Friday 2010-12-03 Dev. update and Discussion

[ECV56_Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Hi all.
Today I decided to make some surprize. Would like to see your discussion and discovering of features. I will look during several days and then will correct or answer some of posts. But only about these that I want to comment. Please be patient if I didn't answer for some questions. This means that it isn't right time yet to answer.
I'm inviting in discussion all who knows Il-2 FMB. That to make comparison.

Finally for me a very interesting update, graphically i've been convinced with the sim long ago, and make missions with il-2 is something i expend a lot of time. .

Well, now to the questions. By the way, if the question has already been asked and answered, please ignore it or say its already answered and i will look for it. I'm kind of short on time and can't watch the whole thread for the moment.

1) What is an "AI Actor"?. Can't guess what could be.

2) What is the function of "Process Roads"?

3) What is the function of Smooth ship path?. Is it necesary for ships to make cuved turns?

4) Is it possible to have some kind of filter with the list of objects on the mission?

5) Apparently, with the "Sort By" (1st picture of seccond post) we will now have some kind of filter. Excellent. Is it possible to know what option we will get there? To suggest some new ones, if we find it handy, and possible.

6) I don't know if it will used much, for historic reasons, but i would like to have the possibility to select several skins for a plane/planes, and that randomly inside the sim one of those skins is displayed, but if i play the mission again, same plane could be with another paintscheme.
That means, that in the "skins" option, to have something like "skin group" with a subbutton where you select the group of skins.

7) Important point mentioned previously about which speed the FMB makes reference. For help coordinating flights, it should be ground speed, but if its unreachable some indication that its not possible would be very helpfull.
Still, would like to know if its ground speed, IAS, TAS or other the one set on the FMB.

The radio silence clickmark. Will it work when the aircraft is going toward that waypoint, or once passed that waypoint?
Also, will it work all the waypoints after that or once passed the next waypoint will cease to function?.

9) If you can, please would like to know a little more about the "Inbetweening". What is it for and how it works. I cant figure out what is it. I don't understand it.

Group Properties

10) What is "Script Spawn C"?

11) What are "Detonators"? Something related to the fuse bombs?

12) Each flight of the squadron is only a single aircraft or it can be several aircrafts? If its the seccond, how do you assign several aircraft to each flight?.

13) With the "idle" option the aircraft will spawn on the runaway or the taxi?

14) Can we assign where on the airfield the "spawn parked" aircraft or flight will spawn.

15) Please, add also filter to the squadrons names. Like bomber squadrons, fighters, reconnaisence, mediterranean squadron, scotland squadrons, and so on. So we dont have to scrall through hundreds of squadrons like we have to do now with IL-2. It gets terrible tedious.

That is all for now.

Thanks for this informative update!

[greypeace]

Hi Oleg,
Sorry if I am out of place ,
I am finishing a FFB firmware project and I would like to know if BOB 's FFB handling will be compatible with the Microsoft FFB stick on which my firmware is based.
I am only usig the "Spring" feature , The most important one ...
Thank you

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

I'm inviting in discussion all who knows Il-2 FMB. That to make comparison.

oleg,

will there be new forward airbases created on the maps as the front lines move ? (as was the case in real life). or will allied/enemy airbase locations on BoB/Sow stay fixed ?

this is less of an issue with BoB, since frontlines wont move, but is an issue for other large player maps that come with the BoB release. i hope some "spontaneous" new forward airbases get created by the dynamic campaign server if the frontline moves for more then 20 km for example

[Poltava]

Arriving a bit late to the party here's my two cents:

I think that the decision to keep much of the old FMB GUI and structure is GREAT!

Quoting TUSA: "One of the wisest descisions ever made in Flight Sim history was keeping the format of the Il2 mission builder. I'm so glad to finally see the SOW version, and even more happy to see the the many additions, improvments and integration with SOW capabilities. With the largest base of Combat Flight Sim mission builders in the world - it would have been a waste to change the basic struture of the FMB." Hear, hear!

I have been using the FMB for 5 years, building nearly 70 campaigns and some 650+ missions, and this is a list of things I would love to see:

1.) A "Load last mission"-option
2.) Copy Group of Objects / Save / Rotate /Place
3.) Filter objects / aircraft by different categories
4.) Ablility to add a jpeg to mission
5.) Select skin for entire group

Another thing that I REALLY would like to see is the capability of simple BRANCHING in campaigns, e.g. if you FAIL a in mission A you are directed to mission B, if you succeed you are directed to mission C. (And I hope that the current capacity to randomize mission picks in campaigns are kept.)

Also I second the suggestion to do a beta release of limited version of SOW to a few competent mission builder enthusiasts. I think this would give you very competent feed-back plus it will most certainly mean that SOW will have extra missions and campaigns in no-time!

Thanks for the peek, Oleg. It really looks like SOW will be worth the wait.