posted 06-19- 04:27 PM               

Basics:
Each nation is limited to a number of “Online Standard” aircraft, the limit will be set as follows:

3 types of fighter
2 types of fighter bomber
2 bombers

These aircraft for each nation will be balanced as closely as possibly for historical use. If a nation doesn’t have enough aircraft to fill it’s number, then aircraft of other types ARE NOT ALLOWED, meaning, if a nation only has 1 bomber, a 4th fighter is not put in it’s place, simply the space is left empty until such time as that nation has the soccrect aircraft type to fit, this way there’s no chopping and changing of an aircraft being in the pack and then later removed because the bomber turned up, this is about continuety for online play.

As an example:

GB Fighters
Spit VB
Hurricane
Typhoon
GB Fighter Bombers:
Mossie
Buefighter
GB Bombers
Lancaster
Manchester

USA Fighters
P51D
F4U (1 type)
P47D
USA Fighter Bombers
P38 (1 type)
A20/B36 or B25 once finished
Bombers
B17F
TBN

Germany Fighters
109F4
190A3
Me262
Fighter Bombers
TBN
TBN
Bombers
Ju88 (1 type)
He111 (when finished, or JU188)

And so on for each nation. Once these aircraft are picked, they are THE online standard, unless changes are made to these aircraft in updates then the pack id never enlarged other than to add missing aircraft to other nations. All other aircraft no longer in the pack are made available for individual downloads, you can have as maney as you like, but the online standard pack is never messed around with bar updates/fixes. In this way we garuntee the there’s never the havoc with the online standard as we have now. Yes it would be nice to have every single aircraft of PP standard added to it, but we all know this simply isn’t feasable as time goes on, my way here means the standard will always be the same for us “old hats” and for the newbies alike. OK, lets say your online with your new plane pack and masses of extra added aircraft, and a newbie jumps in, he’s just updated to the PP but doesn’t have all the addons you have, this should no longer be a problem, because Jeeves is going to be nice enough to build a PP Mission Pack, which holds missions for ONLY PP aircraft, so the newbie might not have the same aircraft as you do, but his PP is exactly the same, you can now easily pick a PP Mission and everyone can get to having fun in much shorter time.

OK, after all that, I personaly think this is the best and easiest solution, and basicly I’m looking for the backing of the majority here, once I have that, I also want a team of long standing members to assist in the picking of aircraft to be entered to this new PP, Spin, you’re essential to this, I hope you agree with my way of thinking (fingers crossed)

What I want.. I want to bring a stop to all these problems and bickering, I know some will still bicker about this or that should be in the pack and not the one that’s there, but hell, I have big shoulders, bring all your problems to me 

OK, again I’m looking for serious backup for this idea, and older members to voluteer to assist in picking the planes for each nation.

Please guys, back me up on this because I see this as the best workable solution.

the complete standard would be this pacl plus the latest available patch (currently x.9) Net Loadouts are droped since patch x.9 addresses this problem.

Help out guys, don't bicker in here.

~Nat~

posted 06-19- 06:16 PM            

I am on your six for this idea! Great job!

(See my post on the "Fat Pig" thread)

Who is in the lead for this task? Snickers? Give me a shout for help. I may be out of line in saying, but I think the rest of the regular "onliners" will back this idea. Hell, we only fly a few of the planes online anyway so whats the dam big deal???

posted 06-19- 06:50 PM               

I believe that some may be shy and do not want to look dense and are fearful of not having the right setup to get into an on line game. The easier it is to get online the more fun it is - and it allows one to join a game on short notice when one gets a bit of free time without always checking and wondering what the standard is or what most or all will be using as a standard on any particular night.

But I still love lots and lots of planes and all kinds of add-ons. So even if they don't make it as an online standard I have no problem with having two installs of this great sim.

And one other point and that is for the fellows who work so hard with the planes, ground objects, textures, sounds, missions, skins, patches and anything else I can't think of right this minute a big thank you. Your work is very much appreciated by me.

posted 06-19- 07:19 PM               

Silas, on your point of having 2 instals, I would hope that this kind of setup would help do away with that kind of trouble aswell, the point is that other than bringing nations upto their aircraft limit, the planes in the pack wouldn't be changed or added to, every other plane you have is a extra that you decided to have or not, but all along everyone will still have the base pack of identical aircraft, so even if you mis match with some you've downloaded as extras, you all should still have the base pack that never realy changes other than as I've mentioned above.

Braveheart, it is actualy good to see you, did I blow my top.. well.. yeah but hey, throughout all flames and explosions on this board, I do generaly try to do what I hope is for the best, and your help, feedback and thoughts are always welcome, arguments or not, we're still a community

Currently for this task.. well I'm thinking along the lines of Snick, Myself, and hopefully a few others that are good hardworking members around here, but there'll be nothing hard and fast until this is sorted out into a plan of action.

Still, through all this, there have been a few ideas put forward, the very most important thing though is that people stop sitting on the fence and get invlved, give comments and thoughts on ideas put forward, to often this debate dies away because the same 5 people post there thoughts and nothing gets done, well this time I say NEIGH! It shall be done!

posted 06-19- 07:31 PM               

You are proposing only 21 planes for the 3 major countries. I have to admit that I am concerned about having all the remaining planes out there (and the new ones that will be built) in a "non-standarized" uncontrollable form. By not being in a planepak each plane will become fair game for tweaks in loadouts, DM, FM etc. by various creative people. As we know these tweaks do get posted. Some people use them and others don't, for "offline" flying - but these same people leave the planepak versions alone for flying online. Since there will be no planepak version of these "outsiders" it won't be long before they can never be used online because of these tweaks. Do we really want to limit our online experience to only 21 planes forever?

In addition people will have to search all over for these "2nd tier" planes if they want to download them. Other than your 21 basic planes, we will have the same confusion and frustration we had before the advent of planepaks

I would like to suggest that if we adopt your proposal that we have another planepak for all the others that are in the current planepak, but don't make the final cut, so we can keep them standardized. This "second" planepak can be updated more frequently with additional planes or as they are built when they are not added to the primary planepak. In otherwords, treat them like we treat the WWI pak now. Not an online requirement but still a standard set of planes for online use if you want to use them.

posted 06-19- 09:57 PM               

The problem, of course, would be "tinkering" with the planes not included in the base pack. But perhaps we could solve that to some extent with "volunteer project managers."

For instance, say I'm the "Project Manager" for the "Corsair Pack." That means I oversee any mods to the F4U series (including the one in the base pack) and take responsibility for putting out occasional (but not "frequent" updates) to the whole series, after reasonable testing periods of course. The base pack is unchanged by what I put out, but the other Corsairs are ONLY "standardized" if the Project Manager puts out a pack. So if Razer, say, wants to do an F4U-7, he is welcome to, but it doesn't get into a "sanctioned" Corsair Pack unless it meets my (hehe) "demanding" standards It remains "beta" until inclusion in an "official" add-on pack.

Remember, this is all voluntary. If Tailslide, for instance, ponies up to "manage" the FW-190 fleet, he's just saying that he'll "coordinate" updates to any "online standard" 190 pack. The 190 in the base pack would be under his "supervision" too, but he wouldn't be worrying about updated versions to that one. He'd be looking out for the Dora, and the Ta-152, and the other 2 190A models. Anybody could be actually doing the updates to those planes, but TS would be "certifying" them by putting out the 190 pack.

Obviously, if no one volunteered to "oversee" a particular plane, it would always remain in "beta" status. Periodically, maybe someone would gather up all the "orphans" and do a "variety pack" of long-standing betas just to give those planes some online compatibility.

To some extent, we do this already, as most guys respect the original builder's "right" to "approve" modifications, but we'd be going a bit farther here, because the Project Manager would also be agreeing NOT to release a new version every time he thought of a new feature--he'd be "reigning in" the builders (or himself) to preserve the online stability of "his" stable of planes.

Meanwhile, the Base Pack would hopefully provide a "baseline" of online combatibility for everyone (especially newbies) to fall back on.

Just thinkin out loud...

posted 06-20- 01:31 AM               

If everyone is on the same page, then when it is time for all to read paragraph 3, we all won't have to flip haphazardly through the whole damn book.

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nealg=FC=

posted 06-20- 06:20 PM            

Just Do It Man!

There is never going to be a perfect solution but you have come to the Fourm with the best ideas yet. If I new how to handle this I would do it! LOL

Seriously, if I can help in anyway drop me an email.

We need a central location for the most current planes. This would solve the single plane beta issues raised above. Anyone building that wants to keep the community current with their latest plane would use this site for the link. You pick the site bud! My impression has always been that Simfiles was the central location (see, I am not even sure, so how are the new flyers supposed to know?)

Lets get organized! You lead the way, we follow!

BTW, can anyone confirm if the plane FM's changed in PP6.0 to 6.1? There was a post by Spin in another thread regarding this question and it was not clear to me. A few of us online last night were testing, going from 6.0 to 6.1 with same planes and it seemed like the plane FM's were different. We plan on further controlled tests tonight.

Thanks,

posted 06-20- 10:58 PM               

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nealg=FC=

posted 06-21- 10:10 AM               

This sounds like the best way to move forward. As the number of planes grows(and it will) we need to manage this someway and the way you are proposing gets my vote.

Email me with your details if you want another set of eyes to look it over.

I also think, since the patch will handle 32 par files we could have the base pack as you stated and "all other" packs split out for each nation. We want to keep as many sm, loadout, etc files from being modified and causing mismatches when people want to fly missions with the planes not included in the base pack.

posted 06-21- 01:41 PM               

being able to simply enable and disable things with a click of the mouse is the way to go.

If we move everything to it's operational theater then we cna handle things better.

ETO, PTO, WW1 and anything else we want can go there and just be turned on or off.

just so you know I haven't read any of the posts above so if i'm repeating something someone else has said then it can't be that bad of an idea.

If a person or group is setup to "police" projects, what happens to all my projects they are still secret?

------------------
Tony "Razer" Martin

Brought to you by the Campaign for a better Pacific.
FS Hangar

posted 06-21- 03:11 PM               

If you limit the number of planes I would suggest changing the categories as follows

Fighters-3
Fighter Bombers-2
HEAVY Bombers-2
Medium/Ttactical Bombers-2

This keeps the "flavor of the nature of comabt as the heavy bomber category could be limited to the US and Great Britain, the only 2 nations to produce heavy bombers in large numbers.

Next, the freeware version of Installer Vise DOES allow you to access updates over the web. This could be handled this way-
Planes or par files for the "standard" are put in one folder. Other planes can be grouped by nation or theater.

I appears as if you can pick which files you want to update. If someone more familiar with this utility can chip in that would really help. You could also have it download an updated installer as new planes are added.

Bryan and Sean- you may want to look into this. This would be a great way to handle updates for Wings with wires

posted 06-21- 05:39 PM            

I am affraid I have to disagree (if I am understanding what you mean) with the Open Plane folder idea. I have been flying with the two packs since they have been out. The Open Plane "switch" at the options menu is a geat tool. However, it is a first class pain in the rear to go from the Lobby where we "plane up" (lol, can't remember the technical name for this lobby) clear back to the options menu and back again, which is what is happening now with the two packs.

As you are aware flying online, the missions get changed several times as people are bouncing back and forth from the lobby until it is clear how many pilots are going to fly. If they now have to go back to the Option menu to click planes (or packs) on/off there will be major problems.

Give Nat a chance to work out all the details and I think that this will be best for SDOE. All planes would be available (if that is what one chooses) with out having to leave the lobby. Just change the mission to get a compatible setup.

If I missunderstood I apoligize for the "Rambling"

posted 06-22- 06:20 AM               

WTG NAT!