Elite pilots suggestion

[zolobolo]

An idea to make air combat less redundant:

I like the auto resolve option but it often looses battles that a skilled player could win - this is not a problem, in fact it should work like that to encourage personal control, but what if we would give better chances to our fighters if they are combat veterans?

The player would be encouraged to take personal control in disadvantageous situations since only then, the experience of a plane pilot would increase and its only effect would be to change the auto resolve parameters a bit in the players favor. This way the player would take control early on for new planes but leave the combat to the auto resolve if he knows it is win-able and has experienced pilots. Each plane would have a dedicated pilot that cannot be swapped so new planes would start from 0 experience and would have to be personally controlled in tight or evenly matched situations to gain over time (a single plane would max out in experience after 4-5 at least evenly matched missions that it has won).

Visually it would also benefit the hangar screens where mostly not much is happening by placing pilot stats there (only background info to make it interesting and the single important metric: Experience next to a cool pilot IMG that could vary at least after plane types: Link

This mechanic would also encourage players to combat enemy fighter squads, since those would be evenly matched to 3 planes adding 1 EXP to each of our planes when won besides the usual benefits (no money reduction, relation bonus and no harassment of planes).

Edited October 6, 2013 by zolobolo

[victorix58]

I like this suggestion - we would need some indication of the pilot's veterancy status.

Furthermore, I think autoresolve should be tweaked to be an automatic win, with no damage, in the following situation:

- when the player has fusion missiles and a plasma blaster in an interceptor and fights a regular size scout

Currently, autoresolve on a normal size scout might result in damage even though that is impossible when going into combat. I win if i autoresolve in these circumstances, but the plane's health will be reduced to something like 2%. If I had gone into combat and just let the planes fly at each other it would have been literally impossible for me to have taken any damage (the scout has no missiles and the plasma blaster + fusion missiles always take him out before his guns are in range). This applies for any interceptor.