posted 09-25- 11:16 PM               

1. Out of the box, you can fly for the United States, Great Britain and Germany (complete with authentic voices, medals, ranks, squadrons, etc). With Nations V1, you get all the same trappings, to the same quality or even better, but with the above PLUS Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union. With Nations V2, you'll be able to fly for: US, GB, Ger, Ita, Jpn, SovUn, France & Australia. No doubt this really expands the game, especially with the new aircraft for the add-on nations coming out!

2. Currently, Nations is not listed as online standard at the fsic page, despite well over 700 downloads from simfiles, not including those from the now-defunct bcatp page (note also the simfiles copy was posted well after the original release date).

3. Nations is a lot of work to put together, and considering what it does for the game, it's history of user-friendliness and the fact that newbies are always being referred to the online standard page, it is disheartening for Nations members (current and past) to see this work omitted from the list.

So please, if you know who is responsible for making this decision, let me know. Also, please voice your support for this endeavour (if indeed you support it) because while new planes get lots of supportive posts in threads, more than half those in our threads come from nations team members. These are all little things, but they can really de-motivate you from wanting to keep butting your head against the wall for the sake of anonymous users.

Werner Molders

posted 09-26- 12:25 AM               

So...who does make it the 'standard'....well, I've already decided - so the rest of ya's catch up or stay happy with what you've got

Cheers,

posted 09-26- 12:58 AM               

In some regards, I feel the Nations voices rival those packed with the original unpatched game. It has always puzzled me as to why it was never adapted as the online standard...Tail's Yak and Laika's I-16 were released with Nations squadrons...and hopefully those working on the Japanese planes will follow suit.

Hmm... spin- you're putting the next pack together...have we convinced you yet?

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Brought to you by the campaign for a better Dauntless!

posted 09-26- 01:47 AM               

Second, you may feel that it's a big download, and I agree, but most of you Nations-non-supporters do not pay per-the-minute telephone rates so give me a break and start downloading.

Third ( ) how are you going to include the Yak-3 and the Pe-2 into the online standard? These planes are very high quality, the kind that makes me proud to fly SDOE. Plus I saw MPosis is working on a Val, we are not going to have this one flying over Midway while listening to German bogey calls are we? There is simply no way around this.

The great thing with SDOE is it does not have stupid limits like other games. You do not have to remove a plane to put a new one. So why bother having the Zero under Germany and the Nieuport under Great Britain? If we do not include Nations in the online standard, that does mean we decide to stop improving SDOE. And you know what this means.

posted 09-26- 03:46 AM               

( thought I'd add this, since I got the impression it's creators felt a little ignored and underpraised )

I've paid money for software that was less finished!

MAKE NATIONS PART OF THE STANDARD

posted 09-26- 04:47 AM               

Either limit the PlanePack to US, Brit and German planes. All those cool Yaks and Zeroes are not online standard, whatever are their qualities. Their generous creators see their work totally wasted since it's not used online.

Or, include Nations in the PP. Enjoy all the cool stuff SDOE has online with others for the price of a big, but not unreasonable download.

What do you think?

posted 09-26- 06:34 AM               

Regarding this, the online standard has never been made to enhance online play, it only solves mismatches (well some), but if we really made something to use online I think we'd also better work on sm and DM's so as to compensate the packet loss. All plane have been tweaked up to offline standards and are used online because they're said to be standard. My squad is quitting Sdoe now just because we're fed up with the non realistic amount of hits needed to down a plane ONLINE.
Nations sure is a big download but after using betas from V2 and V1 since its been out, have too say I never mismatched coz of them.
If it is standard it well save tons of pain for plane builders and online players alike.
Not doing so will only result in more mismatches.

Out, back to AH as long as its free for me.

posted 09-26- 06:52 AM               

Support Nations now!

posted 09-26- 12:11 PM               

It is a fairly large download, yeah, and might be a bit much for someone new to the sim and borderline on their decision to keep it or chuck it....so, however, are PP5.3 and the Contest Pack 1.1. So the size of the file really isn't a issue.

If what you mean is, in all future Plane Packs, one must have Nations for the planes to be compatible online...er, well, see Luny's post. Some planes still never get flown online much because too large a discrepancy exists in DM, mainly, and gun effectiveness ( which should really be tied together ).

All that being said, I would support such a stand. I use Nations 1, and intend to use Nations 2....but let's make it SDOE standard, and not just online or offline, as it has no bearing on DM's or FM's or compatibility. It is a great program, a great addition, and anyone who flies SDOE should really have it, because without it, you miss so much of what this sim is capable of.

( Now, if anyone knows what I just said, could you translate it back to me so I understand it?? LOL )

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nealg=FC=

posted 09-26- 12:50 PM            

I support Nations fully. I believe it is almost absolutely necessary to keep track of all the new planes the great guys are programming for our beloved game. I WOULD like to see the online standard page updated more regularly, along with an order of installation INCLUDING Nations. Those that choose to play without Nations just won't have all the planes, they will figure it out eventually when the missions all include planes they don't have.

On another note, I believe that not only new planes should be added to the planepacks, but that some errors in the original planes should be addressed as well. I.E. bouncy landing gear on some planes, some planes like the spit being a bit too hard to kill, the P38 being so fragile, lack of rudder control on the 190's. The list goes on. Let's not forget the original planes in our mad dash to add new ones.

One other thing, I believe there should be a standard for mission creation. The title of the mission should contain : What planes are in it and how many, then perhaps what type of mission it is or some kind of specific identifier. All of this needs to be of a size that it can be viewed when selecting missions for online play. I hate having to scroll through missions one by one to get to anything usable or with the correct planes in it. There should be an "online standard" for missions and perhaps a mission pack made up for the online standard page.

We all need to be on the same page, and to make it easier for newbies to get into this game without too much confusion or this game will go the way of the dodo. That is not to be allowed to happen. Let's get our sh__ together and make this game live into the future.

posted 09-26- 02:12 PM               

If I dont mistake that was the original purpose of the PP idea, user made planes came after with the 109 and spitIX.
Only I think a separate DM / loadout combo would be better for online.

posted 09-26- 08:25 PM            

Under what circumstances will a player not having the nations pack suffer from problems online?

I ask this because if (and I believe we should) we add the nations pack to online standard page it may become undaunting to a new arrival to download all the addons. Perhaps we could list it as a recommended addon that isn't critical to getting started online?

posted 09-26- 08:59 PM               

Cheers,

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AGAS 5

posted 09-26- 09:03 PM               

However, as I've said before the point of Online Standard is twofold - 1. Stop online incompatabilities 2. Get the most complete downloads all together tidily to enhance the FS experience. Personally I think it's time to change "Online Standard" to "SDOE Standard" to better reflect this established reality, but fighting one crusade is hard enough, let alone two. Now about it being daunting... Let us assume that for the average user, download size is less important than number of downloads, given the speed of most people's connections (hence the whole point of packaging it into a plane pack, right?). Once the new plane pack is ready, points 3, 4 and 5 on the online standard list will merge into one - Plane Pack 6.0 (assuming no patch is required). This means that what currently looks like:

1. Fighter Squadron CD
2. Fighter Squadron 1.50 Patch
3. Plane Pack 5.3
4. Plane Pack 5.3b Patch
5. Contest Pack 1.1

will look like

1. Fighter Squadron CD
2. Fighter Squadron 1.50 Patch
3. Plane Pack 6.0
4. Nations V2.0

and in a worst case scenario, add

5. Plane Pack 6.0x Patch

Thus, what once was 5 now is 4. From a newbie's perspective, I see that as an improvement. Particularly going from 2 packs and a patch to 1 pack.

Finally, while I understand the idea behind it, removing the sounds from nations is like gutting a sim. No thank you. As stated above, it seems previous groups have already thought of this and taken care of that angle already.

Oh, and btw, I'm running on a 56k modem, so please don't think I'm looking at this through DSL-rimmed glasses. I honestly believe downloading nations is worth the time.

Werner

posted 09-26- 09:06 PM            

Yes, yes it was me.

Werner "LHH" Molders

P.S. Awesome pic!

posted 09-26- 09:39 PM               

Werner

posted 09-26- 10:49 PM               

And yes, I commend you for signing up for such a thankless task. Thanks, from me, in advance. I'm sure the PP will rock.

Werner

posted 09-26- 11:33 PM               

Nations kept as a seperate download from the plane packs? YES

posted 09-29- 10:02 PM               

a) make a mission assigning it to a Japanese Squadron

and/or

b) *If you want to change the missions that came with the zero, ie: training* edit those missions, changing the squad from a german one to a japanese one, and switch the alliance as indicated in the plane's ppf file.

The Nations team does not feel that b) is within our jurisdiction, as the zero is mposis' work. Thus a zero update will not accompany the V2 release. Whether or not an updated zero (in time for the plane pack) is released is entirely up to mposis.

Thanks!

Werner

posted 10-03- 09:31 AM               

I think now there is a lot more of a need for Nations to become the online standard however. I don't think that 2 planes justify the need to require someone to download an 18 meg file. I think when the next plane pack is ready Nations should be rolled into the online standard however.