Friday 2009-10-30 Screenshots Update discussion thread

[Foo'bar]

AFAIK Oleg mentioned already that rescuing will be possibble in single mission.

Getting home with a abandoned car or by train after beeing shot down is one of my top ten SoW dreams

[hiro]

Ahhhhhh yeah . . . .

That's the good stuff.

Thanks for the update, Oleg.

The sky shots are coming in great. Looks photo quality. And looks the blue text from IL-2 is in (but looks like there's more since there's more detail).

LOL @ the Bicycle Queen Song reference.


And the ME / BF - 109!!!

As soon as I saw the yellow nose and the familiar shape. Yep.

I got a question, they've had tons of debates of ME-109 E (I think the resident 109 expert Kurfürst mentioned there was a possibility of the 109 E-2having nose cannon, but the E-2 information is elusive so its philisophical / academic debate at best) having a nose cannon.

Will there be an E-2 available? If so, will nose cannon / machine gun be an option for the E-2?

Having a 3x20mm and 2x7.92 mm 's would be nice.


Another question is how will aircraft reliability be modelled? I remember reading how Morane-Saulnier fighters used by the Finns had a cannon that "sometimes" worked and at worst, the shell would detonate in the barrel (But the plane was still flyable).

Or I remember someone mentioning LA-7s were made of wood but IL-2 doesn't model the degration after many flying hours that had on the wooden versions.


Will aircraft materials play a role in the game? Such as wooden mosquitos being harder to detect via radar or by shape like the go-229?

Thanks for the update!


Another question, alots of requests for walking / infrantry / person / FPS related movement.

You mentioned before, "No battles with infantry, we are doing flight sim", so just how much first person / 3rd person / pilot walking is planned for the game?

Or is that just an exercise of the game engine that is going to be licensed for use outside of BOB SOW?

Also I notice there are alot of bikes (heck even a trailer to haul bicycles) around, and vehicular action is included so will that go down to bikes?


and final,

Are you guys going to keep the Storm of War as series title?

[AdMan]

surviving behind enemy lines would be something else! But that would basically mean the game would have to turn into a FPS or TPS, probably asking too much.

[Lionman]

Oleg, I am a huge fan of your work and have been since the original IL2 Sturmovik. As a retired city of London marketing manager and head hunter I have also always admired the strategic intelligence of your long term marketing plan, saving the most easily saleable BoB program with the new physics engine until you have built up the market for it with your former air-combat sim product generations. Plus the emminently sensible target of creating a combat air sim sub industry around your apex product just as one arose around the FS series, now conveniently no longer in competition. Finally I admire the obsessive detail, accuracy and realism of your approach which has always made your product line unique and enabled you to defeat the mighty MS CFS series with your very first product.

I used to feel that you paid insufficient attention to the ground detail and realism but that has more than been addressed in BoB SoW from the screenshots I have seen and now you have a real time weather engine too. (Ground texture tiles still appear to produce herringbone patterns from altitude but perhaps that can be randomised?)

I have only one remaining caveat which may well also prove misplaced. In all the screen shots I have seen the incredibly detailed and realistic machines, aircraft, vehicles, buildings, countryside and roadways have remained empty and sans people. Hopefully in the final release the ground environment will be populated with AI soldiers and civilians, all artillery and AA guns will be manned and all aircraft in flight will have populated cockpits and gun positions? I also want to look down and see my own knees and hands on the stick in the cockpit (as in LOMAC). If so this sim is definitely going to be the all-tim bench mark for online air combat and worth every second of the long wait.

Now to the point of my post. The latest rumour in the online air-combat community is that BoB SoW is to finally be published in November 2009 later this month with the first patch to come in 2010.

You are THE MAN Oleg so is it true?
(I have had it on pre-order and pre-paid for for ages.)

I have built my whole new PC system in anticipation of BoB and am anxious to start engines and get airborne.

So will there finally be a Scramble Klaxon in November?

Hell I even have a fan on my desk so that when I srt engines with the cockpit open I will feel the backdraft and yes I am a retired single man whio urgently needs a new girl friend! LOL

Tally Ho!

[kendo65]

hi Oleg,

Thanks for the updates. Really enjoying them and becoming more and more impatient to get my hands on the game as a result.

I'd be interested to know if RAF and Luftwaffe will use authentic historical formations as standard in BOB? That is will the RAF be flying in tight VICs with the Germans using 'finger four'. All accounts I've read of the battle emphasise the effect of these tactical formations - it took the Brits quite a while to catch up.

Very frustrating to try to get RAF in VICs in il-2!!

Also, I'm hoping that AI wingmen DON'T abandon formation and charge headlong at the enemy on first sighting (except maybe rookies? or the Polish(!))
Be nice if they could report "aircraft 3 O'clock", etc while maintaining discipline and formation.

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by Lionman

Oleg, I am a huge fan of your work and have been since the original IL2 Sturmovik. As a retired city of London marketing manager and head hunter I have also always admired the strategic intelligence of your long term marketing plan, saving the most easily saleable BoB program with the new physics engine until you have built up the market for it with your former air-combat sim product generations. Plus the emminently sensible target of creating a combat air sim sub industry around your apex product just as one arose around the FS series, now conveniently no longer in competition. Finally I admire the obsessive detail, accuracy and realism of your approach which has always made your product line unique and enabled you to defeat the mighty MS CFS series with your very first product.

I used to feel that you paid insufficient attention to the ground detail and realism but that has more than been addressed in BoB SoW from the screenshots I have seen and now you have a real time weather engine too. (Ground texture tiles still appear to produce herringbone patterns from altitude but perhaps that can be randomised?)

I have only one remaining caveat which may well also prove misplaced. In all the screen shots I have seen the incredibly detailed and realistic machines, aircraft, vehicles, buildings, countryside and roadways have remained empty and sans people. Hopefully in the final release the ground environment will be populated with AI soldiers and civilians, all artillery and AA guns will be manned and all aircraft in flight will have populated cockpits and gun positions? I also want to look down and see my own knees and hands on the stick in the cockpit (as in LOMAC). If so this sim is definitely going to be the all-tim bench mark for online air combat and worth every second of the long wait.

Now to the point of my post. The latest rumour in the online air-combat community is that BoB SoW is to finally be published in November 2009 later this month with the first patch to come in 2010.

You are THE MAN Oleg so is it true?
(I have had it on pre-order and pre-paid for for ages.)

I have built my whole new PC system in anticipation of BoB and am anxious to start engines and get airborne.

So will there finally be a Scramble Klaxon in November?

Hell I even have a fan on my desk so that when I srt engines with the cockpit open I will feel the backdraft and yes I am a retired single man whio urgently needs a new girl friend! LOL

Tally Ho!

Oleg said something we will see system spec in around 6-7 months (or omsething like that) so this november is out of the question. However, he said it would have to be released before the end of next year so....

[HFC_Dolphin]

Lionman, 2009 is totallyout of the question
Hopefully by Xmas 2010 we'll be able to get it.

[Golden_Eagle_FM]

I think the Oleg I knew from the very first days of Il2 is really back.
You kept your word, and posted new pictures on friday like you said. I must say I was somewhat skeptical. And you answered interactively to the posts again like before.
After so many years that's great to have you back Oleg.

Very nice pictures, and thank you to answer my question about modelling humans.
The level of detail you have is really enough at this point. If you model the soldiers, paratroopers etc. at the same level of detail then nothing more to say.

If you could just give us some elements about the FMB I would be happy. I used the FMB and invested more time probably to build scenarios (NOT multiplayer), than I played missions, so the FMB is a very important feature for me. Here some FMB related questions if it is not too early to ask :

1) Will we have full grasp to position objects, that is to translate and rotate objects on the three spatial axis.
2) Will we have the possibility to group objects into a superobject and clone the superobject.
3) If yes to 2 then will we have full 3D control to position the superobject.
4) Will airplanes be able to taxi, takeoff, land indipendently of the runway. That is near the runway as an example.
5) Will it be possible to ditch a plane. AI controlled plane in FMB.
6) Once a plane appears (at a given clock time) will it be possible to make it disappear also at a certain time.
7) Will it be possible to set multiple airplanes to takeoff at the same time as a group.
Will it be possible to add motion to soldiers (or group of soldiers) like it was possible with cars. They walk or run along a trajectory with control points like for cars.
9) Will it be possible to add a script to an object so as to have it animated.
10) Will all the objects when positioned on the ground then be flat on it whatever the slope. And not have objects staying horizontal even if the ground is with a slope.
11) One problem I had with a linear campaign, that was made say with 20 missions linked with a chronological sequence, was that if I decided to scrap (or add) some objects out of the first mission, and for campaign coherence had to have the same operation done in the 19 other missions coming after, I had to painstakingly remove or add them from each mission file. This is a terrible time consuming operation. Will there be the possibility that changes made in a mission file affect other mission files linked to it.
12) Will the ships (are there ships?) have their flag floating in the wind. I hope damage model on ships should be more detailed than in IL2 were it was very basic.
13) Will the objects database of BoB be as rich as the IL2 one has become.

Sorry to bother you with so many questions but the FMB was an important element in the success and longevity of IL2.

Thank's again for your posts Oleg, I will be every friday in front of my screen to watch and read your posts.

Gold

[CRO_Adriatic]

THX for update!
I think for this part of history they will tell: "virtual world started to looks better than real world, so, people stopped completely to watch trough windows..."

[dflion]

Oleg,
Thanks for all your responses to the development jpgs, it has been very good to see you back answering lots of questions like the 'old days'.

My question is regarding aircraft propellor pitch changes, which you mention are visible during rotation.

Can you change the propellor pitch from the cockpit by using the mouse on-screen and perhaps see the words 'fine pitch' or 'course pitch' or 'feathered'?

With IL2 I found changing propellor pitch difficult sometimes, yet very vital for aircraft performance during the mission.

DFLion