A couple game developments need to be made to make this practical. Primarily dealing with field activation, the mission editor, and scheduling.
1. Arena setting only allowing takeoff via an active mission.
2. Assigned skins for mission flights. ( not really necessary, but would add a bit to the environment )
3. Automated field activation/de-activation with mission roll/cut-off times.
4. In additon to being able to load a single mission, you could load a stack of missions.
5. CMs would be able to load missions for all sides simultaneously. ( probably a pretty hefty programming effort for this one.. but it simplifies the coordination between sides when setting mission launch times and targets. )
6. Waypoint visibility after mission launches.
Details:
1. This would carryover to snapshots also. No more need to hound people about what to fly or balancing.. just set up the mission and people join. Those that don't join mission don't fly.
2. self explanatory
3. Fields don't need to be activated by CMs. They can just go off automatically.
4. An evenings worth of missions could be preloaded.. perhaps launching every 15 minutes. You log in.. find a mission you want and either join then, or come back when the starting time is closer. Also, a CM could log in, upload a days worth of missions, then leave. No need to be around to babysit the arena. Also, the CMs could tweak the order and composition of a days missions ahead of time.
5. Just to prevent a snafu where launches get out of whack. For instance, if a stack of missions for bombers is out of order with the opposing base defense missions. Wrong targets, for instance. Being able to view all mission stacks at the same time would help keeping them in sync.
6. Minimize confusion as to which flight is going where, keep the waypoints secret until mission launches.
I think the arena would rock, myself.
OP
This is quite an idea.
An arena that automatically launches Snapshot Scenarios every hour or half hour or whatever.
Might be more do-able than you would think.
There would have to be a minimum number of participants for the mission to launch. After the min is reached there would have to be automatic side balancing.
Once you select, a slot specific MOTD could come up and only the appropriate vehicle, field and launch time would be enabled for you.
It might have to be limited to running the same mission over and over all day, I just can't imagine a different scenario every 30 minutes or so as being practical.
Look at all the elements that we already have that could be adapted to this idea.
First of all we already have a ton of these scenarios that could be adapted.
Automatic arena and ENY balancing could surely be adapted to side balancing.
Offline missions that "time out" Same principal could be used here.
Automatic enabling of only the appropriate per player vehicle, fields, launch times. Similar things are being done already.
Not to mention whatever "Combat Tour" work that was shelved, that might could be adapted.
There are some of us who are really interested in historical scenarios but can't make the events.
Something like this that ran several times a day would be awesome. It could run all the time if it was automated, especially if AI could fill unclaimed slots.
