Two Seater Challenge

[213]

so you say people aren't thinking this through "360 degrees", then your proposal is to get a static camera inside an ai aircraft. how does that come close to comprehending the programming that goes into something like this?

 

the first step is certainly not going to be that simple.

[Mouse]

Fun is subjective, but you can't deny that plenty of people who HAVE thought this through--or experienced this in the past via other games and simulators--think it would be fun. There are already games which offer two-seat aircraft. It can be a lot of fun to operate a helicopter with another player in games like Battlefield 3 and ArmA II. Unfortunately those are terrible as flight "simulators," but the potential is undeniably there for both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

 

My main worry is mostly that we'll never see another helicopter again...

[Pikey]

@213. Right now, you or I can do some artwork and get a player driven mod of say a F-14 and upload it to the forum. Might be rubbish but you can. It's an over simplification to say the multiplayer viewport is where to start but that is what is missing for two players. Give me that and i can stick a bitmap of a Van Gogh in and put Hawgtouch on the flowers and yet its still a pretty two player backseat. From that point the feasibility is there at least, 3rd party mods can get fired in, make models and artwork and change config files etc.

 

Oversimplified, but that's the difference between the capability to do it and just dreaming. Unfortunately without that capability there is only one thing a forum post like this can achieve and that's "Raising the wishlist profile".

 

The 360 approaches i was referring to are in relation to the comments about

 

1. AI simplification. Apparently it is enough to issue commands based on a menu system. I'm sorry i'm not buying that. If I was a back seat driver and only had 10 commands to give a pilot...or maybe a nested 50....well not going there. Even with VAC. Same goes for a Weapons officer. Reliably telling the backseat AI to fire on something isn't manageable via menu without making them autonomous. Making AI autonomous for flying a player model results in a lot of problems and crashes, for anything in charge of weapons, you consider problems with AI being too fast and seeing too far, or being too dumb and artificially stupid. Humans are special :P

 

2. Dual control. Not entirely sure but in a car at least they move together so two people fight for the control. You cannot model this well because two people fight for controls would confusing. A switching method is also tricky since someone has to be in charge. If someone is in charge they have a fixed role they may not surrender. If someone has a fixed role its not dual control.

 

3. Marketing and profitability. I'm trying to represent the people that haven't posted here, haven't expressed interest, aren't doing multiplayer and will not make a purchase of something that needed multiplayer only. It's not my money but at least the development time over months to produce something for even less people should be considered. I'm fully up for open source development. We have the tools, the app is quite open, but if it was easy to do everyone would be doing it. If the framework was available though then the more layman among us could start.

 

I'd like to say that although I might be drawing attention to some negative aspects, it's in order to avoid them because all development in this genre suits everyone, even myself who doesn't have a use for it. I reckon this is a fantastic idea to pursue.

 

At everyone talking about having fun in say Arma/BF2/3, etc, remember it is a small minigame to hop into a departing chopper ...remember you never go where you want and often you look at the pilots seat and see his legs disappearing out the door! Its a small niche of buddy pairs that camp the chopper spawn points.

 

I've not gone very far round the 360 degrees circle but FWIW I reckon if you could get ED to give some of us LUA coders some pointers, then, a third party, free, community driven, two player ONLY, no AI, MOD... has the strongest chance of fruition. It will circumvent some of the more tricky issues at least.

 

"My main worry is mostly that we'll never see another helicopter again..."

Mine too...love em.

[tonyrubak]

2. Dual control. Not entirely sure but in a car at least they move together so two people fight for the control. You cannot model this well because two people fight for controls would confusing. A switching method is also tricky since someone has to be in charge. If someone is in charge they have a fixed role they may not surrender. If someone has a fixed role its not dual control.

 

Two solutions:

 

(1) As in MS FSX, the pilot flying presses a key command to relinquish control to the pilot not flying who must then accept control. Dual control, but not simultaneous. The roles are not fixed. When the PF relinquishes control and the PNF accepts, the PF becomes the PNF and vice-versa. This is a fairly standard procedure used in most two-pilot aircraft. Simultaneous control would be more challenging and not horribly useful (or realistic).

 

(2) Consider the A6 Intruder. If we take a look at its cockpit (http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4102/4928078520_a55600702a_z.jpg) we see at the B/N station a joystick, but it is not a flight control stick, it is a control for the targeting system. In this aircraft only the pilot has flight controls.

[skypirate]

Dual seater combat jet in SP? The concept has been done before. I used to fly the Microprose F-15 Strike Eagle III over Iraq for long hours. And switching between the two cockpits was part of the gameplay as I recall.

[Peyoteros]

So, no two seater for us then, huh?

[KillarZ]

So far the options I've seen are:

- 2 player online (must hav IMO)

- AI controlled backseat/frontseat (player gets to choose)

- player switches between the two seats

 

I say if its possible in a reasonably amount of time (which I doubt). Why not have all 3 of these options for the player and host to choose.

 

This might be an impossible task because I honestly have no clue on how much it takes to impliment even one of these but if it works out it would be an excellent solution.

[Peyoteros]

Wow, with so many third party dev's, fully functioning two seater shouldn't be that far away... :)

[Panzertard]

Wow, with so many third party dev's, fully functioning two seater shouldn't be that far away... :)

 

Time to pre-order you new two seater cockpit! ;)

 

 

:D

 

 

[hog_driver111th]

Time to buy a nice 2-seat cockpit tub with a projector box for some really good 2-seat play.

[Peyoteros]

Can't we just share yours? :)

[hog_driver111th]

I meant to add that my idea still stands in that for the jets with 2 version, we should get both. F-16C/D, F-15C/E, F-18E/F... Single player and MP missions alone could be flown in the single seater, and MP if wanted could fly the two seater. This would alleviate the problem of the AI.

[hog_driver111th]

Can't we just share yours? :)

 

If I find one to buy, you can gladly come over and fly with me...

[Grimes]

I meant to add that my idea still stands in that for the jets with 2 version, we should get both. F-16C/D, F-15C/E, F-18E/F... Single player and MP missions alone could be flown in the single seater, and MP if wanted could fly the two seater. This would alleviate the problem of the AI.

 

I am rather curious how much different a Flight model would be between a 1 and 2 seater of the same aircraft.

[hog_driver111th]

I am rather curious how much different a Flight model would be between a 1 and 2 seater of the same aircraft.

 

Not that I have a clue on something like that, in hearing from a few people that have flown both, the flight dynamics aren't totally different, only that the 2 seater feels a little heavier. Since we can't feel the G-forces flying the sim, I'm not sure how much different they would model it.