Should pilots exist in the game

[Aiki-Knight]

Generally, the pilot shouldn't take part in the mission except to stay with the aircraft and defend it from being taken over. Combat transport pilots don't go on the mission with their squad. Never heard of any army doing this. They could use weapon, but wouldn't have a full combat loadout.

[Winter]

Btxis

I agree, you had said that pilots wouldn't have high enough stats to make a real difference in combat.

I think they should make a difference in combat, especially once they have some flight experience.  But they certainly shouldn't be the determining factor.

Steve

Like Aiki-Knight said, pilots shouldn't take part in battles unless forced to, by a crash or ejection or whatever. The pilot's job is not to endanger himself on the ground, but to fly the airplane. There's enough risk there without putting him in stupid amounts of danger in a job for which he isn't trained.

Oh, BTAxis, I had one more idea I wanted to run by you. In addition to the stat bar for piloting skill, how about another bar for 'leadership' or 'tactician' skill, where the highest leadership value in a flight is selected and gives a small bonus to all members of the same flight (including UAVs)? We can discuss the subtler applications on IRC, but I think this is an interesting twist which we can put in without overcomplicating pilots as a concept.

Regards,
Winter

[stevenjackson]

Heh, i think i misunderstood.

By combat i meant of the air to air type

Steve

[stevenjackson]

Sorry guys.

Now that i have actually reread the posts properly...

The pilots main effect should be in air combat.

I dont think they really should participate in tactical combat at all, but having hard coded stats for tactical combat (low stats) is probably a decent idea.

Steve

[TrashMan]

everything medicore....12-15 points...and they should be armed with a pistol + ammo + medikit.

If nothing else, you can use pilots as medics.
Speaking of which, maybe have the shiva cannon on the firebird shoot at aliens in visual range (assuming hte pilot is in the cockpit), even when the craft landed? It's on a gimbal mount anyway, right?

[stevenjackson]

Are we thinking pilots are always deployed with soliders in all tac missions?

I would suggest pilots only come out to play in tac missions when the ship is damaged.

Steve

[TrashMan]

Click on the dropship cockpit and order the pilot to come out...lol!

[BTAxis]

Sorry if I caused any confusion. What I meant was *tactical* combat, i.e. the battlescape. The pilots should not really be of much use there. they should, of course, be a serious factor in UFO interceptions - the geoscape. Those are two completely different things.

[gu35s]

They killed all the civilians!
Pilot! Lift that thing up and fire that gun into those bastards!!

[stevenjackson]

Sorry, you didn't cause any confusion.
You were clear in saying it was tactical combat.

I just misread your post.

Steve

[shevegen]

I agree with BTAxis's older post (about the 0-100 bar), because I think
this will be great IF it stays rather simple.

[geever]

There are 10 types of man around the world:
- Who are binary
- And who are not

Sorry for the (bad?) joke but I suggest you to be careful with simplification. At the end it should worth implementing it...

-geever

[BTAxis]

You'd be amazed at how often something simple is better than something complex.

[zivnix]

How about just adding "Piloting" to stats? That shouldn't be too hard to implement and is not confusing.

"Assign soldiers" would still do the job nicely

I'd also like to be put in position to defend myself from the aliens when they take my aircraft down.

[Nevasith]

with limited number of soldiers it would be a terrible solution