Oleg Maddox's Room #1

[proton45]

Originally Posted by VMF-214_HaVoK

Im certain this was probably already asked a long time ago, but I dont know your answer.

During online games with humans vs humans will the pilots head look where the player is looking. Meaning...if Im in a scissors duel will I be able to see my opponents head following my aircraft if he is doing so. I thought I noticed this with AI long ago but to be honest in the past 7 years I have spent little time mixing it up with AI.

Having such a feature, although small, brings tons of immersion to the table for me.

Thanks,

S!

I suppose it could help indicate weather or not a pilot see's you sneaking up on them...

Death graphics (of a slumped over pilot or gunner) could help you figure out if you killed the pilot or not.

[ECV56_LeChuck]

Lots of questions... but as always happens to me, I can't remember anyone...

ok, here goes one:

Will be possible to set in the planes random or pre-defined malfunctions?? For example, when in an online war the aicrafts get worn and as a result of this, the failure percent increases.
How complex is going to be the procedure of starting the engines? (you said earlier that it might be more complex)
Will it have more realistic effects on starvation of engine, and mixture control??
How will the engine handle the flaps? Will it follow the historical procedures of every model or will it have 2 or 3 levels of predefined angle flaps?
How will the monitor resolution and "points of aircraft" (contacts at distance) work?? Today lot of people don´t use high resolution because they "don't see the contacts"...
Can we get out of the planes and walk? (At least, in the start of the mission)
Will be more data written in eventlog.lst?? It´s very useful to create dynamic campaings.

Thanks Oleg!!

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Dano

It's been known for ages and is caused by the camera shaking.

I think tracers like that appeared in B17 The mighty 8th. I really liked them, but i never thought of the logical explanation behind the effect, so another question pops to mind...if i shoot i will be seeing straight lines, but is it possible to render S lines when we playback a track?
Of course this is not a really important thing, just eye candy, but this sim is looking like it will contain a whole lot of impressive effects, so why not.

As for the modding issue, i'm very glad that the new game is made with an open architecture. This way people can add things into the game without the need to "hack" the whole code and open up FM/DM to modification. It will be really nice to have varied theaters and operational environments, i'm especially looking forward to RAF's night bombing campaign, luftwaffe nightfighters and primitive radio devices to use.

The news about the HTML briefing is very encouraging as well, now imagine if we could also edit the briefing in some online modes.
We could have an online mode that will play on a big map and one side tries to conquer the other, or meet a certain objective set by the map maker.

Then each team would break down this objective into individual strategies and missions. Some players would set up missions for other players to fly and influence how the frontlines move.

Just imagine that we need to know the situation in the frontlines so we can order CAS missions. Someone types a small text outlining the mission and maybe even gives a basic flightplan and all this is in HTML. I read the mission brief and select "copy mission to pilot's notes" and another editable sheet opens up where i can modify my flightplan, loadout and maybe even make some notes that i can see inside the cockpit when i fly (for speeds and altitudes for each waypoint, since these are not visible in WWII era navigation systems). In short, i prepare my mission just like a real pilot would do and i'm doing it online, against other players with the time ticking away against me.

I take my nice blue photo-recon mosquito and make a good run over the front, taking photos of anything i might find. If i manage to land back at a friendly base, i have my film processed and i can see some black and white screenshots of the area i photographed. I mark the targets on the photos and place them on the team's bulletin board for the rest of my guys to see, so they can then plan the ground attack missions that we need to fly. And if the attack is successful, our troops gain a little ground on the front. Sounds good?

[mazex]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Video in gif or flash player format probably will be possible in a brif. I don't know which type of HTML we will use in final. You know there is going the new version of HTML in future... Proabbly we will stay with the current for a long time. So if to make everything manually for single missions - then you probably may use all features of current HTML version . If automatic - then just limited amount of features...

Hi Oleg!

Wouldn't it be better to have the missions, including briefings etc in xml? If you want to show the briefings as HTML you can just add an xslt file for parsing the briefing part. That way all mission briefings will follow a specified format - but let mission builders add their own xslt:s if they do not want the standard format.

Example xml (start of it - indentation lost pasting it here - full code in a zip at the bottom of post):

<sow-mission>
<briefing>
<meta-info>
<name>JG51-7</name>
<mission-date>1940-09-07 18:35</mission-date>
<version>1.0</version>
<creator>Mazex</creator>
</meta-info>

<images>
<region-images>
<region-image id="1" filename="region1.jpg">The London docks area</region-image>
</region-images>
<mission-overview-images>
<ov-image id="1" filename="overview1.jpg">The intended route</ov-image>
</mission-overview-images>
<recon-images>
<r-image id="1" filename="recon1.jpg" target-id="1">Target 1 - Recon image showing the football factory at XXX</r-image>
<r-image id="2" filename="recon2.jpg" target-id="2">Target 2 - Recon image showing the football yard of the team that beat Maj Molders sons soccer team in 1936 at XXX</r-image>
<r-image id="3" filename="recon3.jpg" target-id="3">Target 3 - Old image showing the ship that we added to this briefing for fun</r-image>
</recon-images>
</images>
...

Using a very simple xslt to parse it giving this look (just an example without the right WWII look etc. - not using all the xml data available like strategic map images etc, I did not have the time...)


Full "code" download here (xml+xslt+css+images)

Please observe that the xml structure is just an example. There should be a lot of other attributes in it!

This is just a suggestion, but I really think that XML should be more "future proof" than HTML. If you later decide that you do not want to use HTML rendering of briefings, just show the info from the xml in the "thick GUI". Want to search all missions on disk that have a certain author? No problem... Someone wants to do a custom mission/briefing editor? Just follow the xml spec and you can make a WYSIG editor for it... There are many advantages in my opinon vs HTML.

What do you think?

EDIT: For interested people not familiar with xml/xsl - just unzip the file above to a local directory and double click the file "briefing_mis123_camp4.xml" to do a local inline xml/xslt transform in you browser (you will hopefully see the page above). The tag <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="jg51_campaign.xsl"?> really shouldn't be there but it's simple for easy local testing. The data is in the .xml file and the html formatting is done in the .xsl file... If you open the file "briefing_mis123_camp4.xml" in a text editor (right click -> open with notepad) you will see that it actually contains xml data and not HTML. It's the row <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="jg51_campaign.xsl"?> at the top that does the magic. It tells your browser to create HTML output bu using the specified .xsl file as a template for interpreting the xml data (for output). Maybe not the best explanation in the world

/Mazex

[proton45]

Hi Oleg, it's nice to see you kicking around the clubhouse again (sorry your not feeling well)...

At the moment I have just one little question about "off-line" mission building. Will we be able to add "AI" objects that suffer from "battle damage"? Let me give you an example...I have always wanted to add an "in-flight" B-17 (that had 2 engines leaking oil and burning) to an "off-line" mission...right now that is not possible. Right now, if you want to make an off-line mission with wounded straggling bombers limping home as you and "AI" team mates B&Z them to death, you have to set their flight path through a FLAK barrage or something (their is no practical way of doing it) and hope that a few of them get hit. Also it might be nice to be able to set damage on AI aircraft carriers or battleships...
Thanks Oleg, and hope your feeling better soon.

[Chivas]

Hello Oleg

I know the Refueling and Rearming question has been brought up long ago, but I can't remember if you've shown much interest in modeling it. Pilots in the Battle of Britain sometimes flew 4 or 5 sorties in a day, maybe even attacking the same bomber stream as it flew back from targets. I've found the refueling and rearming feature very emmerive in other sims and miss that capability in IL-2. I know its possible to fake it and hit refly on-line and stay in the same mission, but I don't think its possilbe off-line. I've just started flying off-line again for the first time in years and can't remember, lol.


~Salute~

Chivas

[C6_Krasno]

Originally Posted by Chivas

Hello Oleg

I know the Refueling and Rearming question has been brought up long ago, but I can't remember if you've shown much interest in modeling it. Pilots in the Battle of Britain sometimes flew 4 or 5 sorties in a day, maybe even attacking the same bomber stream as it flew back from targets. I've found the refueling and rearming feature very emmerive in other sims and miss that capability in IL-2. I know its possible to fake it and hit refly on-line and stay in the same mission, but I don't think its possilbe off-line. I've just started flying off-line again for the first time in years and can't remember, lol.


~Salute~

Chivas

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Fuel rearm - will be. Repair - some sort.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=116

[Feathered_IV]

Hi Oleg, hope you are feeling better.

I'd like to ask if SoW will feature bailing out in first-person perspective?

The current style of Il-2 and previous sims is for the "camera" to jump to an external perspective - right at the moment of greatest immersion. It tends to destroy the atmosphere more than a bit. As I'm planning on getting shot down a lot, it's something very important to me!

[C6_Krasno]

Hello Oleg !

I got 10 precise questions about SoW from other simmers, I hope you didn't yet answer them...

-About the servers, you said that we'll "probably" got server dedicated softwares. Can you say if there will be one for coop ?
-In the FMB, could we get a tool to see easily the range of artillery, for ex. ?
-Will we be able to get in a coop after the beginning ?
-Will we be able to open independantly the oil radiator and the glycol/water radiator ?
-Will mission makers be able to define a probability for a plane to have a precise breakdown (hydraulic 5%, engine 10%, etc... ) ?
-Will we be able to set a reference pressure for the altimeter ?
-Will flares (red, green) from control tower be modelised ? For example, will a plane approaching for landing with gear up got a red one ?
-Will IA ground (or sea) objects try to avoid attacks (by scattering, for ex.) ?
-Will triggers in the FMB include some probabilities ? (a trigger which have 30% chances to work, for ex.)
-How many clouds layer will be modelised ?


And as a bonus if you don't mind, a more private one : Could you tell us what are the three features of which you are the more proud ?

[SlipBall]

So many great question's answered by Oleg...I hope that this put's end to concern of worried people, that SOW was cancelled.