Incentive to live in Flight sims?

[Vlasov]

I have been thinking about this problem since Genie AW...er...a while ago.  I really don't see how it could be done in a main arena.  Not because it can't be modelled, but because most people are just not interested.  Scenarios and regularly held special events is the way to go.  That is how I get my fix of fly to live realism.  You can't keep a main arena filled with freaks like us all the time.  But you can get a large number of freaks to show up at appointed times.

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Vlasov
416 RCAF
No10 RNAS

[popeye]

"you could only pick up a new plane at a main base and refuel/rearm, maybe repair, on the staging fields at the front line."

Similar to my idea.  Except that I would restrict only the latest model of each plane type to main fields, and provide all others at front line fields (assuming AH will implement an RPS, when the plane set is available).  Safely land your Spit IX at a forward field, and you get it refueled, rearmed, and repaired for takeoff there.  Otherwise you have to settle for a Spit V.  This wouldn't be too restrictive, but would provide a "real" reward for surviving.

(It might also spread the action out a bit, as those who wanted the latest model from a rear field, would arrive at the front lines with more altitude.)

popeye


[This message has been edited by popeye (edited 07-29-1999).]

[Gazoo]

I too want to add my 2 cents to this discussion.

There MUST be some sort of death penalty.  It is impossible to achieve air supiority with the rapid respawn.

The ideas I like are

1) fixed cost for each aircraft.  This has a lot of potential.  Offer each new account X number of airframes for a fixed cost, or a durration of 3 months or something.  Then each airframe has a fixed cost attached.  Watch people fly a lot more careful.  You could even charge a small airfield charge and people will start taking more fuel loads too.  Didn't most WWII pilots TO with fairly full fuel loads?

2) The respawing from a different field.  Although not as good as no 1 (IMHO) it does force the player to come back to the fight.  Thus allowing air supiority.  However this is only if the strat is the game is centered around airfields.  If the strat is centered away from airfields, this doesn't do very much.

3) delay after death.  Hmm, I would agree that this is the time that guys might log.  Or maybe the good guys would do 1 min worth of Radar.  Has potential.

What ever the system, I am all for it.

We want the death penalty!

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"Just Plane Nuts"
Gazoo
 http://plaza.v-wave.com/SolarStorm/index.htm

[-morc-]

Solution?  

You bail out,  you ride the chute the whole way down.  I don't know of ANY WWII pilot that enjoyed freefalling to 3000 feet defore he deployed the chute.  You bail,  you wait,  it's that simple.  

You die or refuse to bail,  you ride the plane into the ground,  no magical "poof" you're in the tower crap.  

Morc

[Toughgun]

I like most of the idea's but for a main furball arena it's just that furball after furball, have one or two of them arena's limiting the amount of player's ie after you have logged so many hours flying you can't get into the JR arena's thus forcing you to move up, We do it in stock car racing why not here.? that will keep most of the score hogs from developing,

Guns out.

[Vicious]

What about some sort of natural delay that any reasonable person would expect.  It could even be something to enhance the immersion .  

For instance, make sure to warm the engine up for about 15 seconds before rolling.  You can hop in and roar off the tarmac instantly, but the engine will be rough, or not supply full power until it's warm.  Or, if you roll at 100% too quickly the engine may seize.  

Secondly, you could have the player watch an animation of running from the tower to the hanger.  Once at the hanger a plane appears.  Make it similar to the troops in WB running to the tower.  Attacking planes could strafe the pilots before they get to their planes.  If you're shot as a runner you just get put back in the tower.  No kills should be awarded for this since being delayed by the enemy is penalty enough.

So, how's that sound?

 


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Vicious aka -vics-

[Hurc]

Here are a couple of suggestions, one a negative and the other a positive;

1) Limited A/C takeoffs at a field. Set an airfields "take-off limit" counter to 25. when 1 plane takes off, subtract 1. When 1 plane lands add 1. The counter could go above 25 but not below 0. This would be set to 0 if the field is destroyed and reset to normal when the field is rebuilt. Larger airfields would have a larger take-off limit, for example a Large Bomber Field would have 50.

Limit Types of A/C to fields. Set small runways to allow only fighter type A/C to take-off or land. This means Bombers would have to return to the larger fields to land.

This is a negative incentive in that your countries capabilities are reduced if you don't land your A/C.

2) Make Rank matter. Free flight time would be nice. Say 1 free hr per billing cycle for 1lt., 2 for Capt., 3 for Maj, 4 for Ltc., 6 for Col. and 8 for Brig. If pricing is like WBs, thats a $16 credit for maintaining a Brigadier General rank at the end of your billing cycle.

    Of course this is the positive incentive because you are going to reduce your real costs to play the game if you rise in rank.  
To rise in rank you have to get a good score which means landing your A/C kills/target hits.

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Steve "Hurc" Crane


[This message has been edited by Hurc (edited 07-29-1999).]

[Rattler]

Anyway you slice it, there is too many conflicting interests (literally hundreds) in
a Main Furball Arena.
You can't restict the PAYING furball till I die/take out as many before I die/never care to land folks in the Main Arena.Just can't do it.
Dale & Doug realized this 4 years ago from hard lessons learned by Kesmai in Air Warrior.Same applies here.
Infact Dale & Doug reinstated this again in Todays interview on DogFighter.
They also seemed to have closed the door to a Confirmed Kill style arena for Limited Resource Squad Meets.
Real strategy that yields true incentive has
also left with this desision IMSO.

Maybe some day,someone will get it right and give the us old timers a reason to dust off
the controllers again.

Rattler

[nappy]

well well.. having read what u all think
heres my 2 cent.

what about having each airfield having a
limited number of planes available at all
times (dont matter what kind of plane).
This number decreases every time a pilot
takes off from the field and increases by
a sertain X number every Y seconds/minutes and very time a pilot lands on the field.
(When/if we get strat we could modify this
to work as we see fit)

This number could initially be very high.
say like 100 for each field (higher number for large field and smaller number for small fields), but if a huge furball takes
place over a field it will eventuall reach
zero and the defenders have to take off from
another field.


well now i know alot of you guys are gonna
say "hey this is old and it wont work because.."

well.. hold your horses, the solution is simple as a country get less and less fields the # of pilots allowed to take off would
increase (using a sertain algorithm) until
the country has only 1 field left and the
number is now infinite.  

This solution is simple and should not be
difficult to implement in the start until
we get a more sophisticated sim.

the way i see it is like this:

using C code.

void main(){

int num_aircrafts_avail_at_field = xx;

while(1){

if (takeoff from field){
   num_aircrafts_avail_at_field--;
}

if((timer == set_value) | | (plane_landing)){
   num_aircrafts_avail_at_field++;
}  
}

This is of course just an example, but its simple and could be usable.


okay..thats it.. i know its and old idea,
but i think its sound and deserves a chance

nappy

[hitech]

_____________________________ ________
They also seemed to have closed the door to a Confirmed Kill style arena for Limited Resource Squad Meets.
_____________________________ ____________

Havn't closed the door at all but main arena play comes first on priority list.

Specialty events and arena configurations like your talking come later.

HiTech

[Rattler]

Dale,
Thanks for responding.
If you build the arena,they will come.
I promise  

Rattler

[fats]

Hopefully the arena will *not* be the same as WB's main arena where you capture fields and that's it. Sure there can and should be things to capture, even fields, just make sure that the jabos are *not* flying to the enemy fields non-stop.

Having jabos attack fields creates the worst air to air combat ever. It pulls the fights to the deck, most often to the point where you just vulch the enemy. Is that the kind of fights you want to have in AH?

If you must have field capture in the arena, then use some other mechanism than bombing the field flat and bringing troops in. Place fields reasonably far away from each other and then have power plants/what_ever_buildings in between that people should try to protect. Do anything to get the fights from 1km and below to something like cruising alt of 4 - 5km.


~/fats

[roblex]

The trouble with these suggestions about limiting the number of takeoffs at a certain field is that you are assuming that everyone enters the arena at the same time like in a scenario.  The reality is that someone will enter the arena and find that the suicide/furballers have used up all the aircraft at the most useful fields during the last hour. He tries to transport a plane to a forward field but as soon as he lands one of the furballers says 'thanks' and takes off  leaving our player stranded without a plane so he logs off. Finally we have 10 suicidal players on each side and no money rolling in.

Maybe if you restricted the planes on a 'per player' basis it might work but even that may cause a player to log off and that cannot be allowed to happen. Anything that delays a player from getting back into the action , be it time delays or long death animations or sending to more distant fields, may cause someone to log and that is bad for business.

I think the way to encourage people to stay alive is to appeal to their vanity. Promote/demote them up the ranks depending on their kill/death ratio (bomb damage/deaths for bombers). Use the military rank in all references to the player. If you dont reset the ratio every tour then people will gain nothing from getting a lucky streak and staying on the ground to preserve it,  unless they are giving up permenantly and if the ratio does not appear on any public rankings then there is nothing to be gained from that either. Notice that I also said DEMOTE so anybody who has attained a good rank will be very careful to keep it.

Summarising

1) Promote/Demote ranks depending on K/D ratio
2) Do not reset the ratio at all, keep it accumulating.
3) Use the rank in all messages but do not publish the ratio, do not build a top 10 table.

Roblex

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Kent, UK

[hitech]

Always rember that staying alive can NOT be at the top of the priority of scoring or game play.

The simple fact is that most people wants to get kills.
To get kills one persone has to die.
If you put living above getting kill's whats the resone to ever engage in a fight.

It's realy pretty simple you have to make sure that most of the time engaging is worth the risk of dieing or people will tend to engage only when they have a big advantage.

[nappy]

kinda disagree with ya roblex (if i under-
stood you right)

wheter or not the players log in at the same
time or over a period of time doesnt matter.
In reality people will log on over time and
if they find that the field closest to the
action has no planes available at the moment,
they can just use another field close by.
I mean, look in the MA. there is always another field within range, so that you dont
have to land at the field being vulched to
refuel or such... just vulch the vulchers and
fly back to the base behind the lines.

KISS = keep it simple stupid  

nappy