4-12 wish list (Merged)

[Lagarto]

I guess mission builders would appreciate not only the introduction of SAAF, but also adding more USAAF units, esp. from the 12th Air Force, to the FMB list. And Free French squadrons. I’m no expert on the French, but I'll be happy to prepare a list of USAAF units for inclusion, if it can help.

[Ace1staller]

Originally Posted by Lagarto

I guess mission builders would appreciate not only the introduction of SAAF, but also adding more USAAF units, esp. from the 12th Air Force, to the FMB list. And Free French squadrons. I’m no expert on the French, but I'll be happy to prepare a list of USAAF units for inclusion, if it can help.

Yep we would definitely need more French Squadrons because there was more than one squadron in the French Air force in WWII

[fruitbat]

One thing i would like to see as a mission builder is the ability to have composite flights, at several points in the war in missions i would like to make more accurately there were mixed planes flying in units, Bf109E1's and E4's, Spit MkII's and Vb's, razor back 51's and bubble tops etc.....

would be a nice feature if its possible.

(i know some of the examples i mentioned aren't in the stock game, they were just some of the first that came to my head, but there are many examples that are in the stock game planeset).

cheers fruitbat

[GBrutus]

Originally Posted by fruitbat

One thing i would like to see as a mission builder is the ability to have composite flights, at several points in the war in missions i would like to make more accurately there were mixed planes flying in units, Bf109E1's and E4's, Spit MkII's and Vb's, razor back 51's and bubble tops etc.....

would be a nice feature if its possible.

(i know some of the examples i mentioned aren't in the stock game, they were just some of the first that came to my head, but there are many examples that are in the stock game planeset).

cheers fruitbat

+1, would love to see this.

[bitterman]

1. possibility to add objects to the map dynamically. by this I mean it would be cool to add objects to the map at mission's runtime. it can be done via server's console: you type smth like "create xxx", where xxx is description of what you add in XML/JSON/INI format.
example: we need to to add AI path (in mission-file style):

[Wing]
  237ShAP10
[237ShAP10]
  Planes 2
  Skill0 2
  Skill1 1
  Class air.IL_2_1940Late
  Fuel 100
  weapons 4xFAB50_8xRS132
[237ShAP10_Way]
  TAKEOFF 161931.69 102708.47 0 0 &0
  NORMFLY 153600.00 117200.00 500.00 300.00 &0
  GATTACK 134492.44 142258.58 500.00 300.00 0_Chief 3 &0
  NORMFLY 140228.57 132971.43 300.00 400.00 &0
  LANDING 163084.27 101555.89 0 0 &0

to do that we type (or send via socket) to console such string (JSON format as example)

create {"section":"Wing", "title":"237ShAP10", "description": {"Planes":"2", "skills": {"Skill0":"2", "Skill1":"1"}, "model":"IL_2_1940Late", "fuel":"100","weapons":"4xFAB50_8xRS132"},"way":{"TAKEOFF": {...},"NORMFLY": {...},"GATTACK": {...},"NORMFLY": {...},"LANDING": {...}}}

and after that new AI appears in currently running mision ({...} is left not to do bigger mess)

2. Introduce clear identification of AI in mission's file and in server's log.
the problem: when some event happens with AI vehicle, you can not identify that vehicle by reading server's log. E.g.:

[10:37:47 PM] Bf-109G-2 shot down by username:La-5 at 41059.33 19015.783

here pilot with nickname "username" shots AI Bf-109G-2, but there no info about AI: no wing name, no position in wing, no team info. If I shot AI, so server's commander can not know what to do: give me points for the enemy kill or give me penalty for the friendly kill. So, it's would be cool to have smth like that to be logged instead of the example from above:

[10:37:47 PM] II_JG5_210:0:Bf-109G-2 shot down by username:La-5 at 41059.33 19015.783

where II_JG5_210 is wing name and 0 is a position in that wing. And this should be applied to the ground AI too.

3. Add server console command to get planes' positions.
There is command

user nickname STAT

to see user's statistics. I suppose there should be a command like this

user nickname POS

to see user's current position. Similar command should be to see AI vehicles' positions too. Of course, now X,Y,Z position and current direction can be obtained from UDP packets on the server side. But it looks like a dirty hack and this is bad, because using PCAP library to look through packets needs system's administrative rights.

4. Is using JVM 1.3 still OK? There 1.7 exits for about 1 year already.

5. Is it possible to get current set of map's images? There's a software "MapTools" and it has images of maps and of terrain heights in PNG format. But as I can see, this soft is not updating any more. It should be nice to have always up-to-date images set. And it would be nice to have 100% correspondence between maps and their's images. I mean: if you have a road on a map, and you have that's map image, and you want to place a vehicle on the road using the image, you must be sure that vehicle will appear exactly on that road but not moved some [kilo]meters to the bottom or so. And it would be really grate to have all possible info about map stored in XML, for example.

6. Vehicle and weapon comparison system. I know that info about vehicles, weapons and objects can be obtained by dumping java classes from the memory. Using those classes we can calculate how powerful vehicle's gunnery is. You need to calc number of guns, number of shells, and using TNT_equivalent we can say how powerful some vehicle is. It's really a hack work that looks like Sisyphean toil. It would be cool to have some convenient way to compare one tank to another, one bomber to another bomber, one fighter to another fighter. As I said, it can be done manually, but the way is really weird.

7. Is it possible to get some server's console-interaction protocol or API? When we connecting to the server console's socket, we can send and get text string to fulfill some requests. But it's bad, because server needs to parse text request, process it, serialize result to text again and send it back to socket's client, where it will be deserialized from text. Is there some way to operate with standard data types or some structures or objects? And is it possible to output log messages not only to the log file, but to some another socket also?

----
I'm developing modern server commander and those points are really important. I can provide my help if it needed.

[lebobouba]

Sorry, I've a little problem with my pics...

[secretone]

How about some additional aircraft-appropriate tactics programmed into the AI? For example:

1. FW-189 would circle around tightly while under attack taking more advantage of its great manoeverability.

2. F4F pairs would perform Thach Weave to counter manoeverability of Japanese fighters.

3. IL-2 would perform defensive Lufbery Circle and also Circle of Death manoever.

[Alien]

@lebobouba try pasting just the links to the screens between [img] and [/img], delete the HTML

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by secretone

1. FW-189 would circle around tightly while under attack taking more advantage of its great manoeverability.

It's not just the Fw-189. Unless they're flying in formation or are making a bomb or photo-recon run, just about any multi-engined plane piloted by a competent pilot should try to move defensively when it's attacked.

For example, Saburo Saki had great praise for the pilot of an Australian PV-1 Harpoon who managed to evade his guns for 10 minutes before Saki finally shot him down. Apparently, the doomed Harpoon pilot made the very most of his plane, varying the power to each engine to perform literally death-defying maneuvers.

Also, any aircraft which encounters flak should take evasive maneuvers if possible. Against heavy flak, this include things like randomly changing direction and/or altitude (by +/- 125-150 meters) every 20-30 seconds.

Originally Posted by secretone

2. F4F pairs would perform Thach Weave to counter manoeverability of Japanese fighters.

3. IL-2 would perform defensive Lufbery Circle and also Circle of Death manoever.

The ability to command planes under your command to perform historical team maneuvers like the Thatch Weave, Lufbery Circle or Circle of Death, as well as basic fighter tactics like the "drag and bag" or "boxing" an opponent caught in a 4-1 fight, would be very welcome.

Other commands which would be useful would be the ability to command planes under your command to attack from a particular direction - i.e., "2 o'clock high" and to attack a particular formation of planes rather than just your padlocked target (or the ability to padlock multiple targets simultaneously).

This would allow you to split the defensive fire of bomber formations by giving commands like "Section 1 - attack high bomber formation from 2 o'clock high. Section 2 - attack high bomber formation from 12 o' clock level. Section 3 - attack low bomber formation from 10 o'clock low. Section 4 - attack attack low bomber formation from 12 o'clock level."