Hey TD is this doable?
 

I used to have a mission where bombers were on the deck and manable as ground guns.. They had no fuel but you could get in the top gun and the mission was set up so that you would have to defent your base. Can you make a ground gunnery object that is manable? Could you take say a B-25 and strip it of everything.. FM .. plane model.. everything that is "aircraft" .. and just kind of leave the top gun and turret and redo the model as a ground gun? Also.. possibly set up an option in the settings menu where once you were shot down or landed or bailed you could man a ground gun .. Perhaps with the option to set it so that if you were killed you could not do this.. but all server side settable.. Is this possible.. ? It seems like it would be doable, just a matter of someone with the skill set to undertake the task.. It would make for interesting missions..

What do you think is it possible?

I'm sure it's possible. Modders have created a jeep with a .50 cal MG on it that you can use.

The only reasons I can think of as to why a player-operated flak gun doesn't exist are, A) it is content which might have been embargoed as IL2: CloD content, B) Ground objects aren't really the focus of the game.

That said, player-operated flak guns are something that players have been asking for for years, so it's a legitimate request. I'd add to that, some sort of ground control or radar, like the SEOW mod-pack has.

The idea of allowing shot-down players to man a gun is about as realistic as allowing them to jump into another plane and take off again. Maybe it's realistic if you actually get shot down or land on or near a friendly airbase, otherwise, it's just a way to make dogfight servers even more arcade-like.

More cynically, I think that the persistent requests for player-controlled flak comes from really bad online mission design and the perverse onliner dislike of "campers" (i.e., people engaging in the historically accurate tactic of orbiting enemy airbases, attacking planes which have just taken off).

The historical solutions are more flak around airbases, having standing CAP, and sending up friendly planes from another airbase to ambush the "campers" (since you should know their exact position, altitude and vector). If you can't do any of those things, the historical term for the situation is "loss of air superiority" AKA "Luftwaffe 1945."

The IL2 solutions are for mission builders to put lots of flak around airfields, place enough airfields, and have sufficient separation between opposing airfields that it's not a viable tactic to "camp" - at least for very long.

+1. Agree 100%.

I'm sure a lot of things are "doable", but it's debatable whether or not all that goes against the core philosophy of this sim. Just because something "can" be done doesn't necessarily mean it should.

I'm not talking about realism.. I'm talking about fun. I do think that the idea of being shot down over home plate is a good way to do it.. Everything doesn't have to be always about realism and as long as the ballistics are modeled the same way I see nothing wrong or arcade about it or having it with it as an option if it is doable time wise and man power wise. Fun.... remember that?

There is a mission that came with the stock IL2'46 that has you on the runway at Pearl during the attack in the rear gun of an SBD. You sit there on the runway and basically use the rear gun as a AAA position.

Perverse? Get down off that horse.

The problem is that Il-2 battles rarely reflect historical reality, even on the full-real servers. There is no structure as everyone comes and goes as they please. Very rarely have I seen people use real-world tactics and fight as team. No one has the patience to wait around and get into a formation, climb to 10km and fight as if they could only die once.

Secondly, most of the complaints about camping comes from the even less realistic quick-action servers. In those situations, getting shot on takeoff is thoroughly enraging. There is often only one airfield on each side, and getting someone to work together in those situations is like herding cats. One team is pinned to the floor, and for no good reason, as there aren't any mission objectives the other team is trying to achieve - they're solely after easy points.

For 90% of players, Il-2 is an escape, and something to do for fun. Full-real is not the only way to play, nor the best way to play (and there is no Glorious Full-Real Master Race). I say this is a predominantly full-real player.

My vote is with Bearcat on this one.

Pearl Harbor AAA Gunner is the name of the mission. It's definitely fun but as the AI improved I had a much harder time surviving the mission.


Wheels

This is what I'm reminded of when i hear the words "fun game"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=EyAznFhh-es

I've got no problem with player-controlled AAA if TD wants to do it. Heck, I don't even mind if there's a server option that allows people who have been shot down, even killed, from manning AAA guns or even taking up a new plane. But, it should be a server-admin controlled option.

For the option of manning planes or guns if you're shot down, it would be simplest to just allow that option if the player is a) alive, b) unwounded, c) within X miles/km of his home base. That gives people some incentive to try to nurse a badly damaged plane back home. But, the server admin should have final say on who gets to "respawn" and the criteria required to do it.

So, +1 to Bearcat's original request.


As for my mini-rant about camping and its causes and solutions, I know exactly why onliners don't like campers. I'm just pointing out the problem of camping comes from grossly unrealistic scenarios. To me, that's as much of an immersion killer, and detracts from my enjoyment of the game, much as a grossly unrealistic flight model would. That's one of the reasons that I don't fly online. But, I also respect that different people play the game differently and enjoy different aspects of it. I happen to like realistic operational and tactical details, and love campaigns which try to faithfully recreate historical situations, but that's just me.

But, if you're flying on a server where opposing sides spawn from just one base each, you can practically see the enemy base from your airfield, and people can join and leave the game at random, I can see a real need to artificially discourage camping.

One way to get rid of the camping problem by allowing people to do air starts (if the server admin allows it, of course). To make things even more random, the server admin could have player-controlled aircraft spawn at random altitudes, random vectors, within a range of altitudes and within a range of grid squares on the map. To make things a bit fair, the server admin could set parameters that you can't spawn within X km/miles of an enemy plane and/or that you can't spawn in a position where you are advantaged or disadvantaged by an enemy.

Another simple way to discourage campers would be to subtract points from the offending team's score if you orbit an enemy airbase for more than N minutes. After all, artificial situations require artificial rules, just like any other sporting contest. Again, this could be a simple setting designated by the server admin.

There are probably other methods which might work as well.

First off I said nothing about "fun game" in the manner in which you refer to .. which has a totally different connotation from what I am talking about.. Second.. if you are not having fun in IL2 then you are taking it way to seriously. I don't know about you but I still have fun every time I fire up 46 beit online, offline, COOP, DF or campaign.. rgardless to my settings whether it is full switch or some thing other than that (I personally like to have externals on regardless but I will drop into full switch servers on occasion) because that is why I do it.. to have fun. I am not trying to re live history or practicing to be a drone pilot.. I am trying to have fun... and I have been.. al,ost daily for the past 11 years with this product.

My suggestion has less to do with discouraging campers and more to do with just adding another layer of fun.. especially in coops. That is one reason why I prefer to leave externals on particularly in coops. I cannot tell you how many times I have nursed a plane back to my base only to have some AI plane strafe me on the runway.. It would just add another level of something to do while waiting for the next mission. I also like the idea of making it so that you have to be at a certain proximity to the gun and you also have to be alive.. If say you bail or crash and make it top the ground alive and you are within say I dunno .5 or under clicks to a gun .. tnen you can man it.. I have no idea how doable something like this is and am not expecting TD to say "Great idea BC we'll get right on it!!" I am just asking.. is it even doable... ?

I'm not sure Bearcat but my guess is that yes, it is something that would be possible with at least some degree of programming. The actions wouldn't... at least to a non-programmer like myself (with a minimum of high school OOP as my basis) be all that different than a turret station on an aircraft. For dogfight servers it could be as simple as selecting a flak battery from the plane list and using the spawn in stationary plane feature. Or a modification of that.

It's a bunch of work so it might not be my first choice personally... but I think its a neat idea, it has merit, and aside from effort involved I don't think there is any reason not to do this. If the spawnable flak isn't someones idea of fun then it doesn't have to be enabled/included.

Landing in close proximity to flak would make it more of a challenge to use, and make it more rewarding, but it's not "more realistic" to do that. Pilots generally wouldn't be manning the guns in any situation, so saying something is more or less realistic is sort of moot point in this regard.

Think of it as any regular res pawn that you do in the game. You landed, and you re-spawned instantly in a fresh plane. All this is doing is giving you another option on where to re-spawn.

Highly unrealistic. ;) But practical, and more importantly, fun.

One of my favorite things to do in Silent Hunter was load up a mission with airplanes all around and try to shoot them down with the 20mm AA before they sank the sub. In Il-2 that would be really interesting with the full-fledged DM and FM, or against human players.

Bearcat's idea is funny, and probably under certain conditions quite enjoyable.
And I agree with the comment about people getting too much involved with dogfight servers for evaluating in game developement.
On some campaigns, the possibility to get into an AAA, is an excelent alternative to wait 15 minutes to respawn. Still it doesn't need to be necesarilly on home bases.

Also on some campaigns, driving at least one tank of the four, or having a land scout represented by a jeep or something to orient air attack is something that at some times looked as a cool thing to have.

I don't think we should get too far off the beaten trail necessarily (if resources were vast/infinite I'd think differently :)) but again I think the idea is at least a fun idea worth entertaining. But if it were to be done it should be done with some degree of realism. Proper sighting systems, any reloading that might be required, etc.

Agreed on that, but with some agreement on sandbags bulletproof capacity from scratch! I mean, whatever the implementation, it is as is!

There was a hyper lobby player that would Host a gunners target practice Mission
Not sure what plane he used But I hear it was a Gas to play
I think a Manable ground to Air Gunners position would be excellent for training if for Nothing else
Sometimes I need a brake from flying and Dont want to close out the game I could Man a gun and Just cover beat up planes as they Land
I think that could be a lot of fun

I personally think that man-able AAA's are griefing goldmine.

I see three issues there:
Range - even FlaK as small as 20mm has a max range of 2km, given no further visual aids that is a very small target to fire at. Could maybe be fixed with a scope sight like that of the SBD.
Balancing - make it too easy to get kills (like human bomber gunners) and there will be an outcry of those who prefer to fly. Make it to difficult to get kills and noone will bother to man the guns.
Staticness - you are a sitting duck, maybe a duck with a big gun, but if there are two enemys willing to cooperate you will be toast. And the enemy can avoid you just by not flying near you and you cannot do anything about that - except wait, wait, and wait....

Yes, and no. You may just consider all of them as a single aircraft position, and just change positions like you do in a bomber...
Or if you are playing a game where you have sensitive positions, where your opponents will be forced to stryke, then you are allways in the right place.

It would be a fun extra content!:grin:

Did you really think this through? Switchable gunstations are easily exploited, just switch station as soon as anything comes too close for comfort.

You will still sit and wait until he arrives. And then you still sit.

Just consider how many FlaKs you can take out on average in a single mission without getting shot out of the sky. That will be the number of times you will be shredded to pieces when manning a gun without taking out an enemy plane - still sounds like fun?

Yep Still sounds Like fun

I consider that you can't see the whole picture. Probably you were never on the situations I'am thinking of. Anyway, if you flight in a bombing mission, you may have to fly a very long route, of about 30 minutes, on an arcadish mission, or 2 hours on a near real one. And that just to arrive into a sector where your escort is nowhere to be seen, and you have the misfortune of being bounced by enemy fighters. He kills you in its first pass, and all the travel for nothing. Not much difference in between keeping positions in a flak battery, to a long range bombing mission.

Try to play the gunner in a bombing mission for a while. We have played a campaign with everybody on it's place inside a B17. It was different. Usually you flight the bomber changing positions to have a better view of your surroundings. But flying without that option, is a completely different experience of flying. You have to absolutely rely on your crews reports!

Never tried the 2h stuff. But I know what it feels like to get shot out of the sky a few miles away from target -after 30mins of flight (And if that would happen 4 out of 5 times I would quit flying bombers). But I still think flying in a bomber is more fun than manning FlaK, at least you are not static - if a sitting duck against fighters though. You can at least try using your mobility to surprise the enemy.

Well, yes... it will be much more fun driving a ZSU. But I think that the original idea was a humbler one.