Full control of mission planning

[HeerRitter]

I'm not sure if this has been raised or suggested before but there's something that's been in the back of my mind for a while now. I have been playing Uboat a fair bit lately and something that continues to stand out to me when in the map in that game is the tools you're given for working out your torpedo attack angles ect, which always gets me thinking why don't we have something similar in IL2, at least as an option!

Here's my thoughts, rather than already being given everything already worked out and laid out for you all telling you where & how to fly your mission. It's all good for the beginning of your career but sooner or later everybody is going to make commander and it's at that point you want to feel like a commander not ground crew just able to choose what armaments to attach to your plane. what if in briefing room you're just given a blank map, no way points and no altitude or speed, no ingress or egress from the target, just a starting point i.e your homefield and a destination i.e the target! and all the information we're already provided with, like the weather and cloud cover, wind direction ect plus a selection of tools we can bring up on to the screen to draw on to the map (only once you've made commander of your flight group) your own Way Points leading to the target and back to your home field, depending on which kind of mission you're flying, you choose your own altitude and speed to and from the mission, then taking into consideration the cloud level for that day, & what kind of mission you're flying i.e transport protection, ground attack, or just a free hunt as well as time of day & the weather, you choose the altitude to fly, where the best place to cross the front line, you choose if you want to attack the target from head on or if you prefer that your entire flight circles around from the west and attacks the target from behind, you decide if you want to set your egress Way Point to take you directly the hell out of there down the straightest line possible back to home field or if you want to swing way out to the east and avoid some enemy air stips or AAA. you start by adding on to the map your Way Points which you can label anything you like, then using a ruler tool you join the way points giving you the distance between each way point and once you've connected all your Way Points your entire flight distance. Depending on how many way points you've placed you will need to use a calculator to add up those distances later to work out your entire flight distance in order to look up how much fuel your going to need to make it home safely. If you calculate wrong your entire flight may end up having to ditch 3/4 of the way home due to no fuel, giving you that extra responsibility as group commander! As well as distance between each way point you also need to decide on which is the best altitude to fly, giving you reason to actually read all that information about cloud cover and wind direction and everything else for that day, as well as the time of day or if it's a full moon for night flights, and enemy ground positions i.e Enemy Flak & AAA. I don't know about others but i never worried about the cloud level or whether there's a tail wind, cross or head wind too or from the target area because everything was all done for you all i had to do was leave the fuel level at full for long flights and a little less if i wanted to take extra cannons, but if you're suddenly a lot more responsible for ensuring the whole flight gets to the target area and back home again safe, not just you and with enough fuel to get to the target, dog fight, escort your transport or bombers home safe & provide top cover why they land before heading back to your own field in one piece it's going to feel a lot more engaging to do those things and way more immersive. I love the new tactical markings and that you no longer lose temporary command of your group just because you get wounded but there's still something missing, with being in command, the game still lacks any real responsibility,! Having to set way points, speed and altitude, correctly gauging the amount of fuel you will need to take based on additional weight with added items like cannon or armour (I'm basing this on the game modelling the difference to climb rate and speed between a heavier plane with its fuel tanks full and a lighter plane with just enough fuel to get the mission done and back home again, i might be wrong) will give that little bit that for me at least feels lacking. I don't know how easy or hard it would be to implement something like this it seems it more about working on the map than anything else as the flight flies where you fly anyway regardless of what the mission debrief says about altitude or way points. Maybe there can be a setting in realism that turns this feature on or off, the tools would be pretty straight forward to use and way pointer with the ability to type a label into it, a ruler again giving you access to add in the altitude and speed to fly and a book maybe given you the different planes statistics weight, fuel capacity, speed, max range ect and a calculator i guess to work out weight/speed/altitude = fuel ratio.

 

Maybe this is a terrible idea and just something that only make sense to me but i would love to feel way more immersed in my role as Group Commander when I'm playing and have real consequences when getting it wrong like watching all my flights planes going down one by one because i ordered the wrong fuel capacity to be loaded in to the planes or i set flight to take us way beyond our max range, or set a way point that flew us directly into an entire groupe of incoming attack fighters, or just simply being able to set up a few way points taking us to and from the target in the most direct and quick way possible because i want to!

[dbuile]

Moderator probably should've moved this to Suggestions rather than Free Subject...

 

You can set waypoint locations/details when you're commander.  

 

While there are similar external tools, it sounds you'd like them integrated directly.  

If the game calculates everything for you, I'd like the ability to turn that off, and just have tools (like the German DR3) available, similar to Veteran66's Navigator app:  

 

 

 

[HeerRitter]

On 1/3/2023 at 7:47 PM, dbuile said:

You can set waypoint locations/details when you're commander.  

sorry was over seas.. 

I can never get way points to work as commander, not sure why. I'll have to look into those mods but yeah if there was more control in game it'd feel more in depth and immersive as a whole, but there are mods out there which I haven't fully looked into, it's a start i guess.

 

thanks @dbuile