What class are Players flying anyway?

[moggel]

Originally Posted by FG28_Kodiak

Online Player also use AiAircrafts.
You get the Aircraft (actor) via Player.Place().
The problem is if you use spawnplaces and a player creates a Aircraft, he also creates a new Airgroup. So he is always the leader of his own Airgroup.

So, I assume an online player is always alone in his group then?
Is so, is the concept of a group supported for online play at all? Does the sim recognize I'm in a squad for example? That's what I assumed "Regiment" is for but I have no clue as to how it's supposed to be used.

[FG28_Kodiak]

A Player can create also a group of planes (if Number of planes is larger than 1 in the spawnplace options) and if an other player select a plane of this created group he is part of this group, but at the moment its more a GUI problem (WPF Not available for example) so an other player cannot select the plane easily. If Icons on you can zoom maximum in and select the Icon, if Icons out you don't see the icon but if you move the cursor you get a focus on a plane you can select it. (Maddox should do some rework on the Multiplayer GUI.)


The regiment is usefull if you like to have more Information from the Airgroup you flying for.
Example:
You select II./StG 3 as Group
(actor as AiAircraft).Regiment().gruppeNumber() gives you 2 as Gruppenummer (II.)
(actor as AiAircraft).Regiment().id() gives you S7 the id of II./StG 3 was "S7"
(actor as AiAircraft).Regiment().name() gives BoB_LW_StG3_II

The only usefull Informations are gruppeNumber() and id() all others you can get from Airgroup also or by parsing the Airgroup name.

The only way to get such a thing like a Airgroup from single created planes is over the AirgroupName i think. The first created Plane has the lowest missionNumber, all others have highers,

[Osprey]

Just as an option there is also the 'Callsign' property (don't know what Maddox call it in code though) and in the RAF this is the codename on the radio for the Squadron (Regiment). ie. It may be possible/easier to group squadrons by the selected callsign instead.

[FG28_Kodiak]

You can store the planes in a List and create your own Airgroup

[moggel]

Originally Posted by FG28_Kodiak

A Player can create also a group of planes (if Number of planes is larger than 1 in the spawnplace options) and if an other player select a plane of this created group he is part of this group, but at the moment its more a GUI problem (WPF Not available for example) so an other player cannot select the plane easily. If Icons on you can zoom maximum in and select the Icon, if Icons out you don't see the icon but if you move the cursor you get a focus on a plane you can select it. (Maddox should do some rework on the Multiplayer GUI.)


The regiment is usefull if you like to have more Information from the Airgroup you flying for.
Example:
You select II./StG 3 as Group
(actor as AiAircraft).Regiment().gruppeNumber() gives you 2 as Gruppenummer (II.)
(actor as AiAircraft).Regiment().id() gives you S7 the id of II./StG 3 was "S7"
(actor as AiAircraft).Regiment().name() gives BoB_LW_StG3_II

The only usefull Informations are gruppeNumber() and id() all others you can get from Airgroup also or by parsing the Airgroup name.

The only way to get such a thing like a Airgroup from single created planes is over the AirgroupName i think. The first created Plane has the lowest missionNumber, all others have highers,

Hm. It sound like there's no reliable support for "groups" in MP then? In ACG we're prefixing our game names with the squadron name according to a fixed format. Parsing that is probably my best bet at the moment it seems...

Thanks Kodiak, you're a champ!

[Osprey]

Surely the Regiment.Name() is unique? If so is it not possible to group by this? Internally it does not matter what the string is, only that groups are not confused?

What about the callsign which the pilot has selected?

[moggel]

Originally Posted by Osprey

Surely the Regiment.Name() is unique? If so is it not possible to group by this? Internally it does not matter what the string is, only that groups are not confused?

What about the callsign which the pilot has selected?

From the little experiments I've conducted on a local dedicated server those properties doesn't seem very unique at all but I think we should try it out over at the ACG server in a more structured way. Let's meet up and spawn in at various points while I examine the logs produced. Maybe we'll see a pattern then?

[Osprey]

Well whatever is easiest, I was just curious that's all.

[moggel]

Curiosity is the mother of invention my friend...

Some more testing has revealed that the regiment is linked to how the spawnpoints (called "birth place" internally) are configured. If I set up a spawnpoint and assign it to the "Fat Cat Squadron" the "Regiment.name()" becomes "BoB_RAF_F_FatCat_Early" but if I spawn in from a spawn point I've configured for the "64th Sqn" the Regiment name is "BoB_RAF_F_64Sqn_Early". Then, if I don't configure the spawn point for a squadron (leave it at "<Any>") the Regiment name is set to "BoB_RAF_F_FatCat_Early". Seems the "Fat Cats" squadron is the default in this sim.

All this tells me that spawnpoints make up groups, not what squadron we belong to. Now, I know very little on how to build missions so please step in and tell me if there is a way to configure them in other ways. For example, I have no idea how to use the last tab - "Aircrafts" - in the spawnpoint property window.

In all my testing the callsign was always "Callsign0" but we'll see how all this looks when more players spawn in.

A related question for Kodiak (or anyone who cares to enlighten us): When I selected to create 3 airplanes the other two became AI's. I assume this is how to create groups, right? But how can players spawn in to that group if the server spawns AI's into those slots?