making CloD a success

[carguy_]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

Thats the basic difference between CooP fliers and DF server fliers.

A BASIC coop yes, A ONLINE WAR coop no. The second one has so much more to coop flying that it is not even funny that Bliss makes such a reference. Two different animals those two are.

[David Hayward]

I don't understand the complaints about no Coop. What can you do in coop style missions that you can't do with the current mission builder?

BTW, I never see anyone on the RoF coop servers.

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by David Hayward

I don't understand the complaints about no Coop. What can you do in coop style missions that you can't do with the current mission builder?

BTW, I never see anyone on the RoF coop servers.

It was discussed many times but in brief as far as I can get it COOPs have great appeal because they create very competitive situation: equal forces face each other in a known location and time like in a 8 vs. 8 duel. In a dogfight server it is not possible to have very organized 8 vs. 8 duel 3 times in one hour. A duel situation and waiting for it can create unmatched adrenalin emission as you can not climb forever, hide in the sun or run away. You have to face equal enemy anyway and win or die. Something connected to genetic memory maybe

[David Hayward]

Originally Posted by Ataros

In a dogfight server it is not possible to have very organized 8 vs. 8 duel 3 times in one hour.

Just have 2 spawn points a few miles apart and have everyone join at the same time. Why is that not the same?

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by David Hayward

Just have 2 spawn points a few miles apart and have everyone join at the same time. Why is that not the same?

1. AI does not wait for human players and flies away.
2. Harder to limit available aircraft and control correct numbers of limited aircraft.
3. Harder to make all people start at the same time (avoid cheating with earlier start) in a competitive situation.

Of cause other issues the game had also made coops unpopular. No one has even started working on a coop-based online war AFAIK. One or 2 squads use Banks' COOP lobby that eliminates above issues but others consider it too complicates to press keyboard keys in game instead of clicking a mouse in GUI.

Starting this week sukhoi.ru plans 12 vs. 12 scenarios to be played on weekends with preliminary registration (in DF mode). Maybe coop enthusiasts would want to organize something similar here. Enough human bombers may register to avoid using AI at all.

[David Hayward]

Originally Posted by Ataros

1. AI does not wait for human players and flies away.
2. Harder to limit available aircraft and control correct numbers of limited aircraft.
3. Harder to make all people start at the same time (avoid cheating with earlier start) in a competitive situation.

1. Coordinate the start on TS. Tell everyone to start at the same time. If they're late, TS.

2. Tell everyone which aircraft they're flying before you start.

3. See 1.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Originally Posted by Ataros

1. AI does not wait for human players and flies away.
2. Harder to limit available aircraft and control correct numbers of limited aircraft.
3. Harder to make all people start at the same time (avoid cheating with earlier start) in a competitive situation.

Of cause other issues the game had also made coops unpopular. No one has even started working on a coop-based online war AFAIK. One or 2 squads use Banks' COOP lobby that eliminates above issues but others consider it too complicates to press keyboard keys in game instead of clicking a mouse in GUI.

Starting this week sukhoi.ru plans 12 vs. 12 scenarios to be played on weekends with preliminary registration (in DF mode). Maybe coop enthusiasts would want to organize something similar here. Enough human bombers may register to avoid using AI at all.

1. AI will fly in formation with any human as long as they are setup as a group in the mission. You can use as large or small of formation as you like without a single waypoint. By doing this the AI simply flies in a circle at the altitude you have preset for them. As humans hop into the AI positions (again when set as a group) the AI mask the human movements to a letter. So when more humans join in they are still flying in formation. If you do this with single planes (not groups) obviously this doesn't work.

2. Yes and No. This limit can all be scripted or at the very least, you could simply use AI planes as your spawn points. (See #1) When there's no more planes to spawn into a particular group, you have to choose another group to get into.

3. I agree. It's harder, but again using the AI method. When you hop in you'll still be in formation with the group of the 1st person that spawned in (IE - no advantage)

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Bliss

1. AI will fly in formation with any human as long as they are setup as a group in the mission. You can use as large or small of formation as you like without a single waypoint. By doing this the AI simply flies in a circle at the altitude you have preset for them. As humans hop into the AI positions (again when set as a group) the AI mask the human movements to a letter. So when more humans join in they are still flying in formation. If you do this with single planes (not groups) obviously this doesn't work.

If I understand correctly this will not work for non-flyable AI like Wellingtons? Also when hosting a coop it is not known in advance if anyone will fly bombers thus it is necessary to set waypoints even for flyable bombers and they will fly away.

The easiest way is still to use Banks' COOP-Lobby IMO:

1. copy any coop or offline mission to a missions folder
2. copy Banks' script to the same folder
3. rename the script file to match the name of mission file
4. GO.

Maybe after patch when crashes are fixed more people test it and provide feedback and bugreports.

[ATAG_Bliss]

Originally Posted by David Hayward

I don't understand the complaints about no Coop. What can you do in coop style missions that you can't do with the current mission builder?

BTW, I never see anyone on the RoF coop servers.

The difference is huge. In one scenario people have to join a server to start at the same time, in the other scenario, the server makes you start at the same time.

What a deal breaker eh?

You'd think if 12 people wanted to play a coop they'd all be on coms and just say "everyone ready"? "Ok, lets go" and all go flying together. If the lack of the current GUI is the excuse for people not flying coops all I can do is laugh.

And as this thread pertains to HL, I've yet to see any big event COOP war EVER on HL. Every COOP I joined was a basic meet in the middle and shoot at each other with random people, none of which were probably on coms.

@carguy - I'm fully aware of SEOW and the likes, but those weren't hosted on HL (the point of this discussion in the 1st place) That is a completely different animal and one that vanilla IL2 could never do. The online Wars were all made 3rd party including the software to make it possible.

[David Hayward]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Bliss

The difference is huge. In one scenario people have to join a server to start at the same time, in the other scenario, the server makes you start at the same time.

What a deal breaker eh?

Yes, that sounds like a terrible burden.