Pilot experience "level-up"

[NefariousKoel]

So, when you get a star next to a pilot, what bonuses do they get? I had Griffin level-up and he had the star but I saw no noticeable change in his stats.

[Erik Rutins]

Sometimes they change from slow to fast, sometimes they improve in terms of their AtA or AtG stats. Every time I've had one gain enough experience, I've seen a change in one of those areas.

[StormcloudCreations]

Yes, sometimes just the speed changes, and sometimes the stats change.

[Dan Verssen]

For Griffin, his stress numbers and cool get better.

[Texashawk]

Can pilots level up twice or more, ala CAW/CW/MA? Also, can you carry over pilots from campaign to campaign?

[StormcloudCreations]

No, the game balance is set up for only one level-up. Carrying pilots over from campaigns isn't in there, but could be possibility later on. I have concerns about game balance though.

[Southpaw Samurai]

So pilots have a fixed upgrade tree? That's a little disappointing. It would be cool if someone like Package leveled up and, due to really lucky rolls, suddenly became a star or someone like Wedge whom you're hoping becomes deadlier wallows with just a slight improvement. Granted, leveling up doesn't happen frequently in a single campaign, so it's not super critical.

I think Hornet Leader is making many of us look and hope beyond the scope of the game. It'd be really cool if you could keep your squadron roster from campaign to campaign (although having the same squadron in both '91 and '07 would be silly). I think a counter for it becoming unbalanced with all great pilots is to have greater chances of completely sidelining a pilot either through death, injury, complete stress out, or just not recovering from being a POW. That way while you'll have your three campaign mega aces, you'll feel it when one dies and is replaced by a rookie (of course, people can and will save/restore to avoid such, but that's their loss when they feel the game has become too easy). Of course, having a more wildly rotating roster means more pilots.

Hopefully Hornet Leader is successful enough that perhaps it will be worth investing in a sequel or expansion on a larger scale.

[Umbriel]

I regret that the xp don't work as the original.
Each five bandit +1 air to air
Each ten hits +10 AtG mod.

And we get the squadron for 3 campaign (one easy, one medium and one hard).

I regret that HL PC use exactly the same system as HL II. It is a great game, but it missing some little thing I really love in HL.

* card with mission conditions : distance (so weight point), day or night.
I thing it give a better re playability of the game (hit a huge factory but with only few WP is really difficult).
* A card of plane : you have a "stock" of Hornet. And even your pilot is rescue the plane is lost. I could
* Possibility to choose the number of Hornet : +2 (you gain less VP), -2 (you gain more VP)

Suggestion for xp pilot :
Spend point ? I mean for 5 xp => +1 in an attack ? 10xp => Cool +1 ? 20 xp => change speed, slow to fast.
I really regret there is only one level of xp, specialy by the fact it is a computer game, so you can add what you want in it (without material consideration). I mean if you add 30 card, it is only few Mo, no paper engaged

I admit that i'm little disappointed by the contain of the game, just because it is only the HL2 contain with few pilot But you do great job

[NefariousKoel]

Umbriel-

while there's no day/night missions, you certainly have to account for weight points and the amount of weapons you can take.

[jureidinim]

I too missed some of the original rules from the first Hornet leader.

The one i think that would do great is the random pilot generation rules found in the original hornet leader. This allowed players to create their own pilots and would make a nice change so you aren't using the exact same pilots every time. I know this may upset game balance, but maybe allow half (or some such number) of pilots to be generated by the players.
The original rules had you do 14 aviators and 1 leader (very skilled pilot). This also dovetailed into the other rule of Tour of duty, where a leader lost meant 2 campaign points being lost (not to mention he was our most skilled pilot). If you lost pilots during one campaign you could "regenerate" replacements using the random generator before the next campaign.

The levelling can be balanced - each level gives +1 to something, but the amount to go up a level increases per level, so it won't be exploited easily. Another thing that could improve is the stress tolerance of the pilot - instead of 0-2 for shaken it could improve to 0-3, then 0-4 (for example).

Put that with a pilot creation tool and a tour of duty (3-4 campaigns randomly linked to play one after the other) and I think it would be great. [:D]

Other things which were cool in the original:
1) Mountain checks - only in the original, missions were determined by distance. Selecting Low profile for long range missions in mountainous terrain (eg N. Korea) could be dangerous
2) Chinese support to N. Koreans which was determined randomly and could escalate.

Hope things like these will make it into future expansions [:)]

[Southpaw Samurai]

Having never played the board game (my closest experience with Mr. Verssen's games is Battlefront's 'Down in Flames' adapted game), I don't know what comes from where, but I do concur that having user-created characters would add to the game, both in making it seem a bit more fresh each time and also throwing in some personal attachment. I also like the 'plane card' option... one thing I used to like about Falcon 3.0 was the squadron management during the campaigns. You easily could run into situations where you had plenty of rested up pilots and few functional, fueled birds for them to use. Of course, given the nature of my longer campaigns in HL so far, my squadron would all be in counselling long before even a finite stock of planes were used up.  [:D]

[AirCanuck]

I was wondering if there is a list of pilot stats after they become upgraded. For longer campaigns, this might become a factor in choosing them.

[PDiFolco]

Yep, I don't like that much the "canned" pilots and level-ups. It was maybe necessary or useful in the Vassal version but here it's just annoyingly limitating...
The game would have a *much* improved feeling if you get to "roll" your pilots, then level them, and use them from mission to mission.

I also wonder why lost pilots aren't replaced *at all* - shouldn't we get some new rookies ? Or is the USN so short on pilots/planes they can't be replaced ? [X(]

[Veldor]

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

Yep, I don't like that much the "canned" pilots and level-ups. It was maybe necessary or useful in the Vassal version but here it's just annoyingly limitating...
The game would have a *much* improved feeling if you get to "roll" your pilots, then level them, and use them from mission to mission.

I also wonder why lost pilots aren't replaced *at all* - shouldn't we get some new rookies ? Or is the USN so short on pilots/planes they can't be replaced ? [X(]

I like the idea. I always choose the same pilots anyways. It would add to the replayability...

[StormcloudCreations]

We considered this briefly at the beginning of the project, but eventually we felt it may hurt the balance of the game. I wanted to do randomly generated pilots, with random names, stats, cool and exp promotion levels. Who knows...may happen at some point.

[NefariousKoel]

I think having random pilot stats would be a great improvement. 

In order to keep game balance, you should probably have a pool of points for each pilot experience level that gets randomly distributed between all the pilots in that level.