What would make this game ROCK!

[klem]

Originally Posted by He111

Long campaign, fought over a week or so (game time), fixed number of aircraft each side, germans win if they can land troops on english soil and setup a base on the coast somewhere, English win if they can stop this!

English units - 3 sqdns spits, 5 hurris, 1 blenheim, 1 welly, 3 naval destroyers, 1 unit homeguard inf

German units - 5 109 E3, 2 110s, 3 stukas, 4 111, 2 88s, 1 dornier, 2 naval landing barge, 1 naval destroyer, 1 german army division.

.. or something like this?

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Well He111 your title was taken as a question rather than a suggestion so it opened the usual can of worms but, back on your topic, these were called 'scenarios' in Aces High and Air Warrior and I miss them very much. There would be as many as 400 people flying, organised into units after pre-registration, given unit assignments etc. The campaign would be flown over, say, six weekends of two or three hour slots or, as we did on a number of occasions, over a whole weekend with players around the world being assigned certain time slots for continuity (that tended to dilute the experience because it was unusal to have more then 400-500 players interested). That large human content and all the variations, errors, luck and possibilities made them extremely immersive.

The problem in CoD, as it was in IL-2 '46, is that the game cannot support that many people on line in one server. I think it is data overload for most people's connections even if a high performance Host with a very large bandwitch connection could be found. Imagine those 7 English units and 17 LW units. Not a bad historical balance for a scenario but at say 12 pilots per unit thats 288 players. If only the Fighter and 110 units were 'manned' it would require 180 players. Of course some guys would specifically want to fly Stukas and bombers which would be possible if AI wingmen were provided instead of people. The full 24 'manned' units with AI would be possible with 128 players, say 4 - 6 players per unit plus AI, or Fighters could all have 6 players plus an AI wingman each with less people and more AI in bomber units.

So you can see the problem, scenarios need many people to make them truly immersive and as I understand it CoD cannot support that.

[III/JG53_Don]

As I understand him, that its not really meant to have this amount of planes in one single mission. More like a base of planes in the background of the game which decreases if planes were shot down in the last mission.

[He111]

Originally Posted by klem

Well He111 your title was taken as a question rather than a suggestion so it opened the usual can of worms but, back on your topic, these were called 'scenarios' in Aces High and Air Warrior and I miss them very much. There would be as many as 400 people flying, organised into units after pre-registration, given unit assignments etc. The campaign would be flown over, say, six weekends of two or three hour slots or, as we did on a number of occasions, over a whole weekend with players around the world being assigned certain time slots for continuity (that tended to dilute the experience because it was unusal to have more then 400-500 players interested). That large human content and all the variations, errors, luck and possibilities made them extremely immersive.

The problem in CoD, as it was in IL-2 '46, is that the game cannot support that many people on line in one server. I think it is data overload for most people's connections even if a high performance Host with a very large bandwitch connection could be found. Imagine those 7 English units and 17 LW units. Not a bad historical balance for a scenario but at say 12 pilots per unit thats 288 players. If only the Fighter and 110 units were 'manned' it would require 180 players. Of course some guys would specifically want to fly Stukas and bombers which would be possible if AI wingmen were provided instead of people. The full 24 'manned' units with AI would be possible with 128 players, say 4 - 6 players per unit plus AI, or Fighters could all have 6 players plus an AI wingman each with less people and more AI in bomber units.

So you can see the problem, scenarios need many people to make them truly immersive and as I understand it CoD cannot support that.

Klem, Sorry i didn't explain myself very well, the long campaign is for SINGLE player or 2 players. All aircraft are AI except if player wants to join in a battle. Players take the role of Dowding or Goering, ordering units about - move - attack - defend - reconnoiter etc etc .. if a battle takes place, then the player can join the battle as a pilot. This is obviously a dynamic campaign. It's abit like Total war, where you see a strategic map and you order units about until they fight, then you can zooom in and join the tactical battle.

The german player will want to remove the British Naval destroyers to allow his barges across the channel, this could mean stukas or 88s, these will need protecting. Also barges will need protecting while waiting in coastal ports from night time raids by Wellys etc. The british player will need to protect his radar towers , otherwise he's blind. Both players will need reconnoiter to see what the other player is up to etc etc etc etc .. very stressful and strategically open.

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[csThor]

Personally a strategy campaign belongs to a strategy game. My 0,02 € ... but of course if a real offline campaign was present I'd not oppose it as optional.

[He111]

I don't think it will require major changes, COD already has the strat map, it just needs to be enlarged to fullscreen, as an opening screen. players can then allocate units to airfields and set inital orders for early morning first day .. and watch what happens. The british with its central command & radar will have a advantage with the amount and speed of information. As the game plays, details could be saved to a stats file. When 2 enemy units intercept, a battle will begin and the player can zooom into the tactical battle.

Doesn't sound too difficult considering most of the difficult work (great battles / terrain) has already been done (AI might need polishing).

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[klem]

Originally Posted by He111

Klem, Sorry i didn't explain myself very well, the long campaign is for SINGLE player or 2 players. All aircraft are AI except if player wants to join in a battle. Players take the role of Dowding or Goering, ordering units about - move - attack - defend - reconnoiter etc etc .. if a battle takes place, then the player can join the battle as a pilot. This is obviously a dynamic campaign. It's abit like Total war, where you see a strategic map and you order units about until they fight, then you can zooom in and join the tactical battle.

The german player will want to remove the British Naval destroyers to allow his barges across the channel, this could mean stukas or 88s, these will need protecting. Also barges will need protecting while waiting in coastal ports from night time raids by Wellys etc. The british player will need to protect his radar towers , otherwise he's blind. Both players will need reconnoiter to see what the other player is up to etc etc etc etc .. very stressful and strategically open.

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Oh, ok. Guess that's me trying to make my dreams fit the question
I only fly on line.

But if it's of interest, I took part in one of those on-line scenarios (Aces High) where I was directing Units. I was the Sector controller for Kenley (actually Kenley and Hornchurch as it turned out because the Hornchurch controller couldn't make it on the day). About five of us were Sector controllers stuck on the ground and had the Radar/RDF available to us (like having the plane icons on the Map in the briefing room). In addition we had some scouts out over the channel. There were two other 'teams' actually flying the aircraft: the RAF (on 'my' side) and the LW.

The RAF depended entirely on directions from the Sector controllers who had no view of what was happening in the air except for the 'RDF' which had something like a 2 minute delay built in. The LW depended entirely on subterfuge, hoax formations and weight of numbers. I had flown in many scenarios by then but my stint as Controller was the most immersive and absorbng of them all and when I sent squadron(s) to intercept the incoming LW purely by grid reference and compass vectors and I heard the leaders call Tally Ho! it was as satisfying as shooting down five 109s.

[He111]

Save mission just like in 1946 .. sadly missed!

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[GOZR]

Hummm ! well an other scenario.. I really really can't wait for the Russian front or Korea !! that is success guaranteed... ..... well if the Performance and AA Xfire SLI are fixed