formation autopilot: why it is good. (no purchase necessary. details inside)

[eskimo]

Grunhertz, Thunder and Sancho;

You have not addressed the question:
Who flies the plane to keep it in formation while you are in the guns?

Have you guys ever had nonstop fighter attacks on your formation for up to 10 minutes at a time?

Sunchaser;
Your reply was a cop-out.
You are in the lead while you are in the guns?
What about everyone else?  Most planes will not be in the lead.  Who flies the plane while they are in the guns?

eskimo

[Replicant]

It's okay, I agree with you eskimo!    

I've managed to fly in many large formations between 4 and 20 or so, but like you said as soon as you go to guns then that formation rapidly diminishes!    Auto-formation would be really cool for scenarios where you'd have to carpet bomb the target.  That would be fun!  

I recently led a formation of about 14 or 15 Ju88s in an attack on Malta in the SEA.  The formation wasn't too bad but as soon as you go to bombsight or guns then it quickly broke up and we lost most of our planes because of that.  Oh well... time will tell!

Regards

'Nexx'

[StSanta]

eskimo, it comes down to squad priorities, really.

Why use some software code to traighten out a problem that s not in the software realm?

I.e it's every squads call whether they want to go for more bombs and b17s and will havbe problems holding formation, or go for half the b17's, and have one pilot and one gunner.

That alone makes auto formation not needed. Add to that the consequences of automating things in order to enable a skill that can be learned to people who are too lazy to learn it, and it sums it up pretty good  .



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StSanta
9./JG 54 "Grünherz"
while(!bishRookQueue.isEmpty() && loggedOn()){
30mmDeathDIEDIEDIE(bishRookQueue.removeFront());
System.out.println("LW pilots are superior");
myPlane.performVictoryRoll();
}

[Sunchaser]

Eskimo, when everyone jumps into their guns the auto pilot maintains course {flies the plane} right?

Well, just make damned sure your course is the same as lead before you jump  and all is well.

If it really needs explaining, as lead I would not have to worry about my course, thus the "cop out."
{Forgot those lousy smiley things again.}

OK, how many of us really think HTC is going to or indeed should even consider wasting time programing AI code for holding formation in bombers or fighters?

Not me.
{Make us some early war stuff instead please.}

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When did they put this thing in here and WTF is it for?

[Hamish]

Cita once brought up an idea that i thought was good a while back: aa way to dial in a heading for autopilot, that would help buff formations/fighter formations both.


Hamish

[SKurj]

Hmm I keep seeing "Who's flying the plane while your are at the guns?"
Well bombers did NOT maneuver while in formation.  The formation provides the defence.  The only time a buff should be maneuvering while under attack is if it is alone.
Once we get the ability to track more than one target while gunning (more than 1 gunner per ship) the gunning solution maybe easier.

A buff that maneuvers while in the formation, is no longer in the formation, so the formation autopilot would make no difference.

Smoke trails for buff guns will have to go if we ever have multiple gunners per ship!! (like to see em gone now)

SKurj

[Graywolf]

 

Originally posted by eskimo:
LOL Graywolf;
Do you know who the supporters of this idea in this post are?

Tour 9, time spent in bombers:

Citabria = 20 hours
Sax =      25 hours
AKcurly =  30 hours
eskimo =   40 hours

Graywolf = 14 hours

LOL, my point exactly! I don't fly bombers in Ace High, they're flawed. Yet most of the people above have only double my time in them.

In Warbirds with 617 Squadron 14 hours would be ONE saturday's worth of airtime for me...

I leaned to fly bombers by tagging along with the Wildcards, I was in the Red Raiders after with -bobn- after he left the Wildcards and I formed 617 with kfsone when we split from the Raiders...

ie. most of my time in Warbirds (from 1.x to when I had to spot because of workload about a year ago) was in bombers...


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Graywolfe <tim@flibble.org>

[SKurj]

Got enough bombers now... don't need to encourage more.


SKurj +)

[Sancho]

My point exactly Sunchaser.  You don't mess with the controls once you are "locked" on the lead.  The lead better not be messing around with his throttle or controls either.  You don't worry about "who's flying the plane" since you will stay in formation automatically.  You just better make sure you're tight before jumping to guns!

[Thunder]

I will alter my original impression with this one. I have flown buffs for YEARS 9+ to be exact in sims. I like the idea of formations and LARGE formations. But they would have to drop together and not be so accurate. But maybe the targets could be on total damage in an area. Fighters could have lots of realistic formations to attack and the buffers could gun a bunch. More Flak puffs and it could be more accurate.  It may have some merit. I still like things the way they are but if the community likes it Cit.. I guess I'm for it.

Lets Just have fun!

Thunder

[This message has been edited by Thunder (edited 11-12-2000).]

[sling322]

Flying in formation is a skill that you learn in this game just like gunnery or ACM.  I, for one, only started flying this sim in late Tour 6....maybe Tour 7....dont remember.  I learned to fly B17's in formation pretty quickly.  I put a lot of time and practice into it at Sunchaser's request because we wanted to be able to fly in formation and be effective in the Main Arena or in the SEA or wherever.  I think that if someone wants to fly in formation, he needs to take the time to learn it.  This is the first online sim that I have become involved in and its not that hard to learn formation flying.  I guess it goes along the same lines as the "dweeb" planes.  You all complain that dweebs fly these planes because they dont wanna learn how to fly correctly....what next?  Are the people using your "auto-formation" gonna be dweebs also?