I love it those videos... it looks like a slow motion compared to the IL2 action:cool:.

Bobb, good point about ground terrain being more important for WW1 than later wars. The higher you go, the less terrain detail needed.

Bobb:: Those popular "dogfight" stories are exactly my point.

For every half hour dogfight descending into the trees, there were a dozen stalkings and hunts for other aircraft at high altitudes, with success or failure dependent on the air warfare environment high in the sky, long before dogfights descend to treetop level.

Now, for mud moving and balloon busting, good terrain would "count" highly but still lies behind in importance to air warfare environment modelling for the overall WW1 air warfare modelling. Zeppelin or Gotha hunting are examples requiring the later.

GRANTED: for a ground level first person "dogfight" shooter simulation (FPDS), I can see the need for "cutting edge" terrain grafix. All that is needed for that is solid blank blue sky. Nothing new here in The Sims.

I'd agree that I'm more interested in "FM-candy" than low-level eye-candy, though I'd hope to find a good level of both in this particular genre.

While the speeds are quite low compared to WW2 norms I don't think 100 mph is particularly slow. In fact, the closer to the ground you fly the faster it will appear to be, and, if you hit something solid, you'll know what I mean ;)

So, while I'm keen to see trees, bushes and smoke being affected by the wind, I'm far more interested in feeling that effect transmitted to the flight model. It should make 50mph barrel rolls interesting, as long I'm only watching, lol.

B

Dear BoBB4,
Yes you did not mention any aircraft type..........but I did not mean that you actually tried to start the manoeuvre at 50mph....that would be impossible and stupid. I was just queerying at what speed you actually started the manoeuvre to end up - say three quarters through at 50mph.
regards,
Pike.

You have obviously never seen me fly online "impossible and stupid" basically describes my flying to a tee.
In a DR1 most probabily at not less than 80mph with an expected bleed of say 30 mph or less as I climb-up and roll over before an immediate nose down to regain some speed.
The SE5a just a smidgen faster.
The manouver is basically one designed to bleed speed most of the time (not always) to drop on to a faster plane, on your six, by forcing an overshoot.
It also depends on the sim you are flying, I am talking OFF.

all this is nice but we still dont have a hardware which would eat "photorealistic terrain" and all that lightning etc...and complex FM and DM from 1C and Neqb...you must be prepared for compromises...better on graphics of terrain than on FM and DM....but, since IL2 perfect mode is enough realistic for me (spec. in a tense dog) I dont have a prob with graphic down low in this new sim...anyway, it will be better than in IL2 perfect mode..

I'm also interested to find out whether the developers will have worked on issues involving fatigue, both to airframes and engines as well as the pilots.
It's all very well to talk about airspeeds and barrel rolls and stall speeds, but the WW1 planes are not similar to the far more standardised models of the WW2 era. We're not just talking about engine size and wing area - it's important that the age and history of the airframe is taken into account as well.
These kites were much more easily strained by high-speed manoeuvring than the later metal monoplanes, while repair and maintenance facilities were much less specialised. Much less was understood about metal fatigue for example, and it wasn't uncommon for aircraft to literally fall to pieces in flight. Likewise - it wasn't uncommon for engines to fail "just like that", quite often just after take-off.

I think that flight simulations suffer from 'gamer-ism' in these respects. Not all aircraft flew like the modern replicas, carefully-tended and with modern materials used for safety reasons in the modern age. While I wouldn't want to see a replica-pilot fall out of the sky in real life - I'd hate to see the developers roll over to satisfy the demands of the gamers, and provide the kind of planes that fly strictly according to some performance-freak's set of graphs.

B

Then we want random malfunctions as a simplification. Randomly varying FM or DM with a "historical" basis is a no-go for dynamic campaigns or Online Wars that do not follow history. ie...suppose Germany is winning a dynamic campaign or extended Online War, then the late Bf-109s may not suffer alot of the manufacturing problems or fuel problems they historically had.

And to step into another misadventure: Flight model is no more important than "terrain" as both are irrelevent to air warfare simulation when compared to the importance of the air warfare environment (**).

To paraquote Chuck Yeager: Its the pilot, not the flight model.

Who said this one:: He who sees first, wins.

The pilot defines success or failure, and he/she does this by using the air warfare environmment to his/her advantage. Of course, the flight model or "the plane" in Chuck's original quote "counts" also, but like terrain, is not the primary driver of air warfare which is the air warfare environment. After all, every pilot hoped to mount a higher performance beast if possible, ie...they all wished for "better" flight models...but if they couldn't, they made do as best as possible with their flying skills and deep knowledge of the air warfare environment, assuming the ones who survived to learn about it (he who see first, wins). Unlike the ground warfare environment, the air warfare environment is not instinctively or naturally known by Man/Manette, and has to be taught.

So far, both the "gamers" and the hardcore "competition dogfight flight model" simmers have never learned the air warfare environment, because they have never seen it modelled in The Sims before. That's a teaching failing of developers, not the customers. Perhaps someday The Sims developers will figure this out and model the air warfare environment.

But not today.


(**) Footnote added later:: Exposing the greatest Pink Elephant of combat flight The Sims is gonna get me into alot of trouble.

I just hope that I'll see improvements in campaign mode... more "personal" approach, in spite of IL2 doing it later in its development it never really "caught up" on this.
Otherwise I'm totally satisfied with this sim, it'll probably be for WW1 simulated air fight what IL2 was for WW2 simulated air fight.

RedBaron II had by far one of the best campaign/career aspects I've seen....Really coupled actual historical events and you could affect the outcome (ex. shoot down Voss early and his efforts would not affect the balance).

K2