Mission Length & Avoiding Circle Patrols

[SqwkHappy]

I have a few thoughts on career that over the many years I've played the IL2 sims and RoF, these two issues have plagued me something fierce, and I'm sure many other working-class simmers can agree.

 

Number 1: Mission duration: I prefer flights at about 30 minutes, give or take ten minutes. Even hour long flights don't bother me as long as I'm DOING SOMETHING && HAVE THE TIME. 

Having an option in the career screens to set a preferred mission duration that you can change on the fly from the career screens, depending on a virtual-pilot's time they have available to them. Many of us don't always have a half hour to an hour but prefer takeoffs and landings along with the mission.. That's where a lot of the fun is had anyway!

Number 2: Circle Patrols: This is my biggest issue with careers: the mission is covering troops or an air patrol and when we arrive at the location we do circles for a half hour until  something shows up, or we finish and go home bored and half awake. I wont even play these anymore! The second we start circling I end the mission. I love sims and I love combat flight sims. But I will always hate the reality of doing circles for a half hour waiting for something to happen. I know in reality I'd be flying a cool plane and avoiding death so I would be fully engaged; in reality. BUT; Those factors are not anywhere near the same thing in a sim. And I'm sure a lot of you can agree: I tend to feel robbed of any satisfaction and entertainment value on these patrol missions where I'm stuck in a circle with my flight the entire time.

 

NOTE: I feel, and I'm sure many others feel the same, that we shouldn't have to use a fake autopilot to fly our waypoints for us in order to cut out the lack of engagement in a mission. 

 

I propose a mission-filter dialogue you can open up, like the options dialogue already in career mode. This filters lets you set a preferred mission duration, 20min, 30min, 40min, 50min, 60min .. A few options, or even a text input and the mission gen. will use that number to the best of it's capabilities. Some examples: A 0-19 mins duration will net you scrambles and can last much longer,  if you don't go chasing RTB'd flights. A 20-30 minute duration will net you a basic flight to the line, bomber escort, etc, then back home. The longer the duration, the more distance the mission will likely have. 

Next, a Patrol Duration filter on the dialogue would be for patrol lengths for all those patrol missions that send you in circles for extended times: The filter options would be something like: "SHORT" patrol, "REGULAR" patrol, and possibly even a "LONG" patrol filter option. A short patrol would take you there, do two slow, big loops over the combat area, (5-10mins) then rtb if flight lead spots nothing. If your mission duration is 30+ mins, your distance to target and back is much longer, the patrol loops are increased, or a mixture of distance and number of loops.

 

Cutting down mission times may help you feel like you are a part of a bigger campaign, where your flight is not the only flight holding back the enemy / assisting troops.

 

These additions would allow EVERYONE opportunities to have engaging missions while meeting the time constraints of real life. (I'm rocking my baby in her bouncy chair as I type this up.)

 

Yes, I know there are MODs and Pat's campaign generator thing (that I think works in this new sim?) that can do stuff like this, but why after these many years and multiple titles are these obvious enhancements that virtual-pilots DEPEND ON and EXPECT FROM MODS not already a part of the base-game experience at this point? The answers are obvious to the devs and I understand completely, but the reality is these are good solutions to problems that plague the engagement,  entertainment value and re-playability of this magnificent title as well as the ones before it.

 

I hope these ideas are taken into serious consideration and maybe introducing an opportunity to give the editor a little of the much needed love it so dearly is in need of while helping to facilitate possibilities such as these.

 

One more tidbit, I know actual missions were hardly, if ever, that short (when everything went well).  Most of us are not actual pilots, and those of us who are usually don't have hours on end to fly an entire mission (because they gotta go fly in real life!) Again, this is to add entertainment-value and re-playability in the career side of things that many users have already sought out other means to make a possibility in order to KEEP playing in career.

 

Finally, I could hack up quick design docs with images to visually show what I am discussing, if desired.

 

Thank you.

Edited April 5, 2020 by SqwkHappy
Clarifications, minor word changes..