Fulqrum Publishing Home   |   Register   |   Today Posts   |   Members   |   UserCP   |   Calendar   |   Search   |   FAQ

Go Back   Official Fulqrum Publishing forum > Fulqrum Publishing > IL-2 Sturmovik

IL-2 Sturmovik The famous combat flight simulator.

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #531  
Old 10-20-2009, 06:07 AM
ben_wh ben_wh is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 39
Default

Read from a few different posts that AI improvement will be one of the focus areas in future patches. Is there any plan on which aspects of AI behavior to improve upon?

IMHO there are at least several areas that can use some fine-tuning:

1) AI gunners on bombers – too accurate at times, and their aim appear not to be affected by condition of the bomber (e.g. when the bomber is executing high-G maneuver)

2) Fighter AI – rely all too frequently on the 360 degree barrel-roll as defensive maneuver. Could use a wider repertoire.

3) Fighter AI – appear to automatically detect player’s presence behind them when at relatively close proximity, even in their blind spot (e.g. lower six o’clock position). It is difficult to surprise the AI regardless of experience level

4) AI can see through cloud and is not affected by low visibility environment

5) AI chooses forest and town to belly land instead of road or relatively flat area

When reading WWII fighter pilot memoirs, one often come across passages of how they 'sneaked up on' inexperienced enemy pilot for an easy kill, or how when the situation got tough they would use cloud cover to aid escape. Improving on these would I believe greatly help realism in offline missions.

One also wonders how far we can improve the AI in the game without severely affecting performance. For example, would it be possible to code advanced maneuvers and ‘doctrinal training’ into AI behavior? E.g. head-on or high-side attack on bombers with strong rear armaments, entering into a luftberry circle for mutual defense (at least for inexperienced pilots) or executing a ‘Thach Weave’?

Any other areas of AI behavior that can be improved?

Cheers,
  #532  
Old 10-20-2009, 12:27 PM
Wutz Wutz is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 347
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by uberGeezer View Post
I may be able to fix this "problem". I have been learning how to make models in 3dsMax for a couple of years, and needed a theme for the stuff that I worked on. Because I have always loved the open cockpits and wheelspats of the 1930s, I chose the Japanese-China war because of the many different types of aircraft used. Shots below of WIPs - none are finished, but a few are close to completion. I will add the Ki.21 to my list, but it will be some time before I release anything.



That looks really great! That would be something for the war between China and Japan!

What would be also wonderful, would be a G3M1 Nell as this plane was in a lot of early war missions, like the sinking of the Z-Fleet of Singapure.

Never hoped to see that many possible new planes for this sim any more.

Last edited by Wutz; 10-20-2009 at 12:43 PM.
  #533  
Old 10-20-2009, 07:23 PM
Insuber Insuber is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Paris - France
Posts: 1,406
Default

Sorry if this has been answered before: the Fokker D.XXI should have 4 guns, as mentioned also im the 4.09 guide. The in-game Fokkers have got only 2 guns. A mistake or I'm missing something ?

Regards,
insuber
  #534  
Old 10-20-2009, 09:59 PM
ElAurens's Avatar
ElAurens ElAurens is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: The Great Black Swamp of Ohio
Posts: 2,185
Default

Insuber, the cowling guns on the D XXI are very deep in the fuselage and fire through quite long blast tubes between the cylinders. It is very hard to see the muzzle flash.

The guns are indeed there.

This came up over at UBI and one of DT pointed it out.
__________________


Personally speaking, the P-40 could contend on an equal footing with all the types of Messerschmitts, almost to the end of 1943.
~Nikolay Gerasimovitch Golodnikov
  #535  
Old 10-22-2009, 06:32 PM
Insuber Insuber is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Paris - France
Posts: 1,406
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ElAurens View Post
Insuber, the cowling guns on the D XXI are very deep in the fuselage and fire through quite long blast tubes between the cylinders. It is very hard to see the muzzle flash.

The guns are indeed there.

This came up over at UBI and one of DT pointed it out.

Thank you ElAurens. I'll check better.

Regards,
Insuber
  #536  
Old 10-22-2009, 08:26 PM
Mhondoz Mhondoz is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Norway
Posts: 15
Default Change file format of skins

First, I would like to thank Daidalus Team for their efforts and continuous work on IL-2

I have one suggestion for future versions: Change the skins file format from BMP to PNG. A quick test on a fresh 4.09 install shows that I have about 2 GB of data in the PaintSchemes folder. I then ran a batch conversion of all BMP files to PNG, and the result is about 480 MB.

I guess the choice of BMP was natural as a lossless format when IL-2 was first released, since few tools supported PNG back then. But now PNG is widely supported, and provides a lossless format and a nice size reduction.
  #537  
Old 10-22-2009, 10:27 PM
WWFlybert WWFlybert is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 41
Default

Mhondoz,

Actually, because they are 8-bit .bmp, not 24-bit true color, they reasonable size .. 1024x1024 is 1026kb .. same .png is 457kb though .. don't quite see how you got a 75%+ reduction .. should be 45% or so

My unmodded 4.09m is 5.20GB .. 1.78GB in skins
My modded 4.09b1 is 10.2GB .... 1.71GB in skins

It's not a bad idea to go with .png, but unless you have alot of custom skins in .. saving some 800MB by my calculations

then I suppose, everyone would need to convert ?
  #538  
Old 10-23-2009, 03:37 AM
dflion dflion is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 319
Cool Wing guns on the Fokker D.XXI

Quote:
Originally Posted by Insuber View Post
Sorry if this has been answered before: the Fokker D.XXI should have 4 guns, as mentioned also im the 4.09 guide. The in-game Fokkers have got only 2 guns. A mistake or I'm missing something ?

Regards,
insuber
Hi Insuber,

You will find the the 4 wing gun version of the Fokker D.XXI under 'Allied aircraft' and the the 2 wing gun version under 'Axis aircraft'.

DFLion
  #539  
Old 10-23-2009, 07:19 AM
Lucas_From_Hell Lucas_From_Hell is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 296
Default

"unless you have alot of custom skins in"

My Paintschemes folder has 18,8GB on it

But, dude, it's worth it

Well, maybe the .PNGs could work. I don't actually care, anyway
  #540  
Old 10-23-2009, 07:24 AM
Mhondoz Mhondoz is offline
Approved Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Norway
Posts: 15
Default

WWFlybert,

You are right

First, I checked the size of the whole PaintSchemes folder, and this was about 2 GB. Second, I converted all BMP files with the batch conversion tool in IrfanView. But since many of the skins has the same name (void.bmp), when dumped to the same destination folder of converted skins a lot of files were overwritten. That made the PNG folder a lot smaller than it should be, and my hope for size reduction was too optimistic, sorry about that and thanks for correcting me WWFlybert.

I have now realized that IrfanView has an option to create new sub folders in the batch conversion, and I have done the test again, so this result should be more accurate:



Not so large difference as before, but still significant I think.

A change to PNG could be carried out as part of the installation process of a new patch, like the 4.09 default skins patch. Then all default skins in BMP format could be deleted and replaced with PNG. Reducing download and installed size. Custom skins would not be touched, but over time custom skin providers could start to supply their skins as PNG.

Just a thought
Closed Thread


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 01:08 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 2007 Fulqrum Publishing. All rights reserved.