[QuiGon]

Sorry if that has been asked or even answered somewhere, but I wonder if it will be possible for server hosts (or mission makers) to disable JESTER in multiplayer? I recognize that JESTER is a pretty awesome feature, especially for those that don't fly in multiplayer, but there are also purists that wan't to fight man vs man and fly on servers where AI support will not be allowed. Will this be possible (e.g. a special option for F-14s in the mission editor to disable JESTER for that particular aicraft)?

[Reflected]

Yeah, let's force people to wait ages for someone to jump in their backseat, even if that someone will probably be a noob, or possibly even a troll and fire off all the Phoenixes at friendlies. Sounds like fun and total, pure realism....NOT!

Sarcasm aside, I flew 2 seaters in RoF a lot. The player could "lock" the gunner's position. Whenever I forgot to, someone jumped in there, wasted all the ammo, or just shot up my own plane. And the backseat of the F-14 is a lot more complex than a Bristol F2B...

[QuiGon]

Originally Posted by Reflected

Yeah, let's force people to wait ages for someone to jump in their backseat, even if that someone will probably be a noob, or possibly even a troll and fire off all the Phoenixes at friendlies. Sounds like fun and total, pure realism....NOT!

Sarcasm aside, I flew 2 seaters in RoF a lot. The player could "lock" the gunner's position. Whenever I forgot to, someone jumped in there, wasted all the ammo, or just shot up my own plane. And the backseat of the F-14 is a lot more complex than a Bristol F2B...

I'm not thinking about the normal fun and open public servers here. My questions is more targeted to event and tournament servers and similar more closed environments where assists of any kind (including AI assists like JESTER) are not welcomed.

[Reflected]

Yes, for events and tournaments it could be useful. Having the option doesn't hurt. It would be best if it could be locked by both the server and/ or the player.

[Emmy]

Don't really think this is necessary.

I mean, you're fighting a two-place jet so you'll have your choice to go up against a pretty good team with JESTER in the pit or else a really good team with two real brains.

I don't know if JESTER will have a means by which you can adjust skill level, but maybe the better option would be where server admins can lock JESTER at a specific level? Maybe JESTER can only ever be "Average"? But maybe "Random" might be more realistic?

[QuiGon]

For me it's not about how good JESTER is. It's about him beeing artifical and as a server host I want to be able to take this artificial element out of the game for certain events where I only want to have actual player skills, regardless if they are good or bad.

If you don't have a need for JESTER beeing disabled, then that's alright, but I definitely have that need as a server hoster, so I would be happy if that option could be implemented.

[umkhunto]

This has to one of the single dumbest things people are asking for. Once the Tomcat releases, I bet we will see people bitch about Jester, when they get killed by an F-14 in a gun fight.

Originally Posted by QuiGon

For me it's not about how good JESTER is. It's about him beeing artifical and as a server host I want to be able to take this artificial element out of the game for certain events where I only want to have actual player skills, regardless if they are good or bad.

If you don't have a need for JESTER beeing disabled, then that's fine for you, but I definitely have that need as a server hoster, so I would be happy if that option could be implemented.

If you're hosting a tournament, you can explicitly tell people what they may or may not do. E.g. In SATAL you're only allowed 4 Fox 3's and no 120C's. It's not a server side setting. It's simply, if you break that rule, you're disqualified. You can do the same.

"Tomcat tourney, bring your own RIO or you can't partake."

It is that easy.

[QuiGon]

Originally Posted by umkhunto

This has to one of the single dumbest things people are asking for. Once the Tomcat releases, I bet we will see people bitch about Jester, when they get killed by an F-14 in a gun fight.

That's the very reason why I would like to have the option to disable JESTER, so people will have to face actual human pilots (or RIOs rather).

Originally Posted by umkhunto

If you're hosting a tournament, you can explicitly tell people what they may or may not do. E.g. In SATAL you're only allowed 4 Fox 3's and no 120C's. It's not a server side setting. It's simply, if you break that rule, you're disqualified. You can do the same.

"Tomcat tourney, bring your own RIO or you can't partake."

It is that easy.

That's great if you have some kind of game master that continously checks that people don't do that but that's not possible for the kind of smaller events that I host. So I would like to be able to just disable JESTER as I can disable certain weapons or other game assists (e.g. Viggen auto cartridge or M2000 INS drift).

If you don't need such an option why do you even care? I'm not asking for JESTER to be removed from the Tomcat entirely. I'm just asking for an optional setting to disable it for people that don't want them (just like it is possible with other game assists as well).

[umkhunto]

It is an utterly horrible idea. The plane can't work without a RIO. So that means no RIO, no Tomcats. If that's such a problem, then simply do not include them as available aircraft to fly in your server/mission/tournament.

My jab, that people will complain about Jester, even if it was a guns kill was sarcastic. People will complain, even if Jester wasn't a factor. When their Flankers get out turned by the F-14, they will blame the AIM-54.

Folks are losing their minds over this, just as they did with the Viggen auto generated cartridges, that does nothing other than say: "At these coordinates there is stuff to blow up." It doesn't give anymore details than that. You know nothing of the ingress route, nor egress. It picks the closest 5 grouped units, which is very often not even a viable target. It does nothing else other than make a Viggen pilot's life a tiny bit better. As if there will suddenly be 20 Viggens taking off on BF and wiping the other team off the map.


Making it possible to block Jester being used, is simply something that shouldn't even be available.

[QuiGon]

Originally Posted by umkhunto

It is an utterly horrible idea. The plane can't work without a RIO. So that means no RIO, no Tomcats. If that's such a problem, then simply do not include them as available aircraft to fly in your server/mission/tournament.

But that's exactly what I want: "No human RIO, no Tomcat. Either you bring your RIO with you or you can't fly the Tomcat in this mission/event."

Originally Posted by umkhunto

Folks are losing their minds over this, just as they did with the Viggen auto generated cartridges, that does nothing other than say: "At these coordinates there is stuff to blow up." It doesn't give anymore details than that. You know nothing of the ingress route, nor egress. It picks the closest 5 grouped units, which is very often not even a viable target. It does nothing else other than make a Viggen pilot's life a tiny bit better. As if there will suddenly be 20 Viggens taking off on BF and wiping the other team off the map.

The problem with the Viggen auto cartridge function is that it reveals the position of enemy units that should not be kown to the player. This is obviously not a problem for such rather arcade style events as BlueFlag where all unit positions are well known (we gadget), but it is a problem for more realistic missions/events.


Again: Just because something doesn't apply to you doesn't mean it won't apply to others!