Campaign & Waypoints

[scoobe]

I just finished the campaign last night and had a few thoughts.  

First off, I flew mostley with the Stuka, ME109, and PE-2.  Missions, were fun for the most part. Some did get a little repetative and need some variation.  Dusk and dawn missiions were awesome!  I thought the ai was very good.

 

I thought back to my early days of combat sims (Gunship 2000 and other Microprose/Janes games from the early-mid 90's). I remember being able to set my own waypoints using a point and click with the mouse. Not only for my own flight, but for the other aircraft in the flight. It was up to the player to determine the best/safest path to the target.  This gave the game a kind of stategy/chess like element that gave the player the feeling that he/she was in control. If things went bad, you could try again with a different approach. It was very immersing.

 

I dont mind a random mission generating system, It works fine for me. It doesnt have to be a truly dynamic campaign, but there needs to be a little bit more fexability and planning involved so the missions dont feel so repetitive.  As it is now, you can choose to not follow the way points and try to meet the enemy from a different angle, but if there is no chance of meeting anything outside of the pre detemined path, why bother?  

 

It would be nice to have enemy targets (both air and ground) way outside of the waypoints and then let the player determine what those waypoints are and be able to select different waypoints for friendly Ai aircraft as well. So,(for example) I could have me and my wingman fly ahead and take out flak near the target and then have 2 bombers take out the target itself and then have 1 or 2 fighter perform escort for those bombers. Maybe im dreaming, but we could do this in the 90's, it would be awesome to do it on BOS. Im not a programmer, so I have no idea how feasable this is in BOS.

 

I think this is an awesome sim and the creators should be very proud of it. It just needs a more gameplay development to pull the player in more.

 

Rob  

[Shakey60]

I wish we didn't have to fly to the exit point for the mission to succeed. While flying a ju87 mission I accomplished my goals but took a hit and started losing fuel. In RL I would have headed directly back to base with a successful mission. In this case I had to fly an almost 90 degree offset path to the "exit point" to score the XP then the same distance again to home base. I made on fumes.

 

I think the "exit point" should be your home field with the current exit point as just another way point to score a few extra points if you use it.

 

Still enjoying the campaign and more so when they fix the random ctd's at the end of missions.

[JG4_Sputnik]

Yup, a bit more flexibility in planning the flights would make me happy as well. Id love to drag and drop the waypoints around and get updated time and heading values. That would be great to break the repetitiveness and you can choose different landmarks. Planning a flight from scratch is a big part of the fun in a sim imho. Hopefully it will be added later.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Sputnik's idea is good. You could adjust the waypoints so that the poor bombers would not need to fly over heavy AAA zones and making ingress/egress points a straight line, if possible.

[Reflected]

I totally agree!

 

There's already some random flights and ground targets which adds a lot to the immersion. The biggest problem, as you say is the pre-scripted feeling, because:

 

- Main target will always appear exactly at the "Action point"

-You have to reach the exit point to proceed.

 

A nice solution would be to:

 

- Determine only the mission path, but no "action point" - then, somewhere in the target area, something would happen

- Have some random trigger points along the way, even off path (for flights too)

- Do away with the exit point. The goal should be to survive the mission without getting captured. Of course if you break the plane you don't get as many points, but you see what I'm talking about.

- Assign altitudes to the waypoints in the briefing - so that if we take off and wander along the flight path we know what altitude we should fly at.

[=LD=Hethwill]

Would be cool to have this feature, at least in SP once you get command of the squad.

 

In MP it would have to work like the Arma map, with map elements shared amongst the team/squad, and this requires additional coding, but not impossible after release heh ?  

[Rheinmetall]

I would find it useful to plan a waypoint approach into a headwind so I don't have to manage target drift, in addition to the good points above.

[fjacobsen]

I would find it useful to plan a waypoint approach into a headwind so I don't have to manage target drift, in addition to the good points above.

 

I guess in real life that the missions where planned exactly like that - to minimize crosswind during the bomb run.

 

FinnJ

[Feathered_IV]

Good post Scoobe. I completely agree. Fondly remember Gunship 2000 too. I still remember how it felt to have your wingmen crash for lack of fuel on those really long missions. Knew them all by name and mourned every one.

[SYN_Speck]

 

- Assign altitudes to the waypoints in the briefing - so that if we take off and wander along the flight path we know what altitude we should fly at.

 

I noticed with the new patch that the mission briefing does have a "flight altitude." Maybe this was there before but I didn't notice it. Problem is the "flight altitude" has nothing to do with the mission. For example, flying an escort mission in a Yak, the "flight altitude" was listed at 4000m. However, the IL2s we were to escort actually flew at treetop level.

 

Hopefully in future, the mission briefing will give a flight altitude that is relevant to the mission. It should be given for intercept missions too, supposing that ground control has detected an incoming raid and has an idea of the altitude. Of course this could be inaccurate, or even completely unknown if the incoming raid was not detected and the mission is simply to patrol and watch for the enemy. Even so, presumably in reality the patrol would be ordered to patrol at a given altitude during their mission briefing.

[pilotpierre]

I noticed with the new patch that the mission briefing does have a "flight altitude." Maybe this was there before but I didn't notice it. Problem is the "flight altitude" has nothing to do with the mission. For example, flying an escort mission in a Yak, the "flight altitude" was listed at 4000m. However, the IL2s we were to escort actually flew at treetop level.

 

Hopefully in future, the mission briefing will give a flight altitude that is relevant to the mission. It should be given for intercept missions too, supposing that ground control has detected an incoming raid and has an idea of the altitude. Of course this could be inaccurate, or even completely unknown if the incoming raid was not detected and the mission is simply to patrol and watch for the enemy. Even so, presumably in reality the patrol would be ordered to patrol at a given altitude during their mission briefing.

+1

[Y-29.Silky]

I don't know if you know, but the first waypoint is optional, you won't lose points by skipping it.