Aircraft: What kinds would you like to see? Share your opinion!

[Whyherro123 2283]

My main statistical analysis comes from the "Does dayz need aerial vehicles thread" which has ample sample size. If you're interested in learning about statistics, here is a statistical analysis post I made on this exact subject. If you want to make me feel like I'm bad at maths or statistics, then criticize that post why don't ya?: http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/222236-does-dayz-need-aeiral-transport/page-9#entry2250687

 

1. Because no matter how well your abse is hdden someone will find it, in which case you need a second line of defense?

 

"WHAT ? MORE THAN ONE LINE OF DEFENSE? RIDICULOUS!"

 

2. Why cannot I board up and lock some doors in the interior of a building or something? Why can I not place hidden traps?

 

3. Players will accumulate resources regardless of how difficult the game is. We will beat it and exploit what we are given. All bases end, and no matter how difficult erecting them might be, we still always find a way to do it gloriously. Play Dwarf Fortress why don't ya? Not everyone will have excess, I understand this, but some people will... And what do they do once they get excesses? Sit on top of it like some most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm?

 

Snort.

 

4. Good luck accomplishing anything with all the zombies. Trade routes? Fat chance. Wait 20 eyars until all the zombies are gone, until then we need mobility.

 

5. I don't live on an airstrip. I have an Autogyro hidden behind some bushes on the rear hill. As soon As i heard a mortar explode I grabbed what my Gyro could carry and I abandoned by camp by taking off down the hill and flying low around the trees.

 

OR

 

As soon as the mortars started landing on our hill, we all grabbed our guns, radio'd for assistance and are engaged in open warfare. We aren't running anywhere.

 

1) "second line of defense". Sure, a blockhouse/bunker with gunslits and MGs will suppress an attacking force, until a soldier comes up on a blind spot and slips a grenade or incendiary into it. Or, you know, goes around it. 

 

Static defenses have been obsolete since WW1 at the very least, and the US Civil War more likely.

 

2) sure, you could lock up some doors inside a building, or place some traps. But all you are doing is delaying its capture. The second an attacking force realizes something is blocking their way, they will realize that there is something in there you want to protect. Enjoy having your doors kicked in, the traps blown up. 

 

Or hell, if they want to be dicks about it and deny you the resource (or not waste the time assaulting a fixed position), they could just set the whole building on fire. Not that difficult with Molotovs and jellied gasoline. (which, incidentally, is much more effective usuage for gasoline, as opposed to wasting it on aircraft.)

 

So much for the "second line of defense".

 

3) If they get an excess of material, they trade it with other groups for their excess. You know, trade? What happens in real life, and happened all the way back into the Neolithic (Intercontinental trade routes, back when we had stone tools and leather clothing, who-da-thunk?). Make alliances, military defense pacts, organized militias, industries, the whole shebang.

 

All the zombies? You mean those things that run straight at you? Shit, remember the "jellied gasoline" I mentioned earlier?  Pour it down a road, attract the zombies, and set it on fire. If they don't get killed by the heat, they will suffocate due to the flames sucking all the oxygen out of the air.

 

Plus, the developers themselves have states that "zombies are not, and never will be, the real danger". Sad, but unfortunately true. They will never exist in such a state as to completely eliminate organized resistance. 50, or hell, even 5 zombies against a single survivor? Point one for the zombies. 500 zombies against 15 guys with rifles? No contest. 5000 zombies (HAHA) against 50 guys with rifles, MGs, a mortar, and a truckload of ammo?

 

Baby, the party is just getting started.

 

5) Wow, way to abandon your mates just as the going got tough. When you land, and go into a small community for gas and food, the people are going to ask where you came from. You have 3 opportunities here:

1- They were allied with your clan, and are pissed that you abandoned their people to die so you could escape.

2- They are allied with the enemies, and take you prisoner to hand over to the enemies.

3- They are neutral, and probably hand you over to the enemies for a reward. Or, they just kill you, for (maybe, but they don't know that) leading the enemy right to them.

 

Great plan, genius.

[FlimFlamm 509]

1.  I think your view of bases is way beyond the proportion of what I thought it was.

 

The first line of defense is camoflague. You make it hidden.

 

The second line of defense are traps. Things like bear traps, land mines, trip wires, etc. these are equally camoflagued as your base. (some might call these 'fortifications')

 

The third line of defense can be boarded up and padlocked doors in already existing buildings. Existing buildings make for perfect player bases. They blend right in.

 

As far as actually constructing bona fide fortifications like walls and ditches and such, I'm really of no opinion. They might be cool but I don't need them. I'm a minimalist in truth.

 

2. Maybe for this reason I will fortify areas that contain absolutely nothing. Maybe my real loot will be buried out back in a bush and all you will get from me is the cash in the register. Furthermore I agree with you that all base building is an exercise in the delay of it's inevitable collapse. This is a bit of a tangent I don't really see why aircraft are going to quicken the inevitable demise of big, bad bases.

 

3. Your response is interesting. You talk about wanting to trade (trade for what? you already have everything. I would trade for aircraft parts.) and about raising militias and such and all this grandeose stuff, but when it comes to flight, something that would be helpful in a zombie apocalypse, you scorn and scoff and act like it's a terrible idea. Your bias shows through when you talk about things like industry, 'military defense pacts', the whole shebang. Except flying. That's for tossers and the like! If the wright brothers could do it on their own then so can I with all my modern advantages.

 

4. It's slightly worrisome that you so frequently speak of burning things to the ground :D. First you burn my base to the ground and now you're burning all my pet zombies to the ground too!

 

Also, if you think you can simply suffocate a zombie, you're crazy! Zombies don't use oxygen man, they eat a lot of brain food!

 

People will always be a bigger danger than zombies in DayZ, I get that. I have thousands of hours played on the mod and the SA is even more filled with amoral players. This is another reason why aircraft can actually be a boon rather than a burden. When organized groups control the ground there is no escaping them. they have faster vehicles than you, longer range guns, and there are more of them. You simply get hunted down and you die. Traveling in an aircraft means that when you are spotted you aren't then subject to the whims of whoever happens to control the region; you can fly away.

 

I remember being constantly pinned down and wrecked by Humvee driving coastal bandits, even without a mounted gun. They can run you down and put you into a corner/hole. At least once it would be nice to give them a 'fuck you' and make an aerial escape.

 

The idea hat as soon as a base is spotted it will be burned to the ground aside, I would rather there be so many zombies that burning a few of them here and there won't make much of a difference. There should be around 6 billion zombies or so on the earth in the event of a zombie apocalypse, and they aren't going to all just die convieniently for us, cause well, then they wouldn't be zombies.

 

5. I never said I abandoned anyone. In the situation where it is a one man camp and I'm living a nomadic gyro lifestyle I will flee any danger for fear of losing my gyro. I would park it in random isolated places each night and conceal it in bushes and trees as best as possible.

 

In the situation where I am living with others, and I have something to defend, like I said in my post, I will fight and die for glory and for the honor of my comrades let the autogyro be a prize that goes to the victor.

 

Tell me in which ways the following video breaks with your vision of what DayZ should be

 

[Coheed_IV 381]

Have you guys tried the Take On Helicopters flight model?

 

Last I heard (which was years ago), Dean said Dayz would use the flight model. I'm not a bad pilot in Arma, but I'm terrible with the TOH flight model. Without investing in a stick and pedals, forget it. Helicopters should be so rare, most never get the chance to fly, and some have only seen one fly over. And most who try crash the thing.

 

So why invest in something so rare? I know, but it seems that's how they're approaching this game, sandbox.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Coheed_IV

[Whyherro123 2283]

-snip-

 

1) If you are going to use a term, you probably should know the "real" meaning

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortification

 

2) Enjoy your waste of time, energy and materials. For every "empty base" you build, you could be doing something worthwhile, and meanwhile, people are up in your main base, a'lootin as they go.

 

Air forces make bases even more obsolete than they already are, just through observation and the ability to move forces rapidly. Not even touching armed air vehicles. At least with ground vehicles, they have to move in the same dimensions as you, and are pretty much limited to roads and such. No such restrictions on air vehicles.

 

3) You don't "have everything". You can never  "have everything you need, or even want". Everything degrades, gets used, etc. Your situation of having "everything you need except for airplane parts" is little more than a pipe dream. Say, for example, you are your clans supporter of aircraft. At a clan meeting, you propose using some of your ethanol to fuel a small plane, as you have enough to fuel everything you need, as well as a small surplus. 

 

You: Think of the strategic bonus of having an aircraft, you guys!

#1: Well, we really need to keep surplus fuel for our trucks. With all the patrolling we have been doing, we burn up most of the supply.

#2: And our generators. Need those to keep the lights on, and keep the workshops moving.

You: so, how about we distill more ethanol?

#3: Not that simple. We need to grow more corn, which means we need to clear more ground. 

#4: Doesn't Settlement -X- down the road want more food in return for truck parts? Why don't we just expand our fields?

#3: Again, not that simple. Our clan doesn't have the manpower to do it alone, and Settlement -Y- refuses to send us any more laborers until we wire them more electricity

You: so how about we trade for a tractor? That can both clear more ground and plant more corn. Plus take some of the load of the laborers from Settlement -X-

#3 : Too expensive. Plus, we need those laborers to work the shops. And we need to protect Settlement -Y- as well, in return for labor, so we can't exactly piss them off.

Clan Leader: alright, running a plane right now isn't feasible. We need to work on the economy.

 

4) Fire is humanities greatest weapon. We have a special relationship. Fireteam, firefight, firefighter, the flames of war, the fires of passion. Fire fuels the electric heart of our cities, pumps along the asphalt veins of our nations. It keeps us warm, keeps us fed, keeps us healthy, and keeps us safe. With fire, we managed to push back the darkness at the dawn of time, and, with the torch of knowledge, wrest control of the planet. With fire, we are gods.

 

Who can't love fire?

 

As an aside, it has been established, many times, that the "zombies" in-game are not "classical, Night of the Living Dead" flesheaters, risen from the grave magically. They are just people infected with a disease that destroys higher brain functions. As such, while they might be stronger and more resistant to pain than "normal" humans, they can be killed by anything that would kill a normal human, suffocation included.

 

I also support the idea that "the infection" and therefore, "the zombie apocalypse", is not, in fact, worldwide in distribution. Instead, Chernarus is subject to a quarantine by US, UN, and RU troops. Nobody can leave, nobody can go in, and the outside forces wait for there to be no signs of life (players and "zombies") before sweeping in to make sure the site of outbreak is clean. This can be supported by the fact that the towns and cities look relatively time-worn and damaged, while the crashed helicopters are still burning and smoking. This is due to the regular patrols by the Special Forces of the above armies. They fly over the countryside, checking out the terrain to see how many "infected" are still alive. Some of them crash, or get shot down, and never get retrieved (quarantine, remember?).

 

5) As for the video, the fact that the guy isn't living in some settlement somewhere, "selling" his experience with machinery and mechanics, as opposed to flying randomly around the blasted, post-nuclear, post-Peak Oil wasteland, doesn't make sense to me. I get it, the guy is/was some sort of merchant, but he could undoubtedly make more "money" working for some settlement somewhere, as well as have increased security, better food, etc etc etc

[FlimFlamm 509]

1) If you are going to use a term, you probably should know the "real" meaning

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortification

 

Ah pish posh. Semantics! From that article: Many military installations are known as "forts", although they are not always fortified. Larger forts may be called "fortresses"; smaller ones were once known as "fortalices". The word "fortification" can also refer to the practice of improving an area's defence with defensive works. City walls are fortifications but are not necessarily called fortresses.

 

What I meant was that some people could consider traps to be a form of fortification. We can appeal to wiki as a god source and debate whether or not land mines could be considered "defensive works", but I suspect this is not what either of us wants :)

 

2. By "airforce base" I meant someplace that you could protect an aircraft from attackers, and this is if there is a large group to defend it in the first place. I'm not asking for an aircraft carrier here. A bush for a gyro, some light tree cover for an ultralight fixed wing, a car tent that they can be towed into. Large helicopters or planes will require something special. A secured roof for instance. Large planes will be required to land in isolated places and constantly moved around. (Islands perhaps?)

 

If your main objection in point #2 is that the ability to move troops to hot zones is over powered, then realize that the availability of large capacity flying machines would be very limited. A little bird with max 6 capacity is literally the best helicopter I would be interested in seeing, with people able to shoot their guns when hanging out the sides, or else whatever MG is in game, the ability to mount it to the door (even if it is just an AKM). If littlebirds exist there would be only one or two of them available, and they would represent the pinnacle of fast travel and troop deployment (if you all have parachutes). At the same time using a little bird to deploy troops better have a damn good cause. If a group is going to be hasty with their ultimate tool then it will easily get destroyed, and they all die and whine.

 

Ultralights are both easy to shoot down, cannot carry heavy loads, and cannot carry more than one passenger.

 

3. I'm not exactly sure if constant lighting, patrolling, workshopping etc... is required to operate a single aircraft...

 

Maybe if you want to field a quartet of hueys, you would need such resources...

 

We can grow crops and make our own fuel (I'm not so sure about aviation quality fuel such that helicopters require), but this doesn't mean that we need to keep workshops constantly running, lights always on or constant patrols. We can go on "missions" of various kinds with the aircraft and it will either be useful or it wont. If we don't use it to collect enough supplies, or gain enough information, or save enough time, then it will have been a waste of time, albiet an enjoyable one in the context of a video game. If you crash it; waste of time. Gets stolen; waste of time. Disabled; waste of time. Marooned somewhere with no fuel; waste of time. Constantly in maintenance due to "that missing part"; waste of time. Joy riding in aircraft which causes strain on food and security; happiness; also, like all ineffective or superfluous gameplay, a waste of time.

 

4. I was a pyro in my youth, fire is a warm mistress indeed, just don't burn down my stuff!

 

Regarding the zombie infection lore, It doesn't really make sense that all these zombies have not simply starved to death. God knows my character has. I can sort of make sense of it by presuming that every day is to be considered the first day of the apocalypse (hence, Day Zero), but then this basically says fuck you to any aspirations of long term thinking and end game functionality (not that the lore will actually outweigh gameplay in the end)

 

If we're under quarantine then an aircraft is the best bet you have of escape! The perfect end game... :)

 

5) Ahh you see the problem here is the most successful groups are very very nasty ones. They actually have a very strange religion regarding guzzoline and follow a sadistic patriarch (harem and all).

 

The real problem with settlements is they all get raided to shit by this one crazily powerful group of metal head road warriors who worship guzzoline, huff paint all day, and are expert vehicle mechanics because that is their religion and their instrument of war.

 

This gyro captain is in effect absolving himself of having to worry about these ground killers (as best he can) with their very fast cars and nasty attitudes. He would probably live in a settlement if he knew of one that was safe, until then he will keep on the move, living a nomadic gyro lifestyle...

Edited June 4, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[Bororm 1156]

Similar to the mod(s) is my vote.  Helicopters with mounted door guns were cool, and if they make it so you have to find the guns separately it would be even better.  They were never much of an issue in the mod, you could kill people but it usually would take you a whole belt, it was difficult and you were an easy target while you did it.

 

Smallish planes would be good, again similar to the mod.

 

The gyros in some stuff like epoch were fun with grenades.

 

Aircraft are an "end game" deal, so variety is nice.

[pilgrim* 3513]

..//..

... Several months pass and Ralph see's the efficacy of aircraft in a zombie apocalypse ...

..//..

 

Ha ha - the joys of Role Playing :

 

Well, Fred, we got a message from some leader, they call him the Administrator and he says Don't Mess with Him.

He OWNZ the flying machine that keeps spotting our bases so his men destroy our stuff when we're 'not around'.

He says anyone else who tries to fly on his map, or messes with his flying machine - gets a thing called "Kicked"

It's a kind of Orbital Strike, I guess...

 

Well righty-o Ralph, let's migrate and buy our own Map. Then we can play at  << I am the War Lord and you are the Subsistence Farmers >>

with us on top. Because like it say in the DayZ Bible -

 

<<

On the Map there can be only One Pilot

 And he is the Administrator

>>

 

Wowza! Fred, that IS the Holy Law!  - I can see the light!

When we reach our own map - you can fly the heli and I can do the orbital strikes on anyone who dont like it.. OK ?

 

xx

Edited June 4, 2015 by pilgrim

[FlimFlamm 509]

Ha ha - the joys of Role Playing :

 

Well, Fred, we got a message from some leader, they call him the Administrator and he says Don't Mess with Him.

He OWNZ the flying machine that keeps spotting our bases so his men destroy our stuff when we're 'not around'.

He says anyone else who tries to fly on his map, or messes with his flying machine - gets a thing called "Kicked"

It's a kind of Orbital Strike, I guess...

 

Well righty-o Ralph, let's migrate and buy our own Map. Then we can play at  << I am the War Lord and you are the Subsistence Farmers >>

with us on top. Because like it say in the DayZ Bible -

 

<<

On the Map there can be only One Pilot

 And he is the Administrator

>>

 

Wowza! Fred, that IS the Holy Law!  - I can see the light!

When we reach our own map - you can fly the heli and I can do the orbital strikes on anyone who dont like it.. OK ?

 

xx

 

 

*Bill enters to find Fred and Ralph twitching and mumbling on the ground, clearly enthralled in some shared delusion brought on by the empty cans of paint nearby that they have been huffing.

 

"Sorbital Trikes!", screamed Fred...

 

"Badministrator...", mumbled Ralph...

 

"Wake up you blithering buffoons! We're movin out!!!!"

 

*Fred and Ralph scramble to their feet and perform a shoddy looking salute

 

"Where are we heading sir?", asked Fred.

 

"We're heading to a place that has more than just one singular flying machine. It has smaller ones that we have a viable chance of getting our hands on. Better still there seems to be no evil and all powerful diety who controls all flying machines and brings about our constant demise through their god like knoweldge."

 

"That sounds amazing!!!!" ejaculated Fred and Ralph...

 

"Will there be orbital strikes sir?", Asked Fred longingly.

 

"Fred, If I catch you huffing anymore of our paint I'm going to take you out back and make fertilizer out of you. Kapishe?"

 

"HAIL GUZZOLINE!!!!"

 

*Fred sprays his AK crazily into the air while everyone else plays the all to familliar game of "duck and cover"

Edited June 4, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[FlimFlamm 509]

I would like to make a quick point not so much about aircraft specifically, but about vehicles in general.

 

It begins with the story of the DayZ mod, when we all heard about this cool new freeish game and we tried it; turned out to be amazing. We were all instantly hooked.

 

We play for a few days, and then suddenly we see a car drive by at high speeds along the coastal highway where we are roaming. "HOLY SHIT THIS GAME HAS VEHICLES?" We all thought...

 

Then we continued playing for around a month but lamentingly we were not able to actually find a vehicle; turns out they are too rare to actually hope for.

 

*several months pass

 

For some strange and unknown reason, all of a sudden there are a crap ton of vehicles everywhere. They are now easy to find and as a result you don't even feel like they're worth anything. even the helicopter you found. "Big whup", you think...

 

*several more months pass

 

You can no longer play on the server that you began on because it has given way to something called "2000 VEHICLE BONANZA". The most popular servers are ones that have vehicle numbers jacked way up and manys ervers are getting replaced by modded versions of themselves. These modded versions alter the way vehicles are accessed, increasing their potential numbers but still keeping them somewhat difficult to get.

 

*a year passes

 

The original version of DayZ that got you hooked, nobody any longer plays. It's fun but it is only fun for so long when you either cannot get a vehicle due to rarity or everyone can get them becasue they're too easy to get (the vanilla mod's main issue). The result is that everyone has now migrated onto modded servers that flesh out deeper vehicle functionality and improve means of access. These mods are very popular (even still today)

 

If I had it my way, I would lobby for 1-2 actual helicopters capable of transporting lots of players, a couple cessnas capable of doing the same, (so 4 natural aircraft total), and then all other aircraft would need to be laboriously constructed by individuals and groups, and would only come in the form of ultralights.

 

If servers want to, they could also turn off spawning helicopters alltogether, and disable construction of ultralights. If your guy's vision of a flightless DayZ is good, then I'm sure some servers will cater to it. One of the things that I really hope gets addressed is the problem of servers jacking vehicle spawn numbers way up to make them accessible. There are other ways to make them accessible without jacking up their inherent spawn rates, constructable ultralights being for me the most attractive option.

Edited June 4, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[Grimey Rick 3417]

flim u type 2 much loll

ur ok in my book

((:

[FlimFlamm 509]

Any fellow Scotia Novan DayZ players is alright in my books :)

 

I type too much sometimes... It's like a drug...

 

The TL;DR of my most recent post is that with the vanilla mod most servers wound up jacking up the vehicle spawn count to ridiculous numbers because people felt they were too rare. It had the ironic effect of making them feel worthless... Until the mods hit the scene and then supplementary vehicle access was added like bicyceles, makeshift vehicles, and NPC vendors. (not that i am supportive of NPC vendors, it was just a ebtter system than 2000 vehicle bonanzas)

[a_ruttle 199]

You've got a proper hard on for aircraft in DayZ, as far as aircraft go I'm in favour of light choppers and maybe light aircraft. I thought instead of having choppers that spawn with guns etc have a car upgrading/jury rigging system where you can bolt on extra bits, think low flying Cessna with a passenger leaning out the door firing a pintle mounted PKM xD. Also, as they've been maintained by people who don't know how to hold guns correctly yet can/maybe soon will be able to fly helicopters, they should have a serious chance of catastrophic failure if not very, very thoroughly maintained.

[FlimFlamm 509]

I've got a hard on specifically for a glorious thing called an "autogyro". If I had that I wouldn't care about anything else :).

 

Me second hard on comes from planes of any kind. I love flying planes. They require less fuel and can lift more. They are harder to exploit for a tactical advantage in DayZ and therefore have less impact on the game than a chopper (Gyros included).

 

It's very important to me that the devs get vehicles right, or else vanilla DayZ SA will go the exact same way of the vanilla DayZ mod for arma 2. I think the best solution to this is to supplement vehicle access with hard to construct makeshift/ultralight replacements. This way servers won't feel the need to jack up vehicle spawn rates, vehicles will still be hard to get, and real vehicles will still be far superior to their makeshift/ultralight counterparts and therefore real vehicles will still be icnredibly valuable.

 

This opinion goes a bit off topic of the thread but it's still quite relevant. I've made a thread in the past about makeshift ground vehicles, it got a good response. (IIRC)

 

I might ressurect it or simply create a new thread devoted specifically to the concept/mechanic of players putting their own vehicles/aircraft together from tools, raw materials, and parts.

Edited June 5, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[FlimFlamm 509]

Regarding the results of the poll so far, a few interesting trends are emerging.

 

Very few people want to see "full blown military aircraft"...

 

Most people seem to be interested in seeing "constructable ultralight aircraft" (This pleases me immensely :D), and also "Light civilian helicopters, limited passenger capacity (4-6)"

 

The latter statistic might overlap with "Civilian helicopters with doors which passengers can shoot their guns from, or drop grenades" which has slightly less than 50% of the vote and so a new poll might be required to find out what the result would be between strictly helis 4-6 capacity versus helis 4-6 capcity capable of door gunning.

 

The conclusions I would draw is that people want aircraft to be very limited in their power and also people are generally interested in seeing constructable ultralights. If I was a dev then I would think about conceding ;)

 

If I had it my way, personally (please nobody hate me for this), I would make vanilla have two choppas with 4-6 capacity (undecided on shooting from doors), two planes like cessnas or something, which would have a 4 capacity but be better on fuel and be able to lift more than the chopper (obviously landing is a hassle). Aside from this all other aircraft would come in the form of constructable Ultralights.

 

Now before we all freak out and fear that the skies will be filled with mozzies or gyros or areolites, I would also limit the number of engines that players can find in order to limit the availability and maximum number of possible makeshift vehicles. Engines would also not be transferrable server to server, so there would be no latteral issue between servers either. The amount of tools and crap required would be immense, making them pretty hard to exploit. The system in theory would work :/

Edited June 5, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[pilgrim* 3513]

..//..

Most people seem to be interested in seeing "constructable ultralight aircraft" (This pleases me immensely :D)

..//..

 

hmmm .. a commercial break .. 13.3 % is not "most people" , .. it's not even "most voters"  .. and it's not "most popular choice"

Have you ever thought of doing detergent ads on television ?

 

xx

[FlimFlamm 509]

hmmm .. a commercial break .. 13.3 % is not "most people" , .. it's not even "most voters"  .. and it's not "most popular choice"

Have you ever thought of doing detergent ads on television ?

 

xx

 

25/42 people voted for the constructable aircraft option. that's 60%. Believe me now?

 

Because there are multiple selections allowed, the percentage listed by the results in the poll do not actually mean anything relevant. Those statistics are about how often certain selections are chosen compared to all the other selections and do not take into account multiple selections.

 

Constructable ultralights are (were) undeniably the most popular choice.

Edited June 5, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[pilgrim* 3513]

 Sexy hotshot marketing devil :

 

25/42 people voted for the constructable aircraft option. that's 60%. Believe me now?

 

Because there are multiple selections allowed, the percentage listed by the results in the poll do not actually mean anything relevant. Those statistics are about how often certain selections are chosen compared to all the other selections and do not take into account multiple selections.

 

Constructable ultralights are (were) undeniably the most popular choice.

 

 

Well - I agree 100%  <the results in the poll do not actually mean anything relevant>.  Is there an option to vote for that ?

 

OK, what I see is this :

 

               = 13.27 %   (it's gone down)

 

What this tells me is :

 

                Even after your whole sales pitch, less than one vote in seven actually clicked on  < I am Interested in Your Product >

 

xx

 

               so Wow that was fun - now let's go vote again again again on  << the ALL NEW who wants Forced 1PP Only >>  thread... yaaaaay !  yaaaaay !

Edited June 5, 2015 by pilgrim

[FlimFlamm 509]

                Even after your whole sales pitch, less than one voter in seven actually clicked on  < I am Interested in Your Product >

 

 

Ok I'm going to deal with only this erroneous claim, because after clarifying you still seem to misunderstand. No sales. Just math. Here we go:

 

(44 member(s) have cast votes) - this is the total number of voters (information found at top of poll)

Constructable Ultralight aircraft has 26 votes - This is the total number of votes cast for constructable ultralights (information also in poll)

 

What this means is that 26 out of 44 people chose constructable ultralights. or 59% of everyone 24/44=59.09%

 

The 13.27 percent that you are working from presumes that each vote of the entire poll comes from a new voter, but most votes come from the same voters because multiple votes are allowed.

 

It's only when we count up all the votes for every category that we come with the 13.27%.

 

If you still don't understand then consider this, If I was the first person to vote and I selected two options (civ helis and constructable ultralights) then the poll would show both options at 50% because it calculates from total votes cast instead of total members cast. Since multiple votes are allowed we must calculate from total members cast, otherwise every statistic will be drastically deflated.

 

 (I thought you linked me to a thread I had made and said it was a mischaracterization, editing to correct that sorry for the assumption, it's a totally different thread which is exactly as you characterize it)

Edited June 5, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[pilgrim* 3513]

    Yes you are totally right

[Katana67 2907]

Everything short of delivering explosives on both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, and even then, if they want to throw a Hydra pod on the UH-1Y (that has to be looted from an airfield, and stocked with rare-ass FFARs) then so be it.

 

Door and/or mounted pylon guns are fine, so long as they...

 

- Don't come as standard, meaning you have to loot and attach them

- Have to actually be resupplied with ammunition, again, meaning you have to loot a ton of ammunition, find belt links, find an ammo box, etc.

- Have some sort of maintenance requirement

- Are suitably rare

 

That said, I don't necessarily want to see "crafted" airframes. Ultralight scout vehicles, sure, no problem. But there's a lot of overlap.

 

Not to rehash the old argument, but aircraft are not irrevocably and innately incompatible with DayZ by any means. They're going to be in DayZ, get over it.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Katana67

[asdzx9@gmail.com 12]

Yes bring back the old huey! It's simply the perfect wasteland helicopter. I dont even know how to explain why.

[pilgrim* 3513]

..//..

if they want to throw a Hydra pod on the UH-1Y (that has to be looted from an airfield, and stocked with rare-ass FFARs) then so be it.

 

Door and/or mounted pylon guns are fine, so long as they...

 

- Don't come as standard, meaning you have to loot and attach them

- Have to actually be resupplied with ammunition, again, meaning you have to loot a ton of ammunition, find belt links, find an ammo box, etc.

- Have some sort of maintenance requirement

- Are suitably rare

..//..

 

note: FFARs = Forward Firing Aircraft Rockets

 

example of UH-1Y with Hydra pods (FFARs,70 rockets) + M134 Minigun + (looks like) GAU-21 50 cal.  "the coolest attack helicopter"

 

                               [ pilgrim has no comment ]

 

                              

Edited June 6, 2015 by pilgrim

[FlimFlamm 509]

The only way to sucessfully implement aircraft in DayZ is to find a balance with them. It would be very hard to balance a UH-1Y in the game of DayZ. Anyone who thinks firing 2000 rounds of 5.56 every minute is a good plan then they have another thing coming.

 

Military aircraft, as I will argue, should only come to fruition with modding tools. As has been said before if people want full militarization they are going to need to wait until modding tools.

 

Military aircraft aside, I'm keen to discuss exactly how arcraft can be kept balanced while still making them satisfying in the long run: here are my ideas so far.

 

Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. This is the obvious and easy way to balance any form of aircraft implementation. The more in-depth the maintenance, the more difficult helicpters will be to use effectively.

 

Realistic Damage. If aircraft take bona fide damage from bullets, then we will see them be used in a drastically different manner than we saw them used on the mod. On the mod aircraft were pretty beefy and hard to hit. Attack helicopters could be easy hit with bullets if they were attacking you or trying to land, but the amount of armor they had made them flying tanks. If aircraft have little to no armor (I.E, not military aircfraft) then nobody will fly low and base hunt out of fear of being shot down. We will see them used in civilian-esque ways instead of airforce-esque ways.

 

Better (more realistic) Flight Model. Aircraft should definitely, definitely, definitely, behave in a more realistic manner than the way they behaved in Arma 2. Flying a helicopter was literal child's play. Autohover was constantly used by 95% of all pilots simply because they are bad pilots, but autohover allowed them to takeoff and land. Not loosing control, Landing properly, Taking off properly, actually flying straight, etc..., these are all things thta will become genuine issues for people. Even with the ease of flight in DayZ there was like a 20% crash rate. In my experience, 20% of all aircraft flights end in a crash (resulting from the poor average piloting skill of the public), imagine how high that number could be if helicopters were actually more challenging to fly. I don't even really need to make this argument regarding planes and autogyros, but a better flight model is absolutely expected. On the DayZ mod people crashed planes and gyros so frequently that literally only one in 50-100 players was competent at flying them.

 

If the devs addressed these three main aspects, getting a helicopter could become so difficult that groups of 20 struggle to achieve it after weeks of play. Through part rarity, tool rarity, resource rarity/complexity it is possible to counteract the OPness of a heli of just about any size, but if helicopters should not be too OP in the first place, and overall they should not be nigh on impossible to get.

 

The last and most important method of balance is the overall rarity dilemma. The issue is that once servers gain control of vehicle spawn rates, they will jack up the numbers, and those servers will become the most popular for that singular reason. This is where the concept of supplementary constructable ultralights comes in an tries to save the day. Ultralights in the form of fixed wings, autogyros, and mozzies (with their respective complexity and difficulty to construct) will satiate many players who want flight for the sake of flight without giving them something inherently OP. (1 passenger, basically no cargo capacity). Because of this, players and server owners will be much more apt to not want an increase in actual vehicle spawns because they will want to preserve their rarity and value, knowing that players have access to alternatives they an achieve through their own hard work. The problem is we all want aircraft to be rare, but even more so we want to actually use one more than once a year, and so we jack up the spawn rates and fuck over the rarity and then there are too many OP helicopters everywhere, and the game changes (Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow :D).

 

If we implement constructable ultralights then we address the problem on many fronts. Firstly we allow for more vehicles without making them free and spawned in everywhere, players have to work for them; value of aircraft is preserved and the number of constructable vehicles will only ever reflect the amount of work players have put into making them on a given server. Secondly, the 'extra vehicles' that exist as the result of being constructed by players will be inherently weaker and more limited than real helicopters; we satiate people with a vehicle of their own after two weeks of work, but we don't break the game by rewarding them with something over powered. This also keeps real helicopters much more valuable given that they can actually be used as transports so the most powerful groups (or the badmins) can be the ones to vie for the ultimate power (if indeed it be that). Thirdly, and perhaps in the end the most important reason to have constructable ultralights is Realism/authenticity.

 

Small groups and lone survivors simply aren't going to have the where-with-all to maintain and operate any kind of medium or large helicopter. Realistically the best they could hope for in the name of reconnaissance or travel is an ultralight that they can actually construct, maintain, and fly on their own. Given the availability of ultralights, many players will opt for an ultralight instead of going for a much harder to maintain/fuel/fly large helicopter. As a result instead of servers needing to spawn 20 helicopters to satisfy their playerbase, they might only need to spawn 4 or 5, or even 2-1. Instead of everyone and their grandmother flying around in a little bird or better, the aircraft economy will actually scale with the strength of groups who play on a given server. The level of maintenance required such as complexity of parts and amount of resources required can also scale with group strength; only large groups will be able to power the machine shops and fabricate parts they need; only large groups would be able to collect enough fuel for a large aircraft like a little bird.

 

And I promised myself I wouldn't make a huge post...

 

TL;DR: BALANCE!!!!! balance real aircraft with extraordinary maintenance requirements, weak armor resulting in extreme fear of bullets while flying (realistic damage), and make them be much more difficult to fly (wind, turbulence, tailspin, no auto hover, etc...). Add Ultralights in order to neuter the chance of 2000 vehicle bonanza servers, thus preserving the value and rarity of actual aircraft while giving something less powerful and more authentic to smaller groups who cannot fight for the super rare helicopters. Not to mention ultralights would instantly become an incredibly attractive end game.

Edited June 6, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[Katana67 2907]

The only way to sucessfully implement aircraft in DayZ is to find a balance with them. It would be very hard to balance a UH-1Y in the game of DayZ. Anyone who thinks firing 2000 rounds of 5.56 every minute is a good plan then they have another thing coming.

 

Mkay, maybe make 5.56x45 hard to come by? That's a start at balancing it. Or maybe make the door-mounted gun hard to come by as well, in addition to the ammunition? Maybe have an M240D instead of an M134?

 

 

Military aircraft, as I will argue, should only come to fruition with modding tools. As has been said before if people want full militarization they are going to need to wait until modding tools.

 

Military aircraft aside, I'm keen to discuss exactly how arcraft can be kept balanced while still making them satisfying in the long run: here are my ideas so far.

 

You can't just exclude/ignore "military" aircraft with the cop-out of "leave it to mods." This is a DayZ forum, you brought up military aircraft in your poll, therefore we're discussing their inclusion in DayZ. This is exactly what I was talking about, there's nothing in the mythical rulebook that says "military aircraft are unbalanced." Moreover, this is DayZ. They were a feature of the mod, no reason why they can't be a feature of standalone.

 

Also, what do you even mean by "full militarization"? Is a civilian UH-1 with someone shooting out the window a fully militarized aircraft? Where do you draw the line? It's not a zero-sum status for aircraft. Scout helicopters are often heavily armed (read AH-6) but they can be unarmed as well. Similarly, there's a huge difference between an attack helicopter with a co-pilot controlled turret versus an AH-6 or somesuch. There's a lot of grey area that you're overlooking.

 

Similarly, why is this a bad thing?

 

Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. This is the obvious and easy way to balance any form of aircraft implementation. The more in-depth the maintenance, the more difficult helicpters will be to use effectively.

 

That's pretty easy to say, what do you mean? Do you mean the parts themselves should be rare? Do you mean they should be individualized (i.e. Mi-7 rotor, UH-1 rotor, etc.)? Do you mean there should be some sort of repair process that requires player input?

 

Realistic Damage. If aircraft take bona fide damage from bullets, then we will see them be used in a drastically different manner than we saw them used on the mod. On the mod aircraft were pretty beefy and hard to hit. Attack helicopters could be easy hit with bullets if they were attacking you or trying to land, but the amount of armor they had made them flying tanks. If tanks have little to no armor then nobody will fly low and base hunt out of fear of being shot down. We will see them used in civilian-esque ways instead of airforce-esque ways.

 

Seeing as small arms could bring down a UH-1 in the mod, gonna' disagree with you here. They weren't tanks by any stretch of the imagination. One guy with a Mk 48 or even a DMR could bring one down.

 

They were suitably vulnerable in the mod, they had an acceptable offensive/defensive damage model. Making them super vulnerable is pointless, nobody will use them if they're not powerful or to be feared.

 

 

Better (more realistic) Flight Model. Aircraft should definitely, definitely, definitely, behave in a more realistic manner than the way they behaved in Arma 2. Flying a helicopter was literal child's play. Autohover was constantly used by 95% of all pilots simply because they are bad pilots, but autohover allowed them to takeoff and land. Not loosing control, Landing properly, Taking off properly, actually flying straight, etc..., these are all things thta will become genuine issues for people. Even with the ease of flight in DayZ there was like a 20% crash rate. In my experience, 20% of all aircraft flights end in a crash (resulting from the poor average piloting skill of the public), imagine how high that number could be if helicopters were actually more challenging to fly. I don't even really need to make this argument regarding planes and autogyros, but a better flight model is absolutely expected. On the DayZ mod people crashed planes and gyros so frequently that literally only one in 50-100 players was competent at flying them.

 

So remove autohover? I never thought autohover was problematic, landing 100% vertically was suicidal. Any pilot worth their weight in salt would come in at a gradual angle and be thinking ahead. Sure it's a crutch, but it's not an overly advantageous crutch.

 

How, specifically, do we make a "better" flight model? You're not making any suggestions. Does it require weather to be simulated? Does to require more intricate control schemes? Does it require TOH intervention?

 

People crashed planes in modded DayZ because Chernarus is unsuitable for landing, not because they were overly difficult to fly. Also, where are you drawing these percentages from? If you're using your own experience (which it seems like you are), a 20% crash rate seems pretty high for something that's super easy to fly. Also, there are more reasons than "inexperience" that cause crashes.

 

 

If the devs addressed these three main aspects, getting a helicopter could become so difficult that groups of 20 struggle to achieve it after weeks of play. Through part rarity, tool rarity, resource rarity/complexity it is possible to counteract the OPness of a heli of just about any size, but if helicopters should not be too OP in the first place, and overall they should not be nigh on impossible to get.

 

While I agree that helicopters themselves should be more consequential to use/maintain/store/repair, 20 players struggling for anything in DayZ doesn't really make much sense. We can quip about "how many players is enough to be granted the use of a helicopter" but 20 person groups are few and far between.

 

They should be forces to be reckoned with, I'm not sure why you want to neuter helicopters. They weren't that good in vanilla DayZ.

 

Sure, a god damn UH-1Y with auto-repair on restart, auto-resupply on restart, and a FLIR seat like we saw in the mods is ridiculous. But remove all of those things and it's pretty effing tame.

 

You seem to view the so-called "OPness" of a helicopter as bad. I view it as good, because helicopters should be good and not useless. They should be the powerful resources that they were in the mod, they just need to be made more consequential to use (via rarer parts, a more involve supply chain [having to find a door mounted weapon, ammo, etc.], no parachutes for passengers, etc.)

 

 

The last and most important method of balance is the issue of overall dilemma rarity. The issue is that once servers gain control of vehicle spawn rates, they will jack up the numbers, and those servers will become the most popular for that singular reason. This is where the concept of supplementary constructable ultralights comes in an tries to save the day. Ultralights in the form of fixed wings, autogyros, and mozzies (with their respective complexity and difficulty to construct) will satiate many players who want flight for the sake of flight without giving them something inherently OP. (1 passenger, basically no cargo capacity). Because of this, players and server owners will be much more apt to not want an increase in actual vehicle spawns because they will want to preserve their rarity and value. The problem is we all want aircraft to be rare, but even more so we want to actually use one more than once a year, and so we jack up the spawn rates and fuck over the rarity and then there are too many OP helicopters everywhere, and the game changes (Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow :D).

 

If we implement constructable ultralights then we address the problem on many fronts. Firstly we allow for more vehicles without making them free and spawned in everywhere, players have to work for them; value of aircraft is preserved and the number of constructable vehicles will only ever reflect the amount of work players have put into making them on a given server. Secondly, the 'extra vehicles' that exist as the result of being constructed by players will be inherently weaker and more limited than real helicopters; we satiate people with a vehicle of their own after two weeks of work, but we don't break the game by rewarding them with something over powered. This also keeps real helicopters much more valuable given that they can actually be used as transports so the most powerful groups (or the badmins) can be the ones to vie for the ultimate power (if indeed it be that). Thirdly, and perhaps in the end the most important reason to have constructable ultralights is Realism/authenticity.

 

And here it is, the unexplained assumption that armed helicopters are "inherently OP." See my initial thoughts on this, there's an incredible amount of variance in what constitutes an armed aircraft. What is overpowered? Is it a UH-1Y with a minigun? An M240D? A Hydra pod? An MH-6 with someone shooting off the bench? An AH-6 with a lone minigun? A Super Tucano with a gun pod? Some asshole tossing frags out of a biplane? What? Where's the line?

 

How would the addition of constructable ultralights do any good? Not only is it ludicrous from a "realism" standpoint (which I don't particularly care for) for every player to know how to construct these things, but it doesn't resolve any of the problems you just highlighted.

 

All it does is give an unarmed alternative to armed helicopters.

 

 

Small groups and lone survivors simply aren't going to have the where-with-all to maintain and operate any kind of medium or large helicopter. Realistically the best they could hope for in the name of reconnaissance or travel is an ultralight that they can actually construct, maintain, and fly on their own. Given the availability of ultralights, many players will opt for an ultralight instead of going for a much harder to maintain/fuel/fly large helicopter. As a result instead of servers needing to spawn 20 helicopters to satisfy their playerbase, they might only need to spawn 4 or 5, or even 2-1.

 

Again, where's the line? UH-1's don't take much more to get flying than an AH-6. Certainly not in the personnel department.

 

People want death helicopters because they're death helicopters. If people have the option of 20 ultralights and 5 armed helicopters, you bet your ass they're going to dump that ultralight the second a more robust airframe comes along. It doesn't matter if it's hard to maintain, once they've got it flying, that ultralight is going to rot in a field.

 

Availability =/= desirability. This is the first time I've heard someone suggest more helicopters as a solution to discouraging their use overall.

 

If I want to get to point A from point B quickly, quietly, and without a lot of maintenance... know what I'll select? A freakin' bicycle! Ultralights wouldn't exist in a vaccuum, they're not overly advantageous in any regard. They have none of the stealthy benefits of a ground vehicle, they have none of the carry capacity of heavy helicopters/vehicles, they have no offensive measures, they have no defensive measures. Their only advantages are that they're relatively quick, marginally easier to hide than the average vehicle, and are hard-er to hit. All of which are easily outweighed by their downsides.

 

One guy flying a UH-1 can do about as much damage as one guy flying an Ultralight.

 

All types of helicopters should be included. Armed helicopters should be feared assets, not teacups. Ultralights aren't a panacea to helicopter balance. We can have a debate about what types of armed helicopters/aircraft will be included, if you'd like.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Katana67

[FlimFlamm 509]

-snip-

 

 

I use the term OP rather loosely along with other things like "full militarization", so I will try and clarify this first.

 

What some people consider to be OP, some others do not. Some people consider aircraft of any kind "OP" simply because of the reconnaissance they can do. Some people take it further and say that helicopters allow players to find and raid bases too easily because of their VTOL capability. At the very minimum when I refer to the "inherent OPness" of helicopters it is this subjective take, which I do not necessarily agree with. On the subject of "attack helicopters" and "full militarization, the waters are also a bit murky...

 

Specifically I am against the idea of an m134. I've played the mod a lot and they are simply too destructive. Aside from being able to disable any vehicle in seconds through sheer bullet saturation, they fire up to 4k rounds per minute (IIRC) and that is simply a ridiculous amount of ammo. If a group is able to gather 2k rounds to just spurt away in one or two minutes then every gun that uses 5.56 nato rounds is going to have plenty fo ammo available or else these groups are going to spend an unreasonable amount of time gathering 5.56 rounds.

 

I heavily support the m240 as an alternative to an m134. It requires less maintenance (so far as I understand), is much lighter, and fires reasonable numbers of 7.62 rounds. I'm personally in support of being able to shoot out of doors, and if I can point an M240 out of it in with hands then why not mount it on to the sides? Having to construct your own gun mount for whatever helicopter ends up being available is a great way to give it more potential while keeping it balanced. The problem comes in when the pinnacle is too powerful, which is the case for M134's and 50 cal MG's. It is my opinion that these two guns are too powerful, and so I would rather they not be in the vanilla standalone.  I'm fine with door mounted guns and helicopters of all sizes in the end so long as my entire base cannot be razed by a group with several m2/m134 bearing choppers or humvees in a few minutes.

 

Unless you had a high caliber gun you were no match on the ground for a helicopter. If you have assets in the open they would be destroyed without means of retaliation. I'm not absolutely opposed to the idea of a venom helicopter, but the fact that it has a lot of armor can be cause for worry if it has a lot of firepower. Keep in mind this is just my own opinion based on my own experience in the mod. Part of the reason why I was vague about what is OP and what constitutes a potentially undesirable military aircraft is because the matter is controversial, and my own opinion subjective. In the end I'm not the one to arbit balance. If M134's and M2's become available, I could only hope that they would be exceedingly rare, and the ammo requirements just as difficult in order to balance their very blatant destructive capabilities.

 

This brings me onto the subject of balance and maintenance. One of the problems with very large helicopters is that they require more, and more complex, maintenance.

 

Military helicopters have more systems, are larger, made from stronger materials, and presumably require more complex mechanical work compared to most civilian helicopters. If military helicopters should come to be then all the same maintenance procedures which are required for civilian versions should be exacerbated. More fuel requirements; more metal to fabricate rotors in the machine shops that you power with your own generators; longer fabrication time; more difficult to transport due to greater size of rotors, longer installation time potentially requiring the highest industrial grade tools available. This is just rotor installation. The same applies to every aspect of the helicopter which requires maintenance. More rare and larger (harder to fabricate and or transport and install) windscreens, tail rotors, engines, landing gear, etc... One of the reasons why many people think of military aircraft as inherently inauthentic is because they see it as too difficult in the first place to maintain such a large aircraft as a venom or a black hawk, or an mi17. If such aircraft should make it in, I am of the strong opinion that they should be balanced with a level of difficulty that balances the reward of being able to instantly shoot your way across the map at high speeds and deliver 6 or 7 soldiers in for an attack.

 

I'm not creative enough to come up with all the cool mechanics that we could use to make aircraft feel more real and make it more difficult in the name of balance. That is a big part of the purpose of this thread though.

 

When it comes to ultralight aircraft, I'm a strong advocate of them because I was around to see what happened to the DayZ mod. Servers jacked up their numbers because they could, and became by far the most popular, then mods hit the scene and became, and remain, by far the most popular. One of the biggest reason why they remain by far the most popular is because they address vehicle availability by supplementing them somehow. One way is an NPC vendor, albeit a lame one, another way is makeshift/constructable vehicle variants. My thinking is that we should pre-empt the need for such features in the form of mods to the standalone and have them come standard in the vanilla standalone. Base building is going to be a thing, which is a concept that only came with the mods, and so too should supplemental vehicle access.

 

If anyone is interested they can check out a lengthy thread I made on the subject in an attempt to give ideas to the developers. It deals strictly with ground vehicles but the same sort of concept can apply to ultralights: http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/223970-modular-vehicles-conceptdiscussion-thread-condensedupdated/

 

The real reason why constructable ground and air vehicles are so important is to prevent servers spawning massive numbers of them and ruining the experience of vehicle rarity (which creates the feeling of value). The other reasons that make ultralights a great idea are basically just cherries on top of that first basic argument.

 

You say that ultralights have no offence, but being able to do recon is key to any aggression. The defense of an ultralight is to fly away. Ultralights can be very stealthy, at certain altitudes they cannot be heard. Autogyros in particular can do long glides (using auto-rotation) and make ultra silent landings. When it comes to speed they are much slower than a bona fide aircraft, but they will obviously travel much faster than any ground vehicle. They are extremely easy to hide compared to large aircraft and even some ground vehicles. An auto-gyro can be pushed behind a bush and be practically invisible.

 

One guy flying a Uh-1Y must be on his way to pick his friend who probably has ammunition (they're well off enough to be operating a UH right?) Presumably he is going to fly around looking for potential targets. If a real helicopter of any kind with door gunning capabilities came upon an ultralight of any kind, the ultralight would be utterly fucked. With no ability to out maneuver or outrun, they would be at their mercy. That's how I think it should be.

 

If people want to be militant then I will let them, but they should go through the appropriate hardships so that they don't suddenly have enough ammo to lay waste to a 5km radius. All I want is a thing to get me from point A to point B, and to flee from all the militant people. It's much easier to build and fly an ultralight than to maintain, repair and fly a real helicopter. It requires less fuel, less exotic fuel, less materials, less work, less expert knowledge. It's more reasonable for small groups to use ultralights for recon and travel than to all have their own respective venoms. In other words it's more realistic that people would be flying ultralights simply because they are economical and easier to achieve. That they would have a less destructive impact on the community of survivors is a benefit that many people would also appreciate.

 

I want as much variance as possible, so bring on aircraft of all kinds, but I also want balance. The better the craft the more difficult it should be to get. An operational military grade attack helicopter should take a heck of a ridiculous amount of time and effort and luck to pull together whereas ultralights are something we can all enjoy at a more reasonable expense of our time and effort.

Edited June 6, 2015 by FlimFlamm