Hi guys -

As a static campaign builder, i'm endlessly frustrated by the odd way in which ranks are assigned to the flight positions:

Rank 1 (Flight Sergeant/Flight Officer/Oberfeldwebel) : Plane 16 (last guy in the squadron)
Rank 2 (Pilot Officer/Second Lieutenant/Leutnant) : Plane 4 (last guy in squadron commander's flight)
Rank 3 (Flying Officer/First Lieutenant/Oberleutnant) : Plane 14 (wingman to flight 4 leader)
Rank 4 (Flight Lieutenant/Captain/Hauptmann) : Plane 2 (squadron commander's wingman)
Rank 5 (Squadron Leader/Major/Major) :Plane 13 (flight leader of flight 4)
Rank 6 (Wing Commander/Lieutenant Colonel/Oberstleutnant) :Plane 5 (flight leader of flight 2)
Rank 7 *highest* (Group Captain/Colonel/Oberst) Plane 1 (squadron commander)

In the RAF a Flight Lieutenant should be leading the sections, i.e planes 5 and 9 if a Sqn/Ldr is leading a full squadron (12 a/c). However getting to Flt/Lt (rank 4) rank you are still only ever a wingman when you should be leading 3 other a/c! Even on a 16 plane formation - as in the USAAF - flights of four should be led by a Cpt. Also Rank 3 (Flying Officer) should in those four ships be leading the 2nd element or planes 3, 7, 11 & 15 (which in the current setup are completely inaccessible to the player) with the wingman position being made up with Ranks 1 & 2.

Is there anyway you could correct this odd positioning, or if not, provide a tick box in FMB whereby the mission builder could override the campaign positioning of a player and force the campaign to put the player in an aircraft that the mission builder selects? It would make for far more realistic campaigns and a more flexible system - a Flt/Lt (rank 4) could be leading a 4 ship mission one day, then be leading the 2nd or 3rd Section behind the Sqn/Ldr (rank 5) doing as his name implies, leading the squadron, the next mission.

As an aside, the 3d model of the default P-40E/M is quite ill proportioned - too much dihedral on the wings, too large nose and too short a tail; is there any chance of having it re-done?

Many thanks for your consideration and the fantastic work you have already given us! I'm very much anticipating the delights of 4.10.

Regards,

Tom

Since the DM of ships is limited in complexity, it would be nice if a damage randomisation factor could be introduced for ships. For example the fleet carriers currently take exactly 8 250kg/500lb class weapons in the same hull segment to sink, or the CVE take 3 250kg/500lb bombs. This often makes attacking ships a game of numbers, because you can determine exactly how much explosive you need to sink which ships. In my oppinion this predictability is quite unrealistic and takes away from the fun. I would suggest to add a 50% variation to DM strenght for each ship, so each individual ship has a random hull strenght between 50-150% at the start of each mission. That way you never know exactly what it takes to sink a target.

Of course a complex ship DM would be preferable, featuring things like compartments, fires, fuel and magazine explosions, fuel vapors, damage control parties etc. But I think we can agree that this is out of scope, so the suggestion above would be a neat low cost solution.

Mbot

Do you have any idea how many compartments are in an A/C carrier?

You could actually bomb the smack out of a carrier for days and it might not go down, unless you hit right spots.

The Hornet at battle of Santa Cruz took so many hits and was still afloat. It was ordered to scuttle her, and she was still afloat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...a_Cruz_Islands

I'm just saying it wouldn't be much fun, if you never sunk the ships.

Afterall, it was pretty important warships stayed afloat. There were alot of men on those ships depending upon the ship to take them back to home port. So, ships definitely were designed to take a great deal of punishment.

I don't think you got my point. The USS Franklin, a very though Essex class carrier, almost went down by two 250 kg bombs. The Hornet took a myriad of bombs, air and ship launched torpedoes to finally sink. How much damage a ship will take is a very complex question, but from a pilots point of view it is ultimately pretty random. That is the reason for my suggestion.


http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/...ank1945diw.jpg

There are many things that would be nice to randomize, but this is problematic online. If each client calculates some thing, the random factor would need to be synchronized over the net.

A packet that includes the seed for randomization, thereby syncing it for all, perhaps? Or let server handle ship bomb/torpedo damage? The delay involved when hitting a ship would not too unrealistic.

Yes that was my thought as well. When the mission gets loaded, the host generates a damage modifier (lets say between 0.5 and 1.5) for each ship and sends it to the client as part of the mission. No idea if that is feasible though :)

Hi!
In Addition to my last Post this will be very cool to see more vehilce columns instead of just IL2 stock. Columns like at ADW server for example. Or to have some logic that can made possible to create colmuns in FMB. And the distance between single units in the column should be increased too - because it is too simple to destroy native columns with something like AJ or PTAB.
Thank you.

Russian planes facelift?
 

Hello TD,

are there any plans in the future patches to make a facelift of the old russian planes? Like the ability to open canopy and have more active/movable parts in the cockpit to give feedback to the pilot?

I really welcome e.g. the addition of Fairey Swordfish or Curtis Hawk in 4.10, but these planes could be easily used in the upcoming SOW:BOB. Conversely, I fear we will not have any other eastern front simulator in the forseable future and therefore would be glad if you could bring the old planes up to the standards with the newer ones.

Thank you for your marvelous work!

FrankB, I'm pretty sure someday the East will be depicted properly in Storm of War as well.

It'd be a shame to see such a vast part of history relegated to Il-2 while everyone else gets ported in Storm of War.

If you ask me, I'd put the east right after Korea. With a Moscow map, please? :mrgreen: