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

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

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

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

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

Luthier,

Id like to ask whether weather will further weather weathering?


:-P

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

Good luck Oleg and co with your game.

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

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

Hi Oleg & Ilya,

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

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/4379/109weathered.jpg

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

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

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

Thanks again Ilya for all your answers

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you Oleg and Ilya!!!

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

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

Thank you,

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

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

Great news, thanks for the relief.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you going to offer this or something like that?

Thank you!

I can understand that in a combat sim. It would add to the whole immersion, you can't just click and fly, but if you want to go 'hard core' it could be done :)

I assume that means they click but don't do anything?

Well if it is more sophisticated than IL-2's "oh, overheat, close the throttle" then it is going to be interesting. It requires watching in the A2A model even just flying from A to B although its easy enough once you get it settled down in a cruise. Combat would be very different.

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

thanks Luthier

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think it will be somewhere between the two:

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

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

Thanks Luthier for the very informative posts.

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

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

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

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

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

Salute !

I got a few questions myself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Likewise. Not to say I don't like the updates too, but I know it's going to look great anyway. These replies are great Luthier, thank you very much.

Mechanical wear and tear?

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

Really good to hear this. :)

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

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

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

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

It's not that i consider graphics unimportant, they are important. It's just that i agree with this poster.
Is it looking better than IL2? Yes it is, in fact is seems like CoD at medium is better than IL2 at high settings. Let's chalk one up for improvement over the previous version in the graphics department and move to something else. Frankly, at this point i would be more interested in seeing some of Luthier's design documents with his ideas for the dynamic campaign, a tutorial on engine management and systems operation (in a somewhat complex aircraft like a twin engined bomber) that's representative of what the release build will look like, or some in-game sounds, because we already know the visuals are up to the job and we know what it takes to run them. There's so much substance under the hood in a flight sim, so let's see some of that for a change.


Finally,

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

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

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


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

and there's more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe.

Yes.

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

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

Luthier is right.

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

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

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

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

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

Also problem is described in THIS topic.

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

Cheers.

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

Yes, yes, yes and yes.

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

+1000 on this one

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

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

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


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

And the weathering looks great by the way :)

Luthier,

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

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

Is it better in CoD?

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

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

I thought it might just be a late Mk I.

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

Thanks.

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

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

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

Over a year ago Oleg said about that:

Im not sure if U understood my question:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will this be possible with 1 seated planes, too?

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

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

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

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

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

Hope you can answer!

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Thanks.

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

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

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

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

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


Luthier- Maybe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simplest that can be :

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

Guys, where exactly is the problem?

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

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


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

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

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

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

Maybe with a simple pre-flight math operation?

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

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

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

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

Greetings.

Edit: Some time ago I say the same, but maybe better explained http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...450#post126450. Please, read this.

And sorry for my bad english...

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

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

I never spot the one on my Six:grin:

I hope you weren't ironic.

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

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

Question to the moderators:

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

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

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

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

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

1. SA can not be compensated with more pixels.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think thats not to complicated to understand!

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

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

Can you talk a bit about how (AI) crew members can be interacted with? Classical example is the rear gunner of the Bf110. He is mostly quiet in IL-2, and cannot speak at all in multiplayer. There was talk from Oleg of improving this area. I'll write the points numbered so replying should be a quick breeze. I expect 'No' as answer to most, but I'm curious enough to ask. :) Think of it as possibilities if nothing else.

1. Better contact reports?
2. Feeding information of someone on one's tail?
3. ..Perhaps prompted by the player by a button?
4. Instructions on his general behavior?
5. Does he have morale? Panic? Hot on the trigger?
6. Bail out without permission (panic mode)?
7. MG-FF's had to be reloaded by this bordfunker in reality.
8. Report visual damage to own plane he sees? (smoke trail from engine, control surfaces damaged and so on)
9. Gets affected by your maneuvering?
10. Navigation & radio (I'm sure not).

Ideas:

1. Make the dot have some transparency on lower resolutions (more the further away).
2. Make dot larger, or some other effect to slightly increase its visibility on very high resolutions.
3. Permit larger field of view in higher resolutions (makes sense since they are probably physically larger anyway). With high FOV airplanes will pixellate from a further away distance than otherwise.

The only one I can support is number 3. This due to the impossibility of knowing how big the person's display really is and how far away they are sitting from it.

I want to add that physically, most screens with lower resolution aren't really lower resolution - it is the same. Just that the display itself is smaller (like having a smaller window into the world). The pixels are about the same size as the larger monitors. The problem is more with people setting lower resolution than their monitor can handle. I personally don't care about this at all. Having low resolution means it looks terrible and they miss out on a lot of useful information from instruments, gunnery, identification, landscape.

Sure. But here we are talking about the moment where the plane is still a tiny dot.
What do you do with this information?
At this stage you don't know whether it's friend or foe - all you know is there's an aircraft.

(the direction of the plane doesn't help too much, I often penetrate hostile airspace just to stab them in the back on their way to the front )

While everyone is asking/talking about dot visibility and so forth, could I perhaps ask Luthier if you have been able to do anything about aircraft visibility up close - ie. sometimes in IL2 you're on the tail of an enemy at about 250m and he dives ( you're at about 1000m or so altitude ) and simply vanishes in the ground textures.

Now I know camouflage wasn't that good and it's more to do with the limitations of a 2D screen and so forth, was there anything you were able to do in CoD to help make the enemy stand out better from the ground ? Or is this a problem that has no real solution ?

To all of the guys having super high res and trouble spotting enemy planes:

Have you tried to reduce AA? Maybe that helps bit. :confused:


Yep. They call it it wonderwoman view and icons!

Just kidding, sorry.Couldn't resist.

Hm... to me, the moment you see a tiny dot in the distance is the most important moment... You can take real decisions that will have more effect than just turning tighter than your opponent... Thats called tactics...

And yes, you see just an unidentified bogey, but say, if your in an escort you'll send a pair check it out, or you'll keep an eye on it so he won't surprise you with a dive on your bombers...

But that depends on what type of games you play... sure if you are a lonely hunter in dogfights server... it goes down to dogfighting skills more often... but if your in a team with a clear defined mission, it's a completely different world

[QUOTE=swiss;221362]I hope you weren't ironic.

No m8 and yes the same guy.
Fearful opponent you are
~S~

Sure and I agree.
But it In the end there are two options:
-climb
-run
There is a huge difference between 3 and 5km - but much less when 6 vs 8km.


What is the max distance you spot the planes from?

Maybe I cannot reproduce the problem on my screen. :confused:
I'm going to test it....

I cant understand why people are complaining about the visibility of distant aircraft, asking for an enhancement to aid them to spot planes better.Did the real pilots in that era had some device that helped them see distant planes better?It is a challenge to spot a plane far away from you, let alone know which type of aircraft it is and which side is it on, but isnt this fun/realistic?When I first started playing IL- 2 and knew there were bogies at 12 a clock for example, I had really hard time spotting them that I got a bit frustrated. further more when I finally spotted some planes I started shooting only to realize I was shooting friendlies.I laughed because I knew that situations like that happened several times during ww2 and this sim let me experience this.By the way...

Thanks again Ilya for answering more questions!!!

There's a completely different solution to the resolution issue. A partial solution anyway:

Why not simply publish the resolution of the player in some manner for everyone to see? Sure there's probably one, maybe two people out there that will have an old CRT monitor and a P4/1gig/8800GT playing online at 15fps who has to run 1024x768 but most definitely he will be the exception.

For those of you so concerned about points and bragging rights this can be a way to perhaps discourage the other advantage seekers since you would be welcome to disregard - or even boot them from your server if you feel like it - their successes.

Yes, I can see it not being perfect for everyone but no solution ever really is, and it beats adding more cpu-sucking graphics solutions to mitigate the issue, which will not get implemented anyway.