4.13 development update discussion and feedback

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Buster_Dee

The visible history is the draw for me.

Alright, I agree that some of the cities look a bit lame. Cities like Berlin should have city blocks rather than individual houses. That might also aid frame rates.

But, what I was getting at was that, as a matter of priorities, what would make the sim more "immersive" for a hard-core WW2 history geek, improvements to the flight models or improvements to graphics? Both are important, but which is more important?

It seems to me that the main things that make the newer sims like RoF, CloD, IL2:BoS which are beyond the capabilities of IL2 are the things like dynamic lighting and self-shadowing.

Below that, there are lots of little (or not so little) graphics tweaks that affect combat which might be possible:

* More and bigger clouds reflecting different weather types. Could also represent fog.

* Placeable clouds.

* Placeable smoke or dust clouds. Important for daylight bombing. Really important for desert maps, which we'll be getting with 4.13.

* Large, long lasting fires to aid night bombing and to make "pathfinder" missions worthwhile.

* Simple sun-glare effects to make distant planes more visible.

* Better contrails - can be set to appear at different levels and can be set to last longer, so we can see images like this:

http://contrailscience.com/wp-conten.../stpauls2.jpeg