Variant Idea

[Instar]

Hey, I don't know how much support there would be for this, but how about a Version of this game, but with fighters? You would be in an E-3 AWACS or an E-2 Hawkeye, and you would direct air battles.
AWACS detects aircraft at long range, and it is resposible for vectoring aircraft to intercept or other things.
The thing with the E-2C Hawkeye is that most of its sensor feed is sent to seaborner ships, like the carrier. The E-2C is not big enough to have a flying office building like the E-3.
Tell me what you think.

[Comar]

This would lend itself very well to a scripted campaign or just scenarios. With an editor, you could have a bLast. Remember, AWACS can also track ground targets now, as well as air and naval targets. There is a lot that could be done with this idea.

[Brian Rock]

I think it'd be cool. You'd need to rework the AI quite a bit so it sent in half intelligent missions, but it could be a lot of fun.

[Instar]

As I understand it, AWACS can track ground targets (it can catch speeding cars if it wants). But I gather its primary role is airborne surveillence and command. J-STARS is the one mostly geared for ground targets.
Hmmm, this is interesting. I'd like to see this into fruitition.

[Comar]

True. But the more variables you can add in as you go, the tougher you can make the higher levels of a game. Adding the dimension of ground tracking and ground targets would just give the game more challenge. After all, we all know it is easier to destroy that Scud on the ground than it is in the air :}

[raydude]

quote:

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Originally posted by Comar:
True. But the more variables you can add in as you go, the tougher you can make the higher levels of a game. Adding the dimension of ground tracking and ground targets would just give the game more challenge. After all, we all know it is easier to destroy that Scud on the ground than it is in the air :}

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Well, if it's challenge you want, there's a lot more stuff that could be put into the civilian simulator to add challenge. For one, you could have altitude and flight path restrictions. For example, I don't the the citizens of L.A. like having a jumbo jet fly from LAX to SNA at 1000 ft above their city.

For another, there should really only be 1 common frequency between the ATC and the pilots. So, if more than 1 is talking, the current speaker gets "stepped on" and the entire transmission has to be sent again.

Thirdly, one could be required to click on the plane and hit a "hand off" button (or just click on it) after it reaches it's destination VOR. This simulates the practice of handing off the plane to the next controller's sector of responsibility. If you don't hand off, then the plane is still considered your responsibility, and you could get blamed for not following proper procedures.

Finally, there's the ever popular emergency where the plane is low on fuel and has to land NOW! Which requires the ATC to disrupt his nice stream of planes to make way for the 1 emergency.

There's quite a lot of challenges left to consider on the civilian ATC side.

[Comar]

I know, but I like to blow things up :} And the game will stop if you make things blow up :{

And the game is hard enough as it is. The higher levels are downright hard without making it any harder.