I like both of the idea's you have listed. The land map and the smaller channel battle are appealing to me.

I'm sure somebody will come up with something better but what about some time of scramble(RAF) type mission where the RAF gets "x" number of airfields to send fighters up and try to stop formations of German bombers and fighters. Radar would give them information on when and where to intercept. If the bombers hit the airfields they could put then out of service limiting the number of fighters the RAF is able to launch. Giving the advantage to the side winning the battle.

I'm unsure if spawning in the air is the best idea...it's probably better for both sides to have a runway to return for fuel and re-arm so people don't go kamikaze. The majority of a players score should be based on returning and landing alive (in addition to air/ground target hits) ...this will keep the realism factor HIGH. You said before the option to spawn on the ground or in the air is already in place, so it's up to the server operator as to how they choose to play.

Thanks for giving us some positive news on the multiplayer front and for updating us on the status of things.

Not to detract from your idea, but seems what Luthier is looking for is maps. I believe that with the FMB you could make changes to the game type on a map.

Thanks for this Luthier!

When I saw what maps we were getting I was both very happy to see them but a little disappointed at not having something else to work with.

There are two or three possible maps that I'd like to see where I can forsee using them to make something meaningful on the UK-Dedicated series of servers. Just to be clear the maps we run are historically based and we'll use the actual maps when possible but the idea is to still cater to fast action dogfight fans so we try and keep the flight times down to about 5-6 minutes to action at the most and often much shorter.

So I'd love to see ...

1) A half scale or quarter scale Dunkirk map. This provides lots of options for dogfights over the channel, attacks on convoys, covering the beachhead in France, etc. Hopefully flexible enough so that we could have the RAF fly from France and fight with the Germans also in France or go cross channel.

2) A France map that you also mentioned with much less water and more land to land operations.

3) My other suggestion would be something that encompasses the later section of the Battle of Britain during the late summer of 1940. Something where we have a English city or larger town area plus airfields as possible targets and perhaps some sort of clever way for the Germans to either air start or have a nearby island to land at. The idea here obviously is to have the skies over England during that period where the Germans have an obvious city (mini London or something :)) or couple of larger areas to bomb.

That'd be my 0.02 cents for something that we would practically be using on servers hopefully sometime soon after Cliffs comes out.

if it will work, im also will prefer flying on the big map ;)

anyway, two possible examples of 'historical' maps:

Dover-Calais
http://www.franky.fliegerhospital.de...-CalaisMAP.jpg

Isle of Wight - Cherbourg
http://www.franky.fliegerhospital.de/CherbourgMAP.jpg

the maps are small (the shown mapgrids are 50kmx50km !). But attack on channel ships, costal Airfields and Radarstations are possible with these maps.


In total, the given planeset (beside the Spitfire ;) ) would well fit in a Greece Spring 1941 map. But i guess, that is too much work !

Suggested Map area
 

Luthier, appreciate this opportunity to give you some thoughts on a new map area.

I put together a 'Battle Map' when I was creating the 'Big Show'. A lot of historical air fighting took part in this area after BOB. The 'Battle Map' shows Pierre Clostermann's first mission over France with the actual route, German fighter threats and Allied diversions.

Apologies for my 'hand drawing'. I hope this map gives you some good ideas.

DFLion (one more day to go in OZ)

:cool:Great to see you post this and ask our special community!

I really like what ideas you have so far. To save time I think the best solution is to "crop" pieces of the full-scale map so we can fly on smaller pieces of it. (Not like the old "Online" maps where you only removed all objects outside the online-grid, but actually have smaller cut-outs that have no surroundings (like inf-flat terrain).)

A lot of beginners will appreciate the ability to takeoff and be in the action as soon as their wheels are up. These maps would also attract people with lower-end systems because they would require less resources.

In fact, perhaps a "sandbox" map consisting of two airfields and 2 small towns or something would make an ideal testbed for trying out new aircraft, features, missionbuilder things without excessive loading and required resources. I really appreciate the ability to have an "Empty" map for testing purposes!

So far the best idea of a smallsize 1:1 or 1:2 multiplayer map I can think of is just a small "channel" map. Have a little english coast, and a little french coast and you have the "Miniature battle of britain" map with water separating the teams. This allows a variety of missions ranging from anti-shipping to air patrols and raiding homebases/adjacent cities and or factories.

For the online campaign style maps, the full-size historical one would be sweet with 64v64 players :cool:

Just my two cents ;)

I vote for this, even without Armee de l'Air units, it will give some good ground pounding action.

How bout some throwback maps from old il2? There was one squarish looking map that had a small lake in the middle with a base next to it. You know....the one....

I really look forward for that. Current online maps don't seem too appealing to me and the British map is too big and heavy to play it online.


I think you have the winning idea.

~S~

About the maps... I am not gonna point any single place because I know that within 2 years time all WW2 fronts will be covered so my idea is to be just consequent and:
- if there is proper flight engine with real issues, real flight feeling, real fuel usage give us maps in real size with real cities and historic accuracy
- if there is already historic base of that game give us a chance to do it online and play a bit with history, imagine how much fun will give it to history based virtual squadrons
- If you already implementing online freak maps :), think about low spec users, not everyone can afford 1000euro machine

That's my first thoughts, thank You for giving us chance to be in it...