What a cool, dirt simple feature..

[Dragon Tamer]

WARNING! Do not try to use this in an NOE mission. I tried to use it in my 47 to hold formation with the lancs and was turned into a submersible. If the lancs were going faster it may have worked. They were just too slow and my plane was constantly dropping its nose when i engaged the auto pilot.

[moot]

<S>  Mbailey, BJ, hey guys

[bozon]

I was wondering how long it will take till we see large auto-formations of bombers. While it is a nice convenience for fighters, it lowered the skill requirements of buff pilots even lower then they were toned down already. 4 bomber players in formation have turned into 1 pilot, 12 drones and 3 gunners.

So what has a wingman bomber left to do on a strat run?
Formation flying? No.
Bombsight calibration? No - not even the super easy method we have now. Release on leader command.
Gunnery? meh.. if you miss with the 12*0.5s from your three drones, one of the other wingmen flying effortlessly 10 feet off your wing with their own 12*0.5s will get it.

There is absolutely no reason to get a gunner now. Previously if two players wanted to join forces they could either double the number of bombers at the cost of high workload, or take one formation and one joins as a gunner. Now they can take two formation and fly as pilot+gunner at the same time.

Just to make this clear, this feature does not radically change the game. It just takes even less skill to be a bomber "pilot" (i.e. a drone owner in tow) than it ever did. I would have recommended to enable this feature for bombers only if no drones were selected - but no one will hear of it anyway.

[muzik]

it lowered the skill requirements of buff pilots even lower then they were toned down already.

Riiiiight,  because we should forget that one guy has to do the job of 10 RL guys and that, in AH, buffs are easy meat at any alt under 25k.

Just to make this clear, this feature does not radically change the game. It just takes even less skill to be a bomber "pilot" (i.e. a drone owner in tow) than it ever did. I would have recommended to enable this feature for bombers only if no drones were selected - but no one will hear of it anyway.

You're probably right, no one will hear of it now because from what I hear, bombing and flying formation has actually become a little more realistic and fun.

Pros:

-true to life
-a better experience for people wanting historic feel
-a better, more challenging experience for attacking fighters.
-tougher targets for fighters
-a great tool for new players



This feature eliminated the arbitrary task overload that masqueraded as "pilot challenge."  So maybe now REAL challenges can be written into the game like for example "real strategic conflicts"

It offers some level of success and survivability for new players who have no hope of getting good at flying fighters for years. It is win/win no matter how you look at it.

[bozon]

Riiiiight,  because we should forget that one guy has to do the job of 10 RL guys and that, in AH, buffs are easy meat at any alt under 25k.

Lets see:
- co pilot: talk to yourself?
- radio operator: talk smack on ch200 while gunning and bombing?
- navigator: need help clicking on "Esc" to raise the clipboard?
- bombardier: "just gotta hold this Y key for 3 more seconds and I am done for the day!"
- 5 gunners: "guys! connect to my targeting network computer to slave your guns to mine! oh yes, you 10 gunners in the other 2 drones too!"
- pilot: "Take off successful, auto formation engaged. Wake me up when back on final approach"

= 10 guys.

Sorry, you were right.

[bj229r]

One of the coolest things I've ever been involved in during my 13-odd years in AH: OddCaf and APDrone organized a mission of like 20 sets of Bostons---got everyone's ducks all nice and lined up.....in ONE pass, must have put a bomb in every square foot of a medium base...EVERY single destroyable object was erased (in ONE pass) from existence under a pile of brownish holes  . I can envision formations of B29's (40 500 pounders PER plane) keyed to one guy via that command doing similar

[Schen]

I have yet to try those feature in bombers. I use it when afk or to have a smoke on fighter sweeps.  But please elaborate on bombing? Are you saying iy automatically calibtares based on lead bomber?

[bj229r]

That's how it was done in ww2.....there was prolly only one guy in every group who could find the ocean starting at the beach parking lot. They just went same speed and heading, dropped at the same time as the leader. I'm hoping to give this concept a whirl tonite (assuming it's already in place?) Before I have to leave again for another week

[Fish42]

Its alot of fun got to say!

[bj229r]

VERY cool (A thought entered my noggin:)

Scenario A: 7-8 sets of bombers/fighters '.wingman' the lead guy......---meaning, they will all be within 1000 yards of him?

Scenario B: Player 1 is A flight leader, 5 guys '.wingman' HIM....ONE of THOSE guys is B flight leader...and 5 MORE guys '.wingman' HIM....could you overlap them that way, to have the formation spread out further, yet still ultimately be controlled by Player 1?

[muzik]

Lets see:

- co pilot: talk to yourself?  

What does this have to do with anything?

- radio operator: talk smack on ch200 while gunning and bombing?  

another pointless comment?

- navigator: need help clicking on "Esc" to raise the clipboard?  

So you're saying the game is overly simplified. debatable.

- bombardier: "just gotta hold this Y key for 3 more seconds and I am done for the day!"  

And again, neither one of these comments has anything to do with formation flying, just bombing in general. You can pile all the complaints you want to on top of this ONE feature, it's not going to make your argument any more valid.

- 5 gunners: "guys! connect to my targeting network computer to slave your guns to mine! oh yes, you 10 gunners in the other 2 drones too!"  

Yea, I think you're on to something. Let's make the game more challenging with only ONE GUNNER with ONE GUN to protect the formation. That would be SOOOOOOO realistic and historically accurate.  

- pilot: "Take off successful, auto formation engaged. Wake me up when back on final approach"  

Should we make players do manual take off and formation for each bomber? That would be more challenging.


Here let me remind you of the ones you don't understand or won't admit to because you want to win an argument.

-Trying to line up on target and drop your bombs while defending/gunning against fighters.

-Flying the plane, avoiding mountains, navigating, etc. etc. while defending/gunning.

-helping new players with a steep learning curve.

-Increasing survivability for buffs.

And more.

You don't seem to have any good argument against this. How does this negatively affect your game or anyone else's?

Sorry, you were right.

Yes I was.

[Volron]

I have yet to try those feature in bombers. I use it when afk or to have a smoke on fighter sweeps.  But please elaborate on bombing? Are you saying iy automatically calibtares based on lead bomber?

No.  If you want to calibrate, you'll still have to do it yourself.  Otherwise it falls on formation and the lead bombardier to make accurate drops.  If your formation is crap and/or lead is dropping for his own gain, then the results will be crap.



Why people are complaining about gunning eludes me though.  You'd think that I'm gunning for EVERYONE in the formation.  You can't drop from the gunner chair, which I whole heartily agree with.  You have to jump to the pilot seat or bombardier seat to drop your ords.  You will have to STAY there until ords are gone (if you salvo'ed them) or until you've pickled them all off yourself BEFORE jumping back into a gunner chair.  So there is still a point (unless you can net a gunner during drop) where you are just nice and straight set of target drones for attacking fighters.  I had made a wish on this; http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,350909.0.html ;  but seem to have taking a bit of flak on the issue.

I could do formation from the gunner seat, readjusting when necessary (which hardly happened with good lead).  If lead knew what he was doing when starting bomb run, I could just stay put even during bomb drop, so no calibration either.  It really isn't detracting anything, and hasn't affected what I do when I'm not lead.  If anything, it's slowing the bombers down so they can maintain formation.  One of the common complaints I kept seeing here is that bombers were flying too fast.  With the wingman mode, you HAVE to slow it down or you disrupt and lose your formation.  So it's easier for fighters to come on up for some fun.

As for takeoff and using the command, nope.  One thing you can't really do is that.  Your plane rocks it's wings when on climb out, which WILL cause you to fall behind.  Lead slowing down only allows your rocking plane to keep up but use up more fuel as the autopilot will have to add power to compensate for the rocking.  So yeah, if you want to do it properly, you'll have to fly your plane to target alt.  Only AFTER target alt is reached and lead drops throttle would using the command really come to play.  So no sleeping on climb out.

The mode doesn't prevent gunner's from joining either, and if anything, will remain the same as before in this case.  Before you'd still adjust to lead while in guns all the while having a gunner yourself helping keep an eye out.  Hmmm...   Using with the wingman mode.... Gave me an idea!

VERY cool (A thought entered my noggin:)

Scenario A: 7-8 sets of bombers/fighters '.wingman' the lead guy......---meaning, they will all be within 1000 yards of him?

Scenario B: Player 1 is A flight leader, 5 guys '.wingman' HIM....ONE of THOSE guys is B flight leader...and 5 MORE guys '.wingman' HIM....could you overlap them that way, to have the formation spread out further, yet still ultimately be controlled by Player 1?

Yes.  Must stay within 1000 of "wingman" to maintain formation.  I do not know if your B scenario will work.  I don't see why it wouldn't though and will be worth a shot.

[Arlo]

Muzik ... you were wish listing for 24 plane formations with one player.

This is better.

Isn't it?

 

[Letalis]

Why did no one think of that one 10 years ago?  

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,293052.0.html

I actually had the formation command wish in a couple threads (one of which was a request fro the 38 droop snoot to enable fighter bombing formations )

The vast majority of people thought it was a bad idea... 1 out of 15 people who expressed a clear opinion during the thread above.  (Hey ya'll! )

I'm glad you like it, I know I do

[steely07]

Got a chance to try this in FSO yesterday, it might just be me, but after turning it on, the joystick, (inside the cockpit, not my physical one) started vibrating, after a min or so, the airframe started an oscillation that was quite nasty, turned it off straight away.

The person i'd set as wingman was in the same aircraft and on autoclimb.

I must check my calibration and deadzone, but I never have spiking issues in normal play (stick is a Warthog), has anyone else seen this?