Some random thoughts on air combat in PS2

[meiam]

Two things I just thought of that would greatly influence air combat

1) Are there going to be clouds below flight ceiling? Clouds at 800-1000 meters don't make any sense but aircraft restricted to 1000 meter ceiling don't make any either

2) Are we going to be able to outfit galaxy to act as AWACS? Being able to provide radar to all friendly aircraft, maybe even ground troops and detect tanks and maybe even infantry. Also could either jam enemy aircraft or create radar decoy. That would radicly change the value of air superiority from the current underwhelming model to something really important.

[Red Beard]

Originally Posted by meiam

Two things I just thought of that would greatly influence air combat

1) Are there going to be clouds below flight ceiling? Clouds at 800-1000 meters don't make any sense but aircraft restricted to 1000 meter ceiling don't make any either

2) Are we going to be able to outfit galaxy to act as AWACS? Being able to provide radar to all friendly aircraft, maybe even ground troops and detect tanks and maybe even infantry. Also could either jam enemy aircraft or create radar decoy. That would radicly change the value of air superiority from the current underwhelming model to something really important.

The goal is to have clouds below FS after ship...Higby wants to do them right, and dedicate a lot of effort to that end it sounds like...They talked about hiding in them and what not.

Edit:

If clouds will be able to conceal aircraft, I would think radar specialization would end up being a necessity (and probably be released in the same patch as the clouds).

[Landtank]

Originally Posted by meiam

Two things I just thought of that would greatly influence air combat

1) Are there going to be clouds below flight ceiling? Clouds at 800-1000 meters don't make any sense but aircraft restricted to 1000 meter ceiling don't make any either

2) Are we going to be able to outfit galaxy to act as AWACS? Being able to provide radar to all friendly aircraft, maybe even ground troops and detect tanks and maybe even infantry. Also could either jam enemy aircraft or create radar decoy. That would radicly change the value of air superiority from the current underwhelming model to something really important.

I believe such electronic warfare has been mentioned but not confirmed, especially not for the galaxy. I started an idea thread on the subject as I'm highly interested in being "Ghost Eye" from Ace Combat 6

[MrMorton]

Originally Posted by meiam

Two things I just thought of that would greatly influence air combat

1) Are there going to be clouds below flight ceiling? Clouds at 800-1000 meters don't make any sense but aircraft restricted to 1000 meter ceiling don't make any either

2) Are we going to be able to outfit galaxy to act as AWACS? Being able to provide radar to all friendly aircraft, maybe even ground troops and detect tanks and maybe even infantry. Also could either jam enemy aircraft or create radar decoy. That would radicly change the value of air superiority from the current underwhelming model to something really important.

AWACS would be incredibly cool,

I do remember them talking about equipping some sort of "radar" that works on ground armor units and, not sure if it was intended for fighters or galaxies though.

I think the ability to do mass galaxy drops and use liberators makes air superiority very important and not "underwhelming"

[ParisTeta]

In the alpha so far there are discription for an Air Radar, a Ground Radar and something to negate Radar, also ejection seats, one of the first TB Videos. If they are functional or placeholders? Who knows.

Clouds, as long it`s not a simple layer of clouds everywhere i really hated them in WWIIO/BGE, made boom n zoom always a hassle and all the allies flew right above tree level strafing.


I always imagined for empire goals, when you reach them, as winning condition, to get something like weather control.

[Vanu Techpriest]

I wouldn't really call the ability to glass a base with bombs and rockets "underwhelming".

Is there any word on what the max altitude will be? I'm wondering if mass high altitude bombing runs will be possible (think mass bombers in WW2 over Germany). From the livestream it seemed like all the aircraft were flying pretty low to the ground.

[LegioX]

I really wish WW2OL had the dev support and following that PS 1/2 has. No offense to this game, looks awsome and can't wait to play it. But ww2ol had something no game had. A massive online war, with real world physics and damage. You just don't see that anymore in today's games. This is massive online air war right here. Physics and all included.
You have escorts and bombers like it should be.

Intercepting these RDP (research and development) raids were something you have to see to believe. Was truly awsome.

[Sledgecrushr]

The devs have been very proud of there Physics engine, we can only hope that they can add some of these real world Physics to aircraft. A complex model is really necessary to make air wars ps2 absolutely amazing.

[meiam]

1000 meter is flight ceiling, so high altitude bombing is impractical because of how dangerous it'll be, combined with the fact that there's no destructible environment, so if you're behind a wall and a bomb blew up right next to you, but on the other side of the wall, you're unscratched.

As for why I call air superiority underwhelming is because I feel like you'll need to sacrifice so much resource to lock down an area and stop any incoming aircraft from doing damage that you'll end up gimping you're ground troop too much, combined with the prevalence of AA (flak) and how squishy the aircraft are, it just feel like it's too much resource for nothing.

[LegioX]

Thats what made those RDP raids in WW2OL awsome. Every player knew how destructive raids were to overall production out come on either side. So when these big raids were up, all fly boys on the other side would intercept these raids. What resulted were massive air-to-air fights high above the battlefield like it should be.

[ParisTeta]

Air Combat physic don`t need to be to tough, it should prevent mid air turreting. allow freedom of movement and maybe accelrate/deaccelrate while flying up/down/left/right to a certain degree, simple energy managment.

Freedom of Movement, we have that, compared to PS1.
Turreting seem unadvisble due low Hitpoints, but still, standing in midair as effective tactic would be a bad design decision in my opinion.

Simple energy system, losing when flying up (climbing to fast) or gaining speed while flying down, or losing speed for to much turning (even is max speed is limited to afterburn speed or something) could enhance air combat.

[LegioX]

Talk about opening the floodgates to a market that is very big. You make a competent air physics system, dedicated fly boys would flock in droves.

[Sledgecrushr]

Originally Posted by ParisTeta

Air Combat physic don`t need to be to tough, it should prevent mid air turreting. allow freedom of movement and maybe accelrate/deaccelrate while flying up/down/left/right to a certain degree, simple energy managment.

Freedom of Movement, we have that, compared to PS1.
Turreting seem unadvisble due low Hitpoints, but still, standing in midair as effective tactic would be a bad design decision in my opinion.

Simple energy system, losing when flying up (climbing to fast) or gaining speed while flying down, or losing speed for to much turning (even is max speed is limited to afterburn speed or something) could enhance air combat.

This has my full support.

[Landtank]

Originally Posted by meiam

As for why I call air superiority underwhelming is because I feel like you'll need to sacrifice so much resource to lock down an area and stop any incoming aircraft from doing damage

Hah, tell that to the Germans in WW2!

I see what your saying and agree to a degree, but the amount of damage a liberator or GalGunship can dish out is more than enough to wipe out an entire front line. Without air superiority these gunships are unable to focus on the ground enemy.

At least that's my take, so sacrificing some resources in order to annihilate more of the enemies resources seems worth it, and being in that Gunship is anything but underwhelming :P

[TeaReks]

Turreting wasn't even a great strategy in PS1 unless who you were fighting was clueless or had no weapon to touch you.

Honestly until we actually get to fly around non of us can really judge what will happen.

Also balance will happen in beta. If one craft dominates the other you can expect it to get balanced. In the end it will come down to pilot skill. I think one vs ones will be very rare given the capacity of the servers and speed of aircraft.