Friday Update, January 27, 2012
 

It’s our pleasure to continue our weekly updates in 2012!

From now on our Friday updates will include both information on Cliffs of Dover (when we have something exciting to reveal) as well as updates on the state of our not-yet-announced sequel.

We’ve already shown you a few screenshots from our next project in our pre-holiday update. You can see it here.


And now, the State of the Project address from project’s lead Ilya “Luthier” Shevchenko

We could have probably avoided a lot of bad blood if I had explained some basics earlier. So let’s take a step back and discuss the specifics of video game development as it exists today.

2012 is not 1999 or 2004. Hardware capabilities and community expectations grow at an exponential rate. In the golden early days of the series – over 10 years ago – we could have written an entire cool new feature in a week, rewritten a complex module in two, or created a new plane in a month. In those days we could offer you something new and exciting to look at every Friday!

Things are not the same today. A single plane model can take a year of work or more! Complex tasks such as changes to AI or flight model take many months of coding and testing. The industry reached this strange stage where the end result does not seem to match the amount of time that went into it. If you compare a late-year 1946 plane with a CoD aircraft, it’s hard to believe that one took a month and the other a year to make. Does it really look 12 times better?

If you drew a diagram of time spent on task vs perceived quality, the curve would be very, very sharp.

It is what it is. It takes a huge amount of time to rise above the bar set by the original Il-2. The illusion of time spent vs quality delivered affects not only the layman but us professional developers as well. We’ve underestimated the amount of time it could take to “do better” quite a few times. We could do it exactly like in Il-2 in a month. But we don’t want to do it like in IL-2. We want to do better. And to reach the next qualitative level you need to spend significantly more time. In some cases, a year instead of a month, or even worse.

Secondly, and I hope this part is obvious to most everyone, games are developed by teams of people with very different skills. They rarely intersect. For example, there are team members who are great at making 3D models of tanks. They can’t just switch over and make a cockpit one day. They’d need many months of retraining. And even more than that, a tank modeler can’t just come in one day and fix a memory leak in the network code. All he can really do is make great tank models regardless of what a network programmer or a map maker are doing.

I’m really hoping this will cut down on cries of “why do we need x when we still have the glaring problem of y!” Each team member does the thing he can do at the speed it can be done. “Hire more programmers” is not a solution either. If your plane can’t fly very fast, putting more pilots in the cockpit won’t do much for its top speed. Especially when your plane is a unique one-off model with controls and other systems quite unlike anything any pilot might have ever handled before.

So we address each issue at its own speed. Some bugs can be fixed very quickly, and they are. We can update a cockpit lever animation or fix a type in a matter of minutes. On the other hand, locating a memory leak can take many long months of dedicated work by some extremely qualified programmers. All bugs are not created equal.

So our general status report is very simple. Everyone is working very hard doing the same thing they were doing a month or a year ago. Graphical programmers are working on graphics. Network programmers are combing through the network code. Plane modelers are building 3D models of aircraft. No one stopped. Nothing was abandoned. On the contrary, the team continues to grow.

I also have to say that under these conditions reporting on intermediate progress is very hard. Say, we’ve measured FPS in the new graphics engine. The engine still has some problems, solving which will have a definite impact on FPS – whether positive or negative is impossible to say. However if we were to announce that in a mission X we’ve increased FPS by Y% on hardware Z, then regardless of the size of the WIP disclaimer, we’d be eating our words for years to come if they turned out to be too optimistic.

So we continue to work, quietly and privately.

The progress is a constant. Graphics are virtually complete. Almost all of the newly introduced bugs are squashed. There are lots of other improvements. The new project as well is advancing at a good pace.

I can’t say anything more than that however, this week like many other weeks. It’ll be ready when it’s ready. And as we all know, nothing good ever comes out of talking about it before it is ready.

PS And I’d like to point this out one more time. There is no conflict between the old and the new. We have one team that works on a single overall task, that is, improving the Il-2 series. Whether it is a new sound engine or a new graphics engine, we don’t make them for CoD or for the sequel. We make them for IL-2 Sturmovik.

(end of producer transmission)

We are also working on improving Russian and German localization with the help of the community.


And now let’s look into the future.

We are very proud to show off another flyable plane from the sequel, the famous Polikarpov I-16. It’s the mainstay of the Soviet air force in the early period of the war. It’s still a work in progress. We will reveal its cockpit at a later time.

Please tune in next week for screenshots of a damaged I-16 as well as something completely different!

Good hunting!

And more:

S!

Thank you for the update! And that Rata looks great!

yes very nice :)

Thanks guys, great update.

Keep up the good work! Thanks!

Thanks for the update! It's good to see things as they are progressing!

It will be very interesting to see the winter landscape for the ski variant or the I-16!

Thank You B6 and Luthier for the update!!
Good job with the I-16!!

Great update. Keep it coming!!

Kap!
 

As we say here in Thailand.

Viking

Looks great :grin:

Thanks for the update and the explanations.
I suggest you lock the Thread at the first "I want it now" whine.

Memory leak...months? what a pity
Thanks

Excellant update. :-P

@ BlackSix

Is it already known which types of the I-16 will be there? I ask because (once again) the very rare ShVAk-armed I-16 is shown before the much more representative versions with the ShKAs as wing armament (Type 18 and Type 24).

Thanks ...

Thank you, Sir! ;)

... just seeing the picture I expected csThor to jump on that immediatly, but hey I was wrong, it took you 20 minutes... you are getting old, csThor... ;) ;)

...depresing!...cosidering 6yrs of development! and now we have to wait quietly for months for a beta patch to be released...for us to do the testing!!!
The question is straight forwarard : why this title has been released if you say that it takes so long now days to deliver a good and finished product!
Please also look at other people in the industry, how they deliver, at what pace and also how they bond and interact with their fan base! :rolleyes:

The early plans were Type 24 and Type 28. I do not know if have time to do both, or add another modification.

thanks for the updates

Great update, thanks guys.

This product has such huge potential. Please don't let the negativity of a few get you down. Even with the bugs I'm enjoing the experience. The feeling of flight and height is like no other sim. I can be patient because I can see where you're heading and I like it. Good things can take a while to blossom.....

I have only just purchased the game but cannot play due to the constant crashing to desktop, i assume from what I have read on here that this is the memory leak that Luthier is reffering to. I didn't pay a lot for the game and i knew there were problems but to wait an indefinate amount of time for a fix seems very harsh. I guess I will just have to leave it on the shelf. Thanks for the update anyhow.

Actually the Type 24 (with ShKAS as wing armament) would be the most representative ... ;)

@ SNAFU - :-P Some people gotta work. And I'm one of them. :cool:

...how about now? as I do not know I will be here in 10yrs mate!

RoF planes are simple by design, less detailed and the modell is hardly to compare with the modells used in CloD, so this comparison is a little off... and we do not even consider the system and the data... ;)

Huh, I am doing Robteks job... well, it`s Friday... ;)

@csThor:
Jaja, der schnöde Mammon... ;) ... also zurück an die Arbeit *peitsch*, soviele Postings hole ich ja sonst nie ein...

Mine crashes to desktop regularly too but I'm happy to put up with it for now. Probably my own fault for running XP anyway. Just turn the details down to a level that makes it playable and simply enjoy flying and learning the systems. Plenty of time for takeoff and landing practice and a spot of cross country navigation before the next patch.;)

Posted 10-17-2011

3. Performance. We are in final stages of testing a thorough overhaul of the game’s graphic engine. It won’t look any different but it will be much more streamlined. It’s too early to say what the FPS increase will be in the final version, but it shouldn’t be less than 50%.

Supposedly in final testing over 3 months ago yet still not released. Not even an ETA.

You must be joking.

Sorry for not being appreciative and all that. I was hoping to have stable multiplayer and no stuttering by now.

This is NINE MONTHS since release after all...

No problem, just send them a magic wand and everything will be fine =)

Great update! Rata brings back memories, soooo looking forward to that one.

Hi BlackSix. Thank you for the information.
May i ask a pure technical question? What is the polygon-count of the sequel's planes? Compared to the CloD a/c engine models, the cylindrical and the rounded parts seem to be simpler. I have no problem with it, looks really good! I'm just curious how many polygon is made up of a fighter aircraft, for example? Clod and BoM?

With all due respect, IMHO this again is evidence of poor managing and working on an unstable platform.

A year to develop a plane? Months to squash a memory leak? There must be ways around it man, because others deliver in less time, so whatever you're doing you're not doing it right. It doesn't even take a year to build the real thing, how on earth it can take a year to develop one for a sim, no matter how accurate it is?

For what my professional experience is worth, just like in a factory you need to optimise standards and possibly change your chain of production, there are loads of consultants out there that can help you assess your situation and help you improve productivity.

There's nothing embarrassing in it Luthier, it's often a case of programmers getting together and sometimes good will and some experience doesn't mean one can actually handle an evolving and expanding venture like yours.

As you said, do it for the sake of the IL-2 series, you REALLY need to give a thought into the reassessment of your production methods.


Other than that, great job on the I-16, can't wait to see the FWs and Bfs!

If you still have stuttering then you're running on too high detail settings or you have under 1GB of VRAM. I have completely smooth play and my card is ancient.....GeForce GTS 250 1GB.

...they have had many years at their disposal to do magic!!!...sorry to dissagree!;)

I'm using a 560ti. Spends most of its time running Battlefield 3 maxed out just fine. Scores at or above expected values for all the benchmarks I have run on it.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

In other news, guess I will check back in a few months. The bar is set so low at this point nearly anything out of these guys is an unexpected surprise.

Yes, I know. We will try)

Hi!
Well, I'll ask, but I can not do it before Tuesday. Please remind me about it through private messages.

Thanks Blacksix and Luthier for the update.

A word to those finding fault, I'm not normally that bothered about people expressing their opinions, but after what is a very decent update with an in-depth report from Luthier on the difficulties they are encountering I'm amazed to find people throwing it back in his face. All you armchair software development experts who think you personally know better...! Take a look at yourselves.

"So we continue to work, quietly and privately."

Here is a constructive proposal : put on the table all that you have so far and let people download and try your alpha or beta and get the feedback, that will speed up development!... It has been done before by other developers!

Whats difficult to understand is that from what I have read there was no memory leak before the last patch, is that correct? If so how hard can it be in finding out what caused the problem, surely you just go back and add the coding bit by bit and test it until you discover what is causing the problem, assuming you have someone working on it constantly it should be easily fixed until the next patch is ready. What the game needs now is people playing it and being positive, I played Il2-FB last night and there were 300 people in hyperlobby and only 26 in Cliffs of Dover servers. Get the game working and this will change dramatically, surely that makes good business sense.

...some of us purchased games before!...may I suggest you have a look at what else its available in the industry and how it is delivered!

Could you also ask what model file type and software they use, thanks

Clearly a lot of trolls who have no idea about CAD, open yours eyes and realise RoF has nothing on CoD models... Why you ask well just look at a ww1 aircraft and compare it to a ww2 aircraft there is simply much much more to be modelled.. But hey ignorance is supposed to be bliss right so just carry on trolling.

Well maybe I don't, but if I can run this thing smoothly using XP with only 2GB of memory and an ancient card then there must be something significantly wrong with your system OR you're expecting too much in terms of detail settings.

Just because you can run battlefield on full doesn't mean you can do the same with CloD in it's current unoptimised state. The product is very resource hungry at present but you can play it smoothly if you reduce resolution and detail settings.

We now turn to 3D Max 2012 with older versions.

No I am a design engineer and use CAD and therefore can appreciate the length of time it takes to generate a highly detailed model.

Anyone recognise the usual rotten apples!!

Thank's for the update!...sequel may have been started on too soon IMHO...cart before the wheel

JG52Krupi

There is no excuse, all companies of simulation are in 2012 so it more or less working under the same demand and above Clifs of Dover is you have cut levels graphic...


Maybe according to you, ROF has not comparison, but also ED with DCS - A10c...

Thanks for the update. I was shooting down a 110 on ATAG when I heard about the update on teamspeak - great fun and a nice explosion too.

Don't think that the loudest speak for the majority. Looking forward to the patch and the sequel.

Thanks

Also if CoD is so crap why are the RoF and CoD multiplayer numbers so comparable both game have around 50 ppl playing them.. Now I can understand why CoD has low numbers but then surely if RoF is soo much better it should have more ppl online...

thanks for the update, ...
 

... nice Rata !
:)

Thanks for the update BlackSix and Ilya!

All the best, and please don't be discouraged by the droves of whiners ;)

man, did you actually read the first post? :confused:

Things are not the same today. A single plane model can take a year of work or more! Complex tasks such as changes to AI or flight model take many months of coding and testing. The industry reached this strange stage where the end result does not seem to match the amount of time that went into it. If you compare a late-year 1946 plane with a CoD aircraft, it’s hard to believe that one took a month and the other a year to make. Does it really look 12 times better?

If you drew a diagram of time spent on task vs perceived quality, the curve would be very, very sharp.

It is what it is. It takes a huge amount of time to rise above the bar set by the original Il-2. The illusion of time spent vs quality delivered affects not only the layman but us professional developers as well. We’ve underestimated the amount of time it could take to “do better” quite a few times. We could do it exactly like in Il-2 in a month. But we don’t want to do it like in IL-2. We want to do better. And to reach the next qualitative level you need to spend significantly more time. In some cases, a year instead of a month, or even worse.

I hate being right.

Also like others mentioned, 1 year for a plane? Seriously? Thats sad, the graphical modeling of a planes exterior should only take a few days, a week at most. Adding details and optimizing the model another week, then another for texturing; so about a month total? In Maya 7.5 it took me two weeks to model, texture and animate (although it was limited) a abrahms on my first time.
Sounds like the development team is still suffering from a lack of efficiency/streamlining/leadership. Same old story, same old excuses.

Also ROF has airframe failure due to Gs and such, where is that in CLOD?

Edit: also game stutters when close to enemy aircraft in combat on my rig, dust on ground during takeoff and mirror cause large multi second stutters too!

Well, I admit this is a better communication "package" compared to the last one I gave you my feedback upon (the infamous "balalaika" youtube video...).

Still, you are becoming masters in disguise... (I avoid using the term masters of deception out of politness).
I had to read the text twice to understand. Worthy of SunZu's teachings, brilliantly worded, it earns my respect!
Cudos to your effort!

Now that I have given you credit for the worthwhile effort, please allow me to tell you some things which I appreciated less:
Pretty pictures - little content.
You left us with a memory leak that grows to 4Gb RAM before crashing, obliging us to restart the game after every flight, for weeks now.
Careful reading of your statements makes me deduct that you have not being able to trace the cause of the memory leak much less provide a fix for it.
More concerning, no comment any more about the complete graphics model overhaul (which was the cause for not creating an intermediary patch).
Last but not least, no comments on the current flight model bugs in terms of performance of existing airplanes (e.g. SpitII) and funtionality of airplanes (e.g. JU-88 not working gyros).
Not posting a single date/ timeframe for completion of tasks (any task!) makes me speechless.

No need to worry gentlemen, I will buy your next sequel, and the one after that.

What frustrates me is that I am 46years old, have four university degrees (= my brain is working) but sometimes I feel I am reading communication destined to 12 year olds... :(

~S~

yes 2 weeks to model a aircraft, a few months to model the structure, engine, internals and cockpit etc

Oh, give me a break. Blacksix is our community liaison now. Why shouldn't he handle it? You guys are unbelievable, you really are.

Without any comment on the timeframe of modelling:

WW1 types are utterly primitive compared to their WW2 counterparts. CEM in WW2 is a totally different beast than in WW1. All those technological gadgets of WW2 (i.e. Radar, radio systems, radio beam systems etc) just weren' there in WW1. As such the amount of systems to be modeled is infinitely greater in a WW2 crate. Some people should take that into consideration before they let out the warcries and start besieging the 1C office complex. ;)

BlackSix, will Luthier provide answers for the last set of questions? It has been a few weeks.

Thank you Black Six, Luthier, and everyone at 1C.

For a very informative update. It is a unfortunate (but necessary) to have to explain why things take as long as they do. It is also unfortunate that even when presented with a reasonable explanation, certain people will simply deny it.

Kudos for maintaining communications under these unfortunate conditions.

That I-16 looks amazing, almost as complex as the real warbird. I have 3Dmax 2010 but in 2 years have yet to learn how to use it for more than making small edits to pre-existing models.

To all those folks who believe they know better - stop comparing apples to oranges and put your money where your mouth is; I shall wait patiently for your offering upon the altar of cutting edge simulation software.

Regards, Sam.

A while since I've been here. That I-16 takes me back to my IL2 days, looks good and makes me wanna jump in right away. Hope to play COD and sequel one time when I have enough bucks again (hard work, no profits).
Reading this forum: nothing has changed as to flaming the devs... sad.

Anyway Blacksix and Luthier and team: Thanks and keep it going, I admire your work!

Thanks for the update!

I understand 100% what you are trying to tell us!

The link does not work any more but I have quotes from that thread here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...postcount=1131

Jason says that all the malcontents and whiners did too much damage to their project. And I know that they moderate their forums much more strictly than 1C.

yeah but then again that's nothing new. You will always have whiners, you need to sell to generate income and finance R&D. I mean, guys, these are the basics of business.

At least they're working on a development and delivery format which is efficient and steadily releasing updates and new planes. Their formula works, in a sector that it's even more niche than this one.

"
@mods & all
Let's make sure Luthier or his successor does not have to post the same 3 messages here in 2013. This is our responsibility to stop usual local saboteurs. ¡No pasarán!"

using a "¡No pasarán!" whilst asking mods for a better done censure on the state of the game its hilarious.


regarding ROF, i feel sorry for the guys. i have bought 10 euros of ROF stuff this sale, very good stuff. but their selling method is just plain bad. i would have bought more and sooner if they sole it in a dvd as everyone else.

thx for update.

We want all photos you can post! hahahahhahahahah.

nice MOSCA whit big cannons!

thx

My humble opinion is, regardless of whether some in the community like the situation or not, we have to take on board what the devs are telling us and just let them get on with it, they are the ones in control. Why worry about something that we, as punters, cannot control.

I have to admit I am very disappointed with Clod, I spent £50 on something that I never play, because ultimately it is not in a playable condition yet.

However, I do have faith that the team are doing their best to try and fix it, as surely this is in their interests too.
When they have been able to get it running as is should run I will be back to hopefully play a sim I have been waiting for years to be born!

Have a good weekend all.

I don't believe the devs are going to abandon COD if they want to sell a sequel, simple logic, they have to have COD working because it's going to be the engine that runs the sequel.

bongo, when I read that it takes a year or more to develop one plane, I just can't think of Maddox Games as an efficient team, sorry.

Again, I'm not questioning the skills of the people involved, I'm wondering if you realise that once you take out of the equation all the things that might affect such a slow progress, the only two options left are improper resource managing and still working on an unstable game coding.

and the whinging helps how? other than making some very immature people feel better.

Rof's single player experience is outstanding.

+1 watch out bongo in a min he's going to take a stab at you for being British and saying that bob was the most important battle of ww2 :rolleyes: even though you never did

Agreed, head and shoulders above cod

No I dont believe that they are going to abandon the game either, but surely they owe it to their fans to throw every resource into fixing a game that most of you here purchased 10 months ago, reading between the lines the game will most likely not be fixed a year after release which isn't good for the fans or for the comapany.

Yes I know.....treading on eggshells.

I'm not for a minute going to say the situation is 'ideal', were all in the same boat (even the fanbois), it's just the undertone of the whining is blatantly anti 1C COD and the horse it rode in on.

If it's a development man year then it woudn't take 10 years. I'm sure 1c have more than one guy modelling planes.

These aircraft are complex and for many the blueprints no longer exist. If you want to make an accurate sim (which 1c do) then you could find yourself researching and gathering information on structure, systems and performance for much of that year. Then there's all the problems with getting the flight model to accurately reflect what your research is telling you and so on.....

When you throw in teething problems with the underlying engine too then I can quite easily see how it takes a man year for SOME aircraft - especially the larger multi-engined German types that are not particularly well documented.

I challenge you to find complete blueprints - including internal structure - for types such as the 110. Most of that stuff was destroyed when the war ended. If you don't want to just make stuff up then you have to undertake lengthy research.

You and other complainers must have a different game version than this guy has. This is real online gameplay footage on ATAG server that proves that the game is in a playable condition with recent patches installed via Steam (unless you have a pirated version).
http://www.youtube.com/user/Semashko27/videos
If someone states the opposite please proved a proof as solid and evident as this one.

However I think the devs deserve criticism because they did not implement an issue tracking system yet as discussed here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=24106
BlackSix, could you please ask Ilya if he can talk to 1cpublishing.eu admins to install such a system on this site and provide forum users rights to report and vote for bugs, issues and proposals there. Redmine and Bugzilla have voting capabilities and are free IIRC. This system will make life much easier for Ilya on the one hand and will prevent forgetting about not working features like COOPs on the other hand.

PS. Those who experience online launcher crash please try this solution http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=124

There currently is one major problem. That is the memory leak causing the launcher crashes. A quick fix for that would be highly desireable, as it makes formation flying with friends a choire.

That aside, the rest of the folks whining here are like a broken record. For months the same and the same and the same, spamming the forums. It's tiresome.

Gameplay on ATAG does not show the whole picture, quite the contrary. Apart from the CTD issues the engine currently neither allows for the amount of AI necessary for serious historical wargaming as opposed to the fighter gangbang that CloD is limited to ATM (judging by the vids available) nor do the lack of documentation and/or system modelling bugs with certain aircraft (i.e. Ju 88 gyro) and FM issues (across the whole scale) help matters. And don't get me started on offline ... it just isn't there.

[QUOTE=Bewolf;385062]There currently is one major problem. That is the memory leak causing the launcher crashes. A quick fix for that would be highly desireable, as it makes formation flying with friends a choire.
QUOTE]

+1 fix the memory leak first, forget eveything else, get people playing your game without them you have nothing.

Please try the .bat file I link to. It clears the cache folder and starts CloD. sukhoi.ru guys also restart game after each flight which prevents launcher crash for 1-1.5 hours. Enough for a good coop :)

A agree though that we badly needed a hotfix for this from the devs already last autumn. Similar to absence of sound online which we suffered in summer for several months. Absence of these 2 hotfixes reduced the user-base dramatically imo which is very bad for BoM sales and future of the series.

Thanks to all of you! great update

Problem is, and I am quite certain few people have realized that, there is no way for a quick fix as the gfx engine is the root cause and only the new engine will fix it. This is the crux ... and no amount of (justified) indignation will make it go away quicker.

I already do that and I appreciate your support in this, Ataros. Neverthless that is a problem that imho needs to be tackled soon, because you never really know when it hits you and you can set up a great flight, circle over the airfield, gather up, fly to target and then all of a sudden the game is gone. With the rest of the issues I can happily live until the patch comes, whenever that is.

You are aware that taking 3D modellers off the sequel will achieve nothing for coding fixes? Gosh, people, justified indignation is one thing but putting on blinders is another ... :roll:

Luthier did address the graphics overhaul.....

"Graphics are virtually complete. Almost all of the newly introduced bugs are squashed. There are lots of other improvements."

"The engine still has some problems".


Looks promising to me.

UBIsoft is the international publisher. Please contact them @ ubi.com
This site belongs to 1C which is a publisher for Russia only. MG/Softclub are developers only, they are not involved in sales. They are paid by publishers only and are supposed to report to publishers only.

Just take your game and throw it into a bin and file it under "lesson learned". I paid 70€ for my special edition. Am I happy? No, for sure not.
Am I a destructive entitlement junkie who had to register on this forum under a different alias just to put my pile of human digestion constantly highjacking threads here? Neither.

If Luthier and team require another year to get this game going, then so be it. I will then treat it as if it was only released by then and treat the current sitiuation like participating in an open beta. That is something I can live with it. If you can't, sell your copy and leave.

Beautifully said....

At first read, the "one year work-hour" seems a lot for me too, but do not forget that the aircraft making not only for modeling. It should also be programmed to operate, which I think is much more difficult task. Each (e-a-c-h!) on-board system to understand and programming it's intact and damaged functioning. If they interact, its more complicated. This is a huge job. Especially the bomber aircrafts. I do not know the ratios, but be sure that the modeling in less time..

I agree with that SNAFU and Krupi, compared to the ROF the 3D complexity, and the CEM far better in clod (It is also true that there are flaws, no question). But IMHO the ROF CEM, FM, DM and graphic engine somewhere between the Il-2UP and Clod (yes, i had that games too)...

Yea, sometimes they are coming back to do more damage. I am sure the mods will take care of them.

I'm not sure some of you understand that there is only one IL2 engine - there's no such thing as working on the CloD engine or working on the BoM engine.

Fix the engine and both products immediately benefit as they both use it. That's why I have no issue at all with them working on both in tandem. Good things will spill over into CloD as development of BoM progresses.

people can build a plastic model in an hour, but to do a nice job of it will take considerably longer, same goes for 3d modelling.

Yes, it's neccessary to maintain the compatibility. Any other "news from sukhoi" just a speculation, and hysteria... :rolleyes:

You are referring to me? This has been my name for 12 years, ask anyone in HL. I use no aliases.

As far as highjacking a thread, I'm not exactly sure what that is. I was merely responding to some dingbat who was beating the drum for a new sequel when I have not yet received the working game I paid for. The same gent tried to tantalize me with "something exciting to reveal" about CoD, which I took to be in poor taste considering.


How you would view it is irrelevant. I will not be happy until the game performs as it should. If that takes another year, perhaps they need more qualified personnel or management. 2013-2006=7 years minimum they have been working on it, with an interim unsuccessful release after 6 years. It sure seems they have been floundering for a long time.

You say I should leave? What would you do then for constructive criticism? Not to mention reminders of your poor manners.

Thanks Luthier and Black6 for the update. Things seem to be progressing in a positive fashion which is very exciting! Patience is a virtue, and I have no problem waiting for the new releases/updates. As with all things, it will be ready when its ready, and waiting longer for what will be years of fun flying is worth it.

it just doesn't add up. Look, I am no expert in the creation of 3d models or FMs, but from what I've learned after all these years, I would structure the development process in this way:

phase 1: 1 team (1 or 2 3d artists and a skinner) for 3d model production (2 if flyable)
phase 2: 1 team (2 coders) for implementation into model

Phase 1:
1) you choose the plane to implement. 1 week
2) you gather material on it according to the agreed standards: manuals, pictures, blueprints, translations (we're not in the '90s, there's a HUGE community out there with LOADS of information readily available) 2 to 3 weeks.
(Research work can be done by everybody according to availability and collated in a shared folder subdivided into sections)
3) in the meantime 3d model design starts:

3d internal and external body, LODs and DM. 4 weeks for a single engine/6 weeks for a multi-engine.

While this is going on, the skin artist works on the texturing in liaison with the 3d modellers. ongoing with 3d model.

3d model is completed, checked for bugs (possibly by another team) and passed to Phase 2. 1 week

Phase 2:

creation of FMs and DMs (which can happen whilst the other team is working on the 3d model) and implementation into game engine. 2 months

Testing of 3d model and FM. Note that the FM can be initially tested on a 3d mock-up to optimise times. 1 to 2 months

Beta testing 1 week

Final fixes 2 weeks

Now again pardon my lack of competence, but 6 months seem more than enough for the creation of one plane, let's not forget these guys are not doing it in their spare time, but they're steadily working on it (often on weekends apparently!) provided work is happening according to a tidy schedule without interruptions or reassignments to other duties.

This thread in a nutshell. :rolleyes:


Thank you B6 for the update. Seems promising.

Imagine, 5 billion people on this planet are unhappy over their living conditions. What makes you stand out to make ppl notice you or take you serious?

More qualified personal or management = €€€. I am sure they will appreciate your donations.

sadly...have to!:(

Clear your head and try again, lol.


Exactly the reason they should not be working on a "sequel".

I have an older PC (E8500 dually with GTX480 and 8G RAM). I have and like both titles (CLOD and ROF). I'll admit that I'm an eye-candy junky, and both are beautiful to me. The thing that catches my eye is that CLOD is closer to marrying the ground world and air world. I know it's a combat flight sim, but sometimes I am just stunned to think this, even if not overtly intended by the developers, is becoming reality. I won't preach because I lack the technical experience (just a self-taught modeler), but as you gain altitude, polys go through the roof (even with mitigation of lower LODs). That's not something FPSs have to deal with quite so drastically. When they are close to "breaking" your computer, they place a mountain or other obstruction in your way, then only load the next part of the map when you get there. In fairness, and this of course might be specific to my hardware (or lack of computer maintenance skills), CLOD's cities are much larger that ROFs, so the fact that CLOD runs more smoothly than ROF on my syatem suggests to me that some breakthroughs really have occured in CLOD. I realize the current absence of dynamic weather might be the only reason CLOD runs better for me. Still, there is a difference in scope w/regards to gound objects that suggests more has been "accomplished" than might seem on the surface.