MP career mode

[Sybreed]

Is there still talk to implement a career mode in MP? My friends and I play DCS online mostly, but we would like to play IL-2 as well. We usually play against the AI, so going on servers is not really our priority. We gave Patwilson's campaign editor a shot, but unfortunately, while it's great, we still prefer how the standard career mode is done in SP.

Anyway, we felt like it would be a nice feature to have. Plus, because the system is already implemented, I wonder how hard it is to make it go MP.

[Herne]

11 hours ago, Sybreed said:

Is there still talk to implement a career mode in MP? My friends and I play DCS online mostly, but we would like to play IL-2 as well. We usually play against the AI, so going on servers is not really our priority. We gave Patwilson's campaign editor a shot, but unfortunately, while it's great, we still prefer how the standard career mode is done in SP.

Anyway, we felt like it would be a nice feature to have. Plus, because the system is already implemented, I wonder how hard it is to make it go MP.

 

No plans right now for a MP career mode. It may come down the road, but it is not on the immediate radar. PWCG is a work in progress, last I read Pat had some pretty amazing plans for MP PWCG, meaning pilots would not even have to fly for the same squad, or indeed even the same side, and still have their individual progress tracked.

I think that is a lot of work for him though, having to rewrite a lot of code to allow that functionality.

 

There are some good MP servers that have ongoing Campaigns and track your stats. TAW is too popular right now and current rules mean you may have problems getting you and your friends to spawn at the same time. So something along the lines of the Finish Dynamic server might be more up your street. It has AI, certainly fighters patrol the front, when population is low, not sure about bombers. 

The only real difference between something like that and the career mode you are longing for, is that you will have to decide your own mission directive, rather than be assigned a mission. ACG server does cater for that style though, the admins put in a lot of work for a really immersive experience, but although people are welcome to try it, ultimately they do expect people who wish to continue to commit to a few hours window on a sunday to fly those missions, and maybe that you and your friends could get split between several different squads. I love flying there though, and recommend you try it at least once.

KOTA and Combat Box both offer great experiences, but do not have that ongoing campaign that I think you might be looking for.

Edited August 8, 2019 by ACG_Herne

[Sybreed]

4 hours ago, ACG_Herne said:

 

No plans right now for a MP career mode. It may come down the road, but it is not on the immediate radar. PWCG is a work in progress, last I read Pat had some pretty amazing plans for MP PWCG, meaning pilots would not even have to fly for the same squad, or indeed even the same side, and still have their individual progress tracked.

I think that is a lot of work for him though, having to rewrite a lot of code to allow that functionality.

 

There are some good MP servers that have ongoing Campaigns and track your stats. TAW is too popular right now and current rules mean you may have problems getting you and your friends to spawn at the same time. So something along the lines of the Finish Dynamic server might be more up your street. It has AI, certainly fighters patrol the front, when population is low, not sure about bombers. 

The only real difference between something like that and the career mode you are longing for, is that you will have to decide your own mission directive, rather than be assigned a mission. ACG server does cater for that style though, the admins put in a lot of work for a really immersive experience, but although people are welcome to try it, ultimately they do expect people who wish to continue to commit to a few hours window on a sunday to fly those missions, and maybe that you and your friends could get split between several different squads. I love flying there though, and recommend you try it at least once.

KOTA and Combat Box both offer great experiences, but do not have that ongoing campaign that I think you might be looking for.

 

Thx for the reply. We might try PWCG again. The few times we did we ran into weird missions with extremely long routes and no enemy flying in our own flight path. As for the MP servers, why do they keep having weird rules? I remember getting on a server and getting kicked because I got in a plane I wasn't supposed to. Can't they just let people do their thing? Spawn missions, the rest will follow? If you want to restrict the number of "better planes", make it a first come first serve rule and spawn them only occasionally? Sorry for the rant, it's just that my first MP experience with IL-2 wasn't that great.

 

I'll look into ACG and TAW. It's been a while since I tried MP.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Sybreed

[Utopioneer]

4 hours ago, Sybreed said:

 

Thx for the reply. We might try PWCG again. The few times we did we ran into weird missions with extremely long routes and no enemy flying in our own flight path. As for the MP servers, why do they keep having weird rules? I remember getting on a server and getting kicked because I got in a plane I wasn't supposed to. Can't they just let people do their thing? Spawn missions, the rest will follow? If you want to restrict the number of "better planes", make it a first come first serve rule and spawn them only occasionally? Sorry for the rant, it's just that my first MP experience with IL-2 wasn't that great.

 

I'll look into ACG and TAW. It's been a while since I tried MP.

If you want to fly a co-op campaign against AI I would recommend trying PWCG again. It was very recently updated to fix some of the issues with not seeing enemies.

[PatrickAWlson]

As pointed out, PWCG 6.x is very new and still progressing.  The good part is that is is being actively worked. 

 

Lack of contact was fixed in 6.1.3, released last week.  Long routes are also mostly fixed.  The caveat is that if one player's squadron is on one side of the map and another player is on the other, somebody is going to have a longer flight path.  Having said that what 6.1.3 eliminated a lot of inefficiencies.

 

I am in no position to make demands, but I do have a request: work with me.  If something is off post it in the PWCG section and I will try to do something about it.  As far as I am aware the capability being offered in PWCG 6 has never been done before in any flight sim.  As such, it is going to have to go through an evolutionary process to reach its full potential.  That process will be greatly accelerated with communication.

 

Here's an example of a potential issue  Joe and Harry fly fighters.  They are 10 minutes away from the front.  Jane flies bombers and she is 45 minutes from the front.  Nobody wants air starts so they start on the ground.  Even though they arrive at the same area they do so at significantly different times (which Jane likes since she is not interested in meeting fighters  ).  In our online wars we had the same situation.  The answer was tough luck - solve it yourself (also the same situation in real life).  You had to put up some planes for recon, communicate, and converge after you located the enemy. 

 

So what can PWCG do to make this better?  Maybe the answer is nothing and leave it to the participants to figure out.  But maybe there are some good ideas out there.  Or maybe play experience will indicate that this is not even an issue.

 

Hopefully you get the idea.  If we work together we can get into a cycle of continuous improvement.  

 

Another thought: concern over limiting planes of certain types.  PWCG is self limiting to some degree through its supply system, but the campaign host also has tremendous capability.  Don't want lots of 262s?  Make those squadrons off limits to participants.  You might still see 262s but they will not be human piloted.  And because PWCG prioritizes human manned flights odds are pretty good that these types will be quite restricted.  

 

Last but not least: PWCG 6.0 is not MP.  It is not jump on and fly any time you want.  It is coop and has been extended to competitive coop.  It is great for squadron wars and groups of friends who are able to fly in an organized fashion but it does admittedly require some degree of coordination.

Edited August 12, 2019 by PatrickAWlson

[Sybreed]

On 8/12/2019 at 1:42 PM, PatrickAWlson said:

As pointed out, PWCG 6.x is very new and still progressing.  The good part is that is is being actively worked. 

 

Lack of contact was fixed in 6.1.3, released last week.  Long routes are also mostly fixed.  The caveat is that if one player's squadron is on one side of the map and another player is on the other, somebody is going to have a longer flight path.  Having said that what 6.1.3 eliminated a lot of inefficiencies.

 

I am in no position to make demands, but I do have a request: work with me.  If something is off post it in the PWCG section and I will try to do something about it.  As far as I am aware the capability being offered in PWCG 6 has never been done before in any flight sim.  As such, it is going to have to go through an evolutionary process to reach its full potential.  That process will be greatly accelerated with communication.

 

Here's an example of a potential issue  Joe and Harry fly fighters.  They are 10 minutes away from the front.  Jane flies bombers and she is 45 minutes from the front.  Nobody wants air starts so they start on the ground.  Even though they arrive at the same area they do so at significantly different times (which Jane likes since she is not interested in meeting fighters  ).  In our online wars we had the same situation.  The answer was tough luck - solve it yourself (also the same situation in real life).  You had to put up some planes for recon, communicate, and converge after you located the enemy. 

 

So what can PWCG do to make this better?  Maybe the answer is nothing and leave it to the participants to figure out.  But maybe there are some good ideas out there.  Or maybe play experience will indicate that this is not even an issue.

 

Hopefully you get the idea.  If we work together we can get into a cycle of continuous improvement.  

 

Another thought: concern over limiting planes of certain types.  PWCG is self limiting to some degree through its supply system, but the campaign host also has tremendous capability.  Don't want lots of 262s?  Make those squadrons off limits to participants.  You might still see 262s but they will not be human piloted.  And because PWCG prioritizes human manned flights odds are pretty good that these types will be quite restricted.  

 

Last but not least: PWCG 6.0 is not MP.  It is not jump on and fly any time you want.  It is coop and has been extended to competitive coop.  It is great for squadron wars and groups of friends who are able to fly in an organized fashion but it does admittedly require some degree of coordination.

 

Thank you for your response. I didn't want to be too critical as I know you put a lof of heart and effort into your campaign module and honestly, we tried it again last week and compared to a few other generators and found yours to be superior (ironically, we were outnumbered 3 german fighters vs 8 russian fighters and 4 bombers, so there was definitely action). We'll probably give a solid go next week once my 2 friends with whom I play with are back. One thing I should have pointed out is that I didn't feel like we gave your module a good enough try.

 

Btw, how much ground action is offered in PWCG? I like how in career mode there's a lot of ground units firing at each other, it just reinforces immersion by a lot, and that's why I always use the high density setting on the front line in my careers. And of course, flak cannons....

[PatrickAWlson]

Depends on your configuration but usually quite a bit of ground action.  I have battles going with tanks attacking AT guns and other tanks.  Trains going.  Truck convoys.

 

I separate ground unit packages into three categories:

Player: This is a fully formed package of ground units.  They would be targets for a ground attack mission or targets for a flight that the player escorts.

AI: These are very small packages for AI ground attack flights.  The idea is to give them something to attack without adding too many ground units.

Ambient: These are also fully formed packages that give the player something to attack if they want to.  These are not specific mission targets but stuff that is just there.

 

Again, how much of each depends on your ground unit density settings.  If you cycle through ground units (Shift-F5 and ctrl-F5) you will see them.  I fly with icons on because I can't see anything otherwise and there are often quite a few in the mission area.

 

Flak tends to be at airstrips, around bridges and railway stations, and anywhere a battle is happening.