Quote:
Originally Posted by Feathered_IV
Still not getting through.  I take it as a given that all aspects of flight and fight dynamics will be taken care of. I trust Oleg on that. What quite possibly will not happen is that any kind of soul will be added to the experience. Luthier said a couple of days ago that he's, "doing things like radio comms, training mission, dynamic campaigns, GUI design, and generally participating... as a sort of an added brain." How much thought has he given to the greater realism and immersion of the sim, outside of fight/flight dynamics? So far, all I've heard is that he championed the running from your aircraft to an AAA gun.  |
the main aspects that i see lacking to bring the sim alive:
- in dynamic campaign mode you should see a mission room where different missions are being tasked as the campaign is unfolding, similar to how falcon4 does it. you should then be able to choose a mission you prefer (escorting bombers, flying CAP, flying a bomber, ground attack, roaming air patrol etc). once you chose your mission you go to the mission briefing room to get further details (similar to how il2 does it now).
- missions that are critical to how the campaign unfolds could even be color coded, for ex letting the german AI attack the British radar stations would have the desired historical effect, and the campaign would continue along historical lines, but if humans fly that mission and mess it up, the campaign could sidetrack and diverge into a non historical outcome (ie the germans might succeed in gaining air supremacy over england etc..). there might only be 5 or 10 critical turning points in the whole 3 or 4 months normal campaign mode, but it could be a way to implement the degree to which your actions can influence the overall outcome of the campaign..
- once you are sitting in your cockpit at the airfield, there should be AI activity around you, like refueling trucks and jeeps driving around the base. trucks with munitions driving to hangars etc.. maybe an ambulance or fire truck on standby when a plane crashes or the base gets raided. if a base has been damaged by a raid or explosion, then there should be some basic "road crews" at work (once the xyz correct time has passed for the runway repair to be completed, the road crew drives back to its hangar). all this doesnt have to take much cpu power or be to complex, currently the better mission makers have versions of this already working in il2.
- there should also be tower radio chatter if other planes are taxing, taking- off/landing, or from planes flying nearby asking for landing clearance. this radio chatter shouldnt be mindless wav files like we have now, but should represent what is happening around you (ai plane taxing being given takeoff clearance, nearby planes asking for home vector directions, weather report and wind direction, etc..). we also need a windsock and a few flags fluttering in the wind, showing correct wind direction.
- a few other automated animations. like when you come in on short final to land and forgot to lower your landing gear, the tower could shoot a red/green flair in your direction to get your attention and wave you off etc..
- you should be able to fly some of these cargo supply missions yourself, and also be able to select unarmed reconnaissance missions, flying unarmed replacement aircraft to forward airbases (and if you get shot down or mess up the landing and damage your aircraft, then this affects the aircraft available at that base etc...) many il2 users would choose to fly those types of missions, it doesnt have to be shoot-'em-up dogfighting all the time. similarly like others mentioned already, there could be pilot rescue missions, night missions to parachute secret agents over france, landing in a field next to a friendly pilot who parachuted to pick him up etc..
- once airborne, there should be both civilian and military AI trafic in the air. for ex small groups of fighters (unarmed ?) being flown from their factories to the forward airbases, either to provide replacement planes for those that have been destroyed, or to provide new plane types as models get upgraded over time (and those planes again become available to people joining that server and looking at possible plane models to select). military transport aircraft should be shuttling parts and personnel to various bases.
- this again can be done with simple ai routines. for ex each airbase gets X amount of transport aircraft or new replacement aircraft per Y time period. if a base has been attacked and equipment lost/damaged, then this ai traffic should increase accordingly, and only make fuel, munitions, plane models available once they have been resupplied.
- this also means that as a friendly/enemy airplanes are flying in that area you'd have to identify these aircraft as friendly/enemy when you encounter them, before simply shooting at anything that moves like we do now.
- when flying low you should see some civilian and military traffic on the roads. a few tractors in the field in summer, some civilian buses or cars on country roads. truck convoys on roads with fuel and munition supplies.. (and destroying these convoys would result in their intended destination base to run low on fuel and munitions accordingly). mig alley already had that in their campaign 10 yrs ago, it doesnt need to be as complex as some people might believe. simple ai routines with truck/train/car objects moving around on predestined (or random) routes, and a xyz value they represent in fuel or munitions supply.similar to ms flightsim you should be able in the preferences/options to select high.medium/low AI traffic or activity, depending on your cpu and gfx card.additionally your own pc should only model/display those objects within a specific radius from you (for ex 5 km), and only when you fly low enough to be able to see them, so that no pc resources are being wasted on items you are not able to see.
- whatever amount of plane models and numbers are available at an airfield should be represented as the same static object at that airfield, if they are then destroyed by an air raid, then whatever models are destroyed should not be available anymore to select for flying at that airfield till new replacement aircraft arrive, or those with minor damage have been repaired.
- if an airfield has just been raided you should not be able to magically spawn to a brand new plane from that location, neither should there be fuel available if the storage tanks were destroyed, same with ammo supplies to rearm your plane. if a runway was bombed, then it should take xyz time for it to be repaired before you can use it again, and trying to take-off/land on that section of the runway should damage your plane accordingly.
once you add elements like that, you are suddenly flying around in a world that is alive, and the actions you take have an effect on the unfolding campaign.