Friday 2011-02-04 Dev. update and Discussion

[combatdudePL]

Originally Posted by luthier

A dot can't be smaller than a pixel. Smaller resolutions gives you larger pixels. Therefore distant dots will always be larger at smaller resolutions.

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?

[Sutts]

Originally Posted by combatdudePL

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?

I think Luthier did understand but I really can't see the devs being able to do much about this. Can you imagine them having to add extra pixels to make the dot bigger but only for certain resolutions?

[luthier]

Originally Posted by HFC_Dolphin

Ilya, can you reveal how many levels of AI we have?

There's some presets just like in Il-2, rookie, normal, veteran and ace. However the AI is much more flexible. It has various skills such as shooting, maneuvering, morale, awareness, etc. Each of them determine different behaviors. For example you can have a guy with 100 shooting and 100 maneuvering but 0 awareness, i.e. a blind ace, or a guy with 100 awareness but 0 flying i.e. an eagle-eyed idiot.

The rookie and other presets simply set every single skill to 0 or 25 or 50, etc. Or you can reset them any way you like.

Originally Posted by furbs

Could you tell me what the colours A,B and C are in this screenie?

And what does physical weathering mean?...engine wear over time?

These colors are used in different places in different planes. To further complicate matters, they're not used on many planes at all. That's why they're so vaguely named.

I just change all the colors to lime green and rotate the plane to see what looks ugly, is what I do.

Originally Posted by klem

How does the Spitfire and other aircraft land in CoD? In IL-2 the Spit and many other aircraft bounce around like a drunken turkey if the touchdown is only a fraction off, as if there is almost no compression in the gear. It's like nothing I have experienced in any other game/simulation.

I always thought Il-2's landings and gear compression was pretty good.

Originally Posted by winny

Luthier, A while ago there was a thread about the Spitfire cockpit being a Mk V instead of a Mk I.

We disagree as much as it's possible to disagree. At this point nothing can change even if you built a time machine, took us to August of 1940, drove us on an inspection tour of all frontline Spitfires, and proved without a shadow of a doubt that you're right.

Originally Posted by Dano

This intrigues me, does this mean that the built in track recorder will be able to record a track to video using maximum graphics options regardless of the fact that the machine being used only being able to run it at say 1 frame a second? Somewhat akin to rendering a movie in any of the numerous 3d raytracing packages?

Yes, exactly. Slower machines will run at much worse than 1 fps, but yes, you can render a giant high-res full settings video on a minimum specs machine. You'll probably need to leave it rendering for the night.

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Banks

Will it be possible to fly the Tiger Moth online with two human pilots? E.g. can it be flown by a experience human teacher and a inexperienced human cadet and the control of the plane can be exchanged between both of them?

Yes, that's what we hope to see, real humans teaching you to fly online.

Originally Posted by combatdudePL

Im not sure if U understood my question:

Imagine a situation where we have two 22 inch monitors, the native resolution, monitor number one is 1280x768, the monitor number two is 2560x1600

Both players run il2 In Those Resolutions - this is what I mean is that a player with a monitor number 2 has a much larger problem, for spoting enemy "dot"Because of pixel sizes in the monitor - unless he reduces the resolution, which creates its kind of a little paradox - we have the hardware to play at high resolution but reduce it in order to have an equal chance of spotting enemy (thiss happen online all time) - my question is whether the COD this problem will also exist, as in IL2: 1946?

I understand exactly what you mean. I have no idea what kind of resolution you'd propose.

At certain distances, planes become smaller than a pixel. At 1024x768 that'll probably happen at less than 2 km for a fighter. What do you want us to do with that pixel?

Originally Posted by luthier

At certain distances, planes become smaller than a pixel. At 1024x768 that'll probably happen at less than 2 km for a fighter. What do you want us to do with that pixel?

whataver you di please dont use retarded solution from Rise of flight with using max zoom for spoting planes at distance (with max wide zoom you cant see them at the same distance) like we have a binocular or super sniper scope sticked onto our faces.

[W32Blaster]

Sure the Plane must disappeare if Distance / Size gets to the border of being one pxel of size at a give resolution.

But will the Size of the Dot vary with Resolution of screen?

e.g.
Single Seater appearence in Distance of 2 km with different resolution

1024 x 768 Distance 2 km 1 pixel of size
1280 x 1024 Distance 2 km 2 or more pixel?

[combatdudePL]

Originally Posted by luthier

At certain distances, planes become smaller than a pixel. At 1024x768 that'll probably happen at less than 2 km for a fighter. What do you want us to do with that pixel?

Simplest that can be :

Originally Posted by W32Blaster

e.g.
Single Seater appearence in Distance of 2 km with different resolution

1024 x 768 Distance 2 km 1 pixel of size
1280 x 1024 Distance 2 km 2 or more pixel?

and 1600 x 1200 Distance 2 km 3 or more pixel etc....

Originally Posted by luthier

Yes, that's what we hope to see, real humans teaching you to fly online.

At certain distances, planes become smaller than a pixel. At 1024x768 that'll probably happen at less than 2 km for a fighter. What do you want us to do with that pixel?

Will this be possible with 1 seated planes, too?

Can't you just let it be more pixels the bigger the resolution?

[The Kraken]

What people really mean when asking about the "dots" is this: will LODs only depend on distance, or also on object size, resolution and field of view? Because if the switch to a dot representation only happens when the render size is about one pixel, then there's no issue anymore.

[Feathered_IV]

One more question Luthier and I'll leave you alone

Probably the one feature I really hope to see in CoD is improved crew interaction. Can you comment on AI crews, will gunners call out surface and air contacts? Will navigators give you course headings and corrections, and will bomb aimers guide you in on the bomb run?

The crew members of other sims are really only decoration and it would make the player feel far less alone (and much more immersed in the sim) if their virtual comrades could fulfil their basic functions within the aircraft.

Hope you can answer!

[Tbag]

First of all thank you very much Ilya and Oleg for your time and for answering all these questions. So here are mine:

1. Can you comment on the maximum number of planes that will be used in a mission in the stock campaigns?

2. Will the Lysander and the Ju52 make it into the initial release?

Not sure if you have answered these before, if so I missed it and probably someone else can aswer