Friday 2010-02-25 Development update:Interview by Grégory Lemasson/Discussion Thread

[frentzen2000]

Was the question regarding the release date not allowed?
If not then please what is your time frame for the release?
Thanks and best regards
HHF

[Igo kyu]

Here Friday is 26/2/2010.

[dflion]

For me, this interview has started puting all the pieces together for BOB/SOW - thanks Oleg and Gregory from Check-Six.
I liked the clickable cockpit option and engine management situation. These developments will give the fight sim much more immersion. The changing weather will also make flying much more realistic - I also liked the Stuka starting to 'ice-up' before puting on the anti-icing heating.
The fight simulator experience of flying a WWII aircraft in BOB/SOW will be a much more realistic experience than IL-2 - a lot closer to flying the real thing and I can't wait.
DFLion

[ECV56_LeChuck]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

Hello once again,

Here are some questions. I have some very specific 3rd party projects in mind.


3d Modeling:

- Will it be possible to model African wildlife (eg. for a civilian 1930s addon)? What animation supports are there for elephants?

- Will there be support for wing warping (eg. in the Fokker Eindecker and other early aircraft)?

- Will it someday be possible to support distortions (bending) of damaged/destroyed aircraft like in Rise of Flight? Or will the game engine always be limited to the still wonderful approach to damage modelling seen in Il-2.


Artificial intelligence:

- Can the amount of variation between AI be set by the mission builder (ie. to simulate more highly drilled english pilots vs. the more unpredictable American pilots in 1943)?

- Is there support for higher level AI? More specifically is there support for formation level tactics (ie. Something in-between vectoring by ground control and a flights rotte/pairs)?

- Is there support for airplane specific AI (eg. Yak-7 and YAK-9 would have different AI modules)? Doing so would allow AI to change tactics depending on the airplane and mirror changes in tactics throughout the war (as later variants could use later tactics).

- How open will the AI be to tweaking and expansion by modders?


Scripting:

- What support is there for music tied to in-game triggers? What about audio files? Will it be possible to have pre-recorded conversations that play out during gameplay?

- Also, is it possible to have the player activate a trigger via the radio menus?


Weather model:

- Will the weather model be open to 3rd party modification? (not only changing the weather to reflect a historic date, but changing the model: wind patterns near cliffs, wind from bodies of water etc.)

- How does the flight model function at >1 atmospheres (ie. a plane flying in a valley below sea level)?


Minor questions:
- Will it be possible to make minor features of an aircraft (eg. presence or absence of an armoured headrest) selectable via a separate tab (independent of the weapons tab)? This would be good for aircraft that went through many minor upgrades.

- Will it be possible for the 3rd party to make drivable trains (or will be be limited to trucks)?


I know it is early to get answers for many of these questions, but any hints will help with planning.

As always, many thanks and best of luck,

S!

Very nice questions!! Hope Oleg answer!

[Skoshi Tiger]

Hi, It's not fair! Every time I see one of these updates I get more eager and excited. They make it harder waiting for the release of this sim!

I'm in the process of updating the layout of my home made control pannel and after reading this interview realised that the layout was based more on systems represented in IL2 and not BoB. (I hadn't put in a switch for carby heat and I'm sure there will be a lot of other essential systems I have missed that would be best on my controller - Tube Shooter for instance????)

Would it be possible for you to release a list of systems and controls that can be assigned before the release of the sim so that we can make (and engrave) an appropriate layout for BoB on our home brew controls and cockpits?

Thank you for your time and effort.

Originally Posted by 13th Hsqn Protos

There is a saying in the west that I have always found has a lot of truth "The workman is only as good as his Tools"

There is also a saying that "A shoddy workman always blames his tools". From what I've been seeing and reading in these updates I get the impression that we are seeing a group of professional craftsmen and artists hard at work using the tools of their choice.

As a future client and user of this sim I don't think I would feel comfortable telling the artist what sort of brushes he should be using.

[MikkOwl]

Grégory, thank you very much for that piece of journalism. Merciiiiii! I enjoyed reading it a lot. I am sure the translation was hurried out as well to get it to our greedy communities.

An English writing tip: the "!", "?" and ":", in fact all of the special signs, are written directly after a word, like this "That's right!". French puts in a space after the word. Just a difference, but the French way is quite noticable for the non-French people when reading

[AdMan]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Compare quality of images of these cameras:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...8_Digital.html

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...al_Camera.html


The first is Il-2.
The second - BoB at initial release.

[Avimimus]

Originally Posted by ECV56_LeChuck

Very nice questions!! Hope Oleg answer!

Thanks.

I put quite a bit of thought into finding questions which Oleg won't have been asked yet and which are also likely to reflect what certain projects will need in a few years time (although this is always the hardest to predict).

[zapatista]

Oleg,

thanks for the update and interview

2 questions:

1) the re-fueling and re-arming issue:

A) this has been extensively discussed in the last few years at ubi forums, simhq, and the other main flightsim forums. the conclusion was that historical evidence presented confirmed it is possible, and was done in real life, to re-arm and re-fuel a spitfire or hurricane in under 15 min during the busiest periods of BoB (iirc) when every aircraft counted and they had to relaunch aircraft as fast as possible on certain days !

i even still have the historical video footage that shows the whole rearming procedure for the spitfire or hurricane (one was easier then the other, iirc the hurricane was significantly faster then the spitfire because the ammo boxes in the wings were more accessible). with that footage you can time exactly how long it takes, it was either 9 or 11 minutes, using the normally available ground crews for that situation (they had a team of 2 men working on each wing, so 4 ground crew per aircraft)

note: historically you didnt usually have 15 aircraft all land together for quick refuel and rearm, but it was aircraft coming in solo or in little groups of 2 and 3. when a whole squadron came back from a mission and were debriefed, aircraft made ready for next flight etc, this would take much longer obviously, but that is entirely different.

if you have any doubts about this, then let us present some of those facts to you so it can be implemented, it makes a BIG difference in coops and online play, even for stand alone missions in solo play. obviously if you would land a plane at an airfield that has been extensively damaged by a recent enemy bombing raid, the airfield would be disorganised and crews and supplies might be damaged or destroyed, but that should not determine how quickly this can happen at a normal airfield. maybe add a pilot command to airfield "stand by crews for refueling and rearming", so that once landed and taxi to the pit spot, it can be done in historical time. if we dont pre warn the airfield, and it is chaos on the ground, maybe it can take longer.

in the options for re-arming refueling we also need a setting to choose for ex
a) realistic refuel rearm = 15 min
b) accelerated refuel and rearm = 3 min
etc..

B) if landing a damaged aircraft, or one that needs to be refueled or rearmed, we also need an option of "choose other available aircraft at airfield", with a small delay before we can start the new aircraft (equal to the time needed to walk/run to the next aircraft, and not have the instant refly we have now when selecting an aircraft for ex)


2) for the new complex engine management, will we get messages of the type of problem encountered ? eg:
- icing of wings/windscreen
- low oxygen for pilot
- "right wing ammo box exploded" etc ?

if you physically sit in a real aircraft, you get a lot of clue's physically with your body senses about what it happening to the pilot and aircraft, sitting behind a pc monitor we dont experience this. for ex low on oxygen an experienced pilot notices before blacking out and does something about it, similar with vibration of flaps are not retracted (or gear) etc.. the game software needs to SIMULATE this pilot awareness, if need be with some basic msg's flashing on screen (as an on/off option in preferences, so the fake-real people who want to fly deaf dumb and blind can do so to)

please consider

[MikkOwl]

if you physically sit in a real aircraft, you get a lot of clue's physically with your body senses about what it happening to the pilot and aircraft, sitting behind a pc monitor we dont experience this. for ex low on oxygen an experienced pilot notices before blacking out and does something about it, similar with vibration of flaps are not retracted (or gear) etc..

the game software needs to SIMULATE this pilot awareness, if need be with some basic msg's flashing on screen (as an on/off option in preferences, so the fake-real people who want to fly deaf dumb and blind can do so to)

Many if not most systems, including all engine related, give no special clues to the pilot if in the real aircraft. Possibly some vibrations from something being unbalanced being the exception. Otherwise, only what you hear and see, which we can do quite well these days. If the monitors are too small and low resolution, and the sound quality is poor without detailed sound differences that should be present when an engine is acting strange, then, yes, something additional is needed.

But I think the sounds will be great, graphics great, systems simulated accurately and with the instruments finally working properly, there's no need for me to have any helmet projected display handicap to understand that something is wrong.

Having options for helmet mounted display projecting system status is is OK to have as an option, and I don't think it takes any development time away.

EDIT: in the example of the low oxygen, there's other more creative ways to give clues to that something isn't right (slightly blurred vision, more suseptible to blackouts, blacking out even when flying straight, a bit sluggish controls, some head-sway when moving around with headtracking). Imagine a drunk person - they often have such bad judgement that they cannot even understand that it is they who are the problem when trying to do something requiring accurate control, instead they can think something is wrong with the system.

Wing ammo box exploded: Just what kind of special thing does a pilot get that make is blind and deaf in comparison? Surely some loud explosion, major wing damage, severely affected handling (if the wing is still even attached). We have everything we need to figure it out similar to a real pilot.

Icing: This is already described. Check the temperature gauge, look at the ice on the windows (visually) and on the wings, and note how it affects the engine performance. If it also affects handling like it should, then you'll notice this as well when moving the stick around and seeing how the aircraft behaves in contrast to how it normally should.

Landing gear vibrations: Vibrations are trickier. It can be seen visually if the gears are out as the plane just doesn't fly without vibration (shaking the camera and the horizon a bit). Also, force feedback makes a big (trust me) difference here, but not everyone has such hardware. I think if the sound engine was more realistic, there would be some other sounds as well in those old planes, maybe rattles, squeeks etc.