Limited aircraft supplies are really unfriendly to squadrons

[56RAF_Roblex]

 

It is getting more common now for servers to use personal hangars or just limited aircraft numbers across the active airfields but it is a nightmare for squads.   I understand and support the quest to make the outcome of the war heavily influenced by the destruction of supplies and convoys etc. and I understand the quest to punish people for wasting aircraft but every squad night (we do two a week) we turn up with 6-8 pilots and find that we cannot fly together because either the server is telling some of our pilots that they are not allowed to fly the same aircraft as the rest of the squad or because there are only two or three of each type of aircraft at each field.   After jumping in and out of several servers we often end up having to launch from three different airfields with different aircraft and trying to meet up before any of the pairs get bounced.  The worst servers are the ones where after carefully planning the upcoming missions and briefing everyone on the route we don't find out there is a problem until half the squad has spawned and are ready to take off the other half is being told they are not allowed to spawn or someone has just taken the aircraft we were planning to use.

 

All I am asking is that when the server rules and functionality are being designed can you please consider how your server will cope with 6 pilots arriving 30 minutes into the map and wanting to fly together as a unit. We are not the only squad that flies together.   Many of the most avid pilots that could help keep your server well populated are  sticking with DCS & CLoD because they can rarely fly together in BoX.    Is there an alternative to restricting aircraft numbers?

[=IL2AU=chappyj]

difficult to really help when we dont know which servers you're having problems with... 

 

WOL. : its a free for all.. the aircraft numbers are actually usually quite high at each af but quickly get used up  because the server is heavily populated and people make 1 way trips to targets. Having said that ive never seen it fully run out of aircraft. and usually there's plenty of aircraft at the rear airfield. 

 

Coconut servers: coconut has deliberately stated that supplies matter and it may not be for everyone but is an attempt to simulate logistics, supply, and persistence.(and does very well). Having said that, the aircraft can usually be resupplied or moved from airfield to airfield manually. 

 

TAW: personal spawn lists. If members are dilligent and perhaps do a couple of quick sorties before squad night or the night before they can ensure their personal list has the requisite aircraft?

 

Server owners usually set themselves up because they have a specific gamestyle they want to encourage. I personally think that TAW/Coconut/Random expert type servers are more squad friendly than any others despite the restrictions because they encourage responsible play styles. Sure, you may not be able to grab exactly what you wanted every time, but there's usually a reason, and with a bit of flexibility on the squads part, by adjusting mission/type they are still the most fun. especially as a squad.

 

IMO unlimited aircraft numbers generally turn servers into spammy dogfight servers where no one really cares about their aircraft or virtual life

Edited April 6, 2018 by =IL2AU=chappyj

[56RAF_Roblex]

My point was that I know *why* they do it but is there a better way?   It is all very well saying 'just be flexible' but it can be a real problem when the first 30 minutes of each squad night is spent going between all the main servers trying to find which one has the best chance of being able to salvage some sort of squad operation out of while also having room for everyone to get in. When you find one and everyone manages to get into the server you explain what the mission is and who is going to fly from each airfield in which aircraft and where you will RV before continuing to the target then before you can launch someone else has grabbed the planes you were going to use or the  target gets taken down or the map announces it will close in 5 minutes.  You then have to see if there is anything else you can do with the odds & sods available scattered across the  map and try again.  Sometimes there is nothing you can do and you just have to try another server and it all starts again.  I think our record for time wasted was over an hour before we decided we may as well just start up a training server and do some practice because everyone was getting frustrated.

 

As for which server,  I am mostly talking about Finnish and Coconut expert as TAW & Random Expert have not been running for a long time and WoL has those stupid GPS icons and is almost always full anyway.   On Wednesday even Finnish was full so we were forced to fly a mixed mission in Coconut but then it reset and came back with even fewer aircraft so we ended up going into ACGs test server despite it having GPS icons.

 

I too hate the sort of pilots who just keep taking off and making suicidal attacks and re-launching.  Worse still are the ones that just fly until they run out of ammo then jump out or despawn mid air to get another plane and fly back to the mindless furball quicker.   Personally, and I accept that maybe this wont suit other players,  I would be happier with a personal allocation of only two of each fighter that resets daily.    That way I will know that when we turn up for squad night everyone will be able to fly together even if someone has a take-off accident.   If I am stupid enough to lose both then I can accept that was my fault,  not a shortage  caused by someone an hour earlier who did not care how many he wasted because he was only going to play for an hour anyway.  If the whole squad suffers major losses in the first sortie and not everyone can get that plane for the second sortie then everyone will be more amenable to changing planes knowing it was our fault and not something dictated to us based on other players carelessness.    For the suicidal players,  losing their beloved 109 after two suicide missions and having to wait until the next day to get them back should make them more careful.   For the merely unlucky pilot then having to fly a 190 or even a  Macci for  a few hours is not the end of the world.  I think wasteful pilots are more fixated on only flying the best (in their view)     Maybe even add a way to replenish a lost aircraft such as a transport flight which the  suicidal 'kills per hour' fiend will avoid at all costs while the more realism based player will find an acceptable price for their incompetence.

 

Doing replenishment flights before each squad night is not always feasible for some pilots.  Back when we flew in CLoD we flew in a server that had weekly 'Squad Based' allocations and initially they had to be fetched from a very rearwards supply field and delivered to our assigned field (it had many more airfields than BoX).  That was doable because those pilots that did have time during the week were happy to deliver some for the people with less time.   It probably helped that in CLoD you only had three fighters and one bomber to choose from.

[Herne]

Finnish server shouldn't be a problem as the airfields are regularly resupplied up to a maximum of 5 planes on each ? if you get low on one airfield I think you can ferry some from another airfield or the supply point ?

I actually really quite like the new mechanic, because It encourages me to try and land, from where I took off to keep my max number of planes available to me across the map.

 

one of the reasons I loved this server though was because there was a time when all mods were allowed for all aircraft. I was quite disappointed when they nerfed the payload on my stuka

[354thFG_Leifr]

Yes, it is quite hard to run out of aircraft on Finnish. A supply run or two will top up aircraft for not only yourself but also additional for the public pool. 

[JaffaCake]

Tbh the only way to address this would be to have squad-hangars for people. Random expert did this at some point, where your points were pooled together to allow squad mates to purchase aircraft from the same pool.

 

It is, however, extremely exploitable - on RE servers you could just register a bunch of random accounts (of players who do not play on the server) to your squad and have your pool grow significantly larger, where then in favourable circumstances you'd be able to haul yourself a large number of points.

 

Still I believe squad hangars is the way to go, if earning aircraft is penalised in some way compared to personal hangars - as you otherwise would get "squad mules" who only focus on replenishing their aircraft during off-peak or certain easy circumstances. Alternatively any excess aircraft (such as solo pilots with full hangar) should be "donated" to another active pilot on the server automatically, rather than "lost" due to full hangar.