Pacific Fighters Bombed - inadequate maps

[nearmiss]

Pacific Fighters, did someone leave something out? The maps are a sad case of mistakes. The Pacific War was just not studied carefully, or maps would have been different.

I was messing around with the Pacific theatre today and got to thinking why the Pacific Fighters bored me. After I learned to make carrier landings I put the PF back in the box and didn't have any more use for it. I didn't try to analyze it or anything. Afterall, I'm just a consumer.. what do I know about what I want. LOL

The Solomons are not there, Rabaul, Pillippines, Northern Australia, Western New Guinea, etc.

There are so many islands just isolated on the IL2 maps. You can't fly close to historical missions from one land base to another. The reason the US conquered the islands was to build bases and support the advance towards Japan.

Marine and USAAF aircraft have practically negative application in the sim, because they were land based.

Iwo Jima was a tough prize and the purpose for taking it was to have bases from which the US could support and launch AC against Japan. Well there are two airbases on the island, but the Japanese didn't use them. So, when the US conquered Iwo Jima... kaput. Nothing else to do, because you can't launch attacks to Japan (another map)

I think it must have been in Oleg's mind that the Pacific Theatre was strictly a war of carrier launched aircraft. Where do you fly your B17s, B24s, B25s, B26s, P61s, and B29s from and to?

THe US dropped bombs on mainland Japan for quite awhile with the big bombers, long before the A-Bombs were used.

OK, so you spawn your heavy bombers like the B29s in the air and they have no place to land after they reach their final mission targets...they can never land? I guess the PF map makers planned for the fighters to land on the carriers and let the bombers fly into eternity. LOL

As it worked out, it didn't very well. LOL

-------------------

Knowing Oleg's flair for the full realism I'd say the reason the maps are like they are is because the distances would make maps too large for IL2.

There is a simple fix... Just move things closer together in the maps. Heck, who wants to fly for 9 hours from one island to another. All the player would do is 8x to the next island. Afterall, this is a game simulation and if Tinian was on the same map as Japan so what. You'd still have a distance to fly. It isn't like we're doing GPS or sophisticated navigation. We get into the plane and waypoint our merry way to and from. LOL

[Chivas]

Pacific fighters was never meant to be the be all and end all of the Pacific theater. It was started by a third party that Oleg had to divert his team too help finish. It was the first of many delays to the work on BOB SOW. It was first rumored that the third party was modelling an aircraft carrier then it slowly developed into a standalone sim with a few aircraft and maps of the Pacific Theater.

Edit

It was also called Pacific Fighters, not Pacific Bombers, or Pacific Theater.

[csThor]

In my opinion PF was supposed to be the ultimate PTO sim, mainly because of the "weird" combination of maps and aircraft. To me it's obvious that there were more aircraft and maps planned ... But with hindsight it's also obvious that a much smaller scale would have been better. A smaller but more focused selection aircraft would have been better for gameplay, same goes for maps.

My 0,02 € ...

[nearmiss]

It was also called Pacific Fighters, not Pacific Bombers, or Pacific Theater.

That's funny... works for me.

[Feathered_IV]

I think there would have been much more wisdom in concentrating on a single period of the Pacific conflict, and doing it properly and not trying to represent everything from Pearl Harbour to the Home Islands in one hit.


btw, is pacific fighters an oxymoron?

[Feuerfalke]

btw, is pacific fighters an oxymoron?

Not more than "Air Front" or "Air War" I guess.

[KOM.Nausicaa]

The IL2 engine never allowed what most Pacific Theatre fan's secretly want: One big map, from Pearl Harbour to Japan. The problem was in the concept, from the beginning.

[Chivas]

I think the problem was more "People's Expectations" than the development. The developers kept adding maps and aircraft as time allowed, much of the it at the request of the community. It would have taken atleast a couple of more years of development to create more of the Pacific theater. All to the tune of "Vaporware" coming from the community.

It started as a small project that wasn't intended to eat away resources required for the development of their new SOW engine.

[nearmiss]

I mentioned the problem with maps in IL2 couple years back on the UBI boards, but it never changed.

The maps are pristine and pretty.

The water that runs from the oceans inland ends in a nice soft arc.

There are no trees growing along the waters edge of any body of water.

There are large open spaces of land bordering the edges of all rivers and streams.

There are large open spaces on both sides of all roads and tracks.

The battlefield is just laid out in perfect view for attacking aircraft to find and destroy.

-----------------------------------

Alternatively:

The Pacific Islands were covered in Jungle.

Roads and tracks were barely seeable from the air.

Trees often extended very close to beaches, often overhanging waters edge.

Trees and greenery was everywhere... jungle.

Rivers and Streams would have jungle all along the waters edge borders.

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I just loaded up the old MSFT CFS2 flight sim and flew the Guadalcanal and the Milne Bay New Guinea. The old CFS2 stock map textures are 100 fold better renderings of what those locations looked like.

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I'm not knocking the IL2, because I've always enjoyed it for many reasons. There are certainly good and bad things. Comparing IL2 with CFS2 is just not apples and apples for comparison.

The CFS2 never got a single friggin patch. There are a multitude of problem things with the CFS2 that have to be corrected for you to use it competently. Things that should have been handled with a patch. Many are workarounds, because the source is closed to development. Now if you think users should be put out/angry. The CFS2 users should definitely be among those very angry ones. The sad part, if you love CFS it's just the way of it to deal with the shortcomings of all the stuff offered up as CFS.

------------------------------------

THere is a very vibrant user base for Falcon 4.0. This may be the way to go for some CFS enthusiasts. The old Warbirds from WW2 has always tweaked my interest. Flying and shooting stuff at Mach 1, that I cannot physically see doesn't interest me. Flying all the complications of actual flight, well I've had enough of that as well. My interest is to fly, fight and have a good time without it being StarWars.

Basically, the historical re-enactment of WW2 air war is my principal interest.

------------------------------------

Haven't installed the 4.09m Beta, because Beta has always had negative vibes for me.

There is supposed to be much better map rendering than we've had in the past in the 4.09. Some of you that have the beta installed might be able to affirm that.

[*Buzzsaw*]

Salute

PACIFIC FIGHTERS was a valiant attempt, but in my opinion it suffered from two central mistakes:

1) The maps should have been drawn at 1/2 scale. That is, 1/2 real size. The Pacific is too big to map in real scale. Look at the New Guinea map as an example. It is huge, but it still does not include all of the critical areas which were fought over during this campaign. No Rabaul, no Guadalcanal, no slot.

The game could have had a code mod to double the rate of gas consumption to make ranges realistic in these 1/2 scale maps.

2) The designers tried to cover too large a set of campaigns and ended up covering none of them well enough. Either more design time, (and money) was required, or the designers needed to be realistic and focus on fewer campaigns. For my money, they should have dropped Pearl Harbour, which was is a one shot deal, one mission map for a campaign. Too much work for no return. Narrow the game down to five campaigns: Solomons/New Guinea, Saipan, Phillipines, Burma and Okinawa. (with southern Japan included in the Okinawa map) With the extra time they saved, they should have built more ship models. Not having ships like Yamato, or the American Battleships was a big ommission.

But this discussion is so much hot air anyway, we'll have to live with PF for a LONG time. I don't think we'll see another Pacific Flight Sim for a while.

[KG26_Alpha]

Well it was voted for.

I voted for North Africa :)

[nearmiss]

Salute

PACIFIC FIGHTERS was a valiant attempt, but in my opinion it suffered from two central mistakes:

1) The maps should have been drawn at 1/2 scale. That is, 1/2 real size. The Pacific is too big to map in real scale. Look at the New Guinea map as an example. It is huge, but it still does not include all of the critical areas which were fought over during this campaign. No Rabaul, no Guadalcanal, no slot.

The game could have had a code mod to double the rate of gas consumption to make ranges realistic in these 1/2 scale maps.

2) The designers tried to cover too large a set of campaigns and ended up covering none of them well enough. Either more design time, (and money) was required, or the designers needed to be realistic and focus on fewer campaigns. For my money, they should have dropped Pearl Harbour, which was is a one shot deal, one mission map for a campaign. Too much work for no return. Narrow the game down to five campaigns: Solomons/New Guinea, Saipan, Phillipines, Burma and Okinawa. (with southern Japan included in the Okinawa map) With the extra time they saved, they should have built more ship models. Not having ships like Yamato, or the American Battleships was a big ommission.

But this discussion is so much hot air anyway, we'll have to live with PF for a LONG time. I don't think we'll see another Pacific Flight Sim for a while.

Good post

[ElAurens]

Two years ago called and wants it's thread back.

:rolleyes:

[6S.Maraz]

About map size, the modding community has shown that big maps (up to 800 km large) are possible in IL-2, if only there are not many ground objects. So a map with few islands and hundreds of km of sea could have been done, and Oleg surely knew that.

I believe that if such maps weren't done, it was for playability reasons. Except for few die-hard simmers, few players would have liked a 3 hours flight to their target. Look, for some players even a 20 minute flight is "boring" if they cannot shoot at someone! :)

So I don't think that Oleg should be criticized about map size in PF. Sure, some important places like Rabaul, Philippines, were left out. But I think we could have had that as add-on maps, if only the greed of some US companies (that still wanted to make money from 60-70 years old projects) had not killed PF.

Maraz

[Friendly_flyer]

It's possible to fly a decent bomber mission over water on the Gulf of Finland map.

[tater]

Greed? How about for lack of a copy editor or competent lawyer.

[robtek]

@tater
its all about to satisfy the shareholder in our capitalism.
the companys would have lost nothing if they had said: "ok, we allow you to use the names for this game only! next time ask beforehand."

[tater]

Not true, robtek. The entire thing was predicated by the use of the company name on the box with no copyright/attribution, IMO. A company is required to defend its name. The box of course has a global copyright on it saying that everything belongs to ubi/1c/whatever (don't have my box in front of me, it's at home). Without the note that NG is property of NG, they are in fact saying on the box that THEY own the NG name.

Slam dunk, taken to court, they'd have to recall the product, pay damages, etc.

Had the PF box not had NG's name on it (NOT the plane names), nothing would have happened. Since they had ubi over a barrel on that, they could demand anything they wanted and get it. You can argue with that, certainly, but it was entirely predicated on the lack of a decent copy editor and legal team to vet the box art (any company as big as ubi should have run the box past editors and lawyers as SOP).

Note that I'm not trying to be an apologist for NG, but there are two corporate entities here, and only one gets the flak on the boards for "greed." You could make a similar argument for being too greedy to pay a few hundred bucks to have the art checked.

[nearmiss]

I found the AAA site

http://allaircraftarcade.com/forum/index.php

I dl the engine and weapon sounds mod, and the two map mods.

There is just so much going on and the mod makers are having a field day.

More power to them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I think their map mods are pretty good, but they are mostly color improvements. Most of the maps still need more work.

Trees do not grow in Salt water. The idea of all the trees is great, but taking trees beyond the shoreline into salt water should not be.

The Pacific Islands were covered in Jungle.

Roads and tracks were barely seeable from the air, because of trees and foliage.

Trees often extended very close to beaches, often overhanging waters edge.

Trees and greenery was everywhere, especially Pacific Islands, mostly jungle.

Lakes, rivers and streams should have trees along waters edge borders.

--------------------------------------------------

The water that runs from the oceans inland should not end in a nice soft arc, they need to end in sharp jagged narrow ends or tentacled ends.

You will always see trees growing along the waters edge of any body of water, this is never the case in IL2 maps. Trees love to grow beside fresh water and border all lakes, rivers and streams all over the world.

There are large open spaces of land in IL2 maps bordering the edges of all rivers and streams, which is just not the case. There are certainly some open spaces around such areas, but nothing like in IL2 maps.

There are large open spaces on both sides of all roads and tracks. I always hated this because finding the ground enemy was always too easy and the combat engagements just seemed stupid.

The IL2 maps/battlefields are just laid out in perfect view for attacking aircraft to find and destroy ground targets.

It would be great to have partially concealed roads and tracks making it hard to find the enemy, and conversely the enemy could hide. Much more realistic.

---------------------------------------------------

Don't get me wrong I like what has and is being done. The current map mods are mostly a green up or winterize some maps. Maps is definitely the big bug-a-boo for the Pacific war theatre. The maps are nowhere near as good as they can be at this point. Burma looks pretty good but you still have the same kind of issues with trees not bordering water, streams, rivers, roads and tracks.

IL2 maps are just too neat ---

[Aviar]

"Wow! Oleg has really opened up things."

You must be joking. I'm sure you know that those are all illegal hacks?

Aviar

[nearmiss]

"Wow! Oleg has really opened up things."

You must be joking. I'm sure you know that those are all illegal hacks?

Aviar

Illegal! do you think...?

I never heard of the site until yesterday, and everything looks pretty darn legit to me.

What would be the consequences for using something like a mod that works and doesn't mess with the application code. There are plenty of mods that just use the things already in the IL2. I remember what a tough job it was for some mod builders, because nothing was documented about files or contents of files.

I gotta say this...

If word gets out that people can make mods of maps, aircraft, panels, etc.

Those old copies of the Il2 Sturmovik 1946 that haven't sold will jump off the shelves.

Oleg, may even get to do another release of it.

I saw it at Circuit City awhile back for $10 US, nobody wanted it.

[Spectrum]

Tinkering around with the appearance of the maps and making winter versions of existing maps is nice, but what would be really great would be to see some new maps to cover the missing areas.
I don't see how creating new maps can benefit any cheaters in the online game.
Who wouldn't like to fly over a few new Pacific Maps, or fly across the English Channel, or maybe an enlarged Ardennes Map.
Sure, you can use your imagination by adapting existing maps, but its not the same is it.....

[csThor]

I don't see how creating new maps can benefit any cheaters in the online game.

Because the same process that gave "them" access to the maps also gives access to nearly everything else? And since there is currently no technical solution to discern what was modified it's either "all gates open" or "all gates closed". ;)

[Woody01]

Rabaul was always there, I guess they just didn't have to time to complete it.

http://mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=2964

You cant land back at jacquinot bay (which would be nice) but its pretty close for Green Island.

But I do agree that the maps should have been very different. However none of the maps we have had no action, so omitting Pearl Harbor would have also been a great injustice.

I am hoping IL2/BoB will only get stronger in the Pacific front, and Ive had a hell of a ride up until now, Oleg's team can only improve this area of the sim, Its already a benchmark in many areas.

Im confordent that the next series will include some of the aircraft we cant fly now, in both Pacific and European theaters, only because it makes good long term bussiness sence.

[tater]

I the last month or two I've "sold" at least a half dozen copies of 1946, maybe closer to 10—that's not couting the couple I bought myself as gifts. By that I mean I got people I know from other sims who never updated after PF (some with just Il-2) to go out and buy 1946.

There is some truth to renewed interest.

[mondo]

Illegal! do you think...?

I never heard of the site until yesterday, and everything looks pretty darn legit to me.


Using the 'sound mod' etc is in breach of the EULA.

[nearmiss]

I think it's a good thing. Probably not stoppable.

I would suggest Oleg get on the bandwagon and find some way to make some money off it.

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I'm not unhappy with IL2 Sturmovik 1946. This sim is still state of the art in most respects, compared to other CFS.

The AI performance needs work, the FMB needs work (new tools) i.e, triggers, events, event areas, etc.

Maps,maps and more maps are needed.

The sound Mod Mondo mentioned. Well, I can tell you it may be full real sounds... but most of the planes sound like the bearings are going out on the motor (from inside the cockpit). LOL

Oleg would be smart to workaround this and maybe even join in the processes to some extent. Why, because he still holds the core code and can make things happen more his way than we realize. This may just be the kind of thing Oleg needed for his great old sim all along. Oleg has already pretty well written it off, as I understand. I could be wrong, but he is putting all his eggs in the BOB basket.

-----------------------------------

I have an opinion:

Oleg is making a mistake trying to make a complete sim about a few months of air combat over a miniscule part of the war. I've done the Rowan's BOB and now the BOB II WOV with all the add ins. He will have to really do some fabulous work to duplicate or exceed the AI performance for OFFLINE play in the Shockwave BOB II.

Oleg may turn this few months of air combat(the BOB) into some kind of glorious, graphic masterpiece. I don't see that much interest being there for a dedicated sim to this one period of history, in this one place. The landscapes are flat, uninteresting mesh and terrains. The few aircraft that were flown in the BOB were shooting their .303's, very Boring....

I enjoy the IL2 because I can fly those weak weapon aircraft, and then I can jump into an aircraft with some real firepower and whup some tail.

-----------------------------
MSFT shot their foot. They had a great CFS that people loved, CFS2. The CFS3 was a state of the art graphics improvement and for the most part it was a nightmare for users. As a result, MSFT has just walked away from the CFS games.

----------------------------

Oleg should take the IL2 Sturmovik 1946 and improve the sim, maybe with some hard work and dedication. Find a way to connect with this new influx of influence from devs... who have found a way.

What people are really saying is they don't want IL2 to go away, and the message couldn't be clearer or louder.

The AAA site is very new and already has over 6,000 members. Think about that, does someone have to get smacked up side the head to realize there is enormous interest in an improved IL2. The BOB may not be anywhere near what someone thinks it will be.

People enjoy the IL2 because it covers the war all over the world to a large extent. I personally, like the early conflict on the Eastern Front and the early conflict in the Pacific War. Everyone has their own little niche, but with the BOB it is going force everyone to the one little niche (BOB), that is of little or no interest to a lot of people.

Oleg must make a way to keep the IL2 intact even if he takes the old IL2 and moves it into a newer software engine. Let us continue to fly 8 poly current aircraft and incrementally add in the 16 poly aircraft.

This is a marketers dream. The users of Il2 are still out there clamouring for more and more.

The sim is a hit, what the hell else could you want.

You might think those are strong words, but someone needs to get the message.

[Golden_Eagle_FM]

As our processors get more and more powerful, CPU and GPU and as long as IL2 remains compatible we will be able to cover some of the islands with trees and give them a more realistic look without loosing to much framerate.

This means adding thousands of objects. On an Island like Wake it is doable. On larger ones like Guadalcanal it is still a problem. But we can cover some patches at least.

Unfortunately there is an effect of the IL2 engine that kills this. You may have excellent visibility like with Landgeom=3, but all the objects further then some distance (much much too short about 3 miles will simply disappear. You get this horrible effect when flying were trees and forests that I have laid out pop on barren ground.

Come on. Do a landgeom=4 position and have all the objects just stay.

Gold.

[VMF-214_HaVoK]

Im very happy Pacific Fighters was created and we got our hands on it for obvious reasons, but I must say it does feel more like a 3rd party mod then a stand alone game. Although I did happily pay for it and would do it again.

S!

[VMF-214_HaVoK]

What people are really saying is they don't want IL2 to go away, and the message couldn't be louder.

+1

Oleg and crew could make money off of IL2 for years to come with addons and expansions and probably more then they will make off of the initial release of SoW.

S!

[Roy]

The AAA site is very new and already has over 6,000 members. Think about that, does someone have to get smacked up side the head to realize there is enormous interest in an improved IL2. The BOB may not be anywhere near what someone thinks it will be.

People enjoy the IL2 because it covers the war all over the world to a large extent. I personally, like the early conflict on the Eastern Front and the early conflict in the Pacific War. Everyone has their own little niche, but with the BOB it is going force everyone to the one little niche (BOB), that is of little or no interest to a lot of people.

Oleg must make a way to keep the IL2 intact even if he takes the old IL2 and moves it into a newer software engine. Let us continue to fly 8 poly current aircraft and incrementally add in the 16 poly aircraft.

This is a marketers dream. The users of Il2 are still out there clamouring for more and more.

The sim is a hit, what the hell else could you want.

You might think those are strong words, but someone needs to get the message.

There is Storm of War:BoB, which admittedly may get boring fast if it's as dull as some games already in the market about this particular WWII event -strongest point here for sowbob will be multiplayer support though-, but then that's the first game they are launching using the new engine. There's also the Korean sim in the works, the next expansion for the new engine (whatever the theater may be) and so on. AFAIK these expansions/games were intended to be linked similarly to what was done in IL2.

I wouldn't depict it as one static, boring game that will be running for years with little to no changes, their plan certainly suggests the opposite ;)

[Chivas]

"You might think those are strong words, but someone needs to get the message."

There will be few left to get the message when BOB SOW comes out. The majority of simmers will move on to a more immersive combat flight sim. The Il-2 forums will become as quite as the CFS 3 forums.

[nearmiss]

There is Storm of War:BoB, which admittedly may get boring fast if it's as dull as some games already in the market about this particular WWII event -strongest point here for sowbob will be multiplayer support though-, but then that's the first game they are launching using the new engine. There's also the Korean sim in the works, the next expansion for the new engine (whatever the theater may be) and so on. AFAIK these expansions/games were intended to be linked similarly to what was done in IL2.

I wouldn't depict it as one static, boring game that will be running for years with little to no changes, their plan certainly suggests the opposite ;)

Funny... that's what Rowan did. He made the BOB and then Mig Alley.

BOMBS both of them.

Rowan just released the source and user developers, and Shockwave have turn the Rowan BOB into a very decent CFS for Offline players. However, it still needs work and the devs are taking every task head on to enjoy their BOB. No one has shown any interest to do anything with the Korean Airwar it was too isolated a conflict and didn't affect the whole world.

Honestly, it is egotistical to think you can outdo someone else by following in their footsteps. That is a big no-no in American business. If want to be successful you pattern your products after the best and toughest competition.

You can't beat the success of Il2... so duh!

[nearmiss]

"You might think those are strong words, but someone needs to get the message."

There will be few left to get the message when BOB SOW comes out. The majority of simmers will move on to a more immersive combat flight sim. The Il-2 forums will become as quite as the CFS 3 forums.

I do believe Oleg will sell plenty of the BOB, on reputation alone. I don't see it as a long term thing unless he turns it into an improved IL2 doing the whole world conflict of WW2.

Then again... Online players are mostly turn, burn and shoot so what difference will it make whether they do their thing over the English countryside or Leningrad. There are exceptions in Online play, but most of it is TB&S.

[tater]

While SOW will certainly quench some of the interest in il-2 (virtually everyone who plays il-2—modded or not—will buy SOW), for some of us the Pacific matters. So for the BoB, I'll be flying SOW, but I'll still want to fly an F4F or B-25 over the SWPA.

BTW, I think it's a mistake to limit player made maps in SOW to some arbitrarily small size. Players will quickly make maps, and the devs can concentrate on stuff use the maps for.

[mondo]

+1

Oleg and crew could make money off of IL2 for years to come with addons and expansions and probably more then they will make off of the initial release of SoW.

S!

I personally would buy more addons for IL2 but every time I play IL2 these days it looks more and more dated, the engine limitations are more and more apparent. I really want OM to finish off with 4.09 and then get SoW finished so we can start out with a new a better engine as a base for a new generation of SoW addons in the years to come.

[VMF-214_HaVoK]

I personally would buy more addons for IL2 but every time I play IL2 these days it looks more and more dated, the engine limitations are more and more apparent. I really want OM to finish off with 4.09 and then get SoW finished so we can start out with a new a better engine as a base for a new generation of SoW addons in the years to come.

As do I but maybe its time Oleg partners up with these 3rd party "modders/hackers". It clear they are not going to go away just because we prefer not to discuss them and it would not cost Oleg or his team any extra resources. The envelop could be pushed and much could be learned and we the customers relish in the benefits...or not.

S!

[mondo]

Might be good if done right but these 3rd party guys are not a development house or publisher so I fear what we would see is akin to CFS2 and how that was utterly ruined by modders.

[nearmiss]

Just a little update-->

I was over on the AAA site and noticed something that should send up a big old flag for anyone paying attention.

The Slot

Here it is:

http://www.allaircraftarcade.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1342

This posting has generated 49,000+ views and 1,100+ responses to the thread and the map isn't done yet.

The Battle of Britain is not the battleground of interest. Look at the Normandy and Britain Map mod interest.

----------------------------------------------

Oleg, someone has been feeding you some bad cheese.

----------------------------------------------

[Chivas]

The Slot map is on hold, by the time its out, most people will have moved on to a new generation of maps and map making tools.

[tater]

^^^ ROFL. I was just... nevermind.

As for new tools, etc, I'll certainly be buying SOW, and I'll fly it around, but I personally won't be messing with it that much until I see Palm trees and Zeros again. In the meantime, I'll be flying around the South Pacific. In the words of the 5th AF, I'll be "Glocesterizing" places from treetop altitude. Ah, to sweep in low over Rabaul, or parafrag Wewak.

:D

tater

[csThor]

It's always utterly amusing how people come up with a load of conspiracy theories on how Oleg secretly supports the hackers or new requests that he should endorse them. :rolleyes:

Folks, get real! If the Il-2 engine wasn't at the end of its commercial life you'd be surprised how quick Ubisoft would have closed down "that site" and prosecuted anyone they could get their hands on. That this hasn't happened just shows that neither Maddox Games nor Ubisoft have any interest in the engine anymore. But that doesn't mean they are giving it away for anyone to have a look at.

[jasonbirder]

you'd be surprised how quick Ubisoft would have closed down "that site" and prosecuted anyone they could get their hands on

Evidence...or unsupported opinion?
Any examples of publishers taking action against game mod sites? Ever...(Piracy issues not included)
Under what law and what jurridisction would they be prosecuted...we've discussed the legal standing or lack of ad naseum elsewhere...everytime it is raised it is proven that it has no legal basis...yet people keep restating the terms "prosecuted" or "legal action" i assume in the hope that if it repeated enough times someone...anyone...will accept it as fact.

[tater]

They really should have released the map tools from the start. We'd have had better maps (in choice AND quality) than PF came with a couple months after PF was out (since we now know that 5 months is the boundry value for people with no idea what they were doing when they started* ;) )

Regarding legal issues... if Ubi had a decent lawyer on staff they'd know what ©, ™, and ® are, or perhaps even where they live on the keyboard. ;)

tater

[nearmiss]

They really should have released the map tools from the start. We'd have had better maps (in choice AND quality) than PF came with a couple months after PF was out (since we now know that 5 months is the boundry value for people with no idea what they were doing when they started* ;) )

Regarding legal issues... if Ubi had a decent lawyer on staff they'd know what ©, ™, and ® are, or perhaps even where they live on the keyboard. ;)

tater

AMEN to that!

I think Oleg probably didn't know how he could manage his sim with 3rd party devs building mods. Afterall, to allow good 3rd party interventions he would probably had to come forth were information he feared might go awry in the wrong hands.


Regardless, I do see some people pumping out stuff a little too fast for sensible mods.

We needed maps from the begining, and that is one area all the IL2 has suffered from the lack of. "The Slot" and some of these coming map mods are going to make the maps that came with IL2 look unprofessional for sure.

Honestly, I have concerns about the aircraft. I don't know at this point if they are doing anything more than using everything from already built airplanes except the graphics.

The sound mod... well it may be more real, but the engine sounds make you think of junker aircraft on their last legs trying to make war. The explosions are pretty good, so I would probably have preferred Oleg's engine sounds and 3rd party sounds for the pops and bangs.

Again, if you look a the interest in the coming "THE SLOT" it should be clear what people want. If you watch the History channel, you get an idea of the war theatres of interest to people.

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o222/tatersw/The%20Slot/The_Slot_Mid43.jpg

----------------------------------------------------

The Shockwave and devs group continue to work with their BOB II WOV. I don't see much more that Oleg's BOB can bring to users for exciting game play. THe English and Northern France landscapes are flat and boring, and every battle is just a furrball. The BOB II WOV has the most competent AI performance of any CFS I've ever known. The sim has an AI peformance engine the devs are continuing to tweak. A 2.08 release is soon coming and it has even more improvements in the AI performance. Since BOB II is currently an Offline game, the AI performance is critical to good game play. The devs are addressing the needs of the sim very sensibly and they are all over the forums answering questions and learning what their users want.

The BOB II devs are working on the online game and have been for some time. They may first release as a Coop and later as a full online game. BOB II Online play probably will NOT equal Oleg's Online play to start, experience being a very important part of building it right. I recently bought another BOB II over the internet with a very fast download. There are a lot of users like myself that want to support the efforts being made to improve this great sim.

[tater]

Adding maps without adding new objects would have been easy for them I think. Maps could have been like player plane skins. Once new objects get into the mix, configuration control becomes an issue because the total object list is serial in il-2, and 1 mapmaker cannot add an object without screwing up another who has done the same. At some point all the objects to be used need to be nailed down FIRST so everyone is on the same page.

What 3d party mapmakers (Ian, and the slovakia teams in the vanguard) have shown is how well done the map tools really are, even if the stock maps use only a fraction of the capability. Really, when t comes down to it all that good maps require is CARING. If you don't care about quality, you produce the stock Singapore map. If you do care about quality you make Burma, or Slovakia, or the Solomon Islands quality maps.

tater

[nearmiss]

Adding maps without adding new objects would have been easy for them I think. Maps could have been like player plane skins. Once new objects get into the mix, configuration control becomes an issue because the total object list is serial in il-2, and 1 mapmaker cannot add an object without screwing up another who has done the same. At some point all the objects to be used need to be nailed down FIRST so everyone is on the same page.

What 3d party mapmakers (Ian, and the slovakia teams in the vanguard) have shown is how well done the map tools really are, even if the stock maps use only a fraction of the capability. Really, when t comes down to it all that good maps require is CARING. If you don't care about quality, you produce the stock Singapore map. If you do care about quality you make Burma, or Slovakia, or the Solomon Islands quality maps.

tater

We all know that PF was a throw together addition to sell some stuff. The carrier landings and the Pacfic aircraft was the plus to the PF.

[tater]

The map quality refers to all the theaters, frankly. If my ww2 aviation area of interest was Stalingrad or the defense of Moskow, you can bet I would lay out the airfields like the real ones, not pasted in from a handful of templates I made. "Hmmm, Moskow needs a 'large field, concrete,' and a 'Medium grass'."

No, I'd find pictures and get it as close as possible to RL.

Slovakia shows what Europe could have looked like.

tater

[csThor]

jasonbirder - Knowing how to take your posts I refrain from giving you a thorough reply. You would twist words to suit your agenda anyway. But yes, I'd say hacking the file protection system of a commercial release is the issue here, not necessarily the stuff people made of it. But as they profit from a technically illegal act I'd say Ubi would try to find a way to shut the site down. They haven't become a large publisher by exerting Salvation-Army-politics. ;)

tater - There's more to it than just a large-enough dose of "caring". The legitimate map tools can create a map package but that still needs to be imported into the engine by Maddox Games as only they have the legitimate development tools. It wouldn't have made a difference if the map tools had been released as all content would still have gone through Maddox Games. So projects as the BoB map or any larger western europe or realisti MTO map would have ended in the dustbin.

[Chivas]

Nearmiss...can you help me out on the AI thing...I've never understood why a few people claim the superiority of the AI in other sims. I fly both sims extensively but usually get very annoyed with the AI and go back to organized on-line flying. The only thing people specifically mention is the AI doesn't see thru clouds, but that has never been true. Maybe because I always fly as leader where you see all the AI's faults in both sims.

I know the most difficult aspect to get right in flight sims, is the AI, but hopefully the next generation of combat flight sims will see a nice improvement.

~Salute~
Chivas

[tater]

tater - There's more to it than just a large-enough dose of "caring". The legitimate map tools can create a map package but that still needs to be imported into the engine by Maddox Games as only they have the legitimate development tools. It wouldn't have made a difference if the map tools had been released as all content would still have gone through Maddox Games. So projects as the BoB map or any larger western europe or realisti MTO map would have ended in the dustbin.

No, they could have left the map file structure OPEN.

A MAPS folder like there is a PaintSchemes folder. It's not like the files structure isn't arbitrary. They could have chosen to make the maps folder open like paint schemes. There was nothing else required to import it into the engine. Put the files in the right place, and tell the engine to look for folders there (with a single text file that lists them, make a new map, add a line to an ini file. Done.)

Clearly this is true, or we would not have skinning. Skins don't have to be "imported to the game engine." Neither do maps if the map file structure is open (ie: pull the maps out of SFS like Paint Schemes are, that's pretty much the only difference). Maps do not need to be "imported" like the java stuff does. Really.

<S>

tater

[jasonbirder]

Evidence...or unsupported opinion?
Any examples of publishers taking action against game mod sites? Ever...(Piracy issues not included)
Under what law and what jurridisction would they be prosecuted...we've discussed the legal standing or lack of ad naseum elsewhere...everytime it is raised it is proven that it has no legal basis...yet people keep restating the terms "prosecuted" or "legal action" i assume in the hope that if it repeated enough times someone...anyone...will accept it as fact.

jasonbirder - Knowing how to take your posts I refrain from giving you a thorough reply. You would twist words to suit your agenda anyway. But yes, I'd say hacking the file protection system of a commercial release is the issue here, not necessarily the stuff people made of it. But as they profit from a technically illegal act I'd say Ubi would try to find a way to shut the site down. They haven't become a large publisher by exerting Salvation-Army-politics

I assume you refrain from giving me a thorough reply because a thorough reply would expose the holes in your logic...I can find No examples of commercial software publishers taking legal action to close down sites offering Mods of game software to legitimate software purchasers (Pirated Software is a different issue) ...
There are no examples of individual users being taken to court for breach of EULA's, though there are test cases in law that set the precedent that EULAs are non-enforcable contracts...
Ubisoft as a software publisher have always openly encouraged community modification of their software titles and i suspect are as baffled as the rest of us at the hostility a tiny proportion of the IL2 community exhibits to the many and varied improvements to the game a bunch of hard working and talented amateurs have created.

[tater]

SH3/4 is actively modded, with the encouragement of that game's Devs. None the less, it is an Ubi product, and the same boilerplate EULA is in force, and I have seen no legal document proffered by ubi stating that "modding SH3 and SH4 is permissible under the EULA, now."

Short of that, modding SH3 and SH4 would be just as forbidden regardless of the position of the devs. Jason is correct, legally there seems to be nothing to see here. At the most I think you could argue that it is "impolite" to do so against the wishes of the creator, no more.

So yeah, it might be considered "rude."

tater

[nearmiss]

Nearmiss...can you help me out on the AI thing...I've never understood why a few people claim the superiority of the AI in other sims. I fly both sims extensively but usually get very annoyed with the AI and go back to organized on-line flying. The only thing people specifically mention is the AI doesn't see thru clouds, but that has never been true. Maybe because I always fly as leader where you see all the AI's faults in both sims.

I know the most difficult aspect to get right in flight sims, is the AI, but hopefully the next generation of combat flight sims will see a nice improvement.

~Salute~
Chivas

If I were an Online player I would probably have little or no perception about the AI performance. Afterall, the AI performance is based on probablistic responses to what humans would do in similar circumstances.

In IL2 if you get within a certain range of the six of any AI the AI will start jinking and stunting to avoid being hit. You can count on it happening 100% of the time. The AI constantly take to the vertical, which could have been devastating in war time, especially if the pilot didn't have enough E to climb and pull away from pursuing enemies.

I could probably create a huge list of things that are wrong with the IL2 series AI performance. Things, which really don't affect the Online game. THe players are human and do human things. The Online game is enhanced of course with Coops and planned missions/campaigns from dedicated squad groups. Otherwise, its T & B and every man for himself (unless you fly with a couple buddies).

------------------------------------

In BOB II if the player gets on to the six of the AI it may or may not start jinking, the AI may break hard left or right, start a rolling manuever, do a split S etc. That should give you an idea.

During the war if a plane got hits on it sometimes the pilot would bail, sometimes he would become even more aggressive, or sometimes just be dead in the cockpit.

With the AI performance engine in BOB II there is a randomness to what the AI will do, but it is based on sensible human responses. You really don't know what the AI will do, but they will do something and it's not often the same thing twice.

I didn't discuss how the AI pursue the player, but there is a terminator profile for a very competent and agressive AI performance. It will try the best of sim pilots ability to fly and stay alive.

You can kick some butt or get yours kicked. It's great waging war against the 1s and zeros (binary code) LOL:-P




I hope that helps

[nearmiss]

I assume you refrain from giving me a thorough reply because a thorough reply would expose the holes in your logic...I can find No examples of commercial software publishers taking legal action to close down sites offering Mods of game software to legitimate software purchasers (Pirated Software is a different issue) ...
There are no examples of individual users being taken to court for breach of EULA's, though there are test cases in law that set the precedent that EULAs are non-enforcable contracts...
Ubisoft as a software publisher have always openly encouraged community modification of their software titles and i suspect are as baffled as the rest of us at the hostility a tiny proportion of the IL2 community exhibits to the many and varied improvements to the game a bunch of hard working and talented amateurs have created.

I could care less about the EULA business and all the hoopla about piracy,etc.

Don't read this wrong. I buy my software, because if you don't it's stealing. It's a fact, if you'll steal a quarter you'll steal anything worth more than a quarter... and you're a thief. I don't want to be a thief or a liar. It's darned easy to get anything you want off the web.. music, movies, software, etc. from P2P sites. I know where to go and how to do it, but it's wrong. It is important to live life with a clear conscience and best choices for the way we want to live and work with others.

The courts in America decide some of the craziest chit you can imagine. So, I'd say it aint over until the fat lady sings and the plaintiff has spent his fortune in a legal battle that is NOT worth the effort or costs.

People are just going to do things that aren't exactly upright. YOu can buy all kinds of expensive software off the Ebay and it's pirated. You think Ebay cares? I bought a software off an ebay seller once and the seller used all the promotional literature from the official software. Everything was explained just like I was getting the "FOR REAL SURE FIRE" all official software.

Nope... it came on a burned CD with a handwritten Marksalot name.

I contacted the Jerk and he said he had written authorization to do it.

No way, but I'm not the software police. I threw it in the trash and moved on with my life.

Life is about choices. Making good choices, makes me feel good about my life.

[tater]

In terms of being constructive to SOW, I think it does matter. Having an indefensible (legally) EULA doesn't help 1C. It sounds like their "modable" model for SOW is a good one. Sure, people might try to mess with it to cheat, but a vanishingly small % of people will always try to do that.

By keeping the parts that the vast majority would LIKE to mod open, all those bright minds end up taking the path of least resistance.

Skins are a prime example. Look at the vast numbers of skins out there. Not just "by the book," but hacks as well (meaning the creative skinning of one plane to fill in for another that is missing).

Too bad in stock il-2 the default skins are not able to be changed. Instead of the community clamoring for changes, it could be as simple as installing a skin pack. Same for ships, tanks, etc. Or adding new ground objects.

Oleg is very smart to make such things easy to add in SOW, since the large majority of people interested in modding just want those kinds of changes.

Make doing what people want to do easy, and only the very very few will want to mess with anything else.

tater

[nearmiss]

In terms of being constructive to SOW, I think it does matter. Having an indefensible (legally) EULA doesn't help 1C. It sounds like their "modable" model for SOW is a good one. Sure, people might try to mess with it to cheat, but a vanishingly small % of people will always try to do that.

By keeping the parts that the vast majority would LIKE to mod open, all those bright minds end up taking the path of least resistance.

Skins are a prime example. Look at the vast numbers of skins out there. Not just "by the book," but hacks as well (meaning the creative skinning of one plane to fill in for another that is missing).

Too bad in stock il-2 the default skins are not able to be changed. Instead of the community clamoring for changes, it could be as simple as installing a skin pack. Same for ships, tanks, etc. Or adding new ground objects.

Oleg is very smart to make such things easy to add in SOW, since the large majority of people interested in modding just want those kinds of changes.

Make doing what people want to do easy, and only the very very few will want to mess with anything else.

tater

Agreed!

Most people won't mess with mods, if they have to do them.

Maps should have been opened up for modification when FB came out.

IMO, I've always enjoyed having a level playing field on the aircraft. Oleg did a great job on FM, etc. It has always been a kind of relief knowing you had a decent aircraft to do the job at hand.

CFS2, not the case at all. There are so many thoughts on modified things it is confusion at best. LOL

I still do the CFS2, because I love the mission builder tool. You can create scenarios and battles that are exceptional excitement. IL2 FMB is so static you know what is going to happen all the time.

The way I understand it the FMB is set in stone so improvement is not really possible unless Oleg releases the core code. The Rowan's BOB core code was released and the Shockwave nor BDG have been able to do anything about producing a competent mission builder tool. There was a push for a mission builder last year, but I think the scope of building something really competent became a real issue. (too much coding)

Oleg may have thought the issues with ground objects was too much for most of his users. Look at the specs for BOB SOW. I mean they just won't pump that sim up to require tougher specs. The maps was always a FPS killer, especially when you consider the math and memory requirements of a CFS are so high as it is. (need lots of processing power). I still have a problem with the objects that only come into view... before you are right on top of them.

When I built missions I usually tried to bring my player aircraft over a hill or something, then when the town or other objects popped into view it didn't seem so... ghost like. Now you see it now you don't LOL

[Chivas]

Hi Nearmiss
To me the AI doesn't have the same flight model as the player. They arn't effected by g-forces and have higher roll rates. They will hold a tight turn much longer than the IL-2 AI will. I have to use the Vertical when they are pulling tight turns to avoid blacking out. The IL-2 AI will break back or split S with usually gets them killed quicker than the BOB AI. I don't find the Terminator AI anymore difficult to outfly than any other setting, they just take alot more hits and never give up the fight until they are wingless, lol.

~Salute~
Chivas

[nearmiss]

Just a little update-->

I was over on the AAA site and noticed something that should send up a big old flag for anyone paying attention.

The Slot

Here it is:

http://www.allaircraftarcade.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1342

This posting has generated 49,000+ views and 1,100+ responses to the thread and the map isn't done yet.

The Battle of Britain is not the battleground of interest. Look at the Normandy and Britain Map mod interest.

----------------------------------------------

Oleg, someone has been feeding you some bad cheese.

----------------------------------------------


Update:

In four days the number of viewers on the above mentioned thread concerning "The Slot" is now 53,000+ and 1,200+ replys (4 days since I posted the above)

Somebody needs to be paying attention to this. Users are making it very clear what they want in a sim.

[Bearcat]

Was it all it could be? No.... Bombed? Hardly....

[tater]

The primary issue was one of focus, IMO. SoW is right to concentrate on a narrow time frame, and I'd hope additional content would try to add on that, either before or after. Narrow theater, narrow the content to fill the time/theater.

PF should have focused. Somewhere.

If CVs were the centerpiece, they should have improved the shipping in more ways (better DMs, moving ships on DF maps, realistic CV ops, etc)

If using the more complete land-based campaign engine was the way to go, then pick someplace and make some useful maps for it. Don't waste time on maps that are useful for ONE MORNING of the war (and have no ships to put there), and instead build... The Slot. Or a better New Guinea map(s). Or A few Burma maps to have fighting go from early to late in the war.

tater

[Former_Older]

The primary issue was one of focus, IMO. SoW is right to concentrate on a narrow time frame, and I'd hope additional content would try to add on that, either before or after. Narrow theater, narrow the content to fill the time/theater.

PF should have focused. Somewhere.

If CVs were the centerpiece, they should have improved the shipping in more ways (better DMs, moving ships on DF maps, realistic CV ops, etc)

If using the more complete land-based campaign engine was the way to go, then pick someplace and make some useful maps for it. Don't waste time on maps that are useful for ONE MORNING of the war (and have no ships to put there), and instead build... The Slot. Or a better New Guinea map(s). Or A few Burma maps to have fighting go from early to late in the war.

tater

Good points. It's interesting to note that although we here in the USA or Great Britain, or the Netherlands, or Australia, or New Zealand, or a few other places, seem to know the basics of the war in the Pacific, it seems very evident to me that the PF team did not know very much about the war in the Pacific- and maybe, why do we expect folks from the former Soviet Union to know a lot about it? They were after all not involved there, and I doubt many schoolbooks devote pages to the Solomons on most Russian text books- the same as how my local schools do not teach much about Stalingrad or Kursk

It seems to me that the "famous highlights" were given a look, but the basic and needed infrastructure of the war in the Pacific was not looked at, or maybe simply misunderstood. So Pearl harbor, Guadalcanal, Peleliu, etc, are given maps that at worst fairly represent the areas, or at best can encompass a segment of the Island hopping campaign

But when looked at in detail, there is no framework- what of Rabaul? What of Vella LaVella or the Slot in general? Missing. Inexplicable, to us. How can Guadalcanal exist without the Slot? Well to me that's an obvious question, perhaps to the dev team, not so obvious.

And it might not be hard to understand if looked at like this:

What type of Russian Front sim could somebody do, if they did not have enough info about the Russian Front? Or- better yet- they were under the impression that they *did know* but were wrong about the scope and scale?

Therein lies the story of PF in my opinion- the dev team underestimated the scope and scale of the war in the Pacific. The "high spots" were covered, or the high spots as they saw them were covered. When instead, the war in the Pacific was so complex and intertwined and non-linear that a "hit the high spots" approach leaves so many holes in the net that the omissions are more obvious than what's included

I love PF not for it's maps and campaigns, but for the tools it gave me to make PTO content. But as a sim unto itself it is a flawed work in my opinion

[ElAurens]

Good points...

Well put sir.

[tater]

Yeah, it was a failure to really understand the big picture. It's like they had a kid's picture book about the Pacific War, and made maps of the areas on the map with an explosion icon on them were a battle took place, lol.

Never mind that many were very one-sided and sort of pointless (from a PF standpoint)

One really funny thing (to me) is that the Tarawa map is big enough that there should be other islands on there, but there are none. You could easily have had places so that the map would at least be useful online with each side having an island.

Part of the problem is simply scale. The PTO is HUGE. Not that big maps are impossible, they are not. Timing is also and issue. Once an area fell, it tended to stay that way until it flipped back after an allied invasion. Given the distances, it makes for poor campaign play unless the map areas are very artfully picked.

While it is entirely possible to make the Slot in one map (without any FR issues at all), even had they merely made the map go NW as far as the Russell Islands it would have made sense. They could have broken it up.

The extant Papua map (know as "New Guinea" in PF) is fine for a few months, but it would have been worth abandoning other maps to then do a proper New Guinea farther west.

Really, playing to the strengths of the game engine, Burma would probably have been the best choice. Maps for the fall, and later recapture by the Allies. Maps in the middle for the period with a sort of static front with various AFs operating at once. A true "Forgotten Battle" as well.

tater

[tater]

If I had to pick just 2 campaign areas for PF focus, it would be Burma, and the Slot. The nice thing about the Slot is that it requires few aircraft.

Burma would require a complete IJAAF set, and the "usual suspects" for the Allies. The USAAF planes we see now in PF, and the RAF units we see.

The Slot would have been all the Navy planes in such a PF. The IJN would have Val, Kate, A6Ms (up to the A6M5 early models at most), Emily, and Betty. Nothing else needed. The USN/USMC would have F4F-4, TBF, SBD, F4U-1 (not defaulted to the RN!), F4U-1A and F6F-3. USAAF/Commonwealth would get whatever was in Burma (plus the F4Us the RNZAF used from the USMC). Maybe the B-17 and B-24 if they were not used in Burma much.

All the later war stuff don't bother until the planes for the 2 areas in question are filled in.

tater

[Former_Older]

Hi Terry!

[Former_Older]

yeah, tater, I agree....Burma in particular is curious. I talked to somebody who made some of the default PF skins. He told me that there were some planes- like the H81A-2- that were used last minute because the dev team was completely unaware that they were used! So he got the call to make default skins last minute, too

It was an interesting conversation, and explained a lot of little things to me, like why some skins were the way they were, and why some things were missing, or represented strangely- there were simply errors made in lots of things

[Theshark888]

Well put. What kinda makes me laugh is all the negative vibes about how Americans don't know enough/anything about the Soviet Union's sacrifices in WW2 and here is a good example of the reverse!
I really hope that Oleg gets some gamer/outside help in the "play" of the game. These Russian developers can get the nuts and bolts beautifully but their games tend to be "dry!"

[Former_Older]

Well put. What kinda makes me laugh is all the negative vibes about how Americans don't know enough/anything about the Soviet Union's sacrifices in WW2 and here is a good example of the reverse!

Possibly all too true! I guess everyone is jingoistic to some extent but ZI hadn't thought of it the way you put it. I think you may be right


I really hope that Oleg gets some gamer/outside help in the "play" of the game. These Russian developers can get the nuts and bolts beautifully but their games tend to be "dry!"

I feel this is more than a little true too. It can be hard to get to help a developer though...last year I was in contact with a developer for Shockwave's upcoming AVG simulation. I was arguing hard for individual skins since there is so much individualism present on the AVG aircraft. Anyway, I posted some screenshots of my AVG skins to illustrate my points, and suddenly I was PMing with the guy running the effort

I called him on his cel, he called me back but he lives in a different time zone and we never connected...I wish Scott and his team the best, but I really wish I could have talked to him on the phone rather than just online. Just didn't work out. But deep down, when that sim comes out, I know I'll spot something I will feel I could have helped make a little better, and mentally kick myself for not trying to talk to Scott harder. But try as we might, it never panned out. It can be hard, even if the dev wants help or is willing to at least listen

[tater]

Maps (hopefully objects, too), and skins are a prime example where they should really have things open (as they plan to with SoW).

I understand keeping the big maps for their own releases, but only to a point. Face it, if there were no arbitrary limits for map size for player built maps, and players made a kick-ass med map, why would 1C care? Would it stop players from buying a Med add-on? I think not, since the med add-on would have new planes, possibly new technologies (better AI, improved X, Y, and Z), etc.

Face it, unless they are having 3d parties build the maps anyway, they probably won't be all that great. They have not really shown the ability to make good maps themselves. The only good il-2 maps came from Ian, yogi, jurinko, et al, the rest are cut and paste jobs.

BTW, the lack of "lateral thinking," in terms of campaign/immersion stuff is one reason why I lobby so hard for open-ended systems for things. Features that are optional in campaigns. I'd love to see the AI opened up a bit, too. Each plane must either be assigned a generic "type" of AI to use (fighter, fighter bomber, level bomber, dive bomber, etc), or there are some variables in the code. They don't have to let is see the code to have access to the variables. Have a text file for each plane such that the AI parameters used are moddable by mission/campaign builders. Odd things can come of this, unpredicted things. A campaign builder might decide to do something crazy and assign the wrong "type" of AI to a plane and get a useful result for gameplay.

People like Chris are FORCED to be very creative in il-2 campaigns to get things even a little the way they want them. The devs are not forced, and they tend to think "inside the box," IMO.


tater

[Theshark888]

Any game about the AVG would definately need the individual pilots, Smith, Hill, Boyington etc. Glad to hear about your advice:)

I have been a plastic modeler for many years and doing them you get an attitude of "imagineering." I never had full blueprints of an aircraft but I would use the best resources available and make my models.
IL-2 went through many modelers who started aircraft only to say, "I don't have any resources on the port side cockpit so we cannot finish the plane!!" It seems this kind of attitude was pushed by 1C.
Hopefully a more imaginative approach, along with historical insight will be used in SOW to make it appealing to the "masses" who will really make or break our sim-pasttime. Supposed correct ammo loads are great (if there is such a thing) but the amount of work hours spent on that instead of gameplay will really be wasted in the end.

[tater]

Luckily for us, while the right side of a cockpit may have prevented useful planes from being flyable, there were apparently tons of images of cockpits for the lerche, etc. Gotta keep up standards! ;)

Related to SoW, I personally always wondered why not have some planes simply have "player as PILOT" as the paradigm. Meaning that the other positions simply do not matter. Better to have a % of the planes with only cockpits (and bombadiers for level bombers) done at the high level required, and have the gunners, etc be AI.

More flyable planes with less work.

[csThor]

Sorry tater for not getting back earlier, but I was on vacation at "Hotel Mama" ;)

Anyway to have "user-made maps" for Il-2 (in the sense you mean) it would have had to have been a design decision well before the project "Il-2 Sturmovik 1.0" was ever made public. Oleg said that they never planned to have more than "Il-2 Sturmovik 1.0" (plus bugfixing patches) and were simply surprised by their own success. It's not really fair to blame them for "bad planning" when their own plans were thrown out of the window after the initial release. What could have been done was to structure the 3rd Party process a lot better (both plane and map wise) but I'm not sure if I'm reading too many of my own wishes into that. I still don't know how several people actually got the tool so it might have been a case of "I know someone who knows the designer's favorite hairdresser's second-grade cousin" ;)

EDIT: Since you posted while I was typing. Don't blame Oleg for the content choices of RRG. The late addons were drawn up by Saqson and luthier.

[tater]

Weren't the same people responsible for PF?

The Kate was axed (flyable) for lack of a couple pictures, right?

Regarding maps... I don't think a folder with a 9 TGAs, a plain text file, and a file type created by the FMB (that we all have) really requires all that much in the way of special coding.

Just like all the years we begged for cut and paste and grouping in the FMB, and it is, um, not hard to do. Guys really busted their chops to make great missions and campaigns when this already existed but simply needed to be turned on... sigh.

Make the archetypical german AAA battery. Select. Paste, drag, rotate. Paste.

Or Palm grove on guadalcanal (the Cactus Diary" Campaign). PLace 2000 individual palms by hand, OR, place a short row, copy. Paste. Select the 2 rows, copy. Paste, select the 4 rows, copy, paste, etc.

All for lack of a couple lines set from =0 to =1

tater

[Theshark888]

EDIT: Since you posted while I was typing. Don't blame Oleg for the content choices of RRG. The late addons were drawn up by Saqson and luthier.

This is the SCARY part. Now he is looking for info on the Do-215, which maybe 100 were made!? And RRG is making a Korean war game-Oh brother I can't wait to see how that turns out!

I still put all of these bad decisions squarely into Oleg's lap. Sorry but I still have a bad attitude since the Pacific Theater is my favorite-maybe after The Med.

[csThor]

tater

I think you're putting the blame on Maddox Games too easily and without knowing all the facts. None of us know all the facts regarding what really happened during PF development and ... *cough* ... "The Grumman Incident". And those who know won't talk about it.

To be honest I do not believe that the Kate was left out for a lack of sources. IMO Oleg and Ubi pulled the plug on any additional PTO content after "the Grumman incident". You know the old saying: "Burnt child dreads the fire." Without Ubi's marketing faux pas and Grumman's corporate greed there may have been a chance for further PTO stuff but that "incident" proved to be the final nail to the coffin.

Now what to make of those experiences? IMO Maddox Games needs to draw two fundamental lessons from them:

a) They need to get away from their pure "engineer perspective" and get someone who looks at the product through the eyes of a gamer.
b) They need to cooperate with people who know the historical facts about certain operations. If they want to make a large AddOn with the MTO they need to get in touch with people who can tell them which objects/planes/ships are necessary and where the maps (if a single full-size map is out of question) need to be located.

My 0,02 € ...

Theshark888

The Do-215 was, along with the Do 17 M and P, the main long-range recon plane of the Luftwaffe during the BoB. It does have a place and IMO simulating the recon role with proper aircraft would certainly add to the game's depth.

[Al Schlageter]

Thor, your points 'a' and 'b' hopefully will have been learned.

The question is though Thor, is the Do215 really necessary at this point? Are there other planes that are not modeled yet that would be more appropriate for them to be modeling? As you said, the Do17M and P are also recon planes and the Do17 is already modeled, so is a duplication.

Another question is the Do215 to be AI or flyable?

Where can I find a list of the BoB/SoW planes?

[csThor]

The Do-17 M and P are very very different from the Do 17 Z the bomber units had.

http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/bww2/do17m/do17m-5.jpg
Do 17 P/M

http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/wwii/photos/gallery_005/Do%2017Z%20refuelling.jpg
Do 17 Z

The former had an elongated "glass bow" and a reduced defensive armament. In fact they were "earlier" Do 17s dating back to the mid-1930s. The Do-215 is a lot more "Do-17Z-like" as it was essentially a Do 17 Z-1 with two DB 601 engines. And unfortunately there is no "trustworthy" list of what is to expect in SoW:BoB plane-wise.

[Former_Older]

No matter what happens, somebody will ask "Why was Z plane included but X plane was left out"?

We can only speculate, but we've known for some time that at least part of it is: does somebody want to model it?

I personally would like Oleg and his team to think like simmers: what can we do to make this more correct? Where should we look for reference? Who has documents that could help us? How can we create a more believable simulation?

[tater]

csThor, the "incident" you mention happened AFTER PF was released. The only changes would have been to stuff that they expected to patch in after the "gold master."

BTW, Trademarks do not protect a company from anyone using the mark as long as the mark is not used to deceive. Meaning you can use another's name, and even profit off of it, as long as it is clear your product is not actually authorized/produced by the holder of the mark. Ie: "Charger works with Nokia™ phones" is fine. Both the package, and it actually working with a proprietary product. Copyright is another issue, you need to make damn sure you don't claim to own their name on the box. If my box has a ©2001 TaterFactory Inc. All Rights Reserved on the bottom, AND has copy on the box that says "chThorCo ButcherBird fighters included!" without remarking that csThorCo and all rights belong to csThorCo... then I am very much F-ed.


tater

[csThor]

Actually it happened one week before release. And yes it was Ubi's faux pas ... but then PF was not the child of MG but of RRG. I guess the equation had a lot of variables in it, most of which we don't even know about.

[tater]

Bottom line is that 1 week before release it didn't change the content any, the masters were already printed.

[Former_Older]

Bottom line is that 1 week before release it didn't change the content any, the masters were already printed.

100% true! But of course this also had a time-released effect in that it nixed future efforts as well- whether or not future efforts would have included things like a Flyable TBF or F8F, etc, is speculation I think

[Golf Pro]

I think the Pacific Air War is difficult for anyone to do well, because with the exception of a handful of frenzied battles, there wasn't much of a competition at all. Basically, after 1942 the theatre was dominated by the Allies (i.e. the USA) with Japanese opposition varying from ineptly weak to non-existant.

There were a couple of exceptions (Phillipines and Okinawa) but generally the pattern was for TF58 pull up next to an island, destroy all enemy air opposition in one or two days, then the marines land 6 months later with no fear of aerial opposition. Campaign-wise most of the maps in PF are good for about 3 days of air-to-air action. From then on most aerial activity was of the ground attack sort, which again can't be replicated because instead of attacking tanks, trains and road convoys, the F4U's and F6F's spent most of their time routinely bombing caves and anonymous bits of jungle on the remote chance that they might kill the occasional jap.

For all the glamour of the photographs, B-25 gunships, PBJ's, P-38's, Mustangs, F4U's, F6F's etc. spent most of the Pacific war travelling huge distances to do fairly mundane (though dangerous) work. A historically realistic Pacific simulator would probably be a very dull affair.

I sometimes think that all 1C should have done is create the Coral Sea map for the famous carrier battles (Midway, Marianas, Leyte Gulf) and one generic (but well done) island map and be done with it. It should have been biased to online and offline single missions. By trying to create scenarios for "campaigns" they fell between two stools - a true Pacific campaign needs lots of BIG maps with long distances so that players can replicate all the dull stuff that happened between the 48-hour Zero-massacres. They should just have just concentrated on the latter.

[Golf Pro]

Deleted double post!

[tater]

The SWPA and Burma (really CBI) are the best suited for il-2.

Papua/New Guinea was in play from early 1942 til the middle of 1944. Sure, there were some places that were total slaughters, but there WERE effective japanese units (even if on the defensive) well into 1943. PNG would take maybe 2-3 maps to do properly.

The Solomon Islands is another map. Guadalcanal to Bougainville will fit on one, and Bougainville to New Britain/New Ireland (both complete islands) will fit on another. That gives action from Spring 1942 til 44.

[nearmiss]

I think the Pacific Air War is difficult for anyone to do well, because with the exception of a handful of frenzied battles, there wasn't much of a competition at all. Basically, after 1942 the theatre was dominated by the Allies (i.e. the USA) with Japanese opposition varying from ineptly weak to non-existant.

There were a couple of exceptions (Phillipines and Okinawa) but generally the pattern was for TF58 pull up next to an island, destroy all enemy air opposition in one or two days, then the marines land 6 months later with no fear of aerial opposition. Campaign-wise most of the maps in PF are good for about 3 days of air-to-air action. From then on most aerial activity was of the ground attack sort, which again can't be replicated because instead of attacking tanks, trains and road convoys, the F4U's and F6F's spent most of their time routinely bombing caves and anonymous bits of jungle on the remote chance that they might kill the occasional jap.

For all the glamour of the photographs, B-25 gunships, PBJ's, P-38's, Mustangs, F4U's, F6F's etc. spent most of the Pacific war travelling huge distances to do fairly mundane (though dangerous) work. A historically realistic Pacific simulator would probably be a very dull affair.

I sometimes think that all 1C should have done is create the Coral Sea map for the famous carrier battles (Midway, Marianas, Leyte Gulf) and one generic (but well done) island map and be done with it. It should have been biased to online and offline single missions. By trying to create scenarios for "campaigns" they fell between two stools - a true Pacific campaign needs lots of BIG maps with long distances so that players can replicate all the dull stuff that happened between the 48-hour Zero-massacres. They should just have just concentrated on the latter.

I often equate the management of war with the management of business.

The constant referrals to acceptable losses and collateral damage make it all seem very non-personal.

Yet, as we play the game we are not aware of those two little management verbalizations. A 25% loss rate of aircraft was horrible in real war, and we experience much higher loss rates everytime we fly in this sim.

So, I say enjoy the sim, make what you like of it and great maps make it all more immersive fun. Large maps and long air flights would bore the pants off most of us, this is about enjoyment. Most of us have no desire to sit in front of the screen watching our 1s and zeros fly the plane for couple hours across the constant view of the Pacific. (binary code)

Funny thing is.. if you read some of the accounts of real pilots during the war many trimmed their aircraft carefully and took a nap on long flights. Pappy Boyingtion mentioned it in Baa Baa Black Sheep as I recall.

I love history and have a strong penchant for historical accuracy. I have a stack of WW2 books I've read. However, I realize historical accuracy is null and void with the IL2 series. We don't even have a decent Full Mission Builder to perk up our missions. We know exactly what is going to happen, because the mission builder tools are prs-set for the conflict engagement before we even live the hypthetical ground. LOL

So, don't even think to discourage mission builders or mod builders. These are the people that are keeping this sim alive. I look for new mods everyday, and I'm very anxious to acquire "The Slot" when it's released.

[Fltlt_HardBall]

An interesting and thought-provoking thread. I hope Oleg's team will take these ideas on board. The fact that this thread remains unlocked suggests to me that someone is watching and listening.

[Former_Older]

Funny thing is.. if you read some of the accounts of real pilots during the war many trimmed their aircraft carefully and took a nap on long flights. Pappy Boyingtion mentioned it in Baa Baa Black Sheep as I recall.


Yes :)

He rigged the stick with rubber bands, as well. According to Boyington's ifirst hand account he did this often

[Golf Pro]

nearmiss - I wasn't making any reference to modders or mapmakers.

I suppose I was thinking about the original PF as a commercial product. IL2 was kind of configured around Eastern Front/European air wars, where generally well-matched opponents used tactical air power to influence the outcome of battles and the positions of the front line. Battles like Stalingrad and Kursk went on for months, or in the case of Leningrad, years.

There are maybe 3 or 4 scenarios in the Pacific where this kind of air war prevailed (sort of): New Guinea & The Solomons (as mentioned by Tater), The Philippines and the early CBI, and even these became walkovers by 1944. Okinawa is an interesting sustained air battle, but of little tactical consequence to what happened on the ground.

So you could replicate these with the right maps, but they are self-contained actions with hardly any crossover i.e. Whereas a Russian pilot could go from Lvov to Smolensk to Moscow to Kursk to Kiev etc., an American pilot in New Guinea generally stayed there.

Also, when most people think of the Pacific war, they think of the classic carrier actions and Cats Vs. Zero's. I think that's what would have attracted most people to PF, but most of the great Pacific air battles lasted 2-3 days max. You could do an F6F campaign with all the major air actions in about 10 missions. If you wanted a sustained F6F campaign you'd need a map for pretty much every atoll in the pacific, each of which would be good for 1 or 2 missions. And even then, you'd just be peppering runways and destroying sheds and outhouses.

I dunno, I can see 1C's problem with PF - the main attraction (carrier ops with classic dogfighters) doesn't suit IL2's basic configuration, whereas the sustained land battles that do suit it (SWPA, CBI etc.) are more obscure, less glamorous and less likely to pull in large numbers of punters.

[csThor]

PF was essentially an orphan - it wasn't Maddox Games's "brain child" but RRG's. However things didn't work out as planned (hence the "orphan" title) and so the product always felt more like an alpha than a full release title.

But idiosyncratic map placement isn't confined to PF - it's been a problem ever since Il-2 came out. Looking at nearly all Eastern Front maps (minus those made by Ian Boys, the slovak team and the new Bessarabia map) from the perspective of historically relevant operations it's amazing to note that the maps exclude important areas of operations and limit the usefulness for historical campaigns (e.g. Leningrad map should have been released in two parts - one for the Finns going up further north to include Immola airbase and one for the germans to include the area down to Lake Ilmen). And of course the lack of several maps such as Brest-Litovsk, Beresina crossings, Kharkov, Mius front & Taganrog, Rostov ... Of course I know that the initial maps were very much limited by the computing power available at that time but the trend to leave out relevant areas is almost characteristic for MG maps. Weird ...

[tater]

Scary thought re:keeping the big maps internal in SoW.

It's like you arbitrarily decide the map size, then stick in on a globe. nevermind that just a few km off the map is someplace really important, lol.

Sort of like the horrid default Guadalcanal map not going NW. It needn't have gone all the way to Buka, but just NW far enough that you could bomb Tokyo express ships a little up the Slot.

[Golf Pro]

Any bets on the BoB maps not including Biggin Hill?

[csThor]

tater - Which is precisely why I think Maddox Games really needs to cooperate with people knowing their stuff about operational military history. They can't know it all and certainly do not have the time to spend days/weeks/months searching archives ...

[tater]

That is why it is odd for them to limit player built maps to some little size.

BTW, what is erle.cgi, and why does this site suddenly download it every page?

[csThor]

The map limit has "commercial interests" written all across it. To be honest I'm fine with it ... You never know, it might even inspire people "who know their trade" to cooperate directly with MG for their commercial releases instead of the watering can AAA promotes. But then I'm a s*cker for centralized development and combined efforts ;)

erle.cgi ... no idea, but it's apparently part of some web-based code. Maybe something to do with the ad on top or even part of the board itself.

[tater]

I understand the stated reason: "we reserve them for our own add-ons," but the reality is that they have a history of... less than ideal maps. Both in quality, and choice.

Really, the limiting factor for a (paid) add-on is the new STUFF. Planes, engine improvements, etc. Players could build a huge Med map the day after BoB comes out, and it would be worthless without the planes. A year later 1C could release med planes with no map and eveyone would still buy it, lol.

[nearmiss]

tater - Which is precisely why I think Maddox Games really needs to cooperate with people knowing their stuff about operational military history. They can't know it all and certainly do not have the time to spend days/weeks/months searching archives ...

You're right on with that.

All they would need is a forum to facilitate communication and thoughts on specific areas of history. There would be plenty of cooperation. All most of us want is a better CFS.

[csThor]

I don't think this is the way to operate for a business enterprise as Maddox Games. All they'd get is a zillion posts of people wanting different stuff - the really important stuff would get buried under loads of "Oleg, I want ..." and "Oleg, gimme now ..." posts (even with the strictest moderation rules you could think of). They should certainly use this board here, posting a simple "We need help with this and this field. Who's up for cooperation?" and getting these people to act as kind-of external contributors.

The basic reason why I am so against this "involve everyone and his dog and do it publicly" is the experience Il-2 gave me. All of Oleg's posts simply upped the (already ridiculous) expectancy level by another notch. He's playing it much closer to his chest with SoW so I figure the procedure I outlined would work much better. And it doesn't require to check the boards every day.

[tater]

That's why I prefer simply not arbitrarily hobbling the map tools to Xhundred by Yhundred km in size.

Then people who know and care can simply create the maps. Oleg, et al can concentrate on what they do best, planes, FMs, etc.

[nearmiss]

I don't think this is the way to operate for a business enterprise as Maddox Games. All they'd get is a zillion posts of people wanting different stuff - the really important stuff would get buried under loads of "Oleg, I want ..." and "Oleg, gimme now ..." posts (even with the strictest moderation rules you could think of). They should certainly use this board here, posting a simple "We need help with this and this field. Who's up for cooperation?" and getting these people to act as kind-of external contributors.

The basic reason why I am so against this "involve everyone and his dog and do it publicly" is the experience Il-2 gave me. All of Oleg's posts simply upped the (already ridiculous) expectancy level by another notch. He's playing it much closer to his chest with SoW so I figure the procedure I outlined would work much better. And it doesn't require to check the boards every day.

I think the most important thing is for Oleg to get the information. THe man isn't stupid. He can glean the treasure from the tripe, that's one of the ways our intelligence serves us. LOL

[LEXX]

Tater:: That's why I prefer simply not arbitrarily hobbling the map tools to Xhundred by Yhundred km in size.

Then people who know and care can simply create the maps. Oleg, et al can concentrate on what they do best, planes, FMs, etc.
Agreed. Aircraft is what cfs developers do best.

The terrain seems like secondary importance to the developers (not just Oleg, all developers), but not the customers who use the product.

I think every sim that allowed 3rd Party maps had modders make far better terrains than the developers. Aircraft might be a different story. Developers and their artists make great cockpits for example, and they are probably the hardest thing to do of all.

[tater]

Yeah, look at slovakia. The guys made places they HIKE TO. They want it to fool themselves.

I'f I were to redo hawaii, aside from all the obvious Pearl Harbor changes (a simple google image search would have provided the devs aerial photos taken just days before the attack instead of the POS PH we got), I'd want hanalei bay (where we rent a house on the beach) to be as close as I could get. Just for joyride flights, lol.

If I were to do the bombadier school (using B-25s as in RL) that they did here in Albuquerque, you can bet the canyons up from my home would be at the bleeding edge of what the engine allowed.

tater
tater

[TheFamilyMan]

Wow, such dedication here. Hell, I'm just glad I can hop into a plane and have such a top-rate experience. I'm not worried about the historical accuracy as much as the immersive effect of the sim on my senses. Not that I don't care: just given the choice, I see the glass as half full when it comes to the accuracy of the maps and missions: it's definately better than no maps or missions.

I'd hope that 3rd parties could/would make map expansion packs to cover areas of interest in greater detail. But then again, exactly how many people really care? Enough to cover the expense of the development? Care to spend $50+ per map expansion? Maybe that is why we don't see this kind of stuff filling the shelves. BTW IMHO, the AAA and M4T sites rock: any IL-2 fan should be grateful!!!!