Rockets Done Right: WWII Hawker Typhoon

[Warborn]

Originally Posted by Squeegeez

I lol'd at his comparison from WWII planes to hundreds of years in the future planes. Also his repeated mention of handicap people is adorable. Also, I didn't know airplanes killed PS1, huh you learn something new every day.

I don't see how the comparison isn't appropriate, considering they will handle more like WW2 planes than even modern planes. It isn't like you'll be traveling Mach 3 and firing radar-guided missiles at airborne targets you can't even visualize.

[Squeegeez]

It was in comparison to the firing rockets, where in WWII they had limited rate of fire, payload, accuracy etc. As well, he does not want planes to hover, showing how WWII planes flew. Well in the future there could be hover. That's where my critisism was.

[BorisBlade]

BTW, i hear people saying that ps1 didnt do airplanes right, they are correct. PS1 didnt have planes at all, it had futuristic aircraft that were more like helicopters minus the props. Basically vastly advanced Harriers. They never claimed to be airplanes. So when you see what they really were, they played spot on to how they should.

If you want planes thats fine, i do too, but dont try to say that ps1 screwed up planes because thats not what they were. Honestly, its too bad we cant get both planes and chopper style vehicles separately.

However if you see what BF3 has for planes, you see why the hover parts are in PS, the BF3 planes are more of a meta game and just plain suck and dont fit into the game well at all. They do seem to be goin for more of a hybrid design with PS2. We'll have to see how it all pans out.

I also dont mind if they sit still and spam, thats an easy kill with my skyguard. Much, much harder to kill em if they do strafing runs at full speed. The tradeoff for camping or acting like a helicopter is you become flak bait.

[Whalenator]

@OP -
Not only do you forget to mention that this is the future, not only do you make multiple derogatory references to mentally handicapped persons, but you've also forgotten the important factors of viewdistance and game pace. They don't want to break old systems with the obviously already CPU-intensive gameplay and the distances between bases are short (and will stay that way to facilitate infantry combat).

@Boris(Above) -
Harriers are planes. :I

[Whalenator]

Also, not to double post or anything but keep in mind altitude must be kept low due to limited viewdistance (I can quote higby saying viewdistance is 1km)



Say if a mossie approaches a skyguard, with the mossie at a "high altitude" (For a game) of 500m, it's a far different situation from a mossie approaching near sea level. Neither can see each other, neither can lock to each other -- It makes Air invunerable to AA.

[JHendy]

Originally Posted by BorisBlade

Honestly, its too bad we cant get both planes and chopper style vehicles separately.

This! THIS!! A thousand times this!

Being able to call in player-operated 'fast air' to strike ground targets as a platoon leader would be supremely lovely.

Higby... Please?

[Warborn]

I'm not sure they need to add a helicopter-style thing. They already have the liberator, after all. Fighters should be the planes, liberators the helicopters. If it isn't already setup like that, it could very easily be.

[Whalenator]

Originally Posted by Warborn

I'm not sure they need to add a helicopter-style thing. They already have the liberator, after all. Fighters should be the planes, liberators the helicopters. If it isn't already setup like that, it could very easily be.

That leaves the problem of how to take off.
Keep in mind they've already made the models for these craft, laid down the code framework and etched out the physics. I doubt they'll change flight mechanics now.

[Revanant]

So, I'm by no means a flight sim expert, but I've played my fair share of uncompromising aerial combat, including stints in both WW2 Online and Aces High.

Originally Posted by Traak

To be done right, airplanes have to move fast, have very high ceilings, and be incapable of slow flight lest they stall and crash. They need to lose control input force as they go slower, i.e: the controls have almost no bearing on airplane movement because there is just not enough airspeed and thus force over the control surfaces to make the plane move rapidly in maneuver like it can at 350kph.

This is not how dogfighting works, in either games or real life. Some planes respond poorly to a loss of speed. Others excel--the Hawker Hurricane and A6M Zero were both slow planes that could turn on a dime. Similarly, high speeds don't automatically equate to rapid maneuverability or increased control.

Realistic, WW2-era dogfights are governed by two things--the strengths and limitations of the planes, and the battle to retain more energy/control than your opponent.

As a brief explanation--there were two major types of dogfighting in WW2--turn fights ("turn and burn") and altitude fights ("boom and zoom"). The turn fight is what people traditionally think of when it comes to dogfighting--you spend your time trying to outturn and outmaneuver your opponent and get on their six for a firing solution. Turn fights are generally characterized by a progressive loss of altitude and speed, since turning bleeds flight speed and energy--leaving a victorious plane typically moving "low and slow."

The "low and slow" plane is the perfect type of prey for a "Boom and Zoom" fighter. B'n'Z fighters are characterized by high top speeds, and usually had strong climb rates and good dive control. In real life, this was the preferred American style of air combat in WW2.The way it works is simple---a plane dives and makes a firing pass at a target from high altitude--and then just keeps going. The high speed of the initial pass is the plane's defense, as it quickly moves out of firing range from the initial target. The plane can then choose to climb again and make another pass from a safe distance--while your opponent is generally driven consistently lower and slower due to the maneuvering to get out of the way of your high speed, straight-line passes. Eventually, either you score hits and shoot the enemy plane down, or one of your wingmen does, with the target becoming ever easier to hit due to the progressive loss of speed and maneuvering capability they experience as they evade. A good Boom and Zoom pilot is able to dictate the terms of the fight, because their speed keeps them out of harms way and lets them choose when to disengage.

The test for how complex PS2's air combat model is will be how vehicles manage energy--is there a benefit to gaining altitude and diving, or do planes operate at a constant throttle speed regardless of direction or maneuvers? Additionally, do planes experience relative or absolute advantages (i.e. will I never be able to outrun or chase down a Mosquito in a Reaver?) In this, given that we know the Scythe is supposed to have unique maneuverability in all directions, and given the history of PS, I doubt we are going to see flight dynamics that depart from arcade. Which is fine, given that our weapons operate differently from the guns-only scenario of WW2.

A Reaver doesn't have to outmaneuver a Mosquito if it can shoot it down with missiles from 1K away and its armor/countermeasures can survive any return fire.

[Whalenator]

This isn't a dogfighting sim.
I have also played WWII Online and Aces High

(Holy fuck taking off in WWII is fucking impossible, had to manually set my yaw controls to automatically center and even then jesus h christ)

Literally I have my student's pilots license. While I'm not experienced, I know it's not that damn hard to get a plane off the ground. Even on a grass runway.

[IronMole]

Pfft.

[FastAndFree]

Originally Posted by BorisBlade

BTW, i hear people saying that ps1 didnt do airplanes right, they are correct. PS1 didnt have planes at all, it had futuristic aircraft that were more like helicopters minus the props. Basically vastly advanced Harriers. They never claimed to be airplanes. So when you see what they really were, they played spot on to how they should.

If you want planes thats fine, i do too, but dont try to say that ps1 screwed up planes because thats not what they were. Honestly, its too bad we cant get both planes and chopper style vehicles separately.

They didn't handle like helicopters either. I think the problem was that they had perfect stabilization not only without pilot input, but even in the face of it, say, aiming the nose straight down and still hovering all right

Conversely, look at Saints Row 3 and the helicopters/VTOLs.
They too had automatic stabilization (and in many ways the controls were even more arcadey than PS but read on) ), any time you let go of the controls they would hover just fine, BUT the basics were there just handled by the computer. If you wanted to go forward you only had to press forward. But what happened was the heli turned it's nose down and started to accelerate. If you wanted to strafe left you only had to press left, but what that did was roll the heli left a bit so it would strafe left.

But here comes the fun part - it properly reacted to unwanted changes in the helicopter's heading just the same! Granted this did not involve aiming, only bumping into buildings. - if you bumped into something with your right side the heli would rebound and roll left and then shoot left accordingly, until it could level out. If your tail boom caught up on something while descending your nose would turn down accelerating you forward straight into whatever was there.

Strangely none of this applied to altitude, everything was locked on the Z axis and you never changed altitude until you pressed the ascend or descend keys. Even if you accelerated at full capacity and your nose was all but pointing straight down you never dropped an inch. I guess to make it simpler

[Warborn]

Dogfighting is fun and is what people will think of when you tell them there's this game called Planetside 2 and you can fly fighter planes in it. They will be understandably disappointed if the game winds up having "dogfighting" as a euphemism for two aircraft hovering in place, strafing around, shooting their weapons at each other. While a very realistic sort of dogfighting system would be inappropriate, there are plenty of games like Crimson Skies or whatever which have cool dogfighting but are also really accessible to players who don't play flight sims. PS2 should do its utmost to try and replicate that level of fun, easy-to-pick-up dogfighting and stay as far away from hover-wars as it can. There is a reason why jets and airplanes aren't allowed to just hover around and shoot each other in all the popular games involving such vehicles.

Originally Posted by Whalenator

That leaves the problem of how to take off.
Keep in mind they've already made the models for these craft, laid down the code framework and etched out the physics. I doubt they'll change flight mechanics now.

This isn't an issue. It would be a simple thing to retain VTOL for take-off/landing but require fighters to be constantly moving forward in order to fire their weapons, governed by the push of a button to switch from weaponless "landing mode" to full-speed "combat mode". Meanwhile, liberators would move more helicopter-like and have no such toggle. Requiring traditional aircraft take-offs involving runways would be unnecessarily complicated.

[Canaris]

As long as it nothing like BF helicopters

This is how I remember most people using them

[basti]

Originally Posted by Whalenator

Also, not to double post or anything but keep in mind altitude must be kept low due to limited viewdistance (I can quote higby saying viewdistance is 1km)



Say if a mossie approaches a skyguard, with the mossie at a "high altitude" (For a game) of 500m, it's a far different situation from a mossie approaching near sea level. Neither can see each other, neither can lock to each other -- It makes Air invunerable to AA.

Only if the planes fly far away from the AA, or quite high.

But if they are high, they cant attack the ground effectivly. And there wont be a actual Bomber in the game, not to mention the new physics engine for everything. Means no more 90° out of thy skys bombs, so flying super high wont help you trowing bombs.