Pause on combat/approaching target

[Hotaru_Ito]

Short version: would be very useful to have an option to automatically pause the game while flying on AI autopilot if entering combat or approaching the bombing target.

 

 

Long version: In career, and to a lesser extent in PWCG, Vander's, AQMB, etc., we often have to fly very long missions. Timewarp and air start help to some extent, but it's still entirely possible to have missions pushing an hour, most of which is spent staring at your screen or into your VR headset waiting for something interesting to happen. I sometimes just set autopilot and timewarp, take my headset off, and relax, but I still have to monitor the screen and be ready to pause the moment I see my plane break formation.

 

What would be really cool is, if we could have an option (defaulting to off, obviously) to automatically pause the game when the player is on autopilot and the player flight is either engaged in combat or approaching its target, so I can start my mission, take off, form up, set AI autopilot, and go do something else, secure in the knowledge that I'll come back to a paused game with some fun action waiting for me, not a smoking crater cause we got bounced while I was off making tea.

 

It's not exactly realistic, but neither are timewarp or air starts. It would make career missions starting far from the front a lot less painful, especially ones like bomber escorts where air start doesn't shorten them much and timewarp doesn't work very well because of all the bombers.

 

Just an idea.