A few more feature requests

[Baumer]

1.) On the drop ordinance segment it would be nice to be able to enter salvo and delay information for the drop.

2.) Again on the drop ordinance segment the option to distinguish what bombs to drop. For example, with the Lancaster I'd like to target the 4,000lbs separate from the 1,000lbs's. If you want to keep it so all ordinance is salvoed together that's fine, would just like to plan accordingly.

3.) A box on the map that starts at the target point and encompasses the salvo spread. That way you could see what the delay setting would look like.

4.) A New strafing segment for use with aircraft like the A-20, B-25H and so forth. The ability for the aircraft to attack all buildings within say, 5,000 yards of the target point

5.) The ability to select the aircraft skin on the flight properties page. I think a drop down list of only the approved skins would be the best way to do it.

Thanks HTC

[Yossarian]

The list sounds good, but I'd like to add/edit a few things:

• I may just be doing something wrong, but could you please make it so that bombers drop their bombs when they're actually over the target, instead of when they're supposed to be over it
• Could you please make it so that we can use different skins for each aircraft in a group.  As in instead of having four P-51s all with "E2-D" (for example), we could have E2-A, E2-B etc, if they've ever been created.  I realise this could be a lot of work, but I think that it would greatly add to the immersion and realism factor
• The ability to take off from, land on, and bomb CVs
• The ability to have aircraft/flights (such as P-47s) 'roaming' a predefined area, and attacking any targets that become available
• The ability to set ATTACK segments (or any other 'offensive' segment, perhaps) so that it only ends when all the enemies in a sector have been destroyed, or when a certain target has been destroyed - so you could 'tell' a certain flight to attack a certain plane, or to attack bombers in preference to fighters, for example
• Also, I think an option to 'Calculate' and 'Fill to End' (if this is the right term) ALL segments - this way you wouldn't have to go through each one clicking those two buttons
• It would be nice to be able to insert waypoints in between existing ones - this may already exist, but if it does I haven't worked it out yet
• Perhaps to set the gap in between each plane in a flight taking off - and also, maybe having a little box in the editor which tells you how long it will take for the last plane in a flight to taxi past a certain point, and thus be able to get your flight to taxi one after the other more easily

I know this is quite a long list, and some of the points in it would require a large amount of work to implement, but I honestly think that they would make it far less tedious to make a realistic mission (e.g. being able to calculate/fill out all segments with the click of one button), and to significantly add to the amount of realism and immersion of the offline missions.

<S>

Yossarian

[-sudz-]

The list sounds good, but I'd like to add/edit a few things:

• I may just be doing something wrong, but could you please make it so that bombers drop their bombs when they're actually over the target, instead of when they're supposed to be over it

When don't they do this?

• Could you please make it so that we can use different skins for each aircraft in a group.  As in instead of having four P-51s all with "E2-D" (for example), we could have E2-A, E2-B etc, if they've ever been created.  I realise this could be a lot of work, but I think that it would greatly add to the immersion and realism factor

I would like this too

• The ability to take off from, land on, and bomb CVs

This is very difficult.

• The ability to set ATTACK segments (or any other 'offensive' segment, perhaps) so that it only ends when all the enemies in a sector have been destroyed, or when a certain target has been destroyed - so you could 'tell' a certain flight to attack a certain plane, or to attack bombers in preference to fighters, for example

This is fairly unrealistic.  In RL pilots had to disengage based on fuel or bingo ammo to get home safely. You're asking for a MA option in the missions

• Also, I think an option to 'Calculate' and 'Fill to End' (if this is the right term) ALL segments - this way you wouldn't have to go through each one clicking those two buttons

This is do-able

• It would be nice to be able to insert waypoints in between existing ones - this may already exist, but if it does I haven't worked it out yet

There is a Split Waypoint option

• Perhaps to set the gap in between each plane in a flight taking off - and also, maybe having a little box in the editor which tells you how long it will take for the last plane in a flight to taxi past a certain point, and thus be able to get your flight to taxi one after the other more easily

I don't understand this one.  The planes in a flight are delayed so that they already take off 1 by 1.  If you're talking about different flights then use the Roll Delay in the flight properties.

[-sudz-]

1.) On the drop ordinance segment it would be nice to be able to enter salvo and delay information for the drop.

2.) Again on the drop ordinance segment the option to distinguish what bombs to drop. For example, with the Lancaster I'd like to target the 4,000lbs separate from the 1,000lbs's. If you want to keep it so all ordinance is salvoed together that's fine, would just like to plan accordingly.

3.) A box on the map that starts at the target point and encompasses the salvo spread. That way you could see what the delay setting would look like.

4.) A New strafing segment for use with aircraft like the A-20, B-25H and so forth. The ability for the aircraft to attack all buildings within say, 5,000 yards of the target point

5.) The ability to select the aircraft skin on the flight properties page. I think a drop down list of only the approved skins would be the best way to do it.

Thanks HTC

These are on the To-Do list (with the exception of #3). However, please keep in mind the number of programs we're maintaining: AH2, Terrain Editor, Object Editor, Film Viewer, Skin Viewer, CT, and various in-house programs.  Every one of these has its own wish-list.  It's not that we won't get to it, but just keep in mind what we face here.

[Baumer]

Sudz,
I completely understand the mountain of work such a small team must face on day to day basis. It's very nice that you can even take some time just to answer all the bbs questions. So just having the acknowledgment is more than enough for me, to wait patiently until the next release.

As far as Yossarian's post, the first point happens if the bomber formation gets too spread out. If for example you have the segment speed set too high (B-17's at 250mph). I know this happened with 0.80 not sure if it happens with 0.80 patch 1

On to points 4 and 5, while I agree that it needs to behave like real life, a pilot would be able to loiter over a given area to look for targets of opportunity. If we need to map a specific course than that's what we'll do but, it would be nice to give it a little more freedom for the attack segment.

This leads me to yet another request (please don't hit me too hard). Could the speed and climb charts be done in "Indicated Air Speed" as well?

Baumer

[Yossarian]

Sudz, thanks for replying so quickly.

What I meant in the last bullet point is that it's difficult to know when the last plane in your flight will pass a certain point whilst taxiing, lets say the threshold of the runway.  If there were a feature to tell you how long it will take from the time when the first plane rolls from the spawn point to when the last one crosses the runway's threshold, that would make it a lot easier (IMO) to create a 'nicer', consistent line of aircraft taxiing to the runway.  So far, I've had to use trial and error, which is feasible, but very time consuming.

Anyway, you've cleared up a lot of points for me! Thanks 

<S>

Yossarian

[BATTLEMASTER]

I would like to see the player be able to act as a gunner on multi-position planes, where the AI pilots the plane.