This is a cross-post from reddit. My apologies for not looping y'all in sooner. The Thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside...rs_had_a_dedicated/?ref=share&ref_source=link Executive Summary: https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside...or_pilots_if_leaders_had_a_dedicated/dj92xnh/
Thats why the community gravitated towards the support requests. I tried to present option and actually get a sense of what people felt was more usable, so the final executive summary downplays the voice comms option.
In which case, you still have a cluster-****, on the screen of pilots whom unless on the map can't really see it. As well, you create this vain hope of aircraft actually receiving & assisting people, whom wouldn't already have said pilots aiding them anyway. If you can see whom requests it; It's a double edged sword you see. You prevent the random nutball trying to lure allies to their deaths either by deliberate thought or straight up stupidity. But you also enable everyone but select popular people from having any actual use out of the system. In short; every single battle needs aircraft, given how aircraft are capable of destroying any target - and AA is easily around in same battles, for the same reason. Pilots would more likely then get alerts for slaughter-fests (where no AA is) easily, or get a hundred & one requests where AA is fierce due to the hundred & one aircraft requests \ aircraft flying in.
There should be a utility slot tool that lasers a target for an air strike. A ground soldier would aim the tool at an enemy tank which would appear in a box on an all friendly aircraft hex' HUD for 10 seconds and minimap for 30 seconds. On the flip side, the tool can be used to target aircraft by shining an auto-follow beam of light for friendly ground for 10 seconds. It would also be nice to have squad leader request Close Air Support and Combat Air Patrol with map markers.
How do you keep the laser from spamming every aircraft's screen.... The Map markers at least are less problematic if spammed, but not the most useful things given.... well... if you didn't air support before, still unlikely to get some now unless your buddy is a pilot, whom would already be there.
Voice comms will never, ever work. The problem is that voice-comms only work for a limited amount of players. Only one player can do the talking or players won't understand what is said if multiple players talk. And you only want a specific amount of players that are both within the region and willing to participate to hear you. Then you have to consider that aircraft players won't be confronted enough with these channels because you've limited it to only squad/platoon leaders and no-one else, meaning that when players finally do get a message they are likely to ignore it because they've learned how to pick their own targets thank you very much. Voice-comms works for tight teamplay where everyone knows their role and the specific person you want to talk to can and will listen, and things like who you want to talk to is easy ("Hey Joe, please get angry at those guys") and tactics are usually condensed to simple phrases ("cap A through back-door", everyone knows what you are talking about because they know the position of the group. This is a useless comment if you are talking to a random pilot who may have a different frame of reference and might think something else is the back-door, or is even at an entirely different base altogether). An improvement to the spotting system is what you need. Q-spot a target, then allow anyone to hold Q for a Q-radial menu and select an option. The options? Why limit it to air-only? Be capable of selecting air-strikes, infantry-AV strikes, Infantry-AI strikes, Vehicle AV or Vehicle AI. To prevent spam: Only one marker can be placed per player, after which it goes into cooldown. SL/PL can place more. If your Marker is cleared it'll go off the cooldown quicker to encourage players to mark something worthwhile. Additionally only relevant markers are shown. An air-marker would be visible to anyone in the air, and for other players it would only show up as a watermark so they at least know something is done with it. Markers have a maximum range they show up. Infantry-oriented Markers for instance won't benefit much beyond the 300m range and won't show up beyond that. Markers are visible as waypoints. This allows players to overcome the render range system by placing markers that are visible even if the target hasn't rendered yet (although you will only be able to hit it once it renders). This allows aircraft to be guided to the target even if they are far away. Or you could just improve the overall situational awareness (SA) of everyone everywhere at any time by improving how the map works: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps...-the-map-and-situational-awareness-sa.245785/ This idea improves player awareness, gives far more uses to scouting, allows players to select the general whereabouts of enemies and then put markers showing if there's AA or AV present etc etc. This already helps guide players to their targets, and not just limited to aircraft players being led by SL/PL's but a cojoined effort of everyone involved, all the scouting information that's already gathered by everyone on your team simply condensed in simple to understand info that doesn't take a lot of effort for the server to keep track off.
