Reduce pilot slots by 1

[Guest Luetin]

I think its time that we look at reducing the pilot slots to 4. I seem to remember being one of the people who originally championed us pushing the pilot slots up to 5 but now from watching some of the servers its clear that very often we have more pilots than is necessary when a server has less than 50% players but also even when the server is fully occupied you find that once an initial insertion has taken place many pilots are just fighting to transport 2-3 people back and forth.

 

There is another positive in reducing pilots which is that it would help a little in staggering how quickly people can be taken out to missions. Which should help in slowing things down a bit.

 

Very often you see 2+ helis at base waiting to transport just 1-2 people its been this way for ages of course but I think really we dont need 5 pilot slots even when the servers are nearly full the capacity of the helis is enough that you can take the majority of players back and forth because there is always about 25% of players who are not wanting transport or dead or doing something else.

[xSniper1982]

I do agree that on many occassions there does seem to be 'too many' pilots for the number of guys needing transport.

Unfortunately reducing pilot slots will also have negative effects when some of the less experienced pilots are around.
There's been many times when people just don't trust the pilots that ARE available.. even with the 5 slots.

I've seen 10-12 people leave a server in just 5 mins due to less experienced pilots, not just crashing/being destroyed but also just not having very good awareness of potential LZs or being SLOWER to insert/extract.

Also now, without the AA Jet being a permanent fixture (thank the Ahoyverlords - as Liru would say - ) it means that we don't automatically lose 1 pilot to pointless patrols of an empty sky.

I think 5 is still a good level right now, you can have;
2 Ghosthawks doing regular drops. (1 picks up from base as 1 drops at AO - or - 1 doing Main AO and 1 doing Side drops)
1 Hummingbird doing quick/close inserts.

1 Blackfish doing Paradrops etc for those wanting it.

 

And still have that one more slot for, maybe, the less experienced guy who is good enough to fly, but perhaps not quite as confident as the other pilots and so tends to be a little slower and more cautious.

But I do understand where you're coming from LT, when the server has just 15-20 people and all 5 pilot slots are taken, it does prove somewhat excessive.

 

[Patrik]

And dont forget supply/ammo drops.

Also have someone to coordinate choppers when ther's a need .

Like one chopper comes in to land. And guys att side mission need to get rockers to The AT. Or to pickup a stranden Vehicle (like me in a offroad with a Busted wheel).

[Guest]

I have nothing to add to this. Perfectly described mate. 

8 hours ago, xSniper1982 said:

I do agree that on many occassions there does seem to be 'too many' pilots for the number of guys needing transport.

Unfortunately reducing pilot slots will also have negative effects when some of the less experienced pilots are around.
There's been many times when people just don't trust the pilots that ARE available.. even with the 5 slots.

I've seen 10-12 people leave a server in just 5 mins due to less experienced pilots, not just crashing/being destroyed but also just not having very good awareness of potential LZs or being SLOWER to insert/extract.

Also now, without the AA Jet being a permanent fixture (thank the Ahoyverlords - as Liru would say - ) it means that we don't automatically lose 1 pilot to pointless patrols of an empty sky.

I think 5 is still a good level right now, you can have;
2 Ghosthawks doing regular drops. (1 picks up from base as 1 drops at AO - or - 1 doing Main AO and 1 doing Side drops)
1 Hummingbird doing quick/close inserts.

1 Blackfish doing Paradrops etc for those wanting it.

 

And still have that one more slot for, maybe, the less experienced guy who is good enough to fly, but perhaps not quite as confident as the other pilots and so tends to be a little slower and more cautious.

But I do understand where you're coming from LT, when the server has just 15-20 people and all 5 pilot slots are taken, it does prove somewhat excessive.

 

 

[TheScar]

DO IT !

 

no problem (for me) with changing pilot slots to 4 instead of 5 - we´ve been there,it worked and that´s that.

Then again,it wont change much on the gameplay/art of use/wait time on base is what im putting my money on.

 

For the 10players/5pilots problem i´d prefer a script solution that locks pilot slots to actual players and in-/decreases slots by player count in-/decreasing - altho its a mad scriptage that needs to be done there considering a server runtime of 24h + ...

but,im here for the looks and the joy,not the technical issues ...

 

Kisses