Reconnaissance - a new type of sortie?

[Duedel]

Hey everbody,

i was thinking about reconnaissance. It's not a big issue today and i was asking me if it would be cool to make it to a big issue i.e. make it the 5th group of sortie (Fighter, Attacker, Bomber Vehicle, Recon).  There were so many interesting planes for recon but the big problem I have is I really don't know how it could be realized. One requirement for recon mission is for instance that there are hidden objects (factories, CV, radar stations, depots?, towns??, air fields??? ...) that could be investigated. Today we only have the CV. Furtheron recon mission would only make sense if you can make pictures of the objects and share them with your country mates.

Example: at the beginning of the war all factories are hidden (i.e. not visible at the map) - this means they have to be randomnly distributed all over the field. So you start a recon sortie flying deep and high into enemy territory searching for the factories. If you see one you can make photos of it and if you land this sortie the detected factories will be displayed at the map (don't forget we get bigger maps). If you get killed the only thing you can do is tell the coordinates of the factory (like any other could too who detects the position).

This system could be widened up to even air fields and all objects. So in the terrain editor you don't put object at distinct points but rather define a region to be display (taking hills and rivers into account).  This would surely be exiting particullary at the beginning of the war and bring interesting new featueres but this would also involve fundamental changes in the terrain editor and AH itself.

Do you find this interesting or do you think i should make a date with my psychiatrist?

[Staga]

"Fog of War" could be fun and Ar-234 could see more usage as a recon plane. I still remember taking off with P-38 with full load of fuel for searching where Bishes did hide our CV.
Heh even with droptanks I had to shut down one engine to save fuel for flight back to base

[Sikboy]

I spent a weekend experimenting with this, only I was looking for incoming raids. I was hoping to come up with the solution to the problem of massed attacks. Essentially I felt that an organized defense required detailed information about the attack. You would need Early Warning, Position and heading, alt and speed and finally, compasition.

I would climb to super monkey alt in a pony (and believe me MANY people were calling me out lol) Then I would fly a patrol line parallel to the front, but deep over enemy terrirory. The problem I had was that no-one wanted to play. During my time up and on station, I was able to intercept and track a couple of hi alt buff attacks, but nothing massed. Plus, I didn't have anyone on ready 5 waiting to sorty against the raid (this was just a proof of concept flight). It's probably stupid and boring for most people, but I was getting a kick out of sitting behind those buffs, out of gun range, and using the x,x,x grid tracking to report thier position and course on my squad freq. The missions were by and large a failure though, becuase I was unable to find any massed attacks. I need to pay more attention to the strat situation I think, and then you can predict to a certain degree the timing of a new raid. Then you have to get on station before they get to altitude. Then you need to get your people in the air for an intercept. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and if they do, then you just wasted a half an hour doing nothign.

I know that this isn't exactly what you were talking about, but it was along the same lines (finding a new mission to fly).

-Sikboy

[Swoop]

Well.......



you could disable the strat view on the clipboard, have recon missions to take a pic of a field and submit it as the most recent pic of the target which would only be available on the clipboard.  Then pilots can draw they're own conclusions from the pic rather than *know* that (for example) fuel is at 25% at A1.  You could also stipulate that if the recon bird doesnt make it back to base then neither does the pic.


Pros:

New mission type, more toys to play with.
Excuse to add a pink Spitfire.
Adds realism.

Cons.

Current resupply system invalidates pretty much all intel gained cos by the time you're back to base it's out of date.
New planes needed.
Probable lack of pilots (in the long run) willing to fly a mission with no combat involved.

[LePaul]

Originally posted by Staga
"Fog of War" could be fun and Ar-234 could see more usage as a recon plane. I still remember taking off with P-38 with full load of fuel for searching where Bishes did hide our CV.
Heh even with droptanks I had to shut down one engine to save fuel for flight back to base

I completely agree

Rather than the AWACS like radar, require that a recon bird be in that area to have, say, 50-mile radius radar/dot dar visibility on contacts.

The Ar234 is exceptional for a role like this, stripped of bombs and made a big flying gas tank.

The "fog of war" analogy is exactly what I am thinking of.  Good examples of the "visibilty" are "Dune", "Warcarft II", "Command & Conquer" etc etc

Question, Staga:  Would you give any perks for guys who do the rather boring taks of recon?  And how?  Duration of flight?  Maybe add a "camera" or something to grab intelligence and reward for successful lading, etc?

Many great planes (like the Ar234, P-38 and others) pulled recon duties.  Ta-152 and its big service ceiling would work well too.  I like this idea a lot.

HTC?

[SKurj]

Have several locations on each side where factories and the like can be located.
When one is destroyed, it actually starts rebuilding at another undisclosed location which will NOT show up on the map until a reconn plane takes a pic of the new factory and lands..


SKurj

[DmdNexus]

Just like CV's can move around.

It would be neat if HQ (and possibly other country resources) could be moved by players. Then Recon could really have a role in the game.

Add a new cargo unit (Seabees and bulldozers - requires several C47s or LVTs) and we could make temporary air fields and vechile fields.  Limit the number of these in existance, and they go poof if they are not resupplied with in a certain amount of time.

DmdNexus

[Weave]

How about at reset, only those enemy bases close to the front lines are visable on the clipboard map.

When someone selects a recon mission, and overflys the unkown area, and safely rtb's, The overflown area becomes visable. Give the pilot 10 perk points for having successfully completed the mission.

[SKurj]

good idea weave

lets make it a specific aircraft and a max altitude it must overfly the field, and take a 'pic'

say a spit with just 2 303's or something +)


SKurj

[Duedel]

Originally posted by Weave
How about at reset, only those enemy bases close to the front lines are visable on the clipboard map.

Yep Weave was my thought too but this involves that the bases are randomly distributed over the whole map. So map designers have to specify huge areas with distinct points where bases could be located. I think even if this recon-system is interesting
the amount of time to implement this too huge.

[Hortlund]

How about recon flights getting a "bombsight". When you fly over a target, you switch weapon to "camera" and instead of dropping bombs, you take a picture.

When you land, everything you have taken a picture of will be visible on the map for everyone to see. (i e you will see the facotry icon on the map, I doubt it would be possible to have the actual pictures show up on th eclipboard)

Heck, Id be one of those recon pilots. Would be cool to cruise around at 30k looking down through the lense, looking for stuff.

[edit: Im not sure how realistic it would be to hope for that though. I bet there are lots of 3D modelling issues involved here when it comes to a F6-view from a fighter. But how about if we add the "camera weapon" to some ac that already has bombsights modelled. Would be cool to do recon runs in Ju88s]

[edit again: Perks (bomber perks) would be awarded on some cunning formula calculating the value of the target and the distance to the nearest field. It would require a safe landing (since thats the only way to get the targets to appear on the clipboard map)]

[Kweassa]

Very original idea, Duedel!

 I think it could be done this way.

 A low alt recon mission within certain radius of enemy activity would reveal the following: a) current location of resupply trucks/trains, b) current stat info on a certain field, c) current position of GV column d) current position of CV Task Force.

 For instance, the location of enemy CV would be marked when the recon passes by within certain range.. if the recon succeeds in getting real close, it would reveal the country of the hostile CV group, current heading, estimated heading if it continues that way for 5, 10, 15 minutes, after 15 minutes the info disappears.

 The same with reconnoisance on an airfield. No strat info is available, once recon planes are within visual range of the field, it would just give out hangars up/down status, and as the recon plane gets closer, the strat info would be shown: fuel, ordinance, hangars, estimated time to reup... for next 15 minutes. After 15 minutes strat info is N/A.

 In the case of resupply trucks/trains, when within visual range of resupply trucks/trains, current location would be marked on the map, and the location data on resupply vehicles would continue to be updated for next 15 minutes.

 The most interesting part recon would shine out is if the AI columns of GVs following player vehicle lead is introduced, along with a road-spawn system! It'd be Recon vs Camouflage. Road systems where GVs may spawn and follow would be needed, and natural obstacles that may cover up GV movements would really make things interesting. If GVs are stopped for certain amount of time, hidden inside forest stuff, the icons would disappear and recon would have to get within really close range to spot them out(like, really low alt recon, getting within D500 of GVs). If GVs are traveling on the roads and spotted by recon, the info would be shown on clipboard map, and would work in the same way as truck/train info, except the update time of GV locations would be only up to 5 minutes.

[LePaul]

I love it

Perhaps have the Recon's birds "pictures" show up in that country's clipboard?

Hmmm, I like this  

[qts]

This is an interesting idea. Scoring is critical, of course. The Mossie and the Spit are the ideal planes for this function, as is the Arado as a Perk if it's broken out into a seperate category.

[Duedel]

thx for response. So i guess i dont have to get a date with my psychiatrist

Any other ideas regarding this topic?