Multiplayer - Giving your virtual life worth.

[Guest deleted@30725]

Hi Folks.

 

I was supposed to answer another topic, but this idea morphed into the following text.

 

Introduction

 

The proceeding text is a subjective memory dump of an online framework for Il2 using current elements and pulling in other ideas. The idea has been kept to the most basic of forms for use in a production environment.

 

Start Conditions

 

Each game starts with X number of planes, a selection defined by the server host.

 

Optional - Each game starts with X number of Airmen

 

Optional - Each game starts with X percentage of ammunition and fuel at each available airfield / a number of bombs / x number of rounds of ammunition.

 

Getting Shot Down

 

Shot down - If pilot lives player not counted as dead, enemy not credited with kill - Plane used availability reduced by 1

Shot down - If pilot dies player counted as dead, enemy credited with kill - Plane used availability reduced by 1

 

Belly landing outside airfield - Pilot is not dead, enemy not credited with kill. But, plane used minus 1 and crew minus the number used in the aircraft.

 

If player flies back to base, lands wheels down player is not dead, enemy is not credited with kill - Player can choose another plane. Plane availability reduced by 1. Airman number un-changed.

 

If player belly lands at airfield, player not dead, enemy not credited with kill - Player can choose another plane. Plane availability reduced by 1. Airman number un-changed.

 

Repairs and re-arming

 

Plane damage - If plane is damaged when landed at base repair timer initiated, plane unavailable for use, player who returned plane allowed to fly another plane, plane number reduced by 1 while under repair. When returned plane fixed plane available to all players. Plane number increased by 1.

 

Ammo/Fuel - If player runs out of ammo and returns to base plane count reduced by 1, player able to choose another plane of same type and their plane re-armed. Plane availability reduced by 1. This timer is a lot shorter than repair so plane number increased by 1 sooner. Re-fueling mixed into this timer for simplicity. 

 

If a player returns with remaining ammunition that is put back into the overall ammunition count.

 

Airman - Taking care of your crew

 

Airman (pilot) life - If airman damaged in combat, their health is accounted for when returning to base.

 

If Airman health = or > 75% damaged, airman is severely injured and RNG (Random number generator) if airman lives or dies. RNG counter starts. Airman numbers reduced by damaged amount till RNG timer over and Airman numbers recorded. Each airman has own timer.

If Airman health < 75% damaged, airman is injured and repair timer initiated. Airman numbers reduced by injured amount and accounted for when timer finishes. 

 

Player will be assigned another airman, but the airman pool will be affected. Airman minus (e.g. 1 for a single seat plane) until the timer expires and the airman is fixed and put back into service (for use by another player) then airman numbers plus 1.

 

Airman numbers - multi crew. For planes with more than one crew member these airman are counted individually. A 6 man he 111 will loose 6 airman if they can't rtb or are killed in a crash. Similarly if the he 111 can rtb, but two airman are dead then airman minus 2 and 1 more than 75% damaged then RNG effect could mean remaining crew = 3 or 4.

 

Airman simplicity - To keep this idea simple rather than split pilots and crew I've used the word airman. Crew or another more generic word could technically be used and to have a more tense game it could start with x number of pilots and x number of crew such that a crew can't fly a bomber and a pilot can't fly a bomber without a crew. It's not going as granular as picking your crew, just that if you have a plane with a lot of crew you will affect the overall airman level if you crash several he 111s and kill all their airman.

 

Game Win Conditions 

 

Objective based win conditions such as destroying x number of airfields, factories or certain structures

 

Attrition base condition - One side runs out of airman, tank crew or runs out of planes or tanks.

 

Supply based condition - One side runs out of ammunition. This side can no longer fight the war.

 

Stats and player progression and final ramblings.

 

While kills and other stats could be accounted for in a post game menu integrated with medals for certain actions that can be seen in players profiles. The overall individual stats of each player during the game is less important and the backbone of strategic targets, ammunition, crew and plane availability are of bigger concern. Thus this scenario aims to put a thought perspective on a potential idea for online player versus player combat with the aim of forcing players into a team situation and being less reckless with their attacks, attempting to cover bombers and making fights more intense by raising the stakes.

 

---

 

Thanks for reading - BfBunny.

Edited October 26, 2017 by deleted@30725

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

In principle, this is not a bad idea. However, it is too complicated for general use because most players are not interested in this sort of depth. 

 

Once you add a few trolls going against the spirit of the game and a majority of players who are not serious enough, you end up with nothing but abuse and confusion. 

[lightswitch]

This sounds like a fantastic idea. Coming from falcon’s dynamic campaign I would love something like this.

[ZachariasX]

It sounds like a nice tournament. This may work if you have a pool of players that best know each other and free the day. Other than that, by enforcing conformity through penalties (there are no rewards for adhering to conformity in your example other than „not getting punished“), you just make life harder for the average cannon fodder (the more casual player). Are you sure with the small player base we have online, you can do without them?

[56RAF_Roblex]

Sounds like a simplified version of how the Storm Of War server worked in CLoD. 

 

In that,  squadrons were allocated an airfield and could only spawn there.  Larger airfields could be shared.

There was an initial allocation of aircraft to each squadron based on their usual number of pilots flying together. That would be a mix of a few high end aircraft then mostly 'workhorse' type aircraft. A squadron of 8 pilots might get 10 hurricanes, 8 Spit-1a, 4 Blenheims and a couple of Spit-IIa . 

This was basically a weeks supply and when aircraft were lost a request was sent in detailing why they were lost. Each week a committee went through the requests and assigned replacement aircraft from a limited supply that could be further limited by enemy action on factories etc.

Airfield allocations were kept secret from the enemy as they could remove a percentage of aircraft there by heavy bombing or close it entirely for a few days.

Damaged but landed aircraft were taken out of action for a period based on the severity of damage from as short as a few hours to as long as 48 hours IIRC.

Landing at another squads base gave the aircraft to that squad though you could still respawn again within 5 minutes if you just needed a refuel. Squadrons often swapped aircraft eg one might only want to fly Hurricanes so would send their spits to base that did not like hurricanes and get hurris delivered in return. Another might do a lot of bombing so would swap for more bombers and less fighters.  In a shared base, you needed to taxi back to your half of the airfield before despawning..

Some airfields, usually nearer the Channel, were kept for the use of singles squadless pilots and had a more generous but still limited supply of aircraft.

 

For me, the part that worked best was the idea of having your own airfield that you must try to get back to at all costs.  We operated out of Hornchurch, East of London,  so having to intercept bombers coming in over the Isle Of Wight meant a long sortie and an immediate disengagement if you got any engine damage as it was about 15 minutes flight.  It was a lovely feeling to fly back as a squadron and see your field come into sight, especially if you were damaged, then all land together and taxi back to the spawn area. There was no penalty for dying but there did not need to be as we were more concerned about losing one of the squads precious airframes.  Many was the time when we met an equal sized formation of 109s who, realising we had a height advantage,  would turn round and dive for home. Yes we got no kills but we also removed a threat just by patrolling and might later find an unescorted formation of bombers as a consequence. Because of the threat of losing aircraft,  lone wolfing was discouraged as was taking off alone when you were late for squad night and the squad was already away on a patrol or intercept though often more than one person was late so two or three could launch together and catch up :-)

 

What did not work so well in my opinion was that it was 24/7 and sometimes a squad, or a singleton, would carry out bombing raids when there was nobody else on the server.  As this could lead to a squad being unable to fly or losing most of their aircraft it was not popular and the location of your base was kept very secret.  Later an effort was made to discourage such behaviour by allocating triple points for specific evenings but with limited success as by ignoring that a squad could still get the reward of disabling a major squads airfield and destroying more of their planes than they could in combat.  Points were used by the German side to choose one or more industrial targets to attack and RAF points were used to reduce the LW points to restrict what they could attack.

 

Obviously all the above does not appeal to casual players and needed squad discipline to work but it was still very well attended most evenings.  In case it is not obvious, all this was done by a couple of skilled players using the mission making & scripting tools available.

Edited October 26, 2017 by 56RAF_Roblex

[A_radek]

There are servers with a system along  the lines you describe. Taw comes to mind.

One thing in your gameplay description I reacted to was that you don't get a kill unless you kill the pilot. On Taw where each side only has a set number of in common pilot lives, chute killing is already becoming an issue for two reasons: Rob the other side of one pilot life and reset the number of kills that the player has (number of kills only stacks as long as you keep yourself alive and/or not captured by bailing in enemey territory).

If the only way to get a kill in the first place was to kill a pilot you'd see people hunting chutes like no tomorrow.

 

In principle, this is not a bad idea. However, it is too complicated for general use because most players are not interested in this sort of depth. 

 

Once you add a few trolls going against the spirit of the game and a majority of players who are not serious enough, you end up with nothing but abuse and confusion. 

 

I would guess the other way. Servers running these more complicated systems are very popular and as a bonus player behaviour becomes more realistic, because people care about not dying. Seeing people taxi up to the runway and line up for a takeoff is a joy. That compared to landing at home base on the wol server, simultaneously dodging rockets fired by newly spawned yaks, players taking off cross county and a rain of burning enemy fighter dropping like meteors after attempting another kamikaze vulching attack.
 

[CCG_bexhausted]

 

 

Shot down - If pilot dies player counted as dead, enemy credited with kill - Plane used availability reduced by 1

 

IMHA not a good idea. As said other people above this rule encourages to kill the pilot.  

[Finkeren]

A player should definitely get a kill for just destroying the aircraft.

[-TBC-AeroAce]

It is a kill if you shoot a plane down regardless of if the pilot lives or not. Apart from that sounds like it could work

[Lensman]

All I want is a multiplayer experience where there aren't 30 other aircraft all trying to kill me at once. I can handle one, maybe three at once but the typical server is nasty (in my limited experience).

[ZachariasX]

 

 

All I want is a multiplayer experience where there aren't 30 other aircraft all trying to kill me at once.

Then you want it to be even more difficult? Them ganging up in a place where there is just space for one is your only help...

[GSP_Hund]

After having personally experienced the other side killing me in my chute on the TAW server I vote for kill is accomplished when plane shot down, that's it.  If you kill someone in their chute, automatic ban, just my opinion

Edited October 26, 2017 by II./JG77_Hund

[-WILD-AlbinoHA5E]

One step in the right direction would be to offer rewards for enemy pilots captured alive as well as capturing enemy aircraft with as little damage as possible.

[Royal_Flight]

This links in to some of what's being discussed on the other thread about rearming and refuelling.

If kills were only counted towards stats on successfully returning to the airfield and landing, then you'd have less of this arcade-style chasing halfway across the map for a kill, and less silly behaviour.

The attackers would be more cautious, less going far too far and getting cut off or flying into the ground after getting target fixated and too close, and all the Hartmanning would slow down as fighters would have to trade off staying airborne and hunting for more kills with the risk of being shot down and not having their score counted.

[[APAF]VR_Spartan85]

The term 'kill' for our sim, I dunno, sounds wrong. I think I prefer 'Downed'. After all, that's all we really are trying to do, is to down another aircraft..

How many times do you tail along a badly damaged kite and say to your opponent "bail out...why don't you just bail out?!"

 

I know in rise of flight we didn't have a choice and have to ride the burning crate to the ground, that would even more a sight to stomach...

 

Anywho, I stand with aircraft being downed as a point, not killing the pilot.

Perhaps, the aircraft limps home and lands happily, maybe a half point will be granted...to opponent and for saving the aircraft

 

RRR +1

[Finkeren]

Actually, as far as I know most fighting countries in WW2 used other terms like “downshooting” or more often simply “victory” to denote the destruction of an aircraft in the air.

[CanadaOne]

IMHA not a good idea. As said other people above this rule encourages to kill the pilot.  

 

Isn't that why they put thousands of rounds of machine gun ammunition and explosive cannon rounds and a gunsight in the plane?

 

Shoot the plane, ram the plane, shred the pilot, mow the chute. If he makes it to the ground, bomb him and crash your plane into the smoldering wreckage.

 

As General Sherman said "Its glory is all moonshine. War is Hell."

[Royal_Flight]

All that about terminology, 'kills', 'victories' or 'downings' raises an interesting point... the server is able to let us as pilots know exactly when we have shot down an enemy and awards a point for it.

Usually when you're sitting behind them pouring rounds in and you can see them go down.

 

But as a bomber pilot, I often end up in situations where someone tries to intercept me, I dive into the gunner position and give them as much fire as I can and they peel off trailing smoke, and five minutes later I get credit for a mystery shootdown that by then I can't remember (usually because, following an encounter with an enemy fighter I'm usually nursing my aircraft back home to my own lines, raining fuel and engine parts on anyone I fly over).

 

I'm not sure what it is but I'm sure there s a criteria somewhere for what counts as a shootdown for the sim to credit a pilot.

Interesting thought though, what if you only get credited if you visually witness your target going into the deck? Or if you haha e independent verification, if there are friendly aircraft within visual range who could be thought to corroborate your report of an enemy aircraft destroyed?

 

I'm not proposing this as a serious feature for implementation, but it's interesting to think what might happen and what the effect on gameplay might be if this was the case.

[THERION]

Killing a pilot while descending with a chute is pure blood lust - in real life and in the virtual one. We have ruthless

enough here on this planet. Let's be a bit more human in our hobby / passion at least. Isn't it enough to shoot down

an enemy plane? If the pilot gets killed in the plane, OK, but we don't need to finish him off on the chute.

[CanadaOne]

While hundreds of bombers are dropping incendiaries on a civilian population, the accompanying fighters should not mow the chutes of the defending air force's fighters - or vice versa - because it's uncivilized?

 

It's an interesting notion.

 

That said, if the game server has rules that say no chute mowing, then there should be no chute mowing.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Killing the pilot is far more important than destroying the airplane.

 

It's far easier, and less costly to build a new airframe than to train a new pilot, hence the RAF shot down German air rescue planes, for example.  At the end of the war Germany had far more airplanes than pilots to fly them, why?  Because that is how you win an air war.

 

So many here cry out for realism, yet when the ultimate realism is presented, they want nothing to do with it. So, role players, which is it?

 

Realism or not?

Edited October 29, 2017 by BlitzPig_EL

[CanadaOne]

The quest is for the sanitized romantic Walter Mitty version of war. Nothing wrong with that, as long as no one mistakes it for the real thing.

 

The real thing is just a whole lot of death and suffering and heads and arms and legs chopped off.

[56RAF_Roblex]

One step in the right direction would be to offer rewards for enemy pilots captured alive as well as capturing enemy aircraft with as little damage as possible.

 

I quite like this idea.  Yes it is not historical but we are discussing the allocation of points which is not historical either.   By all means award a 'kill' whatever the circumstances but leaving an aircraft once it is crippled and unlikely to get home is actually more historical.  The downside is that you might actually end up losing the kill entirely to the ravaging hoards of score whores who chase other peoples burning victims down to the deck and even shoot up the wreckage :-)  Perhaps the 'kill' should be awarded earlier ie to the first person to do enough damage to the plane or pilot to cause it to withdraw from the fight (ignoring the twats who keep fighting to the death even when their plane is no longer up to it).  Anyone attacking a plane with all engines dead or burning or belching black smoke would know they are going to get no reward and even attacking one running home with white or grey smoke might be pointless.

 

 I don't think you could give bonus points for aircraft captured with little damage though as that would just end up with everyone always bailing out and never attempting a crash landing just so the b*stard that shot you down doesn't get the extra points :-)

Edited October 29, 2017 by 56RAF_Roblex

[THERION]

While hundreds of bombers are dropping incendiaries on a civilian population, the accompanying fighters should not mow the chutes of the defending air force's fighters - or vice versa - because it's uncivilized?

 

It's an interesting notion.

 

That said, if the game server has rules that say no chute mowing, then there should be no chute mowing.

 

I think this discussion might end in absurdity - as far as I know and noticed on Dynamic War Servers, the bombing targets are quite clearly defined as factory cites, rail stations, warehouses etc.

Never saw bombing targets such as villages or towns just to spread terror on the civilian population. Of course, with a lot of imagination one could state that just behind the fence of those

strategic targets there might be a school, a playground or even a nursery, isn't it?

 

Well, in those cases we should revise our hobby I think. I don't want to blame anyone for his attitude or point of view - I think everybody for sure knows how shitty war actually is.

 

All I want is flying virtually and as real as possible (although still technically limited). I want to navigate, manage my fuel consumption, take care of my engine and get to my designated target zone

in one piece and then try to fulfil my task, having fun and of course stay alive.

 

Cheers

[Royal_Flight]

I wouldn't be a fan of chute-killing. I always see it as you trying to destroy the machine, rather than the man.

Even though it's just ones and zeroes, it still cheers me a bit when a target goes down and you see chutes to indicate the crew got out.

 

There are all the arguments about war being a nasty business and how aircrew are a strategic resource and letting them get away is helping the enemy war effort, but if they don't pose a threat in that moment there's no challenge and no real cause to kill them. Better to save your ammo, and in our online context if you've got the victory already there's no need to be a bad winner.

 

First-person shooters are wildly popular but I'm not sure a firing squad simulator would sell quite so well...

 

One step in the right direction would be to offer rewards for enemy pilots captured alive as well as capturing enemy aircraft with as little damage as possible.

Someone suggested a similar idea for floatplanes in the Pacific theatre, for search and rescue missions to pick up friendly pilots in dinghies would net you a point, and picking up hostile pilots would lose them a point.

 

If there was a way to implement that over land it could add a new dynamic - escort your SAR flights while trying to deny the enemy theirs.

And if we're getting a Po-2, maybe gives an excuse to add a Storch for this role...

[Lusekofte]

 

 

Realism or not?

 

You know perfectly well we do not die for real, and you know shooting a parachute are making you a a**hole . And you also know perfectly well that the anger caused by such a behavior do not last long enough for the incident to be mentioned in a forum. 

Why people call it realism to kill a pilot when we all know it is not for real , He will respawn and continue to fly, but he will do so knowing what you are

[CanadaOne]

I think this discussion might end in absurdity - as far as I know and noticed on Dynamic War Servers, the bombing targets are quite clearly defined as factory cites, rail stations, warehouses etc.

Never saw bombing targets such as villages or towns just to spread terror on the civilian population. Of course, with a lot of imagination one could state that just behind the fence of those

strategic targets there might be a school, a playground or even a nursery, isn't it?

 

Well, in those cases we should revise our hobby I think. I don't want to blame anyone for his attitude or point of view - I think everybody for sure knows how shitty war actually is.

 

All I want is flying virtually and as real as possible (although still technically limited). I want to navigate, manage my fuel consumption, take care of my engine and get to my designated target zone

in one piece and then try to fulfil my task, having fun and of course stay alive.

 

Cheers

 

 

I'm speaking of war, the real thing. Civilians died, in the most horrible ways imaginable, by the millions. There isn't enough space on this forum to catalogue the cruelty and crimes of WWII.

 

Consciously or not, we combat sim flyers distance ourselves from that reality, even though that reality is the basic and most fundamental aspect of what this game is all about. We can sanitize it all we want and lose ourselves in the technical details and romanticized Mitty-esque version of the truth, but the truth remains this is a simulation of war, and war is killing and destruction.

 

That said, if the server says no chute mowing, so be it. The rules of the server should be followed. Games need rules. But to see chute moving as an inherently uncivilized action in this open sky of machine guns and bombs and chasing the enemy to their fiery destruction is at least a few steps in the direction of becoming "flightsim snowflakes".

Edited October 29, 2017 by CanadaOne

[BlitzPig_EL]

You know perfectly well we do not die for real, and you know shooting a parachute are making you a a**hole . And you also know perfectly well that the anger caused by such a behavior do not last long enough for the incident to be mentioned in a forum. 

Why people call it realism to kill a pilot when we all know it is not for real , He will respawn and continue to fly, but he will do so knowing what you are

 

The reason I bring this up is that in certain scenarios in online play, at least in the old sim, the opposing teams had a certain number of "pilots" and aircraft, and when one or the other was totally expended, the opposing team would win, if other mission goals were not met first.  Hence "killing" the pilot is a totally viable tactic, as it certainly was in the real thing.  There were also a couple of "squads" in the old days of the original title that specialized in shoot killing, as their real namesake squadrons did in WW2.

 

"knowing what you are".  Ummm...   another guy sitting in the comfort of his home, playing a video game?   Because that is all we are.   Guys(mostly) on the internet playing games.  That's all.

Because as you said,  "we all know it is not for real".

[CanadaOne]

Because as you said,  "we all know it is not for real".

 

And in that light, my good friend from Ohio, if we ever meet online and I crash my plane into you at 500mph just as your chute hits the ground, I'm sure you would not take it personally. Nor would I if you did it to me.

 

As soon as we take to the BOX sky...

 

[FTC_Riksen]

It is totally fine that chute killing is ok for you guys but for some, it is not. So why do it?

[II/JG11_ATLAN_VR]

I am not a chute killer.i dont like that!

[CanadaOne]

I am not a chute killer.i dont like that!

 

May I assume you have no objection to firing explosive cannon rounds into an enemy plane with the desired effect of having it and its occupants shredded into tiny unrecognizable bits?

[VesseL]

some nations had the unwritten rule NOT to chutekill. Or so they said after the war.

[Nocke]

The quest is for the sanitized romantic Walter Mitty version of war. Nothing wrong with that, as long as no one mistakes it for the real thing.

 

The real thing is just a whole lot of death and suffering and heads and arms and legs chopped off.

and that's why I would never ever participate in "the real thing". In this game, yes. Without shooting chutes. Because it is not " the real thing".

[CanadaOne]

and that's why I would never ever participate in "the real thing". In this game, yes. Without shooting chutes. Because it is not " the real thing".

 

Well, that's... virtually very nice of you.

 

Just out of curiosity, if you are chasing a plane that is on fire, or trailing a ton of smoke and obviously somewhat doomed, do you still shoot at it?

[VesseL]

.....

 

Just out of curiosity, if you are chasing a plane that is on fire, or trailing a ton of smoke and obviously somewhat doomed, do you still shoot at it?

 I dont, and i dont shoot chutes. Because we are playing a game, i would think it is a personal insult, and i dont want insult any of you, my virtual friends.

[CanadaOne]

Okay. Fair enough.

[ZachariasX]

Shooting chutes is like sending dick pics. Both, although in principle possible, are less approptiate than the perpetuator might think they are.

Edited October 29, 2017 by ZachariasX

[CanadaOne]

Interesting notions of civility in a game that simulates the most savage part of the most savage war ever to take place on the planet.

 

Perhaps the armament on the planes should be replaced with paintball cannons.

 

"I've been hit!"

[[APAF]VR_Spartan85]

Suppose you have a point, I mean, the tanks, artillery, AAA, bunkers, trains, and many other man-occupied stations we gun down on regular... we are gunning at the man behind the wheel, so once the airman has bailed, he's defenseless and not a threat anymore..

It just feels like an execution when you kill the man dangling helplessly from a silk sheet...

Even though it's just a mass of pixel's. ..

But war is war, and we can only do our best to preserve as much life as possible... virtually...

 

Oh! P.s. CanadaOne, that yak-1b is a delight to fly as you said! Thanks a bunch