Suggestion for an air transport modification

[SirAthlon]

Hello,
I like to present an idea to the SEOW community for the modification of air transport which I talked about quite a while ago on TS with 4Shades, Chad and Valkyr.

The basic Idea is to modify the airfields so that you not only transport material and personal from airfield “A” to airfield “B” but you can also load at “B” to transport to “C”.
You need two loading zones on an airfield. One in which the pilot unloads his cargo (by hitting the key for “smoke” to trigger the action as well as the mission data) and another in which cargo can be loaded (also by hitting “smoke”).

Lets think of a Pitomnik scenario as an example:
The pilot takes off from his base with supplies and flies to Pitomnik airfield. He lands there, taxies to the unload area, hits “smoke” to unload his cargo, than taxies to the loading area, hits “smoke” to load some soldiers, taxies to the runway and takes off to his new destination (airfield “C”, or back to base).

This modification would add new tactical possibilities and and might attract pilots to take a role in air transport in an SEOW campaign.

I had an accident while renovating the house causing me to post late.

Thx Valkyr for help.

S!
SirAthlon

[PA-Dore]

It would be a nice feature ^^ In my opinion it's difficult to add it in SEOW: When you load some soldiers after landing, we are not aware if these soldiers are still alive or destroyed... Only the eventlog knows this data. And, for the moment, SEOW cannot read the eventlog in real time ^^

[II/JG77Hawk_5]

Very interesting idea.

It does however produce an unrealistic notion that you can instantly load and unload freight and continue on. To me this is a little on the gamey side of campaigning but I acknowledge that I am a SEOW realist as much as possible where operations in game are concerned.

I would think that in reality it would take a few men quite some time to load/unload a few tons of supply from a transport or as in the disembarkation delay feature for ground units.

Troops can be quicker of course but Dore has already pointed out that the troops set up for this transaction may already be dead? This could also apply to a pre-prepared supply drop in a set area as well if the airfield had been attacked. We would have to assume that the troops or supply are then invulnerable to attack during that mission to see if you made it to destination. A potential exploit could then exist to hide troops and supply?

For the hardcore types like me I would prefer that there be no hiding. If they are dead you see the dead troops or destroyed supply object on the ground at the load point and you take off ASAP with no load at all. Save the plane and get home.

If workable maybe there would need to be a pre-defined delay set to simulate the load/unload eg. land and taxi to load point, tap smoke to start load then wait 20 min before takeoff. Just an example.

To take it further this could also apply to anywhere really. Land a Fiesler Storch on a road and load/unload a General at a smoke marker? (Anyone want to rescue Mussolini?). Drive a jeep to a load point, pickup an officer mid mission and unload him elswhere?

As I see it the core idea is having a pre defined small area where units and supply must be picked up or dropped off. A seperate zone for load and unload? Maybe but probably not necessary. Success/failure depending on a smoke tap within that small radius and successful arrival at destination. Marked either with a landing event or second smoke tap.

It certainly has possibilities if it could be worked in some way then it could be a good feature.

It takes code and time of course and that is the big question.

[PA-Dore]

May be a way. The Big Chief will say if possible:

Load and transport soldiers (as infantry units) during the mission:

1. Before the mission, commit these units to a new status "waiting to be loaded"
2. During the mission, a transport plane lands on the airbase where are the units (checking the Control Radius)
3. During the mission analyze, check the units state (alive or destroyed). Then several cases:
- If destroyed and destruction time < units load => Unsuccess
- If destroyed and destruction time > units load and transport plane lands at the final airbase ==> Success and units are alive at the new location.
- If not destroyed and transport aircraft landed at final airbase ==> Success.

[CC_Gosdatura]

From the attacker point of view:

- Maybe you waste your bombs & ammo attacking a "ghost", an unit destroyed that, in the next mission, appears in another base.
- Maybe you are killed by an unit that should not be there.

[PA-Dore]

you're right. It seems difficult to add this feature.

[IV/JG7_4Shades]

Hi guys,

Good discussion.

As a rule, I have tried to avoid features that can break battlefield integrity (e.g. units that can be in two places at once, etc). I like Athlon's idea, but I can't see how to get around the integrity issue for combat units being transported, as described above. For transport of supply from airbase internal stores, which are not targetable in-game, it would be easier to justify and code. But if I did build this supply transport feature, I would definitely try to put a significant/realistic fuel loading time in place, e.g. 50 litres per minute. So that would mean 40 minutes on the ground to load 2000 litres on a heavy transport plane.

Cheers,
4S

[Valkyr]

Hi guys,

it has been quite a while but it is not forgotten what SirAthlon started.
Thanks for all that input. We did not think about any "gamey" aspects (i.e. ghosts) on the first hand.
With all the input given we try to modify the suggestion to keep the idea alive.
What comes to my mind is to develop that "rescue Mussolini“ (or rescue the spy) scenario further.

S!
Valkyr