Gambit21

A subject I’ve not read a thing about - thanks for the thread Trooper.

That was a great, very useful map. We had a lot of fun on that one. I’m in favor of these types of maps again, even larger ones to supplement primary maps. It’s possible to design one that can stand in for anything from Solomons, to New Guinea, to the Philippines.

Exactly...Black Sheep from Vella Lavella, etc. But that's sort of obvious no? However...the Battle of Guadalcanal was a pivotal 6 month battle in which the Japanese sortied from Rabaul to Guadalcanal almost daily. (which I'm sure you know) this is the sort of thing we're speaking of. Obviously shorter flights are possible on a larger map so long as you're not...umm....trying to portray longer flights. Point is, we don't want to disallow players from the experience of taking off from Rabaul to attack Henderson because they don't have 4 hours to spare, never mind 8 hours.

Yeah...I just wouldn't want to deprive somebody the satisfaction of taking off and landing due to flight times etc. I think ultimately the best answer might be waypoint and or action point warps /skips. However I'll again state the caveat that this can really mess up/negate mission logic. Mission logic in each mission would have to be designed around/account for a player warping/skipping to a waypoint, and thus how far he can skip has to be limited by the mission logic so that it doesn't break the mission. Thus a convention would have to be reached - probably "Action Point" like in EAW, which may or may not be near the actual stated mission objective. More than one way to skin the cat and no perfect solutions...both true at the same time.

@ZachariasX you make good points. I'm less concerned about aircraft range etc, because A. something has to give somewhere no matter what happens, and B. I can alter fuel amounts. Everything taken into consideration, there's no perfect answer. I've never sat down and played with the Slot map, and came up with a "here's the distance from Rabaul to Guadalcanal, which would put Vella Lavella and such and such a distance" etc etc because I've never had a reason to. I know a team made a 3/4 scale Solomons map years ago for 1946 and it seems to have worked out well. A series of smaller generic islands maps would be useful as well, as they can stand in for any number of things. I got much use out of the old "islands" map in the old sim.

Yes it is...outstanding!

I can tell you that Jason is well aware what a pain it was in IL2 to not have the editor operate within the sim environment as it did in 46, and as it does in DCS...so you're not shedding light on anything here Icky. We can count on the team doing everything they can with regard to the editor, and we'll just have to see what shakes out.

For the record, you could move the islands much closer together and they still wouldn't all be visible at once...I'm not talking about moving them so close that this would be the case. The entire point is that scaled down, you'd still get the feeling of vast distance, (nothing visible on the horizon) but still PLENTY far enough away. Because even a 2 or 3 hour long mission total...

Yeah - no kidding.

I have no hope of actually ever seeing it flyable...as much as I'd love that. It's just very complex for such a niche interest unless a 3rd party took it on...and who knows. We need at least an AI version though.

My favorite plane next to the Zero.

That’s huge qualifier as you already know. Or indeed when they could get into the air at all.

Wildcats and Zeros were both land-based during the entire 6 month battle for Guadalcanal. That battle is really where the rubber meets the road for early PTO. Well that and CBI, and NG. Point is, (and I went rounds on this on the other forum) the war was won and lost due to extended land-based battles...not short carrier battles. Both sides left Midway on equal terms...force parity basically. It was the 6 month battle of Guadalcanal afterwards where the war was arguably lost for the Japanese. So what I'm saying is...you needn't look to B-25's etc for land-based aircraft. Both the Zero and Wildcat, not to mention the Oscar, P-40 and on and on...all land based. That's not even getting into the float planes.

Yeah, if you want actual Black Sheep history skip Boyington’s book and read “The Black Sheep” by Bruce Gamble

Well…that’s like one of the old HL Air-Quake rooms, and what we did in 46 from what I recall. For anything remotely historic we flew CoOps. 🙂 What you describe was fun now and then on slow HL nights - but I was mainly a CoOp guy. We had the lobby though - I’ve given up on ever seeing that again. Who knows how it will shake out with CP, but I’d hope to see some historically based events as well as the inevitable air-quake nonesense.

Need Vella Lavella/Slot first...and editor. LOL Long way to go...but yes. If a Slot map exists at some point then Guadalcanal and that battle comes first. Black Sheep will be icing in the cake.

Scaled mountains etc is just silly as you know...nobody is suggesting that. Same with "scaled" aircraft. Air starts are not an answer either. If full size maps are an option, then yes waypoint skips, or "action point" skips like EAW had both viable options and all in all, probably the best way to go I suppose. Again, assuming they have the ability for instance to build a full sized Slot map. All that said, a scaled approach would work very well. Keep the island the same size, just shorten the distance between them for playability considerations. The distances are huge...so even scaled down you're still flying for as long as most of us would care to. More than one way to skin the cat. 😉

Oh mean you mean the elevator doesn't lower into the hangar bay with 2 aircraft already on it, to pick up the pilot and give him a ride up to the deck like it did for Maverick? Damn...I was so sure that was real. Edit: (I'm making fun the film, not you btw)

Oh NO! Pedro had one a hot pink Hello Kitty Spit skin back in 46...I shot it down...let it stay dead.

You also get credit for being the best tester anyone could ask for - ever. 🙂

Just because of the massive size...but hey I could end up being wrong about this. 🙂 Edit: You know what the really great thing is? That we actually have a reason to have such a debate at all. 🙂

I know what you're saying...I completely get it. Keep in mind that flying a real plane for an hour is much different than sitting in an office/room in a chair, looking at a screen (or wearing a VR headset) with life going on around you, etc etc for an hour. It's 2 very different perceptions of time and types of fatigue. So "realism" has to be considered in the context of what you are actually doing...meaning you're not actually in a plane to begin with. I can barely manage 15 minutes doing anything without getting interrupted. Second, I'd content that flying for 30 minutes to get somewhere (vs hours) and not hitting time compression (going warp speed) is more 'realistic' than warping across a map at 2000 miles per hour to make it go more quickly (thus making it even possible to fly the mission for most people) So realism vs "infringements" to realism as you put it...I'd contend that it's just a matter of how it's done...but it's unavoidable. 🙂

So one PTO freak to another. How long are you realistically going to sit there in front of a computer screen, and ingress one-way to an objective? I'm honestly asking. I can tell you that I've received complaints about 45 - 50 minute ingress times during testing of Hell Hawks, to the extent that I moved the player base closer to the front even though it wasn't historical. So even an hour-long (historically accurate) ingress (one way only) was too long for most testers. While on the other hand I've received zero (hey this isn't historically accurate) complaints because I moved the based closer/reduces flight times. Further I know complaints that other 3rd party content creators receive. If you're willing to fly 4 hours, 5 hours, 6 hours etc...you're a true rarity my friend.

What we need, is something we haven't seen yet in either of the 2 major combat sims....and that is weather system/cloud boundaries. Right now clouds in IL2 and DCS are basically a procedurally generated shader that covers the entire map. Fine for most purposes, but not realistic and not appropriate for the PTO especially. We need the ability to have for instance, one part of the map in the clear, while another part of the map is socked in under a cloud bank. This way you can have the fleet of either side hiding under the weather etc...very relevant for Midway operations, both historical and "what if"