I posted this in the Custom Sounds and Skins forum and at least one person liked it, so I figure I'd post it here and see what you guys think.
Every player should be able to download and use the 15 skins per plane that they want. That way, they are able to see everyone else who uses that skin, and the skins they don't have downloaded will be seen as the default skin. This eliminates a need for a skin rotation and will allow COs to inform their squaddies what skins to download, etc. I think of it as a skin "bank." Every skin that is made, it goes to the "Download" page, then the idividual chooses their skins. The only change there would need to be, I think, is the naming of the skins (instead of P38G_1 it would need to be the FG/FS and the "name" of the aircraft [i.e. "Corky Jr.]). This would also enable skinners to skin more skins for the same aircraft and add them to the "bank." (Lord knows there's only 100 requests for P-51 skins, etc...)
Opinions?
#S#
Banshee7
The problem is frame rate. In order to see an enemy skin, the game loads the skins in the skin file into Cache when you go on-line. That way when you come across an enemy plane with that skin, there is less/no delay ingnerating it. Because of that, downloading skins is drag on your computers resources and can drop frame rates. If this weren;t the case, all skins would just be included in the game with the original download and included in any patches or updates. This would be ideal because everyone would have everyskin, so anyone you picked would be visible by anyone else, all the time. But since many players are hardware limited, all of those skins are optional so they can choose how to best distribute their machine's limitted resources.
Your idea sets a minimum standard set of 15 per plane per person. so it creates a higher probability of commonization across the planes set/players, but requires times higher skin resources than the default setting. And 15 per plane is pretty close to all the skins anyway isn't it?
Unless I'm missing something.
