Pilot Callsigns

[Copey]

So here comes a quick post, as I figure while we are planning some changes and finalising others, now would be an ideal time to broach the subject of call-signs.

 

A good while back we changed from having Vortex and Talon, as Talon was often assumed to take the role of CAS support. This was not the intention, but as many people can attest to, it happened. That's why we moved to Vortex 1 and 2.

 

However, I've recently had an idea whereby we could return to having both Vortex and Talon. In the lobby the Slots would be labelled as Pilot Team 1 and 2, with the Pilot and Co-pilot being named respectively. However, once they get in game, they can then set their call-sign to either Vortex or Talon, depending on the role they are performing with the air assets. Vortex for transport, Talon for CAS support. This would mean there is a clear difference in the call-signs, making life easier for all involved, but that the 2 different teams are not forced into predetermined roles.

The system would use the variable already in place identifying whoever is in command. We would then look to implement it under that persons ace menu, to set the 2 teams to whichever call-sign is appropriate.

 

Discussing this with Ryko it is possible, but not something we want to look into unless there is demand for it - because it could be slightly difficult, but we aren't really sure until we really look into it.

 

Let me know your thoughts - I'm not sure if it will float, and I do have plenty of crazy ideas; this might just be one of them.

Ta.

[Blue-958-]

This would be geat but as long as we get rid of 'Vortex 1' and 'Vortex 2' I'm happy.

[LEO]

i don’t think its a good idea to attach callsigns to what job you are doing due to the confusion it will cause in hectic situations where the team has to transition from bean cas to transport or vice versa

 

but getting back talon as a call sign is a good thing in my opinion

[Miczils]

I think it's a great idea, it will for sure clear things out, as of now almost always when we have two pilot teams there is a question from SL on long range "Which vortex is doing what again?" I think being able to assign Vortex or Talon callsign depending on the role is a brilliant way to make sure that it's easy to contact in the right asset.

A huge + from me.

[Copey]

1 hour ago, Miczils said:

"Which vortex is doing what again?"

 

Exactly, this is the exact problem I'm referring to

[Amentes]

I have to agree with Leo, having it be switchable in ACE is neither necessary or practical.

 

I'd think we're at a point where one callsign won't be interpreted as "more aggressive sounding". A large section of the playerbase does pay attention to this forum too, so making it clear that the difference in callsigns doesn't make either team entitled to do whatever should be enough.

[SkullCollector]

Aside from the confusion this may create for JIP leaders when call signs aren't known, there are also plenty of neutral, thematically fitting terms we can use for predetermined ones without implying any role entitlement.

 

I'm thinking of using Cyclone for one team, keeping in line with the swirly theme. Related may also be Helix. I leave it to your imagination to come up with call signs without risking another Talon dilemma.

[Eagle-Eye]

There has been a topic about call signs, where I suggested this, but never really got feedback:

I know it can be a bit confusing and overwhelming initially, and you can dumb it down as much as you want / need, but once you've used it a bit, someone will be calling in and Command will know straight away: "this callsign = that aircraft type / role = SWOT = action". Similarly, if Command calls "we need Camelot on station ASAP", pilots will immediately know to take the heavy attack helicopter, instead of "request CAS" being replied to with "Roger... Ehr ... Wait ... You want me to take the Littlebird, the Apache, or the Hornet?"

 

This is used IRL as well, by the way. E.g. helo's tasked with (C)SAR, will very often use RESCUE as their call sign, just to make it clear to everyone in the area what their purpose is. Similarly, F-16s often use FALCON or VIPER, while F-18s will use HORNET, F-22 RAPTOR and so on, simply because it's the easiest way to let others know what aircraft type you are, and thus what capabilities you possibly have.

[Ryko]

My only problem with this is any kind of perceived notion that one Vortex group is naturally predisposed towards CAS, while the other is predisposed towards Transport. What will end up happening is people will fill up Talon first because they want to shoot stuff.

 

Quote

This would be geat but as long as we get rid of 'Vortex 1' and 'Vortex 2' I'm happy.

 

I'm surprised that Vortex-1 and Vortex-2 are confusing for people.  If you have a problem with remembering which team is doing what, you could always notate it on the map with a map marker.  At least we don't use ArmA's native group names, which would be Alpha 1-1, Alpha 1-2, Alpha 1-3, etc.

 

I'm fine with straight up changing to neutral sounding names, Cyclone and Helix are fine by me.  They'd still be subject to Command as to what roles they would fulfill. I'm not super into the idea of allowing the names to be changed dynamically because in my view this only exacerbates the problem and there is a bunch of exception coding that I'm not looking forward to.

[Copey]

45 minutes ago, Eagle-Eye said:

There has been a topic about call signs, where I suggested this, but never really got feedback:

I know it can be a bit confusing and overwhelming initially, and you can dumb it down as much as you want / need, but once you've used it a bit, someone will be calling in and Command will know straight away: "this callsign = that aircraft type / role = SWOT = action". Similarly, if Command calls "we need Camelot on station ASAP", pilots will immediately know to take the heavy attack helicopter, instead of "request CAS" being replied to with "Roger... Ehr ... Wait ... You want me to take the Littlebird, the Apache, or the Hornet?"

 

This is used IRL as well, by the way. E.g. helo's tasked with (C)SAR, will very often use RESCUE as their call sign, just to make it clear to everyone in the area what their purpose is. Similarly, F-16s often use FALCON or VIPER, while F-18s will use HORNET, F-22 RAPTOR and so on, simply because it's the easiest way to let others know what aircraft type you are, and thus what capabilities you possibly have.

 

I must say this is sort of the image I had in my mind, where you know what an air team is doing just by their callsign. 

I do however see the points raised about JIP leaders not knowing what's going off, but on the map they'd see vortex and talon, they'd be able to see who is in them via the roster. They'd automatically know what each group is doing by that callsign.

 

I too would like us to not return to the days of vortex means you transport and talon means you cas. This is not what I'd want to see

[Blue-958-]

I think callsigns depening on aircraft would be the best solution to the problem, plus it gets my FAC blood rushing.

[BlastaMasta]

*thinks about all the awesome Ace Combat callsigns* 

 

But seriously, what about the problem when there is only one pilot online that has to switch between CAS and transport? Are his callsigns gonna change every time he changes his role/vehicle? If yes I feel that that will add more confusion and unnecessary radio clutter eg. "Vortex switching to Talon", "Talon 1 switching to Vortex 1". Vehicle based callsigns sound good when there are enough pilots online but I think that we should rather have the pilot squads have different and neutral callsigns independent of their role.

[Noah_Hero]

In my opinion we don't need that.

I for example just have a letter in front of me where I write stuff down down like the most important things from the briefing, wich vortex is doing what, etc. That solves the problem of not knowing who is doing what + it's without any coding + provides you even more information + is perfectly adjustable as you want to.

 

To the part with bird specific names: Well it's a nice idea but it makes callsigns just more complicated because when you are the one in charge and there is a lot going on people might forget what the exact bird was => the question "who is doing CAS?" or something similar will also raise. Also I think inventing different callsigns for specific birds will not help making better calls and avoiding conversations like: "vortex one, als, get in cas" "What Cas bird?" because giving birds specific names implies that you exactly know what assets are available wich means that you can simply just say: "vortex one, ASL, get in a Medium Little Bird" for example since it is basically the same => solves nothing.

[BlastaMasta]

3 minutes ago, Noah_Hero said:

In my opinion we don't need that.

I for example just have a letter in front of me where I write stuff down down like the most important things from the briefing, wich vortex is doing what, etc. That solves the problem of not knowing who is doing what + it's without any coding + provides you even more information + is perfectly adjustable as you want to.

That is some top notch shit! I really like that and I think more people should do the same when playing in command roles. Saves everyones time, avoids a lot of confusion and is really easy to implement..

[JaSmAn]

I don't think it's needed. It's not that hard, just jot it down on a note pad when you are in charge.

Also, when there are few players on the server you many times have to switch between transport and CAS, and having to reslot pilots every time would be a pain.

Keep it simple, I say.

[Arkod]

I think this is a "solution" to a non-existent problem.

 

Even though I would like to see different callsigns for each pilot team because I think it would make comms easier and clearer (It's faster to process who's talking on the radio if they have a unique callsign instead of a number), I think Vortex 1 and Vortex 2 works just fine. There is absolutely no need to restrict callsigns to role / aircraft because pilots tend to switch between different assets relatively often, which means they'd have to reslot or a "dynamic callsign" system would have to be introduced, the latter may get confusing for CMD/SL and even Pilots themselves.

 

So either leave Vortex 1 and 2 or change it for "neutral" callsigns without restricting their roles.

[Theronas]

Forgive me if i maybe make a "stupid" suggestion here. Is it possible to automate (script or hard-code) something like, when you login, you initially fill in a vortex pilot slot, but then depending on which type of aircraft you enter as a pilot, it would automatically change you to a specific Group/Call-sign? 

 

So for example, by default you are vortex, and when the pilot enters an Apache, he will automatically have his call-sign changed to Talon (or whatever you want to call it).

That way, you can actually more fine-tune as in giving individual aircrafts their own call-signs without having the pilot to go through the hassle of manually switching groups etc...

 

(Not to forget, the moment a pilot exits an aircraft, it should then also automatically remove the pilot from any specific group, maybe back to vortex or just plain "pilot"... )

And then like mentioned before, list it on the map which call-sign corresponds to which aircraft.

I know this might seem as a lot of hard work to implement, but hey, it would be a sweet implementation if the admin/coders could make this work this way.

 

Since it also has been mentioned here above that it maybe is a bad idea to give too many individual call-signs to avoid confusion, you can always dumb it down, to say any bird that can shoot would be called CAS, and the transports can just stay Vortex, or you can combine it for birds that can shoot and transport. Basically my initial idea can be dumbed down to help avoid confusion, but still implement an automatic changing of group/call-signs depending on which aircraft a pilot should enter.

 

And if anyone in a command role can not cope with a couple of new names/call-signs due to confusion, then I honestly don't think they should be in a command role if that's what it takes to confuse them. (No offense intented).

Regards,

Theronas

[Lost Bullet]

I'm not sure a manual (by ace interactions) or automatic (by entering a specific aircraft) change of callsigns will be positive or even useful.

Its common practice ASL requesting pilots to do transport duty for the first deploy followed by CAS support after RTB. Depending how the mission is going, its also common that the exchange between transport <-> CAS is done several times making the communication ASL <-> Pilot ineffective as the last would be constantly changing btw 2 callsigns.

 

Now, as someone said already, when there's multiple pilots things can get indeed confusing but for that I think that the solution would be to change from "Vortex x" to 2 distinct team names (non related with transport/cas) instead of a complicated solution that will only give more headaches to developer(s) and players. 

[Theronas]

3 minutes ago, Lost Bullet said:

its also common that the exchange between transport <-> CAS is done several times making the communication ASL <-> Pilot ineffective as the last would be constantly changing btw 2 callsigns.

 

To solve this part of the issue, normally when a CAS pilot is ready for CAS, he "should" announce something like: "CAS Online" or after "CAS Offline/refuel/rearm/whatever"... so the communication between ASL and Pilot Situations stays up to date at all times. I mean if we want to take it to a little bit of a realism level, then every player should up his role a bit. Its not hard for a CAS pilot to announce to ASL if CAS is online/offline. And its not hard for a ASL to know which call-sign refers to which type of aircraft.

 

In addition to my earlier post above, (just for clarification) im not saying assign every aircraft its own call-sign. Rather group them, so make groups based on aircraft's role/types. 3 groups could suffice (4 would be even more detailed/better), so CAS jets get Talon, CAS helis get <insert some name here>, transport gets vortex, and AA jets get <insert some name here>, <---- Like Eagle or whatever

 

There should be no confusion for just adding 3 names anywhere. The only issue at hand (from where i see it) is the coding/implementation part) from the admins/coders if they can implement an automated solution. That way, also it would not need for any re-slots or pilot intervention for switching groups/call-signs apart from announcing ON/OFF-line for the specific group (CAS/Others).... which they "should" be doing anyways all along with or without any changes mentioned in this entire thread.

 

Regards,

Theronas