Friday 2010-12-03 Dev. update and Discussion

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

The way I look at that is that the (single player) player should be able to change waypoints for his/her own aircraft/flight while the mission is in progress.

In fact, that's a wish for general single player play, not mission building.

I don't think "the player" should ever fly waypoints and the player AI flight should receive directions ON-THE-FLY from the player. The player should always be able to do ON-THE-FLY changes as a real pilot and direct flight mates and other flights he is leader.

I realize this could create some issues, especially if the pilot is flying in where the flight leader is AI. IMO, the player should take command and be incharge of all flights from the start. My reasoning... the player pilot has a brain.

The AI have to have waypoints/alternative waypoints and have to be restricted, since they can't think.

As I recall, when I first started with IL2 I flew some campaigns and worked my way up in rank. I can tell you most of the time it was a nightmare, because the AI flight leaders did so many dumb things often it might take a mission refly a half dozen times to advance.

I gave up on all flights where AI commanded flights within the first week of flying the IL2.

My discussion about this in FMB may not seem applicable, but the FMB maybe a best place to define this in the programming for the SOW.

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The FMB GUI is fine, and it won't require as much time to learn how to use improved FMB.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by fruitbat

A funkier GUI won't change the fact that you will still have to take some time to learn how to use it....

Exactly

[McHilt]

The interface is good; simple yet functional... ever seen lightwave's interface?
compared to that this interface is easy to use, like it should be, and it has always worked like a dream for me in IL-2.
See, some people want instant stuff, like the ready-made generation, well...
sometimes it requires some work, some effort to learn something, which makes the FMB even more interesting. It looks bad? Oh, it doesn't imho... and who cares? it works, after all.

Originally Posted by KOM.Nausicaa

Don't know if that has been asked before Oleg, but is still possible to zoom into the map and switch automatically to in game rendered view? I loved that in IL2.

Oh, that was really nice indeed

[nearmiss]

I hope the sort options for the objects database is very complete.

That may be the case, but since I cannot see the sort options I mention this.

It is very tedious to find and select relative objects in scans of the large databases.

Working efficiently with the databases of objects in FMB should be priority.

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It is good you have enlarged the scroll blocks on the sides of the FMB map pages.

Those little scroll blocks in the IL2 have often been difficult to use because of the small size.

[fruitbat]

@Oleg,

1) will the 4 plane per flight limit still apply as in il2?

2) if so, will we be able to clone flights such as in 3rd party apps such as Shift E's Quick Mission Tuner, or is this what the 'group properties' is for?

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by fruitbat

@Oleg,

1) will the 4 plane per flight limit still apply as in il2?

2) if so, will we be able to clone flights such as in 3rd party apps such as Shift E's Quick Mission Tuner, or is this what the 'group properties' is for?

Actually, the QMT is an editor of the *.mis files with pre-sets and uses IL2 objects databases items that are selectable within the QMT. The ability to work and edit the *.mis (ini type files) would definitely be an improvement. This could all be done through the FMB of course.

Shift E has done an excellent job of keeping up with database items in the addons and patches of IL2.

[Osprey]

Dear Oleg,

Could I respectfully ask you not to waste your time on trying to justify yourself to people that are obtuse regarding a feature because you have limited time and there are many very valid and interesting questions asked that I would love to see answered

As a mission builder myself, I concur with a number of the other questions raised but here's a few things not mentioned:

1. Does the new FMB allow the use of AI in dogfight mode maps? Indeed, does co-op and dogfight now share features as can be achieved with mods in il2 today? In IL2 AI was fixed to co-op but this function was modded with considerable success. This is important because if one were flying a BoB map online I would like to face a large formation on it's way to bomb England, not sporadic pairs of bombers on their way to individual targets. There are other immersive advantages.

2. Would we have the ability to limit the supply of aircraft and their loadouts at airfields? Land damaged and be destroyed and the aircraft is removed from the pool since it is taken for repair
3. Can we group items together? When I set up AAA at an airfield I like to surround it with sandbagging and ammo boxes, perhaps a truck and men. This takes a lot of time - I would like to select all these items as a group, perhaps even save them as a custom object name 'AAA post' and then place and align them on the airfield at once.
4. Can we group squadrons into formations as one, then have a method to split them to different targets? I am referring to multiple squadrons of mixed types into gaggles of aircraft. Formations in the BOB often arrived as one large group then split off in different directions to their targets when over England. In FMB getting multiple flights to meet up is very hard to manage.
5. Will the AI have the sense to stop following their leader if he gets damaged and starts to lose position? Presently one only needs to hit up the leader and the rest are happy to die with him
6. Are their other maps or can this one be extended? Britain was bombed all over during the BoB, eg the Bristol based factories at Filton and Coventry in the Blitz are obvious examples.
7. When assigning escort duties for fighters can you simplify the method? Presently you have to set a target for each flight - very painful
8. Can we create our own custom columns or formations which we can save as a new object/item/template? This would be a useful feature for longer term campaigns
9. How will the points system work? Can we assign custom points values in the mission? 100 per engine and rewarding players who run off and land per kill is pretty basic and doesn't help make good missions in online squadron competition fighting such as USL (www.uslglobal.com). Please feel free check out their scoring system which makes for more realistic combat scenarios.

Others have asked my other questions, particularly about waypoint timings and groupings - many thanks if you can find time for these.
~S~

[ECV56_Lancelot]

From what i see on the group properties of a flight. Will it be possible to put flyable aircraft as stationary objects on an airfield?
Let me explain, i'm not talking about stationary objects with simplified damage modell like we have on IL-2, but put on the airfield the true aircraft that will work as a target.
This way we can use on airfield bombing missions stationary aircrafts with the complete damage model and they will get realistic damage, and we leave the stationary objects aircraft for use for scenery effects only and saving at the same time resources. But when an airfield will get bombed, we can have a more realistic behaviour to damage from the aircrafts, not just the simplified hit point system.

Hope it is clear what i'm trying to say.

[fruitbat]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

Actually, the QMT is an editor of the *.mis files with pre-sets and uses IL2 objects databases items that are selectable within the QMT. The ability to work and edit the *.mis (ini type files) would definitely be an improvement. This could all be done through the FMB of course.

Shift E has done an excellent job of keeping up with database items in the addons and patches of IL2.

umm, not sure if your mixing up mission mate with QMT maybe. Missionmate certainly does use presets.

Maybe you can use presets in QMT, but i use QMT to tweak co-ops a lot, and one of the functions I use alot, is to clone an existing set of waypoints from within any .mis file that you've loaded in, and are working on.

so if theres already a flight of 4 bombers, in the mission, i can just clone that flight, select vertical and horizontal offset, and hey presto, i can have 12 bombers in that formation, within that mission.

[Schallmoser]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Probably the stand alone would be a great mistake. Like did it some others in the past. Also you will need to write so many other tools that to display the map, in 2D and 3D, all 3D objects and its options, change the features that render the engine, etc then you should be able to make BoB 3D engine. Don't you think so?

And if you can't use so simple in use tool..... just because you are thinking that it should have other interface and even didn't try to read instruction... translating your words why you didn't use it ever...

Who understand architecture of Il-2 builder begin to think by other way.... If my 6 year old son can use it easy, then i'm "sure" something wrong ..... When my older son (he was 10 years old) begun to use FMB, he also didn't read any instructions, but after a couple of hours try, he did the first his mission. The only one thing that I was need to say him - use button Ctrl...

The goal to keep the Il-2 looking new builder is that to get involved in mission building right from the release day a lot of people who was able to make it with Il-2 in the past. This is the most fast way to invite the other wide auditory of players to new missions and features right from the beginning... Ist it the right way?

If to speak about other way looking colors etc... then proably it may happens.

I know a lot of people photographers, that can't learn simple Canon's Digital Photo Professional program... I really learned it for 30 min...
I know the people who make really great photos, but can't learn simplest program Adobe Lightroom to make theri photos even more greater looking...
I know a lot of people who know well Adobe Photoshot, but can't use very simple for understanding Adobe Camera Raw module integrated in Photoshop.

In all these cases the problem is not in interface, but in understanding of process, sequence and principles.

And finally I did in the past the poll to keep ot not to keep the interface of Il-2 FMB...

I don't remember now exact digit, but more than 90 or 95% said to keep.

And we did it, adding a lot more features.

How it looks and how it works - it is too different thing.


PS. You may do a lot more nice buttons, including popup help(which sorry we can't produce with the small team for every feature of FMB), etc, but probably you can't make the other archtectiure of the FMB that is using BoB 3D engine. Trust me.


PS2. I know another one guy who was speaking many times that he is great specialist in Interface... I found then other... and many other people think the same now about him.... comparing with the old design that was...

Hi Oleg,
thank you for answering my post. I really did not want to say that the old or new FMB was not good. It is the ergonomics I was talking about.
Things like when you open for example the object window to modify plane settings then you go fly the mission and come back to FMB it would be nice to see tha same window with the same size at the same position.

Another great feature would be to be able to register macros to do repeating tasks. for example:
1.select a flight
2.<hit start macro button>
3.set certain army, altitude loadout and other settings.
4.<hit stop macro button> FMB asks you for the name to register the macro under.
then you can select another flight and apply the same macro. This could save a lot of time.

Concerning the rendering in 2D and 3D, this could be done by your library for example in form of an ActiveX control that has its COM interface to control the functionalities from within QT. QT would only invoke well defined functions to create objects, delete them, controll zooming, panning etc. but all the real work would be done by your engine.

Anyways I did not intend to criticize your work but just give my thoughts. I'll be happy with whatever you decide

cheers
Schallmoser