Friday 2011-02-04 Dev. update and Discussion

[Bolelas]

Hi! and thankyou very much for the update.

In the video Luthier is using a Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog. As I've recently got one I'ld be interested to know how CoD handles the On-Off switches on the throttle.

In IL2 many of the game commands are toggles, where the same key switches the system on or off (ie the engine switch where it is controlled by a single momentary switch ). Will CoD allow a latching OFF/ON switch (like many on the Warthog throttle) to be switched on and stay in that state until the switch is turned off?

I hope this makes sense.

Cheers and thanks again
Interesting question mr Tiger, i asked this one over and over(luckly i didnt get banned), and got no answers. Its so simple to solder 2 wires and put a on-off switch on your joystick! i hope they include this possibility, i mean, the game is so complex with tiny details, and why not this option to cockpit builters? i know simple rc games that have this option! Even if they dont, congratulations to all Madox team work, its awsome!

[Avimimus]

I think it's a good time to tell what actualy is in the game, not what didn't make it into it. And I'm not thinking about release announcement (full of errors). Some screens looks great, others look mediocre. There is no single one video up to date captured on decent rig showing something more then 1-2 min of flying over water.

[...]

PS. I really don't understand how things showed in 2006 as a main features of the game woun't be available on the realease almost 5 years later...


1) Oleg tends to deliberately under-sell the product in order to avoid hype and keep expectations low (with the result that he gets more positive reviews at release)

2) The engine was rewritten in that period. The old version would have been limited to DX9 etc. The new SoW engine is designed for growth, assuming that sales are high enough (with four additional projects already planned, with work completed on some of them). Expect new features (and higher minimum system specs) in the next few years.

Generally, I'd recommend trusting Oleg. I've watched his work for ten years now and no one has a higher dedication to quality and pushing the limits of what can be done (even when it really doesn't make financial sense) than his team.

[Stukadriver]

This is footage I took while flying the Langhurst Stuka replica of Oberst Rudel's JU87B2 Stuka T6+AD. Kind of calm days but hot...hence open cockpit...did not bounce around in cockpit as much as usual.
"www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIUpvtoX0_E&feature"

[luthier]

Luthier, thanks for your reply, the answer is obvious, use a PC that is good enough.

If I had a high-end PC, the recommended specs we've released a while ago would have been the minimum specs.

I'm using a mid-range PC for a very specific reason.

You have to understand that my job is to make a good game. It is NOT to market and advertise it. We're a tiny developer working on a shoestring budget. If I have to stop working for a day each week to make videos, we will end up with a kick-ass marketing campaign for a crappy game. I'd rather have it the other way around.

Luthier, am I right concluding from the above that CoD (much like IL2) is mostly CPU bound, rather than videocard bound ? At least at "normal" resolutions (HD and below) and AA settings, IL2 doesnt care too much what videocard you have, you can increase resolution and AA and it barely makes a difference, even on my old 4870, but the CPU speed makes all the difference in the world, game performance scales almost linearly with CPU clockspeed.

Do you know how well the CoD engine makes use of 4 (or more?) cores, and whether or not that shifts the bottleneck towards the GPU again, or is even a Core i7 or whatever the main bottleneck?

You need a good video card to play over populated areas. We have huge textures so lots of video memory is important too.

What is the status on the dynamic campaign system? We know from the announcement on the Ubi forums that it won't make the original release.

There's bits and pieces. We made a decision about 18 months ago that we wouldn't be able to make it right, and we'd rather build good static campaigns instead. So it's been on a backburner for some time.

I'm the guy who wrote a bunch of giant 100-page design docs for the dynamic campaign, so it was a very hard decision for me personally.

There's probably at least a year of work left on it to make it great. We could have make something like an Il-2 level dynamic campaign in a few months, but I don't want to do that at all. I want it to be ground-breaking and worthy of the rest of the game.

Damn missed you Luthier, but maybe you see this question tomorrow. When the video was at an end you was telling them to cut recording, is this because you did not want us to see the parachute scene? Also i noticed the eject scene was missing that animation you showed us of a bailing sequence, has this also been removed for release

No, I actually thought that the video was crap and I wanted another take. And I ran out of ideas.

In the video Luthier is using a Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog. As I've recently got one I'ld be interested to know how CoD handles the On-Off switches on the throttle.

Not good. We just got the Warthog this week, and I was very disappointed in how most of the buttons worked. I played around with the TM software and couldn't figure it out at all. The push-up-for-constant-input button that's also a push-down-for-no-input-at-all doesn't work with the game at all. We need to write a whole different chunk of code for that kind of input to be recognized properly.

Yes thanks for that, but can you not see where your answer is fundamentally flawed, in that we dont know how it runs on a high end system, we keep begging Luthier and Oleg to show us some video on a real high end PC, we want to wave the Cliffs Of Dover flag and say jeez look how good this game runs if you've got the the right kit, hundreds of people are waiting to buy or build new systems and spend thousands just to play this game, but for some reason the devs are holding back on showing us this game run on a top end gaming rig.

Jeez.

question: is there any hope to have the dynamic campaign element added in as a similar "as is" state, and allow the community to develop it further with some tools ?

It's nowhere near the state of the weather. There's nothing to play with. Most of the dynamic campaign exists in prototype stages split up into separate chunks.

I think the chute is still being worked on. At the end of the video when Ilya is about to open the chute, he suddenly realizes its not ready to show yet and makes this 'cut' gesture. :)

No, the parachute is OK. There's no collision with the plane yet which is why it's not as good as we want it to be, but otherwise the cut gesture and the bail out sequence are not connected in any way.

however the complete absense of human representation in the game other than the aircrews is something that in my opinion, the artists of 1C should re-consider.

Yes, I'm of the same exact opinion. We messed this one up. It's completely my fault. Our lead ground 3D modeler hates my guts for it. We are working on it though. At the very least we'll try to dump something into all those vehicles for release.

It looks horrible and we all know it, believe me.

I think it's a good time to tell what actualy is in the game, not what didn't make it into it. And I'm not thinking about release announcement (full of errors). Some screens looks great, others look mediocre. There is no single one video up to date captured on decent rig showing something more then 1-2 min of flying over water.

[...]

PS. I really don't understand how things showed in 2006 as a main features of the game woun't be available on the realease almost 5 years later...

I explained this in detail earlier in the thread. When we try to do something ground breaking, sometimes we end up failing to deliver.

I'll note again that everything we said we were going to do, we did. It's just we were not able to get it into a playable state quickly enough. It will take more time.

[kalimba]

Very impressive !

I would say, though, that the grass is way to "greenish" ( at 2:30 till 3:00) and the clouds are still looking 2D...The trees are nice, but would need more different types. Water is to dark. The propeller F/X certainely needs work !
And the sound ! Awfull !

But anayway, nice work !

:grin::grin::grin:

Salute

[Trumper]

We couldn't record the real Merlin or a Daimler Benz or basically any real engine from BoB era due to a limited budget. There aren't any in Russia, and we couldn't fly out our sound engineer to the UK or Germany with all his equipment.

We do have the recordings of the real engines of course made with various Russian aircraft this summer. Using advanced SFX magic we transformed our samples to sound the way we needed.



:confused: Am i to read into this then that we won't be hearing Merlins or D-Benz engines,how close is the synthetic version to the real thing?.
I wondered if the Merlin sounds could've been recorded from an external running engine on a test bed if access to the aircraft wasn't available.
Would the sounds be able to be modded/patched in the future if access and recording equipment were able to get access?
Thanks :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fSEeu0hzLo

[Stukadriver]

I don't know how you guys balance the wishes of the players with the reality of the constraints on hardware and the time investment it takes to get such a nice game to market. I can imagine the howling and crying of some if you put this game out and it only could run on a beefy computer. My time spent checking in on the forum to see how your game is progressing has confirmed to me that you can't please everyone. I sometimes wonder why you didn't just close the effort. I admire your perseverence. Your development company has an excellent record and your products have brought me hours and hours of enjoyment. I am looking forward to COD because your past work has been outstanding and I am confident that this game will continue that tradition.

[Stukadriver]

To Kalimba -

I like your humor! Good man.

[JAMF]

You need a good video card to play over populated areas. We have huge textures so lots of video memory is important too.

Good to know. With regard to memory, are you allowed to share the answer to these questions:
-Is the 32Bit exe programmed with LargeAddressAware, so even the 32Bit exe can use 3GB on the 32Bit Windows and 4GB on the 64Bit Windows7?

-Is the 64Bit exe scheduled for the release, or has it been scheduled for a patch? (I hope I didn't miss a previous answer to this question)

[Feathered_IV]

Thanks for the update Luthier. Nice to see the "human" element in the vid. Hopefully we'll all develop a similar cackle soon.

By the way, do you know if Oleg got the email I sent regarding this?:

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd119/Feathered_IV/ProposedArt-WiekLuijken.jpg

Wiek Luijken is willing and able and happy to offer his services to Oleg.

[Lufthaken]

Hi Oleg and Ilya and Team,
nice setup do you have with the warthog...
but... Ilya what kind of pedals do you use? simpeds or ...
Thanks for answer.

[kendo65]

Thanks for the info Luthier and the honest responses.

Is there anything you can tell us about the release strategy for the series after COD comes out?

We've heard about possible follow-ups (Moscow, Korea, ?). With the extra work to be done to complete features left out of COD, will the focus now be more on completing these via a series of patches, or are they likely to be integrated into the new theatre releases?

Thanks.

[Meusli]

Thanks for the update Luthier. Nice to see the "human" element in the vid. Hopefully we'll all develop a similar cackle soon.

By the way, do you know if Oleg got the email I sent regarding this?:

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd119/Feathered_IV/ProposedArt-WiekLuijken.jpg

Wiek Luijken is willing and able and happy to offer his services to Oleg.


Oh, I like that cover. A lot!

[FlatSpinMan]

What a human response (from Luthier). I really admire the honesty and the amount of info that is shared. Most companies would say "It's all perfect, it's exactly as we planned".
I like the video for the same reasons - it's just some guy showing off footage to other people who like the same kind of thing.
It sounds like some things are missing currently. Oh well. They'll show up sooner or later. That dynamic campaign idea already sounds great.

[BadAim]

Yes, I'm of the same exact opinion. We messed this one up. It's completely my fault. Our lead ground 3D modeler hates my guts for it. We are working on it though. At the very least we'll try to dump something into all those vehicles for release.

It looks horrible and we all know it, believe me.



I explained this in detail earlier in the thread. When we try to do something ground breaking, sometimes we end up failing to deliver.

I'll note again that everything we said we were going to do, we did. It's just we were not able to get it into a playable state quickly enough. It will take more time.

WOW, you know, I just don't get all the conspiracy theories and dark mistrust some people have of these guys when this is only the latest example of how candidly they speak with this community.

This stuff is unheard of. Thanks guys.

BTW, I think the Green is perfect in those last screenies.

[BadAim]

What a human response (from Luthier). I really admire the honesty and the amount of info that is shared. Most companies would say "It's all perfect, it's exactly as we planned".
I like the video for the same reasons - it's just some guy showing off footage to other people who like the same kind of thing.
It sounds like some things are missing currently. Oh well. They'll show up sooner or later. That dynamic campaign idea already sounds great.

LOL, FSM. You've nailed it. I've had the impression for a long time that these guys are not making a game to make money, but are making the game because that's what they love to do, and are hoping to make money on it so they can do it some more (and still feed their families).

[ElAurens]

Thank you Luther, for being real, honest, and open about the progress of the new sim.

It's these little chats you take time for that keep a lot of us on your and Oleg's side. You are not some monolithic software giant company shoving out new, flashy, yet shallow content just to sell box art. The way that you and Oleg share with us makes me, and I'm sure most vets of the sim, feel like we are actually part of this grand adventure, not just customers picking up a fast food lunch at the drive through window.

Carry on just as you are.

The BlitzPigs, and our friends in the sim eagerly await the release.

S!

[Matt255]

Not good. We just got the Warthog this week, and I was very disappointed in how most of the buttons worked. I played around with the TM software and couldn't figure it out at all.
It takes some time to get used to the software, but when you understand it completely, you can basically do whatever you want. I don't think there's a need to rework the code in CoD to make the Warthog work right out of the box, mostly because the Warthog is simply made to work perfectly with modern (or A-10) flightsims. I'm pretty sure the majority of Warthog users have figured the software out and probably only use the software to make the HOTAS work with different flightsims, instead of using the ingame input settings.

Atleast that's the way i'm using it for IL2, ROF etc.

[T}{OR]

Thank you Luther, for being real, honest, and open about the progress of the new sim.

It's these little chats you take time for that keep a lot of us on your and Oleg's side. You are not some monolithic software giant company shoving out new, flashy, yet shallow content just to sell box art. The way that you and Oleg share with us makes me, and I'm sure most vets of the sim, feel like we are actually part of this grand adventure, not just customers picking up a fast food lunch at the drive through window.

Carry on just as you are.

The BlitzPigs, and our friends in the sim eagerly await the release.

S!

Seconded. :)

[brando]

Thank you Luther, for being real, honest, and open about the progress of the new sim.

It's these little chats you take time for that keep a lot of us on your and Oleg's side. You are not some monolithic software giant company shoving out new, flashy, yet shallow content just to sell box art. The way that you and Oleg share with us makes me, and I'm sure most vets of the sim, feel like we are actually part of this grand adventure, not just customers picking up a fast food lunch at the drive through window.

Carry on just as you are.

The BlitzPigs, and our friends in the sim eagerly await the release.

S!

Hear hear, and the same goes for the twenty or so people I fly with regularly. Onwards & upward Oleg 'n Co!

Brando

[addman]

"Never in the field of flightsims has so much been owed by so many to so few"

Thank you Oleg, Ilya and everybody at Maddox games for your dedication to something so rare as a serious combat flight simulator. No butt-kissing just a spontaneous act of appreciation.

[Hecke]

You need a good video card to play over populated areas. We have huge textures so lots of video memory is important too.



Could you please specify this a bit more. What is the maximum video memory which is still useful. I'm thinking of a 3Gb video memory card, but it could be wasted money, if you told us that more than 2 gb for example don't give any performance increase.

And I'm also very interested in the 64-bit-on-release question.


Thx in advance

[Cpt Dremmen]

why remove my post? i do not understand i was not being rude? my comments about the door on the spit was not a dig just an observation as a real flyer!

My comment on the video was justified too

[IceFire]

Seconded. :)

Thirded.

I really appreciate the down to the ground level in the trenches kind of information we're getting. It's fantastic and I'm looking forward not only to Cliffs of Dover but the continued evolution and development.

[swiss]

What a human response (from Luthier). I really admire the honesty and the amount of info that is shared.

I more admire his patience. ;)

[swiss]

Come on Luthier, you know what Im asking for here, a short video taken on one of your better PC's in the office


What if Lu's PC is the best one they have in the office?
There must be better ones? Sure, but maybe the have Quadras installed - great Gpu, but worthless for gaming.

And the fact they don't really have a business relation to either of the two Gpu manufactures makes it impossible for him to recommend one card over the other.
So no, you will not get the info you're craving for.

[Tree_UK]

What if Lu's PC is the best one they have in the office?
There must be better ones? Sure, but maybe the have Quadras installed - great Gpu, but worthless for gaming.

And the fact they don't really have a business relation to either of the two Gpu manufactures makes it impossible for him to recommend one card over the other.
So no, you will not get the info you're craving for.

Swiss your out of touch here go back and read all the thread before making any comments, in case you have not got time I will quickly refresh for you, all that I/we want to see is a video (shot in game) for 3 mins of a fighter attacking a bomber over land on a high end PC, Luthier as already told us that flying over a town or city/airfield on his mid range PC with detail turned up it is not possible to fly because the PC grinds to a halt. What I/we want to know is does it do the same on a high end PC, not a difficult question and something that can be done in 2 mins. Luthier has already told us that they do have high end PC's in the office but they cannot get access to them because they are being used for work, helpfully I have suggested nipping on one when a guy goes home or uses the toilet or has a dinner break, even if Luthier doesn't video the results I am happy to take his word that the high end PC handles the graphics fine.

[swiss]

Swiss your out of touch here go back and read all the thread before making any comments, in case you have not got time I will quickly refresh for you, all that I/we want to see is a video (shot in game) for 3 mins of a fighter attacking a bomber over land on a high end PC, Luthier as already told us that flying over a town or city/airfield on his mid range PC with detail turned up it is not possible to fly because the PC grinds to a halt. What I/we want to know is does it do the same on a high end PC, not a difficult question and something that can be done in 2 mins. Luthier has already told us that they do have high end PC's in the office but they cannot get access to them because they are being used for work, helpfully I have suggested nipping on one when a guy goes home or uses the toilet or as a dinner break, even if Luthier doesn't video the reulsts I am happy to take his word that the high end PC handles the graphics fine.

My turn to refresh:

Where has Luthier ever mentioned there is a better(gamer) PC available?
Quadra GPUs are several thousand dollar a piece(I consider that high-end) - but they are not "for human consumption".

At this point I am pretty sure there are no 480s or 5970s in that office.

[CharveL]

What if Lu's PC is the best one they have in the office?
There must be better ones? Sure, but maybe the have Quadras installed - great Gpu, but worthless for gaming.

And the fact they don't really have a business relation to either of the two Gpu manufactures makes it impossible for him to recommend one card over the other.
So no, you will not get the info you're craving for.

Or maybe it just happened to be the one they felt like taking a video of for the majority of us who are quite happy to get whatever they feel like giving us?

Maybe pandering to everyone's specific whims doesn't rate high up on the to-do list because they have some better videos and info coming over the following weeks and their time is better spent with other things that actually matter?

From what I've seen so far I've got a pretty good idea what to expect for performance, including over cities and realize that no matter how you cut it, ideally something around 3.5 - 4Ghz is going to do pretty decently for framerate in these situations. I still think we'll get dips below 30fps over London, but it also looks like we can adjust object density to suit whatever framerate we target too.

That's good enough for me for now.

[kancerosik]

I see that the NEW CoD is not optimiced for panoramical screens. I see the cockpit images as on my 16:9 flying Il2 1946.

I was waiting to see a video where the lateral view is incremented not a video with that "cuts" up and down screen

Pd: hope I'm wrong, what do u think?

[Hecke]

So the object density is set by the host then?

[Tree_UK]

My turn to refresh:

Where has Luthier ever mentioned there is a better(gamer) PC available?
Quadra GPUs are several thousand dollar a piece(I consider that high-end) - but they are not "for human consumption".

At this point I am pretty sure there are no 480s or 5970s in that office.

he said it here -

We have top-notch machines where they are most needed, with the programmers. I have a mid-range or probably even a low-end machine by today's standards myself, which is very helpful in ensuring a lot of you guys get decent performance out of the game! If everyone had a blazing fast PC, who would worry about the framerate?

We've just finished a major round of optimizations last week that drastically improved framerate compared to the Igromir build. We couldn't have done it if everyone at the office ran it at 80 fps to begin with.

And since I take the majority of screenshots for the updates, you guys are stuck with what I have! In order to take screenshots on other machines, I'd have to bump off a programmer, and I'm sure we can all agree it wouldn't be good for the project. Most of them run weird versions of the game unfit for human consumption anyway.

[swiss]

he said it here -


Luthier's said a lot things in the past, so what.
Live with it - be happy what you get.
Also:
There are enough users here with incredible machines, once CoD is out they will all post their results(guaranteed) here.
Once you have those results, you can decide which card is best for you.

Huge f***ing deal if you can't play CoD with maxed out everything from day one, huh?

and what i posted earlier: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=219432&postcount=281

[Tree_UK]

Luthier's said a lot things in the past, so what.
Live with it - be happy what you get.
Also:
There are enough users here with incredible machines, once CoD is out they will all post their results(guaranteed) here.
Once you have those results, you can decide which card is best for you.

Huge f***ing deal if you can't play CoD with maxed out everything from day one, huh?

and what i posted earlier: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=219432&postcount=281

sigh **** I dont want to know what card is best for me, please remove your blinkers your heading down a tunnel.

[swiss]

I see that the NEW CoD is not optimiced for panoramical screens. I see the cockpit images as on my 16:9 flying Il2 1946.

I was waiting to see a video where the lateral view is incremented not a video with that "cuts" up and down screen

Pd: hope I'm wrong, what do u think?

Actually, I have no idea what you're talking about.
But hen again that could be just me. :confused:

[swiss]

sigh **** I dont want to know what card is best for me, please remove your blinkers your heading down a tunnel.

Ok, you demand a maxed out out video, and you can resist asking which card it was?
That would be pointless, all you get is eyecandy but you don't know how to reproduce it.




Edit: Plus you're missing one point:

If I had a high-end PC, the recommended specs we've released a while ago would have been the minimum specs.

I'm using a mid-range PC for a very specific reason.

You have to understand that my job is to make a good game. It is NOT to market and advertise it. We're a tiny developer working on a shoestring budget. If I have to stop working for a day each week to make videos, we will end up with a kick-ass marketing campaign for a crappy game. I'd rather have it the other way around.


Basically that means they made a game for mid to lower highend PCs.
In case you own a killer machine you'll be rewarded with some additional eyecandy and a better fps.
I don't think you can expect a whole different game or graphics just because you throw in a $600 card.

In the future minspecs will raise dramatically, but we have already seen this happen with il2.

At least, that's they way I understood luthier.

[F19_Klunk]

I would appreciate if those who are engaged in a personal verbal brawl keep it in personal messages and not try to outwit eachother in this thread. This is "Friday 2011-02-04 Dev. update and Discussion" and as far as I am concerned your bickering is polluting a good read.

[BadAim]

You sure do love a good exercise in futility don't you Swiss? Have fun, Mate. I prefer the ignore button. :)

Your right, of course Klunk. This'll be my last reply here.

[luthier]

Come on Luthier, you know what Im asking for here, a short video taken on one of your better PC's in the office so we can see how the game runs on higher end equipment.

No, you see, you're asking for something that makes absolutely no sense and serves absolutely no purpose.

If we record a video with fraps, it won't give you any idea of the performance since fraps cuts the FPS in half.

If we record a video with our built-in track-to-video converter, that records videos at a fluid framerate on any machine in the world.

Finally, the game is still being optimized and we're improving the graphics and making it slower at the same time. We are hoping that you'd get improved framerates and improved graphic quality in release compared to any benchmarks we run today.

I seriously honestly don't understand what you need. We've released minimum and recommended specs. The better your machine, the better your framerate at a higher resolution with more FSAA.

Could you please specify this a bit more. What is the maximum video memory which is still useful. I'm thinking of a 3Gb video memory card, but it could be wasted money, if you told us that more than 2 gb for example don't give any performance increase.

And I'm also very interested in the 64-bit-on-release question.

I don't know, I'll need to ask the graphics crew on Monday.

What's the 64-bit question? A lot of us run Win7 64-bit however we haven't done any benchmarks comparing 64-bit to 32-bit performance.

[swiss]

What's the 64-bit question? A lot of us run Win7 64-bit however we haven't done any benchmarks comparing 64-bit to 32-bit performance.

I think he's asking how much GB the exe can address, max.

[Old_Canuck]

Folks, we need to remember that advertising is not Olegs's or Luthier's job. It's the job of the publisher. That would be 1C in Russia and UBI everywhere else.

What Oleg and Luthier are doing in the weekly updates is taking us along on the journey of the development of the new sim. Giving us insight on how things are progressing, keeping their loyal, established, customers in the loop. They don't have to do this. Almost no other developer that I know of does. We are being allowed to see the progression of the making of the sim. Isn't that way better than say, Microsoft's misleading adverts for their flight sims that are basically just very expensive CGI and not reflective of what you actually are getting?

Isn't it better than being totally in the dark for years and then all of a sudden some publisher makes an announcement out of the blue that a new sim will be ready for sale shortly?

This is all part of the adventure of our little avocation. Stop grumbling about it and come along for the ride, it's a lot more fun.

Well said S!

[Hecke]

Thank you for the answer.




What's the 64-bit question? A lot of us run Win7 64-bit however we haven't done any benchmarks comparing 64-bit to 32-bit performance.


The 64 bit question is the following.

Will you ship a 64 bit .exe on release which allows CoD to use more Ram than with 32 bit.

[Tree_UK]

No, you see, you're asking for something that makes absolutely no sense and serves absolutely no purpose.

If we record a video with fraps, it won't give you any idea of the performance since fraps cuts the FPS in half.

If we record a video with our built-in track-to-video converter, that records videos at a fluid framerate on any machine in the world.

Finally, the game is still being optimized and we're improving the graphics and making it slower at the same time. We are hoping that you'd get improved framerates and improved graphic quality in release compared to any benchmarks we run today.

I seriously honestly don't understand what you need. We've released minimum and recommended specs. The better your machine, the better your framerate at a higher resolution with more FSAA.



I don't know, I'll need to ask the graphics crew on Monday.

What's the 64-bit question? A lot of us run Win7 64-bit however we haven't done any benchmarks comparing 64-bit to 32-bit performance.

Hi luthier, one more try then I will give up, you have said that you cannot fly over towns/cities/airfields on your PC because of its limitations. Ok, fair enough, what I am asking is can you fly over those same places with a better PC than yours, (a high end PC if you like) without the slow down your current PC suffers. Forget showing me a video a simple yes or no answer will be fine. I really cant put it much more simple than that.

[Novotny]

So you're asking is a faster pc faster?

[philip.ed]

I think he just wants to know if it's possible. I'd imagine it is, the team wouldn't make it so it wasn't, but who knows ;)

[Triggaaar]

You have to understand that my job is to make a good game. It is NOT to market and advertise it.Indeed, understood.

You need a good video card to play over populated areas. We have huge textures so lots of video memory is important too. Excellent info, thanks.

There's probably at least a year of work left on it to make it great.So is that likely to happen at some stage (ignore if already answered, I haven't finished reading this thread).

Thank you for releasing more info for us, much appreciated.

[JAMF]

What's the 64-bit question? A lot of us run Win7 64-bit however we haven't done any benchmarks comparing 64-bit to 32-bit performance.

Hi Luthier! He might be referring to my question:

Good to know. With regard to memory, are you allowed to share the answer to these questions:
-Is the 32Bit exe programmed with LargeAddressAware, so even the 32Bit exe can use 3GB on the 32Bit Windows and 4GB on the 64Bit Windows7?

-Is the 64Bit exe scheduled for the release, or has it been scheduled for a patch? (I hope I didn't miss a previous answer to this question)

[Bolelas]

Mr Luthier, as you said: "We need to write a whole different chunk of code for that kind of input to be recognized properly.", are you planing to do it in the future, maybe a year or 2 from now? Or is it a dead question?

Thank you for the forum and all the patience with us.

[Biggs]

what I am asking is can you fly over those same places with a better PC than yours, (a high end PC if you like) without the slow down your current PC suffers.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v215/Biggs222/facepalm.jpg

is that really a question?

[Oleg Maddox]

Hi Luthier! He might be referring to my question:

It was told already in the past: We have two exe files for 32 and 64 bit.

[Novotny]

I think he just wants to know if it's possible. I'd imagine it is, the team wouldn't make it so it wasn't, but who knows ;)

Exactly. They aren't going to release something that no-one can play, so it's perfectly reasonable to assume that an average pc can fly over cities; possibly with the graphical effects turned down a bit.

To go on and on about it, however, whilst being rude to the developer ('one more try then I will give up/I really cant put it much more simple than that' - does he think he's speaking to a child?) and trying to imply that the developer is trying to trick us in some way, is the mark of an asshole.

And yes, I did say that Tree is an asshole. He irritates the vast majority of us and I for one wish he could be permanently banned, and have requested it before and will no doubt do so again.

[Jaws2002]

Thank you Luther, for being real, honest, and open about the progress of the new sim.

It's these little chats you take time for that keep a lot of us on your and Oleg's side. You are not some monolithic software giant company shoving out new, flashy, yet shallow content just to sell box art. The way that you and Oleg share with us makes me, and I'm sure most vets of the sim, feel like we are actually part of this grand adventure, not just customers picking up a fast food lunch at the drive through window.

Carry on just as you are.

The BlitzPigs, and our friends in the sim eagerly await the release.

S!

+1 EL.

Like your new avatar.:mrgreen:

[BadAim]

See, now you guys have done it! Ilya has run out of the building screaming and left Oleg to deal with us. I sure hope he doesn't get hit by a car or something.

[JAMF]

It was told already in the past: We have two exe files for 32 and 64 bit.

I know you have answered that question before, but that is not the answer to the question. I do try to be as detailed in my questions as I can. The other question is still open.

-Is the 32Bit exe programmed with LargeAddressAware, so even the 32Bit exe can use 3GB on the 32Bit Windows and 4GB on the 64Bit Windows7?

[BadAim]

I know you have answered that question before, but that is not the answer to the question. I do try to be as detailed in my questions as I can. The other question is still open.

-Is the 32Bit exe programmed with LargeAddressAware, so even the 32Bit exe can use 3GB on the 32Bit Windows and 4GB on the 64Bit Windows7?

Why the hell would you use the 32 bit exe if your running 64 bit windows?

has this forum gone completely insane?

[Oleg Maddox]

What if Lu's PC is the best one they have in the office?
There must be better ones? Sure, but maybe the have Quadras installed - great Gpu, but worthless for gaming.

And the fact they don't really have a business relation to either of the two Gpu manufactures makes it impossible for him to recommend one card over the other.
So no, you will not get the info you're craving for.

You are close to the true.

[addman]

Hey Oleg! While you're here, will there be a Luftwaffe trainer aircraft available at release? Cheers!

[Tempest123]

Or for my female fans:
http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3 Dzgy88KGDX-o&start1=0&video2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D saalGKY7ifU&start2=&authorName=Luthier

For sukhoi.ru:
http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3 Dzgy88KGDX-o&start1=0&video2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D k1-TrAvp_xs&start2=&authorName=Luthier

And for the Rise of Flight community:
http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3 Dzgy88KGDX-o&start1=0&video2=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D ZnHmskwqCCQ&start2=&authorName=Luthier

Finally the videos we've been waiting for, lol!

[Biggs]

Hey Oleg! While you're here, will there be a Luftwaffe trainer aircraft available at release? Cheers!

was the bf-108 not used as a trainer?

[addman]

was the bf-108 not used as a trainer?

I think so but will it be flyable at release?

[JAMF]

Why the hell would you use the 32 bit exe if your running 64 bit windows?

has this forum gone completely insane?Good question. Maybe because the 64Bit version might not be on the CD? That was the previous question, which nhas not been answered. Clear now?

It's not insane, just apparently beyond your grasp.

[Biggs]

I think so but will it be flyable at release?

good question.

[booterboy]

evening guys,
really disappointed to read some posters on here being really rude in their questions to the development team.
most of us want to see hd vids etc of CoD in action,be patient and have manners,we are very lucky to have a dev team who interact with their customers.
i for one would rather have oleg and the team finish their hard work without
having to deal with (some)impatient kids on this forum.
just wait another few weeks,it will be worth it.

[CharveL]

Oleg,

In the scripted campaign can you tell us if there will be carryover of things like damage, maybe even weathering, from one mission to the next where we are still with the same plane? What about kills and losses? If you lose 5 planes in your squadron will they still be gone in the next mission?

Thanks

[Triggaaar]

Could you please specify this a bit more. What is the maximum video memory which is still useful. I'm thinking of a 3Gb video memory card, but it could be wasted money, if you told us that more than 2 gb for example don't give any performance increase.I doubt anyone in the dev team has tried the game with 3Gb of video memory on a single card, so unlikely they can answer that.

[Oleg Maddox]

Constantly amazed at people's attitude that the perfect sim is "owed" to them. :rolleyes:

If Oleg and Luthier were not donating their time to give us updates and insight on the development process, you would simply either buy it and take what's in the box, or keep your money.



Well said.

Or like do amost all others: Put in advertizing everything that you'll never see in game... with cool words, cool renderings, and couple of screenshots corrected or redrawn sometime...

[sk065]

Well said.

Or like do amost all others: Put in advertizing everything that you'll never see in game... with cool words, cool renderings, and couple of screenshots corrected or redrawn sometime...


Marketing a product is essential.. If you dont market it how do you expect people to buy your game? Good faith? Perhaps from people who know yoyur previous work but not from the masses. Im afriad business doesnt work like that.

Good luck anyway

[Jaws2002]

evening guys,
really disappointed to read some posters on here being really rude in their questions to the development team.
most of us want to see hd vids etc of CoD in action,be patient and have manners,we are very lucky to have a dev team who interact with their customers.
i for one would rather have oleg and the team finish their hard work without
having to deal with (some)impatient kids on this forum.
just wait another few weeks,it will be worth it.


The poor moderation on this forum always struck me. How can you let this crap go on for years without puting this guys down for good?

I mean you have squeakers like Tree, that are braging on other forums about "being banned four times on banana forum", come back every time to do it allover again. And if you noticed, this idiots, without maners are the ones that take most of the attention. Oleg and Ilya have to come again and again to answer their crap.

Why!!! Why do we have to put up with this?
CAN'T THE MODS BAN THIS GUYS FOR GOOD? :evil:

[Oleg Maddox]

I know you have answered that question before, but that is not the answer to the question. I do try to be as detailed in my questions as I can. The other question is still open.

-Is the 32Bit exe programmed with LargeAddressAware, so even the 32Bit exe can use 3GB on the 32Bit Windows and 4GB on the 64Bit Windows7?

I would say you jsut one thing: doesn't matter 32 or 64 bit... but you need more than 4 to escape the one of the types of shuttering.
As Ilya already told - huge space with good resolution terraine need more memory both graphics card and PC itself.

PS. It is possible to make excellent detail of surface with close look and forget about large map. Or to make some flight sim that every 20 sec will upload new visbla far surface with uncceptable for flight sim pause (loading surface that isn't in memory. just in common words without any specific).

[Tree_UK]

The poor moderation on this forum always struck me. How can you let this crap go on for years without puting this guys down for good?

I mean you have squeakers like Tree, that are braging on other forums about "being banned four times on banana forum", come back every time to do it allover again. And if you noticed, this idiots, without maners are the ones that take most of the attention. Oleg and Ilya have to come again and again to answer their crap.

Why!!! Why do we have to put up with this?
CAN'T THE MODS BAN THIS GUYS FOR GOOD? :evil:

Come on, Ive not been disrespectful to Oleg or luthier, my DVD rack as every product Oleg has ever made, this is a forum for us to ask questions, and i have never bragged about being banned and for the record its 3 times.

[Oleg Maddox]

Marketing a product is essential.. If you dont market it how do you expect people to buy your game? Good faith? Perhaps from people who know yoyur previous work but not from the masses. Im afriad business doesnt work like that.

Good luck anyway

Marketing isn't my business now.
If I presonally would do it, then there will be other picture, like it was with Il-2.

Also, there is other ways of marketing in comparison to usual things.
Trust me I have really good experience with this.

[jpinard]

Oleg - Just wanted to say we all support you and want to see your studio thrive along with yourself. I do have a suggestion. Many, many, many, many people wanted a dynamic campaign that is reminiscent of these classic titles:

Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain (http://www.mobygames.com/game/their-finest-hour-the-battle-of-britain)

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/secret-weapons-of-the-luftwaffe)

B-17 Flying Fortress: the Mighty 8th (http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/b-17-flying-fortress-the-mighty-8th)

My suggestion is you make a committment to create a dynamic campaign (if it's possible) as a full priced add-on. If you state this you'll have people who are very happy... VERY HAPPY to pay an extra $50 just for that feature. If you knew you'd get extra revenue from a dynamic campaign alone, then hopefully you can make a committment that it will come out at some point. But please - don't offer it for free. If you can divert all your resources to it since it won't have to be piggy-backed with post-game support it should make it much easier on you all. You need the revenue and we want to support you.

[Tvrdi]

Oleg, 10 years passed after my first online dogfight in IL2....are you too excited because we will all clash online, again, in.....COD...? There will be always complains and suggestions but never forget ppl who do respect your work and your cooperation with community.....thank you again.
and maybe one interesting question.....how is engine overheating modelled? I suppose it is much better than in IL2 where it had some weak points.....

[sk065]

Marketing isn't my business now.
If I presonally would do it, then there will be other picture, like it was with Il-2.

Also, there is other ways of marketing in comparison to usual things.
Trust me I have really good experience with this.


Fair enough!

I look forward to seeing the final result and hope Ubi gives you the chance to continue your hard work.

Regards

[JAMF]

I would say you jsut one thing: doesn't matter 32 or 64 bit... but you need more than 4 to escape the one of the types of shuttering.
As Ilya already told - huge space with good resolution terraine need more memory both graphics card and PC itself.

PS. It is possible to make excellent detail of surface with close look and forget about large map. Or to make flight some that will every 20 sec will upload with visible uncceptable for flight sim pause the surface that isn't in memory (just in common words without any specific).

Thank you for the answer. That should be a clear statement for people still on a 32Bit OS and 4GB of RAM. The 64Bit exe is a necessity for smooth gameplay then.

I'll look forward to seeing 8GB of memory filling up.

[EDIT]P.S.: Sorry if questions like these will pass your desk, when the SimHQ interview questions are sent.

[kendo65]

was the bf-108 not used as a trainer?

This was covered a while back - the 108 isn't flyable, and apparently wasn't used as a training aircraft.

So, no, there is no Luftwaffe equivalent in game to the Tiger Moth.

[Aquarius]

Hello I have maybe a stupid question about impact of position of sun during attack... Please, does anybody know if is in CoD any difference like better chance to stay unseen with sun in 6 and surprise the enemy fighters/bombers?It was quite usual tactic, so I am curious about that...

I am not an IT or something like this, dont know anything about programming and this stuff, so have no idea if it is even possible to make it...

Cheers:)

PS:sry for my english

[Oleg Maddox]

Oleg, 10 years passed after my first online dogfight in IL2....are you too excited because we will all clash online, again, in.....COD...? There will be always complains and suggestions but never forget ppl who do respect your work and your cooperation with community.....thank you again.
and maybe one interesting question.....how is engine overheating modelled? I suppose it is much better than in IL2 where it had some weak points.....

Thank you.
Yes, much better in terms of precise.

[Oleg Maddox]

Oleg - Just wanted to say we all support you and want to see your studio thrive along with yourself. I do have a suggestion. Many, many, many, many people wanted a dynamic campaign that is reminiscent of these classic titles:

Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain (http://www.mobygames.com/game/their-finest-hour-the-battle-of-britain)

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/secret-weapons-of-the-luftwaffe)

B-17 Flying Fortress: the Mighty 8th (http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/b-17-flying-fortress-the-mighty-8th)

My suggestion is you make a committment to create a dynamic campaign (if it's possible) as a full priced add-on. If you state this you'll have people who are very happy... VERY HAPPY to pay an extra $50 just for that feature. If you knew you'd get extra revenue from a dynamic campaign alone, then hopefully you can make a committment that it will come out at some point. But please - don't offer it for free. If you can divert all your resources to it since it won't have to be piggy-backed with post-game support it should make it much easier on you all. You need the revenue and we want to support you.

One of the ways - there will be third party made dynamic campaigns like it was with Il-2.
And I personally dislike so-called dynamic campaigns that is very repeatable really...
The feartures of Ai and other features, included already in release allow for thirs party to make really serious work over dynamic campaigns engines.

[Gamekeeper]

This is one of the most informative threads I have seen on this board. Thanks Oleg and Luthier for spending part of your weekend answering questions very helpful indeed.

I am currently compiling an FAQ covering what has been said in this thread I hope it will provide an easy reference to all the details we have been given in these 34 pages.

Airwarfare FAQ: Game Features (http://airwarfare.com/sow/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=61:game-features&Itemid=41&layout=default)

[Ironman69]

Oleg, can you tell us more about how you coded joystick inputs for CoD? Do you still use the X, Y, Z axis? ie.. 10 20 30 40 50 ...100 ? Is this input customizable by the player?

[Aquarius]

This is one of the most informative threads I have seen on this board. Thanks Oleg and Luthier for spending part of your weekend answering questions very helpful indeed.

I am currently compiling an FAQ covering what has been said in this thread I hope it will provide an easy reference to all the details we have been given in these 34 pages.

Airwarfare FAQ: Game Features (http://airwarfare.com/sow/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=61:game-features&Itemid=41&layout=default)

Truth, how many other game developers are sitting in front of computer in saturday evening and discuss and answer questions to their community:)?...

Compilation of FAQ is a great idea - it would be nice to collect some recently told features from more than only this one thread. It could usefull especially for such a lazy smegs like me:)

[Gamekeeper]

lazy smegs like me:)
You sound amply qualified to help, anyone can register and help compile the FAQ through our forums

[Hecke]

This is one of the most informative threads I have seen on this board.



You know why this is one of the most informative?

Because some people here "dare" to ask questions to the devs about features and other stuff.

If there weren't all these people complaining about us asking questions, it would be a short thread with a load of interesting information in a sort of Q&A.

[Necrobaron]

There's bits and pieces. We made a decision about 18 months ago that we wouldn't be able to make it right, and we'd rather build good static campaigns instead. So it's been on a backburner for some time.

I'm the guy who wrote a bunch of giant 100-page design docs for the dynamic campaign, so it was a very hard decision for me personally.

There's probably at least a year of work left on it to make it great. We could have make something like an Il-2 level dynamic campaign in a few months, but I don't want to do that at all. I want it to be ground-breaking and worthy of the rest of the game.

Sounds good to me! It's encouraging to hear that you not only want to make a dynamic campaign generator but also want to make if far exceed what we've seen before. I put countless hours in various campaigns from the old series but there is always room for improvement. I think a robust, well-made dynamic campaign generator on par with, or exceeding, the quality of work put into IL2CoD will be a joy to experience.


http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd119/Feathered_IV/ProposedArt-WiekLuijken.jpg

Wiek Luijken is willing and able and happy to offer his services to Oleg.

That looks great! Just add some Spitfires (or make a separate RAF edition so consumers have a choice) and it'd be perfect.


Thank you Luther, for being real, honest, and open about the progress of the new sim.

It's these little chats you take time for that keep a lot of us on your and Oleg's side. You are not some monolithic software giant company shoving out new, flashy, yet shallow content just to sell box art. The way that you and Oleg share with us makes me, and I'm sure most vets of the sim, feel like we are actually part of this grand adventure, not just customers picking up a fast food lunch at the drive through window.

Carry on just as you are.

The BlitzPigs, and our friends in the sim eagerly await the release.

S!

+1

Succinctly and beautifully said!

[Sutts]

Oleg, Luthier,

Thanks for your feedback this week, to me it's worth more than the update itself. Your honesty and openness is really refreshing.

Shots look great. Love the matt finish on the Spitfire, very nice. Strafing effects look great too.

Hope the final tweaking goes well.

[nearmiss]

One of the ways - there will be third party made dynamic campaigns like it was with Il-2.
And I personally dislike so-called dynamic campaigns that is very repeatable really...
The feartures of Ai and other features, included already in release allow for thirs party to make really serious work over dynamic campaigns engines.

That is very exciting to read, Oleg.

The computer generated campaigns always drove me nuts. There were always problems, altitude of player too low, weather too bad for combat situation, timing was way off for aircraft contact, locations were repetitive. I can't recount the times I felt I was wasting my time.

It is great to read what you just said. We are going to have an FMB this game deserves.

We are going to have a smokin' good time.

THanks and many thanks for that.

[Necrobaron]

I'll agree that IL-2's dynamic campaign could be repetitive and a bit stale (which frankly is probably more realistic than one would think), but I personally never had any other problems with it. Regardless, to me, saying that having a new dynamic campaign in CoD is pointless because the old one was lacking is like saying Generic Game B shouldn't have improved graphics because the graphics in the previous Generic Game A were bad*. Errr...what?

*Again, not specifically in the case of IL-2, but just as a generic example

[swiss]

Marketing a product is essential.. If you dont market it how do you expect people to buy your game? Good faith? Perhaps from people who know yoyur previous work but not from the masses. Im afriad business doesnt work like that.

Good luck anyway

Oleg answered that already, as far as he is concerned.
What do think is Ubi's job in this venture?
Try to find the product manager in charge(at UBI!) and enlighten him with your knowledge.
Oh, dont forget to come back and report.

Btw: Would you mind telling me what you do for a living?


this is a forum for us to ask questions

Couldn't agree more!
Now it's your turn to try to listen, as this part doesn't work so well. ;)

[Tree_UK]

Oleg answered that already, as far as he is concerned.
What do think is Ubi's job in this venture?
Try to find the product manager in charge(at UBI!) and enlighten him with your knowledge.
Oh, dont forget to come back and report.

Btw: Would you mind telling me what you do for a living?




Couldn't agree more!
Now it's your turn to try to listen, as this part doesn't work so well. ;)

Im listening brother, im listening real hard, but im not hearing any answers to my question(s).:!:

[swiss]

Im listening brother, im listening real hard, but im not hearing any answers to my question(s).:!:

Try reading then. ;)

[SlipBall]

It's not rocket science to understand, that the best lies ahead. A long time out maybe 4 or 5 years and beyond before hardware can handle all that we will see and enjoy. Just be patient Tree, 5 years more, you could do that standing on your tree limbs.:-P



p.s. great up-date team

[Chivas]

Im listening brother, im listening real hard, but im not hearing any answers to my question(s).:!:

If you were reading and comprehending when the developers say they are still optimizing the sim, you would understand its impossible to say what a highend computer is capable of in COD until they finish optimizing.

The more important factor is that they have optimized enough that the average comsumer with the average system will be able to play COD with adjusted options.

[nearmiss]

Tanner you need to spend some time on this site just going through the threads. You'll find there is many times more information that has been shared on this site than the example you provided.

There are threads on this site with links to pages and pages of information.

Definitely if you had been following this website for the past year you'd know a great deal more.

Oleg and Luthier have been answering questions in this one thread for the past two days, and each week they answer questions and give interviews.

[kestrel79]

I can't wait for that game. I'm a huge Starwars nerd. But you can't compare that game to Cliff of Dover.

Bioware is HUGE, hundreds of employees, 150 million plus dollar budget for that game. Just a tad larger than Maddox Games.

[kimosabi]

BTW this is what a real Developer Update looks like:

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20110204

And how frequent are those updates? No way in hell that's a weekly update, more like monthly or less.

[luthier]

Hi luthier, one more try then I will give up, you have said that you cannot fly over towns/cities/airfields on your PC because of its limitations. Ok, fair enough, what I am asking is can you fly over those same places with a better PC than yours, (a high end PC if you like) without the slow down your current PC suffers. Forget showing me a video a simple yes or no answer will be fine. I really cant put it much more simple than that.

Let me also try to be extremely clear.

1. You can fly over cities on my PCs, just not at the highest settings, or at a low resolution with no FSAA. Stutters are only apparent at low altitude. Stutters mean short dips in FPS every few seconds by about 25%.

2. Whether the world's best PC will or will not stutter over cities depends on resolution and FSAA. If you run the game on three monitors at 5760 x 1080 with 8xFSAA, you will experience stutters while flying over London at altitudes under 200 meters or so.

3. The Buildings video option limits the number of buildings on the screen and offers fluid performance while still offering a picture superior to that of Il-2.

4. FPS is highly situation-dependent. We give you a huge sandbox to play with. So I cannot possibly make any blanket statements about performance on any hardware because we give you the tools to bring the game to a screeching halt.
Any game on the market can be made to run at 0 FPS with enough action on the screen. It's just most other developers ration the action very carefully and balance the game to make sure your FPS does not dip below a set minimum. We do that with our stock campaign and online missions but we do not limit what you can do with the game by yourself. Anyone can crank up the resolution and create a large enough low-level dogfight in Cliffs of Dover that will run at 0 FPS and possibly even crash the game.

5. To sum up: your FPS depends on factors beyond your hardware. It also depends on your resolution, on your FSAA setting, and on the amount of action on the screen.

This is the last I will ever address the topic.

The 64 bit question is the following.

Will you ship a 64 bit .exe on release which allows CoD to use more Ram than with 32 bit.

I'm actually not sure, I'll have to ask Monday. CoD usually sits at around 1.8 Gigs in the memory. I don't think I've ever seen it go anywhere near 3 gigs.

So is that likely to happen at some stage (ignore if already answered, I haven't finished reading this thread).

Our future is highly dependent on the success of CoD. If everything goes well, then yes, dynamic campaign and dynamic weather are items 1 and 2 on the list.

Mr Luthier, as you said: "We need to write a whole different chunk of code for that kind of input to be recognized properly.", are you planing to do it in the future, maybe a year or 2 from now? Or is it a dead question?

It's not a big deal to code it in, it's just the guy who could do it is buried neck-deep in other stuff. I need to play around with the Warthog some more myself before we begin to think about actions.

Hey Oleg! While you're here, will there be a Luftwaffe trainer aircraft available at release? Cheers!

No. Nor is one planned for any foreseeable future.

Hello I have maybe a stupid question about impact of position of sun during attack... Please, does anybody know if is in CoD any difference like better chance to stay unseen with sun in 6 and surprise the enemy fighters/bombers?It was quite usual tactic, so I am curious about that...

It depends on AI skill level. AI at any level checks the sky in segments, i.e scans the airspace. They also always take clouds and sun into the account.
Lower-level AI pilots have some periods when they don't scan at all. They scan a smaller overall area of the airspace. They focus on each segment longer - i.e. if he looks at his 8 o'clock you can attack him head-on and he won't spot you. Sun blots out a larger portion of the sky for them.
However the sun is not a 100% blind zone and there is a chance even the dumbest idiot will see you coming out of the sun, chances increasing the closer you are to his 12 o'clock high.

In the end, since you're rarely aware of your opponent's skill level, this results in a very realistic picture. You're never sure whether he breaks and turns into you from 3 miles away, or if you can keep sneaking up on him for a no-deflection shot at 50 yards. Very frustrating when you end up holding your fire just a second too long, and he spots you and breaks away after sitting dead square in your sights.

Oleg, can you tell us more about how you coded joystick inputs for CoD? Do you still use the X, Y, Z axis? ie.. 10 20 30 40 50 ...100 ? Is this input customizable by the player?

No, it's much more advanced. We have different customization options for different axes. For example you can not only adjust the curves but also set your idle, 100% and WEP positions for the throttle axis. I'm pretty sure this could be seen in some Igromir videos.

[Feathered_IV]

Thanks for the update Luthier. Nice to see the "human" element in the vid. Hopefully we'll all develop a similar cackle soon.

By the way, do you know if Oleg got the email I sent regarding this?:

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd119/Feathered_IV/ProposedArt-WiekLuijken.jpg

Wiek Luijken is willing and able and happy to offer his services to Oleg.

Hi again Luthier. I wonder if you'd seen this one earlier. Wiek Luijken is an aviation artist and fan of the Il-2 series. He would be happy to work with you. ;)

[furbs]

Thanks Luthier, very interesting hearing about the AI...sounds very good,

I have a couple more questions about the AI if you dont mind...

Do you know how the AI reacts to damage to their airplane,will they try and break off and run for home?

And does the AI try and use real world tactics, Boom and zoom, attack from the sun, neg G dives, hit and run(one pass and away, not staying to fight to the death like IL2) and such?

How does the AI suffer from engine overheat, fly untrimed, suffer from high G and blackouts?

Would also be interesting to know if the AI will know if not to attack when at a disadvantage...low and slow

I know there are limits to what the AI can do and im not saying all this should be possible...just wondering how far COD has taken the AI.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to us Sim nuts. :)


PS. any chance of seeing a nice weathered 109? :)

[Wutz]

Thank you for the info luthier very interesting!
Shame that the Bf 108 is out of the question of becoming flyable.
But then I guess one can never say never?

[Sutts]

Let me also try to be extremely clear.

1. You can fly over cities on my PCs, just not at the highest settings, or at a low resolution with no FSAA. Stutters are only apparent at low altitude. Stutters mean short dips in FPS every few seconds by about 25%.

2. Whether the world's best PC will or will not stutter over cities depends on resolution and FSAA. If you run the game on three monitors at 5760 x 1080 with 8xFSAA, you will experience stutters while flying over London at altitudes under 200 meters or so.

3. The Buildings video option limits the number of buildings on the screen and offers fluid performance while still offering a picture superior to that of Il-2.

4. FPS is highly situation-dependent. We give you a huge sandbox to play with. So I cannot possibly make any blanket statements about performance on any hardware because we give you the tools to bring the game to a screeching halt.
Any game on the market can be made to run at 0 FPS with enough action on the screen. It's just most other developers ration the action very carefully and balance the game to make sure your FPS does not dip below a set minimum. We do that with our stock campaign and online missions but we do not limit what you can do with the game by yourself. Anyone can crank up the resolution and create a large enough low-level dogfight in Cliffs of Dover that will run at 0 FPS and possibly even crash the game.

5. To sum up: your FPS depends on factors beyond your hardware. It also depends on your resolution, on your FSAA setting, and on the amount of action on the screen.

This is the last I will ever address the topic.



I'm actually not sure, I'll have to ask Monday. CoD usually sits at around 1.8 Gigs in the memory. I don't think I've ever seen it go anywhere near 3 gigs.



Our future is highly dependent on the success of CoD. If everything goes well, then yes, dynamic campaign and dynamic weather are items 1 and 2 on the list.



It's not a big deal to code it in, it's just the guy who could do it is buried neck-deep in other stuff. I need to play around with the Warthog some more myself before we begin to think about actions.



No. Nor is one planned for any foreseeable future.



It depends on AI skill level. AI at any level checks the sky in segments, i.e scans the airspace. They also always take clouds and sun into the account.
Lower-level AI pilots have some periods when they don't scan at all. They scan a smaller overall area of the airspace. They focus on each segment longer - i.e. if he looks at his 8 o'clock you can attack him head-on and he won't spot you. Sun blots out a larger portion of the sky for them.
However the sun is not a 100% blind zone and there is a chance even the dumbest idiot will see you coming out of the sun, chances increasing the closer you are to his 12 o'clock high.

In the end, since you're rarely aware of your opponent's skill level, this results in a very realistic picture. You're never sure whether he breaks and turns into you from 3 miles away, or if you can keep sneaking up on him for a no-deflection shot at 50 yards. Very frustrating when you end up holding your fire just a second too long, and he spots you and breaks away after sitting dead square in your sights.



No, it's much more advanced. We have different customization options for different axes. For example you can not only adjust the curves but also set your idle, 100% and WEP positions for the throttle axis. I'm pretty sure this could be seen in some Igromir videos.



Wow Luthier, some seriously advanced AI going on there. I like it.:grin:

[Ctrl E]

it looks awesome luthier. very, very exciting.

can i be so bold as to ask about your korean war project. i'm guessing it's on the backburner somewhat?

is it still a chance to see the light of day?

cheers.

[Sutts]

"Our future is highly dependent on the success of CoD"


I think this is a key point that everyone should take note of. Those of you who say you are holding off because this or that feature isn't making the initial release - please think again. These guys have been busting a gut to bring us the greatest simulator of all time. The least we can do is support them when the critical time comes. Without our support there will be no further improvements and the series we've all come to take for granted will die. A publisher needs to see sales. No sales, no future investement.

Think about it.

[Foo'bar]

Thank you for the info luthier very interesting!
Shame that the Bf 108 is out of the question of becoming flyable.
But then I guess one can never say never?

Since when a 108 is a trainer? And where did luthier say that the 108 won't gonna be flyable in any time?

[Insuber]

Hi Luthier,

How are the Flight Models done? Parametric, fluidodynamic as in X-Plane, mixed ? Are they different from Il-2 ones, or just an evolution of them?

Cheers,
6S.Insuber

[Abbeville-Boy]

Hi again Luthier. I wonder if you'd seen this one earlier. Wiek Luijken is an aviation artist and fan of the Il-2 series. He would be happy to work with you. ;)

this is the publishers department now i think

[major_setback]

Thanks for the info. It is good to know we have full control of the visuals. For looking at recorded video I like to turn graphics to max and turn down the speed of playback.
It is especially good to be able to do this for recording purposes.

[Wutz]

Since when a 108 is a trainer? And where did luthier say that the 108 won't gonna be flyable in any time?
Ok I guess I mixed up the plane types there, but a German trainer would be nice in time, as British planes where not really used on the German side in great numbers, unless they where "souveniers" picked up along the way. ;)

[Tree_UK]

Let me also try to be extremely clear.

1. You can fly over cities on my PCs, just not at the highest settings, or at a low resolution with no FSAA. Stutters are only apparent at low altitude. Stutters mean short dips in FPS every few seconds by about 25%.

2. Whether the world's best PC will or will not stutter over cities depends on resolution and FSAA. If you run the game on three monitors at 5760 x 1080 with 8xFSAA, you will experience stutters while flying over London at altitudes under 200 meters or so.

3. The Buildings video option limits the number of buildings on the screen and offers fluid performance while still offering a picture superior to that of Il-2.

4. FPS is highly situation-dependent. We give you a huge sandbox to play with. So I cannot possibly make any blanket statements about performance on any hardware because we give you the tools to bring the game to a screeching halt.
Any game on the market can be made to run at 0 FPS with enough action on the screen. It's just most other developers ration the action very carefully and balance the game to make sure your FPS does not dip below a set minimum. We do that with our stock campaign and online missions but we do not limit what you can do with the game by yourself. Anyone can crank up the resolution and create a large enough low-level dogfight in Cliffs of Dover that will run at 0 FPS and possibly even crash the game.

5. To sum up: your FPS depends on factors beyond your hardware. It also depends on your resolution, on your FSAA setting, and on the amount of action on the screen.

This is the last I will ever address the topic.

.



Thank you Luthier, that information is very useful, just one more question if I may, are there any plans to weather the 109 before release?

Many Thanks

[Peffi]

Hi again Luthier. I wonder if you'd seen this one earlier. Wiek Luijken is an aviation artist and fan of the Il-2 series. He would be happy to work with you. ;)

This cover has been showed many times now and no answer. You will not get one. UBISOFT decides on the cover and it seems to me it has already been decided. The cover is not nice. It doesn't portray the Battle of Britain, and what is that long hair doing on it?

[Hecke]

CoD usually sits at around 1.8 Gigs in the memory. I don't think I've ever seen it go anywhere near 3 gigs.



but you need more than 4 [GB] to escape the one of the types of shuttering.
As Ilya already told - huge space with good resolution terraine need more memory both graphics card and PC itself.


So why do we need more than 4 GB then?

[Sven]

So why do we need more than 4 GB then?

Because you need 1 for your OS and maximum 3GB for CoD, it's just like they said Hecke, read better.

[kendo65]

"Our future is highly dependent on the success of CoD"

I think this is a key point that everyone should take note of. Those of you who say you are holding off because this or that feature isn't making the initial release - please think again. These guys have been busting a gut to bring us the greatest simulator of all time. The least we can do is support them when the critical time comes. Without our support there will be no further improvements and the series we've all come to take for granted will die. A publisher needs to see sales. No sales, no future investement.

Think about it.

Agree completely.


Thanks again Luthier for the info.

The AI sounds fantastic - just what a lot of us have been hoping for. It should give a real edge to the offline combat - the uncertainty as you close on an enemy about whether / when they will spot you and react. Excellent. :)

[alexei1789]

Hi Luthier and Oleg,

thanks so much for still answering our question !
you say engine overheat realism is improved compared with il2...
What about cooling ? when air-cooled engine is at idle in a long descend, it stresses the engine (fast external cooling and slow in the center). Is this modeled in the sim ?
just wondering, and already happy to receive the sim as is :)

A.

[Hecke]

Because you need 1 for your OS and maximum 3GB for CoD, it's just like they said Hecke, read better.

You're right thx for the help.

If you have a 2 GB GFX card + 1 GB OS you then should have 6 GB Ram, right?

[JVM]

Since when a 108 is a trainer? And where did luthier say that the 108 won't gonna be flyable in any time?

Damned! You grilled me, Foo'bar! :-)

[Wutz]

This cover has been showed many times now and no answer. You will not get one. UBISOFT decides on the cover and it seems to me it has already been decided. The cover is not nice. It doesn't portray the Battle of Britain, and what is that long hair doing on it?

Not too familiar with how old photos look like?
I am certain there are more than plenty that like Feathered_IV interpretation very much! I do as it is not the woren out stereo type so often dished out.

[luthier]

Hi again Luthier. I wonder if you'd seen this one earlier. Wiek Luijken is an aviation artist and fan of the Il-2 series. He would be happy to work with you. ;)

Like the others have said, we don't decide on the box art, the publisher does.

We could certainly benefit from some top-notch 2D art both in the game and in our marketing - promotional materials, but it's way too late at this point to do anything.

Do you know how the AI reacts to damage to their airplane,will they try and break off and run for home?

Yes. Moreover, it reacts to damage and especially losses to other planes, and may decide to run for home even if his plane is intact. Whole formations of newbies may scatter and run if you shoot down their leader etc.

And does the AI try and use real world tactics, Boom and zoom, attack from the sun, neg G dives, hit and run(one pass and away, not staying to fight to the death like IL2) and such?

Not staying to fight till death was one of the most important requirements for me for the AI. They do use real-world tactics more than in Il-2. You'll see them working in group a lot more for instance.

How does the AI suffer from engine overheat, fly untrimed, suffer from high G and blackouts?

AI engine model is greatly simplified compared to that of the player plane, but we do try to make sure it doesn't give them an advantage.
You can study this in detail when flying the real sim. Autopilot is very verbose, you can see exactly what levers they move etc.

Would also be interesting to know if the AI will know if not to attack when at a disadvantage...low and slow

Well they try to extend away and take it from there, but generally even most humans would be doomed if caught in a situation like that.

can i be so bold as to ask about your korean war project. i'm guessing it's on the backburner somewhat?

Yes. It's not looking very hopeful for the next immediate sequel either.

How are the Flight Models done? Parametric, fluidodynamic as in X-Plane, mixed ? Are they different from Il-2 ones, or just an evolution of them?

We did a huge technical interview for a print magazine, where our FM programmer wrote like two pages of stuff on it. I'll see if we can publish it here, because that would be a much, much better answer than anything I can type up.

What about cooling ? when air-cooled engine is at idle in a long descend, it stresses the engine (fast external cooling and slow in the center). Is this modeled in the sim ?

Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.

[Hecke]

Luthier,

you said that wind is part of weather and the new weather won't make it to the initial release.

Will wind socks not be present and working then because the new weather doesn't make it into release?

[luthier]

Luthier,

you said that wind is part of weather and the new weather won't make it to the initial release.

Will wind socks not be present and working then because the new weather doesn't make it into release?

We have some kind of a working wind that doesn't offer a lot of fidelity. It works perfectly fine and we use it in every stock mission. You assign compass direction and strength to it, and it blows across the entire map.

It affects wind socks, smoke plumes, etc.

[Dano]

Luthier, the AI, it sounds awesome, thank you and Oleg both for the discussion :)

For those concerned with the cover, this post on the IL2 Sturmovik facebook page may give you hope:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/il2sturmovik

While we haven't revealed the final box art for IL2: COD yet, our community has started brainstorming on it already. How creative can it get? Well, check it out! http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8071032709/m/2081010709

[Sutts]

So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.


I'm so happy about this. Thanks Luthier.

Would love to see that article too.:grin:

[Sven]

We did a huge technical interview for a print magazine, where our FM programmer wrote like two pages of stuff on it. I'll see if we can publish it here, because that would be a much, much better answer than anything I can type up.



Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.


Wow, that's some highly interesting stuff we are about to get in our hands! Also looking forward to the article written by your FM programmers:)

[Hecke]

We have some kind of a working wind that doesn't offer a lot of fidelity. It works perfectly fine and we use it in every stock mission. You assign compass direction and strength to it, and it blows across the entire map.

It affects wind socks, smoke plumes, etc.


Thx for answer. Does the direction and strenght change or is it the same for the whole mission?

[T}{OR]

I would like to know as well weather does the wind change direction or does it stay fixed during the whole mission. Since dynamic weather is out for the release - do clouds move at all or are they static as in IL2?

Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.

Music to my ears. :cool:

[kirq]

I know how You react on this subject Luthier, but please close Your eyes, count to 10 and tell us something more about tracers (it's my fetish ;) ). We've already seen one type, yellow smokeless ones. What other types do we have in the game, how they look, do they ricochete? Which one generate smoke trails and are there any conditions (weather, altitude) which makes smoke to appear?

I would be extremely happy to see before a release a short video presentation (2-3mins) covering only tracers.

[alexei1789]

Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.[/QUOTE]

Oooooooh, that sounds so good to my ears.

Thank you again !!!!
A.

[furbs]

Like the others have said, we don't decide on the box art, the publisher does.

We could certainly benefit from some top-notch 2D art both in the game and in our marketing - promotional materials, but it's way too late at this point to do anything.



Yes. Moreover, it reacts to damage and especially losses to other planes, and may decide to run for home even if his plane is intact. Whole formations of newbies may scatter and run if you shoot down their leader etc.



Not staying to fight till death was one of the most important requirements for me for the AI. They do use real-world tactics more than in Il-2. You'll see them working in group a lot more for instance.



AI engine model is greatly simplified compared to that of the player plane, but we do try to make sure it doesn't give them an advantage.
You can study this in detail when flying the real sim. Autopilot is very verbose, you can see exactly what levers they move etc.



Well they try to extend away and take it from there, but generally even most humans would be doomed if caught in a situation like that.



Yes. It's not looking very hopeful for the next immediate sequel either.



We did a huge technical interview for a print magazine, where our FM programmer wrote like two pages of stuff on it. I'll see if we can publish it here, because that would be a much, much better answer than anything I can type up.



Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.

Luthier, the AI sounds better than i could of hoped for! i know AI is one of the hardest things to do well and it can never be perfect.

Thanks.

[furbs]

Just thought of one more question about the AI

The AI in IL2 had a major problem...deflection shooting!!

i think you know what i mean :)...have the team managed to address this tricky problem?

Cheers.

[philip.ed]

With smoke, Luthier, will we see it change form when a plane flys through it?
I've posted examples of this before, but I can't for the life of me remember the correct term for this. I think it might be called a smoke vortex.

[KG26_Alpha]

Ok this is page 40.

You need to go back and read this thread as you are asking the same questions over and over.

And those posting OT garbage please delete accordingly yourselves.

Thanks.

[luthier]

Thx for answer. Does the direction and strenght change or is it the same for the whole mission?

Direction doesn't, strength fluctuates a bit I believe.

I would like to know as well weather does the wind change direction or does it stay fixed during the whole mission. Since dynamic weather is out for the release - do clouds move at all or are they static as in IL2?

The clouds move with the wind. They remain in place if there's no wind but they still kind of change shape a little bit. The puffs they're made out of rotate and shift.

We've already seen one type, yellow smokeless ones. What other types do we have in the game, how they look, do they ricochete? Which one generate smoke trails and are there any conditions (weather, altitude) which makes smoke to appear?

We've shown smoke tracers too.

Each gun has a selection of ammunition types you can put in the ammo belt. Each ammunition type has various associated effects in addition to its own ballistics. There are tracer rounds, smoke rounds, etc. Tracers are of different colors, and some have associated smoke. I don't believe they're dependent on weather.

The AI in IL2 had a major problem...deflection shooting!!

i think you know what i mean :)...have the team managed to address this tricky problem?

Some AI are better than IL-2 and they'll snipe you with impossible snap shots. You'll scream at our AI guy until you get online and have a good human do the same.

Bad AI is even worse at shooting than IL-2. We've watched tons of gun camera footage - not the dramatic close-up great-shot footage that goes around everywhere, but lots and lots of the other stuff. Real pilots fired God knows where. So do our rookies. They spray and pray, forget about deflection altogether or miscalculate it grossly etc.
I.e do about what I do.

With smoke, Luthier, will we see it change form when a plane flys through it?
I've posted examples of this before, but I can't for the life of me remember the correct term for this. I think it might be called a smoke vortex.

No, there's no visible wake vortex. We didn't even plan it as part of the complex weather module. Too complex, smoke effects would kill everything regardless of whether anyone flies through them.

[furbs]

Thanks...the deflection shot im talking about is when you have a AI on your six at about 200yds...all you have to do is pull a slight turn and the AIs shooting will pass behide you safely and they wont correct for lead....will they now adjust for lead if you keep your slight turn?

BTW these Q and A are worth much more than about 3 months of update screens and get me much more excited about the sim (to me anyway). Bravo Luthier!! :)

thanks.

[JAMF]

I'm actually not sure, I'll have to ask Monday. CoD usually sits at around 1.8 Gigs in the memory. I don't think I've ever seen it go anywhere near 3 gigs.
Hi Luthier,

If you are running the 32Bit exe on your system with your Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, this could be limited to a maximum of 2GB, if it's not LargeAddressAware.

Only if the 32Bit exe is programmed with the LargeAddressAware flag, then it could go up to 4GB (or max. available on 4GB of RAM). This was one part of my "64Bit" question. I hope you will have a chance to ask someone if the LAA-flag is used. :-) (...and in the future run a LAA modified 32Bit exe and see the memory go over 2GB) :cool:

[Tvrdi]

@Luthier, one thing bothers me a bit....as you said complex weather will not make it into initial release...but we all know how much of an impact weather had on planes "behaviour". there will be some kind of a weather and impact on planes in initial release?

[whatnot]

Amazing update thread, I'm mesmerized! Like a cap would have been blown off the info tube and we'r getting all the questions answered we've speculated about for years!

THANK YOU!

Some whoever whining about what a proper development update is should have his head examined. I've never seen a dialogue and honesty of this depth from a game developer.

You've more or less answered all the questions I have had bouncing in my head, but can you tell me which magazine that FM article was written into? I'll do some digging to see if I would be able to find something about it while waiting for a possible 'ok' on publishing it here.

The engine model complexity sounds fantastic!

[Skoshi Tiger]

Not good. We just got the Warthog this week, and I was very disappointed in how most of the buttons worked. I played around with the TM software and couldn't figure it out at all. The push-up-for-constant-input button that's also a push-down-for-no-input-at-all doesn't work with the game at all. We need to write a whole different chunk of code for that kind of input to be recognized properly.


Thanks for the heads up. I will live in hope for a possible update some time in the future.

Still, that gives me a month to sruce up my BU0836 based trim and switch controls.

All the best and I hope the next month and a bit goes well for you and the whole development team.

Cheers!

[philip.ed]

OK, Cheer Luthier. :grin:

[Abbeville-Boy]

@Luthier, one thing bothers me a bit....as you said complex weather will not make it into initial release...but we all know how much of an impact weather had on planes "behaviour". there will be some kind of a weather and impact on planes in initial release?

he answered all ready 3 post
above yours :confused:
and weather will ship with game
use at own risk :grin:

[addman]

Wow! Thanks for all the interesting answers luthier. It's like, first we got the bad news and then we got the good news and boy are these news good!:grin: I prefer this way of approach, now I feel like a kid the night before christmas again.

[kendo65]

...
Yes. Moreover, it reacts to damage and especially losses to other planes, and may decide to run for home even if his plane is intact. Whole formations of newbies may scatter and run if you shoot down their leader etc.

Not staying to fight till death was one of the most important requirements for me for the AI. They do use real-world tactics more than in Il-2. You'll see them working in group a lot more for instance.


Absolutely awesome! :)

As others have commented - getting all this information is worth more than the screenshots. Can almost hear the collective sigh of relief after some of the recent disappointing news.

One further question on AI - one of my big annoyances in il2 was AI wingmen suddenly breaking formation in a headlong charge at the enemy as soon as they come into sight. Is it possible in COD to have them wait orders before breaking formation?



Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.

:)

[klem]

...........
Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.

Luthier, have you seen the new A2A Simulations Spitfire? It's for FSX so I don't think you'll mind me mentioning it here?

It has the full start up procedure including mixture, prop, loading start cartridges, Air tank, oxygen management, etc and a real need to manage rpm, boost and radiator to avoid engine overheat/coolant loss and wear.

Does the CoD Spitfire go to anywhere near that level? (and if so it can presumably be dumbed down if not wanted).

If the engine management is that critical it is going to make air combat a whole new ball-game (and presumably for all the other aircraft).

[kalimba]

Luthier, have you seen the new A2A Simulations Spitfire? It's for FSX so I don't think you'll mind me mentioning it here?

It has the full start up procedure including mixture, prop, loading start cartridges, Air tank, oxygen management, etc and a real need to manage rpm, boost and radiator to avoid engine overheat/coolant loss and wear.

Does the CoD Spitfire go to anywhere near that level? (and if so it can presumably be dumbed down if not wanted).

If the engine management is that critical it is going to make air combat a whole new ball-game (and presumably for all the other aircraft).

Cool...Can you fire different kind of ammo with it ?

Thanks ! :grin:

[House M.D.]

Bets update so far!
Keep it coming Ilya!

[luthier]

Luthier, have you seen the new A2A Simulations Spitfire? It's for FSX so I don't think you'll mind me mentioning it here?

It has the full start up procedure including mixture, prop, loading start cartridges, Air tank, oxygen management, etc and a real need to manage rpm, boost and radiator to avoid engine overheat/coolant loss and wear.

Does the CoD Spitfire go to anywhere near that level? (and if so it can presumably be dumbed down if not wanted).

We always held the opinion that complex start-up procedures are a waste of our time.

Everyone else does them as gimmicks. What you see is just a simple sequence of "press button A to press button B to press button C to press button D to enable pressing Start Engine." They don't model the individual systems involved. Neither do we, and we don't want to pretend that we do. We don't do gimmicks.

All the hotspots in our cockpit work. All the controls are animated. You can set fuel cock levers and work the priming pump and flick the magnetos and all. Do that if you like, or don't. We feel that most people will only try that once, if at all.

The systems we do model are crucial however. Watching the gauges and controlling mixture, prop pitch and radiator is essential. Our office is obviously filled with Il-2 online veterans, and for a while we could only play online with Complex Engine Management disabled completely. We could barely fly the Spitfire, and the 109 not at all. We fly with CEM on now, but we still to this day fly with Overheating disabled because damn it is hard!

[luthier]

Also, will you please stop asking about weathering on the 109? It's always been there. I just like them new and shiny.

[|ZUTI|]

Mr. luthier, Oleg.

I have a question regarding third party stuff. Maps in particular. In the past, when these Friday updates started to be a regular thing Oleg mentioned that you guys will allow smaller 3rd party maps to be loaded in the game. But that this will be available after the initial release (not that long after that) and it is still undecided about the size of these maps.

Anything new about this? Still on your road map? Because, looking at the terrain, well, I can only imagine what beautiful maps one could create.

Thanks and good luck.

[PilotError]

Thanks for the update.:)

And a huge thanks for all these answers you are giving us, Oleg and Luthier.:grin::grin::grin:

It has been a very interesting weekend.:cool:

Of course, you are just making it all the harder for us to wait untill release day.:grin:

[Hecke]

the wind won't change the direction? hm

So the windsocks will only go up and down and we won't have to wait until the wind is in the right direction on start ups. Was actually looking forward to that.

I'm hoping to see that feature some time after release.

P.S This is definately the perfect dev update. Thank you for your effort.

[major_setback]

All the hotspots in our cockpit work. All the controls are animated. You can set fuel cock levers and work the priming pump and flick the magnetos and all. Do that if you like, or don't. We feel that most people will only try that once, if at all.

...

I will certainly use it. Not all the time, just the same way as I didn't like to fly in MSFS all the time. But sometimes you don't want to fight, you just want to fly. If that can becomes as realistic as possible then it is a totally different game, and a different type of immersion. I like both these games. I think quite a few of us feel the same.

This will draw MSFS users to the game, and possibly save me from using MSFS again.

Question: Are the AI now 'blind' when they are in/behind a cloud? (I know it was planned, but I would be interested to know if it will make the initial release).

[NSU]

oh i love it, we can assign the callsignal :)
a good point for the user missions

[Trumper]

All the hotspots in our cockpit work. All the controls are animated. You can set fuel cock levers and work the priming pump and flick the magnetos and all. Do that if you like, or don't. We feel that most people will only try that once, if at all.



:) Don't underestimate that.Alot of people will like to try that .If it is a good enough sim combat won't always have to be flown,it is quite nice doing a leisurely start up and low level fun /navigating for the hell of it flying.
May i enquire again on the accuracy of the synthetic sound samples ,will the engines sound like those they represent. :)
Thanks

[furbs]

Also, will you please stop asking about weathering on the 109? It's always been there. I just like them new and shiny.

Beautiful :)...no...wait...just looked at the options for the look of the 109 in the menu...fantastic!!

[furbs]

We always held the opinion that complex start-up procedures are a waste of our time.

Everyone else does them as gimmicks. What you see is just a simple sequence of "press button A to press button B to press button C to press button D to enable pressing Start Engine." They don't model the individual systems involved. Neither do we, and we don't want to pretend that we do. We don't do gimmicks.

All the hotspots in our cockpit work. All the controls are animated. You can set fuel cock levers and work the priming pump and flick the magnetos and all. Do that if you like, or don't. We feel that most people will only try that once, if at all.



Agreed here...think i heard Oleg once said it may happen from 3rd party...perfect for the people who want it.

[Richie]

Also, will you please stop asking about weathering on the 109? It's always been there. I just like them new and shiny.

Very good..I hope you like allied planes. I'll be looking for that shiny Spitfire. :)

[Biggs]

Also, will you please stop asking about weathering on the 109? It's always been there. I just like them new and shiny.

Luthier,

Id like to ask whether weather will further weather weathering?


:-P

[t4trouble]

As soon this game is out im getting it no question asked, this game is the future.
The way we have il2 maxed out im sure they'l have problem making it look,feel alot better than we can ever imagine.To those that say there's jaged edges in the pictures c'mon think about it this is 2011,same peeps about the tracers c'mon, im pretty sure the can make'm alot better than il2

Good luck Oleg and co with your game.

Ps:I loved to be able to get collector's Edition

[Royraiden]

We always held the opinion that complex start-up procedures are a waste of our time.

Everyone else does them as gimmicks. What you see is just a simple sequence of "press button A to press button B to press button C to press button D to enable pressing Start Engine." They don't model the individual systems involved. Neither do we, and we don't want to pretend that we do. We don't do gimmicks.

All the hotspots in our cockpit work. All the controls are animated. You can set fuel cock levers and work the priming pump and flick the magnetos and all. Do that if you like, or don't. We feel that most people will only try that once, if at all.

The systems we do model are crucial however. Watching the gauges and controlling mixture, prop pitch and radiator is essential. Our office is obviously filled with Il-2 online veterans, and for a while we could only play online with Complex Engine Management disabled completely. We could barely fly the Spitfire, and the 109 not at all. We fly with CEM on now, but we still to this day fly with Overheating disabled because damn it is hard!

I would definitely use it as much as I can.Thanks for adding the option for those of us who are interested in it.This is the most informative thread so far thanks a lot Ilya for answering our questions.

[Mat72]

Hi Oleg & Ilya,

Thanks for your time over the last few days on the forum. Just a quick question regarding the 109 screenshots: Will kills be automatically recorded on the rudders or will there be an option to do so without resorting to skinning?
Thanks.

[David603]

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/4379/109weathered.jpg (http://img14.imageshack.us/i/109weathered.jpg/)

The weathering looks amazing, subtle and very effective, and this picture is seriously tempting me to reconsider choosing mainly to fly the Spitfire :)

I notice the option of kill markings, is this applicable to other aircraft or just the 109?

Also, do these markings track how many kills you get in campaign mode?

[Stiboo]

Thanks again Ilya for all your answers

i'm really looking forward to mission designing and testing all the a.i. options, in IL2 the only thing you could do really was play with the fuel levels to get 'to the death' dogfights to stop and fighters to break off.

I can't remember what has been said in the past regarding skins...can we tinker with weathering layers or is it just the base colours? ( i'm sure we'll get into the files one way or another anyway !!)

Also do unit unit emblems/nose art weather as well with the slider?

We have not had much more info on what triggers we'll have in the FMB?


ps - looks like GAME UK computer store is getting ready to sell COD download version at least -
http://www.game.co.uk/search.aspx?&s=IL2+Sturmovik%3a+Cliffs+of+Dover+

I've not checked Amazon or Steam for a few hours...!

[jameson]

IIRC that red stripe on the nose of the 109 was only ever applied briefly to a single 109, by the local political officer because the pilot's wife was Jewish. The rest of the staffel weren't amused and removed the swastica from their aircraft in protest. As it was so rare and used for such a short time perhaps this should be removed from the game as a colour scheme?
Otherwise it's looking great!

[HFC_Dolphin]

Assigning callsigns...you guys do understand what this means, right?

Thank God Oleg always listens to good proposals and we'll finally be able to have AI's with names, i.e. AI enemies that worths fighting them and see their names in the mission stats!

Hurah, this and only this feature will give a huge plus in offline flying!!!

Thank you Oleg and Ilya!!!

[HFC_Dolphin]

A quick question to Ilya or Oleg:
If someone gets a high end pc now, I guess that he'll be able to play the game in maximum settings.
The question is: do you have near future plans (meaning within the next 3 years) of adding features that will need to upgrade our systems?
If we buy a high end pc now, should we be worried that in the next 3 years we'll need to spend more money for upgrade because X-feature needs more power or something else?

Please let us know of this, because actually this is something that many-many people are waiting to know so they can upgrade their systems accordingly.

Thank you,

[Defender]

A quick question to Ilya or Oleg:
If someone gets a high end pc now, I guess that he'll be able to play the game in maximum settings.
The question is: do you have near future plans (meaning within the next 3 years) of adding features that will need to upgrade our systems?
If we buy a high end pc now, should we be worried that in the next 3 years we'll need to spend more money for upgrade because X-feature needs more power or something else?

Please let us know of this, because actually this is something that many-many people are waiting to know so they can upgrade their systems accordingly.

Thank you,

1C and group don't get any money from computer sales so I don't think they're purposely making it a requirement to have a top of the line PC. The game will require what it requires when it requires it. I don't mean any disrespect to you sir, but I do feel a little baffled by your question. 3 years is a lifetime for PC hardware, and depending what detail level you want to play the game at is also up to you so the choice is ultimately yours. But how are they going to possibly answer the question about future system specs before having done the work?

Just use common sense and discretion and you could probably answer this question yourself. "Yes I want to buy a NEW PC to play this game and other upcoming titles", or "I will hold off and wait a bit, play at a lower setting and upgrade in a year."

[swiss]

We always held the opinion that complex start-up procedures are a waste of our time.

Everyone else does them as gimmicks. What you see is just a simple sequence of "press button A to press button B to press button C to press button D to enable pressing Start Engine." They don't model the individual systems involved. Neither do we, and we don't want to pretend that we do.

Great news, thanks for the relief.




We don't do gimmicks.


This sounds so cool, you could actually use it as a company claim.

[Sutts]

We always held the opinion that complex start-up procedures are a waste of our time.

Everyone else does them as gimmicks. What you see is just a simple sequence of "press button A to press button B to press button C to press button D to enable pressing Start Engine." They don't model the individual systems involved. Neither do we, and we don't want to pretend that we do. We don't do gimmicks.

All the hotspots in our cockpit work. All the controls are animated. You can set fuel cock levers and work the priming pump and flick the magnetos and all. Do that if you like, or don't. We feel that most people will only try that once, if at all.

The systems we do model are crucial however. Watching the gauges and controlling mixture, prop pitch and radiator is essential. Our office is obviously filled with Il-2 online veterans, and for a while we could only play online with Complex Engine Management disabled completely. We could barely fly the Spitfire, and the 109 not at all. We fly with CEM on now, but we still to this day fly with Overheating disabled because damn it is hard!


Sounds great Luthier. You'd be surprised just how many of us love the full systems experience. I for one will always use it...when offline anyway.

Bit confused by your statement "They don't model the individual systems involved. Neither do we".

From what I understand you're modelling almost all the systems in more detail than anyone has ever done. I think we'll have almost all the items we need to do a full startup anyway. Perhaps things like pressurising the fuel system, priming and boost buttons might be missing but we should be pretty happy with what you're giving us. I hope the engine won't start with the fuel switched off!

Would be great if you could give us the option in future to jump into the cockpit with all the systems shut down from the last flight.

Really appreciate all your responses this weekend. It's been one hell of an update.

[Biggs]

Each gun has a selection of ammunition types you can put in the ammo belt. Each ammunition type has various associated effects in addition to its own ballistics. There are tracer rounds, smoke rounds, etc. Tracers are of different colors, and some have associated smoke.

so are you saying that we will be able to create our own load out?

can we delete tracer rounds altogether and just have regular ball and API for say the .303 MG?

[HFC_Dolphin]

1C and group don't get any money from computer sales so I don't think they're purposely making it a requirement to have a top of the line PC. The game will require what it requires when it requires it. I don't mean any disrespect to you sir, but I do feel a little baffled by your question. 3 years is a lifetime for PC hardware, and depending what detail level you want to play the game at is also up to you so the choice is ultimately yours. But how are they going to possibly answer the question about future system specs before having done the work?

Just use common sense and discretion and you could probably answer this question yourself. "Yes I want to buy a NEW PC to play this game and other upcoming titles", or "I will hold off and wait a bit, play at a lower setting and upgrade in a year."

I guess you do understand that developing team most probably has specific plans for the expansions and pretty well knows what will add or not.
And of course they're not a bunch of renegades wandering in unknown territory. They actually know their job and what it takes to do it.
Therefore, most probably they do know if they plan to add features that will stress today's systems, or more specific, they know that they won't be adding technology that might come in the next 1 or 2 years, since they already have lots to get from today's technology.

So, what I kindly request is a reassurance that there are no plans of changing the game engine that much so that in 3 years we're going to need a brand new system or a major upgrade.
And this is a consideration of many people who don't have huge budget available for this game.

I hope now is clearer to you sir. Thank you!

[zakkandrachoff]

i know oleg said that the priority are """STORM OF WAR", but if you have some Battle for Moscow super pre-update, that will be so super great. Some Bf109F or Mig-3 imgae?:rolleyes:

ok, to the real word now. I see that preflight config with Bf109E update. I hope there are not that 2 errors there is in Il-2 whit the skin.

1_ In the mission builder i put in my plane the skin and marks. Them, when, always i need to config in the ultimate preflight config, again, the skin of the plane

2_i put my plane and my personal skin, them i enlarge my group to 4. But the others planes have the default skins. For me, that is wrong. For another, is more comfortable and dynamic, i don't low...

PD: i like the black colours. very intelligent!!! i hate the white colours in menus

[HFC_Dolphin]

Ilya, one more question please:
I once kindly asked Oleg to have a view of the airport and our plane's position when we get into the mission. Something like a fly-by/helicopter view, where we see where we are and where should we go to get into take off position.

Are you going to offer this or something like that?

Thank you!

[klem]

We always held the opinion that complex start-up procedures are a waste of our time.
I can understand that in a combat sim. It would add to the whole immersion, you can't just click and fly, but if you want to go 'hard core' it could be done :)

All the hotspots in our cockpit work. All the controls are animated. You can set fuel cock levers and work the priming pump and flick the magnetos and all. Do that if you like, or don't. We feel that most people will only try that once, if at all.
I assume that means they click but don't do anything?

The systems we do model are crucial however. Watching the gauges and controlling mixture, prop pitch and radiator is essential. Our office is obviously filled with Il-2 online veterans, and for a while we could only play online with Complex Engine Management disabled completely. We could barely fly the Spitfire, and the 109 not at all. We fly with CEM on now, but we still to this day fly with Overheating disabled because damn it is hard!
Well if it is more sophisticated than IL-2's "oh, overheat, close the throttle" then it is going to be interesting. It requires watching in the A2A model even just flying from A to B although its easy enough once you get it settled down in a cruise. Combat would be very different.

By the way the A2A actually models engine wear against the use and abuse it gets (and gear etc) and it is carried over to the next flight unless you repair it. I can imagine it would add a big new dimension to fighting in the aircraft.

thanks Luthier

[Defender]

I guess you do understand that developing team most probably has specific plans for the expansions and pretty well knows what will add or not.
And of course they're not a bunch of renegades wandering in unknown territory. They actually know their job and what it takes to do it.
Therefore, most probably they do know if they plan to add features that will stress today's systems, or more specific, they know that they won't be adding technology that might come in the next 1 or 2 years, since they already have lots to get from today's technology.

So, what I kindly request is a reassurance that there are no plans of changing the game engine that much so that in 3 years we're going to need a brand new system or a major upgrade.
And this is a consideration of many people who don't have huge budget available for this game.

I hope now is clearer to you sir. Thank you!


I understand that part of your question, it's just all very esoteric is all. I understand you want to run the game as best you can, but it's going to be hard for them to give accurate advice (especially advice that's going to cost you a few hundred/thousand dollars) at this point. If that advice is somehow inaccurate and it's directly influenced a purchase of a brand new gaming rig...that blame will surely be directed at them. Features that are dropped developers get flamed for so if they say something to influence a $900 upgrade they'll get flamed for sure.

They're not going to redesign the entire engine in 3 years most likely, they'll continue to improve it over time and most likely add accents that help with the ageing process. Optimization and FPS tweaks will come as well so it will be a gradual process as it has been in the past with most sims. High system specs hurt sales, so ultimately it's in their best interests to work within the medium.

Anyway that's my common sense, again I'm sorry if I sounded disrespectful...I of course have NO idea what they're planning heheh.

I have always found it best to make big money making decisions around my own preferences rather than what people tell me I guess. :cool:

[SlipBall]

We always held the opinion that complex start-up procedures are a waste of our time.

Everyone else does them as gimmicks. What you see is just a simple sequence of "press button A to press button B to press button C to press button D to enable pressing Start Engine." They don't model the individual systems involved. Neither do we, and we don't want to pretend that we do. We don't do gimmicks.

All the hotspots in our cockpit work. All the controls are animated. You can set fuel cock levers and work the priming pump and flick the magnetos and all. Do that if you like, or don't. We feel that most people will only try that once, if at all.

The systems we do model are crucial however. Watching the gauges and controlling mixture, prop pitch and radiator is essential. Our office is obviously filled with Il-2 online veterans, and for a while we could only play online with Complex Engine Management disabled completely. We could barely fly the Spitfire, and the 109 not at all. We fly with CEM on now, but we still to this day fly with Overheating disabled because damn it is hard!


This is very good news to me...I guess that I am a simulator at hart. And want to experience a little of what they did way back then. Its perfect for an off line experience, meeting the challenge will be very rewarding for me. A lot like other sims, car racing for example, you gotta make the right decisions at the right time.:grin:

[addman]

Luthier/Oleg, we have seen some snippets of the tigermoth training mission already. I presume there will also be some kind of a engine startup/management tutorial for us that are not aero mechanics/engineers? Much obliged :)

[major_setback]

Did you have read all the comments in this thread???

Luthier explained, that there is no complex start procedure! I am sure, thats the same, as in IL2. One button to start, possibility to change pitch an mixture and finally the engine cooling.

I think it will be somewhere between the two:

Luthier: All the hotspots in our cockpit work. All the controls are animated. You can set fuel cock levers and work the priming pump and flick the magnetos and all. Do that if you like, or don't. We feel that most people will only try that once, if at all.

The systems we do model are crucial however. Watching the gauges and controlling mixture, prop pitch and radiator is essential. Our office is obviously filled with Il-2 online veterans, and for a while we could only play online with Complex Engine Management disabled completely. We could barely fly the Spitfire, and the 109 not at all. We fly with CEM on now, but we still to this day fly with Overheating disabled because damn it is hard!

[Heliocon]

I would love to see a proper video/trailer/footage, that is really needed. But I think this conversation and communication has settled my mind very much from its previous worry. I think this is exactly what the community wanted and need, thanks Luthier!

As for the smoke vortexes, isnt it a similar mechanic to water physics/movement which is in alot of games, direct compute could hack it (it was made for that type of simulation).

[Chivas]

Thanks Luthier for the very informative posts.

I wonder if the LOD of objects (buildings) will be about the same as IL-2? The pop up buildings are an immersion killer, but I understand that its sometimes necessary for fps issues. Will there be a user option to increase the LOD distance. In IL-2 right now a high end system can get many hundreds of frames per second, so it would be a nice option to have, when the new IL-2 series goes forward and people have strong enough systems.

[Necrobaron]

I love the screenies of the new and weathered 109. What does "Physical Weathering" entail?

[brando]

Luthier/Oleg, we have seen some snippets of the tigermoth training mission already. I presume there will also be some kind of a engine startup/management tutorial for us that are not aero mechanics/engineers? Much obliged :)

Not too much for the Tiger Moth pilot beyond simple cockpit procedure. The prop is rotated by the ground crew ;)

[klem]

Cool...Can you fire different kind of ammo with it ?

Thanks ! :grin:

No, it (A2A) is a pure flight simulation although some of the guys were talking about some kind of combat pack that can be found somewhere. But that's not I want it for, I have IL-2 and CoD for that. I just like to know what was really involved in flying a Spit and they seem to go a long way towards that. I made a 2 hr simulated 'fighter sweep' from Duxford to Manston/Calais/Abbeville/St Gatien/Goodwood(Westhampnett) and back to Duxford. Once settled in the cruise it was easy to keep the revs and temps where I wanted them but you have to take care between taxying and cruising and then down again. And if we get 1:1 maps there are going to be a few numb bums in CoD :)

[kalimba]

No, it (A2A) is a pure flight simulation although some of the guys were talking about some kind of combat pack that can be found somewhere. But that's not I want it for, I have IL-2 and CoD for that. I just like to know what was really involved in flying a Spit and they seem to go a long way towards that. I made a 2 hr simulated 'fighter sweep' from Duxford to Manston/Calais/Abbeville/St Gatien/Goodwood(Westhampnett) and back to Duxford. Once settled in the cruise it was easy to keep the revs and temps where I wanted them but you have to take care between taxying and cruising and then down again. And if we get 1:1 maps there are going to be a few numb bums in CoD :)

So it is more like a perfect complement for COD for a dedicated Spit fan ! ;)

Salute !

[Zorin]

I got a few questions myself.

1. Regarding the Bf-108. As you concieved it as a AI only plane so far, is its internal model inferior to a flyable plane?
2. If that should not be the case and I would pay someone to build the cockpit to your standards, how long would it take you guys to get it implemented? I believe that is a crucial questions for all third party developers who want to have their work approved and implemented by you.
3. Can you estimate the number of planes that will be missing from CoD when it reaches IL-2s current stage? Are we realisitically looking at 1/3 of the number of flyables or even less?
4. On the Bf109 screens you posted, the markings are not part of the weathering process. Is that about to change in the future?
5. Oleg mentioned some time ago that the organisation of ground units, vehicles columns etc, is entirely up to the mission designer. For example, being able to recreate a typical "leichte Panzerkompanie c" and saving it as a preset for future missions. Is this still the case for CoD on release?

[Necrobaron]

Ok I guess I mixed up the plane types there, but a German trainer would be nice in time, as British planes where not really used on the German side in great numbers, unless they where "souveniers" picked up along the way. ;)

I think the Bu 131 is the trainer you're looking for.;)

[Chivas]

Will we be able to map Zoom View to a Rotary. I find the Wide, Normal, and Gunsight view less than ideal.

[proton45]

Ilya, one more question please:
I once kindly asked Oleg to have a view of the airport and our plane's position when we get into the mission. Something like a fly-by/helicopter view, where we see where we are and where should we go to get into take off position.

Are you going to offer this or something like that?

Thank you!

I can think of two ways that a feature such as this could be added...

1) A quick "zoom in" at the start of your mission, starting with an over head of the airfield and ending with "you" (the pilot) in the cockpit looking out (the normal pilots view).

2) An added feature in the "view objects" function that includes the key points of your mission...key "points" like, fighters and bombers you might encounter, AND airfields and targets you might encounter. This could be a normal function of the mission briefing.

[Triggaaar]

BTW these Q and A are worth much more than about 3 months of update screens and get me much more excited about the sim (to me anyway). Bravo Luthier!! :)Likewise. Not to say I don't like the updates too, but I know it's going to look great anyway. These replies are great Luthier, thank you very much.

[David603]

I love the screenies of the new and weathered 109. What does "Physical Weathering" entail?
Mechanical wear and tear?

[Tiger27]

I don't think something can be optimized from 1 fps to an acceptable framerate. That's utopia.


Luckily your not working on this sim then, of course it can be optimised, there were many features in IL2, that would have run at those FPS at the beginning but were able to be implemented with some tweaks here and there and as new systems became available, cheer up and try to be positive.:mrgreen:

[LukeFF]

The feartures of Ai and other features, included already in release allow for thirs party to make really serious work over dynamic campaigns engines.

Really good to hear this. :)

[imaca]

It depends on AI skill level. AI at any level checks the sky in segments, i.e scans the airspace. They also always take clouds and sun into the account.
Lower-level AI pilots have some periods when they don't scan at all. They scan a smaller overall area of the airspace. They focus on each segment longer - i.e. if he looks at his 8 o'clock you can attack him head-on and he won't spot you. Sun blots out a larger portion of the sky for them.
However the sun is not a 100% blind zone and there is a chance even the dumbest idiot will see you coming out of the sun, chances increasing the closer you are to his 12 o'clock high.

In the end, since you're rarely aware of your opponent's skill level, this results in a very realistic picture. You're never sure whether he breaks and turns into you from 3 miles away, or if you can keep sneaking up on him for a no-deflection shot at 50 yards. Very frustrating when you end up holding your fire just a second too long, and he spots you and breaks away after sitting dead square in your sights.



Best update info ever, the AI sounds like it's going to be a huge improvement over anything existing.

[Blackdog_kt]

Yes thanks for that, but can you not see where your answer is fundamentally flawed, in that we dont know how it runs on a high end system, we keep begging Luthier and Oleg to show us some video on a real high end PC, we want to wave the Cliffs Of Dover flag and say jeez look how good this game runs if you've got the the right kit, hundreds of people are waiting to buy or build new systems and spend thousands just to play this game, but for some reason the devs are holding back on showing us this game run on a top end gaming rig.

Actually, we are not all begging for this. Some are and others aren't.

From where i'm standing it looks good enough at its current state to the point that, especially after Luthier's explanations, i'm starting to think that any more graphical excellence would start detracting from the really important stuff. You know, things like AI or the new complex engine and systems management that Oleg Maddox told us tracks as much as 500 parameters for a single airframe, things that have an impact mostly on the actual gameplay.

Tastes can vary and it's all well and good and a difference of opinion should be acceptable by all of us. It's just that the requests for graphics features being the loudest or most common doesn't mean they are shared by the majority of mostly silent posters on this board or the people who prefer discussing issues that pertain to actually flying the simulated aircraft more than they discuss how these aircraft look. They are just being a bit quiet, but there's many of them too ;)

It's not that i consider graphics unimportant, they are important. It's just that i agree with this poster.

My brother brought up a pretty good point as well. We were talking about probably having to run the sim on lower settings on our computers...and he's like "even on the lowest settings I'm sure CoD will look just as good as IL2 currently does on our systems (unmodded)." And I was like yeah, that's a great point. CoD can't look any worse than IL2 right? That's positive right there as I still think IL2 looks great.

People who are wanting specs and videos of high end pcs, maxed graphics and whatnot just chilll out. Wait a few more weeks, get the sim yourself and fire it up on your super computer and test til your hearts content. I'm sure it will be FINE.

Is it looking better than IL2? Yes it is, in fact is seems like CoD at medium is better than IL2 at high settings. Let's chalk one up for improvement over the previous version in the graphics department and move to something else. Frankly, at this point i would be more interested in seeing some of Luthier's design documents with his ideas for the dynamic campaign, a tutorial on engine management and systems operation (in a somewhat complex aircraft like a twin engined bomber) that's representative of what the release build will look like, or some in-game sounds, because we already know the visuals are up to the job and we know what it takes to run them. There's so much substance under the hood in a flight sim, so let's see some of that for a change.


Finally,

If I had a high-end PC, the recommended specs we've released a while ago would have been the minimum specs.

I'm using a mid-range PC for a very specific reason.

You have to understand that my job is to make a good game. It is NOT to market and advertise it. We're a tiny developer working on a shoestring budget. If I have to stop working for a day each week to make videos, we will end up with a kick-ass marketing campaign for a crappy game. I'd rather have it the other way around.




...this a thousand times over, because it's good old fashioned common sense. Also, thank you for the rest of your points and posts (very informative stuff the lot of it) your patience and most of all honesty.

It's not often you see a lead developer come forward and calmly say "we have a good game on the whole, but i also want to improve this and that because it's not on par with the rest of it" like discussing it over a drink in the local bar, most of them will just say "we have an awesome game".

I too would like a dynamic campaign and i'm a bit underwhelmed to hear it's pushed so far back, but seeing how much you want to do with it i'm having high hopes for the final result. As far as i'm concerned, i don't mind waiting if it's half as good as the ideas we all provided in that 40-page thread.


Edit:
It seems it's my lucky day :grin:


It depends on AI skill level. AI at any level checks the sky in segments, i.e scans the airspace. They also always take clouds and sun into the account.
Lower-level AI pilots have some periods when they don't scan at all. They scan a smaller overall area of the airspace. They focus on each segment longer - i.e. if he looks at his 8 o'clock you can attack him head-on and he won't spot you. Sun blots out a larger portion of the sky for them.
However the sun is not a 100% blind zone and there is a chance even the dumbest idiot will see you coming out of the sun, chances increasing the closer you are to his 12 o'clock high.

In the end, since you're rarely aware of your opponent's skill level, this results in a very realistic picture. You're never sure whether he breaks and turns into you from 3 miles away, or if you can keep sneaking up on him for a no-deflection shot at 50 yards. Very frustrating when you end up holding your fire just a second too long, and he spots you and breaks away after sitting dead square in your sights.

No, it's much more advanced. We have different customization options for different axes. For example you can not only adjust the curves but also set your idle, 100% and WEP positions for the throttle axis. I'm pretty sure this could be seen in some Igromir videos.

and there's more



Yes. Moreover, it reacts to damage and especially losses to other planes, and may decide to run for home even if his plane is intact. Whole formations of newbies may scatter and run if you shoot down their leader etc.

Not staying to fight till death was one of the most important requirements for me for the AI. They do use real-world tactics more than in Il-2. You'll see them working in group a lot more for instance.

AI engine model is greatly simplified compared to that of the player plane, but we do try to make sure it doesn't give them an advantage.
You can study this in detail when flying the real sim. Autopilot is very verbose, you can see exactly what levers they move etc.

Well they try to extend away and take it from there, but generally even most humans would be doomed if caught in a situation like that.

We did a huge technical interview for a print magazine, where our FM programmer wrote like two pages of stuff on it. I'll see if we can publish it here, because that would be a much, much better answer than anything I can type up.

Our engine model is insanely compelx. I dare say it's the most complex engine model in any game of any genre by far. There's multiple points of interest for every piston, every cylinder, every hose, every exhaust, etc. The guy who wrote it can build an internal combustion engine from scratch in his garage. Working on engines is a huge hobby of his.
So rest assured that cooling, overheating, combat damage, or normal operation of our engines is as precise and as detailed as you'll ever see in any game in the next several years.



The systems we do model are crucial however. Watching the gauges and controlling mixture, prop pitch and radiator is essential. Our office is obviously filled with Il-2 online veterans, and for a while we could only play online with Complex Engine Management disabled completely. We could barely fly the Spitfire, and the 109 not at all. We fly with CEM on now, but we still to this day fly with Overheating disabled because damn it is hard!

That's just awesome features right there, now that's what i'm talking about!
I can't wait to see all this in action, it will force us all to fly and fight in a much more similar way to how it really happened. (Plus, we 190 drivers will have a better chance at high altitude fights in future add-ons...we'll have our kommandogerat and the radiator while they'll have 4-6 different engine controls :-P )

Sure, i like looking at all the pretty airplanes but most of all i'm interested in actually flying them and this avalanche of information answers most of my questions about it that i've had all these years. :grin:

[NSU]

hello luthier
you say it does not give dynamic weather in the release version
you make 1/12 to 12/12 clouds like in IL2 Sturmovik 1946 as Placeholder?

[luthier]

I once kindly asked Oleg to have a view of the airport and our plane's position when we get into the mission. Something like a fly-by/helicopter view, where we see where we are and where should we go to get into take off position.

That's actually a cool idea, but we probably can't do it at this point. We do plan to expand the pre-flight experience a lot either in day-1 or the first immediate patch. We'll keep it in mind.

By the way the A2A actually models engine wear against the use and abuse it gets (and gear etc) and it is carried over to the next flight unless you repair it. I can imagine it would add a big new dimension to fighting in the aircraft.

This was all planned as part of our dynamic campaign - mechanics, repairs, etc. Most of the components needed for it are there, it's just there's no top-level repair functionality or wear carry-over.

As for the smoke vortexes, isnt it a similar mechanic to water physics/movement which is in alot of games, direct compute could hack it (it was made for that type of simulation).

Well that would require a completely different visual technology for smoke and clouds. Clouds obviously get the same exact wake vortex as a smoke column.

Right now our clouds and smoke are just big puffs, either 2D circles, or 3D spheres. They're pretty large. You can only turn a puff into a smoke vortex if the plane flies directly through a predetermined point at its center or at its edge, only if it flies wings level, and only if only one plane flies through that puff at one time. That, of course, is never going to happen.

To allow for dynamic vortexes anywhere the plane flies, and that interact with each other if more than one plane flies there, would require us to break the puffs into tiny parts hundreds of times smaller than our current puffs. That means that each smoke column and the edge of each cloud would be a thousand times more resource-intensive, i.e. it just can't be done. Or at the very least we can't think of a way to get it done.

I wonder if the LOD of objects (buildings) will be about the same as IL-2? The pop up buildings are an immersion killer, but I understand that its sometimes necessary for fps issues. Will there be a user option to increase the LOD distance. In IL-2 right now a high end system can get many hundreds of frames per second, so it would be a nice option to have, when the new IL-2 series goes forward and people have strong enough systems.

It's hard to imagine a system in which we can have unlimited building visibility coming in the next 3 to 5 years. You'd need to constantly resort the relative positions of millions of objects.

1. Regarding the Bf-108. As you concieved it as a AI only plane so far, is its internal model inferior to a flyable plane?

All external models are built to the same standard. All are potentially flyable with no changes to the outside model.

2. If that should not be the case and I would pay someone to build the cockpit to your standards, how long would it take you guys to get it implemented? I believe that is a crucial questions for all third party developers who want to have their work approved and implemented by you.

The plan is to allow 3rd party developers to approve, implement and release their own work once we release the SDK. We do not plan to implement anyone's work before or after the SDK is released.

3. Can you estimate the number of planes that will be missing from CoD when it reaches IL-2s current stage? Are we realisitically looking at 1/3 of the number of flyables or even less?

What do you mean by IL-2's current stage? 10 years after release? Hopefully with the 3rd party SDK it will be much bigger than Il-2.

4. On the Bf109 screens you posted, the markings are not part of the weathering process. Is that about to change in the future?

Maybe.

5. Oleg mentioned some time ago that the organisation of ground units, vehicles columns etc, is entirely up to the mission designer. For example, being able to recreate a typical "leichte Panzerkompanie c" and saving it as a preset for future missions. Is this still the case for CoD on release?

Yes.

Will we be able to map Zoom View to a Rotary. I find the Wide, Normal, and Gunsight view less than ideal.

We have smooth POV zoom, but right now you can only adjust it to a button. We'll see if we can make it an axis as well.

[luthier]

IIRC that red stripe on the nose of the 109 was only ever applied briefly to a single 109, by the local political officer because the pilot's wife was Jewish. The rest of the staffel weren't amused and removed the swastica from their aircraft in protest. As it was so rare and used for such a short time perhaps this should be removed from the game as a colour scheme?
Otherwise it's looking great!

Wanted to address this on its own. That's not true at all. We have lots of photographs of different JG53 aircraft all showing the same red band. Geschwader Adjutant, white 8, "grey" 14, some aircraft of 5./JG53 with half-stripe extending down to the exhaust stack, etc.

[Pierre@]

Luthier is right.

From late July to November 1940, when H.-Günther von Maltzahn replaced H.-Jürgen von Cramon-Taubadel as Geschwader Kommodore, the Pikas emblem of JG 53 was replaced by a red band painted across the cowling on most (if not all) of their Emils.

More infos and many photographs and fine color profiles in "Luftwaffe Gallery n°1" by Erik Mombeeck.

[chiefrr73]

Wtf, Luthier you are here again????
First of all, i wan t to thank you and Oleg for answering so many questions!!! I feel like a small kid that has birthday, so exciting. For me you people are doing very good job and i will buy the game on the first day when it s out, be sure.
I have some questions: Will there be people (mechanics) at the airfield doing something, so that it looks more lifely, or seeman on the ships?

[Wutz]

Will the ships be more detailed in their damage model than IL2?
I mean by that, that when hit either parts fly off, they start to burn, or sink, and the sinking happening at various speed from very fast to very slow. Also that a differance is made between a freighter and a tanker, meaning that a tanker will most likely burn intensively while sinking. As in IL2 all ships sank at the same speed, and all sank as if they where empty, no burning tankers or exploding munitions ships. Any chance we might see this in CoD?

[combatdudePL]

Luthier can You teel us how DOT visibility problem from original series is solved (in il2 higher resolution makes enemy plane/dot difficult to notice - people online fly 1024x768 to make advantage)

Also problem is described in THIS (http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=18473) topic.

A large number of users would be grateful for your response.

Cheers.

[luthier]

Luthier can You teel us how DOT visibility problem from original series is solved (in il2 higher resolution makes enemy plane/dot difficult to notice - people online fly 1024x768 to make advantage)

Also problem is described in THIS (http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=18473) topic.

A dot can't be smaller than a pixel. Smaller resolutions gives you larger pixels. Therefore distant dots will always be larger at smaller resolutions.

Will the ships be more detailed in their damage model than IL2?
I mean by that, that when hit either parts fly off, they start to burn, or sink, and the sinking happening at various speed from very fast to very slow. Also that a differance is made between a freighter and a tanker, meaning that a tanker will most likely burn intensively while sinking. As in IL2 all ships sank at the same speed, and all sank as if they where empty, no burning tankers or exploding munitions ships. Any chance we might see this in CoD?

Yes, yes, yes and yes.

[HFC_Dolphin]

Ilya, can you reveal how many levels of AI we have?

[TheSwede]

Wtf, Luthier you are here again????
First of all, i wan t to thank you and Oleg for answering so many questions!!! I feel like a small kid that has birthday, so exciting.


+1000 on this one

[furbs]

Luthier...thanks again for the Q and A...

Could you tell me what the colours A,B and C are in this screenie?

And what does physical weathering mean?...engine wear over time?


http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4379/109weathered.jpg
By null (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/null) at 2011-02-06

And the weathering looks great by the way :)

[klem]

Luthier,

sorry if his has been asked before but I can't find the answer.

How does the Spitfire and other aircraft land in CoD? In IL-2 the Spit and many other aircraft bounce around like a drunken turkey if the touchdown is only a fraction off, as if there is almost no compression in the gear. It's like nothing I have experienced in any other game/simulation.

Is it better in CoD?

[winny]

Luthier, A while ago there was a thread about the Spitfire cockpit being a Mk V instead of a Mk I.

Just wondered what you've got to say about it ? (if you saw the thread that is)

I thought it might just be a late Mk I.

I also love that you can assign serial numbers to your plane. Nice touch.

Thanks.

[Dano]

If we record a video with our built-in track-to-video converter, that records videos at a fluid framerate on any machine in the world.

This intrigues me, does this mean that the built in track recorder will be able to record a track to video using maximum graphics options regardless of the fact that the machine being used only being able to run it at say 1 frame a second? Somewhat akin to rendering a movie in any of the numerous 3d raytracing packages?

If that is so then all I can say is :D

[41Sqn_Banks]

Will it be possible to fly the Tiger Moth online with two human pilots? E.g. can it be flown by a experience human teacher and a inexperienced human cadet and the control of the plane can be exchanged between both of them?

Over a year ago Oleg said about that:
Can add Tiger Moth as a two seater training aricraft for all users. Means we plan to use this one for trainings for beginners as a basis. And probably for online training with real human teacher inside. We have real pilot(my great friend) who flew and can fly this aircraft in Australia that to make this one very close to real behavior.

[combatdudePL]

A dot can't be smaller than a pixel. Smaller resolutions gives you larger pixels. Therefore distant dots will always be larger at smaller resolutions.

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?

[hugso]

Luthier,

sorry if his has been asked before but I can't find the answer.

How does the Spitfire and other aircraft land in CoD? In IL-2 the Spit and many other aircraft bounce around like a drunken turkey if the touchdown is only a fraction off, as if there is almost no compression in the gear. It's like nothing I have experienced in any other game/simulation.

Is it better in CoD?
I thought all that bouncing was just my rotten landing technique. I would dearly love to be able to do a 3 point landing in my Spit (as I can suspiciously easily in X-Plane). However slowly I manage to touch down unless the nose is at or below the horizon I bounce way up and then bend the prop.

[Sutts]

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?


I think Luthier did understand but I really can't see the devs being able to do much about this. Can you imagine them having to add extra pixels to make the dot bigger but only for certain resolutions?

[zauii]

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?

And what do you expect them to do about it, its almost as impossible as the hiding in grass problem for modern day fps, aka you get an advantage with a certain setup (in the case of fpses you often dont see grass on low setting hence hiding in grass is useless against those folks..) There is no other way really other than locking the game to certain resolutions or hardware but then you'd lose a huge playerbase.

[luthier]

Ilya, can you reveal how many levels of AI we have?

There's some presets just like in Il-2, rookie, normal, veteran and ace. However the AI is much more flexible. It has various skills such as shooting, maneuvering, morale, awareness, etc. Each of them determine different behaviors. For example you can have a guy with 100 shooting and 100 maneuvering but 0 awareness, i.e. a blind ace, or a guy with 100 awareness but 0 flying i.e. an eagle-eyed idiot.

The rookie and other presets simply set every single skill to 0 or 25 or 50, etc. Or you can reset them any way you like.

Could you tell me what the colours A,B and C are in this screenie?

And what does physical weathering mean?...engine wear over time?

These colors are used in different places in different planes. To further complicate matters, they're not used on many planes at all. That's why they're so vaguely named.

I just change all the colors to lime green and rotate the plane to see what looks ugly, is what I do.

How does the Spitfire and other aircraft land in CoD? In IL-2 the Spit and many other aircraft bounce around like a drunken turkey if the touchdown is only a fraction off, as if there is almost no compression in the gear. It's like nothing I have experienced in any other game/simulation.

I always thought Il-2's landings and gear compression was pretty good.

Luthier, A while ago there was a thread about the Spitfire cockpit being a Mk V instead of a Mk I.

We disagree as much as it's possible to disagree. At this point nothing can change even if you built a time machine, took us to August of 1940, drove us on an inspection tour of all frontline Spitfires, and proved without a shadow of a doubt that you're right.

This intrigues me, does this mean that the built in track recorder will be able to record a track to video using maximum graphics options regardless of the fact that the machine being used only being able to run it at say 1 frame a second? Somewhat akin to rendering a movie in any of the numerous 3d raytracing packages?

Yes, exactly. Slower machines will run at much worse than 1 fps, but yes, you can render a giant high-res full settings video on a minimum specs machine. You'll probably need to leave it rendering for the night.

Will it be possible to fly the Tiger Moth online with two human pilots? E.g. can it be flown by a experience human teacher and a inexperienced human cadet and the control of the plane can be exchanged between both of them?

Yes, that's what we hope to see, real humans teaching you to fly online.

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?

I understand exactly what you mean. I have no idea what kind of resolution you'd propose.

At certain distances, planes become smaller than a pixel. At 1024x768 that'll probably happen at less than 2 km for a fighter. What do you want us to do with that pixel?

[Tvrdi]

At certain distances, planes become smaller than a pixel. At 1024x768 that'll probably happen at less than 2 km for a fighter. What do you want us to do with that pixel?

whataver you di please dont use retarded solution from Rise of flight with using max zoom for spoting planes at distance (with max wide zoom you cant see them at the same distance) like we have a binocular or super sniper scope sticked onto our faces.

[Hecke]

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?

That is really annoying. Hope something is done to fix that problem.

[W32Blaster]

Sure the Plane must disappeare if Distance / Size gets to the border of being one pxel of size at a give resolution.

But will the Size of the Dot vary with Resolution of screen?

e.g.
Single Seater appearence in Distance of 2 km with different resolution

1024 x 768 Distance 2 km 1 pixel of size
1280 x 1024 Distance 2 km 2 or more pixel?

[Peffi]

DOT resolution, resolution: Use two monitors. Show the same on each but set the resolution way down on one. Use this one to spot the damn 109's and the other to really enjoy blowing them up in full resolution! ha ha ha..... I'm sooo looking forward to win the Battle of Britain (cliffs of Dover.....?) in my Spit. Don't understand why people want to fly the inferior, mediocre, 109?! (oooops; OT, sorry)

[Hecke]

Yes, that's what we hope to see, real humans teaching you to fly online.

At certain distances, planes become smaller than a pixel. At 1024x768 that'll probably happen at less than 2 km for a fighter. What do you want us to do with that pixel?


Will this be possible with 1 seated planes, too?

Can't you just let it be more pixels the bigger the resolution?

[The Kraken]

What people really mean when asking about the "dots" is this: will LODs only depend on distance, or also on object size, resolution and field of view? Because if the switch to a dot representation only happens when the render size is about one pixel, then there's no issue anymore.

[Feathered_IV]

One more question Luthier and I'll leave you alone :)

Probably the one feature I really hope to see in CoD is improved crew interaction. Can you comment on AI crews, will gunners call out surface and air contacts? Will navigators give you course headings and corrections, and will bomb aimers guide you in on the bomb run?

The crew members of other sims are really only decoration and it would make the player feel far less alone (and much more immersed in the sim) if their virtual comrades could fulfil their basic functions within the aircraft.

Hope you can answer!

[Tbag]

First of all thank you very much Ilya and Oleg for your time and for answering all these questions. So here are mine:

1. Can you comment on the maximum number of planes that will be used in a mission in the stock campaigns?

2. Will the Lysander and the Ju52 make it into the initial release?

Not sure if you have answered these before, if so I missed it and probably someone else can aswer :)

[T}{OR]

Yes, that's what we hope to see, real humans teaching you to fly online.

Outstanding. This will tremendously help in teaching other pilots formation flying and other skills.

What about bombers and copilots (I know LW and RAF had single seats but for latter add-ons)?


One more question Luthier and I'll leave you alone :)

Probably the one feature I really hope to see in CoD is improved crew interaction. Can you comment on AI crews, will gunners call out surface and air contacts? Will navigators give you course headings and corrections, and will bomb aimers guide you in on the bomb run?

The crew members of other sims are really only decoration and it would make the player feel far less alone (and much more immersed in the sim) if their virtual comrades could fulfil their basic functions within the aircraft.

Hope you can answer!

This is a million dollar question, spot on Feathered_IV. I would just like to add - will there be any control over AI gunners? Something like: "engage only incoming bandits", or "engage all nearby fighters or bombers", "hold fire" etc...

Also - I presume that in CoD they won't fire at the blind spots in the sky wasting ammo at the same time and will see if there is a friendly bomber in their line of fire?

Thanks.

[HFC_Dolphin]

There's some presets just like in Il-2, rookie, normal, veteran and ace. However the AI is much more flexible. It has various skills such as shooting, maneuvering, morale, awareness, etc. Each of them determine different behaviors. For example you can have a guy with 100 shooting and 100 maneuvering but 0 awareness, i.e. a blind ace, or a guy with 100 awareness but 0 flying i.e. an eagle-eyed idiot.

The rookie and other presets simply set every single skill to 0 or 25 or 50, etc. Or you can reset them any way you like.

WOW, THIS IS FANTASTIC - A DREAM COMING TRUE!!!

When I first discussed this with Oleg, he had told me that it would be very-very difficult to get to this point and now...here you are!!!

Thank you so much for your hard and fantastic effort to make the experience so good (especially the offline experience, where we can set so many different AI levels and give them a callsign too!).
I just can't wait to fly a campaign, where I'll be comparing my stats to other NAMED and specific AI aces :D

PS. Just watch out cause whenever I see you, I will give you a huge hug and a kiss for being so nice to us :D

[furbs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zorin View Post
4. On the Bf109 screens you posted, the markings are not part of the weathering process. Is that about to change in the future?


Luthier- Maybe.

Hmmm...it will look out of place having very nice weathering with markings that look brand new...if there no way round this?
could maybe a 3rd party like MATT manager could sort this for COD?

[kendo65]

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?

That is really annoying. Hope something is done to fix that problem.

I don't really think this is a 'problem' - ie something that needs to be 'fixed'

A side-effect of running a monitor with higher resolution is that you get a more realistic experience - in this case distant aircraft are rendered more precisely.

The result, of course, for those who value the competitive gaming experience is that they suffer a disadvantage in being able to spot enemy ac.

For those who value realism over getting a competitive edge there is no problem.

[addman]

Again, wow! I can already imagine the countless hours that will be spent in the mission builder :)

[combatdudePL]

At certain distances, planes become smaller than a pixel. At 1024x768 that'll probably happen at less than 2 km for a fighter. What do you want us to do with that pixel?

Simplest that can be :


e.g.
Single Seater appearence in Distance of 2 km with different resolution

1024 x 768 Distance 2 km 1 pixel of size
1280 x 1024 Distance 2 km 2 or more pixel?

and 1600 x 1200 Distance 2 km 3 or more pixel etc....

[swiss]

That is really annoying. Hope something is done to fix that problem.

Guys, where exactly is the problem?

At max distance the plane has the size of 1 pixel - that's the same for whatever resolution.

But on a 1024x768 screen this poor lone pixel has roughly twice the size(in milimeter) compared to 1680x1050.
...which makes it easier to spot for the human eye.


I play at 1680, and even if I spotted the enemy earlier it wouldn't help me a damn as I have to get a whole lot closer to identify it first.

So what tactical advantage do I get if I spot the enemy at a distance of 8km vs 6km?
Sure, you could use those extra 2km to climb like a bat from hell, but...

Wait: You guys dont have icon and plane ID on, do you?

(Btw, being a marksman is worth about twice as much as the pilot skills, imho)

[DJB]

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?

I understand exactly what you mean. I have no idea what kind of resolution you'd propose.

Maybe with a simple pre-flight math operation?

Let's imagine that standard resolusion is 800x600 with 1 pixel minimum plane size. Wel you only have to apply this:

Actual vertical resolution (avr)/Standart vertical resolution (svr) and yo get a magnification factor, and the same with horizontal resolution...

Example for 1920x1080:
1920/800=2.4
1080/600=1.8
Can be rounded to 2x2

Example for 1680x1050:
1680/800=2.1
1050/600=1.75
Can be rounded to 2x2 or 2x1

Greetings.

Edit: Some time ago I say the same, but maybe better explained http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?p=126450#post126450. Please, read this.

And sorry for my bad english...

[t4trouble]

Swiss you talk alot of sense in these forums ~S~
I use 1600x900 i've no prob spot'n the Dots ingame,
even before peeps i fly with lower res's and they
ask what res do i use and are left scratching their
heads :grin:

[Hecke]

I play at Full HD (1920x1080) and it's very hard to spot an enemy.

[#402FOX]

I never spot the one on my Six:grin:

[swiss]

Swiss you talk alot of sense in these forums ~S~


I hope you weren't ironic.

You're the T4T from SoV, right?
It's was always great fun to watch you play with 5 enemies on your tail - and often even get away!
Your defensive skills rock.
8-)

[Redwan]

Oh ... my previous post has disapeared ... probably banned because I didn't say something positive about BoB ... (I was only saying: '4years of delay and the wheather effects won't even be available in the first release ... is it considered as trolling to say the truth ?)

Question to the moderators:

On this forum are we allowed to say that something looks wrong in BoB updates or will we be banned for 'Trolling' if we don't say what we really think (like during the bolchevic period ;-) ) ?

[Sutts]

Oh ... my previous post has disapeared ... probably banned because I did't say something positive about BoB ... (I was saying: '4years of delay and the wheather effects won't even be available in the first release ... is it considered as trolling to say the truth ?)

Question to the moderators:

On this forum are we allowed to say that something looks wrong in BoB updates or will we be banned for 'Trolling' if we don't say what we really think (like during the bolchevic period ;-)

That doesn't sound terribly constructive to me Redwan. I'm not surprised the mod took issue.

I'm sure many of us are disappointed about the dynamic weather but venting in the update thread isn't going to bring it back.

[swiss]

I play at Full HD (1920x1080) and it's very hard to spot an enemy.

You have to spot him ~2.5km away - even at hd he has enough pixels to spot him.

This not addresses only at you but all those who share this pixel disadvantage opinion:

1. SA can not be compensated with more pixels.

2. Even if you spot him at 200km and you have an alt advantage of 2km - if he's an ace, he will whoop your a$$ whatever you do.

There are people out there with 10'000s of kills and several thousand flying hours - even if you had an AWACS you wouldn't stand the slightest chance.
It's the pilot not the pixels.
;)

[Redwan]

That doesn't sound terribly constructive to me Redwan. I'm not surprised the mod took issue.

I'm sure many of us are disappointed about the dynamic weather but venting in the update thread isn't going to bring it back.

Why do you think that talking about the weak points of BoB isn't constructive ?

If the wheather effects are not nice why can't I say it ?

[swiss]

Why do you think that talking about the weak points of BoB isn't constructive ?

If the wheather effects are not nice why can't I say it ?

1. where is the constructive part?
2. there are NO effects, so can't even dislike them
3. feel free to be disappointed, but please refer to point 1

[kendo65]

Oh ... my previous post has disapeared ... probably banned because I didn't say something positive about BoB ... (I was only saying: '4years of delay and the wheather effects won't even be available in the first release ... is it considered as trolling to say the truth ?)

Question to the moderators:

On this forum are we allowed to say that something looks wrong in BoB updates or will we be banned for 'Trolling' if we don't say what we really think (like during the bolchevic period ;-) ) ?

May have had more to do with how you said it?

If people are respectful they can usually say what they want.

[W32Blaster]

There are people out there with 10'000s of kills and several thousand flying hours - even if you had an AWACS you wouldn't stand the slightest chance. It's the pilot not the pixels. ;)

Maybe I want to make a decision, if I want to attack?!

Aireal combat is all about seeing the bogie or bandit first and move yourself in an good position for either retreat or attack.

It´s crucial to have the ability to realize a contact as early as possible.
I just dislike to screw down my resolution to visually recognize a bogie - because it might be overseen with higher resolution.

Therefor I ask for a mechanism to show contact in a comparable size.

Thus not having to cope with the downside of unrecognisable dots in higher resolution.

I think thats not to complicated to understand!

[kendo65]

I think we all understand what you're saying and that it is a disadvantage - but it's an unavoidable (?) consequence of using higher-res screens.

[MikkOwl]

Luthier, thank you for these interesting, well written answers. :) The gag is finally starting to come off. You seem like you had an itch to share all this cool stuff your team has been developing over the past few ages.

Can you talk a bit about how (AI) crew members can be interacted with? Classical example is the rear gunner of the Bf110. He is mostly quiet in IL-2, and cannot speak at all in multiplayer. There was talk from Oleg of improving this area. I'll write the points numbered so replying should be a quick breeze. I expect 'No' as answer to most, but I'm curious enough to ask. :) Think of it as possibilities if nothing else.

1. Better contact reports?
2. Feeding information of someone on one's tail?
3. ..Perhaps prompted by the player by a button?
4. Instructions on his general behavior?
5. Does he have morale? Panic? Hot on the trigger?
6. Bail out without permission (panic mode)?
7. MG-FF's had to be reloaded by this bordfunker in reality.
8. Report visual damage to own plane he sees? (smoke trail from engine, control surfaces damaged and so on)
9. Gets affected by your maneuvering?
10. Navigation & radio (I'm sure not).

[MikkOwl]

Maybe I want to make a decision, if I want to attack?!

Aireal combat is all about seeing the bogie or bandit first and move yourself in an good position for either retreat or attack.

It´s crucial to be have the ability to realize a contact as early as possible.
I just dislike to screw down my resolution to visually recognize a bogie - because it might be overseen with higher resolution.

Therefor I ask for a mechanism to show contact in a comparable size.

Thus not having to cope with the downside of unrecognisable dots in higher resolution.

I think thats not to complicated to understand!
Ideas:

1. Make the dot have some transparency on lower resolutions (more the further away).
2. Make dot larger, or some other effect to slightly increase its visibility on very high resolutions.
3. Permit larger field of view in higher resolutions (makes sense since they are probably physically larger anyway). With high FOV airplanes will pixellate from a further away distance than otherwise.

The only one I can support is number 3. This due to the impossibility of knowing how big the person's display really is and how far away they are sitting from it.

I want to add that physically, most screens with lower resolution aren't really lower resolution - it is the same. Just that the display itself is smaller (like having a smaller window into the world). The pixels are about the same size as the larger monitors. The problem is more with people setting lower resolution than their monitor can handle. I personally don't care about this at all. Having low resolution means it looks terrible and they miss out on a lot of useful information from instruments, gunnery, identification, landscape.

[swiss]

Maybe I want to make a decision, if I want to attack?!

Aireal combat is all about seeing the bogie or bandit first and move yourself in an good position for either retreat or attack.


Sure. But here we are talking about the moment where the plane is still a tiny dot.
What do you do with this information?
At this stage you don't know whether it's friend or foe - all you know is there's an aircraft.

(the direction of the plane doesn't help too much, I often penetrate hostile airspace just to stab them in the back on their way to the front )

[Sturm_Williger]

While everyone is asking/talking about dot visibility and so forth, could I perhaps ask Luthier if you have been able to do anything about aircraft visibility up close - ie. sometimes in IL2 you're on the tail of an enemy at about 250m and he dives ( you're at about 1000m or so altitude ) and simply vanishes in the ground textures.

Now I know camouflage wasn't that good and it's more to do with the limitations of a 2D screen and so forth, was there anything you were able to do in CoD to help make the enemy stand out better from the ground ? Or is this a problem that has no real solution ?

[swiss]

To all of the guys having super high res and trouble spotting enemy planes:

Have you tried to reduce AA? Maybe that helps bit. :confused:



Now I know camouflage wasn't that good and it's more to do with the limitations of a 2D screen and so forth, was there anything you were able to do in CoD to help make the enemy stand out better from the ground ? Or is this a problem that has no real solution ?

Yep. They call it it wonderwoman view and icons!

Just kidding, sorry.Couldn't resist.

[KaHzModAn]

Sure. But here we are talking about the moment where the plane is still a tiny dot.
What do you do with this information?
At this stage you don't know whether it's friend or foe - all you know is there's an aircraft.

(the direction of the plane doesn't help too much, I often penetrate hostile airspace just to stab them in the back on their way to the front )

Hm... to me, the moment you see a tiny dot in the distance is the most important moment... You can take real decisions that will have more effect than just turning tighter than your opponent... Thats called tactics...

And yes, you see just an unidentified bogey, but say, if your in an escort you'll send a pair check it out, or you'll keep an eye on it so he won't surprise you with a dive on your bombers...

But that depends on what type of games you play... sure if you are a lonely hunter in dogfights server... it goes down to dogfighting skills more often... but if your in a team with a clear defined mission, it's a completely different world

[t4trouble]

[QUOTE=swiss;221362]I hope you weren't ironic.

No m8 and yes the same guy.
Fearful opponent you are
~S~

[swiss]

Hm... to me, the moment you see a tiny dot in the distance is the most important moment... You can take real decisions that will have more effect than just turning tighter than your opponent... Thats called tactics...


Sure and I agree.
But it In the end there are two options:
-climb
-run
There is a huge difference between 3 and 5km - but much less when 6 vs 8km.


What is the max distance you spot the planes from?

Maybe I cannot reproduce the problem on my screen. :confused:
I'm going to test it....

[Royraiden]

I cant understand why people are complaining about the visibility of distant aircraft, asking for an enhancement to aid them to spot planes better.Did the real pilots in that era had some device that helped them see distant planes better?It is a challenge to spot a plane far away from you, let alone know which type of aircraft it is and which side is it on, but isnt this fun/realistic?When I first started playing IL- 2 and knew there were bogies at 12 a clock for example, I had really hard time spotting them that I got a bit frustrated. further more when I finally spotted some planes I started shooting only to realize I was shooting friendlies.I laughed because I knew that situations like that happened several times during ww2 and this sim let me experience this.By the way...

Thanks again Ilya for answering more questions!!!

[CharveL]

There's a completely different solution to the resolution issue. A partial solution anyway:

Why not simply publish the resolution of the player in some manner for everyone to see? Sure there's probably one, maybe two people out there that will have an old CRT monitor and a P4/1gig/8800GT playing online at 15fps who has to run 1024x768 but most definitely he will be the exception.

For those of you so concerned about points and bragging rights this can be a way to perhaps discourage the other advantage seekers since you would be welcome to disregard - or even boot them from your server if you feel like it - their successes.

Yes, I can see it not being perfect for everyone but no solution ever really is, and it beats adding more cpu-sucking graphics solutions to mitigate the issue, which will not get implemented anyway.