Give me some "holy sh... did that just happen" ideas

[mkubani]

Ilya, what about some random unexpected mechanical failures as a difficulty option to spice up the missions. You have probably already thought about it.

[jg27_mc]

I would like to have a foofighter experience (this should be extremely rare though)… There are several reports of sightings during WWII.

Random failures mechanical, electrical, etc as mentioned.
e.g. During or just after takeoff - possibility to change plane, takeoff and return to formation ASAP. Or some malfunction during final approach or landing.

Another cool option is to unexpected have the airport/airstrip closed by some type catastrophic event or accident, or even be forced to divert due to bad weather (poor visibility, etc.).

e.g. A cargo plane has a terrible accident during landing and puts lots of debris and flames all over the place making the runway unavailable forcing you and the rest f the squad/flights to divert or to take the taxiway instead.

Secondary assignments after you’re airborne, before or after the main mission objectives. Radar should play a role on this one.
~S~

[=FPS=Salsero]

Thing that will be more than welcome - to see your airplane and neighbours before taking of. At present, when you find yourself in a plane, is true pain in the ass to guess where on the airfield are you.

This must be changed.

Maybe allowing some view - standing on the wing - before taking the seat.

[Feuerfalke]

On ground:
Spawning: It would be great if you could e.g. choose the position where you spawn either from fixed options or freely in a given area. This would also add a lot to squadron activities and limit the occasions where teammates have to taxi 10 minutes to coordinate a teamstart.

Airfield Activities: Another good point already mentioned is airfield activities. I wouldn't even go as far as interaction with ground-crews, but e.g. fueltrucks or vehicles being spawned randomly around the airfield when the mission starts. That would also make raids on airfields a lot more interesting.

TASKS: More decent briefing. E.g. by assigning different tasks. Simple example: Teamgame, each with groundtargets available: Choose between Task Strike, Escort, CAP or FreeHunting. You could even have specific briefings and loadouts per task. If this would also be listed e.g. in score-screen, it would be much easier to coordinate even without sophisticated c3.

Tower communications would also be nice, e.g. informing about wind- and general weather conditions and takeoff-direction.

In flight:
C3: Ground c3 by not only reporting enemy planes located by spotters or radar, but also from groundunits unter attack and leading flights to corresponding areas. Even if not realistic, it could work like this:
Unit A is under attack, c3 calls out location and asks who will assist (not all players fly in teams or squadrons, so IMHO you have to account for this at least online) - Then pilots have the choice to either accept the mission or continue with what they are doing.
As with the example with Tasks above, you could also integrate this and change tasks inflight.

More communication especially with gunners on multicrewed bombers, giving position, number and types of attacking aircraft.

Playable ATC/c3

Ingame communications only with Push-To-Transmit. Really, really, needed. I don't want to hear pilots barking at their wifes or sneezing or eating. It does more than killing immersion...

And of course my all-time-favourites:
Killmarkers and individual markings

Well, just a few ideas

[choctaw111]

Ilya, simply the best thing I can imagine, is to be in a virtual world that is believable, meaning a living breathing environment at the airfield, and even on the rest of the map.
The smallest sign of life on the map would be a huge plus.
What if we were flying over the countryside in France and occasionally see some people walking around, especially over a target, or even chickens, cows, birds. These are things you really don't need in a combat flight sim, but if you did find a way to put these things in, it would give a "holy sh**, did that just happen" kind of feeling.
What we have now are targets that are devoid of life. Just a bunch of objects we can destroy with some 3d gunners that really don't add life to the environment.
How about bridges and other objects that actually collapse when destroyed, not just a destroyed version versus an undestroyed version of the same object.
When I blow up a bridge, I want to watch that sucker fall into the water. When I blow up a tank, I want to see the turret pop off sometimes. When I blow up a car or truck, I want to see it flip over on occasion. What we have now are vehicles and trains that all blow up the same way. There needs to be some surprises when you blow stuff up.

[Snuff_Pidgeon]

I think a nice idea might be to have some kind of dialoge with your mechanic ie.As your aircraft gets some flying hours up, you might notice your engine supercharger needs tunning or motor might be running a little rough or engine hoses and pipes wearing out.Also the availability of different grade octane fuels or even cotaminated fuels.Or in other situations your mechanic might be not so experienced and makes mistakes!In other words i suppose a serious ground check before flying, also a ground gun convergance target would be cool..

[Romanator21]

Feathered's ideas are great, but I won't expect them in the first iteration of the release. Maybe after some patches. Remember, the most important and foremost thing is basic codework, then everything else falls into place.

Still, I hope to see them!

I like the idea of first person bail out, but I think (but I have no clue really) that this will take too much time/resources. It would be simpler to just use a cut scene rather than modeling the character doing all this stuff. I think cutscenes could be used in the example where someone requested driving a kubelwagen to their plane.

I like the idea of modeling hypoxia, and hopefully better modeling of becoming wounded. Blood does not need to be animated, but maybe, more blurry vision rather than red out, delay/ difficulty in the movement of your head. AI that makes friendly fire is a great idea that I hope to see, especially for rookie pilots. AI that can't see through their plane/clouds/into the sun. Also would be great if when AI was looking at his wingman to his right in a close formation, he might not see you coming from his left, even if it's in his normal field of view.

I hope there will be angular momentum modeled to some extent. If a bomber loses a wing, it will slowly lurch over and fall, not just instantly tumble like a leaf in the wind. Also if the planes do start to spin quickly, some G induced break up. On the idea of inertia, 'heaviness' of moving a machine gun around by the player: mouse movements dampened/delayed making aiming more difficult/realistic.

But above all: AI, DM, and FM. The nice animations can follow later when there's time and when there is a place in the engine.

[ECV56_Lancelot]

Well, i will give you my personal list, even if some of them wouldn't be needed in Bob because of the scenario.

1) Firefighters. See firefighters trucks throwing water to aircrafts, hangar, or what ever, that is burning. See it when you will take off from an airfield that was recently attacked.
Or see it when you land on an airfield that just been atacked.

2) Have to use aircraft that are partially damaged (for example on a mission after being your airbase attacked), or even have some instruments missing because you don't have spare parts.

3) See trucks or tanks cross rivers in open field, in areas where the depth allow it.

4) Seeing "movile bridges". I don't know the term in english, i'm referring to armored vehicles that are modified to carry a folding bridge. And see them actually working, with tanks and vehicle passing over them after it defolded its "bridge".
My apologies for not being clear here, i don't know how to explain it well in english.

5) Ugly one! Have malfunctioning bombs. You drop a bomb and it doesn't explode. Its very realistic, but nobody wants it to happen to him .

6) Minefields: Have minefields where if you have infantery and or vehicles and tanks, you see the explosions and destruction cause by the mines.

7) Power generators. You destroy one with bombs or rockets, and lights turn off. Or something else stop working, like a radar or radio station for example.

Vehicles moving at night with ligths, and turn them off when they hear an aircraft near by (vehicles near the combat front), or are attacked by one (vehicles that are in areas that are unlikable to be attacked by an aircraft).
Can't be sure how realistic would this be, don't know if troops vehicles or civilian vehicles traveled with lights on during night when they are away from the front.
Movies are not a accurate source of information

9) Submarines: seeing submarines perform emergency sumergions when they spot bombers or several aircraft together flying towards them. But if they see a lone fighter, either submerge or decide to try to shot you down.

10) As the video posted bt mkubani, seeing secondary explosions of ships, holes made by torpedoes. Or even ships that brake in half.

11) More accurate aircraft operations. If 40 aircraft could be on the deck of the carrier and take off, i want to see that, and be part of that.

12) Silly one . When you land after a mission, you could go out from your aircraft and walk to the building where the debriefing room is, and when you enter the building the mission stops automatically and you are on the debriefing room.
Of course, if you dont want to waste time, you can press escape and choose MISSION OVER like we do with most sims.

13) Ammunitions depots that explode and cause damage to near by buildin with all the explosiones and proyectile being throwed anywhere.

14) Very large, thick and dark smoke columns created by fuel on fire, either on ships, refinarys, fuel depots, and so on.

15) Ships AI. Ship that maneuver and react according to the situation. Complex enough to see ship battles, with ships trying to get the better firing position and formation to defeat the opposite side.
Not just SHIP1 goes straight from A to B at a fixed speed, SHIP2 goes from C to D also at a fixed speed, and they shoot each other while in range, after that they continue theyr way.

16) Ships peforming evasive maneuvers while being bombarded.

17) Hear the "pig" of the squad (there is always a pig and other pesonalities in every group) perform "unpleasent" sounds on the radio.

1 See a dog walking thru the base and pissing on aircraft wheels.

19) A damn and very disturbing insect flying inside your cockpit because it got stucked inside during take off.

20) Dolphing swiming along ships, whales swiming on the sea, shark atacking downed pilotos

21) UFO kidnapping bombers crews.

22) If you are shot down, being able to climb to the aircraft of another player, and be transported back to base.

23) Get airfields with cannibalized aircrafts, or partially damaged.

24) Aircraft being destroyed inside of hangars

25) People running around in an airfield under attack.

26) Better damage model of bridges, and realistic size of bridges. On IL-2, eveng on the bigger bridges, a fighter have's not enough space to go along the bridge.

27) See vehicles and tanks go on the same road, or route, on opposite directions at the same time, crossing each other side by side.

2 Troop camps with camouflaged nets over tents, AAA units, trucks and tanks.

29) Damaged aircraft that have crushing failures of structures because of a hard maneuver, that on a normal situation that aircraft could stand it perfectly.

30) More realistic harbours, with ships docking and undocking, cargo being transferred. In other words, like with airfields, have ALIVE harbours.

And i will finsh here for the moment.

[wjc103]

It seems to me that the following seems to be of interest to a lot of people:

Human activity on the airfield during:

1. taxiing,

2. landing,

3. attacking,

In my opinion, that kind of extra activity would really "fill in the gaps" and set the simulation apart from everything that has come before, and add a tremendous amount of immersion and interest for the offline player.

Of course time and resources surely would govern how much, but I don't think it would take a lot of "activity like this" to really make everyone excited and bring some life to simulations.

[Abbeville-Boy]

you crash land in enemy territory, that trigger sets off vehicles that soon arrive with soldiers beating the grass looking for you