Wotan, what makes you think that with a GPS map you can find the enemy as a fighter? I've never ever seen a map that had enemy aircraft locations printed on in.
What are you talking about?
In rl even the lw had ground controllers vector them to incoming bomber raids. In BoB the raf were vectored to the incoming lw bombers. To get an accurrate vector the ground controllers needed to know where their planes were. They also had systems by which they could navigate by. Do you doudt this or do I need to fill the thread with such info .to prove it to you?
In these games its would no fun stumbling about trying to find the enemy. If you have 40 min missions that run every 60 min the arena would be a complete bore "hoping" to contact the enemy.
Any type of "vector" system that is incoporated into the game starts with the presumption that your position is known. Whether a system message gives you a vector to the next waypoint or home or to the enemy. Whether you click on a base like popeye said or like esme said in her first post where she suggested .location. In fact its makes no difference if your position is known via the clipboard or system message.
Contrary to what you think neither the bomber pilots nor fighter pilots were completely blind as to where they were. Or to where the enemy was. Do you think a b17 raid could fly across france into Germany unseen and their position unknown to the interceptors?
If you are 3 miles off (or flying to fast, or to slow) of your waypoint after takeoff and further deviate after each way point then you could entirely miss a raid. Finding a ground target in a bomber is much easier because its location never changes.
Now imagine you are on a fighter mission to intercept bombers. The bombers are off their waypoints and off target, so are the intercepting fighters. That would be completely boring.
Esme is a bomber pilot, she enjoys everything from plotting a route to navigating there and back. All fine and good. But this is game that has to be sufficiently fun to keep folks interest.
The best way I can get you understand this is if you've flown any coops in IL-2. In these coops if each side doesnt fly on the way points then the mission most likely ends up being a complete waste of time.
In rl they may not have had a neo clipboard but they had a whole host of ground support and intel that isnt present in the game currently.
No matter what, no icons , no radar, no gps if folks cant find some action the arena will be empty.
I dont wish for inflight radar, or an inflight gps map but these would need to be suplemented by system messages. But I have no idea how much work that would be. Given the "scale" of AH2 I certainly wouldnt want ht to sacrifice new planes or anything else thats more important to make it happen. Whether your position is given by the system or visually shown on the clipboard its still the same thing.
Ideally I would like a
.vnext (for next waypoint)
.vtarget (vector to target)
.vhome (vector to home base)
Plus added system messages that say
"large enemy formation located in sector X X X"
this report could be made at a set time like 5 min etc....
Then you could do away with the clipboard gps markers and inflight radar.
