Carriers And A Future Problem With Fun

When (not If, because i have great faith in TAG) Multiplayer Carriers are released. I see one large problem with enjoyment. You'll be blowing up enemy ships 50KM or more from you, no where near in sight range. As such it'd be rather boring to see oh wow you poped a ship while all is calm around you. Sure you might have a Heated battle with enemy aircraft, but other then that life as a carrier would be pretty boring.

This is Why I suggest the Airplane cam! It basicly allows you either an sort of front of the plane cam (you see what the pilot sees basicly - flight control panels and cockpit) or an F5 style cam where you can pan around the plane an zoom. This would allow you to watch as your elite team of dive bombers thoroughly owns enemy ships.

What do you guys think? feel free to add or modify the idea to your liking.

I remember on the old forums, I think it was East who started a poll asking if you would like to control aircraft as well in Enigma. I'd say it would be something like what you mentioned with a list of orders to control it with.

Well I don't know about actually Controling aircraft. They are quite weak compared to any boat. Even a U boat can pop afew. I was just suggesting a sort of combat cam where carriers could watch a heated battle from their fighters/bombers over in a battle. Instead of just watch their carrier cruise along with nothing happening within 15kM of it.

You mean a combat cam like in SH3, that would be good it is one of the few things like about SH3

There is a limited cam in single player already for good reason.. but when you "refer" to multiplayer, giving a camera to a player that can move it around, he then has potential information about you, that you cannot control, especially if he is playing for the other team.

So think about consequences before you get what you are asking for. The devil is in the details.

Kadreal - it's just in the game they're that weak. In real life one could take 2 subs down before the men manned the AA (okay, maybe that's a bit of an exageration... maybe not... I don't know or sure, but oh well. The point is ERT underestimates them, o/w you'd just die and it wouldn't be that fun).

Maxim, getting intel from the planes that you launch from your carrier isn't a big deal. They can broadcast information about the enemy ships over the radio anyways so actually seeing the ships isn't that big of a differnce. Now actually having a free roving camera is not what i had in mind. Something like a pilot veiw from planes or an F5 style camera that is locked on one of your planes that would reset back to your ship should the plane be shot down.

Kadreal, first of all, I am taking what you said at face value because you said "multiplayer carriers".

This means a carrier being used in one of the two upcoming multiplayer versions that TAG is producing.

In either one there is still a lot to be determined. For example, if you are the captain of a carrier in the MMOG multiplayer, unless you have a second account, you will only want to take a carrier if you are the type of player that enjoys being behind the scene in a support role for your squad, probably a squad heavily tilted towards being pilots. Those squad members will be flying the plane, not you. You will be too busy defending your carrier from the enemy planes, and communicating with forces around you to avoid enemy subs sneaking your way etc..

Therefore you will not be operating a plane, and if you were flying the plane, it will not be through some sort of remote control. TAG has already announced intentions of giving us a simplified flight model for first person operation, and to my knowledge is not considering MMOG ai controlled or remote controlled planes with cameras.

But if you are asking do we think TAG should do this for multiplayer? Then I would have to answer no, because most multiplayer games fail miserably if they try to please real players in a (player vs. player environment) when ai gets in the way all too often.

Kadreal, first of all, I am taking what you said at face value because you said "multiplayer carriers".
This means a carrier being used in one of the two upcoming multiplayer versions that TAG is producing.

In either one there is still a lot to be determined. For example, if you are the captain of a carrier in the MMOG multiplayer, unless you have a second account, you will only want to take a carrier if you are the type of player that enjoys being behind the scene in a support role for your squad, probably a squad heavily tilted towards being pilots. Those squad members will be flying the plane, not you. You will be too busy defending your carrier from the enemy planes, and communicating with forces around you to avoid enemy subs sneaking your way etc..

I think it's a great support roll. The gameplay is not the same as for other ships but the responsibility to your side is immense.

I would hope that MP will allow for more than one player to be assigned to ships. For example, besides the captain, guns and possibly racks should be able to be manned by separate players on the same boat.

An AC team would actually consists of the captain, pilots and gunners. You're constantly a prime target. If your AC is sunk, a tremendous amount of your side's ability to defeat the enemy goes down with it.

The captain would be responsible for issuing flight orders, directing player and AI gunners against incoming enemy aircraft and vessels and issuing orders for defense and escort.

All of this is off the top of my head but if I'm thinking in the right direction, commanding a AC is as prestigious as being the goalie in a hockey or soccer (football for the LFNers and RGNers out there ) game.

Someone who wants to play in some of the action but be a big part of the strategy will fit the part - and you'll find people like that. Keep in mind that I assume that, as in real life, there will not be dozens of carriers around - only less than a handful.

I see great potential here.

Ahh I think I Missed the idea here that All positions including pilot would be players. WAs thinking each person had their own boat and the planes would basicly be NPC controled. While I agree that having like 6 or more people per boat would be quite fun, I think this would make for some rather small scale battles with Enigma's current active population (aka people that even check to see if multiplayer is still cooking). So unless TAG has a large marketing plan setup which isn't exactly likely. I'd think we'd be better off with 1 person, one boat. Let NPCs man most of the guns so we can actually get more then 20 boats in our MMOG

However I don't support the Idea of AI driven boats in the MMOG part. ALL boats will have atleast one player. except possibly for merchant ships because no one wants to drive those anyways.