The ability to have a copilot in fighter based (vulture sized) craft would prove invauable. The amount of teamwork that it would encourage, in conjunction with the "in-the-mood" game play would be staggering. Here are my thoughts:

Pilot:

- Have the exact same HUD as what they have right now


CoPilot:

- Ability to have an uninhibited viewscreen, that way they can view the space around them. WH distances and target locked distances should stay. This is primarily to help the copilot get visual confirmations of hostiles.

- Ability to switch from the smaller radar to a much larger one (80% of the screen space) for a much more detailed view. Perhaps it could distances and finer details per ship on the radar.

- HUD would have the ability to have a second locking feature that would pinpoint ranged, fuel-based (rocket/missiles) weapons and preplot heading, speed, and time until impact.

- Minor ship navigational control, such as horizontal or vertical strafing only, brake control. This would help prevent the pilot from issuing upon anything when in the heat of combat. It may throw off his shot for a moment, but the copilot will have at least saved the ship.

- A seperate chat communication medium just for pilot/copilots

This sounds a lot like the 2-headed ogre characters in World of Warcraft.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/races/two-headed-ogre.shtml
(It was an april fools joke FYI)

I don't see the need for it in fighter craft. The Devs have already said they plan on releasing larger ships that will be piloted by multiple people.

Reason why fighter crafts .. because, that's already how it works in the real world. Sure we can have larger ships, but that defeats my purpose.

Smaller fighers, sure, are too small for a copilot space. But vultures and the like would be ideal (like F4 Phantoms, f14 tomcats) for teamwork.

If you have ever played a game where you have a copilot, you understand how amazing the game suddenly feels. There begin to be an unbreakable bond of understanding and usage agreement. You begin to predict each others moves, caculate your own move, in a speed battle that all of a sudden seems easier. The wealth of information the copilot gives the pilot for proper dog fighting, and the uncanny ability the pilot has of keeping the copilot buckled down tightly in 4g flight formations.

It isn't just about larger ships, it is about teamwork, speed, information, and a generall "trust" placed upon another player.

An example of what a copilot/pilot team can do, that a pilot alone can't:

CP: "We have hostiles at 900m and closing in fast. ETA is 35 seconds. Location is 9oclock"
P: "Copy that engaging. Flares are 'hot' and ready"
CP: "Sounds good, we HOT SHIT! We have an incoming at 6 oclock, swarms being released and heading on an intercept course. ETA is 15 seconds"
P: "Can't get a visual, get me a direct confirmation of where behind me!"
CP: "Copy that! We have one, SHIT BREAK RIGHT!"

-pilot takes a hard right and avoids the swarms completely, giving him about 5 seconds for a counterstrike before the swarms can realign-

P: "Engaging strike craft, hold on wizzo. Flares are away."

-pilot banks out to continue evading the swarms"

CP: "Flares are away confirmed, ETI 10 seconds.... we have impact. Craft now straddling on 45% health and disengaging"

P: "Copy that, good work"


See? While the pilot can put more focus on dog fighting, the copilot is his extra eyes and ears. It splits the dogfighting of one person into two, equaling the load and making things more effective. Sure a pilot can do that on his own, but things happen to fast, and while we can boxroll all we want, we still will never have a clear vision of EVERYTHING that is going on at once, right at our finger tips. That radar only does so much when you have 3 hostiles on you.

I've played Mario Kart DoubleDash, and it is really fun. But most of the fun comes from the fact that I know my friends really well, so we can understand what we're doing. This comes from anywhere between months to years of knowing my friends well enough to play like that. In an MMORPG people don't have time to develop those sorts of bonds for a long time. And what happens when your copilot isn't online? Where does you ship go? In the final game people probably won't have the money to have an armada of ships scaterred across the galaxy. We'll probably have one, maybe two.

- In an MMORPG people don't have time to develop those sorts of bonds for a long time -


What on earth are you talking about? MMORPG means a Massive game that is Role Played, meaning people HAVE to eventually get to know one another. And like most MMORPGs, the game most likley won't be a herd of unsocial people. Ever play a MUD? Ever play Everquest? WoW and FF XI doesn't count because it is littered with little children, and not roleplayers. In each I've listed, there is a huge amount of roleplay, teamwork, and friendship being formed. And I'm not just talking about between people I already knew, but brand new players, old players, and the like taking the time to actually play it as an MMORPG rather than a single person game.

INM in vendetta has a council, training, ranks, formation control, etc etc etc. What does this mean? Get people together who do actually play an MMORPG, and a pilot/copilot is completely possible.

- And what happens when your copilot isn't online? Where does you ship go? -

The pilot owns the ship, so the pilot could choose to fly a singular ship or stay as the solo pilot.

- In the final game people probably won't have the money to have an armada of ships scaterred across the galaxy. We'll probably have one, maybe two. -

And in that one or two ships each person has, there is room for teamwork.


Please, don't discourage teamwork, teamplay, or roleplay in an MMORPG :) It just won't happen.

What you suggest would be grat if you can user microphone, sucha as in counter strike..
Without it it looses any sense.. you ususaly have 10s to impact, and you just CANT type so fast.. (and ofcoruser your pilot must read this and react.. )

As for me voice communication is more important.. or.. it's just faster :)

Completely agreed Ciuciu :) I would love them to implment im-game microphone based speaking.

However, until then I recommend using this:

http://teamspeak.org/


This way you can still use the microphone and audio peices through a seperate server-client connection inside Vendetta (well, not inside, but still usable while in game) Highly recommended!

But, once again, I can not agree with you more. Audio communication would be essential for copilot/pilot communications. I wouldn't have it nor imagine it any other way :) Glad we both understand how incredbily fast information can be transmited and used in a pilot/copilot situation.

ack, how did it double post?

-removed-

I agree with Ciuciu...
This won't be worth implementing at all unless Guild Software first decides to implement in-game speech first. Yes people could use teamspeak, but it doesn't make sense for GS have a feature that requires using an application not written or supported by them (even if the application already supported all the platforms that vendetta is written for).

Further more unlike reality vendetta has been built so that the player has enough time to react to enemy fire. You have far greater control over your ship than any helicopter I've ever heard of let alone any plane. As a result you need much less warning about incoming attacks. If you see a shot a full second before impact it will be easy to dodge. Also because of these things and the fact that so many players are not hostile it's extremely rare that you have warning of an attack as much as 5 seconds in advance let alone 35. The pilot in Vendetta also tends to have much better visibility than IRL (both because of the rendering of the game, and because they don't have as much to pay attention to in flying it). Allowing them to do a better job at identifying hostiles, and targets then if they relied on a second person verbally communicating it.

Because of this even with vocal features making this idea a possibility I think the role of copilot would be far less significant than it is in real life, and as such far more boring.

Will the game ever feature voice chat?

We've given considerable thought to the development of an in-game voice chat system, and while it would be of great benefit to gameplay, we've had to push it back to a "possible post-release" feature. Our soundsystem is designed to handle compressed audio streams, and was built with this possibility in mind. For the moment, we recommend that people use third-party voice chat products.


-- The Vendetta FAQ

I think part of what makes a fighter a fighter is the fact that it can be controlled by one person and one person only. Well most of them anyway. This allows swarms of them to attack at once, increasing your chances of succeeding in the mission. By making each one of those fighters a two-seater, you're not only reducing their count, you're also reducing the number of tasks (and level of control) that can be given to each one of those ships. The end result will be far less effective than having single-seat fighters attack the same target.

You're also going to have to explain the logical aspects of it. How will a tiny fighter have enough oxygen and life support systems for two people? Why increase the risk of losing human life by cramming these two individuals into a tiny ship when you can get away with one and adding complex computer systems to compensate for the other? You'll be losing many good pilots all because one of the two screwed up somehow and got themselves both killed. Those two pilots would've been better off in a heavily armored bomber, which would at least have defensive turrets.

There will eventually be ships that will be manned my multiple players. This has already been planned. However, I think taking it too far and requiring nearly every ship to be manned by multiple pilots may kill some of the key characteristics that make each ship class distinct. In addition, you'll make some of the current fighters far more deadly than they already are... which is a bad thing. I can understand where you're coming from with real life examples such as the F-14 Tomcat, but modern fighters are meant to be flown by only a single pilot.