Simple – Air Strikes

[LongBow]

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Intro goes here – skip it, or find it at the bottom!
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Goal:
To find a solution that allows Aircraft and Infantry, to interact positively in a direct combined arms effort. The solution should improve the effectiveness and sense of role for both units, when good teamwork is used. This should be done, where possible, without compromising the experience of players on either faction.


Core Idea:
To use “target designation” to allow infantry to guide aircraft or their weapons onto the chosen target.


Key points:
# The kill should be treated as belonging to the infantry with the aircraft assisting.
# The aircraft must maintain LOS with the designator's “hit” in order to maintain a lock (or the weapons must not be capable of indirect fire).
# Neither player must have to enter a menu to start a separate sequence, and Ideally neither player should have to use an options menu for this system ever.

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Possible Implementation:

My preferred implementation is through the use of items. At the core you need two: a designator and a weapon capable of locking on to it, but we can do better than that!

I'm thinking three designator types …
1) A pistol slot using item that points” to the target this does not have to simply be a laser but it could be. This should be available to anyone who wishes to add one to their inventory.
2) A grenade that becomes the target, the disadvantage it it obviously becomes static however the advantage is that the target can be created indirectly. Available to to those who start the “command certs”
3) A weapon attachment, acts the same way as the pistol slot Item only is now a high level command reward.

Then we need weapons:
These could be anything from missiles to chain guns; the point is though, that this specific weapon option should require a target lock in order to fire. Any weapon should also do more damage than the comparable aircraft fitting.

and link the two together:
For this think simple … a designator should produce a target icon, visible to the pilot. Then the pilot should aim at this icon, when charged the icon should be “locked on” the pilot can then fire at that target for as long as it remains no matter his/her current facing. When an aircraft locks on the designator cross hairs should turn red and a small counter appear showing the number of “lock-ons”
This target lock should remain as long as … no new target is “locked on”, the aircraft has LOS on the target and the designator continues to point to a target.
If a target is lost while ordnance is on route the weapon should attack the “last known position”

Adding the mission system:
Just because the mission system isn't directly used both designator and air support could be made mission roles and added to what is effectively just a group making system.

Finally teamwork can be exclusive...
deciding who you display targets to & you you display them from, can be important to those looking for squad synergy, a simple UI element indicating if the current missions displayed/created are from/for public, squad or outfit. That could be cycled through using a key bound control.
(...and obviously ignore anything from a player on the ignore list)

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Intro -

Hi, Ash here.

The following is just a little something I have had floating around over the past few days after reading: http://www.planetside-universe.com/f...ad.php?t=38016.

It got me thinking about how to make a link between aircraft and infantry, but in a way that would benefit both, and that both sides would enjoy using.

So what follows is about a days worth of off handed thoughts that I figured I'd write down for posterity =D

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Note: I in no way claim that the sample data I had access to is large enough to be representative or that my opinions of the attitudes held by stereo-typed gamers have been formed from anything more than personal experience.

These are thoughts that I hope will inspire others to create a better working solution, and is not a pitch to SOE!
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So, on with the show …
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