fliers not co-operating.

Imagine a scramble and melee at 20,000 feet. I engage an enemy and down him (well I can wish ) and this is witnessed by one other person. However, this person gets blasted in next minute and leaves the arena (as so many do) without filling out a debrief. I think this would cause a little 'tension' in Hyperlobby, don't you?

It certainly has promise for offline and perhaps squadron matches online though, a nice idea

cheers

B

[robtek]

one thing that shurely was hated by all pilots is paperwork, especially debriefs.
one needs really to tend towards masochismus to do that in a game one plays for fun.

[tater]

It's one screen with a handful of pulldowns. My guess is that you'd fill it out in maybe 10-15 seconds, tops. I realize 15 seconds is too long for many to wait to get into the next dirt-brushing furball, but such servers would not chose to use this option.

I, for one, would be fascinated to look at server data for claimed kills vs real kills.

Like any ideas, these are TOOLS that mission/campaign/server/online war builders can chose to use.

tater

[csThor]

I have to agree with robtek - for general use this would cause more headaches than necessary. For a limited environment, say a scenario with a fixed number of participants who are both trustworthy and serious simmers, this might be an interesting feature. But for the "general masses", most of which couldn't be @rsed to fly anything but the latest über-plane in a 500ft-gangbang between the two closest bases I'd say it's a wasted effort. And I certainly would not want to go through it every single time I fly.

So: Option - Yes! Mandatory - Hell no!

[tater]

I was thinking more for campaign play, actually. Would be interesting to play all the way through a campaign with claimed kills, and see at the end how many were real.

You could have the "confirmed" setting by friendly planes a campaign builder setting as well. Meaning some sort of ini file that you could change. Like a campaign builder might set it pretty sloppy, ie: if you make a claim and there was a friendly nearby, you get credit.

Be funny to see a campaign where guys claim 100 kills, but it turns out that many were just damages, or some other plane actually got credit.

[robtek]

This feature might be interesting in a continuing online-war where the players are organized
like in ADW

[tater]

^^^ Agreed. Online war players are not the furball mentality that would be put off by 15 seconds away from combat.

Remember that the thread was about being "boring and superficial." I find it interesting that in that context anyone would have a problem with something MORE immersive to the campaign. You land, you get debriefed.

Another idea, seems like a no-brainer. Make the format of the briefing screen extremely moddable. Allow for any normal file types to be linked into the briefing. Meaning a campaign designer could put videos in if they wish, even flash files, jpgs of real BDA images, etc. Allow for a debrief screen as well.

Give the designers open-ended tools.

tater

[Richie]

The first post sounds like it came out of a good Ken Follet novel.

[Feathered_IV]

Er, thanks