beyond 4.13

[Music]

The server already gives three (3) different messages for when you land good, Music has Landed, ..is on the ground safe and sound, and.. Music is RTB.
And several for when you don't make it. It would not turn the SIM part of the Game into any thing, It would just make landing more of a accomplishment, and on the IRSS DogFight server, landing is a accomplishment. I take this Program as seriously as any one. ~S~

While I'm here, some thing I also keep thinking of, but forget, How about Gun stats for how bad you've been hit, how many cannon, and machine gun bullets hit your plane. maybe even a little silhouette plane you can bring up on screen to see where the hits were while in flight. I know, sounds like Jet era stuff, and completely unnecessary, but it would be interesting.

I always thought it would be nice to have a generic cockpit, one where all your dials are in the same place for every plane. (as a option of course)

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Music

The server already gives three (3) different messages for when you land good, Music has Landed, ..is on the ground safe and sound, and.. Music is RTB.

Exactly. That means that it wouldn't be too hard to add messages like, "[X] has crash landed," [X] has been forced down," "[X] has pranged his kite," or "[X] lands in a smoking heap."

That's actually useful information for other players since it tells you if a damaged plane got home safely, or if there's a wreck on the runway.

Originally Posted by Music

While I'm here, some thing I also keep thinking of, but forget, How about Gun stats for how bad you've been hit, how many cannon, and machine gun bullets hit yourplane.

I'm not sure if IL2 can do this, although the idea is a very old one - games like MS CFS2 and CFS3 would give you very detailed information about what system got hit and how badly.

It's also, arguably, realistic, since aircrew would often be able to tell exactly which part of the aircraft was hit. Currently, IL2 uses generic damage textures which don't provide this information.

The idea of counting how many bullets or shells have hit your plane seems like it would be very easy to do, although possibly time consuming. Currently, Arcade mode tracks exactly where a particular bullet or shell hits. All you'd need to do is use that functionality to create a counter that records the number of light machine gun, heavy machine gun and cannon shell hits.

Originally Posted by Music

maybe even a little silhouette plane you can bring up on screen to see where the hits were while in flight. I know, sounds like Jet era stuff, and completely unnecessary, but it would be interesting.

Actually, realistic and useful, since any feature which records damage severity and location provides the same sort of information that aircrew would provide to the pilot. As always, though, there should be the option of turning this feature off, or only enabling it for certain types of aircraft

Originally Posted by Music

I always thought it would be nice to have a generic cockpit, one where all your dials are in the same place for every plane. (as a option of course)

This seems to be contrary to IL2's design philosophy, if only because that's exactly how most modded flyable planes work.

The very simple way to make all planes flyable is to allow any plane to be flown using the "No Cockpit" view, but with the option of restricting those planes from missions or online servers which ban "No cockpit."

All that would be needed to create a complete "virtual cockpit" in No Cockpit view would be a proper bank & turn indicator (ideally incorporated into the existing artificial horizon gauge), fuel & oil pressure, oil temperature, and tachometer gauges. These gauges could be combined, so that one gauge could simultaneously keep track of multiple systems.

Also, no reason to have fancy pseudo-analog gauges for most systems. Instead, just use digital text readouts.

For example:

Fuel: Main Tank: 100% L wing: 50%, R wing: 50% Aux: 100%.
Oil: Main tank: 100%, Aux: 100%
Engine 1: 2500 rpm (40%), Fuel pressure: 25 psi (50%), Oil pressure: 25 psi (50%)
Engine 2: 2500 rpm (40%), Fuel pressure: 25 psi (50%), Oil pressure: 25 psi (50%)
Engine 3: 2500 rpm (40%), Fuel pressure: 25 psi (50%), Oil pressure: 25 psi (50%)