Friday 2010-08-13 Dev. update and Discussions

[Blackdog_kt]

Splitter, there was a large debate about this a few months ago, when some of us were asking about clickable cockpits. The reason people were interested was simple: there are not enough keyboard shortcuts to properly simulate the amount of controls a real pilot operates, or more accurately, we just can't remember them all
Imagine for example, if you wanted to finetune your intercoolers to control your carburetor temperature and you had to remember keybindings like ctrl+shift+H+[ to lower it and ctrl+shift+H+] to raise it.
Naturally, this brought about the question of wheter so much realism was needed in a combat sim, with good points made either way, but no official word on the matter.

Sometime later however, the guys from the French check-six simulation community arranged a visit to Moscow to interview Mr. Maddox and see some of the work done. That's where the answers came from. If you read the interview, you'll notice that a lot of these things did in fact make it in the feature list. If i remember correctly, in one case a Ju87 was climbing and as it went higher the canopy fogged up, until the person flying turned on the defoggers and it cleared again, insanely realistic stuff like that.

As for photo recon missions, agent drops and the like, it's a matter of mission building triggers. I think that even if they are not included upon release, the engine will still be capable of them. If the IL-2 mission builder can be upgraded to use triggers by team daidalos, i doubt that the next generation sim will lack them.

In case you missed it, here's the interview from the check-six website:
http://www.checksix-fr.com/articles/...g_foxy_EN.html

[swiss]

Originally Posted by tourmaline

Oh yes, if you have a severe cold, shoot might have a problem recognizing your commands since your voice sounds quite different. This has always been the case with voice activated software.

I prefer a hotas system anytime over shoot. You can record loads of keystrokes under a button. In real world situations it also doesn't work with voice command. Maybe some ultra modern airplanes might have it, but not the ones used in wow: BOB.

Bingo - if you want total immersion: build a cockpit.
It's fairly easy to build, only problem could be space - and the fact that everybody who knows about it thinks your're nuts.

[major_setback]

I think one of the nicest updates we have seen. There was a hard edge on some of the explosion/fire textures earlier. It has totally disappeared now. Well done dev' team!

Before:



After:




Also - it is nice to see the (subtle) reflections from the sky on the wings/airframe. It was slightly overdone previously, but now it looks perfectly natural. Really very good!!

The same goes for the reflections from below. The earlier screenshot of a group of Heinkels looks perfect to me...here:



And also it is nice to see that the light reflections from matt surfaces aren't as strong as before...and that panel lines etc. don't reflect light.

Everything has improved a lot in just a couple of weeks!!

[BadAim]

I use VAC (Voice Activated Command) for IL2 and find it to be very reliable. I use it only for controlling the AI however, and I use a trigger switch to avoid mistaken commands. I should think If something like this could be built into the game it would be able to interface with the AI much better, nearly to the point where you can have a conversation with your flight/crew.

[Bloblast]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

We have perfectly correct size of crew. Everything in right scale.
Crew is 175 cm.

Ilya stated that there was to do concession not to get pilot out of cockpit during movement of pilot, but 175 cm is okay I would say.

[Oldschool61]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Splitter, there was a large debate about this a few months ago, when some of us were asking about clickable cockpits. The reason people were interested was simple: there are not enough keyboard shortcuts to properly simulate the amount of controls a real pilot operates, or more accurately, we just can't remember them all
Imagine for example, if you wanted to finetune your intercoolers to control your carburetor temperature and you had to remember keybindings like ctrl+shift+H+[ to lower it and ctrl+shift+H+] to raise it.
Naturally, this brought about the question of wheter so much realism was needed in a combat sim, with good points made either way, but no official word on the matter.

Sometime later however, the guys from the French check-six simulation community arranged a visit to Moscow to interview Mr. Maddox and see some of the work done. That's where the answers came from. If you read the interview, you'll notice that a lot of these things did in fact make it in the feature list. If i remember correctly, in one case a Ju87 was climbing and as it went higher the canopy fogged up, until the person flying turned on the defoggers and it cleared again, insanely realistic stuff like that.

As for photo recon missions, agent drops and the like, it's a matter of mission building triggers. I think that even if they are not included upon release, the engine will still be capable of them. If the IL-2 mission builder can be upgraded to use triggers by team daidalos, i doubt that the next generation sim will lack them.

In case you missed it, here's the interview from the check-six website:
http://www.checksix-fr.com/articles/...g_foxy_EN.html

Clickable cockpits should be a given seeing as this is 2010. Touch screen would be nice. As long as this game has been in development it should read your mind and know what you want to do.

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by Oldschool61

Clickable cockpits should be a given seeing as this is 2010. Touch screen would be nice. As long as this game has been in development it should read your mind and know what you want to do.

Touch screen?

It is difficult enough keeping the screen clean enough to see those tiny little blips that will be shooting at you in about 10 seconds, much less having your grubby fingerprints all over the screen.

[philip.ed]

Originally Posted by Novotny

^^ Either you are a master troll or incredibly stupid. Could be both, mind.

What the hell? I wasn't writing from an anal point of view but fly over blighty and the trees look nothing like what's been shown recently from above . Up close, maybe (as up-close the trees look great here) but otherwise it isn't how the trees look in England when grouped. I have posted pics before to demonstrate, and so have others.
Don't talk out of your arse; I'm not a troll, I just wrote a comment.

[Novotny]

'The main types of trees are a lot rounder and denser foliage wise'

Look, at some point a concession must be made. No singular aspect of this software - or any other title, for that matter - is going to be perfect, regardless of the development time expended on the perfecting of any graphical representation therein concerning vegetation.

Simply put: Oleg could put SoW back another year and fully concentrate on developing your trees. Nevertheless, you would still be able to nitpick faults if you tried hard enough or felt inclined to do so. And to what end? Just how important are these trees to the big picture?

This obsession with finding faults and loudly proclaiming them is extremely tiresome and I've already proposed bans for unconstructive criticism.

'fly over blighty and the trees look nothing like what's been shown recently': you don't even understand that this is both very rude and completely unhelpful. If it were up to me I'd ban you.

You admit to nitpicking. A definition of which follows:

When used as a verb:
1. to be excessively concerned with or critical of inconsequential details, or
2. to criticize by focusing on inconsequential details.
When used as a noun, refers to:
3. a carping, petty criticism.

Why not just leave it?

[philip.ed]

Honestly, I thought the whole idea of discussion is to post your opinions? I have lived in England all my life, and this aspect is so easy to get right that I wonder why it couldn't be? early shots from last year show trees looking like how I describe, which shows that it is possible. Rise of Flight did it, so I am sure that SoW can too. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with what has been shown recently, these trees can easily be found in England, but then again from an aerial viewpoint the perspectives look different here. It's hard to explain. I'm not some tree nut But it's just something I noticed from flying over the country that I thought made a world of difference to how the terrain looks