Wish List

[Ghostrider9667]

So many good ideas here, and I know that this is 'just' a wish list.  Anything that can be incorporated over the life of the sim is all to the good.

Here are some ideas that come to my mind that might differentiate Combat Pilot from some of it's competition, while staying true to the combat flight sim genre.

1. Offline campaigns are very important to me.  I want to fly on my schedule, not a bunch of other people's schedules.  And I'd rather fly in a dynamic campaign than just a bunch of disjointed single missions.

2. What I'll call "Investment".  Investment in your pilot staying alive.  IRL, this is the FIRST consideration.  Instead of pressing forward in an impossible situation, I want my first thought to be "Can I get home, rather than just go "kamikaze" mode, knowing that you have no chance to successfully return to base, and stay alive.  How this is implemented in-game, I don't know.  But there should be great rewards for staying alive, and completing a tour.  Sort of a "Dead is dead" mentality, versus just 'replay the mission again and again, until you survive it.  I guess the ultimate "goal" of every mission is to NOT die.  Maybe as you stay alive and gain experience, your pilot functions better in-sim.  If you just replay your last save, you don't gain experience.  But by bringing your plane and yourself home, you do gain experience.

3.  Along the same lines, the same goes for AI squadron mates.  Incorporate SAR ops.  If you read accounts from the war, there is a lot of time and effort spent on escorting damaged/malfunctioning comrades back to base, flying 'cover' over a downed friend in his life raft, and escorting SAR missions to rescue your fellow pilots.  Sometimes with success, sometimes without.  It would be cool to see "investment" in your squadron mates staying alive too.  Those bonds were really tight, teamwork and cohesion, and experience working together mattered.  I know, hard to implement, but worth a try?  Maybe AI skill (flying, shooting, detecting E/A first, etc.) is improved by flying together and surviving/completing missions, and you can feel the difference as your team gets better, whether as a section, flight, or squadron.

4.  Similarly, serious injuries, or completing a tour should result in being sent home, (alive) so maybe you keep your accumulated experience, so the motivation is still to RTB.  

5.  I also like the idea of walking/running around the facility and climbing into the cockpit, maybe engine already started and warmed up by the ground crew.  Make me feel like I'm there!

Really looking forward to this!

GR

[Calos_01]

On 11/20/2023 at 8:17 PM, Ghostrider9667 said:

I want my first thought to be "Can I get home, rather than just go "kamikaze" mode, knowing that you have no chance to successfully return to base, and stay alive.  How this is implemented in-game, I don't know.  But there should be great rewards for staying alive, and completing a tour. 

Time compression on the way back would only be available on the first attempt to complete the mission? This could be a powerful motivation, but perhaps too much of a pain for many of us.😄 I´m just kidding, please don´t implement this 😀

[R7-S276]

my personal wishes for CombatPilot:

- VR and forcefeedback joystick
- the skin texture file should be clean and the dust and old filters apply by setting in the game (like Cliff of Dover)
- a complete clickable cockpit (like DCS or MSFS)
- the possibility to select in the menu between a simplified start procedure (like Il2 Great Battle) or a realist start procedure with all the selectors switches and buttons to operate correctly in order to start the engine
- same thing for the radio with the possibility to switch between a simplified or a realistic radio procedure, manipulate each frequencies canals and be able to really communicate with pilots of the same group, different group, aircraft carrier or airfield control tower and eventually troops on the ground
- possibility to contact the navy air rescue by radio if a pilot of the group had to eject which could be a possible scenario for a Catalina to locate and rescue him.
- any crew position in all the planes should be playable by an human, pilot, copilot, radio, bomber, navigator, gunners
- in the menu the possibility to see or not the player body in the cockpit and the possibility to see or not the AI body
- customizable pilot name, face, uniform, nationality (like Cliff of Dover or 1946)
- female pilot should be a possibility as WASP. Some was employed to deliver the new planes from factory and could be an escort scenario.
- if possible a map as large as possible in scale 1:1 with real time to be able to realize real long range navigation and fly from one island to an other with possibility to loose radio contact and/or be lost (the best would be a map from Japan in north to north coast of Australia to the south and from Burma to the East to Hawaii or New Caledonia to the west)
- if a tactical code system is apply to the plane (like in Great Battle), it would be great to had the same possibility for the squadron insignia or emblem

- possibility to have a large scale of formations in the sky and handle hundred of planes AI and/or human in the same time
- and finally, maybe an update with the earlier AVG Flying Tigers campaign in Burma would be a must...
...😇

Edited December 11, 2023 by R7-S276

[JFM]

I'd like a "back" button instead of an "are you sure?" button. Sims have SO many "are you sure?"s buttons to click for everything--what are we, three years old? Maybe it's the ADD or age talking but, YES, I'M *$%*#@* SURE, I CLICKED THE *$%#@^% THING, DIDN'T I?! I understand people can misclick but that's where a "back" button would come into play--or does that require NASA-level coding or something to accomplish? Over the years/decades/thousands of hours flying sims I've made a dozen misclicks, maybe, but the total time I've wasted clicking "yes" to the ten billion "are you sure?"s is egregious. (If I've ever clicked "No," I don't remember doing so.) I can understand perhaps at the end of a mission if an inquiry popped up asking if you are really ready to exit--i.e., the mission is really over--but for everything? It's too much.   

Also, fuel leaks. In every sim I fly, a hit to the fuel tanks drains the entire tank. Therefore, they must have it coded so every tank is hit/damaged at its lowest point. In planes without self-sealing tanks can you have a tank be damaged, say, near its top, so only some of the fuel leaks out? 

Props. Make them damageable by gunfire/shrapnel. In various sims it's BS that all enemy gunfire sails right through their planes of rotation--why did they invent interrupter gears then if no bullets ever hit them? There are beacoup photos/films/anecdotes of props being/having been struck/damaged by enemy gunfire. Like to see that modeled. 

Victory markings. Be cool to have a setting to have them auto-applied to default skins in a campaign that correspond with your victories as they are attained. Which leads to...

Flags. 48 stars on US flags--seems obvious, but I've flown sims that have had 50 on US flags. And can we have an option to use the rising sun Japanese flags instead of just the white flag with the single "meatball"? I know some people in some countries are offended by the flag with the sun rays but many are not. Personally, I am not. I have not studied it in depth but from what I've seen there is no law banning its presentation, something that prevents flight sims from using the swastika (although with Wings of Prey, once they verified you lived in a country where the swastika was not illegal, the swastika was "unlocked" and visible--and neither before nor since have I thrust my right arm up while yelling Heil Hitler!). I don't know how it's "okay" people can fly Japanese planes and simulate aggressive Japanese attacks/invasions/expansion by invading/bombing/torpedoing/shooting the crap out of everything, but 16 red stripes on a piece of cloth is somehow "not okay." Historical accuracy does not embrace historical ideology, no matter how hard society today works at being upset by things that went on almost 100 years ago. If so, there should be no PTO warfare sim at all then.   
Jeez, lots of "get off my lawn!" tone in those comments! 😄 I'll leave them anyway.

[HerrMurf]

"no matter how hard society today works at being upset by things"

Closing with this after a rant is, with all love, respect and sincerity, absolutely hilarious! 🙂 

[Trooper117]

On 12/15/2023 at 10:00 PM, JFM said:

Historical accuracy does not embrace historical ideology, no matter how hard society today works at being upset by things that went on almost 100 years ago. If so, there should be no PTO warfare sim at all then.   

Actually, I agree wholeheartedly with those comments!