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Narg wrote:QUOTE (Narg @ Jul 30 2007, 01:02 PM) The main reason that wings aren't used in SGs is that you always know what you are supposed to be doing, and you are much more versatile than in game wings make you.

It was in my head but for whatever reason I decided to have a brain fart instead. Yes this is by far the biggest reason why wings don't work. IMO, any further improvements on Wing communication is mostly a waste of time.

Narg, he was correct about TS being less effective in PU games. Not everyone has it therefore, its less effective. You could go past that, but there's no need.

TB

Regarding your statement that wings are not used, I agree, as I said on the first post, which is why I am proposing something to make them useful.
Now, the idea that any improvement on them is a waste of time BECAUSE they are not used is a mistake. It like saying a house is broken and unlivable so its a waste of time fixing it.

Just so I am clear on my point here, cuz some of you are departing from the original idea in a broken telephone effect:

- I am not advocating communication within the wings, as I said all team communication goes to all the team (that includes all orders)
- In a way I'm trying to shift the concept of wing from a communication standpoint to a squadron standpoint. which although it might not be entirely useful in SG, it would come very useful in PUGs. As was previously said, some commanders do this already at game start by giving roles to each member, or the prevention of the whole team responding to a defend miner command since a couple people would already be assigned (and preferably close to the miner).

Are people irresponsible and generally stupid in PUG ? yes, so it is up to commander to pick people he knows to trust for important jobs (like miner d) and give expandable jobs like attacking (or the default support wing) to whomever else.

Regarding TS.... again, TS is about team communication, something which my idea is not debating.

I see no valid negative comment as of yet.

I have toyed with that idea a long time ago Endri. I have even tried it.
As you have correctly noted, the idea is not to break up communication channel but to organize people more effectively into coherent fighting force.
What I have learned during my endeavor with wings is that, basically, you got to keep the rules as simple as possible, otherwise you won't get far with a pickup team.
In my experience 3 pilot wings worked best, while using your most experienced vets as the wing commanders in charge of keeping tabs on their wingmen. Assign a strong, vet only wing to spearhead your assaults and your are more or less set. In smaller games it seemed wise to keep one or two guys as "libero" players, not strictly bound to wing procedure, and to let them perform some low profile operations.

Your biggest problem will now be handling the bloated egos some Allegites tend to posses. From outright refusal to try anything as different as this, to moaning about not getting that wing commander position, you will have to be able to handle those whiny vets or you can forget about the whole thing - as I did in the end.
After that, your next problem will be getting the late joiners to get on with the program. You will have to type hard and fast.
Lastly, you will have some newbie, or even a vet, stray from their missions, because they have disinterested wing comm in charge. Be prepared for even more typing.

Anyway, in my experience, most of the team stayed focused and together. Basically, if the critical mass of players stayed focused and together (as they did), even those with, let us say, more chaotic tendencies got on with the program and joined in the effort. It's one of those psychological effects I guess. The added bonus was that I had to order just around 4 "people"/wings instead of 3 times as many players while being able to actually keep track of what's happening with most of my players and spotting the stray ones quite easily.
In the end, even though the outcome of Allegiance game depends on many variables, the results were at least somewhat impressive as I actually managed to comfortably win all those games as well.

Hope you have the nerves to try it yourself one day. /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

I think if alleg ever got to the point where there were 50+ people on each side for any given game, wings might become useful. However, it really isnt that hard to micromanage 20-30 pilots (assuming they listen to you, but thats a different topic), especially with TS.

If you ever had 50+ players on a team, I am afraid any effort to organize them all would just be a waste of your time. It would probably be more prudent to concentrate on more resourceful players to lead your efforts and simply hope they generate enough interest from others to join in. The chaos is simply too prevalent in those games. In fact, it has been shown that a smaller and consequently more organized team can prevail over the bloated chaos horde with 50+ players on team. But I digress...

Well, what you guys are describing is just basically unrelated to flying in channels. You're talking about flying in "flights" of 3 planes each. Similar to flying with just a leader/wingman type of thing, a.k.a. a "section". I think anytime you're able to organize flying in a PUG, the teamwork probably increases exponentially.

An easy experiment is to get pilots to fly in a buddy system. They can each watch eachother's backs. Keeping track of one person as your buddy isn't too hard to manage and for one to know where the other is, even if they're doing separate things. They should try to form up when possible. 3 people might be a little harder. Still, I'm sure everybody's done this at one point and seen the benefits. You don't need an official "wing" to do it under.

You use the wing names when relating your orders. It's easy to remember your Alpha wing is always your assault wing, while Echo wing usually consist of useless Spidey/Ducky/whatshisname combo. /mrgreen.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="mrgreen.gif" />
Sort the F6 by wings and you will quickly see if someone important (from alpha wing) dropped or which wing will you send the joiner in...

I think the main problem is situation awarness are diffrerenty for every pilot in the game. This is not like some RTS where you assign them wings and they will just do what they are ordered to. Pilots talk back to you here /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Let's say you're on defence wing (I don't know what they use in Allegiance, guessing Delta) and you see 2 bombers at different locations. sometimes you can't really wait until your wing commander/commander/leader or whatever who's in charge to tell you which one to attack before you launches. It's a pain to watch an incoming bomber while waiting for orders. Without wings, pilots will just take a brief look at minimap and launch in the sector more important, or, in case they are equlaly important, the sector with less defenders.

Hmm definetly see your points everyone. I guess the main problem with this proposal is that I'm telling people how to play the game, which is something they decide themselves. And yes, I can't account for rebelling or the confusion between following the role or a pressing problem in game. I guess the only way to be able to answer these questions is it give it a try. I don't know the code so I'm a bit lost in that regard, and I realize that putting in the hours to code this just for a "try" is going to put off any coders. Therefore, this idea is at the community's mercy, and any motivated person who thinks it might work. If nobody wants to look into it, it's going to have to wait until I finish the 50 or so more important things I have going on before I learn C++ and give it a shot.

Regardless, thank you all for the responses.