I hope that the interface will be as intuitive as possible. I would like to see some of the features from TOAW-3 borrowed. For example, make the unit symbols as military'ish as possible, not grotty picturs of mini planes, of if so, then make them realistic, like the ones in Pazer general (the fist pc version, where even the small airplane pics, were all clearly easy to identify as the plane they reprecented).
Hex based map would be exellent if possible, also as then it would be easy to see a combat range just by telling it in hexes...
Also, an intuitive menu of options for each unit by usage of the right mouse button would be ace!
I have seen only too many games ruined in having to unnesessarily go and click a little icon, where the right mouse button menu, would serve the same purpose much better!!!
Also, to make attacks as realistic as possible, a 'combat planner' option somewhat similar to the one in toaw-3 would be good. I would hopefully have options for grouping various units into larger units, and also give options as to which units would fly 'tail end charlie', and which units at which altitude... All of this ofcourse is easy then to factor in by commonsence tables, that the computer will compute with great ease, after all counting is what it does in essence!!!
Having a turn based, but 'being able to effect the enemies turn, or a very slow realtime action, so that commands can be given without the panic that some games have in their realtime fighting...
After all, the planners of ww2 air combat had hours or days to set up op's, and a staff of many men, so when one man has to make these desicions, it's ridiculous to have a timeline like a real air battle, unless you can freese the time and change orders to some units....
Infact the way that the game Combat Mission does it, where you give orders, the enemy gives their orders, and a minutes worth of combat with the troops following those orders ensues, not perfect but it works...
All I'm saying is that the planning should have lot's of options, as to what kind of things to hit, wether to give autonomous raiding capacity for the escorts if not have used up their fuel/ammo in defending their escorted planes...
Also, air op's not only as strat bombing, but also, coastal command anti sub and later anti German shipping mostly off the coast of norway, would be good to include... The desert has a very versatile combination of missions for the airmen, with the RN aviators co-operating with RAF medium bombers in doing exellent night time interdicion to the axis trying to avoid the growing allied air interditiction by driving their trucks only at night. The allies would have RM aircraft carriers off the coastline of the axis main coastal highway, and let their Albacore's come and loose off flare's, in various places of the highway, when an axis truck convoy was thus spotted, the Albacore/s in question would radio the co-ordinates in for the loitering allied medium bombers (usually wellingtons), who would come in, to the contiually lighted up axis trucks, and carpet bomb them with scores of small bombs! This kind of operational variety would be great to have!!!
And also the full spectrum of axis wartime production should be able to be targetted, not only those that were in ww2.
To make my point clear I'll borrow the words of Hermann Göring, who said in Nuremeberg to allied aviation interviewers, "We never understood why you tried to find a 'choke' point in (for example)ballbearings, if you had hit our explosives industry, something we constantly prayed wouldnt happen, our capacity to conduct war would have been seriously compromised!!!
This was ofcourse talking of targets that were in range of the 43.early44 USAAF, but after the Aviano, and B-17 'shuttle raids'(the ones that landed onto Red Army concuered territory, and then flew back, and btw on one occasion were hit bad by JU-88s, when for political reasons their P-51s were not allowed to lift off to give cover, as the red airforce was supposed to do that but they were nowhere to be seen on that day..)! When these two kind of raids got to the ploesti airfields, then a real 'chocke point' was found, but it could have been found much earlier by hitting the explosives industry...
All, I'm saying is that try to make it realistic, give lot's of options, and the inevitable fog of the party being bombed, being allowed to move and give camouflage of all kinds to their factories, bridges ect, airstrips, ships and their ports ect ect... An option for the defender to try and confuse the enemy as to where their assets are and to move them if possible, and to use plans to confuse the enemy (such as using flares of the same colour in the wrong places to confuse the Bomber Command night raids, or the usage of smoke screens to confuse the USAAF bombers, or the usage of swapping bomber airfields to fighters ones, as the brits did, or using autobahn as runways as the germans did, ect)...
And, please think of playability! The right mouse click menu for options of action for a selected unit, is the best way to improve intuitive play imho.
Also automatically lighting up the area of range, and when given choise of different weapon loads, with (for fighters), various drop tank combos, then the area of the lighted up range automatically changes... And please include light bombers and even fighter bomber of the USAAF 9th bomber force, or RAF Mosquito and beaufighter units, or German light-tactical bombers... Also, their missions that frequently were in suport of ground troops, sometimes even special forces, would be great to see included... Also in Normandy fighting the D-day landings, and operations Goodwood, Cobra and later on Market-Garden, Varsity ect, had massive carpet bombing by huge numbers of allied heavy bombers... Somethign that the Germans did also on a smaller scale in their assault phase...
Ok, I hope that something of what I wrote about will be considered, or is already under consideration.... And please allow expandability, so that your game can receive patches that not only fix bugs, but can give new options, or even (and I dont mind paying for this), expanding theaters of war, or even 'what if' planes, campaigns ect... Or applying the same game machine to Korea, Vietnam (great scope here, Rolling Thunder ect)!, to the Arab-Israeli, Russian Afganistan-Checnya, desert storm, anti Serb, Afganistan and Iraq-2003 onward, to ww3 in Europe with 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s options to see what the difference in the modernized equipment would do... All the way to modern 'what ifs'...
So, you see, that to make the game a hit, so that such expancion scenario packets can be sold, I beg of you to really think of the playablity, and look at how toaw-3 has a great capacity to simulate classic Avalon Hill boardames with it's intuitive, but still classic game play screen... please try to apply this to your game!
AS for the air combat, (if there is to be such a dimention, I do not know), for me Sturmovik is the measuring stick, only that in Sturmovik for beginners sometime one flew and flew without ever finding the enemy that was so ellusive, please try to look at the classic lucas arts games of Secret weapons of the lufwaffe, and see how one can find the enemy with ease, without making it an automatic process...
Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.
"Gunner, panzer eleven 'o' clock, shoot"!
