Subsequent to the consent decree, the Abiding Evil that is NG sold Ingalls Shipyards (and basically, all its surface warfare assets) to another company. Perhaps that modifies the consent decree and makes U.S. ships possible.

If TD doesn't want to mess with that, consider modeling U.S. ship types built entirely by U.S. Navy facilities which were never owned by NG.

For example, Mare Island Navy Yard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_Island_Navy_Yard

A useful early WW2 type built here would be the Wickes-class "four stack" destroyer.

Or, if you want the USS Oklahoma, the USS Colorado or the USS California:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yor...ng_Corporation

Bankrupt about 45 years ago and never owned by NG.

Or, for the USS New Mexico, USS Tennessee, USS Iowa or USS Missouri:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Navy_Yard

Again, bankrupt about 45 years ago and never owned by NG (although the USS Arizona was built here yet somehow the legal eagles at NG claim copyright protection on her).

Or, perhaps look at ships built in shipyards once, or currently, owned by General Dynamics, which seems to be much saner regarding copyright issues:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fore_Ri...ilding_Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_Iron_Works

That would give you a very impressive roster of U.S. BB and CA types.

We already have the Wickes Class in the game, USS Ward and USS Dent.

I believe that NG's USS Arizona copyright is limited to drawings they prepared of the wreck site. This would be an entirely reasonable claim, subject to the terms of their appointment to carry out the survey.

IMO a later class, such as the USS Washington (North Carolina Class), built at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, would be more useful for mission builders.

This is a WW2-era game that involves the 'Third World War', Russians flying Superfortresses, and flying machines that never existed off a drawing board. I don't think 'a British flag on an American ship' is such an offensive idea in comparison. Plus, I'm pretty sure that at least one of those two destroyer types was used by the Royal Navy anyway.

A 'faulty solution'? Not really, I was trying to make a suggestion that would save you a load of work.

Hi

Probably "work around" would be better than "faulty solution" as a comment on this.

Please allow for language differences on the forum as its a worldwide collective here
and the meaning is not always an intended offence caused to other forum members
due to language differences.

Il2 series has had lots of workarounds in the FMB due to copyright issues with aircraft and other objects,
I see no problem tagging shipping with Red Blue or Blue Red whatever gets the mission done.

Thanks










.

I don't think its such a bad thing to put a different flag on in a pinch. If it's possible to have a proper British Destroyer as an escort ship then that'd be much more ideal of course.

I would like to point out that Russian Superfortresses in a hypothetical scenario isn't so far fetched: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4

847 Tu-4 copies of the B-29 were produced. The last was retired in the 1960s.

Given that the survey was probably recent (i.e., within the last 20 years or so), I'll give the NG devil its due for that. OTOH, other "birdcage" superstructure battleships, such as USS Oklahoma or USS Nevada which were present at Pearl Harbor look to be fair game. They would be acceptable stand-ins for ships such as the USS Arizona for anyone other than WW2 battleship geeks.

I completely agree. Pearl Harbor was a unique situation which doesn't really lend itself to long term campaigns. The salvageable ships from that attack were eventually refitted with very different superstructure and armament, so any "Pearl Harbor" battleships are only good for scenarios set on December 7th, 1941.

It would be much more meaningful for Mediterranean or European campaign builderrs to have the order of battle present at Taranto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taranto) or Midway, especially the smaller ships which were more common and make better targets for strike fighters.

Let's just pretend that all the "fantasy-waffe" planes in IL:2 1946 never existed, along with the re-flagged King George IV.

But, the idea of being able to reflag ships is a good one.

Would it be possible to have user-designed camouflage schemes and flags for ships and perhaps other ground objects?

After all, you can have user design skins for aircraft, so why not ground vehicles? That way, skinners and mission designers could create theater or campaign specific skins for them and could "reflag" ships as necessary for various scenarios.

It's not even unrealistic. Some varieties of ships served with multiple nations. Others were close enough in appearance that they can stand in for different types.

First of all thanks for the hard work you are doing to keep this sim alive. The new planes and effects are great and the details as taxi to take off offer new possibilities for us mission builders etc.

But there is one thing annoys me and my squadron: the skill levels of AI fighters are too close to each other. So would it be possible to make rookies really rookie (like they really were) and aces may stand where they are. The random skill variation inside the main category makes AI pilots act almost like humans and that’s really a nice feature, but to my mind you’ll face more good skilled AI pilots than bad within the category. I don’t believe that in real life any rookie has been able to take full advantage of his plane’s all features and performance. In addition rookie’s shooting skills are amazing.
My squad has been flying IL-2 about 1500 h together since 2007 and we have seen this sim becoming better year by year. But now the problem is how to give our human rookies possibility to get in this world of air combat without feeling frustrated and hopeless when meeting AI rookies. I don’t want to lose them to War Thunder or similar unrealistic games. Even our most experienced members who have been flying several sims for 15 years think that AI rookies are unrealistic.

So I really hope to see that you’d expand the skill categories so that the rookies are real rookies with small variation and the ace AI pilots stand where they are at the moment - average and veteran somewhere between those. After that it makes sense to build and fly missions with all skill category AI pilots. My squad likes to fly historical or semi missions and we have built over 300 missions based on the memoirs of WWII pilots. And as you very well know there were many more really poor rookies than skilled aces in the skies those days.

+1

And while we are talking ships, I'd really like to see a few more cruisers and or destroyers. But what I feel is really absolutely necessary is a few more different merchant ships, and if only reskinned ones. Though a really big fleet oiler wouldn't hurt, either.

NG's copyright cannot extend beyond the reproduction of the drawings they have produced. They have no copyright on images or models of Arizona, unless perhaps if the model is based entirely on their drawings. Their work was carried out for the National Park Service which is responsible for the Arizona site. More here: http://proceedings.esri.com/library/...cs/pap2025.pdf

Incidentally, there is a mod model of the USS Arizona in existence, made by Gofo. He also created models of USS Colorado and USS Tennessee, however they do not comply with stock game model specs. (Polycount too high and texture files too big -- no damage model and other minor things).