What will be interesting to see is whether the pilots (both AI and human) will obey the orders that Dowding and Park were issuing to their 11 Group squadrons, viz. do not engage the escorts unless it becomes necessary, the bombers are the primary target.
Scenarios fall apart when pilots disobey their orders and go dogfight-crazy.

B

hey oleg,
as a cinematographer and long time il2 fan, I have dreamed of the day when your planes would reach HD quality. Based on the screens I cant help but feel the time is very near. A very pleasing site for us all. So, I was wondering if there would be any way to set the models in an editing mode with a blue/green screen~esque area for composites for film/video. I would love to use and see filmmakers be able to incorporate these new flight models into videos & film formats since they look so real!

In this case it would be much more logical to make a mission with this special target. Maybe somebody will make a modell of this gun and implement it.

But you can't expect every little detail of WW2 implemented, units with exact position and status or soldier with rifle and magazine how it was in the exact moment in WW2. Even modelling every bunker with exact position and equipment would probably postpone SoW by 10 years. But then again, that's why you can add such stuff yourself. Hopefully with thousands of enthousiasts the density of realistic installations will increase drastically, if the engine allows the large number of objects, that is ;)

In the end the old wisdom still has some truth: If you make a 100% realistic simulation, you build the real thing.

Same is true for bailing out behind enemy lines and fighting your way back. That game won't be a shooter. If you use your gun, you won't stand a chance. It's more a tactical game like "Lost Platoon", where you can decide to dig through the minefield or go sneak by the surveillance post. But in neither case you can simulate what it was like to make it back home, so you'd never succeed in recreating that.

These latest screenshots are looking very good. I almost jumped in with some comments on the last set, but I'm glad I didn't now.

I think a lot of people (including myself) didn't quite appreciate what stage of development they were showing and expected the screenshots to be an indication of "this is the best we can do" rather than "this is where we are at now", even if told otherwise :).

I have one question. In the latest screens (the ones with the planes and various times of day) it looks like there may be some antialiasing - perhaps 2x. Did you find a way to make antialiasing work with HDR, or are the images just scaled down in photoshop?

How long would it take to walk 200 miles? The "SoW" maps are all in real size...it could take days, weeks or months to walk back to base if you where a German shot down over the UK (forget about swimming the channel). That would be one hell-a-va gaming session_lol!!!

I think this is the exact reason Oleg said it wouldn't be done by him...why do all the work needed to walk around in 1st person, if you are only going to use it once?

Well, if one had to walk back after being shot down and also if one had to wait for his virtual burial ceremony
before taking to the skies again it would make him (her) very much more consient for ones mortality and would
hugely improve the realism!!!
No glory hunters with those risks!!!

Well, I doubt Oleg will implement such feature, but there would be various ways to get home after beeing shot down. First, of course, if the distance isn't too far, as a pedestrian. Secondly you could call a transport plane via command or TS e.g. wich could land near your position at night to grab you up. Or you could try to reach the next railroad and hop onto a freight train wich is waiting in front a signal semaphore. Or just steal a car in the next village. There are many ways to get home wich could be made wich small effort in a sim. Don't forget about SAR missions over the channel wich Oleg told about already. I have a vision ;) One day there will be a sim presenting all those features. Will SoW be the first?

And it would piss off a lot of people.

There weren't many Germans being able to walk home after they were shot down over England. So what? Playing evade and escape for 5 weeks before you can fly again? Sorry, but that does not add to realism at all.

What about this compromise: You vote for serversettings that gets your game-ID banned for 24 hours from online playing, after you've been captured or shot down behind enemy lines. Then you have enough time to play an WW2-Mod ArmA2-Mission until you are able to fly again. Of course, if you die in ArmA2 as well, you'll be banned for another 24 hours.

:-P

Ich glaube, robtek hatte das ironisch gemeint ;)

robtek was the last one replying to the discussion about these ideas, so I quoted him.

While he in particular may have been sarcastic about what he wrote, others apparently were not. ;)