2 Pilots 1 Plane

Suggestions Gameplay
,
1

Flying in both air battle and ground battle is stressful when flying alone, you have to watch terrain, dodge missiles and CAS all at the same time.

That’s why had the idea of 2 players controlling , two-seater aircraft.

Specifics:

Air battle:

The pilot would control the flying in the game, guns and the ballistics computer for smaller armaments like normal bombs and rockets.

The navigator controls the targeting pod, missiles, radar.

I think both players should control the countermeasures. So when the pilot is occupied with maneuvers the navigator can use countermeasures. And same with the navigator when he is looking trough the targeting pod the pilot can use countermeasures and maneuver.

Ground Battle:
much of the same. The pilot would control the flying in the game, guns and the ballistics computer for smaller armaments like bombs and rockets.

The navigator controls the missiles, radar, targeting pods and the precession guided munitions like GBUs, AGM 65D and other air to ground missiles.

And like in Air Battle both players should have access to Countermeasures.

I have 2 ideas for queuing:

Idea 1: both players must own the plane and have researched the modifications that they want to use in game (the plane that has the least researched modifications would be used in game)

Idea 2: one of the players has the plane and the one who doesn’t gets reduced RP and SL gain (ofc in the nation that the plane is from).

My ideas for spawning in ground battle:

as an example we can say the plane costs 750 spawn point (SP) to spawn

Idea 1: both players need half of the SP of the plane, in this case 350 each

Idea 2: Both players need a 3/4 of the SP to spawn the plane, in this case 563 each

idea 3: both players need the full amount of SP to spawn in the plane, in this case 750 each

The problems i can see with this idea are:

It becomes way to easy to CAS and, many people don’t like CAS

People J-ing out to spawn in a plane with their friend, this can ruin the match for other players

Hard to implement in the game/balancing issues

Playing with friends is one the funnest things you can do in War Thunder It is also fun to strategies with your team to win the match. And i think this is a great and fun idea that will build upon that. I would love to hear what the rest of the community thinks of this and, i would love for other players and developers to add to this idea and make it a reality.

Please share this tread.

[Would you like to see this in-game?]
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
3 Likes
2

Personally I like this idea, but this is more of a mechanic for Hell Let Loose or Post Scriptum than War Thunder, which is much more arcade oriented- even in “realistic” and “simulator” battles.

This would take too much effort to implement and people probably won’t play a dedicated game mode to make this kind of thing work, and if you implement it in the standard game modes you will just get creamed by everyone who isn’t intentionally limiting themselves by making the controls more complex as this system would do.

It’s a no from me.

5 Likes
3

Multicrew in general could be very fun, maybe even attract a new audience

6 Likes
4

thats just dcs but free

1 Like
5

I want to see a different version of this where squadmates are able to hop in the gunner seat of aircraft with gunner positions once they’re out of vehicles to spawn for the match.

13 Likes
6

I remember Gaijin has responded to this topic before. They insist the game would be purely for each player to take contral of everything on a vehicle.

Most of War Thunder players join online matches without a premade squad. This would limit the availability of multi-seat aircrafts to most players.

If you are looking for simulation experience while players cooperate in aircrafts, DCS with F-14 module is probably what you want.

1 Like
7

I like the idea but it seems like hell to balance. With CAS already being problematic, just imagine how it would be with two players on the same plane?

edit: I would really enjoy the idea of multi seat for gunner position in bombers, but it would be much more pratical to just make gunner targeting easier by fixing the convergence issues and all.

1 Like
8

I just got PTSD

2 Likes
9

There was a suggestion like this on the old forum. I would like this to be a feature for ground vehicles as well.

The problem with balancing this is that if we assume that those two players are supposed to always play together in this session/match, which is a good idea, then we have two clients connecting and 1 unit/vehicle/aircraft less at the same time.

This means that because of this, potentially they should have some kind of advantage in points/being able to spawn more vehicles in total than just one player would, for the sake of the teams being balanced, which is counter-intuitive. At the same time, they would need to be somehow nerfed/restricted on the AI crew being proxy for the functionality, to not let two players have advantage hanks to the advantage of being able to keep track of two things, and this is something that would be really hard to balance.

10

I think maybe you should have suggested Co-op Battles for each gamemode instead. You know, a squad only mode where you play with players on you friends list. So you can have your 2 players per vehicle mechanic.

11

So would killing each pilot count as a plane kill for somebody who shoots them down? Could the lone pilot do the same dumb stuff a wingless plane can do when it still technically has a pilot?

12

In general this kind of thing would work ok for F2P game if just one player is treated as the main driver/owner of the vehicle. Making it so that the second player can jump into pilot position would be confusing for other players. What makes sense is that the first player owns the vehicle/aircraft and the mechanics work mostly the same for him. Second player operates turrets on the bomber, or handles commander tasks in a tank, so scouting, using turret top-mg, maybe using the lower caliber turret for M3 Lee/Grant or for for something like M48 turret with MG. Multi-turreted tanks could get fun this way.

But it should definitely still count as a one kill, just maybe the reward for those players could be higher, or they could have BR penalty for playing together. If you start counting them as two separate kills, then do they have 6 spawn points in GF AB instead of 3? Can they use vehicles from both of their spawn lists? It starts complicating things a bit.

13

One way i could see this work is if your squadmate has spawned a double seater and you can join him after either dying or just J-ing out, you can just request if you could spawn on his aircraft for a certain amount of SP, otherwise the squadmate plays the aircraft just as before. Other way is that your squadmate can either spawn the plane to fly solo or add a “queue” for it which waits for your squadmate to join you which only after that spawns you with the squadmate. Absolutely love the idea though.

14

I feel war thunder simulator has much more potential for realism like this. Should be limited to a Simulator mode, more fancy than it is now. Realistic battles as they are now aren’t big enough for multicrew, but would be very fun

15

may be interesting if it’s optional.

16

This would be great for customs

17

If it’s a Two-Seater then it’s often a trainer aircraft. If it isn’t and has 2 dedicated Pilots. 1 both do what you have said. It would be useful for making multi-piloted Bombers have a higher survivability to pilot sniping.

18

there are several Naval Tactical aircraft that are two seaters. Helo’s, the COD aircraft, FA 18 that is Growler. F-14

19

Most 2 seaters are trainers, but you are right and make a good point.

20

Wasn’t the point of F3D series having two pilots to have one using the radar in the nose to guide the sparrows to the target?

Also P-61 had a turret and I believe there were similar weird British WW2 planes with turrets on them where 2-player setup would be really cool.

Even shrage-musik could kind of make sense for 2-player cooperation with voip if one player was looking at the aim and the second one was piloting.