More eras of planes

[Karnak]

After all, I don't know of any jet fighter simulator MMO, but I can name FOUR World War-2 flight sims you could only play online.

There are reasons for this.  Beyond Korea (and probably Korea as well) would simply be a fratricide of American hardware in an AH style game or a very lopsided game if it was done NATO vs Warsaw Pact.  In addition the modeling of modern avionics and missiles is far more time consuming.  Beyond even that is the complete lack of fun of BVR combat.

[mthrockmor]

What they need to do is simply take Janes USNavy Fighters and turn it into a game like Aces High, or add those arenas. They would have Korea, Vietnam, Egypt, Golan Heights, Bosnia-Herzgovena, Central Europe, Taiwan, Korea (circa 1990s), etc.

It would be awesome!

Boo

[Weirdguy]

There are reasons for this.  Beyond Korea (and probably Korea as well) would simply be a fratricide of American hardware in an AH style game or a very lopsided game if it was done NATO vs Warsaw Pact.  In addition the modeling of modern avionics and missiles is far more time consuming.  Beyond even that is the complete lack of fun of BVR combat.

Oh, I disagree with this.  I really do.

If you do the 50's, then I think a F-100 saber vs a Mig-17 isn't that cut and dried who is the better fighter.  Going further with the "century series" of American planes the F-102 was a poor performer even at the time.  The 104 Starfighter was a good fighter, but had no radar, and the F105 is a light bomber.  The F-106 was just an improved F-102, but again it is an Interceptor built for speed and radar guided missiles, and not at all good in a dog fight.  I should not that the F-102 doesn't even have a gun.

Match that up with Mysteres, Hawker Hunters, Saab Draken, Mirage III, MiG-17, MiG-21, and the Sukois of the time, I don't think you will see that the USAF is going to dominate.  The USN had the F-3 Demon, F-4 Skyray, F-8 Crusader, and the F-11 Tiger.

Not many of these plane I would consider superior out of hand.  I actually don't know which planes would be the "best" planes of that era, but I want to find out.

As for the "lack of fun in nothing but BVR combat" I would point out that I don't think that is the case at all.  I've played Strike Fighters and Wings over Vietnam quite a bit, and you spend a LOT of time in dogfighting mode at close range.  Given that poor performance of missiles of the day, the most common missile kill is with a heat seeker, and they only work if you are behind the other guy.

[Karnak]

That fratricide isn't just based on the American stuff being better, it is mostly based on the "I don't want to fly Commie birds!" or "If its Red its Dead!" attitude of most American players.  You even seen that response to request here for WWII Soviet aircraft.  Another example, the P-51D in AH is good, but not nearly as good as its usage indicates.  British stuff gets a bit of a pass because they were such close allies and it is politically correct to like German stuff for WWII, but Soviet and Japanese stuff gets little respect or even active disrespect, Italian is a non-factor.

[B-17]

That fratricide isn't just based on the American stuff being better, it is mostly based on the "I don't want to fly Commie birds!" or "If its Red its Dead!" attitude of most American players.  You even seen that response to request here for WWII Soviet aircraft.  Another example, the P-51D in AH is good, but not nearly as good as its usage indicates.  British stuff gets a bit of a pass because they were such close allies and it is politically correct to like German stuff for WWII, but Soviet and Japanese stuff gets little respect or even active disrespect, Italian is a non-factor.

I'm Canadian, and that's true.

[Arlo]

Ya'll realize you are claiming 'American disrespect' but the specifics you are projecting such upon are the decision making process of Hitech and his company as well as the wishlist of the AHII community, overall, dontcha? While I'm sympathetic, regarding difficiencies of one kind or another in any national planeset represented in the game, I'm not sure this is a productive path toward addressing such.

[Weirdguy]

I disagree about nationality dominating the choice of planes the players use.  Anybody remember the early days of Aces High when there was only the B-26 and a few fighters?  It was nothing but N1K1 and a few die hards who flew the other planes.  Yes, the most popular plane for a long time was Japanese.  Even today I think you see a lot more Lavochkin planes then I ever expected to see in the game, but they're there for a reason.  The La-5 and La-7 are really good dogfighters down at low altitudes.

In a jet game with heat seekers I wouldn't mind at all being a MiG pilot or fly the Mirage.

You certainly can't say that the missiles are going to be the deciding factor, as the AA-2 is basically an exact copy of the sidewinder of the time.  This was the result of a Taiwan vs China dogfight where a sidewinder didn't detonate, and a Chinese MiG landed with it stuck in the fuselage.  The Russians took it apart and copied it so much that they even copied the part numbers on the parts that make up the missile.  Finland had a mix of Russian and Western planes and tech, and had both AA-2 and sidewinders, and found that they could mount either or both on their Saab Drakens without any modifications.  Same electrical connectors, same mounting rails, all of it.

Alternately you could set the jet game in the 1980's, and I could probably argue that the Su-27 and Mig-29 are not inferior to the F-16 and F-15 at all.  I prefer the 1950's though, as I don't like radar missiles and there were more countries that produced competitive aircraft types (Britain, Sweden, and France to be specific).

[Butcher]

What they need to do is simply take Janes USNavy Fighters and turn it into a game like Aces High, or add those arenas. They would have Korea, Vietnam, Egypt, Golan Heights, Bosnia-Herzgovena, Central Europe, Taiwan, Korea (circa 1990s), etc.

It would be awesome!

Boo

Why not do Janes ATF GOLD instead? where you can fly a Eurofighter Typhoon against 21x Novice Mig-21s and beat them 1vs21.

[Arlo]

I disagree about nationality dominating the choice of planes the players use.  

If you're not confusing nationality dominating the choice of planes a player uses with filling gaps in national plane sets enhancing historically based events then I can almost understand your 'disagreement' - however, players will always have preferences and some base those on the persona they choose to adopt as an Aces High 'pilot.' That will always exist. In this sim-game and others like it. What I think a more realistic concern should be is one specific nationality dominating the design of the game and I don't think HTC is so lop-sided in that regard as to make such a realistic claim. As evidenced by how far the game has progressed since you remember when.

[Arlo]

system delay dupe post. Sorry.

[Brownien]

-100 for post war crap