My Gigantic Wish List (Mainly mission creation)

[DaveSD]

Wish lists are like... eh... rear ends, everyone's got 'em. Here's my mostly serious rear end...

1. The ability to merge multiple unit types into group templates. Specifically, I'd really love it if I could take an aircraft carrier and add static (and non-static, I suppose) aircraft and other items to the flight deck once and for all, along with other ships in the task force*. It can be pretty time consuming to have to do this over and over and over again. The closest thing I've come is to create master copies of each of the maps I have, and each of those templates has the carrier set up. But still, it would be nice to be able to mix and match in templates. (*When I was in the Navy, they were battle groups. Now they're task forces, task groups, Battlestar Galacticas, something like that - I can't remember.)

2. I'd like the ability to create unit templates (or a new feature - just plain old groups of things) without having a master item. Let's say I have a SAM site with a command post, search radars, and 14,728 launchers. (Okay, four launchers.) If I smack down one of the launchers I'd like to be able to delete only that when I create a new mission based on the one I just finished. Of course, the next item on my list would solve this issue...

3. PERSISTENCE. I'm going to persist in being persistent about persistence, and I'll be persistent about persistence until persistence is added. (Mission persistence, that is.)

4. I think this is in the works for the upcoming super duper version coming up - better air traffic controllers. Right now, the ones we have obviously aren't in the union, and, being scabs, they're not nearly as skilled as the members of the air traffic controllers union.

5. I'd like to see aircraft directors direct us all the way from parking to a catapult, and from the arresting gear to a parking spot.

6. National borders on the maps, maybe with the option of turning them off. I know this would be dependent on what period of time is being simulated, but ED has performed miracles so far so this one should be a snap.

7. Make logic simpler and clearer so LUA scripting isn't needed as often. I'd rather spend my time at a luau.

8. Maybe the explosive growth in AI could help with this, but I'd love to be able to create custom callsigns that would then be heard on the radio. (Dragonfire and/or Shamrock are what I'd like to have. Squid will have to do for now, and I appreciate the shout-out to all my tentacled friends.)

9. This one's kind of minor - when the pilot's salute is given at night, it should make all the external lights turn on. In the real world, salutes can't be seen at night so lights-on is the signal.

10. Another minor thing - I'd like to see the interval between the shooter touching the deck and the actual launch be a little longer. From what I remember it can be up to five or six seconds between the two.

11. I'd like to be able to set up a racetrack orbit centered on a single waypoint. Specify leg length, turn radius, speed, altitude and whether or not a piddle pack is needed during one of the legs. (Okay, just kidding on that last part.)

12. Bubbleheads that actually earn their pay by sinking ships and launching cruise missiles from submarines. Right now all they do is play acey-deucey in their skivvies and fart all day long.

13. Maybe this is possible and I just haven't figured it out, but I'd like to be able to specify a time that an AI aircraft lands. I tried setting one for four minutes after mission start and it ignored me.

14. I'd like to be able to visually damage or destroy those existing structures in gray, the ones you can right-click on to "assign as." Me want be Godzilla.

15. I know this one's a biggie - true polygonal trigger zones. The limitations we have right now are triggering my anxiety.

16. Smoother pilot movements, because we know all pilots are smooooooooth. The pilots in the Christian Eagle seem to have the right stuff, but the dude in the Hornet acts like Lurch from The Addams Family.

17. Smoother aircraft movements on carrier flight decks. I know they have NWS HI, but not that HI.

18. And no AI backing up aircraft to parking spaces on the carriers!

19. I'm a white guy the last time I checked, so this one isn't personally important to me, but overall I'd say it is important. You need to add options for non-whites and females. This is the 21st Century, after all. Discuss it, debate it, and eventually argue about it. Don't forget to invoke Godwin's Law.

20. This one's minor, but it sort of relates to #20 in terms of model textures - the Navy aircrews all seem to be wearing Air Force flight suits. Appropriate patches, please.

21. Just a nice thing that's not important at all - it would be nice to have some "canned" real world military audio we could listen to in lieu of actual AI comms, just to add atmosphere. Currently, I create a trigger zone that covers the entire map and then at mission start a trigger plays the audio file over one of the radio channels.

22. Realistic ship damage, in all ways - appearance, percentage, Kate Winslet (naked, please) on a wooden door with Leo DePopsicle hanging on.

23. Viking tails shouldn't be folded down if they're on the flight deck. There was no reason to fold them down in real life - there was no point in downing an aircraft because the fold mechanism broke in the down position.

24. When setting up a trigger for something like "bomb in zone," please include an option that's more generic. Personally, I'd like to see three extra options: "air-to-ground weapon in zone," "surface-to-air weapon in zone" and "air-to-air weapon in zone." Whenever I'm creating a mission that I later fly, I know exactly what kind of weapons are going to be used by the bad guys, and that takes some of the mystery factor out of a mission.

25. This one's a tough one. Have the AI enemy sometimes choose what missions to fly - first strike, retaliatory strike, etc. (Or ground and sea missions, for that matter.) Having a surprise strike hitting the airfield you're based at will really pucker the old [redacted]. Maybe there could be different levels of AI involvement, all the way up to full-on strategic and tactical missions using multiple unit types operating from a variety of places. (You'd probably need a bitcoin mining processor farm to make this work, though.)

26. Not all that important, but adding hospital ships would be nice. In the US it would be the USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort.

Stay tuned for items 27 through 4,716.

[upyr1]

15 hours ago, DaveSD said:

12. Bubbleheads that actually earn their pay by sinking ships and launching cruise missiles from submarines. Right now all they do is play acey-deucey in their skivvies and fart all day long.

I've asked for overhauls of submarines as well, in fact I've asked for sub modules. I get we won't have patrols until the whole earth comes along but it might still be cool to have HI and AI subs being a danger to the carrier. 

 

15 hours ago, DaveSD said:

13. Maybe this is possible and I just haven't figured it out, but I'd like to be able to specify a time that an AI aircraft lands. I tried setting one for four minutes after mission start and it ignored me.

This would also be good to coordinate time on target attacks 

 

15 hours ago, DaveSD said:

22. Realistic ship damage, in all ways - appearance, percentage, Kate Winslet (naked, please) on a wooden door with Leo DePopsicle hanging on.

Agreed- we need better ship damage models. I figure ED should start on this as part of a work up for some naval modules. There a lot of question over the best way to do naval modules. The real question with naval modules is how many ships per module and if they are multi-ship modules how should they be divided. Due  to the nature of ships- a full fidelity system would be difficult. I've always figured the best place to start with naval modules would be the Iowa-class battleships as they served off an on for 50 years and the entire class has been preserved. 

15 hours ago, DaveSD said:

26. Not all that important, but adding hospital ships would be nice. In the US it would be the USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort.

It would be cool for a med evac mission 

 

15 hours ago, DaveSD said:

24. When setting up a trigger for something like "bomb in zone," please include an option that's more generic. Personally, I'd like to see three extra options: "air-to-ground weapon in zone," "surface-to-air weapon in zone" and "air-to-air weapon in zone." Whenever I'm creating a mission that I later fly, I know exactly what kind of weapons are going to be used by the bad guys, and that takes some of the mystery factor out of a mission.

too specific 

[DaveSD]

29 minutes ago, upyr1 said:

I've asked for overhauls of submarines as well, in fact I've asked for sub modules. I get we won't have patrols until the whole earth comes along but it might still be cool to have HI and AI subs being a danger to the carrier. 

 

This would also be good to coordinate time on target attacks 

 

Agreed- we need better ship damage models. I figure ED should start on this as part of a work up for some naval modules. There a lot of question over the best way to do naval modules. The real question with naval modules is how many ships per module and if they are multi-ship modules how should they be divided. Due  to the nature of ships- a full fidelity system would be difficult. I've always figured the best place to start with naval modules would be the Iowa-class battleships as they served off an on for 50 years and the entire class has been preserved. 

It would be cool for a med evac mission 

 

too specific 

Good points. When I tried an aircraft timing experiment I set up two similar ones - one with a  Christian Eagle and one with a Yak-52, in both cases starting at 8:00. For one of them, the closest time in at waypoint 1 was four minutes; the other was seven minutes. In both cases, those waypoints were set as landing waypoints, and in both cases they were ignored. Snotty little AI pilots...

Also, besides the hospital ships, and maybe even more important - the support ships like tankers and dry goods. Conrep (what used to be unrep) and vertrep missions would be interesting to have. I can never remember the designations for these ships - T-KO something something mumble mumble.

[upyr1]

On 1/13/2023 at 12:17 AM, DaveSD said:

6. National borders on the maps, maybe with the option of turning them off. I know this would be dependent on what period of time is being simulated, but ED has performed miracles so far so this one should be a snap.

 

The only question here, is what to do when borders are disputed. For example Ossetia, they have declared themselves independent but Georgia says other wise I don't know if we could a dashed line denoting disputed borders would work. 

On 1/13/2023 at 4:18 PM, DaveSD said:

Also, besides the hospital ships, and maybe even more important - the support ships like tankers and dry goods. Conrep (what used to be unrep) and vertrep missions would be interesting to have. I can never remember the designations for these ships - T-KO something something mumble mumble.

I'm thinking AS or AO they would be awesome to add. They could be targets in any mission. 

[draconus]

4. planned

5. WIP

6. some maps already have them (you can also switch map type)

9. already implemented in Tomcat

15. we already have circular and rectangular zones

20. WIP or partially implemented

22. planned

25. partially planned in Dynamic Campaign

 

 

[Northstar98]

5 hours ago, draconus said:

15. we already have circular and rectangular zones

OP probably means a user defined polygon, where you can define a shape with n number of vertices (the add polygon tool in Google Earth is a pretty good example), which very much isn't just the choice between circular and 4 vertices.

[Gunfreak]

Let livery people also do pilot stuff. 

If I fly Egyptian Mirage make the pilot look Egyptian etc.

Would be nice to have drop down menu.

1. Woman or man(for two seaters you should have two options)

2. Skin colour.