Oleg Maddox's Room #2 QUESTIONS & REQUESTS TO OLEG ABOUT BOB SOW

[Forgottenfighter]

... A New Oleg Maddox's Room -

I think that it has become too time consuming to scroll through the 187 pages of Oleg Maddox's Room in search for answers. People keep posting the same questions because they haven't time to read the 1860 posts in Oleg Maddox's Room. So, I compiled a list of all the answered questions, along with the relevant answers. That way it will be easier for everyone to find answers, and easier for Oleg because people won't keep asking the same questions.

1) Can we expect some kind of list regarding add-ons and changes implemented in the final 4.09 patch ?

Only when it will be ready. But now I can say that changes thare will be minimal, becasue of absolutely no time.

2) I would like it if Oleg could address the issue of countering the recent spate of hacks for 4.08, and to tell us what plans he has (if any) to once again lock down the game and combat those who would seek to open up the code.

Probably there will be only very minimal changes. See answer above.

3) I remember Oleg saying way back that there would be AI available in Dogfight servers.
I wonder if the game had got onto testing Mutliplayer yet?

In BoB - Yes.

4) My question is if SOW gives you the possibility in offline mode to start your mission in Hangars or Parking possitions? And if so will there be the possibilty to give the aircraft rolling waypoints on the ground?

It will be possible in offline and in online. But for AI will be standard constant waypoints for parking (in hangar also)

5) Can you tell us about any new features in BOB that we don't know about?
So far, we know of dynamic weather and 6DOF...any surprises to come?
What does the future hold for IL2? If you stop further work on it, will the community be able to add content to it in the future?
What are your thoughts on the recently debated sound mod/hack?
I have a seperate post asking about the availability of any IL2 merchandise...is there any available?
If not, are there plans to do some merchandising?

There will be many surprises in time. Like with Il-2 we put in engine many things that will be open later later depending of middle PC power on the market.
With 4.09 we will stop any work with Il-2. Really we did it already... just waiting finalization of new maps.

6) I'm wondering if it will be possible to give pilots separate AI. That in a way a squadron is a good mix of rookie, experienced, veteran and ace pilots

.

It will be in BoB. Already is in current code of BoB.

7) Will there be an in-game multiplayer session browser and chat room?
Following in the same vein, has there ever been plans or an idea to have a centralized skins server?

I would tell right now how will be origanized menus, details of multiplayer, etc. We don't need centralized skins server due to used technology.

Will the mission data files (.mis) be simple text as now? Or XML...?

text

9) My question is: on what operatiing system SOW-BOB will run?
Will it be based on OpenGl as Il2 was or DirectX?
Will it be DirectX9 or 10? Or both?

OpenGl - still main.

10) When can we see some SoW updates with vids and sounds?
Will 4.09 have new sounds? Seems it might discourage hacking.

Sounds of BoB only when beta will be on the runway.
No new sounds in 4.09.

11) Will the offline campaigns and missions be fully developed? or will you rely more on third party community involvement than you did in the Il2 franchise?
Will there be more programmable camera views and options for the movie makers?

missions will be done fully inside company.
Camera views will be expanded

12) Will players be able to fly any heaavy bombers in SoW.
Will SOW have some sort of fuel rearm and repair option.
Will SoW have historic ground battles WITH infantary.

No heavy bomber in BoB. They wasn't there at the period of time which we model.
Fuel rearm - will be. Repair - some sort.
No battles with infantry. We are doing flight sim.

13) Do you have any plans to, or interest in including the Hampden in SoW BoB?

?

14) And to avoid useless work for theses fans, is the french planes welcome in BoB or future realease?

In future possible

15) Will there be ground crew and vehicles arming and fueling the planes?

Some kind.

16) AI: will the AI situational awareness of AI pilots and gunners (also ship and land gunners) be subjected to sunlight blinding?

Some kind You all would like to much and too early

17) Also any possibility of making also Linux version of BoB ?

No.

1 Has it been decided if you will release the 3D tools to 3rd party dev's?

It is our plan. But after release.

19) What is the purpose of the opening doors in the aircraft models?
What differences can we expect in the user interface?
What aspects of BoB will be customizable and what aspects will be closed?
Will SoW take advantage of the latest Sound Cards?
What will be the maximum number of pilots on a single server?

Too many questions. Will answer just one. Openable door we need for visuals and future updates of features .
Sound - we alwasy use the most advanced sound cards that to get binaural sound.

20) What are the minimum and recommended hardware specs?
What is a likely release date?

I can't answer right now exact things. Better to do not buy now new hardware... and wait release or final anounce with specs.

21) Is there any chance to give us a persistent multiplayer server in BoB? I mean an arena like server.
thanks in advance.

At the moment I can't say will we support dedicaded server ourselves or it will again distibuted fro free. And we will have new modes for multiplay

22) QOUTE{Regarding your answers on the sound patch, just so I can be sure I understand..

1. Your team is NOT GOING TO release an OFFICIAL SOUND PATCH in 4.09,... due to lack of time.

2. Your team will DO NOTHING TO STOP the New sound hacks use,... due to lack of time.

3. Your team will NOT PUT FORTH THE EFFORT to add a more realistic sound to Sow there for... NO GREAT IMPROVEMENT FOR SOUNDS IN SOW. <- Why not?. }QOUTE
- all work dedicated to BoB, no? all this sound stuff/wav files is no doubt time consuming to gather, integrate to a certain level of ingame fidelity et al, unless you're willing to rip off copyrighted soundfiles from somewhere? which of course cannot be done if you're a company as opposed to some hacker kiddy, no? pretty good reasons...

i dunno - the sound was never really that brilliant, granted. but it did the job of letting you know when your engine's about to conk out, or if you're running at too high rev's, you know - the important things. sounding *exactly* like a merlin thats flown so many hours is not something that registers as important... losing control surfaces in a 900kph dive, yeah thats important, rattling pistons comes waaaaay down the list

edit - 3. Your team will NOT PUT FORTH THE EFFORT to add a more realistic sound to Sow there for... NO GREAT IMPROVEMENT FOR SOUNDS IN SOW. um yeah he actually said "Sounds of BoB [will be heard]only when beta will be on the runway.
No new sounds in 4.09. nothing about sound quality in BoB[/i]

That to make it clear:

In BoB there is absolutley new sound engine. Maybe in Il-2 sound samples wasn't so good for the cheap speakers, but the 3D bunaural engine of sound there is still the best.

And I don't undesrant why to repeat me... Lack of time means that we are busy with new sim. Completely new. This means time, forces and funds. I don't see if there could be any additional questions why or so...

23) Oleg i understand that were are not heavy bomber in BOB, but i hope this time all Airplane implemented in this game will be pilotable.

Impossible to make them pilotable (on our slang - flyable).
1. Not for all is even possible to find sources that to make them looks like real. With the more great quality of modelling in new sim this point is going to be even more stronger than in IL-2.
2. now flyable aircraft, i.e developemtn of aircraft, cockpit of fighter take at least 4-6 months... I don't speak about bombers, which are more complex and have more internal seats to model with enviroument... So if you will make simple calculation and with take equal time for each aircraft you may get many-many years of developemtn only 30-40 aircraft in one small development studio.
3. We will release special tools for third party that will allow to include third party aircraft or new cocmpits... But it will be not like the chaos in MS... it will be by other way and no chaos in online. The new system. But tools - some time after the reelase of BoB itself... So the most advanced third party developers sure will make all flyable or will make completely new things... Simply this i shouldn't tell now in details. Some solutions are secret

24) About FM itself...I've heard about various effects of weather on the plane, but is(I'm pretty sure it is but I hope for some details ) FM itself further improved from present il2 state?
I've heard rumors that we will literary have to learn to fly from scratch...

Pilot: Ebven charachter of pilot will be modelled. Fatigue as well.

50 Lb is really for two hands as a midle force with which possible to pilot aircraft still in the frame that to do not chrash...

FM isn't the thing that you need to learn again. Some differences in complex situations... but in general fly the same or very close to what is. It will be different in details and more adjustable for different aircaraft types.

25) I was wondering if changing the view position using 6DOF will move the pilot's body as well? In real life pilots often tried to hide behind the airplanes engine when attacking bombers

Yes a bit. In a limit of the belts. But with options of complexity probably.

26) Regarding 4.09:

Can u assure us that there is a check on the il2fb.exe so people that havn't original version cant join online sessions?

First off all, that to make new check for that we need simply to rewrite too many things, icluding even file structure. It is simply impossible to make such a great job when we are totally busy with BoB...
I can't promise now... but my guys in research what is possible by minimal human/month busy schedule...
Say "Thanks" guys who did it... and who do not understand what they did for online community...

27) Will radio navigation be included and what maps will you have in game?

Yes. Map is one. And probably several small special online maps.

2 Will icing on the wings be considered?

Probably. It is in our plan, but not in major priority.

29) WHAT will change on the engine (and fuel) management side?

I can say that there _will_ be changes.

30) In BoB will we be able to identify and located planes, trucks, tanks from the correct distances when looking out of the cockpit of our aircraft ?

I do think it will depending of the power of your home computer. The system of LODs it totally new.

31) Will there be a Damage Model more precise (I remember some sayings about that), and which will be sensible to the time, or the G for exemple ? I mean, when my wing is hitted I cannot take too much G, and if I do, the damage spread and I can break my wing more easily.

Will be. But I wont say all things now.

32) What about shaders in game, how that would be used, and what about HDR lighting, will some sort of that will be used?

I don't discuss technology terms. Many things already is, many will be.
Shaders we use very much in Il-2

33) Just a quick question regarding the size of the map. I believe that you have stated, that the map will cower to the north of London, but how much of France or Belgium will be modeled? Will German bombers be able to takeoff from inland bases or do they simply spawn in the air?

No Germany. The map is too detailed that to make it even greater than we will have.

34) In IL2 almost all on-line pilots forced to fly at low resolutions (1024x768 usually) for best view (ground HQ at 8000m ), in Bob:SOW this problem continue?.

Fist time I read such... Really I know other picture...

35) In IL2 with some configurations you're capable ear sounds of others planes, explosions at ten milles... (whitout last shit cheats). Host in SOW has option of configurate sound for all players? (as one swith "real sound")

This means incorrect configurations of sound panning. And simple panning of some cheapest sound cards its own drivers... In Bob we are going by other eway and have own panning, instead of manufacture driver's panning.

36) I would like to ask if we can expect better Force Feedback support in SoW? It would be great to have better immersion of flying.

Really any real pilot would say you that what called FF on Joystick has nothing common with real situation.... Really they woukld say you that without that FF would be more correct comparing to real life...
I don't know what we will have with FF... But probably this item will be open in source code for third party development.

37) Awhile back there was some talk about a trainer aircraft for Bob.....my question is if this is true, would it also be possible to take the co-pilot seat in any of the games bomber's during on-line play......the co-pilot could do trim, or take over if the pilot is killed

True. What will be in online modes in terms of this question I will not tell till final. Its a big secret at the moment.

3 Any plans to include the Dewoitine D.520??? (It’s formidable little fighter with nose-mounted 20mm Hispano (+ 4 MGs) - comparable to bf109E for potency/performance (apart from direct fuel-injection)...

We - not. But third party will be able to do it in time themselves.

39) Can it be possible to have planes explode more realistically when ground pounded? Currently they turn black and simply lean to the left or right.

I do think that in Il-2 the most realistic explosions on the market of the sims.. In BoB will be better.

40) Will BOB have similar support for the 3 Views option currently used in Il-2 for multi-monitor support? This is the Use3Renders option.

Probably. Hwever it isn't in a list of first things to be developed.

41) Will wings visibly flex? (Or even just the effects?)

When we will have in future the planes where it is visible in reality – probably yes. But say on Ju-88 – it is invisible (at least in flight with high G for sure)

42) Will any tweaking be made to multiplayer support that may take over Hyperlobby, and support ladders?

Will be new multiplayer code.

43) Will there be a drop down window for coops so we can save server address ?

Probably. But by another way.

44) Are we able to choose exactly what type of ammunition we want for our ammunition belts? What I mean is can we choose the types of bullets that we want. If we want to load Gun 1 with all HE and Gun 2 with all Tracer, or no Tracer and Gun 3 with 4 AP and 1 Tracer, or 2 AP and 3 Tracer etc. If we could custom load each ammo belt, this would really open up a lot of possibilities for the virtual pilot.

It will depending of mission. And limits defined on server.

45) Oleg, will you improve how overheating is modeled in BOB

The complex model of engine work is more advanced.

46) Can we have more realistic vision effect for high G (loose peripheral vision)?

I do think we have the most realistic for the computer visualisation.

47) I would really like to know how the briefing / debriefing will look like and what info from mission will it contain (offline and online). If not secret maybe some pictures ?

Next year will show maybe.

4 Is the flyable plane set completely decided on, (including different marks of planes we already know), or not yet?

Completely decided. Don’t ask too much. Because maybe some of them could be removed and later coming in add-ons

49) Will SoW take advantage of multi-core setups, dual or even quads?

Will

50) Centrifical force- will this be modelled in BoB?

Example: a wing gets shot off: the resulting G-forces on the pilot may be such to keep them pinned (and disoriented) in the cockpit.The same as like if one has many coins in a sock that one spins around keeps them from coming out the open end.

Maybe. If you mean centrifugal force

51) I can see that doors of Br-20 aircraft are openable - does it means, that the pilot would be able to go through the doors, to get in to the aircraft, or to get out of the aircraft?

Maybe in future. Engine in principle allow it

52) I was wondering about a few aspects of mission building for BoB SoW...will we have options (or AI features) like: if Stuka raid fails to remove "radar" tower(s) RAF fighter intercept will find targets (German bombers) quicker? or If AI fighter runs out of ammo he must return to base to reload?

Radars will play right role. Reload planned at the moment for online gameplay.

53) Will cloud's provide inviability from the AI?

Yes.

54) Will AI fighters have a blind spot (below)?

Yes. But not a spot. Some area.

55) Will we be able to program "campaign's" with options concerning supply (if factory or truck convoys destroyed repairs can not be made)

Too early question

56) Will we be able to surprise AI defense with tricks like low altitude attack? (like a tree top approtch)

Yes. Some time in some places.

57) Will we be able to design missions in campaign mode where we have to make command decisions that will effect out come of future actions? (example: if we split our bombers into 2 groups and bomb and airfield and a sea-port at the same time, some RAF fighters will be called away to defend the first (closer) air-strike and the second German raid will meet smaller defense? But if all bombers attack one airfield they have a more difficult defense?)

Can’t answer it now.

5 Will we be able to kill AI gunners in bombers and/or will they run out of ammo?

It is in IL-2.

59) WILL WE be able to build maps?

Yes. But only small. Big maps we will keep for ourselves that to release new series of sims.

60) Will there be different versions of the Bf-109 E? E-1, E-3, E4 or E-7 /B?

E-1 – Sure no.

61) Will it be possible to fly in different formations? Like the Schwarm and Vic? And be able as a flightcommander to change formation and spacing between planes inflight?

Try in Il-2. In BoB it is improved.

62) Will it look more realistic when a pilot bails out of his plane? In Il-2 the pilot sometimes goes through the plane when he bails out in the air, on the ground he exits the cockpit by jumping 3 meters straight up in the air and in water he run instead of swimming. Will this be modeled more realistic in SOW:BOB?

Can’t answer it now. Maybe in time. It is complex animation of pilot at first…

63) Will your plane crash if you fly into a tree?

In Il-2 we have two types of trees - with collision model and without. These that are without are graphical feature and loads with maximum settings. It was don that to make equal gameplay of players with different power of their PC and its settings. In BoB we will have only type with collision model.

64) [Regarding damaged Spitfire screenshots] Nice pic's. I never saw how looks in combat damaged aircraft, but for me looks more like spit was flying under big drops of concentrated acid rain instead that got damages from bullets with huge kinetic energy. I don't know. Maybe damage from flak looks exactly like this. Anyway detail is wery high.

Probably you'll never see such many big holes at once, like on these pics of Spitfire. And it isn't due to hits of bullets. It is due to flak and hits of shells.
From bullets we will "draw" actual(exact) places of hits. This you will see not so soon and already in the 3D engine together with other types of damage.
Main was to show missibg in flight aerodynamic panels of engine, etc.. It wasn't so rare in real aerial combat.


For us is a great task how to make a lot of details and at the same time to render a lot of aircraft in air simultaniosly.... So all things will be optimized for this...
Say it is possible to make even greater details of damage, aircraft itself , etc... but probably in case of hundreds aircraft in action around you you will need the PC that will be existed only say ten years after release
Hope you all understand what the tasks we have and what the technical problems are on our board...
The is no problem to make increadible amount of polygons in aircraft (or ground units), but then will follow problem of PC power, when in air isn't just one aircraft.... When the water is trasparent, when the clouds looks like real and moving, etc...
BoB will be again a "fight of compromises" in technologies and will offer the best compromises that wioll be usable for many years ahead, like it was with Il-2

65) I have a question about the DM. Is the visual damage in the same place you hit? In IL2, you have a very general visual damage. It shows you hit the wing, but not where exactly on the wing, or how bad other then light and heavy. How will BoB's visual DM differ? Or will it use the same general IL2 DM system?

In General it is advanced mix of old and new technologies. See my answer above that to understand.
And in Il-2, when it was born - nobody in industry had such "very general" Attemps of others was...

66) Great to see a few more screenshots.
The detail in these models is superb.
Are all aircraft, including AI types, being done to a similar level of detail?
Are all aircraft modelled with similar level of airframe detail to the Spitfire images?
When parts fly off can they hit following aircraft and cause damage?
Will the "damage" to aircrew be modelled as realistically as damage to the aircraft or will "gore" effects be toned down?
When bailing out from a bomber will the pilot be able to stay at the controls to give the crew more chance to escape before he bails out?

gore effects will be toned down. It is marketing principle that to get 12+ rating. We have small niche of market and we need to listen what this market tell us...

For all other questions I would say yes on 98%.

67) Could you state your feeling on the hack mod issue. i and others would like to know your thought's on this and what it means for the future?

I personally hate any hack that may damage fair online gameplay.

6 Yes, I get the point about PC power......that's why I am waiting to the very last minute before I upgrade after SOW BOB comes out. I'm going to have to invest in cooling systems as well I fear. I thought that those (big) holes in the wings could only be from cannon shells.
Only 92 days to go if the date does not change again...........92 days of hell (in the cooler!!)......I'd better get that little rubber ball out again!
Best regards,
Pike.

Yes... better to wait with upgrade of PC if the BoB is the main in your mind. I still don't know midlle and lowest hardware that to run BoB smooth. Will know finally in spring or even more close to summer.

69) If you have a moment, there are two ideas that I thought I would pass on:

1.
Is there any thought about being able to get (or to turn on automatic) verbal instructions from other crew members?

For example:
- The navigator could estimate TAS from IAS for the bombardier
- The rear gunner could yell out the approach of an enemy fighter to the bomber pilot (or complain about being to closs to flak).
- A radar operator could give instructions to the pilot (most aircraft had separate radar operators)

This could all be done with a few pre-recorded audio samples from the AI or simply through text on the screen.

In real life very few aircraft prior to the late 1950s had the pilot operate the radar. For some of the aircraft in Galba and all of the aircraft in BoB the radar operator could be modeled simply as a set of verbal commands. I remember accounts of interactions between luftwaffe radar operators and pilots when chaff was first being deployed and it should be possible to even model weaknesses and countermeasures verbally.

Such as system could, at least in the text overlay, be extended to visual observation (with descriptions of the rough number of enemies or ground targets and their types) with varying degrees of vagueness depending on range/conditions.

2.
As for stories, I am sure that you already see the benefit of having a well written briefing and an atmospheric plot given the Il-2 expansion packs you developed. The briefing may only be text but they add a lot.

I agree with your statements that adding a cut-scene capability to the game is largely a waste of time but for static campaigns why not expand the text based system? My suggestion would be to add the ability to choose between different text options during the briefing. These options would add additional briefing text or activate scripts to make small changes in the upcoming mission.

This would allow campaign builders to give the player the ability to do things like:
- choose between questions to ask during a briefing
- suggest a wingmen needs to be grounded for some rest (effecting their AI level or number of aircraft in upcoming missions)

S!

P.S. Could the HUD log (text overlay) be made editable for the 3rd party (so that we can make it use less jarring text and a smaller font for instance)?

I will take in mind about IAS to TAS in Bomber. It should be some small and not complex... Say recorded for the correct speed just one phrase... Becasue for different speeds, different planes, if to make complex speech - this will be thousand variations of wave files.... And it would be not possible in our case due to other big work over speeches and various of localisations...

70) An idea to increase client's base and sell more copies of BOB

- Weak point of combat flight sim games: learning curve = long time to get some fun. In particular the shooting is long and difficult to master

- Result: the less motivated quit the game and also the genre

- Remedy: improve the training section of BOB. Put in some training aids, for instance a predictive "virtual pipper", kinda of a coloured dot to show where to aim with the real collimator. This would help a lot to develop the deflection shooting, and be a fun in itself. Add also the hit% statistics as in CFS. It's great for training.

Correct automatically moveable point to show you right place ot hit that to get enemy aircraft in movement will be present. But ofcourse it will be swichable in difficulty settings and on the server.
Training also will be absolutely new. Including online training

71) Oleg can we get an update of SOW before Christmas please!

It is. Posted right now.

72) Oleg,another question! Earlier this year you came to the UK with Ilya for the flight sim conference at Birmingham.Do you have any plans to appear in Europe again soon?

Can't say you now. Maybe.

73) That server admin be able to add additionnal skin (on the server side) that could be downloaded (and saved) on the player side for future use.

This wouls add to the number of skins available in a given server. These could be saved in a server specific folder (could be the server I.P.). This would means that eache server (and player) "default" skins would increase with time... and no loading screen freeze would happend (over time) as everybody will eventually have the new skins on their hard drive... Also having specific server folder would prevent having to different skins with the same file name from being copied over....

This feature is present in Il-2. Except that on dedicated server. Each new skin downloaded automaticall stored on user PC... and then never downloads again if the same player plays with you with the same skin on his side. There is system of check and identification that is way more complex and that works better than you ask.

74) Oleg, what is going on with 4.09 ?? what is the delay ?

When we will have window to complete 4.09. It may happen only when we will finish one of our milestones for BoB. Currently all are too busy.

75) Are you planning to implement some kind of option, feature (more elaborate that the arcade mode on IL2) to help with gunnery?

There will be an option of difficulty settings: Special marker will show you the point where you should shoot. This marker will show optimal forestall place(point) where you should put your bullets (before, over, etc ).

76) It was allready stated, that SoW:BoB will run with high details on a system that runs IL2-1946 at high details, too. Even more than with the IL2-Engine there are certain options, that will become finished and available as the product evolves and hardware meets the specifications needed.

IMHO this is the best way to please all sides of the market

.

No... My statement was that Bob _will_run_ on the system on which now Il-2 series run at highest detail... But it doesn't means that it will run on high detail on that system... This means that probably it will be lowest settings...

77) Effects=2 enables more 3-dimensional looking smoke and explosions. Very nice to look at, but a huge hit on your performance. As Oleg posted again and again: Wait until BoB is released, if you consider an upgrade for BoB. Who knows what hardware will be available then...

Correct in terms if you don't play any other games... or waiting for other games that will be released more early than BoB.
Anyway, I personally plan to upgrage my home PC only _after_ release of BoB.

7 Good to hear from you Oleg and good to hear the Alpha is under way. Could you comment a little bit on IL2: Birds of Prey? Could you give us some hints how it will compare with SOW?

We are not busy with Birds of Prey project. It is third party project under control of 1C. We just gave them full source code and did neccessary consultations.
It looks good, but not like BoB engine. BoB engine it is not modification of Il-2 engine.
Also I tested periodically BoP and would like to say that the contol of aircraft there and FM isn't like in all arcade sim-games, but control aircraft is more easy than in arcade sims... becasue the guys keeping some original physics from Il-2.

Hope I did right answers for all the buzz around it

79) I have just read your answer about the linking of SOW with the Korean project...
Very interesting. Also noticed you mentioned a WW1 sim, would this be KOTS or is it another project altogether and if so, how many years down the line would that be?

Lastly Theatre of war used the IL2 engine to great effect, are their plans for a theatre of war using the SOW engine (is it capable) and the big question.
WW2-Online was an attempt to make the perfect complete simulation for WW2. Would the SOW engine be able to do what WW2 Online failed at?

I told just about possible ways. I'm personall plan to expand the WWII and finally in that series also to model Russian front as well on new level.
The next after BoB we plan to make the area that never yet modelled And it should go on the market after BoB during a year or so.
But the first our target after BoB - to release the Enduser tools that allow them to incorporate new planes, ground vechicles, ships, etc into a sim as a system. We would like to create some industry around it, like it is around MS FS. It is stron point of MS FS on the market. However we understand the problems with such way and we are doinf it with the target of no cheating online. Some time more close to release later I will tell it in all details.
This will be someting new on the market.

In BoB intial release we will have controlable stationary AA guns. You may play for them in online or even in sigle play if you wish to create such a mission. This will a first step in realisation of our plans for online gameplay. In a touch with writen above you may imagine what can do with only this feature some crative third party developers.
Tools will alow to "program" by simple ways such objects (aircraft also). But again plase read with attention - this will not kill online. There will be some sort of protection.

We don't plan to copy WWIIOL. But if we will decide to go for only online gameplay, then we can use BoB engine.

80) Well, Guild Wars didn't really invent that, you know?

If I may remind you, it was another game that gave you the option to either buy addons and run them as standalone or to install them merged with your previous versions of the game. And that was years before GW was released. The name of the Game was IL2FB IIRC - As it was quite successful I see no reason to change that way of distribution. We'll buy them all anyway - LOL

IMHO you, Oleg, and your team did a really, really great job with IL2 and from the mere tidbits of informations released, I can imagine there's a great time coming for us simulations-fans once BoB is released. That's honestly the reason why I have no problem waiting - all good things are worth waiting for.

As more compex coding, more complex AI in terms of features, precise of models comparing to original real planes, we need more time to spend for development. And if we want the new jump of technoloiges, visuals, damage, FM, common physics, etc in one product united all in one with some compromises that will be acceptable for many years ahead, like we did years ago with the release of Il-2, we need more time. Real time of full development from intial to final code of Il-2 was 7+ years. And 5 years success on the market. To repeat it very hard... even more hard to jump over our own heads.
I'm the guy, who dislike to create one time good thing then wait when this good thing will be worse then new others... from others. I'm the guy who like to get always only good. So I would like top get in BoB many things that isn't in any sim in features, etc... or in any possible competitors in future (At least I hope )
Somebody told here that why we are doing the planes that didn't play role in the war... It is incorect opinion. Each plane played some role. And each plane that we model is important part of history and GAMEPLAY for single play. It is also important for users that like to make themselves some episodes of airwar that we or others never covered in a flightsim. Also this will make the sim unique comparing to all other BoBs before. If you'll look for years back, you may se that with original Il-2 was really the same situation ...
Or you don't like to try to fly military autogyro for recon or for the tunings of radar and trying to escape attacks of bf109s? I can give you a guarantie that it will be for many people very interesting and to feell the things that was never experinced before.... Just little sample... Only when you pay attention to such "outside of main picture" detail the product might be interesting for all.

In short:
We try to make the BoB that will be not like all BoBs before on a sim market...
we try to make not the single one time released game, but the series of expansions... that will work like Pacific Fighters in the past... stand alone or merged with previous release, begining from BoB.

81) Hello Oleg , as one Of my main interests in il2 is making movies I am wondering what kind of , if any , recording (placeable cameras) and play back facillities have you got planned for BOB , sorry if this question has already bin asked and answered

I can't tell you finally how many types of cameras, but will be more features than in Il-2 and more useful.
Recording will be possible in two formats one of them is similar to NTRK, another - ready video, but still under question in which format finally.
But only NTRK will be possible to use for full HD video conversion.

82) Oleg sir, are you still in any of those countries? Oleg sir, do you have a publisher for SOW? Oleg sir, is the BOB: SOW actually a dead project?

Everything still is fine. Simply summer and I took finally vacation... Usually they were too short in the past or wasn't in principle.

83) AFAIK planes will have both bump (normal) maps and specular maps as well. Somewhere I've read about it.

Right.

84) Oleg, could you please tell me if the Sunderland is a flyable aircraft or AI. Many thanks for the update!

AI, But we are making as well these AI model the same quality as flyable. And we will offer tools for advanced third party developer that to make any plane flyable without us...

So I expect that there will be many flyables later after the intial release... and BoB will be growing even more than Il-2 series

85) Hello Oleg , just wanted to say , the update of the flight models is about what I expected , what Has impressed me though is the new texture of the grass , if this is an indication of the new map to come , I cant wait , I know from what youve said theres a long way to go , but still ... I cant wait.

This temporary made texture is for tools. In the sim the grass is 3D and moving due the wind.