Any online war thoughts?
 

I feel like a slug for bringing this up because I'm totally inept about the hardship that goes on in creating an online war server and I don't think there's enough people who would be interested in one yet. So why bring it up..because I would love it LOL. But really I think if it caught on I think people would like it. It would be hard though. First can you ever do it second where to launch the thing. Hyperlobby? Third how to get the word out about it in a big way...here I guess. I started with D.I.D. Dead Is Dead in 2001 IL-2. What fun that was. It's easy to sit here a demand this to be done and not do anything about it but it does make me feel guilty lol.

How D.I.D. was organized back then? For how long flights were prohibited?

I think we will have several war running in a couple of months. And they will be organized around scripted servers which you can join with your squadmates, check which missions are available via TAB - 4 menu, select a mission and fly it against other squads. Similar system was (is?) used in WWII Online Battleground Europe (they have a ranking system and senior offices can post missions for others to complete).

Some basic functionality is available already now at III./JG27 Server

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...8&postcount=20

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...6&postcount=25

SNAFU is doing a great job in making this happen.

I think Richie is talking about a persistent online campaign such as VEF were missions are linear and damage is cumulative mission to mission.

JD
AKA_MattE

I think a large number of things that are absolutely indispensable for a halfway decent representation of the BoB just aren't there, yet.

1.) Warships - no real "Kanalkampf" without at least a british destroyer
2.) So far there is no way to designate static targets and check their state of damage.
3.) Radar is not yet implemented ... at least not in the way MG seems to see it. Just look at the not yet functional radio comms.
4.) Netcode. An online war without AI is just not possible but currently the AI is a serious limiting factor as it slows down the game drastically. Ask SNAFU.

Add some odd FM issues with most aircraft, bugs with some others (Ju 88 and the compass issue) and a general lack of documentation which leads to a lot of trial and error (Blenheim anyone?) don't make the issue any easier.

I fly an online war right now in FB/46 that does not have AI and have done so for years, You just need a dedicated group. The addition of AI allows for more flexibility but certainly does not preclude the ability to run a campaign.

JD
AKA_MattE

In my opinion it does. Looking at the numbers of planes involved you'll never get enough players to fly anything but the ubiquitous fighters and fighter-bombers. AI is needed for those classes of aircraft which rarely get flown - bombers, Stukas, recon planes ... Just trying to simulate the BoB by throwing two fighter teams in various "Last Man Standing" efforts against each other, which unfortunately many online wars I have participated in did, doesn't produce anything even remotely realistic.

I was flying a Zero against B-24 and B-25's flown by humans last night. This is a campaign that I have been flying in twice a week for years. There are squads in this campaign that fly bombers almost exclusively, as I said you need a dedicated group.

It is certainly easier if there are AI but it is not impossible without them (just a smaller scale). I do think that when the AI issues are sorted out what can be done in COD will eclipse what is possible now in IL2 FB/46

One of the other problems right now is that the bulk of the IL2 FB/46 campaigning community is still flying FB/46 campaigns.

JD
AKA_MattE

That's right like this


http://war.by-airforce.com/


http://www.il2war.com/

Back then everyone had to right up a log and send it into the admins after every mission. Scores would then be tallied up all manually and the front line moved this way or that. Old IL-2 have no front markers though so I think you had to look at the drawn in front marker on the website to know where the lines were. Everything was done manually. The other thing was everyone had to be trusted to tell the truth about his score.

Now it is all handled thru campaign generators which take the output of IL2 (in real time) and make adjustments to the ground situation (front line), available aircraft and other parameters such as death/captured. When the mission ends the eventlog is looked at as well and the campaign map is updated. Then a new mission is generated and started with the overall map situation/supply and available aircraft updated from what happened in the last mission.

JD
AKA_MattE

I remember those manual reports in VEF1 but do not remember when you could fly again if shot down, i.e. what the DID restrictions were. Do you remember? Maybe DID was adopted in VOW only, not Vef1.

Yes, I mean the same. Now with the new CloD engine you do not have to wait in HyperLobby for other players to occupy slots. You can join a server and fly without waiting.

The only "advantage" of the old system was that you new in advance who flies against you and that the opposing team is more or less equal in quantity. I think this killed all the immersion making those flights looking like organized duels instead of unpredictable real-life air operations but for those who like it it is still possible to make an ingame interface a-la HL where they will wait for other team to occupy slots.

Thus, there will be several types of mission in the same server:
- free flight - dogfight Rambo style - spawn an aircraft and go.
- team flights - join a temporary squad of unknown players and generate a mission for you (some simple missions only)
- squad flights, unknown opposition - registered squads generate more advanced mission for themselves. Mission targets must be close to some "hot" locations to ensure that some opposition is their.
- squad flights with known opposition - same as above but wait till an opposing squad occupies places in your sub-mission before starting the sub-mission (old HL-style)

The advantage of the new system is that several missions happen in the same airspace like in real life. No artificially separated and unrealistically predictable coops any more.

A team of 2-3 C# programmers is needed to make this happen (a good coop-based war needs the same probably).

oh yes, the times of the manual report to the host on the debriefing screen in IOW1 and VEF1.
ancient times :D

it took a lot of time till the COOP online wars had reached thier last abilites. It took some effort ion logfile programming and some smart community propgramming of these OnlineWAr status programs !!

But dont think such COOP based onlone wars will appear again , at least not with this , limited in my opinion, BoB scenario......

The future , as already mentioned, will be 24/7 dedi servers with scripted missions. The game and the smart guys in the community just have to get behind it ;)

And, i would miss the AI.... i think about the last build missions for VOW R , when we had 16 bombers, 12 escort fighters and 16 interceptors in the last build missions. Huge immersion.
The coop missions of the first online wars were much smaller in planenumbers , they had to be :D
but even in these early days we had most time 9 AI bombers in escort/intercept missions.

I do. You flew under a persona that was given to you in D.I.D.. Say my name was Heinz Schmidt I fly six missions then on the seventh I'm killed. That's it for Heinz Schmidt he's been killed so you have to wait a day for your replacement persona to come to your squad. Erich Henze or who ever. If you died you were out for a day so you were more careful and tried to look after yourself better, like in real life. By the way D I D stands for DEAD IS DEAD

Thank you! That was a great idea. Hope we have enough players in CloD one day to adopt similar restrictions.

It was. One thing I remember was always making sure I was up high and never getting into a fight with anyone unless I was sure I could get him and then when I did fight my hands would be shaking so bad it was like we were in a real dead is dead match lol.