Upcoming aircrafts discussion

[Richard III in Leicester 200]

3 hours ago, FlimFlamm said:

Initially, aircraft will be so rare that seeing or hearing one in the sky will fill you with a sense of excitement. It was this way in the early days of the mod. They will quickly become owned and operated by only the largest and most powerful group(s) that exist on any given server, except for when they exist in the hands of random survivors, for short periods of time, when they get stolen/destroyed/respawned from the large groups who will monopolize them.

When only a couple aircraft exist, actually owning, maintaining, and defending them becomes an extraordinarily laborious affair simply because the entire server is basically willing to sacrifice their lives for an outside chance to steal your helicopter from you (in many cases they aren't worth the effort of keeping them).  If people see one, they follow it; if they find where you land it's only a matter of time before they destroy or steal it. When aircraft are extremely limited (2-4 only per map) they become the most valuable objects in the game due to their rarity and unique utility, and for this reason, 90% of all players simply will not give up on hunting for them after they exhaust the other gameplay focuses that DayZ offers. Paradoxically the rarity driven value of aircraft on a server where only two exist is so high that protecting them exceeds and interferes with their functional utility value; you're better off not wasting effort in trying to find or keep one and just use them opportunistically if you happen to find one.

Given that aircraft themselves in this scenario become so incredibly valuable, flying them around and landing in random bases becomes far too risky, even landing in your own base has the risk of attracting players. The way helicopters will initially be used, as they were on the mod, will be mostly for picking up friends across Chernarus, especially fresh spawns, for transporting items over long distances, and scouting.

 

 

 

 

Yes - exactly what he said. Nailed it.

My friends in the mod would always bang on about getting helis asap. But then it would just end up with the heli being used constantly to pick up dead mates from the beach. It was stupid really.

Or if in a smaller group the problem would be more of hiding the thing and you wouldn't then even use it because you had hidden it in such an obscure location and would have to drive off on your own to find it. The lure of the thing far outreaches the usefulness of it once you've got it. 

The best use I used to have for them was landing on Berezino hospital roof and looting meds then buzzing out of dodge as soon as I could. And finding heli crashsites of course. 

Edited August 2, 2016 by Richard III in Leicester

[SMoss 2101]

21 hours ago, BeefBacon said:

I expect they'll be somewhat more common to begin with - in experimental, say - so they can be more widely tested?

It's a fair assumption for sure, but I can't say for certain what the numbers for helicopters and spare parts will look like once it all arrives.

[Funkmaster Rick 373]

I definitely want to see a biplane, maybe even a VTOL. But the best vehicle will still be, by and large, the foot-powered bicycle.

[FlimFlamm 509]

7 hours ago, Funkmaster Rick said:

I definitely want to see a biplane, maybe even a VTOL. But the best vehicle will still be, by and large, the foot-powered bicycle.

A VTOL plane is absolutely out of the question hehe (in the devs eyes and in the eyes of the majority of forum poll respondents) :D. There's not really any feasibly maintainable VTOL planes in existence. The osprey (v22 IIRC) in the DayZ mod was fun as fuck to fly, don't get me wrong, but it was never "at home" on Chernarus and severely altered how the game was played at the top tier group levels. It enabled me to take off from my base in the far north, be on the southern coast picking up clan members within 2 minutes, back at the northern base within another 2 minutes (startup time, takeoff time, flight time, landing time included) gearing up, and so it was that I could re-deliver an assault squad to any location in roughly 6 minutes after they got completely wiped. The good news is that mods will certainly come out to expand available aircraft, so we are still going to be able to slake our sky-lust when necessary.

I understand why VTOL is attractive though; you can land in more places and planes in general are fun to fly. But on the DayZ mod I actually relished the fact that hardly anybody was a competent pilot. It set the few dedicated to learning apart from the rest.

People often forget but the original DayZ engine was a flight simulator, and as such it has a host of precision mechanics which attempt to simulate the real physics of actual flight. Even the basic shit like understanding flaps, ailerons, trim, and when to properly use them pretty much requires you either be taught first hand by someone who already knows, or that you spend time on google researching what is essentially real world piloting information. Once you get a grasp of actual basic flight mechanics (proper use of flaps for example), then you can begin doing perhaps even more extensive research into the specifications of the particular aircraft you want to master in game.

With planes, minimum airspeed differences (the speed required to keep you aloft/not stalling) between flap positions are 100% crucial to proper landing and take-offs. Most pilots don't exactly understand that when your flaps are in the full or down position that your wings generate more lift, and therefore can support flight at lower air-speeds, but that additionally they create more drag, which makes it more difficult to gain/maintain speed.

If you understand your exact minimum airspeed required for lift, then you can take-off with 100% efficiency by accelerating on the ground with flaps in the up or in-line position (to reduce drag during acceleration) and then as soon as the minimum full-flaps airspeed required for lift is reached, you can throw flaps into the down position and your plane can instantly and steadily begin gaining altitude. Each plane as a different minimum airspeed for the various flap positions, and the landing procedure involves a similar technique of attaining the correct minimum airspeed while lowering altitude before throttling down for a landing. Additionally different planes can have drastically different and unique features from one another. The CAMEL plane for instance (featured on the overpoch mod) has a back wheel that creates drag when trying to take-off by dragging on the ground. The result is that people seem to think it takes a full/full blown runway to get one airborne. In the real world, and in the game, the technique for countering this drag is, un-intuitively, to push your nose down during acceleration to lift up the ass end of the plane and bring it level (suspending the back wheel in the air), which allows acceleration at much greater rates.

With the AN-2 cargo plane, my very favorite plane, I was to the point skill wise that basically there was nowhere I would not land except for dense forests. The an2 plane has massive wings and can tolerate very slow airspeeds and so it only took an extremely (unrealistically so) short distance to get one airborne and to come to a halt.

The biggest trick which opens up practically every nook and cranny of Chernarus to plane take-offs and landings, once the above basics are all mastered, is the strategic use of hills for acceleration and deceleration. In order to land in an extremely small distance, or even at the top of a steep hill, you can fly towards an incline/hill and begin to climb it, feet from the ground, while throttling down, and gravity will pull your plane to a stop, but not before you turn and re-orient your plane so that it can take-off again reliably. If you are skilled and really know your angles and airspeeds, you can fly up steep grassy hills and come to a stop at the exact apex. To take off, you simply start throttling up and head down the hill, accelerated by gravity, which results in an extremely short distance required to achieve lift. This stuff might seem sophisticated when we think about aircraft in the game of DayZ, but in the real world of piloting this is entry level stuff. My experiences of researching flight mechanics online and applying them in DayZ was the most enjoyable and rewarding experience DayZ ever provided to me.

I do want to see variety in aircraft though. Since scaling up would just be a replay of the venom/blackhawk dayz past (it was a bad scene man), and since DayZ is going for grit rather than military polish, what I would love to see are ultralights, specifically, my most favorite of all aircraft, autogyros (but also ultralight fixed wing planes and mozzies). Autogyros are really funny looking things that in the DayZ mods not many people knew how to fly, but it was actually simultaneously the most realistically maintainable aircraft in the game and had VTOL-like takeoff and landing abilities (extremely short distances), and could actually function as a glider and perform totally silent landings from a fully un-powered state. People always preferred the mozzie because it had actual VTOL and the ability to hover, but with skill the autogyro was almost as versatile in being able to perform landings. Being able to glide completely silently for many kilometers before silently landing at your hidden base was just too potent, in addition to being able to do silent fly-overs for scouting (the autogyro is small, so the odds of spotting one are purely down to chance when you are unable to hear it). Mozzies require aviation fuel as well, but auto-gyros work on diesel. Mozzies require perfectly fabricated parts to not fall apart/cause crashes, while auto-gyros have been constructed by aircraft hobbyists in garages for well over 50 years. The minimalist nature of autogyros is perfect for Chernarus. They can be taxi'd on the ground (or pushed) and can perform take-offs even inside sparse forests.

Certainly variety cannot be a bad thing if we offer it on the low end of the "OPness" spectrum rather than the high end as was the case in the DayZ mod (a little bird was one of the crappiest helicotpers (less crappy than only the mozzie) but in DayZ vanilla I reckon it should be the best). Aside from the mozzie and the littlebird, I don't know what other helicopters players could possibly need. Toward this point, a year or more ago I made a thread with an in-depth poll asking people what kinds of aircraft they would like to see. I'll do an updated meta-analysis of it and post here with some simplified results!

Edited August 2, 2016 by FlimFlamm

[Funkmaster Rick 373]

Hehe, autogyros would be sweet. They're still planning on adding drive-by mechanics, right? Head to the coast, silent approach, spray bullets more-or-less randomly to frighten bambis, then yell, "Get off my lawn!" on your way out. They need to bring back empty whiskey bottles, too, so I've got something low-tech to throw at people.

[FlimFlamm 509]

3 minutes ago, Funkmaster Rick said:

Hehe, autogyros would be sweet. They're still planning on adding drive-by mechanics, right? Head to the coast, silent approach, spray bullets more-or-less randomly to frighten bambis, then yell, "Get off my lawn!" on your way out. They need to bring back empty whiskey bottles, too, so I've got something low-tech to throw at people.

I used to do the silent fly by thing on the mod, except the only thing we could throw at them were grenades XD

[FlimFlamm 509]

Not that I'm trying to derail this thread as technically the OP only asked a narrow question, but for now rather than making a new and overlapping thread, and because of the title of this thread which suggests broad discussion, here is the condensed analysis of what people want:

Out of 71 respondents:

• 66% of voters want the little-bird and a plane equivalent (4-6 capacity) (47 out of 71 voters wanted this)
• 57% of voters want constructable ultralights (1-2 capacity)
• 55% of voters want ultralight helicopters (1-2 capacity)
• 51% of voters want to be able to shoot their guns from aircraft doors
• 47% of voters want ultralight planes (1-2 capacity)
• 35% of voters want full blown militarized helis with 50cal and m134 guns
• 32% of voters want large civilian helicopters (very high passenger capacity)
• 24% of voters want large civilian planes (very high passenger capacity)
• 14% of voters want full blown militarized planes with halo jumping and door/rear guns

here is the thread containing the poll

It should be noted that the way this poll is set up there are certain margins of error. The way these numbers are best interpreted is "at least this % of the player base wants X" due to the fact that some people only selected one option, such as "I want full blown military aircraft", without realizing that they should have also clicked every other option which they desire to see in the game, which deflates the values but establishes a minimum threshold.

[Parazight 1594]

FlimFlamm, I think I know why you want chernarus to be an island. 

 

I'm a bit worried that seeing planes land on top of hills will break my immersion. 

[FlimFlamm 509]

9 hours ago, Parazight said:

FlimFlamm, I think I know why you want chernarus to be an island. 

 

I'm a bit worried that seeing planes land on top of hills will break my immersion. 

Seeing a plane land on-top of a hill is not a common sight from the DayZ mod, but even if you saw it, your immersion should be left unscathed because hill landing and takeoff techniques come from the real world of piloting!!!!

:D

Some people will recall the existence of a very small island off the south coast which had sheer (very rocky) cliffs and a light house on it.

I used to land my autogyro on that bad boy for fun every chance i got, and then challenge my friends to try and do the same only to watch them bounce off the island and ricochet into the ocean. Gosh those were good times...

Even more good times are gonna come once we finally have aircraft in game. No auto-hover is gonna result in a hilarious amount of crashing/salty knaves. I can't wait!!!!

Edited August 3, 2016 by FlimFlamm

[FlimFlamm 509]

On the question of the OP : What of aircraft for base-finding?

In the DayZ mod aircraft prevalence plus shitty rendering did make it so that a single individual could fly around the map looking for remote bases to raid. The rendering was such that tents were quite visible pretty much no-matter where you hid them. The bases themselves were not generally securable and so when people stashed crap in a tent, we all knew it was only a matter of time before it was found and looted. Even without aircraft players are random search engines which over time will naturally comb the entire map; every nook and cranny. Regardless of where you build a base, eventually it's going to get found, but helicopters greatly reduce the average length of time that your base will remain hidden for.

So that is the gist of the problem as it existed in DayZ original, what will be different in the standalone?

Well, firstly there's a good chance that the way trees render will be evaluated and greatly improved, making visibility in forests from above quite low.

Secondly, the barricading system is set to be such that a great number of players are going to barricade existing buildings from the inside which would not necessarily be obvious to someone on the outside or flying above.

Thirdly, the barricading system itself is set to be such that even if your base gets found, we are going to be able to make it somewhat secure by erecting physical barricades, possibly metal doors, traps such as mines, and more...

Fourthly, there is already a mechanic for burying your loot on the way (think buried pirate booty) so even when your base gets broken into, you are going to be able to keep a shit ton of your most valuable loot safely hidden under the ground in loot stashes you keep nearby.

Fifthly, maintaining helicopters (regardless of their spawning numbers) is going to be pretty difficult, and so doing high risk low altitude grid searches of the entire map is much more likely to result in a damaged aircraft which will be much more difficult to repair.

Overall the cost/risk/reward ratio of aerial base-raiding is going to be much closer to 1:1 than it was in the mod. In a sentence:

The increased difficulty of repairing/fueling/maintaining aircraft, combined with increased difficulty of finding bases, combined with the increased difficulty and risk of breaking into bases (i.e, lethal traps), combined with the increased difficulty to actually find loot that people want to hide (i.e, buried chests) creates a confluence of factors that is going to drastically impact the feasibility of getting rich from raids by flying a helicopter around at 4AM when nobody else is on. Just how much harder it will be to get returns out of operating a helicopter (in terms of just base raiding), it's not really possible to yet say.

Edited August 3, 2016 by FlimFlamm

[sneakydude 480]

On 8/1/2016 at 10:50 AM, SMoss said:

This is the plan in regards to the helicopters. There will be very few of them and maintenance will be quite a task as well, so you won't have to worry about hiding your camp from 10 different airborn teams of players roaming across the map.

Hey moss,

Are we working on the base camps yet? ones we can get persistent and be able to build walls around it for clan members to protect. Will we also have offline no base raiding options?

Just curious where we stand today, because right now a tent is easy to spot. Easy to raid, and easy to steal from. There is no hiding anything, except a couple barrels that might trick some.

I would like to be able to build a base, and have my heli pad setup. If i drive over clan members OPps :)

Edited August 4, 2016 by sneakydude

[krazypenguin 174]

From my 2 likes to eno's posts, it should be pretty clear that I'm not a fan of choppers.  I personally cannot see the value they add to what is supposed to be a he game and think the effort required to implement them is better spent elsewhere.  I also share his opinion that if you want choppers, go play the mod which already has them - I would prefer to see SA stay chopper-free and not turn into the mod.  We already have the mod, why make it again?  You like the old days of the mod with choppers?  Go play it.  You already have\had your game, let us have our turn to have ours please.

DayZ SA should, IMO, strive to be something different and something unique.  For me, that's what BI games have always been about - pushing the boundaries of gameplay and realism to create unique experiences that no one else has the guts to make.  They don't need to recreate an existing game.

That said, if it's just 1 chopper per server and it really is that difficult to get, maintain, fuel and fly one then I guess it doesn't really matter - because you won't see them that often.  

However, they really need to make sure that they ARE strictly limited - and this is what worries me.  It sounds like individual server owners will be able to control how many choppers there are and this will, IMO, end up in a situation very much like Battlefield Vietnam, where all you ended up with was servers with masses of choppers, because that's what attracts the players, but at the same time it breaks the balance and just messes everything up.  Meanwhile, all the people who want to play Dayz SA, not chopper mechanic\pilot sim 2017 or whatever, will be trying to get into the few overloaded servers that aren't full of helicopters.  They won;t be able to and will lose interest and drift away.

I dunno, I'm sure it will be fine, but personally I still just don't see the attraction or need.

Also...some calculations for you :-)

Assuming that the kerosene used by the Little Bird is the same as the "regular" kerosene used as a cooking fuel and in industrial processes (I really do not know but let's assume it is) then fuel should be reasonably common - most of the houses in Chernarus would be using kerosene and there are numerous "fuel tank" style containers near many houses.

A Little Bird has a tank of 242 litres. which gives it a range of 430km, or 1.7km per litre of fuel.  At 0.72kg/l that's 174kg for a full tank of fuel, or 27.4 stone.  So the fuel weighs a hell of a lot and you need quite a lot unless you want to fall out of the sky.  Also, a barrel holds 159 litres, so you need about 1.5 barrels of the the stuff to fill up.

Then there's the question of transferring that fuel into the chopper itself...hand pump anyone?  ;-)

 

 

[Funkmaster Rick 373]

46 minutes ago, krazypenguin said:

We already have the mod, why make it again?  You like the old days of the mod with choppers?  Go play it.  You already have\had your game, let us have our turn to have ours please.

Why make it again? That is literally the whole reason the SA was made - there were certain engine and resource restrictions that prevented the mod from being all that it could be. It was always intended to be an improved version of the mod. Rocket didn't include helicopters without a reason. I'm normally all for sharing, but I don't want you to have your game if it has to come at the expense of mine, the one I've already paid for.

[krazypenguin 174]

10 minutes ago, Funkmaster Rick said:

Why make it again? That is literally the whole reason the SA was made - there were certain engine and resource restrictions that prevented the mod from being all that it could be. It was always intended to be an improved version of the mod. Rocket didn't include helicopters without a reason. I'm normally all for sharing, but I don't want you to have your game if it has to come at the expense of mine, the one I've already paid for.

Like I say, whilst I would still prefer none, I think a strict limit will be ok - that's the middle ground that gives the DayZ mod players what they want but doesn't stop SA from becoming just another military sim.  But if server owners start spawning a dozen choppers per map then it's going to suck.

Quick question, assuming you know - how far does the original road plan go down the military equipment route?  Can we expect armoured cars, APCs, tanks, rockets\RPGs etc...?   Thanks.

[sneakydude 480]

19 minutes ago, krazypenguin said:

Like I say, whilst I would still prefer none, I think a strict limit will be ok - that's the middle ground that gives the DayZ mod players what they want but doesn't stop SA from becoming just another military sim.  But if server owners start spawning a dozen choppers per map then it's going to suck.

Quick question, assuming you know - how far does the original road plan go down the military equipment route?  Can we expect armoured cars, APCs, tanks, rockets\RPGs etc...?   Thanks.

Well from what i have been seeing, i don't think we will have to many running vehicles at all, it would be up to you to repair it.

[Funkmaster Rick 373]

I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's safe to rule tanks and APCs out, at least in the traditional sense. I do vaguely recall talk of being able to modify vehicles, even perhaps up to Mad Max levels, so we can probably expect up-armoured cars, but I imagine it won't be anything like you see in modern up-armoured civilian vehicles. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they include HMMWVs, but that seems a bit unlikely to me. They did have rocket launchers in the mod, and given the plans to allow vehicle modification, I actually sort of expect to see them come in eventually. Perhaps not armour-piercing, anti-tank weaponry, but RPGs for clearing out buildings or disabling civilian vehicles with a bit of armour are probably in the cards. I think we can almost certainly expect M203 and GP-25 launcher attachments.

Just speculation, of course.

[FlimFlamm 509]

On 8/4/2016 at 11:53 AM, krazypenguin said:

From my 2 likes to eno's posts, it should be pretty clear that I'm not a fan of choppers.  I personally cannot see the value they add to what is supposed to be a he game and think the effort required to implement them is better spent elsewhere.  I also share his opinion that if you want choppers, go play the mod which already has them - I would prefer to see SA stay chopper-free and not turn into the mod.  We already have the mod, why make it again?  You like the old days of the mod with choppers?  Go play it.  You already have\had your game, let us have our turn to have ours please.

DayZ SA should, IMO, strive to be something different and something unique.  For me, that's what BI games have always been about - pushing the boundaries of gameplay and realism to create unique experiences that no one else has the guts to make.  They don't need to recreate an existing game.

That said, if it's just 1 chopper per server and it really is that difficult to get, maintain, fuel and fly one then I guess it doesn't really matter - because you won't see them that often.  

However, they really need to make sure that they ARE strictly limited - and this is what worries me.  It sounds like individual server owners will be able to control how many choppers there are and this will, IMO, end up in a situation very much like Battlefield Vietnam, where all you ended up with was servers with masses of choppers, because that's what attracts the players, but at the same time it breaks the balance and just messes everything up.  Meanwhile, all the people who want to play Dayz SA, not chopper mechanic\pilot sim 2017 or whatever, will be trying to get into the few overloaded servers that aren't full of helicopters.  They won;t be able to and will lose interest and drift away.

I dunno, I'm sure it will be fine, but personally I still just don't see the attraction or need.

Also...some calculations for you :-)

Assuming that the kerosene used by the Little Bird is the same as the "regular" kerosene used as a cooking fuel and in industrial processes (I really do not know but let's assume it is) then fuel should be reasonably common - most of the houses in Chernarus would be using kerosene and there are numerous "fuel tank" style containers near many houses.

A Little Bird has a tank of 242 litres. which gives it a range of 430km, or 1.7km per litre of fuel.  At 0.72kg/l that's 174kg for a full tank of fuel, or 27.4 stone.  So the fuel weighs a hell of a lot and you need quite a lot unless you want to fall out of the sky.  Also, a barrel holds 159 litres, so you need about 1.5 barrels of the the stuff to fill up.

Then there's the question of transferring that fuel into the chopper itself...hand pump anyone?  ;-)

 

 

You're right that DayZ players will vote with their feet, and the servers offering the most desirable features and balances, like aircraft spawn numbers, will garner the most amount of traffic. What you're not realizing is that regardless of what vehicles and what weapons actually get added into the game, there is always going to be a subset of servers which caters to your exact sensibilities.

Don't like choppers? Fear not, tons of people (30% of the player-base roughly) seem to not want aircraft of any kind, so in addition to a crap ton of servers jacking spawn numbers, there will be a bunch of servers (although admittedly not as many) which turn off aircraft altogether.

Don't like military crap? Fear not, most of the player base does not want to see full blown militarization. The devs have said they aren't building military attack vehicles like tanks and armed choppers so really you should not be worried about over-,militarization. Even if militarization was a major concern, there will still be servers which turn these things off to cater directly to the 30% of players who vocally desire it. The most armored vehicle we are getting is an unarmored humvee.

Having played extensively in a Chernarus where "there's only 1 chopper", I can very confidently tell you that unless you despise the existence of choppers altogether, 1 chopper is not enough choppers cause you'll likely never touch it (Oh but you will see it alright!). The precise number of helis that servers ought to spawn depends on their exact average population levels (higher pop, needs more choppas), and because server populations constantly fluctuate, it is pretty much guarenteed that there are always either too few or too many choppers on any given server at any given time.

In order to play it safe, the devs are going to have the default spawn numbers be very low, so that there will always be either not enough (2 choppers on a filled sever) or just the right amount. This is seen by many to be superior (immersion and meta-game wise) to having choppers be too easy to get, and I tend to agree, as do many other players, but only for a time. When players get it into their heads that they want to fly, for whatever reason, in a chopper scarce environment, they realize that they might be spending several months on a fruitless endeavor. At this point they can either turn off DayZ and turn on an actual flight simulator (IL-2 Sturmovic FTFW), or they can join a heli-splosion server.

Really the problem won't affect you much. Vanilla players wanting reasonable access to some sort of flight are going to be forced to migrate or petition their communities to make changes. Until that happens, the particular aching in my old DayZ bones is absolute sign that when aircraft do hit, you won't have to try hard to not find one. The fact that "herp-derp-fixed vehicle spawning numbers" give rise to this inherent stability problem of [aircraft numbers/server pop] combined with the reasonable and safe approach to have aircraft numbers on the limited side rather than the plentiful side means that the incoming implementations of Vanilla already will be catering directly to people who dislike the idea of aircraft. This is the "just a dash" approach. I will probably sound like some passionate wind-bag for saying this, but I feel that the Vanilla should at least try to cater to the desires of the majority when it comes to implementations of those features which are integral to how the game can be played. Too many aircraft creates negative cycles of interaction and is a destructive force, but not enough and an arbitrary limitation is placed on how players can choose to play the game. More choice; more diversity. More diversity; more interesting interactions. More diverse interactions; more entertainment.

Remember that just because players flock to servers which inflate their aircraft numbers above the default doesn't mean that the game will be ruined for people who hate aircraft or even that they will have to compete for space on the few purist vanilla servers. Servers that are popular will see more servers like them get created to harvest the excess population, whether they are "aircraft off" servers or "free chopper day" servers. The scope of this issue is that around half or maybe even more than half of the player base are very quickly going to be playing on servers which use settings other than the default vanilla settings, which draws into question the efficacy of the default vanilla settings themselves. The balance/stability issues that are inherent in a static heli number environment whose demographics constantly change (who is on and how many are on) is the cause, and so any remedy to this setback would be fairly desirable for about half or maybe more than half of the player base.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I see that you did some googling on the Little Bird :D <3 +1 Thumbs up!!!! You're right that the little bird has a long ass flight range, and also requires a heck of a lot of fuel. did you know that it runs on aviation fuel!?!?!?! LIKE WTF!!!! It's Kerosene based but it's not quite kerosine. I don't know how to make the stuff but I'm sure they only store it around airports. In addition to that the devs are doing their best to make the most in-depth maintenance setup possible, which in my opinion is totally awesome and can only be a good thing toward reducing the problem this post describes. Look at the labels of these recently released DayZ assets closely ;)

https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/55a549a222bb191211fb70bc/1097x819/8a7b55d58e26efe88064cd4f216a4e5f/air_oil1.jpg

I totally agree with you that owning and operating a little bird is going to be an extreme chore; a task fit for ten of DayZ's finest men. But let me introduce you to an aircraft that was in the mod which might change your mind about utility and feasibility:

DAS AUTO-GYRO!!! (It gyrates automatically!!!!!)

Auto-gyros, this kind , can be built literally from scratch (in the real world) if metal and machining tools are available, and people have been building them in their garages for over 50 years.

They run on very common and small single engines which function on diesel, not aviation fuel, and they don't really require much fuel overall either.

They are able to taxi or be pushed along the ground with a very thin profile, meaning they can be stored/hidden just about anywhere. (the above video shows the gyro taxi'ing through a skinny forested path.)

They can take off in extremely short distances, and also land in extremely short distances.

They can glide silently for a very very long time, and are considered one of the safest kinds of aircraft because of it's ability to land, un-powered, with ease.

They cannot travel at break-neck speeds (relative) to the Little Bird (100kmph compared to 270kmph) and they cannot climb very fast (3 meters per second compared with 10 meters per second), and they tend to not be able to carry a second passenger.

On the mod, when I was in possession of an auto-gyro I felt like I was in complete control. I could perch it on a different mountain each night, or push it into a random forest, or inside a building. Do you not feel like having an auto-gyro (or a mozzie, or a fixed wing ultralight plane) would be advantageous?

Edited August 6, 2016 by FlimFlamm

[BeefBacon 1185]

2 hours ago, Funkmaster Rick said:

I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's safe to rule tanks and APCs out, at least in the traditional sense. I do vaguely recall talk of being able to modify vehicles, even perhaps up to Mad Max levels, so we can probably expect up-armoured cars, but I imagine it won't be anything like you see in modern up-armoured civilian vehicles. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they include HMMWVs, but that seems a bit unlikely to me. They did have rocket launchers in the mod, and given the plans to allow vehicle modification, I actually sort of expect to see them come in eventually. Perhaps not armour-piercing, anti-tank weaponry, but RPGs for clearing out buildings or disabling civilian vehicles with a bit of armour are probably in the cards. I think we can almost certainly expect M203 and GP-25 launcher attachments.

Just speculation, of course.

RPGs and some M...something AT Launcher is going to be included. They showed pictures off a while ago.

As far as armour goes, the most I want to see is a Humvee - but I could probably cope with one of those early APC designs, like an M113 that were basically just armoured chassis with a machine gun on top. I'm keen to see what vehicle modification options we'll have.

[FlimFlamm 509]

3 minutes ago, BeefBacon said:

RPGs and some M...something AT Launcher is going to be included. They showed pictures off a while ago.

As far as armour goes, the most I want to see is a Humvee - but I could probably cope with one of those early APC designs, like an M113 that were basically just armoured chassis with a machine gun on top. I'm keen to see what vehicle modification options we'll have.

TBH I'm not sure if the devs are going to have the time for vehicle fortification for quite a long while, maybe even after 1.0. Maybe the modding community can swoop in though once beta comes out!

[BeefBacon 1185]

1 hour ago, FlimFlamm said:

TBH I'm not sure if the devs are going to have the time for vehicle fortification for quite a long while, maybe even after 1.0. Maybe the modding community can swoop in though once beta comes out!

I don't even know if the devs have confirmed vehicle modding. If not, yeah I expect the modding community will leap on that. I'm looking forward to mods - even new maps I'm keen on. Chernarus is lovely, but something a bit different would be nice. I've only played the SA, so I didn't get to experience Namalsk or... Taviana? Those popular maps. Anyway, I'm going off topic.

[SMoss 2101]

On 4/8/2016 at 6:27 AM, sneakydude said:

Hey moss,

Are we working on the base camps yet? ones we can get persistent and be able to build walls around it for clan members to protect. Will we also have offline no base raiding options?

Just curious where we stand today, because right now a tent is easy to spot. Easy to raid, and easy to steal from. There is no hiding anything, except a couple barrels that might trick some.

I would like to be able to build a base, and have my heli pad setup. If i drive over clan members OPps :)

Yes, base building is still in the works :) There's a bit of info on it from the april 26 status report: 

 

[sneakydude 480]

46 minutes ago, SMoss said:

Yes, base building is still in the works :) There's a bit of info on it from the april 26 status report: 

 

That's great, always that little hidden text that explains the world :)

There is some concern about the way aircraft, if able to rebuild them and keep them for a length of time, same with vehicles etc... at your base. Heli pads made of straw weaved so fine a 747 can land on it :)

At the point of not trying to sound off with concern, but will there be some ability to lock out bases down? and or the vehicles we spend so much time getting.

Edited August 5, 2016 by sneakydude

[sneakydude 480]

Also if the helis drive like that troop v3s or whatever truck is like, i do not want a vehicle ever. That has to be some joke?? because arma vehicles drive great. Sure we should slow them down some but still they handle on a dime.

Isn't this the same coding arma 3 has?

 

[FlimFlamm 509]

12 hours ago, SMoss said:

Yes, base building is still in the works :) There's a bit of info on it from the april 26 status report:

I remember reading this, and after re-reading it I'm more pumped than ever!

For any who missed it, here is the relevant text from the april 26 report:

"

Dev Update/Peter

I would like to talk about base building in this issue of Status Report a bit as it didn't get much attention in SRs from me yet, thus the community was naturally left with many questions which needs to be answered. It's known that we are using base building as a common name for a broad set of activities that leads to creation of your very own base of your operations made from different facilities which can provide you or your team shelter, storage, food, water, fortification, outlook or even an electricity grid.

Alongside pitching the stock tents which can be found or improvised ones made by crafting when needed and other features like barrels, fireplaces and such it's the sturdy made structures which turns a basic campsite into a base, may it be the barriers to secure perimeter of a base or watchtower to get better overview of surroundings. Structures are again divided into premade and crafted ones. Ready to go mesh containers which may be found at military bases are an easy and fast way to form desired barriers as they can be transported to site, placed and filled with soil and eventually empty them to reorganize the barrier or to take them to a different location. On the other hand you can made your own walls, sheds or watchtowers with proper tools, materials and a bit of dedication. Because I'm not a huge fan of premade whole objects when it comes to building mechanics in sandbox games I wanted to allow as much options as possible within the scope of our game to allow players to create varied results. Construction of non-portable structures starts with placing of their basic elements so as to form their foundation. Characters can interact with this foundation to extend it into a desired state. Walls have split lower and upper halves and it's up to you whether to mount wooden planks or metal sheets with connecting materials like nails to fill them or optionally leave one or both halves without any filling. To gather wooden planks or metal sheets you will have to look for pallets which will be spawned as a dynamic event similar as helicopters or police cars although with admittedly higher chances. After you run out of material for filling, don't worry that your construction urge will be halted as there is the possibility of crafting planks from chopped trees at several sawmills across Chernarus. However, it needs to be said that metal sheets give your walls more protection then wooden planks. I admit that plain walls could be quite bland after some time so you will be able to enhance them with some goodies like camo netting for added camouflage or light chains when you wish to achieve complete opposite, may it be a trading post, a trap or just to add some atmosphere in a harsh world. Tents can be also equipped with both of them. Anyway, there are more things to do to improve the functionality of any given wall. Improvised hinges turns a wall into a gate broad enough that even a V3S can pass through, or the addition of barbwire fence helps protect close proximity of the wall itself as, don't forget it, even a wall can be disassembled with proper tools like a crowbar. To step even further, barbwire can be plugged into an electricity grid maintained by a power generator turning it effectively into an electric fence so you will think twice before taking it down with pliers.

I'm excited to see how players will use this feature to build all the variations of bases to mark their presence in the persistent environment of Chernarus. It must be said that even if we have working prototypes and final implementation in process of construction of non-portable structures and precise object placement (yes, it was postponed), it will not see public release until the arrival of the new character, which consist from new animation system, new rewritten scripts in Enforce, new controller, new damage system, new controls and other supportive components.

Unleash your inner survivalist architect... see you in Chernarus folks!

- Peter Nespesny/ Lead Designer"

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A main concern posed by the OP of this thread is how easy it might be to raid bases. Given the modularity of base-building components, if someone makes a big enough base for a helicopter to land in then that's their own damn fault isn't it?

It would be easy to erect obstacles, roofing, and even have a helipad which has it's own lockable door to prevent easy entry.

Electricity is really starting to seem like it's going to be epic. Do you have any idea exactly how much control over electricity grids we are going to get? I did a small bit of research and it seems like a large enough base would require many generators linked together and to have some sort of power network controller/management device. Something like a "programmable logic controller" which could be programmed  to turn generators on and off, manage the flows of electricity to certain parts of the electrical network (i.e turn the fridges off cause there's nothing inside them, or, send a signal over a specific radio signal to activate/deactivate the electrification of external defenses). If we can create larger grids and have good control over them then that would be supremely beneficial to the variability of what players can do with their base creations.

Edited August 6, 2016 by FlimFlamm

[sneakydude 480]

18 hours ago, FlimFlamm said:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A main concern posed by the OP of this thread is how easy it might be to raid bases. Given the modularity of base-building components, if someone makes a big enough base for a helicopter to land in then that's their own damn fault isn't it?

It would be easy to erect obstacles, roofing, and even have a helipad which has it's own lockable door to prevent easy entry.

Electricity is really starting to seem like it's going to be epic. Do you have any idea exactly how much control over electricity grids we are going to get? I did a small bit of research and it seems like a large enough base would require many generators linked together and to have some sort of power network controller/management device. Something like a "programmable logic controller" which could be programmed  to turn generators on and off, manage the flows of electricity to certain parts of the electrical network (i.e turn the fridges off cause there's nothing inside them, or, send a signal over a specific radio signal to activate/deactivate the electrification of external defenses). If we can create larger grids and have good control over them then that would be supremely beneficial to the variability of what players can do with their base creations.

This is my main concern too, as bases will be raided to no end no way to protect them, no way to fend off the looters since most items disappear on reboot.

The only thing bases are going to do which most games have this issue is force players to use the exploits in the map. This is the only way to ensure you can save the stuff you worked so hard to find.

Otherwise i will mod the shit out of my server and block people from entering and ill change scripts.

Edited August 6, 2016 by sneakydude