Ultra realism for new Mission Arena?

[muckmaw]

Originally posted by popeye
So, I guess there'd be no inflight radar, auto takeoff, auto trim, auto fuel tank selector, autopilot, auto retracting flaps, auto prop feathering, auto engine temp monitor, ammo counters, runway spawns, or "snap" views?

Think anyone would play?

I would. That's 1 person.


Inflight radar could be limited as it simulates ground controllers and watch stations vectoring A/C to their target. When flying an attack mission in enemy airspace, there should be no Inflight Radar. When inflight, you would get radar updates in only the sectors you are near, simulating a tactical ground control radio transmission..

Auto- takeoff? No problem...never use it.
Auto Trim? Same deal
Fuel tank selection? No problem. Pay attantion to your gauge...thats why it's there.

As for the rest of the stuff...sure, pull it out. We don't need it.

The only 2 points I would take issue with is Autopilot and Snapview.

If I'm not mistaken, did'nt some A/C in WWII have autopilot?
Snap views? So make it so your view scrolls as you change yor view.

I have no problem with any of these concessions.

[Swoop]

Originally posted by popeye
So, I guess there'd be no inflight radar, auto takeoff, auto trim, auto fuel tank selector, autopilot, auto retracting flaps, auto prop feathering, auto engine temp monitor, ammo counters, runway spawns, or "snap" views?

In flight dar is a concession we have to put up with cos we dont have anyone willing to play ground control for an 8 hour shift.

Auto take off, trim, fuel selection, autopilot, snap views.......none of these have any effect on how someone flies whatsoever.  Only newbies use auto takeoff, combat trim is not exactly the most perfect trimming system and manual trimming is often more accurate, auto fuel selection just saves us hitting SHIFT F every so often (hardly a big issue), autopilot simply means we can step away from the PC for calls of nature (again, hardly a big issue), snap views (well actually I never use em, always used pan view) are again a concession cos we dont have 360 degree monitors yet.

Auto retracting flaps, yup get rid of it....lets have flap damage for numpties who leave em down too long (and gear).
Auto prop feathering, again get rid of it, we're all quite capable of feathering manually.  
Auto engine temp monitor, READ MY ORIGINAL POST.  
Ammo counters, well I'd give em up on planes that didnt have em.
Runway spawns, READ MUCKMAWs POST.

Anyway, none of the above is particularly important......I still feel the engine overheating issue would be the most gameplay impacting change.

[Mitsu]

Engine overheat. - Yep.
Random failure? huh? that's just annoying.
Gun jams - no, 99% of gamers of AH won't like it.
Fog. - dunno. but more dynamic weather would be nice.

[Puck]

I'm all for it.  

I asked HT at the con if there was going to be a 50% chance of having the Me163 just up and explode, and he commented that he "HATES that stuff", so I suspect we're not going to get failures modeled.

Still, it'd be fun.  Guns tended to jam if you yank and bank them too much, engines would overheat; all kinds of bad things.  By modeling this (and ground control) it would be more like flying.

Ground control would be tough...what if two people spawned in the hanger at the same time?  We'd almost need no collisions around controlled airspace.

[popeye]

"Anyway, none of the above is particularly important......I still feel the engine overheating issue would be the most gameplay impacting change."

I guess that's what makes it "ultra" realism?  

[HFMudd]

Maybe HTC could add a chance of under carriage damage, where the damage amount is proportional to speed, when one crosses over a bomb crater.

This next bit will sound silly but I'm serious.  What I think would be neat if this were added would be to also add a bulldozer to the vehicle selection.  Then, so long as a dozer is in contact with  a crater, the craters repair time is sped up.  Award a vehicle perk per crater repaired and a whole new way to earn perkies for that Tiger opens up.

As to MG jams, can't say as I am much in favor of attempting to add a random chance based on historical numbers.  The reason is simple, I suspect that there is very little in the way of hard numbers to reference on frequency of problems.

I am however in favor of adding gun overheating to the game.

Last random thought on the subject, if mechanical breakdowns were to be implemented in the game, how would people feel about being able to spend perk points to reduce the chance?  This would represent the WWIish notion of better pilots getting to have personal mechanics.

[popeye]

Bulldozers for craters....never thought of that.  Interesting idea.  First sim to include the Seabees.

[fffreeze220]

Originally posted by Oedipus
And with the large influx from AW I don't expect HiTech or Pyro will introduce anything that would upset those subscribers.

  Good luck just the same

Oed

yo Oedipopsicle u wanna piss us of eh ?

[SirLoin]

Engine overheat was one of the most immersive features of EAW...I miss it.

Same with auto-retract flaps and non ammo counters.

Stalls and spins were more challenging too.

Friendly collisions once your off the runway would be great too.

[muckmaw]

Bulldozers....hmmm. Very intriguing. I think we'd be asking for alot here, but if they wanted to do it, I would be for it.

Would the runway be closed while the Seabees were at work?

As for my friendly A/C collision idea, Collisions would be OFF inside the hangar, or maybe even the Hangar, and 100 feet in all directions around it. This way, you could spawn 20 planes inside the hangar at once, and they would have ample space to seperate themselves as they taxied out.  ONce on the taxiway, you need to maintain spacing or risk damaging your plane. I would also make it so that if you hit another friendly plane, only your plane takes damage. (IE Killshooter for collisions. You know there will be at least one idiot running around in a tank crashing into planes on purpose.)

[HFMudd]

I would also make it so that if you hit another friendly plane, only your plane takes damage.

How would you deterine who hit who?  Was at fault, the guy on final or the guy that turned onto the active?

I've also had conversations with fellows of who have been near me chasing the same con and, when planes are very close, it is not obvious who is ahead of who due to lag.  

I'm not sure that unless the aircraft positions are "real time" friendly collisions won't cause more pain than immersion.

[LePaul]

Im still hoping for crater damage.  Its frustrating to see planes and GV rll through a 4000 pound bomb crater and no damage for drving into what would an olympic sized swimming pool

These airplanes rolled from grass for a reason...cratered fields.

Just thinking out loud...just like to see reasonable ground hazzards.  Twigs kill tanks, but a big hole in the earth doesnt.  Hmmm

[muckmaw]

Originally posted by HFMudd
How would you deterine who hit who?  Was at fault, the guy on final or the guy that turned onto the active?

I've also had conversations with fellows of who have been near me chasing the same con and, when planes are very close, it is not obvious who is ahead of who due to lag.  

I'm not sure that unless the aircraft positions are "real time" friendly collisions won't cause more pain than immersion.

Well, my take would be similar to that of an auto accident. If plane A's nose hits the front 50% of plane B, I would say Plane B is at fault as PLane A did not have time to avoid the collision. If plane A hit the back 50% of plane B, plane A is at fault, as he had time to react and avoid. If the planes have a head on....well that's tricky. Any suggestions?

No matter how it's modeled, there are going to be situations where the person who caused the accident will cleared and the hapless victim will be blamed for it. The objective is to minimize these situations.

As for A/C lag, I would guess we would just have to be careful to maintain plenty of spacing on the Taxi ways.

We shoudl definitley try having friendly collisions on while airborne, to start. If this tests well, we move the bar up.

[phaetn]

There is no "who is ahead of whom."  There is only your FE.  That sounds like some sort of mantra -- picture Obi Wan saying it: “Luke, there is only your FE.”

I could get into an Platonic discussion of perception: "seemings" versus actuality, but I'll avoid it.  Suffice it to say that what you see if your own reality, and what the other bloke sees is his.  The "actuality" is this sort of ethereal force that both rely on for their own rendering of it, but which neither of which can completely grasp in its entirety.  Working in your own reality is enough to get by.

I'd actually like to see active runways, where there has to be some basic kind of discipline in taking off and landing.  It's easily done if the players want it.   Implementing it via the killshooter method would stop the griefers.   It would stop direct landings from any quarter that are highly unrealistic, and create a need for a self-regulated circuit system to add that much more nail-biting tension to take-offs and landings that are otherwise way too humdrum.  Ever notice how much more panicked you are during a take-off roll when you're in a scenario that only has one life to use, and how you're praying not to screw up the flare on touchdown?    If you see a guy acting crazy down there, you don’t land, just like you wouldn’t in real life.  You don’t need a control tower if everyone basically appreciates the circuit.  You can also do things like create parallel runways.  Honestly, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve had a plane fly “through” me in the air during combat; while it happens a lot more on the runway, it’s still not that much, and nothing destroys my sense of immersion more than landing or taking off through another plane.

Even spawning on top of one another could be addressed by creating multiple spawn points that can only be used once they're cleared (and a player booted back to the tower if they don't taxi off it within 3 seconds or something).

It's all about immersion, which is the reason we play these games.  We don’t actually think we’re flying, but it sure is fun to get a glimpse of what we think it must feel like.  

This sort of stuff wouldn't be appropriate in the MA, but would create a very vocal group of supporters in other arenas that would generate a lot of positive word of mouth for AH.  I've always felt the trick is to make something realistic from the start, and then "turn off" parts to make it more accessible to other consumers, rather than starting off with a "dumbed down" version.  I know there's a real cost to that in development time, though.

If you can get the hardcore grognards singing a product's praises, you can then easily tailor it to suit different people's wants in terms of realism all the way from physics, to icons, to historical match ups.  Different arenas, after all, are about different player desires.

Cheers,
phaetn

[ccvi]

Most of all, disable AWACS/GPS (map) and the HUD (icons).

Add a G-forces HUD though (we're not able to feel them, so we should be able to see them without looking at a gauge somewhere down in the cockpit).