Mr maddox. Maby A2A is someone to talk to??
 

The way these guys work, and what they can do is just amazing. Since they not are using the simulator, but work outside the simulator these guys and there work is something the IL2 series could benefit from....

Im impressed.....

watch the vidio, its worth it...

http://a2asimulations.com/forum/view...p?f=23&t=22663

Very impressive!!!

I'd really like to have a startup sequence in BoB like they showed in that vid.

Very Very good A2A team this is i call professional simulator hard and reality very very best. but the enjine is FSX no combat but only flight.

Me too!

+another

It should be a bit late to be making requests for BoB, but hey, might as well note down what we'd all like.

It's in flight where we don't want to use a mouse for switching things, but on the ground I like the idea.

Maybe it's the other way around? I think it would be great if Oleg would allow A2A to develop planes for use in SOW (and that will probably happen), but I don't see what you think Maddox games has to learn from them. But then again I don't get a lot of what goes on around here.

Il-2 and BoB - don't make mistakes with the names. It is two diferent series
Sorry what I should look there? More polygons and greate size textures? Starting procedure on spit that show shorness of this porcedure comparing to real in several times?
No selfshading, some time incorrect scaling, etc? No damge modeling at all? No working for the damage internal construction? Modeling of weapons, ballistics, explosions with pices with calculation of their hits? Should I list other things which there are totally absent or that are more complex than the whole their work? :)

Just several for understanding:
Their work is for single aircraft in air. No any other things of combat flight simulation that need to be running simultaniosly on the one PC. And means absence of hundreds other important things that are present in combat sim and eating resources of processor, video, etc...

For each thing there are compromisses that need to be done due to way more things to be calculated simultaniosly in a combat sim comparing to the sim where only one aircraft can fly...

Nevertheless, as I told in the past we plan to release in future special third party tools that will allow to put new content in our new series using our rules and limits for combat flight sim.

So I expect some of MS third party developers that are doing aircraft for MSFS will also develop for our sim as well. Especially if the speech is about military WWII (at the beginning of series life) and sport piston engines planes.

+1

"Just several for understanding: Their work is for single aircraft in air. No any other things of combat flight simulation that need to be running simultaniosly on the one PC. And means absence of hundreds other important things that are present in combat sim and eating resources of processor, video, etc...

For each thing there are compromisses that need to be done due to way more things to be calculated simultaniosly in a combat sim comparing to the sim where only one aircraft can fly..."

Nothing more to be said, compromises has to be done so there's no point comparing.

If third party addons can eventually be made for SoW, it would probably be of mutual benefit if other companies could produce SoW-compatible aircraft. Maybe a situation where AI only is available to all, but the flyable/FMB ready version must be purchased. That way onliners could incorporate them.

One area I always thought SoW could exploit is the vintage civil aircraft market that FSX users have traditionally enjoyed. Imagine flying a Dragon Rapide from Croydon to Dover in Oleg's Britain. :)

Future in Cloud Computing?
 

Interesting thread and reply by Mr. Maddox.

It would be great to one day have the complexities of a single aircraft simulator combined with the complexities BOB is trying to achieve. I wonder if this could be done by the use of cloud computing, where all complex computations would be done at a central computer farm, and video, audio and effects be delivered to the users via very fast connection, similar to today's HD streaming movies.

Possible?

MAC

Something like OnLive? In a combat sim? God I hope not. While it is beneficial for some games but for complex flight sims and especially for online game play where low pings are a must I find this anything but useful.

Maybe for FSX. ;)

Their work is well known and respected...if they were to get involved with SOW, I think we would all benefit on the immersion factor, man and cockpit.:grin:

I notice them clicking away madly on the prime pump. i wonder if over-priming can cause a stack fire :D

I kind of hope it doesn't go that way. It would be both annoying to me as a player as well as a potential mission or online scenario builder where a portion of my possible audience was restricted because they haven't subscribed to the micro transaction model. It gets worse when you're trying to be competitive and the top level aircraft are not available unless more money is paid. I'd rather pay $30 for the latest update and get a dozen aircraft than $5 for one.

May not make sense except when I factor in that every time I see this model used ... it always costs more to own everything.

Oleg 1, Ltbear 0

Final Score...

Ltbear, interesting
LukeFF, not:rolleyes:

fireflyer "the jaffa cake" contribution to this forum so far = zero
LukeFF's contribution to il2 and this forum = high

i rest my case

Shhhhhhhhhh little boy.

you should stick to the den of thieves and vandals where you usually hang out with the rest of the zit faced teens

the attempt here (and most normal flightsim forums) is to have meaningfull exchanges of factual information, something obviously way over your head

most likely they will be soon

being one of the most respected addon makers for fsX, and having an obvious interrest in ww2 birds, i'd say they are one of the most likely early candidates to jump on the BoB addon wagon. they'd be foolish not to, given most of their research work and large parts of the design work are already done by them for several planes

didnt they do a b17 recently as well ?

LOl, now, now, temper. temper zapatista you know what happend last time you lost it ;)

+1

I also prefer having real AddOns covering a certrain scenario over hundreds of micro addons. Like the last three Addons we had ( Pe2, IL10 and the 1946 stuff ). That was a fair amount of new stuff for a good price.

I would stop PC gaming before I touch a civil flight sim.

Well atleast mr maddox did make an reply i could understand, and maby my english is not good enough and i didnt explain exactly what about the vidio i was thinking...

As a bomber pilot i was realy facinatet about the AI crew, and the Heidi Girl. They have createt a full plane with tools that works outside the 3 d engine and made a populatet plane. This is a giant part of imersion, not all enjoys the 1 prob racing planes, but the big slow crew coffins. Oleg talked about this for some time ago, and since its not a priority, i thought A2A could be a good way to maby intigrate something like a crew AI for the player bombers.

Im not a cocpit click all stuf guy, i tryed DCH Blac shark and in full real i simply gave up you need a darn Helo licence just to undertsand half of what you need to do....

I simply looked at the modular way they work and had an interest in the sound and AI module.....

And i noticed thay said it could work with most 3d engines, so i thought of the 3d engine for SOW. I know things are not easy, but crew AI ís primarly run from the client, so there i could se the posibility of something like a crew AI without having a major load on the game it self....

well atleast i have tryed to be more specific what i wantet to show with this..

intension was not to start a flame fest or to agrovate or anoy anyone, it was just to show mr maddox and idea on how to incorpriate a crew AI for us bomber pilots....

Ltbear

I agree with Icefire that for a combat flight sim the "nickel and dime" model is not that well suited. It's not so much the cost, it's the fact that it fragments the pool of multiplayer participants too much and it makes it difficult to have a proper portrayal of an entire theater with realistic introduction to service timelines.

That being said, it doesn't mean it has to be all black or white, does it now?
FSX is abandoned and there's a gap in the market. You don't have to fly civilian birds and you don't have to like it, but if certain people buy SoW to fly a 3rd party payware add-on DC2 between London and Berlin, it partly funds OUR future combat expansions.

With all due respect and no ill will whatsoever, are some of you oblivious to this potential for future growth and SoW's enhanced financial security, or is the need to make fun of other people's enjoyment so great that it overshadows simple practical thinking? Honest question here, i'm not trying to pick a fight, i just think that some of you are too eager to make fun of the non-combat crowd and are missing the big picture as a result. ;)

Why would there be a gap if there's money to be made?

Just a thought.

What are all his Il-2 videos? Scotch mist? :rolleyes:

That makes more sense, mate. Have no fear, Oleg has already stated that SOW is modular in design (at least to some extent), so it should be interesting to see what the aftermarket comes up with.

As for the overall design of the A2A spitfire, I think Oleg's is better. While the skin on the A2A Spittie is nothing less that phenomenal, the cockpit is nothing to write home about compared to the SOW Spit. The description of the engine (the planes, not the games) mechanics sounds exactly like what Oleg is already doing, and we already know that the game engine cannot even be compared.

As for all the addon apoplexy going on...... just relax guys, the pay per plane thing does not work for WWII, and Oleg has never showed any interest in it, so it ain't gonna happen. Furthermore Oleg has already stated that online play will be protected, so I doubt very much that there is going to be any thing like the potential problems that some guys have been talking about. Of course I don't see a cheater hiding around every corner either.

+1 BadAim, well said ;)

That's exactly my point. MS is out of the game (at least until their MS Flight is on the shelves and we don't know how much of a sim it will be), so all these people will need an optimized, modern simulator to cut their teeth into sooner or later, as FS9 is showing its age and FSX is a resource hog. More money for team Maddox, more expansions for us :grin:

If you mean that MS closed it down because they don't make enough money out of it, this also depends on the demographic you are targetting. It's true that the base FSX package is something one buys only once and the real money comes from the myriad of 3rd party add-ons, which MS doesn't see a penny out of.

However, MS lost the combat crowd to IL2 so all they had was the civilian flyers. In that case it could be true that the profits didn't justify the expenses and effort required to keep making MSFS titles, since their target audience was limited during the last few years.

In the case of SoW however, the main audience is the combat oriented folks. Again, the civilian fliers will generate more income for the add-on companies that the developer of the base engine, but that's not a problem when SoW's main base of support will be the combat flyers. The success of SoW doesn't rest on the civilian crowd, they are just a welcome bonus. A guy like that might spend 150$ on various add-ons and only $60 on buying a copy of the SoW engine to run them on, but that's still a few thousand people spending $60 each on SoW. The sim can't float on them alone, but that doesn't mean they're not a welcome boost in sales.

There really is a player in the civilian flight sim market: X-Plane. Version 10 is expected around Christmas. It's better than MSF ever was even in version 9 (doesn't have the greatest stock graphics though).

A lot of 3rd party plane makers do "for pay" aircraft for X-Plane. The flight model for the sim, however, is VERY complex.

Add ons work for civilian sims because of the higher level of immersion. Yes, complex start up procedures, weather effects, engine and fuel management, navigation, etc.. In these sims, you are totally engrossed in just flying the plane from A to B. The detail and complexity in each aircraft is amazing and players devote hundreds of hours perfecting their pilot skills in a individual model. So, third party "pay ware" is viable, even demanded.

As we have seen, most combat simmers are not interested in all of the aspects of a civilian flight sim. It's too complex in its' own way. Combat simmers want to be shooting down other planes which is a totally different set of complexities and skills.

So I am not sure a crossover is completely viable. No way is a combat sim today going to mimic all of the complexities of a flight sim. No way can a flight sim add in good combat from a resources point of view.

Civilian flight sims max out your computer without any shooting. Combat flight sims max out your computer without truly complex flight models and "management" (like approved by the FAA for training purposes where you can log flight time). I'm not sure what hardware it would take to combine the two but I do know that I can't afford it lol.

As good as I expect SoW to be as far as a flight sim goes, it won't replace a sim like X-Plane. Conversely, X-Plane won't have any combat which we know Oleg will do very well. Apples and oranges. Two different business models. I'll be buying both :).

Splitter

Well Splitter,

i really don't see why SoW:BoB couldn't win the civilian market also?
Fuel and engine management, weather effects, navigation are present, all it would take is to implement more controls and the adequate planes.
I also think that BoB:SoW has a flight model which is at least as complex as any civil flightsim on the market, if not more, and could easily serve both worlds.
The civil sims i know are resource hogs, but i think thats just ineffective programming.
As the computers got faster and faster very quickly effective programming became redundant and the programmers just added content to a bad base, imho.

Hey Rob,

Could SoW do the job? Yes. But it can't do it as well. If you read about how X-Plane calculates the flight model, all the different parameters and components in the aircraft, it is tremendously complex and resource intensive.

Now, it is perfectly possible (and acceptable) to "simulate" some of those calculations with a more simple flight model and many would never notice. A combat sim has to do this because to use all of the parameters would max out the computer before the bullets even began to fly.

Then there is the "world" map. Personally, I have very little interest in spending all of my "flight sim" time hopping around England or even France in 1940. I want to fly in the US, Caribbean, Alaska, Canada, and such. 70gigs of flight sim maps give me that option (less detailed obviously).

So can SoW do it adequately? For most, that's a big yes. For the devotees of flight sims, not in the near future as far as I can see. BUT! Neither does any flight sim offer any sort of decent combat in the propeller age. Nor can they to the best of my knowledge.

Maybe sims like X-Plane are overly complex in their flight models. Maybe each component of a plane having its' own aerofoil, lift, drag, weight, etc., can be approximated adequately. I dunno. Maybe the huge number of calculations that go into such a detailed flight model can be approximated in a more simple yet just as realistic way. I just doubt it, that's all. At least for the next few years.

If I am wrong I will be happy dude though :).

Splitter

LukeFF is the person who did some great research and then model for Il-2, that was for the first time present in a combat sim.

And just to remind about what I told above... to think about what I said in my answer...
1. modeling surfaces of different materials, visually and emulating physics of burning and hits
2. complex damage model - early sample - glass.
3. copy of real aircraft internal structure for modeling of damage itself and its visual effect
4. modeling of aircraft systems that are important for the the life/durability of aircraft in a combat (damage-able and shown just part of them)
5. precise of each cockpit for many aircraft in one sim
.......
I can continue... to model aircraft for our sim, is more complex than for the MS add-ons. And any who will try will need to learn really more than for the creation of MS aircraft.

In one of the interviews from a while ago, Oleg was asked about how the online/offline aspects of SOW would work. He said (in my own words) they were still deciding, but were considering making offline planes open to all, so anyone from hacks to pro's could do whatever they want. He also said online would be two-tiered, with one form of online play open to all, and with another form locked down and using only official or officially sanctioned Maddox Games planes.

I think that could be a workable solution.

In fact, something similar has been done with a racing sim called 'rFactor', where the sim developers made the overall sim, including some generic cars and tracks, then let the modding community do with it (almost) whatever they wanted. From there you got a huge amount of crap and uncompleted cars and tracks, but also some top quality stuff too. This is seperate to other developing teams who licensed the sim engine and released other commercial products (similar to the console games made from Il-2).

The thing is though, while racing sims for the PC are a niche market, flight sims are even more so, and combat flight sims are even more so than that. And (!) Oleg has raised the bar so high with the SOW plane models, I'm not sure how many modding teams there are out there who could actually model planes to that standard. Remember too that some of these third party developers just might not be capable of stretching their products over multiple sims, or might just prefer not to for whatever reason.

Same with the customers in that last regard. Some people could see their favourite third party plane modeller making a plane for SOW and still not buy it (and SOW) just because it's not in the sim they're otherwise used to and have often invested a lot of time and money in.

Not trying to be negative. I just felt like trying to sort some of this stuff out in my own mind by writing about it, and to maybe play devils advocate a bit too, by suggesting this reliance on third party content might not have the results we'd all hope for.

Like all of you I want all the best for the SOW series and its developers, but there's a gamble being taken here to some extent, and while not knowing of course all the plans and behind the scenes goings on, I can't help but be skeptical about the third party aspect of it.

I hope for example as many potential plane-modelling teams as possible have already been notified of SOW's development and that they're all lined up to get the SDK's or whatever info it takes to at least see if making extra content is viable for them, or will that all happen later (and delay by months or years whatever 3rd party stuff we do end up seeing)?

I'm just hoping Oleg and his team, with their limited resources, can keep the series viable on their own if they have to and that they haven't gone for a business model that's too dependent upon what just might not happen. That's not meant to be an insult to Oleg's business sense, I trust he/they know what they're doing, it's just me expressing some doubts based on a lack of knowledge about something I'm interested in (how the SOW series will play out).

I think too I'm just trying to keep my expectations in check and preparing myself for a much more content-limited series than we've had so far, by imagining what would happen if there were no or very few decent third party add-ons made for it.

I find that a helpful approach to take in general too, hoping for something good, but not expecting it. Saves a lot of unnecessary disappointment and resentment if/and when things don't turn out the way I'd like, remembering I'm owed nothing, and my hopes an expectations are two different things. Nothing worse than ripping yourself off by creating false expectations and then blaming others for it when they're not met...

Edit- Posted this and then saw the man himself posted just above this while I was writing, I would have talked to him and not about him if I'd known he was actually here at the time.

SoW engine will be oriented at first time only for piston engines and WWII or near this era aircraft. Also for the sport planes.
And SDK that we plan to release will be at first for these planes.
There are a "bit" more complex task because we will need to include also tools for programming of weapons, etc....

Then if all is going ok there will be first jet engines and aircraft.

But probably we will not go to the MS area of civil aircraft.
There are so many things in WWII era still never modelled that for us and third party it will be enough for many years to do...

Our engine and its features are targeted for a combat, for adrenalin and at the same time to and extra quality

So Oleg how complex do you plan for the systems management for the sport aircraft?:grin:

Correct, I told such things and they are still in plan.
And you really said right about many done bad and just single good comparable to original or even better. (Better: But usually more later than original was released...)

A well presented video, but as another poster said, "I'll give up gaming before I fly a civ sim".

And there in lies the rub:

I'm not good enough to tell which is "better"; the FSX Spit, A2A's Spit or Oleg's. I haven't a clue which is most authentic.

And I don't mind much, I fly that which entertains me.

IL-2's mission/campaign generator can't even handle stock the 4.09 plane set, how's it going to handle 4.10?

I'm going to be really annoyed if I can't fly any add on planes in a SOW installation because the guy that programmed the mission generator has joined the foriegn legion, and it's obviously easier to add the space shuttle to a WWII flight sim than it is to replace the mission generator with something that works.

That's why FSX lies unused on my drive.... all those planes with no purpose, no mission.

That'd be a terrible fate for SOW add ons. Please make the SOW mission generator extensible.

I think I told already - everything that need to be done for a flight, using weapon, including take off and landing, but not a complete starting procedure.
As I told already: shown starting procedure above is also incomplete. If you have manual of spitfire you make take a look there...

To add another example to that: take a look at the manual for the Me 262 (I have a translated copy of the original). A quick glance reveals about 25 steps needed to start the aircraft. Now, how many really want to go through that any more than a couple of times?

I was just curious if the sport aircraft were to be different from the rest in that regard:grin:

In spitfire, Stuka, 109, etc is also about the same amount of all steps.

I do! But i know i'm the one of the masochist minority, and i willing to sacrifice that level of simulation for other things that are more important.

Now please, not trying to offend anybody here, but as for the start up of the video on the first post, it is simplified and not fully realistic, i agree, but isn't that what we are gonna have too on SoW? Simplified start up sequences? Why criticize it if we are gonna do the same?.

As for the suggestion of Ltbear, his first post i didn't understand either what he was trying to suggest, but his seccond post clarifys a lot and its i beleive its a good suggestion. Heck, if i had enough money to form my own company, i would be contacting Oleg about license for SoW and make a Mediterranean addon. Does anybody have 6 millions dollars to give me freely? :D

Good points and well argued if you ask me. Also, playing devil's advocate is my favorite sport as well, as we need to see the opposing viewpoint too if we expect to draw any reasonable conclusions.

My idea is that it will play out just like you said. The main content and gameplay will be based on official expansions just like it was in IL2. From then on, a myriad of 3rd party add-ons that range in quality from poor to excellent will be available, either for free or payware. Some of those might end up getting officially sanctioned status and some won't.

I think this is actually the best of both worlds. For example, i won't be forced to buy a plane model just to fly one map on my favorite server because i'll be using the stock models provided by SoW. However, if i have spent money on an aftermarket model of the same plane that's done to a high enough standard and keeps the playing field level, i might be allowed to fly that on the same server as well. For example, it would be like clicking on the aircraft selection menu before spawning and choosing between the stock 109 and the A2A 109.

As for single player now, Seeker makes a good point as well. Having the abbility to integrate 3rd party aircraft into the automatic mission creation/dynamic campaign framework is what will make or break the use of 3rd party add-on aircraft by other developers.

Central to the entire development situation must be available resources.

Imagine if MAddox Games created a Spitfire sim..... all that talent focussed on a single point?

Instead we get many great aircraft in a sim crafted by experts.

Yes, other devs will have shiny things to show off too. And in themselves, fine things they are. But will other devs have such a range and proven dedicated background of playable shiny things?

Time, and money, arent infinite factors in this sims dev cycle.

I used to be a programmer for a govt business and I sometimes I had hours to produce a fix to a problem, including phone calls for updates and ETA for producing a -WORKING- release package so managers could brief heads of depts.

I can only wonder at the polishing and balancing and crafting going on to create such a product.

I believe, from past efforts, MAddox Games will produce the very best possible product from the money and time available to them.

Developing anything isnt easy. Wild demands and requests totally out of scope?

Pointless.

Im certain the time will arrive where the product is signed off, and I will buy my initial and a few other storage copies, and with a smile on my face :)

Pretty darn good stuf in here, didnt count on that :)

As i statet in my second topic, the interesting part for me is about the feeling not being alone. Some talks about the "no mission no goal" feeling you get from a civilian flight sim, and that feeling can also pop up flying long missions in a world war two bomber.

You take of from point A fly to point B then return to Point A. You have maby 10 mins of action doing a 1 hour flight.

Some enjoy this aspect, but do get a feeling of empty plane. In a WW2 bomber you as the pilot was a unit leader, and the crew was your unit and responcebility. You used them to scout the skyes, every man onboard was a important tool for the planes operation.

IL2 is a masterpiece of simulation, SOW will take it to a brand new level, and thats why i createt this post initialy. For the racing pilots out there it maby sounds stupid, but i for many years had a hope that we would maby se some small bit of taking the bombers just that small level higher.

A visual crew inside the plane was the smalest hope, nothing fancy but they would be there.

The big wish had been for an interactive crew, but i understood what was written about all this, but atleast kept the small hope for a visual crew.

I do understand nothing is easy, i do understand some of the things that could cause problems.

But A2A maneged to create a module outside the 3d engine, that interacts with the 3d engine, that i thought atleast could be relevant for mr maddox, atleast as a brainstorm for how this can be made. And no im not talking about the polygons or the damegde models or fancy clickable cocpits etc.

All i had hopes for with my post here was that he maby could get an idea how to help us "bombers" out with our empty planes. I dont know hes thoughts on this, i dont know how he thinks on this, all i know is that i atleast have shown that a working AI on a player plane is not imposible, that you can have an interactive crew. This dont have anything to do with server loads or bullets in flight, no under/over modeled planes.

Its about creating the full imersion for those who realy enjoys there HE-111`s B-17`s or blenheims....

Sometimes you can get a feeling that bombers are not a priority, that the 1 seaters are what everyone loves and a bomber should just be a 1 seater with big bombs and guns all over....

Mr maddox have createt a game series that wiped out the competition. Hes series of games will last for a werry long time especialy with SOW comming. What he have braught into the virtual ww2 battle scenes are amazing and im loving every second of it, it just makes me a tiny bit sad that if a want that "bomber feeling" i have to play a game from 2000 a 11 year old game.

Mr maddox have the know how, the tools and the love for the ww2 era planes that he could bring that "bomber feeling" into what i have no doubt will be the best ww2 era simulation ever to se the face of the earth....

I just wantet to raise my word he have been kindly enough to reply in this thread, that was my hope and goal.

sorry about the wall of tekst, just werry afraid to be misunderstood because of my English..

Ltbear

I have been with mr maddox since the original game, and i will play SOW and again buy two copys just to create some more revenue for hes company. This is not a whine/bash or negative, just a small voice talking for the bomber pilots :)

Hope you all catch a good day :)

I agree. In a combat sim, I'd love the chance to do this, but I would not use it more than a few times. Take the Battle of Britain Wings of Victory game. I have used the startup procedure before (which is probably not as detailed as real-life) but I just prefer to hit a few buttons. Not necessarily because I prefer playing on lower difficulty settings, but because I prefer the in-air experience.
Having said this, if SoW didn't have a detailed start-sequence like this it wouldn't bother me. It depends on how realistic one wishes to make their experience (and also how much time you may have, sometimes).

No problem with your English. My Engish is probably worse despite of my English surname (Russian branch)

Anyway, in SoW you will get the possiblity to take off, fly enough and by the mouse to open the bomb doors, select sequence and then drop them. I'm not listing a lot of other clickable functions that we have. When I tell that we have all things clickable that are neccessary for the flight I mean really a lot of things.

In nearest future I would record the videos step by step about some of features in our new sim. We just need to get new PC with video cards.... with its movement in new office we still have old PC and even the Igromir presentation was on the PC that isn't enough for demonstration of full scale of effects and visuals. So I even was need to decrease the detalisation that to make possible the smooth video that we plan to post with English language annotations for this friday development update.

But I also hope that you got my point of view for the third party development teams - we are open for them for different models of business in future. It will be posted later before the release or maybe earlier the all possible ways.

For now I want to say that there are already several teams and single developers that want using SoW and BoB engine, series:

1. to make add-ons with campaigns
2. To make alternative campaign system
3. To make new aircraft
4. to make new maps
5. to make new ground units and make them controlable by player
6. to make the complete add-ons with new plane set and battles.
7. to make special online events
8. to get a license for the engine to make other theater sim compatible with the series online
9. to get a license for development absolutely other type of the game (I would say like Crimson Skyes but probably with realistic physics)

And that isn't all.

Sure if will have success with the first sim of new series we (developers, my team) will be able to make happy you with many new features in the series, like it was with Il-2, but with more great help of community, talent developers and producers of separate add-ons.

And I don't like to repeat mistakes of my own and other people in company with the license of Il-2 engine and its content ... That now will be under strong control that to get investment for the new versions of our own sims.
Hope you all understand what I mean.

thanks mr maddox for your time replying to me :)

I will look forward to any update up to the release.

Have a good evening sir :)

im also looking forward to the flyable bombers in SoW- much much more than to the fighters !!
and i know some more folks , always selecting a bomber in the VOW online war when available - "ugly crowd" :D
so you are by for not allone ;)


and some more "deeper" CEM and weapon system handling (like selecting the mentioned bomb sequence in flight :) ) are more than welcome !
the thing that blow me out of my chair watching all that Moskau show videos was the Ju88 with crew ......................... WOW !!
the Ju88 will become most propably my favorite ride in BoB - as it was a true weapon "system" , not only a bombcarrier ;)

That just sounds like smart business. Not only does it help us all in preserving the integrity of the game, but should provide a number of revenue streams. I know I don't mind paying for good add-ons and I would be beside myself with excitement to one day see a "combined arms" game built on the SoW engine.

Obviously, this is more than just a BoB flight sim :). We all knew that before but it was good to get a glimpse into your intentions for the future.

Splitter

Oleg, you're a smart guy. Great posting.

Do you think any film companies will use SoW in the future in order to get an idea for, say, how a combat sequence would look? At least in the cockpit, SoW's graphics look close to photo-realistic. I'm tired of seeing aviation-films where combat sequences are so fast-paced, one would think the piston-engined planes were rocket propelled.

Il-2 used many times to replace chronicles by a computer modelled scene of some or other aerial battles. This was done in Russia, France, Finland, USA, UK, etc
the latest request for use it was from Romania.

BoB is looking from anywhere of air the most photorealistic from the professional photographer point of view comparing to anything in current sims. Even with beta tunes of light and colors. This I already heard from the serious cinema making guys that was at Igromir.
And the most important feature of its engine for cinematogrphers - the possibilty to save the modified with views track into the AVI of highest resolution of a professional display directly from the sim... just need the goo-good PC that to use maxed out settings for any situations that to switch off any special gameplay optimizations..... and it will be smooth.

So I think we are now giving the very power tool for the cinema creators.
There will be added soon new camera views that will be going with selected aircraft but by its own flight path around the scene - this will give final cinematograph impression. But it will be already I think in release. New such camera views isn't done yet... new here means completely new comparing to how many we already have and in comparison to the views of Il-2. I will show in one of the development updates. Sad I wasn't able to use them yet making Igromir 2010 presentation.

That is excellent, many thanks for the reply, Oleg ;) I am sure the film-makers will love this, too ;)

Can I ask, how will 'modding' work for SoW? Say if teams create-add-ons (be they paid ones or free ones) how will compatability between installs be assured? Particularly if other teams start developing large add-ons like, for example, the MTO? Do you think, in a few years time, additions of SoW will be released containing a variety of theatres and expansions? (like with Il-2)

Thanks Oleg for taking the time to explain things in more detail. The information you've provided has dispelled the concerns I raised in my previous post, which were only based on a lack of knowledge.

What you've been revealing about SOW is nothing short of amazing.

Thanks for all the work you've done so far, and best of luck in the future.

The video is not of aircraft in the BOB II WOV it is standalone planes for use in the MSFT Flight Simulator.

Sorry, but that horse (FSX,FS2004) is dead as far as many of us are concerned.

Has anyone played both games? I've yet to play the recent FSX by MS. I was wondering how the starup procedure differs from BoB2? I'd imagine it's more complex?
BoB2 does a good job, though, in my opinion. It's a great sim to fly. It will be interesting to see how SoW will fare against it, especially in terms of the amount of planes able to fly at one time. I always liked this about BoB2.

MSFT FSX or FS2004 is a flight simulator, not a combat flight simulator.

The enjoyment from a flight simulator is in all the detailed flying requirements.

If you are a real world pilot you can actually do check flights with the FSX and almost verbatim fly a hop in the sim as you would in real life. You can setup flight plans in FSX that you can fly in real life aircraft. You can use actual real world navigation, charts, procedures,etc.

I do IL2 air combat for pleasure not to get all involved in the details of flying.

If you have plans to be a real world pilot the FSX or FS2004 would not be a waste of time. There is so much to learn, especially flying instruments.

just been using the best part of early evening watching movies on rutube and youtube, digging as far as i could around the net.....

I have seen crew on a JU-88 from internal, and found one clip with 1 second right at the end of the HE-111 the guy press F1 gets into plane and you can se a guy at the front in the "greenhouse"

This have just blown me....

mr maddox....all i can say is WOW! aaaaaaawsooome

woooooot!!!!

Ltbear

I know, I wasn't suggesting that the flight-series are for combat ;) And I completely agree here. I think that BoB2 offers a nice mix between great combat, and great functionability and realism, especially in-terms of start-up-procedure. Judging by Oleg's response, the start-up procedure in SoW will probably be as detailed as BoB2, which for me is detailed enough ;)

just in case, here
http://fooblog.mexxoft.com/category/...nshots/page/2/
&
http://fooblog.mexxoft.com/category/...e/screenshots/
you should be able to find the most videos together

Tx m8 much apriciatet :)

Ltbear

I'm not smart. I'm clever in technical terms and... overal...
If I would be smart then I should be already long time ago millionare.
But not...

I think I told aready in this topic that it will be anounced later before the release.

Heheh, but surely one values personaly enjoyment over finance? ;)

Sure thing...i wish my timemachine was working so I could jump ten years into the future....

Only to end up in nothing because the world ended to exist in 2012:grin:

Well thank God for that. Smartness in terms of making money exists enough. True love and passion for the subject is rare. You may have less money than others in the business Oleg, but trust me, you have tons of true love and respect from your customers and fans to compensate for that.

Thank you for your warm words.

+1 :)

Besides that, skill at making money should never be confused with intelligence...... they are two quite different things.

This sounds very exciting, the future will be a full load of a very diverse simulator...your workmanship is second to none:grin:

First of all, good posts by Ltbear and an even more welcome reply by mr. Maddox. I'm very excited to hear about all these features. :grin:


I fly it often when visiting a friend, on his PC. The stock planes are not that detailed. Add-on planes vary a lot and it's not like the free stuff is low quality. You can often find top quality freeware aircraft and payware ones that are bit lacking compared to them. However, most of the add-on ones are usually better than the stock planes that come with FSX.

This is also due to the fact that it's a resource hog, so in order to make complex add-on aircraft a lot of 3rd party developers waited for the hardware to catch up.

As for the payware add-on aircraft, i've seen some that are very simple compared to even the stock ones FSX ships with, some that model all the real effects but don't suffer any consequences for exceeding limits (this is a lot like IL2, eg, a plane might register excessive torque or cylinder temperatures on the gauges but nothing breaks, they depend on the end-user to fly within the limits for a realistic experience) and finally, there are some that you really have to pay attention flying.

These latter ones are a very enjoyable deal and i was actually suprised at how much stuff there is to do just trying to fly from A to B without breaking the plane and how much satisfaction you get from it. My favorite is an add-on catalina, it cruises along at a mere 100 knots (180mk/h your car goes faster than that probably and that's without running into headwinds :grin: ) but there's just so much stuff under the hood that time just flies by. I don't fly it often because it takes a lot of time and my buddy and i have to get settled for a long evening first, but on the two occasions i've flown it a lot i clocked a 10 hour flight in the caribbean along with my buddy (we were switching places taking control, just like a real pilot and co-pilot) and another one that we had to cut short at 4 hours or so.

As an example of how it flies, just seeing a cloud ahead of has me checking the outside air temperature, fiddling with the GPS to find the nearest airports ATIS frequency, tuning into that to get the weather reports for the area , then comparing the outside air temp with the condensation temp broadcasted by the ATIS to see if there's a chance of icing. If all is well, i fly through the cloud keeping a watch on the gauges.

If the dew point is close to the outside air temp, i turn on the de-icing equipment and monitor the carb temps closely, so that as the carb temps start to drop i can apply heating. When exiting the cloud, i have to turn the heat down because excessive carb temps are just as much of a problem as carb icing, they result in rarified air that reduces available engine power. All that while manually flying the plane inside cloud turbulence, trying to stay on course by tracking a nav radio station or flying a GPS route on the instruments. Yup, hitting bad weather is more frantic than boom and zooming people in IL2 :-P

The fact that we are getting such enhanced system modelling features in SoW is a big step forward and a needed one. From the description above, i think it's evident this will be a big boost for the people who enjoy planning their sorties and for those who fly bombers or other multi-engined/multi-crewed aircraft, because finally their slow speeds will be offset by their increased complexity being modelled.

Even with single seaters, having to account for healthy engine operation will have a massive effect on how people fight. I can't tell you how much i liked seeing all these people in Igromir damaging their engines or having them run rough with the propellers cutting out. The days of "slam the throttle and keep it there, take off from the taxiway and look for the nearest furball" while on maximum difficulty settings are finally a thing of the past :grin:

Up to this point, one of the main reasons a lot of people dislike flying bombers is just that...there's too much downtime. You cruise at a paltry 150 mph until you reach the target, you get a few minutes of excitement running through the flak and fighters, drop your bombs and turn back to another stretch of time where you do pretty much nothing. So when the enemy fighters get you, you get frustrated for spending so much time without having actually done that much, only to meet a swift fiery death at the end of a fighter's cannons.

Compare this to what is possible with the systems modelling that is, thankfully, coming in SoW. You will have your hands full pretty much all the way, managing your engines, staying in formation, checking that everything is in working order after each single combat action because you will actually be able to diangose what's wrong with your plane by interpreting what the gauges tell you, plan a more efficient use of your aircraft and when you do get damaged, you can actually use these new tools to increase your chances of survival.

Imagine flying an online sortie like this. Say your bomber is attacked and you have some serious damage, the moment your attacker breaks away you drop out of formation and dive away to escape, hoping he lost you. A quick scan of the gauges reveals a fuel leak. Trimming the aircraft to fly level, you turn on the fuel transfer pumps to save as much as you can and run the engines on the punctured tank to use as much of the escaping fuel as possible, trimming the ailerons and rudder as necessary to account for the fuel weight imbalance.

Then, as you have stabilized your plane and all the fuel in the leaking tank is gone, you tune in to the radio beacon closest to base. You might have gotten separated from your formation and flying at wave-top level to avoid detection, but lack of visual range doens't mean you have to get lost or fly arbitrary headings that might place you miles away from base with a damaged bomber. Just follow that needle pointing to the beacon. Nearing friendly airspace you climb a bit to prepare for the approach and pick a course to take you from the beacon to the base. Again, you can fly that course by using the beacon, only this time the needle will indicate the beacon is behind you.

Nearing the airbase and having a clear view of it, you prepare for landing. Slow speeds and assymetric loads are a bad combination, so you turn on the fuel dump mechanism to nearly empty your remaining tank and equalize the weight, trimming the aircraft as necessary. With the lighter load and a well trimmed bomber, you come in and land safely and easily, like you were never damaged to begin with.

Now imagine flying this with a completely human crew thanks to the new multiplayer features, having your friends help you along the way and provide information and corrections so that you can make the right decisions. Yes, it will be a real blast ;)

This is the best of news, being able to place static cameras in il2 was for shure one of its best options for movie makers, now there will be even more options...:grin::grin::grin:

Some food for thought would be the addition of camera shake, maybe in a post release add on that can be turned on or off as I know some purists dont like it, also it would be nice to see a dedicated film and movie section on the new website when its up and running.

Some of my fondest on-line memories involved flying a bomber on a full switch server. And it was very rewarding to take out one or two fighters, by jumping around and maning a gun. Sometimes seeing "Enemy Aircraft Destroyed" after many minutes of flight time after the battle, on the way home. Then limping home, trailing smoke (spawning aircraft on the ground seeing you were in trouble, and clearing the runway) and then having a successful landing. Certainly was very exciting for me, and challenging. Now with SOW, the choice to fly a bomber immersion level will be even higher:grin:

flying bombers in a COOP online war with all the other teammembers on voicecoms , bomberpilots and escort pilots in their fighters, is one of the highlights this game can give !

and fortunatly BoB will continue doing so :)

flying bombers alone on a dogfightserver, even worse on one with late war canonmonster fighters, can be frustrating like hell - very true ..................

Think about it, Oleg is trying to attract some of the small dev teams currently doing paid-for aircraft for the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. How are they supposed to work with a system that says you can only sell big add-on packs that rival the Maddox Games entries in the series?

If Maddox Games started selling their own aircraft individually I would be upset, but for a small development team there isn't a viable alternative (unless they want to give away their work).

If a system is established where developers who make individual aircraft that meet MG standards then give the aircraft to MG, who put the aircraft into an official patch, ensuring compatibility for all players, but the aircraft is AI only unless purchased then I would be happy.

Developers big enough to make stand-alone expansions (like Battle for Moscow) could either have it so the pack could be merged with the existing series or not, depending on their arrangements with MG.

This would not result in a system where you had to buy the best aircraft individually to remain competitive online. MG will I'm sure provide a wide range of aircraft that cover the bulk of any requirements for a particular theatre of war(like they have done for BoB), with the smaller teams either filling in gaps or providing aircraft that don't fit into a theatre. The first case would be adding something like a flyable Defiant to the Battle of Britain. It would fit in to the Battle of Britain scenario, and be interesting to fly, but players using it aren't going to be at an advantage compared to the planes available to a stock user. The second case would be something like adding a Spitfire IX or a Fw190A to BoB. It dosen't fit the scenario, so unless the host is trying to set up an unbalanced server they won't add it to the planelist.

+1


@Black-Dog. thanks for an excellent reply; all of your posts are a real pleasure to read. I agree with you on many points there too. I can't wait to fly SoW and experience engine difficulties, maybe from returning from a patrol where I didn't meet any action, or to come-back from a combat mission and (naively) try a victory-roll, only to meet an ironic end because I hadn't realised my plane had suffered any damage. Whilst it's morbid to get enjoyment from this, it adds to the realism which will make for a great experience.