Glider insertion, also how I would like AA guns to work.

Well then to bring it back ontopic.

I think gliders could be implemented with spawn and all, but they would be INSANELY HARD to fly(next to impossible really). For comparison(using the skill tree), you would need to be pro at flying a normal plane to be ulow at flying the glider.

But then again, i think any kind of plane other than fighter planes and bombers is abit too much. Remember we also want ships in this game .

 

True. The devs got way to much work already , so let's add the suggestions after they've made it. I just hope they finish it at summer..

 

Haha, keep dreaming. Theres 2 possibilities for when aircraft come. Either next year, or never (depending on weather MOOtant really does take over as coder).

 

No actually there might be a third possibility; more info on that as it develops

 

and the 4th option, flying afvs!

 

Which makes me realize. How would aircraft not get in? Those flying AFV's are proof of functional concept!

 

I like the concept of gliders, but I personally think that spamming could still be a problem, I know Chris addressed this in the first post, saying that the commander would have to allow it, but that is assuming the commander is one who does not want to spam. I believe that either limiting the number of gliders that could be in play at one time or setting a wait time (cooldown) between the creation of each glider. I thank everyone who has been constructive to this thread for making efforts to improve the game. (Game on!)

 

If the commander wants to spam things he already can with the VF. That's just having a bad commander, which unfortunately is more or less a neccesary evil in any game which relies heavily on the commander. All you can do is try to ensure that everyone can comm well.

 

The biggest problem with aircraft right now is that the code needs some tweaking, movement has to be tied to a seperate modifier (try aiming a tank's turret with low sensitivity), we need models for all aircraft, we need sounds, weapons, research, slot selection for each aircraft, we need maps. Aircraft are far from done.

 

Take your time and do it right. If I remember correctly, this is empires BETA 2.12...

 

AA turrets should get a bonus based on how close they are to the radar; this is a viable choice and can be verified with Year 10 trigonometry.

I would give turrets a minimum range of sqrt((radar range*(1/squares away from radar))^2 + altitude^2), and discard the bonus of being next to a radar. Perhaps nine tenths of the altitude as opposed to the maximum, to give enemy aircraft a chance to cruise. A sliding scale for range, determined by distance from a radar, giving the Commander a solid dependent variable, and the freedom to evaluate his situation and make whatever choice he wants to, rather than tying him to "in range" or "out of range" would be more effective. If the Commander wants to throw away the bonus that proximity to a radar gives him, that's his call to make. Just to elaborate on that formula, it's nothing more thanan example, and if you're within one square, yes, you would evaluate the distance as one, not 0. It's just the Pythagorean Theorem with the radar constraint chucked in there. If you were within one square of the radar, you'd get the radar bonus -- the same as the range of the radar -- and if you were 1.5 squares away, you'd only get two thirds of the bonus. This is a good deterrent for aircraft, but it doesn't wipe them out completely, and it's not meant to. Aircraft simply couldn't dive steeply enough to attack the base from overhead, but they'd still be able to cruise without having to worry about turrets directly on the base. Hilltop AA would still be a viable threat, as well as other aircraft.

I like the idea of having a glider. It's like the Jeep of the collection of aeroplanes. Certainly unarmed and limited to one plate of armour per side and four-man capacity. I'd trash the immunity to AA, keep it invulnerable to automatic AA, but certainly vulnerable to small arms fire. That's both realistic and more balanced. It introduces an element of teamwork: if infantry and glider pilots do not work together, nobody's going to get to land a glider, and nobody's going to get reinforcements. My imagination might be running away with me, but consider a situation something like

DaGangsta (E10): We can set up a pretty good base here, there are two refs and a nice plateau
Pilot4Lyfe (C4): Okay, homez, can you clear a landing site? Charlie Squad's in a glider, we've got two engineers
DaGangsta (E10): Roger that, teammate.
Pilot4Lyfe(E11): Thanks, DaGangsta, I sure do like being on your team.
The landing site is cleared and the team sets up a forward barracks finally carrying the day!

Why? I think building from a vehicle factory and having the glider (with the pilot in it) spawning a couple of hundred metres overhead would be fine. I haven't got a clue how Empires is coded, but, assuming that by "glider" you mean "Cessna", it would be as simple as spawning literally with the y-value set to 3500 feet -- introducing thermals and the like are just unnecessary bloat. The engine and aeroplane dynamics would kick in, and you'd be golden. Or, as you suggest below, just taking off the capacity to regain height.

Perhaps anyone can spawn on it, like an APC, whilst it is in range of an airfield? The squad system is an interesting idea, but I don't think squads tend to have that kind of cohesion in Empires (unless they're led by the likes of Zanarias). It could help to develop that tactical gameplay approach, though.

I think it's a terribly unrealistic, from a project standpoint, goal to add glider specific dynamics and the like. For the sake of ease of use and keeping things as straightforward as possible, I would just make the glider identical to normal planes as far as controls go, and not bother with the finesses of real life gliders. If the wings lose their armour (The glider's armour would be broken into four constituent parts, like every other vehicle: Left Wing, Right Wing, Belly and Nose) the glider's had it, and the pilot has too. No ifs and buts about it. This encourages people who aren't good with gliders to stay away from them, and, again, brings it back to the teamwork aspect. You cannot take a glider out unless someone on your team is securing you a landing site, and its certainly in their interests to do so.

Great idea, I hope it gets in.

And yes, I did read the rest of the thread.

 

I don't want it spawning in over a VF because that requires you to have a VF near where you want to land it and it also looks rubbish to have an aircraft appear in mid air over the field, and I don't want to give it infinite range because then you could simply circle indefinitely and use it to spot targets or anything. It's not supposed to be an aircraft, it's more simply a means of getting people to a place that's heavily covered with AA or simply more stealthily than the transport ship.

I don't see that it would require a whole new flight model, all it requires is that there is an existing fixed wing model (which I assume there will be) and that you tack a steady drop onto it. It's basically a fixed wing aircraft which could never take off if it wasn't already in the air. I didn't say anything about thermals or anything else, it's just a plane like you'd get in battlefield or any other similar game with planes in it.

 

Ok, heres something simple, I can't go into detail on it. To summarize, the chances of this even being considered by the devs has astronomically dropped due to matter that as I said I cannot discuss. At this point, this discussion is a true waste of time.

 

With all due respect, Chris, what you want and what's best for Empires can be two remarkably different things. It's terribly arrogant and self-absorbed of you to talk about what you want.

Why not have it spawn above the visible skybox, and then glide into view? That would solve the issue of aesthetics, which was trivial to begin with. I don't see why having gliders spawn at an aerodrome impedes their landing anywhere else. Can jeeps park outside of Vehicle Factories?

It wouldn't have infinite range. Its range would be constricted by the quality of the pilot and a steadily declining altitude. If you lose one metre of height from every three metres travelled, your range is not infinite.

It's still a good laugh and food for thought. Maybe it can be brought up for consideration at some point in the long future, or if the mod goes open source or whatever. At any rate, it's not costing anyone anything, is it?

 

Haha, if only you knew.
[/references to secret testers only stuff]

 

Now you have me curious.
It had better be because of something good.
If it's because of something bad, I don't want to hear about it, even in obscure allusion.

 

Aesthetics are an important part of a game. What I am doing is attempting to provide the greatest degree of fidelity to all aspects of the game, aesthetics, gameplay, and intuitiveness alike. What I want is what is best for empires, it is in my interest to see the mod succeed and continue, ergo I will act towards that goal. If I want something it is because I believe it to be beneficial to the mod.

You can't spawn things outside the skybox, which is exactly why I did not suggest it. Or rather you can but it's an incredibly bad idea to do it and an even worse one to have players clipping through world geometry.

As I initially suggested that they should drop altitude as they progress, why did you suggest otherwise only to change back to what I suggested.

 

That's terrible leap in logic, and completely contradicted by reality, but that's not what we're here to discuss.

Spawn it right at the limit, then.

Where did I suggest otherwise?

You've got some completely asinine claim to ownership of your ideas and suggestion that you posted on a public discussion forum, and I really don't understand why.

Anyhow, let's discuss the game and whatnot, not each other.

 

I generally get the impression that you didn't read the OP.

You make some odd comments, like this one:

"I'd trash the immunity to AA, keep it invulnerable to automatic AA, but certainly vulnerable to small arms fire. That's both realistic and more balanced."

I suggested that it be immune to automated AA turrets but still vulnerable to manned weapons. You appear to have repeated what I said in a different phrasing and followed it with 'more balanced' which doesn't make any sense.

You then said:

"I think it's a terribly unrealistic, from a project standpoint, goal to add glider specific dynamics and the like. For the sake of ease of use and keeping things as straightforward as possible, I would just make the glider identical to normal planes as far as controls go, and not bother with the finesses of real life gliders."

Which implies that you disagree with my initial suggestion which is that gliders should handle more or less exactly as the other planes do, when in flight, with the only difference being that they lose altitude, but you then go on to say:

"It wouldn't have infinite range. Its range would be constricted by the quality of the pilot and a steadily declining altitude. If you lose one metre of height from every three metres travelled, your range is not infinite."

Which is basically exactly what I initially suggested. So again you appear to be disagreeing with me and then posting the same thing, which as I have previously said is very confusing, the only logical conclusion to this is that you didn't read the OP.

Now you just said:

"Spawn it right at the limit, then."

Which again is exactly what I just suggested with the 'glider entry point' idea.

I ask that you read the OP again, properly, before you respond. Because this repetition is not productive.

 

By "immunity to AA", I meant "immunity to radar". A typo on my part.

That's what you said. You absolutely did NOT say it should be vulnerable to small arms fire. You said it should be vulnerable to manned AA. That is extremely different to small arms fire.

You said: immune to radar, immune to AA, vulnerable to manned AA.

I said: vulnerable to radar (First difference), immune to AA (only similarity), vulnerable to small arms fire (Second difference)

That is, two out of three points were absolutely different. Again, as I said in my last post, can you stop trying to have a go at me, and get back on point? You're painting a terrible picture of the Empires forums, and I certainly hope that I shouldn't be expecting this in every thread.

When I made my post, I was addressing the Empires Forums. I was not addressing you as the OP; I was addressing everyone who was reading that message. You might misunderstand how public forums work, but I can't help you with that. Gliders are quite complex machines, and I'm sure there's more than one person who thinks of a thousand different things when you say "glider". I was agreeing with you -- yes, you're having a go because I agreed with you -- in my own way, that approached it from a slightly different angle, that might get my position across to someone familiar with gliders a bit better than yours.

I've got to ask, did I grief you in-game? Did I make inappropriate comments? Do I talk too much on voice? You're being quite a belligerent asshole, and I don't appreciate it, nor do I think that it's at all warranted.

That is, again, not what I proposed at all.

I said:

You: Spawn at edge of map
Me: Spawn above aeroplane factory

Those are different points.

I was unclear: I meant the vertical limit. As in, you would spawn above the vehicle factory, at the vertical limit. Do you understand what I mean?

You've yet to point out a single miscomprehension of the OP on my part -- only misinterpretations of my posts by yourself.