Give me some "holy sh... did that just happen" ideas

[Oesau]

Missions by their very nature are repetitive; brief, take off, fly to wp1, 2, 3, 4, action, land, debrief.

As stated what changes this are triggers, events etc so you can always through in different possibilities and variations on the mission by adding in % probably factors. Allowing mission triggers to control weather changes (if possible in the weather engine), failures, events by flying into different patrol zones that you weren’t briefed to.


Of course we do not know what mission tools are available for SoW so it can be difficult to provide some ideas that may be feasible.
However single player missions that have dynamic components can really provide some interesting missions that have a brief, but will be different for say… at least 4 times.

The method of brief and debriefs will be interesting to see what happens in this space (personally would love to see a mission planning components with the ability to print the map out with the waypoints drawn out etc etc).

[Necrobaron]

Great thread! I've read some great and interesting suggestions.

I can think of some things however its hard to determine whether these would be scripted/triggered events vs. things that could happen dynamically. Anyway, some preliminary thoughts...

-How about a friendly pilot who goes absolutely crazy or loses his nerve?

-How about a friendly pilot who defects to the enemy?

-How about a friendly pilot crashing on take off?

I guess the above would have to be relayed somehow through radio comms or else people would blame this stuff on flaky AI.

-How about blowing out a tire and inducing a ground loop on takeoff or landing? I guess this could be more related to the DM than a scripted event.

-I think seeing blood splatter on the inside of the cockpit after being injured could be shocking. Maybe you could even bleed out or lose consciousness.

-Perhaps you could bail out and strike your plane, killing or injuring you.
________
Ship Sale

[vpmedia]

well, thanks for asking:

- returning smoking bomber/recon plane over the Channel coming from the opposite direction, maybe escorted by few fighters

- seeing a returning smoking fighter coming home, while waiting for takeoff

- being jumped by a pair of fighters at unexpected locations where you feel secure otherwise

- seeing few aircraft battle over your field while takeoff, your side is in advantage

- seeing convoy of ships being attacked by stukas or coast artillery

- german speedboat formation engaging ships

- smoking/burning damaged ship, leaking oil maybe, sailors in lifeboats

- floatplanes operating, rescue operation in progress, pilots in water

- huge smoke columns in the distance, distant artillery fire

- trafic on the roads being attacked

- fishing boats operating and being attacked

- barrage balloon being hit by pair of fighters

- sudden starfing attacks out of nowhere

- enemy plane hitting ground while escaping in panic at low alt (for rookie pilots)

- enemy aircraft scrambling from airfields when attacked

- groups of horses/cows/sheep near farms/rural areas

You need very visible/oblivious things which capture the players attention
imho smaller details remain ofter unrecognized by the user.

[lep1981]

Hi Luthier,

Another thing I've said before in another thread, but just to try to keep it always present, is the score system in multiplayer games (sorry to get in MP matters here but it looks appropiate).

To avoid whining online and to maintain the team spirit, kills should be scored by all the planes who HIT an enemy plane, I don't know how hard could this be to encode but I hope is something achievable within the time frame you guys have.

In IL2 if you kill an smoking plane you're not a good team player, you're a shoulder shooter or "kill stealer" and I have to admit sometimes I understand why the hard feelings... it is very annoying to see someone else rewarded for YOUR efforts while you're left with just 0 points.

So it would be great to be able to share kills.

[kendo65]

Hi Luthier,

I think Feuerfalke hit the nail on the head:

"It's an absolute immersion killer if you can be sure you're alone in the sky, maybe one other friendly squad and 1-4 enemy squads, maybe, but groundtargets only at your base and in your targetarea.
In games like Falcon, however, you have a feeling of being part of an actual war going on. There are numerous other plans and groups acting together, bombing targets, capping, etc."

Building on this - would it be possible to code a "randomise" function (I'm thinking of something similar to DGen where you could set levels of random friendly and enemy flights / ground activity, but much more powerful).

The difficulty lies in breaking out of the 'scripted' element of the missions - in real life you could NEVER be sure that intelligence / briefings were correct. So, how about REALLY screwing up the predictability of a mission by deliberately including the possibility (through the "randomise"function above) that what you actually experience flying the mission bears little or no resemblance to the briefing?

I can already hear the protests so let me try to explain:

In a proportion of the missions the randomised elements would completely overwhelm the scripted/briefed elements - eg you are expecting / briefed to fly a fighter-bomber mission over enemy territory - what you actually experience is being bounced shortly after take-off by enemy fighters. But here's the key - this happens on a random probabilistic basis (9 times out of 10 it won't occur. Other things will. Maybe you make the target and drop your bombs as planned)

I understand this has the potential to completely screw up BALANCE - so it would probably have to be switchable by players, but it definitely provides the possiblity to experience the unexpected (at the expense of truly 'balanced' missions)

For some possible examples of randomised occurences I quote from vpmedia's post:

returning smoking bomber/recon plane over the Channel coming from the opposite direction, maybe escorted by few fighters

- seeing a returning smoking fighter coming home, while waiting for takeoff

- being jumped by a pair of fighters at unexpected locations where you feel secure otherwise

- seeing few aircraft battle over your field while takeoff, your side is in advantage

- seeing convoy of ships being attacked by stukas or coast artillery

- german speedboat formation engaging ships

- smoking/burning damaged ship, leaking oil maybe, sailors in lifeboats

- floatplanes operating, rescue operation in progress, pilots in water

- huge smoke columns in the distance, distant artillery fire

- trafic on the roads being attacked

- fishing boats operating and being attacked

- barrage balloon being hit by pair of fighters

- sudden starfing attacks out of nowhere

- enemy plane hitting ground while escaping in panic at low alt (for rookie pilots)

Along the same lines I'd add:

on your way to your mission you see a damaged friendly bomber coming home low under attack from enemy fighters. What do you do? Try to help or press on as per your briefing?

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

Someone mentioned this earlier but I really like this idea, being selected to test pilot new variants as they come online. I also like the idea of a group flying to another field to pick up some new planes or even the new variant your squadron is moving to, maybe even get jumped or diverted while on this delivery mission. I know animations have to be kept to a minimum but I would love to see the occasional enemy pilot waving his fist at you, or some of the displays of chivalry you hear about, like if the enemy pilot runs out of ammo before downing you, he'll pull alongside and waggle his wings and salute, this would have to be rare of course or it will loose it's significance.

I would also like to see if a pilot bails out in front of you just the wrong way he can hit and damage your AC.

Maybe on long bomber runs some member of the crew will tell a joke to break the tension, etc.

[C6_Krasno]

-An interresting mission could be the calibration of radars, would require a lot of interaction with the ground control, but I understood that this interaction was already in the code. Maybe once in a campaign ?
-When downing an opponent over the sea, we could be able to tell the position of the enemy pilot to the ground control, so they send a rescue plane / boat. Idem for a wingman, if we see him under a chute. Maybe the player should have a feedback on his action : if the pilot was on his squadron, the simple fact that he is still here will be fine, but if it's an enemy pilot, maybe this enemy pilot could give the player his decorations, or something like that (in ROF, the player have a little gathering of objects he got during his missions : decorations, bits of planes, letters, etc).
-Even if you don't want to implement random failures in the player's aircraft, it could be interesting to fake them for his IA wingmen. For ex., your flight of 6 aircrafts takes off to intercept an enemy raid on your base, and one of your IA wingmen leaves the formation, while saying on the comms "Oil pressure down, I have to abort the mission".

[mazex]

Originally Posted by vpmedia

well, thanks for asking:

- returning smoking bomber/recon plane over the Channel coming from the opposite direction, maybe escorted by few fighters

- seeing a returning smoking fighter coming home, while waiting for takeoff

- being jumped by a pair of fighters at unexpected locations where you feel secure otherwise

- seeing few aircraft battle over your field while takeoff, your side is in advantage

- seeing convoy of ships being attacked by stukas or coast artillery

- german speedboat formation engaging ships

- smoking/burning damaged ship, leaking oil maybe, sailors in lifeboats

- floatplanes operating, rescue operation in progress, pilots in water

- huge smoke columns in the distance, distant artillery fire

- trafic on the roads being attacked

- fishing boats operating and being attacked

- barrage balloon being hit by pair of fighters

- sudden starfing attacks out of nowhere

- enemy plane hitting ground while escaping in panic at low alt (for rookie pilots)

You need very visible/oblivious things which capture the players attention
imho smaller details remain ofter unrecognized by the user.

Good suggestions! We already have the last one about enemy planes hitting the ground for no good reason in IL2

[PanzerAce]

One thing I'd like to see is times where mission breifings aren't all that they could be. Instead of "Find a train in this location", it's "Find something to blow up", or "we *think* an attack is coming, better take off just in case."

Also, times where maybe you've done your patrol, you're about to land back at base, and the radar stations pick up an incoming attack. No time to land, rearm, refuel, so you have to turn right around and engage the new formation.

Also, as mentioned earlier: Other engagements happening while we are flying. That's one thing that kills IL2 single player for me. No other planes, no other ships, no ground targest beyond flak...It isn't war so much as jousting.

This could result in some interesting situations, like some of your escort fighters diverting to intercept an enemy bomber formation that has been spotted.

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by PanzerAce

Also, as mentioned earlier: Other engagements happening while we are flying. That's one thing that kills IL2 single player for me. No other planes, no other ships, no ground targest beyond flak...It isn't war so much as jousting.

You know of course, that you can create a mission as busy as you would like?