I am not in to coops myself and can not be sure but I think there is still a WPF.Unavailable error appears in plane list if planes are located further than 20 km from bottom left corner of the map (initial player position when player joined server). Did not test with the recent mini-fix but in the 1st alpha I still saw WPF.Unavailable error.

To overcome this you can:
1) use Banks coop lobby which also allows simultaneous AI and players start or
2) place 1 - 4 SpawnAreas within 20 km radius from desired aircraft groups as suggested by Bliss above. In this case all players will:
- spawn in TigerMoths at spawn area within 20 km radius from desired planes
- switch to desired aircraft without error now
A 2 minutes delay can be included into the mission to allow everyone to join and spawn in TigerMoths first.

Both are not hard at all when you do it once. 3 button or mouse presses literally.

Another advantage of Banks script is that you can take any SP mission and play it as a coop without editing IIRC. Mission collection is also available at the forums.

I have a coop game running if anyone is around and would like to try it and see if we can get it to work.

Here's a couple of screenies of me and Furbs mucking around in coop.
We had at least 100 aircraft spawned maybe 200 i lost count.
I spawned about 4-5 waves and it was fine, it wasnt until about 10 waves of aircraft that it started to lag. ;)

It definitely works using the spawn points solution above by Ataros!
Its not ideal but once you have a few people trained up how to do it you could have a blast. I didnt try the GUI by Banks but will do that another day!

Yes, was fun! it works sort of, but its still not practical for proper COOPs...yet.

Banks GUI might help but at the moment its a bit of a hack up job and trying to more than a couple of people off the street in with out comms would be a nightmare.

It doesn't change the fact we still need a new developers GUI, it doesn't have to be a IL2 GUI, just something that makes life as easy to work with and run.
The way it is now its no way as good or easy to run as a IL2 "style" COOP, no proper briefing, pick plane, loadout or de-briefing screens means its not really a COOP more of a "join a single mission in progress" mission with work arounds.

As i said Banks GUI might help, we will need to test that as well first.

Was fun to see 200 planes flying at the same time though...even if they were flying sideways and with out wings at one point :)

Big thanks to Phat for helping test and hosting!

I have Banks gui installed if you want to give it 1 quick go?

ok Phat.

This is what Bliss said earlier in the thread.

This is what they do in RoF, DCS and IRL as seen on Youtube :)

As of nightmares I would not call a 3 step instruction a nightmare:
1. Spawn in a TigerMoth similar to any DF server
2. Hit ESC.
3. Double-click a desired plane in the list.
:)

Depends on point of view probably :)

I agree that GUI needs to be done but coop-lovers do not have to wait for it to have some fun now :)

If you try Banks script please give him feedback and bugreports in his thread http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=28559

Here are some missions you may want to try with it http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=30908

Thanks Ataros and Bliss for the advice.
Furbs and I got the Banks coop GUI going just fine and it was a lot easier so we will do it again probably tomorrow same time. We had a blast. Not one crash and really smooth! Looks like the clients have to log out and back in again between the missions but thats not too bad! ;)

With Banks GUI things are easier by far to get going, perfect? a proper COOP? useable for online COOP wars? no.
But for having a blast with mates who want quick fights with lots of planes in a more historical set up?...YES!
Very easy to join and fly, it has bugs and some work arounds are needed but at least it works.

Had a couple of great dogfights with Phat and we worked through some of the problems and managed to get it all working ok in the end.

Do we still need the developers to fix things?, yes for online wars we need more help and a better system for reasons ive already mentioned.

thanks again Phat...oh...nice landing and Friendly AI kills ;)

FYI I just tested and it is possible to get a group together in Hyperlobby Coop and then launch the game from hyperlobby, setup the server, then launch Banks GUI and then launch the mission.

Ill do some test missions tomorrow for whoever is around.

Here's the Banks Coop GUI Guide, you can find the download there too along with installation instructions. Basically the host just installs it into your missions folder under 1C softclub and launch it to select the mission. (Only the host needs to have it installed.) http://code.google.com/p/il2coop/wiki/UserGuide