Ideas for Phase IV (not the ant film)

[Wels 2]

Hello,

since you kept pumping out patches, still improving all kinds of things, despite you said you already work for OFF Phase 4 ...

 

1. The propellors of some of the inline-engined planes keep turning a bit too long after being switched off (e.g. Alb. D.III).

2. More "action" at aerodromes, like already shown in some older pictures (ladders with mechanics working on plane's engines and the like)

3. Some historical missions, pre-fabricated - like Voss' fight, but generally all kinds of known or reported flights and incidents that happened to aviators.

4. Taking some ideas of the RoF sim: Radiator control and adjustment, overrevving engine damage, maybe even engine problems while flying with a mixture beeing too rich (sooting spark plugs) - generally more exact engine management. Maybe some random failure (?)

4.1 Flapping fabric at higher speeds, or when being damaged, maybe developing more damage if handled roughly.

4.2. Working valve rockers and vibrating planes while engines running with lower revolutions

4.3 Sudden wind gusts, ground loops happening - don't know whether this can be modelled with the OFF engine - whatever engine you might use in Phase 4 ahem

5. More planes of the early war, modeling the early war years - what about the Taube or the Morane (hint hint), the already existing Short seaplane, the Handley-Page 0/400, Vickers Vimy, Gotha, Zeppelin R.IV etc. etc., and certainly airships (!). Maybe an airship career with reconnaissance tasks and raids ! Reach Africa with the L59 !! Ahem.

6. Seaplanes ? Seaplane career ?

 

I am sure i will have more ideas lol :yes:

 

Thanks a lot for this sim,

Catfish

[Rickitycrate 10]

Well here's my sillyassed idea. OFF 1919. The war continues. Planes that barely saw action get thier chance to shine. Planes that were on the drawing board take to the air and fly for glory. The 94th Aerosquad fights in thier fantasticly painted 1919 crates. Prototypes from all sides meet in the air for a bit o'fun. Please don't hate me.

[Waldemar Kurtz 1]

3. Some historical missions, pre-fabricated - like Voss' fight, but generally all kinds of known or reported flights and incidents that happened to aviators.

 

I'm going to disagree on this point. if you can remember the scripted historically-based missions of "Aces over the Pacific", "Aces over Europe" and to a lesser extent even Combat Flight Simulator 2-- the pre-scripted historical mission can range from interesting to being a guaranteed campaign-stopper.

 

historical missions, ironically, seemed easier integrate into the highly scripted campaigns of CFS1 and 2.

 

moreover, lots of people can work on historical missions--and if enough people like them they could get bundled into future patches.

[Waldemar Kurtz 1]

6. Seaplanes ? Seaplane career ?

 

it would be kinda cool to have the zeppelins and seaplanes come back. but are there even boats and submarines modelled for the game? otherwise it would seem like a whole lot of nothing going on. people get frustrated by the lack of action in artillery-spotting sorties! (not me, I just bomb and strafe things to help pass the time. failing that, I take snap-shots of the surroundings)

[horowae 0]

Hello, I wish a career mode like with RB3D, with precise description of the shot down of aces. Better Flightmodells. More damage models, like engine oil escape, falls by direct pilot's hits, engine fires by overheating after oil loss. Tanks. Own painting (not for all Wingman). This would be quite great. :yes:

[DerMo 0]

Hello, I wish a career mode like with RB3D, with precise description of the shot down of aces.

 

You´ll see a message in the InGame newspaper about which ace was shot down on that day.So in the acelist you can read about this pilot and many other aces,bio,claimstats,just more than i have seen in RB2. :nyam:

Still some ace bios to do but hey its a huge list of aces.

Greetings

[themightysrc 5]

I have a couple of items for the wish list.

 

The first is that the post flight replay have a change in detail. I wouldn't mind losing the extreme detail in favour of detail only to cover my aircraft and those I hit - I'm happy to read that other planes from such and such a squadron/jasta crashed, as long as I can see names of pilots, rather than a number. might also speed up the replays?

 

The second concerns the map. In short, it's pretty rubbish, and could do with the introduction of major roads, railways, rivers and larger villages, plus perhaps well known landmarks - Vimy Ridge springs instantly to mind - plus the general locations of major military units. With all of that, I'd be tempted to ditch TAC. As an afterthought, how about airfield names within X miles radius of your own? You'd probably know them anyway as a pilot, and quite possibly which squadrons/jastas are stationed there.

 

I'd like all the currently empty aircraft slots filled - well, wouldn't we all, I suppose. I can't imagine I'm the only player who chooses only units that give me a chance of flying with them for the entire duration of the war. Fat chance though, given my current inability to remain alive for more than about 2-3 months! But I digress.

 

Applying for leave would be a nice touch, and could be made contingent upon the number of hours/flights you've racked up (ie, how buggered your nerves are likely to be). As an adjunct to this, once you've been away from the front, teaching the next lot of cannon-fodder, er, brave young boys, how to fly, your return to the front could be to another squadron, in another capacity such as flight commander? This would be realistic and get round the RB3D transfer lottery that we all knew and loved.

 

FM/DM/AI are all, I'm sure, down to the limitations of what can be done with the CFS3 engine, so I'll not even comment on those, except to say that I dearly hope that the OBD team manage to construct their own engine for P4 - with TheSimWeDareNotName now acknowledged by many to have the best engine (and pretty much little else going for it, apparently), it would be the natural step forward, but one, I'm aware, that would take a goodly amount of time and effort to enact. Let's hope...

 

I'd love to see some sort of spotting missions for two seaters: that's why they were there primarily, and why scouts existed to shoot them down. To be able to somehow indicate fall of shot to batteries and to be able to adjust their aim and register targets wouldn't simply be very satisfying (to the anally retentive, like me) but would also give two seaters rather more of an aim in life.

 

I still say that an aircraft gazetter as per IL2 would be a cracking addition to the game - it certainly added immensely to IL2 - and would surely be straightforward to put together.

 

If we *must* have ground attacks, can there be visible bodies of troops to mow down and scatter? Probably only suitable for late war encounters, I'd say.

 

One final - frivolous - one, but one that would add to the atmosphere: leader's pennants/streamers for flight leaders, please.

 

Here endeth the list (for now).

[Hasse Wind 46]

When the devs have become unbelievably rich after selling millions of copies of OFF with the add-ons, I hope they can purchase a whole new and modern engine for Phase 4. That's probably the only way to get rid of many of the current limitations we have in OFF. :yes:

 

But if we talk about more realistic goals, I'd always want to see more aircraft, more different models of the same aircraft, and of course more squadrons. Hopefully these goals can be at least partially achieved already with expansion packs to P3.

 

I'd also like my rank to have more meaning in career mode, ie. when I'm the highest ranking guy in the pack, I'd like to use my power somehow. Squadron management, you know. And it would be great if the squadron casualties wouldn't be so random as they now are.

 

OFF is already quite difficult, but I think it would be great if P4 had malfunctioning engines and everything to simulate the often serious technological problems the early aircraft had (remember that a huge number of pilots were lost in accidents).

 

More realistic mission types would also be appreciated. It would be nice if I didn't have to skip all those ground attack missions and deep patrols behind enemy lines when flying as the Germans, but wouldn't get them in the first place when flying in a Jasta.

 

***

 

P3 is superb, but with such improvements P4 would be even better!

 

Edit: I forgot to mention the option of having my own aircraft individually painted without giving those skins to all the other crates in the flight.

Edited August 20, 2009 by Hasse Wind

[Olham 164]

Guys, I'm beginning to fear, that Winder and Pol, who may have just arrived in Portugal or Greece

for some well deserved holidays, will connect with the web, read all this, kiss their wives and kids

goodbye, and shout over their shoulder, they just have a little correction to make on BHaH, and that

they'll soon be back with them. Then, when each of them arrived at their rig, they phonecall each other

to discuss, how much more they will have to add to BHaH at once, to keep us all happy.

 

I am just beginning to experience craft, which I hadn't flown so far.

Nothing wrong with just collecting ideas and thoughts though.

[Luftace 0]

Well, so long as we're day dreaming, why not. A few things I think would be neat to see as well are:

 

Maintenance/personel around the aerodromes

 

Have been reading Cpt. Rickenbacker's account and some interesting notes there in- German archie= black puffs (as is now in sim) Allied archie= white smoke

Also, dunno if this is even remotely possible to implement, but an interesting fact atleast; German archie gunners used different patterns of shell bursts to convey messages/dangers to their airman flying nearby, such as hi flying enemy sneaking up on a lower craft, number of puffs indicating how many enemies have been spotted and approximately what altitude and direction, etc.

 

Again, because of the CFS3 engine, dunno if would be possible, but just fabric being ripped away in aggressive maneuvours such as sustained steep dives, while the wings otherwise remain intact.

 

Perhaps a bit of blood spattered about the cockpit if pilot is hit?

 

There are few others I could name, but the devs have already mentioned they were looking into it, i.e. wingman not having same custom skin you select.

[BigJim 0]

Heh in the day dreaming mode I would love to see a NEW engine and a game like AH2 but with WWI planes, a living world where you are transported back to 1914-1918, where actual vertual squadrons could exist and operate where winning the war was player controlled (could the central powers actually win with better strat??) all of this running on a 24/7 join anytime, but mission controlled server.

[themightysrc 5]

"Nothing wrong with just collecting ideas and thoughts though."

 

Well, that's my opinion too, Olham. I'm very much hoping that Pol, Winder and the other members of OBD are far, far away from this thread at the moment and will only read it when they return to give their livers a rest from, er, relaxing with their families.

 

I'm delighted with what they've already done, and their responsiveness to ideas and suggestions (apparently somewhat unlike TheSimWhoseNameMustNotBeMentioned) is already legendary. Thus, I reason, when they finally return, tanned, sated with decent beer and a high carb diet, and with their gaming minds honed to the highest level of preparedness, they will see this thread and realise just how much we care about (a) OFF:P4 and (b) any changes in their body mass indexes.

[carrick58 23]

I dont know how far the CFS3 can be developed? But it proabaly it could support different a/c : Fokker D11 and DIII s, Albatross D-1, early french 2 seaters early German 2 seaters (Albatross C-IIIs). Arty adjustment missions i.e., Fire a flare the Arty hits move .say, use the current model where the arty has multi hits. Just leave one on when the adjustment flare is triggered turn it off and the other one on. Maybe switch the sound files to the actual sounds the guns made, Vickers, Spandau, Maxmim, Engine noise same idea. Proabaly could get the sound files from Youtube.com videos. Except for the albatross engine noise? By the same token, the numbers in a flight could be changed so that lone arty spotting or recon could be flown ( They are set up for a flight just turn off the rest in the flight) Same could done to fly a one plane or two bomber escort mission. Maybe, during an airfield attack have the planes on the ground catch fire faster ( like hollywood movies more destruction things blowing up) Finally, More patoling the lines less Airfield attacks be scripted. I know it seems like a lot. carrick58

[Dutch_P47M 9]

Same topic appeared in the old OFF forum one year ago, my answer was for Ph4: dump the CFS3 engine and get a decent one like IL2-1946 !!!!!

 

 

1]. Ph4 should get rid of that CFS3config adjustments thing and use something like in Rof or IL1946. But maybe this will mean another engine.

2]. Make OFF more open for add 3th party mods, like in RB3d, so 1915 planes and campaign can be made. Some kind of a ROTJ or WFP for OFF, btw mods can extent the game lifetime?

3]. Better graphics for the planes, they need to level up for the future, because competition is not standing still. Maybe they can take a look to the F-Shooter game developments, these games have realistic graphics.

 

Oeps sounds like some critics here, but still love this game

Edited August 20, 2009 by Dutch_P47M

[BigJim 0]

Allow me to play Devil's Advocate for awhile:

 

1) a new engine ain't free, only wish that it were

2) When OFF is made more 'OPEN' to 3rd party mods, be prepared for numerous uninstalls and reinstalls, because we'll be doing the testing

3) Exactly how much more realistic, must the aircraft be made. As of the moment there's NO competion that I know of.

There are a few games, YES. But an attempted simulation of the War in the Air, during the 1915 - 1918 time frame. I'm not aware of any, please do enlighten me

 

Where do new engines come from?? I mean does some programmer develope it and then sell it to highest bidder or do they (like Dale Addink) develope it and then use it in their own game? Is leased out to several game developers or is it all of the above.

 

I know AH2 does quite well at a mear 15.00 U.S. a month and all the content is free to download and I suspected if he would make "another" Dawn of Aces (since he was the one who made that sim) with better fm and mission oriented he would take ALOT of business.

Edited August 21, 2009 by BigJim

[Duce Lewis 3]

Where do new engines come from?? I mean does some programmer develope it and then sell it to highest bidder or do they (like Dale Addink) develope it and then use it in their own game? Is leased out to several game developers or is it all of the above.

They are available

I beleive Winder said a good one costs about $10k

That's why BH&H sales are so important

Imagine if Winder was able to get full source code control!

But after seeing so-oo many huge issues get solved here ...I'm still hoping

[horowae 0]

You´ll see a message in the InGame newspaper about which ace was shot down on that day.So in the acelist you can read about this pilot and many other aces,bio,claimstats,just more than i have seen in RB2. :nyam:

Still some ace bios to do but hey its a huge list of aces.

Greetings

 

I mean the aces I have shot are not mentioned in the mission review .

[+Winder 32]

Love these speculative threads...

 

I can say that buffet and wind sounds are in and being tested now in P4......three levels of buffet and winds sounds - changes with the weather and can be switched on or off in workshops.

 

 

WM

[Guest British_eh]

I've got a topper of an idea!

 

Someone should put OFF in their will, then have an untimely death. Their will be lots of $$$$ and 10K will be a easy thing to pay for. Just think special mention could be made whenever OFF fires up, a picture perhaps, etc. We would of course all be indebted to that most noble individual, and OFF could go on forever .

 

Just an idea :|

 

Cheers,

 

British_eh

Edited August 21, 2009 by British_eh

[OlPaint01 0]

As long as we are 'blue skying' ideas for PhaseIV...It would be cool is we could add functionality to the engine and guns that GabiLaser added to RB3D with his "Reload" utility...that is, engine failures and gun jambs, engine performance degrading at altitude, stuff like that. I just started learning the full realistic controls included in the Sim-that-remains-to-be-unnamed and am having great fun managing the SPAD flight controls all over again.

 

OlPaint01

Edited August 21, 2009 by OlPaint01

[Olham 164]

horowae, when you shoot aces down, they won't be dead through your actions,

but die at their historical date of death only. So you can down them, but they will return.

 

That has been considered deeply by the devs, and I think, their decision is really the best.

You can have the great feeling of shooting them down, but you can't change history.

[Rickitycrate 10]

OlPaint I think we have engine performance now. You need to deselect auto-mixture in workshop. If I understand correctly. Gun jams are there too. Engine failure, I've had that too. I work the throttle a great deal myself in a furball.

[OlPaint01 0]

Thanks Rickitycrate

 

Your comment caused me to check out things we already have pilot controls for. I just discovered that I actually do have fuel mixture control even after setting the option for auto-mixture in Workshop. I tested my mixture control at altitude and I was able to maximize the engine RPM by playing with increment and decrement and full rich keyboard commands.

 

In the Sim-that-remains-to-be-Unnamed, the SPAD has a pilot operated radiator shutter control that helps prevent the engine from overheating. This translates directly to Cowl Flap control in our OFF/CFS3 interface for engine temperature adjustments.

 

IIRC the SE5 had elevator trim that was pilot controlled from the cockpit.

 

As to effects, it would be both interesting and appropriate for the a/c to catch fire if all the oil was lost from an running engine as we saw in RB3D.

 

So, in actuallity, we have a lot of pilot control over our kites.

 

OlPaint01

Edited August 21, 2009 by OlPaint01

[Rickitycrate 10]

Yes the depth and options are amazing and believe me I don't know it all myself. I just found I could control the observer position with a gamepad rather than joystick. It give me much better control and accuracy than stick. I appreciated your post as well because I have flown with automix all the time but now I am starting a new carreer in a two-seater and going to manual mixture would be a great idea for this campaign.

[Dutch_P47M 9]

Allow me to play Devil's Advocate for awhile:

 

1) a new engine ain't free, only wish that it were, use a decent flysim engine, like CK did on IL1946 engine.

2) When OFF is made more 'OPEN' to 3rd party mods, be prepared for numerous uninstalls and reinstalls, because we'll be doing the testing, Why so afraid of 3th party mods, never have noticed this in the RB3d mod scene, developers and forum members doing the testings like in the good old RB3d days!!!!! It will extent your game sales life like in RB3d and this means more sales.  

3) Exactly how much more realistic, must the aircraft be made. As of the moment there's NO competion that I know of.

There are a few games, YES. But an attempted simulation of the War in the Air, during the 1915 - 1918 time frame. I'm not aware of any, please do enlighten me Wait until IL2-CK, RoF or Olegs BoB2 are grown up, you have to move up for the future, thats the Intel rule in the game world, always beter/beter/beter.  And I can not believe that FE development is stopped. But the game now is good, its only for the future.