The Future of online play?

[RagnarDa]

How about a standardized "official" community skinpack? Something like 100 of the most popular skins and vSquad-skins in one pack that everyone have, so mission designers can count on that all clients in the mission will have a particular skin even though its a public server?

[Pman]

Wonder if it could be tied into the resource management somehow, I mean if you click on an airfield and it has 100 of each aircraft type, why not be able to select one of those... and with that same system you could restrict a user from other aircraft.... hmmmm

 

That sounds like a great idea!

 

Thats the spirit :D

[Pman]

How about a standardized "official" community skinpack? Something like 100 of the most popular skins and vSquad-skins in one pack that everyone have, so mission designers can count on that all clients in the mission will have a particular skin even though its a public server?

 

Do able I guess, would need to be kept updated with new releases though, volunteering? :p

[RagnarDa]

volunteering? :p

:megalol:

[GGTharos]

Yes, but it should not replace the current system, which may be useful for controlling the exact number and type of clients.

 

In addition to what we have now, you could also designate a particular spawnpoint or spawnpoints as being able to spawn multiple types of aircraft.

 

As an improvement on top of this, you allow all spawnpoints to be used: The player selects airbase, aircraft, and ramp station.

 

Possible controls available to the mission maker are the resource editor to restrict availability of aircraft.

 

The problem arises when you find everyone's jumping into one kind of aircraft and emptying out your server if they've run out of those (eg. personally I'm not interested in flying anything but an F-15 ... maybe an A-10 on occasion).

 

Wonder if it could be tied into the resource management somehow, I mean if you click on an airfield and it has 100 of each aircraft type, why not be able to select one of those... and with that same system you could restrict a user from other aircraft.... hmmmm

[VH-Rock]

Sounds like I should log this as a feature ... :)

 

That would certainly be very cool, thanks for your interest :)

 

My idea for this drop down menu for a player to select their aircraft would be something like this..

 

Mission builder sets an airbase as either red, or blue etc...

 

When he chooses that airfield, he could choose the types of aircraft that he wants to be available. All aircraft would be the generic setting, but if he wanted to remove certain aircraft, that should be possible.

 

(It may also be beneficial to give the mission builder the choice of how many of the actual spawn points at the airfield can be used to save over crowding). This way, If a mission builder wanted 5 A-10C's at Sukhumi on the Red team, he would be able to select just that. At Sochi, he could choose to have every aircraft available....

 

A play would then be able to join the server and pick either the Red or Blue team and the correspong airfields would be listed below (where the aircraft are currently listed). The player would then click one of the available slots (under their chose airfield) and there would be 3 drop down menus to the right of their name. One for aircraft type (This list would be populated by a list stored in the mission file that was set up by the mission builder above), One for paint scheme (This would be populated by the skins found on the users own skin folder for the corresponding aircraft) and one for weapons load outs (The same list currently shown when pressing Alt + @).

 

It would also be very useful if the available weapons load outs / custom weapons load outs could be stored in the mission file so types of weapons be disallowed or configured as the mission builder requires.

[NineLine]

Do able I guess, would need to be kept updated with new releases though, volunteering? :p

 

 

Or something like they did for iRacing:

 

http://www.tradingpaints.com/

Edited April 9, 2013 by NineLine

[Grab]

Implementing something like this in the way Rock has suggested would make combat really, really annoying. How do you handle load-outs in the system you are suggesting Rock? I for one and im sure im not alone on this don't want to have to re-arm as soon as I spawn on the ramp. You could program a whole new menu to create load-outs in-game before you spawn but that would be tedious for the user and would limit the vision of the mission creator, what if said mission creator wanted a senario where you had to launch during an attack and the ground crew didn't have time to fully equip your aircraft? Of course you can add something like a whole new mode, a free flight mode where what you have suggested is implemented but that just drives ED's resources away from working on the next module.

 

I would rather those resources be spent on the next great module that ED is working on. The aerobatic community is still a minority here, this is a combat sim after all. While I appreciate your idea making mission creation more convenient for you, I don't really think it's practical or a good use of ED's resources for the foreseeable future.

[VH-Rock]

Implementing something like this in the way Rock has suggested would make combat really, really annoying. How do you handle load-outs in the system you are suggesting Rock? I for one and im sure im not alone on this don't want to have to re-arm as soon as I spawn on the ramp. You could program a whole new menu to create load-outs in-game before you spawn but that would be tedious for the user and would limit the vision of the mission creator, what if said mission creator wanted a senario where you had to launch during an attack and the ground crew didn't have time to fully equip your aircraft? Of course you can add something like a whole new mode, a free flight mode where what you have suggested is implemented but that just drives ED's resources away from working on the next module.

 

I would rather those resources be spent on the next great module that ED is working on. The aerobatic community is still a minority here, this is a combat sim after all. While I appreciate your idea making mission creation more convenient for you, I don't really think it's practical or a good use of ED's resources for the foreseeable future.

 

 

If you read my previous posts carefully, you will see that I suggested having a box to choose your load out next to the place where you choose your aircraft. This box would show the same options as when pressing Alt + @ but would not require you to wait for the ground crew to rearm your aircraft as you would spawn with them...

 

As I said, the current system is only useful if you have a specific mission with specific aircraft in mind. If you just want a general combat server where people can fly any aircraft that they have purchased, how do you suggest that is accomplished with the current system. You can't have 32 of every aircraft type on one map to make sure everybody can fly what they want.

[Grab]

Well, you just completely missed the point of my post there, Rock.

[sorcer3r]

..., what if said mission creator wanted a senario where you had to launch during an attack and the ground crew didn't have time to fully equip your aircraft?

 

He could limit the avaiable weapons via supply system.

[NineLine]

If you read my previous posts carefully, you will see that I suggested having a box to choose your load out next to the place where you choose your aircraft. This box would show the same options as when pressing Alt + @ but would not require you to wait for the ground crew to rearm your aircraft as you would spawn with them...

 

As I said, the current system is only useful if you have a specific mission with specific aircraft in mind. If you just want a general combat server where people can fly any aircraft that they have purchased, how do you suggest that is accomplished with the current system. You can't have 32 of every aircraft type on one map to make sure everybody can fly what they want.

 

I dont think that loadouts should be chosen when you choose your aircraft, I would rather see this done with the current system we have now once you are in the cockpit.

[Roadrunner]

I dont know if it is possible, but as far as i understand the system, you can place a lot of aircrafts on a carrier, although it only has 4 catapult locations and only 1 is actualy used when "ramp start position" is selected.

 

if one player is on the ramp, others get the delayed takeoff message.

 

i tested this with about 10 aircraft for ramp on a single carrier so far.

 

same might come true for FARP's, but i havent tested.

 

so question is, if this already implemented system can be transfered as an option for airfields. if so, you could add all the aircrafts from the virtual aerobatics server (as example) onto one airfield.

 

building all the aircraft into the mission would be some workload, but anything would be in one place with good flexibility.

 

regards,

RR

[CyBerkut]

If they start putting big freakin' elevators on the airfields, I'm calling "foul!"

[Home Fries]

Here's a proposed multiplayer skin solution that allows for personalization of skins (like default skins) without requiring a lot of bandwidth for upload/download:

 

For skins with decals (like the F-15C and Su-27), allow the option of a unique decal for each skin that is tied to the player's multiplayer name. This could be as easy as a filename with "__Home_Fries" at the end.

 

When joining a multiplayer session, if a personalized decal exists, then the default decal will be substituted with the personalized decal. Since these files are usually under a megabyte, pushing decal files to be applied to existing skins would require very little bandwidth.

 

This way, anybody flying a F-15C or Su-27 who had their own decal would be showing off their noseart to everybody else on the server.

 

This is a more problematic solution for the Ka-50, A-10, et al, but could be great for aircraft with decals.

 

 

EDIT: This could be applied to pilot patch files as well.

Edited April 21, 2014 by Home Fries

[HiJack]

Here's a proposed multiplayer skin solution that allows for personalization of skins (like default skins) without requiring a lot of bandwidth for upload/download:

 

For skins with decals (like the F-15C and Su-27), allow the option of a unique decal for each skin that is tied to the player's multiplayer name. This could be as easy as a filename with "__Home_Fries" at the end.

 

When joining a multiplayer session, if a personalized decal exists, then the default decal will be substituted with the personalized decal. Since these files are usually under a megabyte, pushing decal files to be applied to existing skins would require very little bandwidth.

 

This way, anybody flying a F-15C or Su-27 who had their own decal would be showing off their noseart to everybody else on the server.

 

This is a more problematic solution for the Ka-50, A-10, et al, but could be great for aircraft with decals.

 

 

EDIT: This could be applied to pilot patch files as well.

+1

[Pikey]

I agree with most of the thread, a dynamic way of picking up start location, aircraft and waypoint would be great. If it could be done so the mission make simply permits the resources/weapons use.

[Ircghost]

Yes it would be great to have multiple dynamic startup locations. You are very limited if you want to allow multiple aircraft for different mission types within one mission. Especially if you choose one of the airports that are very limited in their space.

 

If dynamic doesn't work, it would at least be a huge improvement if you could park planes freely on a parking lot instead of being limited to only a few parkings (while there usually is more than enough space for other aircraft).

[PLP]

Hi all,

 

Just my 2 cents, and I might get pilloried and left hanging for the crows for even suggesting this, but have you guys considered warm (runway)/air starts as a temporary alternative?

 

It would solve your limited park space problems, plus one of the reasons I never fly the A10 on the VA servers is that I would hate to go through the 7min startup just to have someone warp in me on the ground, or crash in a low-fps takeoff. Therefore I always opt for the UH1/P51/F15/... for their quicker startup procedures. Then again, if warm/air starts goes against your philosophy, I respect that and can only be grateful for such an awesome server.

 

Cheers

[huiyi456]

Hello