Feature suggestion

[Turner]

Ok this is sort of a wish and a inquiry. Would it require a lot of coding to be able to sign yourself up with a unit and fly in the game? That is, add your name to the database in a unit of your choice.

Is it doable within the resource constraints you have?

What do the players think of this, would it be a fun feature?

[Redmarkus5]

Well, that would require the development of a whole flight SIM to support it. That's not going to happen, although your idea is excellent.

May I suggest that you look at Battle of Britain 2 - Wings of Victory? They have exactly that model. Unfortunately, I think there's a bug that means that Axis fighters have major problems escorting their bombers, but it's a fun experience nonetheless and worth owning.

Now, my all time favorite in this genre is B17 The Mighty Eighth - the best wargame ever to sit on my PC and I still play it. In fact, I may start it up right now! You need to patch it and mod it, if you can still find it to buy, and the graphics are a little fuzzy but still way better than many games that came out much more recently. If you do buy it, PM me and I'll point you at some links for mods etc.

B17 was a game way ahead of its time - you plan the missions on a map of Europe, review your crews, maintain your aircraft, fly the missions (or jump to enemy planes, OR just spectate) operate as a gunner, navigator, radio op AND bomb aimer. Fantastic game design.

Why nobody can code games that way anymore is a mystery to me...

[Redmarkus5]

Or did you just mean have your name listed in the pilot pool???

[Turner]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

Or did you just mean have your name listed in the pilot pool???

yes

BTW I do have the games you mentioned. Imho no game beat Aces High for realistic WW2 air combat though. It is a WW2 MMO just look it up on YouTube and/or download the film in my sig.

[Redmarkus5]

Thanks. I have Aces High but can't get into it for some reason. I like the mission planning and strategy of B17.

Now, there's a file called 'bobxpp' here: C:\Matrix Games\Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to the Bombing of the Reich\DAT that holds a lot of pilot names. My guess would be that if you open it up with Notepad and replace a name with your own, you will be 'flying' in the game.

I'm not going to edit this in my own game, so you proceed at your own risk!

Let us know how it works out.

[Turner]

Looks like the 'bobxpp.dat' file hold the names for the BoB campaign, while the 'bomb44xpp.dat' is the BTR '44 campaign and 'bombxpp.dat' is the '43 campaign. I tried editing and entering my name instead of one of the pilots in the '43 campaign file then opened up a new '43 campaign which resulted in a crash to desktop.

So no success doing that I'm afraid. Perhaps someone else can give a clue as to what possibilities there are.

[Redmarkus5]

It must be mapping that list against another table or list somewhere else. Or maybe you typed the new name in and missed a space?

[Turner]

It seems to be the first of the two.

[Gunnerchimp]

I'm in BTR! I'm flying Lancasters for 50 sqn out of RAF Skellingthorpe. HS was looking for pilot names to fill the rosters back when the game was being developed, and myself and a lot of guys "volunteered". It was also an opportunity to have relatives who fought in the war added to squadrons, which I thought was a nice touch.