you crash land in enemy territory, that trigger sets off vehicles that soon arrive with soldiers beating the grass looking for you:grin:

Looking at the title of this thread, maybe you can make the AI from time to time say that "holy sh... did you see that" when some of this more uncommon things happen.:-P

Vera Lynn singing "White Cliffs of Dover" for the title music.

That would be the best surprise I could think of.

Perhaps proper music on the radio when you are at base, instead of the canned Hollywood Movie music like Pacific Fighters had.

Flashes of bombs going off in the distance as London is bombed at night, and the glow of the fires in the sky from the attack as well.

The sound of a train in the distance.

It's the small things that make it real, not the OMG! stuff.

And some of us prefer flying to making missions ;)



Another thing I've thought of that would be cool is random weapons failure. You sneak up on an enemy fighter, close up, hit the trigger...and only one of your cannons fires. Or you're on a rocket attack, and some of the live rockets decide to stay on the plane, or a bomb doesn't release and you have to deal with it, or hope that it comes off on it's own (don't know if that could even be modeled with the stuff already extant)

Spot on! But I'm afraid we'll just see limited human activity due to the sheer amount of work required to generate the required animations. What we really need is procedural animation which doesn't require manual keyframing/mo-cap for each animation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi5ad...eature=related

With an engine like this and 'intelligent' characters that react automatically to the external events, there'd be no end of "OMG did that just happen?".

Some of the greatest moments in IL2 are the results of aircraft AI automatically reacting to the environment and situations. This engine provides the same for human characters.

Every bailout would be unique depending on airspeed, g-forces, aircraft attitude etc.

Wing riding ground crew wouldn't have to be specifically keyframed to do that with different animations for each aircraft's wing. Imagine hitting the brakes and watching the wing rider fall off the front of the wing. Even better, wait for someone to climb on and then power up suddenly. Bonus points for tricking the guy into hanging on while you take off :grin:

Human characters wouldn't just be puppets going through the motions of their programmed keyframes; they'd have a sense of self-preservation. Jumping away from the prop if you don't warn them with a 'clear!' before starting the engine. Seeking bomb shelters on seeing diving bombers or hearing the air raid siren.

This stuff isn't idle pie in the sky musing. There's already a few games using this technology. Look up Euphoria Engine from NaturalMotion on YouTube.

I don't pretend to understand all the challenges involved in implementing such technology in a flight sim using today's technology but I sure hope we won't have to wait another ten years for the next version of IL2 to get this.

Now that... that would be really incredible.

Second that...

Euphoria would be awesome, yes, but I do believe it's pretty much out of question, it would take too many resources.

This thread got me to sign in again and make a comment - probly 2 years since that happened.

Historical is the key for me. The missions probably were very similar. You were not a fighter pilot one day and a bomber pilot the next. Even the fighters were trained in certain areas and armed as such. But it's a game so...

What I want to see. A mission with a soul. Just a little tidbit of info came get you into the flight. Your wingman is a noob...watchout for him. Topcover for a HE115 searescue of a fellow pilot. Running into an ace you have been briefed on. Scramble for takeoff.. a damaged bomber is heading slowly back over the Channel to France...get it .. cover arrive
historical radio chatter.


I want to make a kill/damaged claim after a mission.

Good idea, Ilya. Thanks for asking for input.

Nothing really new from me, but to repeat some of the suggestions I've seen in this thread and like:

- Secondary explosions. A stick of bombs from an He-111 walking across an airfield, and plowing up nothing but dirt until one bomb hits an ammo bunker. There's nothing better than instant feedback on your targeting. This could apply to ammunition and bombs inside airborne aircraft, too. Nothing gratuitous, but where appropriate for the amount of damage taken, and the explosive nature of the point of impact.

- Fratricide. This might be annoying (especially if it's your wingman shooting you down by mistake), but from reading historical accounts, this happened fairly often. Give us a reason for all the recognition stripes and colors, besides really cool paint schemes from the skinners. In other words, make the Ai make human-like mistakes, instead of computer-like mistakes. To steal a line from the beginning of 'Rustler's Rhapsody': "For starters, maybe he wouldn't be so damn perfect all the time."

- For historical accuracy, some squadrons during some periods will have the same mission type day after day. Others will be more dynamic, and controllable by the player. Examples of the latter include Rhubarb, armed recce and Frei Jagd type missions. Motorcycle gang tactics, cruising an area armed and looking for trouble.

- After a swirling dogfight, finding a friendly Ai fighter and joining up on him for mutual support while leaving the area.

- I'm not sure how to implement it, but if players on non-recce missions see something of interest, give them the opportunity to report it, and possibly have that report generate a mission to attack it (or at least photograph it) later. This might encourage folks to look around, instead of just droning from waypoint to waypoint. For example, while escorting bombers to airfield target X, the player notices a supply dump 5 km south of the target airfield. Or a group of ships in port making steam in preparation to depart.

- Lost aircraft going the wrong way, and occasionally landing at the wrong field. This happened with allied aircraft landing at a different (friendly) field fairly often, and much more rarely with aircraft landing at an enemy airfield.

- The ability to commandeer a subordinate's aircraft after yours has been damaged, or suffers a mechanical problem before takeoff. Rank Has Its Privileges, though this could have repercussions on the junior pilot's experience and skill.

- I like the idea of landing to rescue a downed squadron-mate too. This opportunity would be historically very rare, and very difficult.

That would be the bottom line for most of these "holy sh**" moments in general. They should be rare enough to be realistic, but not so rare that the player never encounters any of them. One of your biggest tricks is going to be finding the balance between over-saturation, and historical rarity. Good luck, and I look forward to your efforts.