Oleg shared some REAL NEWS today

[nearmiss]

Go to the Friday update thread. http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=16964

Review the entire thread, Oleg has peppered the thread with responses and alot of information many of you have been asking.

Up to about page 33

[IceFire]

Starting to remind me of the good old days of IL-2 and Forgotten Battle development :) Right on Oleg!

(Now everyone, don't scare the guy away!)

[philip.ed]

Many thanks to Oleg :D Excellent QandA session.

[Feuerfalke]

Indeed! Many thanks for all the time you spent, answering all these little questions and giving those nice little hints! ;)

And best wishes for your son!

I just wish that more software-studios had such a professional photographer like Oleg. Looking at other games being advertised with "stunning realistic graphics", I wonder if people have stopped looking at the world with their own eyes and rely youtube, cinema and movies instead..
I guess that's happens when being bombard with blinding colors and "photoshoped" images in all media... :|

[Skoshi Tiger]

What I find amusing is all the arguments about the colour of landscapes not being right.
With the variety of monitors and graphics cards out there, I’d be surprised if we could find 2 pc's which would display the same colours in an identical image.
Also I would think that the colours of the landscape would change during the duration of the campaign. What do people want modelled? The vegetation slowly changing from day one of the campaign until its climax? Not to mention that we probably don't have any baseline data of the exact colours anyway, what with the degradation of the nitrocellulose based films of the time!

This week’s update has made me really excited. Potentially 128 people in multi player would lead to amazing online events. I hope there is a way of operating in some kind of organised fashion rather than the free for all that’s happening in IL-2 at the moment.

I wonder if they could let mission builders assign ‘missions’ or ‘goals’ to the various squadrons that are available. So that when you choose your aircraft you have some sort of guidelines for the task you need to perform? (I know a lot of mission builders do put this into the mission description, but they tend to be more general team goals and you don’t get that sense of responsibility to stick to the mission at the moment!)

Cheers!

[Letum]

Potentially 128 people in multi player would lead to amazing online events.

Don't get excited about that.

100+ player servers are possible in IL2.
you don't see many (any?) because no group of clients could cope with the traffic needed, even if the server could.

Just because the game can, it doesn't mean the real world can.

[T}{OR]

This week’s update has made me really excited. Potentially 128 people in multi player would lead to amazing online events. I hope there is a way of operating in some kind of organised fashion rather than the free for all that’s happening in IL-2 at the moment.

IRC IL2 also supported 128 players online. I personally attended many online events and battles with almost 90 people at the time. The problem with this is - unless you have an utterly powerful server with excellent bandwidth you won't make it past 60 players without massive lag for the majority of people on it. At least that is how it was in IL2.

[Daniël]

I wonder if they could let mission builders assign ‘missions’ or ‘goals’ to the various squadrons that are available. So that when you choose your aircraft you have some sort of guidelines for the task you need to perform? (I know a lot of mission builders do put this into the mission description, but they tend to be more general team goals and you don’t get that sense of responsibility to stick to the mission at the moment!)

Cheers!

I like your idea about the goals. On TV programme called 'Battlefront' I heard about Spitfires protecting Hurricanes when they were attacking German bombers. Such things will give much more options to use tactics in the game, especcially online.

[_RAAF_Stupot]

Don't get excited about that.

100+ player servers are possible in IL2.
you don't see many (any?) because no group of clients could cope with the traffic needed, even if the server could.

Just because the game can, it doesn't mean the real world can.

Well, Australia's getting a National Broadband Network.....so we will be able to do this Down Under! ;););)

[Flanker35M]

S!

And for online you need to reduce the gfx settings to decrease lag. What works offline does not apply online in most cases.

[furbs]

What I find amusing is all the arguments about the colour of landscapes not being right.
With the variety of monitors and graphics cards out there, I’d be surprised if we could find 2 pc's which would display the same colours in an identical image.
Also I would think that the colours of the landscape would change during the duration of the campaign. What do people want modelled? The vegetation slowly changing from day one of the campaign until its climax? Not to mention that we probably don't have any baseline data of the exact colours anyway, what with the degradation of the nitrocellulose based films of the time!



Thats a good point but what is important is to get the baseline colours as close as we can to the real world, if you just look at the hundreds of pictures of the English countryside online, you will find none that show the mix of fields and colour types in the latest updates, i know...i spent hours looking for them, you will find 99% are much closer to the pics i posted.
I live in southen England and i know what i see with my own eyes, i dont need to look at pictures or films or other sims landscapes to tell me what the colours of the countryside are where i live.

we all know the rest of SOW will be fantastic, but this is the one aspect of the updates that is just not correct, and im just trying to help(in a small way).
we still have quite a way to go, and everything we know is WIP and the landscape will be tweaked and tweaked untill it goes gold, im just trying to nudge Oleg in the right direction.

[Feuerfalke]

S!

And for online you need to reduce the gfx settings to decrease lag. What works offline does not apply online in most cases.

I guess that's exactly the point changing with SoW.

You don't need to tune it down because of the number of players connected, but because of the number of aircraft rendered/simulated. And in this, the IL2 1946-engine is still limited almost as much as the original IL2.

[dduff442]

Microwave broadband gives me ~220kB/s download but only 15kB/s upload -- wonder if it's enough?

dduff442

[zakkandrachoff]

I need some time to spend for my family.
So... its a lst post today. Sorry.
And I told already too much... that shouldn't really yet :)

"So... its a lst post today. Sorry."

:o

[ElAurens]

Such things will give much more options to use tactics in the game, especcially online.

I'm afraid that the tactics used online in SoW will not reflect the reality of the period modeled in the sim. There isn't one sim pilot that will fly for the the Luftwaffe that will stay with the bombers like the real guys did, nor will they mix it up with the Spits and Hurris, like the real Luftwaffe pilots did.

Nope.

The sim pilots on both sides will fly their 1939~40 model year planes just like it was 1944.

In essence the RAF will be decimated online.

Hence I'm hoping for real improvements in the AI so that offline may just be worth flying, unlike in IL2/46 where offline is for testing only.

[WTE_Galway]

I'm afraid that the tactics used online in SoW will not reflect the reality of the period modeled in the sim. There isn't one sim pilot that will fly for the the Luftwaffe that will stay with the bombers like the real guys did, nor will they mix it up with the Spits and Hurris, like the real Luftwaffe pilots did.

Nope.

The sim pilots on both sides will fly their 1939~40 model year planes just like it was 1944.

In essence the RAF will be decimated online.

Hence I'm hoping for real improvements in the AI so that offline may just be worth flying, unlike in IL2/46 where offline is for testing only.


I have not played online since the game was cracked and do not really miss the immaturity and abuse one iota :D Also online play is very one dimensional with quite a limited plane set and a very limited set of tactics it gets boring. I do miss flying with a squad, that aspect of online play is very good.

On the other hand there are some awesome offline campaigns around for Il2 and personally I doubt I will ever find time to play all the ones that interest me. I suppose realistically online and offline players are just a different type of personality. I find very close formation flying to target challenging and fun for example, many online players would not.

Sooo ... as far as SOW goes are you also claiming that RAF pilots online will not fly in three plane VICs :D ... or follow orders and ignore the bombers in favor of racking up fighter kills ?

On the down side for the LW will be the manual pitch Emil's which will chew up DB engines like no tomorrow in the hands of online hot rod fighter jocks. I can also see a severe shortage of people wanting to fly Stuka's or other flyable German bombers across the channel just to get shot down a few seconds into combat.

I suspect online will deteriorate into spawn in the air WWI style furballs at historically excessively low levels over South East England and the channel. At least the scenery will look pretty dog-fighting at that height :D

[ATAG_Bliss]

The server usually brings the type of play you want. Full switch/long distance flights/plenty of objectives. I love escorting the bomber guys. For some reason they have a tendency to attract the bad guys :)

[TUSA/TX-Gunslinger]

Hi Bliss. Never were truer words spoken. The Syndicate server in ROF, is one of the best examples of how a server and it's missions can control the majority of behaviors - and deliver as much historical accuracy as you can get.

For those of us who've had the experience of hosting Il2-46 and ROF (very large bandwidth required, interface and netcode are worlds apart) - I think we might see it differently. SYN, why don't you tell them how much upload bandwidth your server requires in ROF (if you feel comfortable doing so)?

Such negativity, and this sim we've waited for sooooo long for - is almost on us.

For me, there is extreme beauty in Olegs Il2 netcode and it's efficiency. I expect the same from SOW.

Meanwhile, upload and download bandwidths have increased exponentially worldwide. Except of course, in many parts of the good ol' USA. The good news is that it's never been easier nor more trouble free to fly online with folks from Europe, Russia, Australia and other far away places.

In the ROF community, where we require huge bandwidths - users conducted and posted ping tests from all over the world. I was extremely impressed at European sustained bandwidths to the average user.

I can't say I expect the same things you do El. It's not exactly like it's La-5's vs FW's and 109's. Both the 109 and Spitfire are most excellent mid to high alt performers. On the eastern front, the mid to low alt performance of the Russian aircraft drove the fight low.

On the other hand, if you expect pilots to conform to poor tactical practice - I do think you might be happier offline, or in a COOP where you can get a true "reinactment" type of environment. For me, that'd be sad, cause your a great pilot and used to seem to enjoy Il2 MP a lot.

For me, that's not what floats my boat. The "Battle" has already been fought, 70 years ago, by the real hero's. Me personally, I'm most interested in seeing how it could be fought better, particularly when flying on the German side. When I fly on the Commonwealth side, I'd like to work on better ways to combat more effective German tactics.

A great example is Goring's orders for fighters to fly in very close escort to the German bombers. This caused 109's to have to fly at bomber speeds, near stall during escorts at the later stages of BOB. Gallands comments on these failures are well known.

Why on earth would anyone sane in this new sim, voluntarily do such a thing? The German fighters should be somewhat ahead of the bombers, enaging Hurri's and Spit's in the 109's best performance envelope. What's the outcome of that matchup under those conditions? Spitfires at speed, engaging 109's at stall? It's historical, certainly - but we already know how that ends.

Also, I have no intention of flying in Vic's when on the British side - why on earth would I ever consider it, when a flight of four is more effective (you know, two pair)? Luftwaffe developed that in the Spanish Civil war and the RAF chose not to adopt it, until later in the war. As most squads/teams in the community are organized as pairs - what do you do when 4 of you show up to play? Tell the 4th guy to get lost?

Sorry for the long post, just thought I'd add my 1.5 cents.... I'm way too excited about what I know we will get soon and have been reading over here for the last year and not posting.

S!

Gunny

[ElAurens]

Thank you for the compliment on my flying Gunny. Never thought I was much above average, with an all too rare moment of brilliance.

I am eagerly looking forward to SoW, don't get me wrong. And you know I will spend most of my time online. And I've started rounding up the Pigs and we have been flying some amongst ourselves, with a few guests, to get back in shape.

My comments are based on what the "blue" flyers I know are telling me.

In essence don't expect historical outcomes because everyone will be flying with our long years of sim experience under our belts. I realize we cannot "dumb down" just to fit the historical time period. But just looking at the two main players, Bf109E and Spit Mk. I or II, the 109 is really holding all the cards. It's faster, it probably turns as well or better, it is superior in the dive, and it has far better guns. The only bug in the ointment for the Luftwaffe will be the one historical parameter that cannot be changed owing to the full scale map... Range/endurance. No matter what the 109s will not have much time to do their work, this is the one ace in the hole that the RAF has.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out online.

Hope to see you in the sky over the Channel, Gunny!

[ATAG_Bliss]

Hi Gunny! Thanks for the kind words :)

As far as bandwidth, ROF is a true hog of it. 30 players in the server is a constant 10mbps UPLOAD speed (ouch!) I checked it with 60 players on and the server was pumping out 30mbps UPLOAD speed. It comes out to around 800 Gig/month of bandwidth (99% of it being upload speed) since the server has become popular. Thankfully the server has a 500mpbs upload/download speed.

But don't you worry, just like our server in ROF and IL2 of old, we have some great ideas for the MP server we are going to run for SOW (full switch/historical/and very objective based) ;)

With our beefy dedicated box, SOW should run like a sewing machine 8-)

[TUSA/TX-Gunslinger]

I will surely see you there El - and I fully intend to enjoy BOTH sides :) Hoping to see it "Raining Pigs" in a good way! Look forward to visiting and having fun with you on comms. Tell Bury hello for me, if you see him.

Thanks for the info Bliss. Last year I upgraded my bandwidth, since our TX beta subteam was assigned intial work in MP - and set up a small server for a while (way before 1.012 Dogfight/CTF modes). I put net montitors on to measure bandwidth exchanges between server and clients - and analyzed months worth of data like this. I've always been amazed at SYN ability to host the large number of clients that you do.

My maximum load ever was 16 - with the server delivering best performance at 12. This of course was with me as client on a second machine physically connected to my server (router) when I wanted to fly on it. My sustained upload bandwidth was only about 8 mbs.

With all that said about ROF bandwidth requirements - I have never flown any sim with less lag and warp to servers in Russia (and I'm in Austin TX).

I'm dying to see what Oleg pulls off with SOW. I'm sure we'll all be blown away.

I gave up my server ambitions because I can get everything I need at the Syndicate - and if I'm in a mood to just kill/be killed/practice shooting - I can go over to J99. The noobs have a few of their own servers with easier settings - which is a good and important niche.

Sometimes I get the urge to go check the training servers out - but I have this fear that someone will see me there and think me a pedophile :)

A community only needs as many qualtiy servers as it can fill. I learned this lesson in ROF.

Hope I did not derail the thread too badly.

S!

Gunny

[Oleg Maddox]

IRC IL2 also supported 128 players online. I personally attended many online events and battles with almost 90 people at the time. The problem with this is - unless you have an utterly powerful server with excellent bandwidth you won't make it past 60 players without massive lag for the majority of people on it. At least that is how it was in IL2.

Yes, you are right.
Just one user with bad connection may damage overal picture if all features settings of transfer are maxed out.

Its why I told that currently it is 128. But we may minimize for the release. Or just to notice that it is fine only with some good connection to all.

And we don't like to minimize the features that was done with Il-2 data transfer comparing to other games. Instead we have some more features and some other features.

Server will be shipped with the game. And some will be installed right with the release.

[T}{OR]

Thank you for the reply. :)

I have some questions that you haven't been able to answer in the past (too early in development). Might I ask if you can answer some of these questions now?

Will there be an option to first load some custom made skins on the server, and then force players (server setting) to first download them before hitting fly or even joining the server. I am asking this because some time when many people load their skins all you see is blank skinned planes flying all over the place. This also affects bandwidth.

Also, I asked this once before - would it be possible (for servers with external views on) to disable the option to browse through enemy planes? More important - to prevent from seeing which type of planes is the opposite side flying (in IL2 this command was 'S')?

How is kill crediting implemented? Will we have shared kills and if so in which way will server determine when it is a shared kill and when it isn't? What about human manned gunners (if I remember correctly, humans will be able to join a human piloted bomber on dog fight servers)?

And last but not least - will there be an option to limit which countries or air forces can be selected per side? This would greatly help admins of the servers which try to simulate a certain scenario or battle - servers that are historically oriented (this goes for question #1 as well).


Thank you.

[Triggaaar]

But just looking at the two main players, Bf109E and Spit Mk. I or II, the 109 is really holding all the cards. It's faster, it probably turns as well or better, it is superior in the dive, and it has far better guns.Where are you getting these 'facts' from? That's not what the pilots who flew in the BOB said.

[T}{OR]

Indeed. Didn't Galland ask for a Spitfire? :D

From my understanding Spitfire was a bit faster and could definitely turn tighter. The advantages of 109 had were its weapons and fuel injected engine.

[SEE]

The RAF captured a BF109 and the luftwaffe captured a 2 pitch MK1 Spit just before the BOB went into full swing. The BF109 was painted with RAF decals and was tested in mock combat against the Spits at RAF Farnborough. Meanwhile, Adolph Galland and various other German Pilots did the same with the captured Spit (which was shipped off to Germany). The final verdicts are pretty obvious. The RAF considered it had nothing to fear from the 109 and the Luftwaffe had nothing to fear from the Spits! Both sides summed up their appraisals in that the outcome depended on tactics, skill, who spotted the other first and numbers! From what I have read, the Spit that saw most service during the BOB featured a variable pitch prop unlike the one test flown by Adolph Galland.

[Triggaaar]

The final verdicts are pretty obvious. The RAF considered it had nothing to fear from the 109 and the Luftwaffe had nothing to fear from the Spits! Both sides summed up their appraisals in that the outcome depended on tactics, skill, who spotted the other first and numbers!Like you say, during BOB results were down to a lot of things other than the ability of the aircraft, like tactics, altitude and who saw who first. So it would be possible for the Spit to be worse at everything than the 109 and still get the results it did - but I've never seen a WWII account suggeting a 109 could could out-turn a Spit in 1940, and the Hurricane could turn even tighter than the Spit. I understand that the 109 dove better than the Spit, the Spit turned better, while their Speed was similar.

[swiss]

Like you say, during BOB results were down to a lot of things other than the ability of the aircraft, like tactics, altitude and who saw who first. So it would be possible for the Spit to be worse at everything than the 109 and still get the results it did - but I've never seen a WWII account suggeting a 109 could could out-turn a Spit in 1940, and the Hurricane could turn even tighter than the Spit. I understand that the 109 dove better than the Spit, the Spit turned better, while their Speed was similar.

Funny enough, the fw turned similar to spit(other than horizontal turns).

[AndyJWest]

Funny enough, the fw turned similar to spit(other than horizontal turns).

Funnily enough, the Fw 190 didn't take part in the BoB, so we can leave that discussion for a later date.

[Abbeville-Boy]

you are a very strange woman yes

[swiss]

you are a very strange woman yes

Irony my friend, irony.


Edit: nope, he's just a troll.

[Sven]

Irony my friend, irony.


Edit: nope, he's just a troll.

He indeed is, a Pakistan troll, a very exclusive exemplary of his kind, better catch it before he extinct.

[KOM.Nausicaa]

apparently he thought it was more important to go see his sick kid than answer our questions what a joke! how can he possibly expect me to buy the game if hes more worried about his kid than SOW seriously get your priorities in order man

That one is enough for a permanent ban, IMO.

[Uufflakke]

Moderators can borrow my spray. Works without leaving stains...

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh195/Uufflakke/50098d05.jpg

[BadAim]

That one is enough for a permanent ban, IMO.
I didn't see this one until you quoted him, as I already had him on my ignore list. My response: Holy crap what a douche! I agree with Nausicaa wholeheartedly, this moron needs to go away permanently.

[Triggaaar]

He was being sarcastic. His point was that life is more important than our questions. Right?

[The Kraken]

He was being sarcastic. His point was that life is more important than our questions. Right?

Considering that all his other posts are also pure trolling that seems unlikely ;)

[KOM.Nausicaa]

Considering that all his other posts are also pure trolling that seems unlikely ;)

+1