Actually trying to stay alive as a pilot...

[AnRK]

While I'm on my typical spamming of the forums I thought I'd ask (sorry I looked for a thread on this but couldn't find anything) what do people think could be done to encourage people to bail out of planes and helicopters, rather then just dieing with them as all the aircraft take so long to respawn anyway?

I really like the idea of a pilot hiding out and having to try to stay alive and that a squads will be sent on rescue missions to pick them up to maintain the state of their airforce. The only solutions to make this happen, which as I gather is the attitude the developers want toward pilots, which I can think of is making the pilot kit limited to the amount of aircraft spots and making the kits take a horrendous amount of time to resupply.

I'd love to see some suggestions on this because it would really add to the gameplay.

P.S. I've just realised I misspelt "trying" so don't gimmie any of that bad English ****.

[lonelyjew]

Not a bad idea though parachuting out of a broken chopper isn't exactly realistic.

Just reading your thread title the first thing I thought was "make the time it takes to get a pilot kit huge." Perhaps a 10 minute wait between requests would keep pilots from going down with their aircraft.

[AnRK]

I thought on most attack choppers the blades flew out and... etc etc etc

Yeah that's pretty much what I was thinking, I can't personally think of any other way of doin it.

[ZaZZo]

Give pilots a bigger spawtime, maybe not a good idea because of TK'ers.

btw sry for sounding like giving orders but I'm only using one finger from a meter away from my keyboard.

[gerardnm]

How about if a pilot bails out lands and returns to his airstrip his plane auto respawns?

[Hides-His-Eyes]

How about each pilot only gets 1 pilot kit per round

harsh but fair

[Dyer |3-5|]

How about each pilot only gets 1 pilot kit per round

harsh but fair

That was going to be my suggestion, or a 30 min time period between getting the pilot kit. Also, how about a separate warning if the aircraft is going to explode in the next 10-15 seconds. Since you cant see a damage bar now it can be hard to judge, and many times I would have ejected but thought I could make it back to base.
Would it be possible to have an "auto-eject" where the pilot is ejected when the plane reaches a certain damage point even if he doesnt hit the button?
Just throwing a few things out there.

[lonelyjew]

That's too harsh. I only say so because lag is a cunning enemy.

[gandhicakes]

How about if a pilot bails out lands and returns to his airstrip his plane auto respawns?

I really like this idea, makes for great CSAR missions, auto respawn might not be realistic but some sacrafice would have to be made anyways. Maybe if the pilot returns to the airfield, the respawn time is alot shorter than if they go down with their aircraft?

[Clypp]

How about at 5 or ten vehicle health, just about exploding time, an alarm goes off that means you have no chance left. I know there is an alarm now but that is at 50 or so and you are not on fire yet.

[Outlawz7]

Well, how about, if pilot lives, hes not at base, and the helicopter is destroyed, it would not respawn, untill pilot is saved or dead.

-If pilot commits suicide, then the heli spawn timer increases.

-If hes saved, the guy, that saves him, gets extra 50 points (use flag capping logic, only one guy gets the cap points, same here). Pilot succesfully brought back to airport, spawn time decreases.

-If he gets killed by the enemy, no changes.



I must say, that free decisition to save pilots can be made, too...
I made that in Devfile, when I went on blowing up the bridges, only to suggest the South VCP bridge being blown. Insurgents were ready and knew, this bridge has to be our last target, so i got killed by RPG and the Blackhawk was shot down, went in circles etc..
Pilot survived, and another Blackhawk wanted to save him, only to get shot down.
I took an APC and a guy with me to be my gunner and hurried to his position and picked him up and delivered him back to the base, XD

The pilots name was Lt. Soucy, btw

[[T]Terranova7]

Had a similar concept in an older thread of mines.

I think increasing the amount of time it takes to get the kit would be best. Once you die as a pilot, you should have to wait a great lenght of time to request another. So unless the player has some extreme patience, he/she will be better off joining the ground pounders after losing a plane/helicopter.

Check out my previous thread for some more ideas.

http://realitymod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17808

[Blackhawk 5]

Having the pilot every time he dies (no matter how long they spend time in a plane or helo) has a delay on the kit request like *QM* I cant allow you to have kit so soon after your last or something.

[DarkTalon]

no keep the same spawn time, just offer a free respawn of the said helicopter if the pilot makes it back.

[CAS_117]

Here's one of my favorite ejection experiences. I had to eject over an enemy base in operation greasy mullet. I was attempting to destroy the Tunguska missile system with my 20mm cannon (I was an F-16, which for some reason doesn't get bombs), I had already taken battle damage from destroying a few SAMs before that so I was in pretty bad shape. I took some hits and I felt the plane lose power. I knew that the second I ejected I would be shot, so I waited to eject at the last possible second to make it look like I died. The ploy worked, but I needed to get out of the enemy airbase which meant getting past over a dozen MEC infantry and some vehicles before I could make it into the mountains. I managed to sneak out of their base and walk to the outpost north of it. (american held, but deserted.) I hoped to find a humvee but no such luck. I arrived just as a Vodnik FULL of enemy infantry arrived to capture it. I could either engage them with my pistol, kill the SL before he lays an RP and hope I can slip away into the cliffs to get around them, or retreat and live another day. I decided that engagement with them would be risky even with an M-16/M203, but a pistol and a knife was nearly suicide. I chose to continue my way to the US airport and hope I could grab the viper and reengage ASAP. Our blackhawk had been destroyed so I was stuck with walking back to our base. I got back before the F-16 respawned, so I was lucky in that sense as well (the one time I was GLAD for the lengthy spawn time ). Yeah getting shot down can be a real party sometimes.

[Dyer |3-5|]

So you let them take the flag because you just wanted to fly...

[Ecko]

How about 30 tickets lost per a killed pilot.

[Dyer |3-5|]

One problem I forsee with penalizing the whole team for a dead pilot is that in many cases pilots are vanilla noobs that either don't know, and often don't care about consequences that face their team. They just want to fly their ub3r l33tz0r a|0 s. And what about choppers, such as on Mashtuur city. I have seen entire maps played where not one chopper survived takeoff.

I think it makes much more sense to either give very long periods of time between being able to request a pilot kit, or only allowing one per person per round.

[::Major_Baker::]

So you let them take the flag because you just wanted to fly...

I think he did the samrt thing. No use taking on a squad with a pistol.

[Dyer |3-5|]

Solution: kill 1 and steal his kit. But lets stay on topic so thread doesnt get locked.