‘Personal Ghost’ Feature

Hello everyone!

So, we have that report button as pilots. You know the one, the one that you press because you’re mad but it doesn’t actually do anything? Yeah that one!

Let’s replace that.

Time and time again, I see or hear about pilots complaining that BillyTheHandbag29 flew through me 29,367 times in the space of 10 minutes and it upset me and I want him banned because I’m upset that my flight wasn’t completely realistic because another plane became part of my plane for a short period of time. You’ve all seen those complaints too? Good. Here’s my solution:

A new ‘Personal Ghost’ feature. Now let me make it very clear that I’m not proposing that we give everyone the power to ghost anyone they want. That would be an absolutely terrible idea. What I’m proposing is a feature that will hide the aircraft just from the user who pressed the button.

Here’s what would happen. If someone is irritating you in some way, you can press your personal ghost button, and that user will disappear. They’ll be gone from your screen and gone from your radar. This won’t affect them or anyone else in any way, it will only make them invisible to you and you only.

But Jake, what if people abuse the feature and hide everyone and completely disregard their existence.

Well I thought of that too.

The feature will be disabled below 10,000ft MSL, or 5,000ft AGL, whichever is higher. This will allow us to maintain a high level of realism in busy airspaces; particularly around airports where adequate spacing is a necessity. This feature would simply allow you to hide those pesky irritating little…you get my drift, while you’re in cruise and trying to enjoy your flight.

If you think this is a fantastic idea, then be sure to vote for it! If you have any feedback I’d love to hear it. If you think this idea is absolutely terrible, I am greatly insulted and we are no longer friends.

Interesting idea!
So the annoying troll would become invisible for you alone, not for the ATC and not for others. Only you, for xx minutes.

The abuse part I don’t see yet. If you want to make the rest of the world invisible just for you, how would that affect anybody? The clever part here is that things only change for you, not for anyone else. So I see no reason to disable this feature at certain altitudes.

I suspect it may be a challange to code this though.
Oh and I propose we don’t implement this on Expert…

9 Likes

The way it affects other people is they can still see you, you just can’t see them. So in a busy airspace with this feature enabled you could easily have spacing issues with an invisible aircraft, causing an issue for them and ATC. That’s why I proposed disabling the feature below a certain altitude.

Thanks for the feedback!

1 Like

Voted. This would be very helpful not only for me but for many others. I have used the report button many times so this would be great.

3 Likes

Humm interesting idea. Would the person you have ghosted know that you have ghosted them? So they might as well stop bothering you. If you get reported now do you get notified that someone has reported you?

1 Like

Just to be clear: this is not about ghosting anyone. This is about you making the annoying other invisible, just for you. The other person doesn’t actually disappear. It’s just you who doesn’t see the other person anymore.

I guess your question is: “will the other person know you’ve made him invisible, just for you”? That would be an interesting add-on feature for this request.

1 Like

No I know it wouldn’t be ghosting in the same way ATC would ghost you but yeah my question would be would the other person know that you can longer see them if so they might as well go away and stop pestering you. It could end trolling. Because what’s the point of doing it if people can just make you go away.

But if that other player were invisible,let’s say that even though that player is RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU you don’t see them,so you taxi right through them. However,it looks like you are taxing right through that player from the other players perspective. I don’t see how that will work out…

3 Likes

Maybe it could work on both ends, and give the user an alert saying (United 736 has Personal Ghosted you, you can’t see him and he can’t see you)

That could work that way

3 Likes

Good point then to everyone else it looks like you’re the one messing around then you get reported.

However,then it still looks like from the other players perspective that if “United 736”and a “Delta 1938 “ were taxing through each other because they can’t see each other.

2 Likes

The person who has been “ghosted” could have their name turn red so everyone that can still see him knows someone has “ghosted” him.

1 Like

Ok. I need this. I as well as @DeltaMD88Fan have been bothered by airshow trolls. I’d say this should do the trick perfectly.

5 Likes

Sadly I’m out of votes but I believe this feature is really well thought out. One thing is that even if you “ghost” him he will still be seen by others. And if he is inside of you or touching you it may seem like one or both of you need a ghosting because of colliding with other aircraft.

1 Like

@Jake_Stopher said it’s disabled below 10000ft msl so it shouldn’t be a problem I think.

Fair point, fair point… I’m sure FDS could find a solution if this was implemented

Trolls would go “poof” I see.
One problem,this would be overused for such small errors and a lot of outrage would happen

Why would outrage happen?

The cool idea behind this request is that nothing actually happens to the ‘troll’. He can do what he loves doing. It’s just you who doesn’t see him anymore.

It would be nice if the troll in question would get a message by this feature, such as “Please note that you are now invisible to xxx. Have a nice day”

2 Likes

I agree this indeed a risk of this. If both the troll and you can’t see eachother, it can still look messy to others around you.

A work-around for this could be a change to the aircraft’s tag. A little symbol in the tag could identify any aircraft that was ‘hidden’ by someone, or any aircraft that has ‘hidden’ someone. So when other pilots see you and the troll taxiing through eachother, at least they can see by the tag that some ‘hiding’ has been going on.

1 Like

The majority of my gripes are with annoying pilots on the ground although I appreciate this idea wouldn’t work on the ground.

Image below kinda illustrates my point;

Screenshot from FB IFFG @Michael_Weinblatt

52

I think we should bring back the option of system ghosting any pilot who gets 3 separate pilot reports (complaints). As you can see this 747 has parked over 3 pilots holding short

7 Likes