Ibizen's Wishlist Thread - Vector Thrust

So... since the forums have been pretty dead, I figure I might as well put all my wants together in one place, rather than restarting a whole bunch of dead threads. It's something that'll probably get edited in the future, but yeah, in no particular order, here it is...

Short Term

1. Checkbox in editor for displaying distance on radar waypoints, it's annoying to proceed some direction without having some clue as to how long you'll need to be doing so
2. Making radar waypoints visible in radar. For similar reasons to wanting a distance display
3. Trigger for unit detection state, target selection state, lock on state, fired on/engaged state*
4. Trigger for unit detection state (of other), target selection state (of other), lock on state (of other), firing on/engaging state (of other)
5. Options for salvo/individual/pickle for rocket pods for in game menu
6. Reloading rocket pods magazine style instead of one rocket at a time - using rockets is actually pretty annoying because of the current system, since using salvoes of rockets results in the player either waiting for the pod to refill or firing a few rockets slowly based on the reload speed. It would also be nice if Chaff/Flares operated like rocket pods do now, with a holdover magazine so that thy cannot be spammed a dozen at a time.

Long Term

1. Simple choice prompts for use in missions (Y/N or somesuch)
2. Triggers/actions parented to units (spawning effects on unit, distances between units, etc)
3. Formation flight
4. AI profiles*
5. More extensive use of callouts in campaigns, especially ones for the player (“Mobius One, Missile! Missile! Jink right! Mobius One, Shack on Target!” etc.)
6. Ability to assign voices/battlechatter to units/not choose to assign any
7. AI optimizations for ground attack (ie tight maneuvering to make another pass on target, ability to use bombs, rockets, etc.)
8. Visual targeting indicators for allied (and maybe enemy) units

Would Be Nice/Whenvever Can Be

1. Randomized proximity/fuze settings (probably something like setting a range and a probability at firing: 60m 25%, 40m 50%, 20m 25%) primarily for use with flak cannons
2. Option for a truly random cone of fire for guns instead of one in % chance of fire offset
3. Radar resize/reposition options
4. Missile warning sounds giving an indication of range
5. Game settings option for compass displayed in 3rd person view, since the cockpit view has been removed
6. Force player lock to a specific unit
7. Support for custom Radar and HUD icons.
8. Units firing weapons of other units.
9. AI loiter/orbit/standby state/behavior
10. A flee evade behavior (away from threat)
11. Fixing camera lock on for subobjects

When Pigs Fly

1. Fast forwarding gameplay speed (for playtesting)
2. Using lock on to designate targets for subobject turrets.
3. Bouncing off the ground at low angles and speeds (a la AC4 easy mode)
4. Tree placement tools?
5. Saving game states?
6. Replay system?

AI Profiles:

So, right now the AI intelligence slider seems to control multiple behaviors, like the likelihood of AoA use, countermeasures use, evasion, fire rate, etc. Some other things like revenge also seem to operate independent of the slider. While it is useful for Skirmish, it can be problematic in campaigns, especially when a player wants AI to be predictable in a satisfying way so as to produce the intent of the level designer. These problems are manifest especially when one finds that one mission playthrough might have AI staying concentrated in one area, and another with one or two errant AI streaking out to a fairly empty section of the map, resulting in a long period of dead time while the player chases them down, or finding.

AI profiles would be a system wherein all of the behaviors of an AI are set and then saved as a personality. It would also be best if these personalities could be interchanged using the scripting system (ex: Axe-neutral, Axe-aggressive, Axe-defensive, Axe-protective, etc).

Questions:

1. What exactly do the Defend Area and Attack Area commands/actions do?
2. Is there a way to set an aircraft neutral but still have it appear green/as a valid target in the radar?
3. Do triggers have the capacity to use boolean logic?
4. Does making a unit a target in an NPC mission cause NPCs to prioritize it over other enemy units?
5. Must have missed it when it was explained, but what the heck do variables in the editor do?
6. Do each of the wingman/squad commands have a corresponding command in the editor?

Edited by: IbizenThoth

I'm going to add some stuff onto this:

optimizations to improve framerate in large battles

the ability to split units into operations and only deisplay a specific opertion on radar (think ace combat 6)

Music looping/equencing

sequencing for sound effects so you can actually hear your vulcan gun spin up

waypoints as 3d hitboxes that can be scaled in the editor

the ability to script complex maneuvers by making the AI try to follow splines. can be things like thach weaves, etc

AoA improvements/rebalances so you're not just a turret and cobras slow you down more quickly

multiplayer whitelists for planes and sp weappons

skin sharing via multiplayer

that was longer than I thought it would be

Honestly, I think the game still has its issues with favoring more maneuverable fighters overall. I have a pretty comprehensive list of things I'd like for a flight model overhaul, but more short term, it'd be nice to have something in between that will prevent highly maneuverable 4th gen fighters from sweeping the floor with contemporaneous designs without high maneuverability in mind. There's also the fact that older aircraft flying at high speed are almost invulnerable to aircraft of parity, due to the low accuracy of missiles and the difficulty of lining up a gun shot. I'm talking about you Ghostly Eyes! Of course, one can do the Pixy thing, but it's not a favorable proposition most of the time, as it becomes a test of simple reaction times against the opponent.

I think the following would probably help in the short term:

1. Turning AoA on by default
2. Making speed loss grow the higher the AoA
3. Scaling turn rate with AoA (higher AoA = slower turn rate)
4. Making aircraft retain their speed above cruise speed
5. Set aircraft AoA active thresholds high enough to matter at max speed
6. Scale 2. and 3. up by speed
7. Stall forces the nose down

The reasoning for 1. is because it is required for the rest to be effectual.

Now the reasons for 2. and 3. should be pretty obvious. 2. prevents aircraft from exploiting AoA without consequence, as it should also be scaled in such a way that all aircraft will lose speed faster than they can regain at full throttle. 3. essentially puts a soft upward limit on AoA, as at a certain point, the aircraft cannot turn. Of course, the balance between 2. and 3. will be interesting.

Retention of speed in 4. is mostly to allow players to "store up" speed for use in AoA maneuvers while not constantly being in afterburner.

The purpose of 5. in particular is to prevent high speed maximum turn rate battles into nothingness. Turning as hard as you can will slow you down, no matter how fast you are going. In fact, because of 6., it should slow the player down even more quickly.

7. is generally to prevent people from getting into un-escapable stalls that point the player into the sky and won't let you turn your nose down to regain speed.

Some other things to consider adding side by side with those would be reduction of input delay/initial turn rate time at higher speeds (more air moving over the control surfaces more quickly should probably translate to faster transitions, especially since they're not actuated by human muscle power), and an afterburner cooldown/overheat like the gun overheat mechanics.

As far as scripting aircraft maneuvering goes, I really think that making something like Thach Weaves possible has more to do with formation flying and being able to define inputs for the aircraft (100%-0% yaw, pitch, roll, throttle input), since it has a lot to do with the relative positions of aircraft rather than the absolute positions. Splines might be more useful with scripting more specific flightpaths (landings, escortees) for missions specific actions and for cutscenes. Honestly, I'm pretty sure that most complex maneuvers are almost impossible to program into AI bots, maybe the rolling scissors, since that just requires the bot to reason that it needs to keep its lift vector pointed at the enemy aircraft and keep pulling up until it has its sights set.

Does TS still ever feel like reading new thread like this anyway?

Edited by: Nergal01

I've seen your suggestions before, but back then I had other things at hand, but now this list will be useful since there is not much I really want to add above all else. I have some questions.

ST 6 - you mean longer reload time but reloading all stored ammo immediately?

LT 5 & WBN 8 - I didn't understood this point.

Q1. they are mostly the same, it forces priority in picking a target in this area before anything else. It would be better if the AI would actually patrol around this area.

Q2 no, but i'm not seeing the usefulness

Q3 yes a lot of them use booleans

Q4 this should be yes, but I believe it fell victim of the complexity of the Ace AI as it is possible for the AI to give priority at that moment to other unit Q5, this is useful if you want to store of some information, like how many times the player has flown over an area. Or killed specific enemies, much earlier in the mission Q6 not sure if I understood the question

@Bornloser

"Music looping/sequencing" it is impossible because of the technology the engine uses

"the ability to script complex maneuvers by making the AI try to follow splines. can be things like thach weaves, etc" I wanted to do that but never came to a good way to make it possible. but if you have an exable I would gladly give a look

Didn't realize when I wrote the original post that the option for distance to waypoints was already present as an option in the editor. It would still be nice if the radar waypoints appeared in the radar maps.

ST6 - Pretty much. I think it would be more satisfying. Some kind of holdover/store for chaff/countermeasures would also be appreciated too. Ace AI in Skirmish are sorta a pain to fight against since they seem to just spam flares until they're out.

LT5 - So I listened a little to the Ace Combat 04 voice lines a while ago and the Sky Eye clips stood out a lot to me. It occured to me that the missions in campaign felt really quiet without the voice call outs made by the AI. I'm not sure what the workflow for the VAs in Hollow Thunder worked, but it seems like it might have been a missed opportunity to have AI call outs from Mystic/Fennec/Bastille pilots as AC had, especially for things like calling out Ash's missiles for him/warning him when fired on. I don't really know how the logistics for voice packs alongside scripted lines would be unless voice packs could be disabled by triggers. I feel like the Bastille guys and Fennec would feel more like characters if they interacted with you more during the missions.

Also, since it's been forever since the default voice packs were removed, they displayed text at the top of the screen when playing, correct? It would probably also be helpful to have the clips take lower display priority than scripted text when displayed/played at the same time.

That said, listening to the chatter tracks for AC4 helped me realize how much damn work goes into a campaign. Props on what you were able to release.

Q2 - I'm mostly interested in setting neutral units green as I'm not quite sure how to prevent an AI from attacking enemies. For example, preventing AI from prioritizing non targets/forbidding them from shooting at other units. As the AI sometimes decides randomly to attack other units, I was wondering whether there were a way to make targets expressly outside of the AI's consideration for targeting. One example was when I was putting together the Hero1 and His Mook Army scenario, I had a difficult time preventing the F-5s from engaging the arsenal ships while still being set to destroy the flak guns scattered throughout the map. I had to resort to setting them to attacking SAMs first, which is sorta a suboptimal solution.

Q6 - I guess not as important as the other questions, but in the wingman command menu, there're commands for allies like the cover options and other AI behavior settings. Are there editor settings that would allow for all of the same behaviors for all of these or are certain things not yet implemented like the formation flights

Edited by: IbizenThoth

IbizenThoth, sorry for the delay and thanks for the clarification.

I'm going to pick all the short term suggestions for upcoming updates, I believe it should be quick and easy to do all for a single update.

As for the enemy AI, I also agree they can be very unpredictable to the point in hinders the mission making, there should be more granular options how to restrict their behavior in scripted missions.

Related to that the wingman commands, it is not fully completed, maybe it is at 65%, what is left is to complete the formation flight behavior, the code for that to happen was very close to completion but it still needs some work to be put in practice. it may be a stretch for the next update but I'll see if I can look at that another update.

timeSymmetry wrote:

"the ability to script complex maneuvers by making the AI try to follow splines. can be things like thach weaves, etc" I wanted to do that but never came to a good way to make it possible. but if you have an exable I would gladly give a look

I don't, I can't even remember how I thought of that, all I know is war thunder has some way to make AI planes fly in pairs (in pve missions.) They might know other maneuvers as well. For some reason their plane AI is way better than their tank AI.

If it's possible, I'd like the ability to make a co-op or pvp mission from the editor (player 1 spawn, player 2 spawn, team 1 spawn, team 2 spawn, etc) and of course the ability to select the mission from the multiplayer menu and host a lobby with it.

I don't want any actual missions, just the ability to do it. IDGAF about an Ace Combat Infinity like mission, I just want to be able to host any mission.