[Lockup in Demo]

That's good to know, in case someone else has a similar problem.

[Lockup in Demo]

This sounds like a different problem, because I think it's happening in the local game rather than the online game. Is that correct?

[Lockup in Demo]

Check to see if there is any kind of error log located in "C:\Program Files\Battlefront\Down In Flames Demo\bin" (or wherever you installed the game).

[Wingman killed after bailing out]

As to whether a gunner in a bomber would physically have an opportunity to shoot at a fighter pilot who bailed out, you're probably correct that the odds were not good.

However, if the opportunity presented itself, how often would the gunner shoot? From what I've read of the Pacific air war, the Japanese actively tried to shoot down pilots that had bailed out, and the Americans quickly learned to respond in kind.

I think that may have happened less frequently on the western front of the European theater, but I'm sure it still happened with some regularity.

[In the works]

Originally posted by Lordtiger:

Some other suggestions

1.How about adding more skills

2.how about letting a player try to intercept some bombers, but limit to 1 flight attacking against an escort and a flight of bombers not to give the player to much of an advantage.

3. How about letting us use our made pilots in campaign games.

4. How about letting a pilot pick his theater of operation. pacific or european

5. How about adding some more countries, Italy & Russia

1. More skills are definitely on the list of future updates. We have a bag full of ideas on new skills. We just have to decide the priority.

2. Good idea regarding intercept missions. We'll give that some thought.

3. We've seen the request to have player pilots be able to fly campaigns come up in various forms quite often. It's rising towards the top of the priority list, but we're just trying to figure out the best way to implement it.

4. Interesting idea with regard to picking a theater to fly in. That might fit in with item #3.

5. The first "Expansion Pack" will probably add Russia and Italy. It's way too early to be able to say what aircraft will be in it, or when it might be coming out. I'm sure it will depend somewhat on how the original game is doing.

[In the works]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

You mean AFTER playing Human-vs Human games I presume?

Make it a higher chance than vs the AI?

Yes, they would be awarded at the end of the mission, just like medals and promotions are awarded. So you wouldn't get to use the one-mission skill until the next time that pilot flies a mission.

[In the works]

We were kicking around the idea of making it so that the one-mission use skills would be awarded when playing human vs. human missions. Not automatically, of course, but the opportunity for them to be awarded would be there. Just a thought.

[Don't regain ED]

Ok. So if anyone goes 100 missions without getting an ED, I'll admit that there's a problem with the code that awards the ED's. Until then, it's just bad luck!

[Don't regain ED]

That's correct. You could have a really bad string of luck, and not get an ED after flying 100 missions. The probability of that happening is exceedingly small, but it could happen (assuming you could survive for 100 missions without an ED, that is).

[Don't regain ED]

I think the base chance is 20%, so 5 missions sounds about right. There was a problem when the game first came out in which the wingmen NEVER got an ED awarded, but that was corrected a couple of months ago.

[In the works]

Well, like I mentioned a few posts back, I think the idea of reducing the value of AI kills is dead. We will instead provide some positive incentives for playing against humans. Those incentives will probably apply as long as there are at least two humans playing.

[Don't regain ED]

I don't think anything has changed as far as awarding ED's (at least, not intentionally).

[In the works]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

I thought it was doing all that already??!!

It was to a certain extent, but particularly at the low and high ends of the pilot experience spectrum, the previous method was not very effective at providing variety.

[In the works]

The recent changes involved more than just using skills as the basis of putting a value on pilots. The changes also inject a bit more variation in AI opponents.

One of the previous complaints was that you tended to see the same pilots flying the same aircraft. The new system will produce a much broader range of possibilities.

Suppose that you have a middle level pilot (3 or 4 skills) flying a middle level aircraft. The program will use your aircraft as a target value for choosing the AI aircraft, but will include aircraft a notch or two better and a notch or two worse than that target value.

Based on the aircraft chosen, it will then try to find a target pilot value that will get the AI as close to the game value as possible. But again, it will include pilots that are a notch or two better, and a notch or two worse than the target value.

The end result is that your AI opponent could be flying an aircraft that is worse than yours and could have a pilot that is worse than your pilot. Or you could find yourself going up against an AI opponent that has a better aircraft and a better pilot than you have. Or something in between those two extremes.

[597 pt AI pilots?]

The very top level AI pilots were over-valued. I have corrected the problem, so you shouldn't see those pilots worth 560 points anymore. For those of you who shot them down while they were worth so much, consider it a holiday gift.

[Wingman killed after bailing out]

Is it possible that he was the victim of the "Target Pilot" skill? You would see an animation of the pilot's parachute as if he had safely bailed out, and then you would see the opposing aircraft swoop by the parachute, indicating that the enemy pilot had gunned you down while you were descending.

[In the works]

We're following this public discussion with great interest, and I can assure you that there is a parallel internal discussion taking place.

The idea of encouraging human vs. human play by reducing the amount of XP gained against AI opponents does not seem to be very popular with you guys based on the feedback received so far.

We still think encouraging human vs. human play is good for the game in the long run because it helps build community. But there are other things we can do to achieve that goal. Rather than impose negative consequences for playing against the AI, we're thinking that it might be better to provide positive incentives for playing against humans. We haven't decided what those positive incentives might be yet, but hopefully this approach would be better received.

[In the works]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

The more I think about it the more I liek the idea of sharing EXP by some means of assessing the amount of work each piot has done.

I'd quite like to see a measure of how successful each pilot was in playing their cards - I'd be tempted to award 2 pts for each Wingman card successfully played or able to be played but not played (eg not taking the last shot so the leader can get the kill), and 1 pt for each one unsucessfully played, and 1 pt for each leader card successfully played.

Very early versions of the game did something similar to what you described. It's a bit hazy now, but as I recall, we awarded points for successfully attacking, or countering an attack. We gave points for each turn spent advantaged/tailing, and bonus points for successfully playing certain cards (IMS 2:Destroyed, Half Loop, etc.)

I can't remember the reasons for abandoning that approach for the current method, but I think it just came down to being simpler to track aircraft damaged and destroyed (both for us, and for the players). Plus, tracking points for damaged and destroyed aircraft was a better indicator for who "won" the dogfight.

[In the works]

Which brings up another question...which (if any) of these changes will be carried over to the local game?

I think the local version of the game would get all of the same changes except #4 (since they have no choice but to play against the AI).

[In the works]

There's about 4000 EXP difference between these guys but their opponents seem to be very similar.

We have about 8 "levels" of AI pilots defined right now, from complete newbie (no skills) to the uber-pilots with all the skills we could throw at you. Once you hit that highest level, there's just nowhere else to go. In the future, we would prefer to work on making the AI "smarter" rather than throw more skills at the problem.

Also I note that AI pilots never by "redraw"??

The AI pilots don't have the "Redraw" skill because it would require additional AI logic coding for them to be able to "decide" when to use the skill. We'll get around to it one of these days.

[In the works]

Originally posted by Harv:

#5: I'm not sure about this. If they're really part of a team, why not just have them share from the pool of XP awarded with no restrictions?

I wasn't sure what you meant with this one. Are you saying leave things the way they are? Or are you saying that players get to decide how to divide up the XP gained during a mission?

[In the works]

Lots of good comments from everyone. Other than item #1 (the change in the way matchups are calculated), none of the other changes are set in stone at this point. If the overwhelming feedback on any item is negative, we won't do it.

So far, it seems that item #1 is universally approved, so I guess we're safe with going ahead with that change on Monday.

Item #2 (reducing the number of permanent skills) appears to be a bit controversial. Opinions seem to be evenly divided between those against the change, those for the change, and those in the middle.

This is definitely one of those where there are pros and cons that have to weighed. What makes that evaluation even more difficult is that different players put higher value on different aspects of the game. Those players who highly value the "role playing" aspect of pilot development will probably not like the change because it limits the degree that pilots can keep improving. Players who put a greater emphasis on the game system, competitive dogfights, the leader board, etc., will probably like the change.

One of the reasons we are proposing the change is that by limiting the number of skills, there will be a less dramatic difference between a pilot with a large amount of experience and one with a moderate amount of experience. We think this will make it easier for players to find human opponents than is currently the case. Some of you have indicated that playing against human opponents is not a big priority, so once again, your style of play enters into whether you think this is a good idea or not.

However, one side benefit of limiting pilot skills is that it may make it easier for us to offer campaign games in which your pilots can participate. One of the main reasons that the current campaign games do not allow your pilots to participate is game balance. With such a huge variation between the highest value pilots and the lowest, we just couldn't see any way to allow player pilots to participate in a campaign and have the campaign be balanced.

If the number of skills are limited, we could consider having some kind of uber-campaign in which players sign up to play on one side or the other, and one player is designated to be the "commander". His job would be to assign the pilots on his team to regions on the campaign map and the players would fight out the missions using their pilots.

Somebody asked how the skill cost progression would work under the new system. Suppose that you wanted to purchase 3 skills that each had a base cost of 100 XP. The first skill would just require the base cost of 100 XP. The second skill would cost 600 XP, and the third skill would cost 2600 XP. The fourth skill would cost nearly 17000 XP, so while not impossible, it would be very difficult to get a fourth skill.

With regard to how XP are shared between leader and wingman, I kind of simplified things for the purposes of the example. The actual formula for how XP would be shared does have a bit of a bias towards the leader.

[In the works]

I don't see the game "breaking down" at these levels at all - I find myself regularly getting shot down, and occasionally there are 4 enemy a/c left undamaged on the screen and none on my side by the end of the game!!

I think your conclusion is wroing.

It's quite possible that our conclusions are "wroing". They might even be wrong.

Seriously though, I didn't mean to imply that the AI pilots are always losing. I'm sure that the AI uber-pilots occasionally dish out some serious punishment.

The DiF system rates aircraft in some very simple categories: Air frame, horsepower, performance, and bursts (plus attack and defense for wingmen). Consequently, a +1 modifier to any one of those categories is a pretty big deal, and a +2 is huge.

When you have a leader with 7 or 8 skills, and a wingman with another 6 or 7 skills, you end up with huge number of modifiers and card additions in play. The skills overwhelm the basic system. The basic aircraft stats almost don't matter anymore because the skills have taken over. That's what I meant when I said that the game starts to "break down" at the high end.

Can we keep life interesting for your super-pilots by throwing equally super AI pilots at them? Sure. But it doesn't change the fact that the system has become kind of warped by the skills at that level.

What we're hoping is that by limiting pilots to around 3 permanent skills, the skills that you do have will matter more. And hopefully, not everyone will have the same 3 skills, providing some variety in matchups.

Also, by occasionally awarding certain skills for one-mission use as the result of flying a mission, those skills will become more special when you get them. For example, we plan to take the "In My Sights 2: Destroyed" card off the list of skills that you can purchase. If you get awarded this skill after flying a mission, you'll probably feel like you got something pretty rare.

[In the works]

Originally posted by tornado:

I just read about the changes - they will surely make things more interesting. First, thanks for keeping us all "in the loop." Secondly, when you guys "buy back" the permanant skills that we currently have, will we get the base XP value for that skill or the XP we had to expend to receive it?

You will get the XP amount that you spent to buy the skill.

[Auto update question]

Every time you start up the game, it checks to see if you have all the latest files. If just one file is out of date, it would notify you that you need to update.

But if you want to manually check a few things to see whether you have the latest stuff, you could go to the Help menu and click the Credits item. The credits screen shows the version which currently is at 1.0.0.35591. You could also go and look in the folder "C:\Program Files\Battlefront\Down in Flames\images\Aircraft" and look for a bunch of files that start with "ki102_44". Those were the last set of aircraft files we released.