NPC Crew

[Mitth'raw'nuruodo]

So how deeply are the NPC crew going to be modeled?

Referring to conceptual modeling, i.e. names, faces, skills, abilities, personalities that affect their behavior in the missions? Would they grow along the campaign? Can they die, get injured, assigned, unassigned, replaced?

What about NPC captains and crew for the rest of the squad? Or even persistent enemy squads that the player may go up against? Would they be actual characters (similar to what I described for the player's crew)?

[Coolhandluke80]

In the original game the crew all had RNG names and pictures and their skills and abilities (gunnery, first aid, navigation, piloting, technical, bombing) at the beginning of a campaign were less developed until they were used in combat and improved over time for each individual. Death was rare, but wounds that would take crew members off the flight roster for days or weeks at a time were common, crew were often replaced until they came back from the hospital and then you had a choice between the original crew or the replacement that filled in.

If you play as squadron commander you were managing the crew rosters for 6 planes(60 men for each mission). I don't think the original game kept track of the German or American fighter squad personnel, could be wrong though.

[Redmarkus4]

The NPC crew in the original were one of its great features. There was even the ability to mod their profiles and place actual WW2 crew in the game, if desired. managing your aircraft and crew as the squadron commander was the heart of the game and the main attraction for me. I was as much a management sim as it was a tactical sim/flight sim.

That recent UBoat game on Steam does the same thing very convincingly.

[Mitth'raw'nuruodo]

Originally posted by Redmarkus4:

The NPC crew in the original were one of its great features. There was even the ability to mod their profiles and place actual WW2 crew in the game, if desired. managing your aircraft and crew as the squadron commander was the heart of the game and the main attraction for me. I was as much a management sim as it was a tactical sim/flight sim.

That recent UBoat game on Steam does the same thing very convincingly.

Yes, I agree. And I own UBoat as well (and the Silent Hunter series for that matter) for the very same reason. But those are among the very few games that pay attention to crew and other personnel on an individual level, something that was fundamental in the actual history and reality of warfare.

I wish more games were like that. Hopefully this remake or the other B-17 game will expand on the personnel management aspects.

90% of tactical sims, wargames et al, including those advertising as "realistic, historically accurate" either completely ignore personnel like crew, captains, pilots, officers, generals, admirals etc, or abstract them to the point of being irrelevant.