[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by csThor

And you missed my "message" - what I was trying to say is that people will sling a SC500 under a Bf 109 G-6 (I am still not convinced the 109s ever used bombs greater than a SC250 BTW) and add two MG 151/20 gondolas under the wings for more firepower.

... and then - what?

First of all, available stores can be simply listed for the plane. If the SC 500 is not on that list, because it was not available for a plane type the player is not able to select it in the first place.

Again, historical accuracy has nothing to do with the method wheter you choose your aircraft`s loadout from a rigid preset or put it together from single pieces.

Secondly, incompatibility with other loadouts also is simple to program as attribute; simply you give it attribiutes that if player chooses Loadout A (say, droptank) he can no longer select Loadout B (say, an SC 250), but he can select something else, like an external armored glass, tropical filter or such.

So, in a practical example, there`s nothing preventing the developer, should evidence arise - other than your belief that it wasn`t if I may add - to that the 500 kg bomb could not be used with gondolas, then he could simply add a line to the section describing the gondolas that once they are choosen, 500 kg cannot be choosen, and vica versa; or to add a line to the 500kg bomb that it cannot be used with certain plane subtypes (because it is too big for them).

Again, if you`d have actually bothered to read what I`ve written, you`d stop having the false idea that I propose that every plane should be able to choose every loadout, 109s with SC 1800 and the like. That is NOT what I propose.

What I propose is basically a streamlining of the GUI to a much more user friendly one, which is easy to overview, and perhaps easier to develop in the long term. Otherwise, when you will have aircraft with 2-3-4-5 attachment points, historical possibility for rear tanks to be filled, extra ammunition, you will either have to spend a lot of time having either

a, an EXTREME number of loadouts listed, with high probability that something will be overlooked and bugged
b, simply not having several important, and historical loadouts available to the user

PS - 109K was the first one to have been officially cleared for the 500kg bombs, and I suspect it was possible on late versions with the long tailwheel - it was a ground clearance issue with bigger bombs, not a takeoff weight issue.

That is the kind of combo I want to prevent because it is ahistorical and a serious overload for the aircraft.In real life it would be a serious overload and would certainly put quite a dent into the aircraft's performance - no sane pilot would dare to fly that crate.

Dear Thor, it is you who think it`s 'ahistorical and a serious overload'. It could be easily demonstrated that you are wrong in this - this is not the place, or time for such - but basically you want to dictate what people should be able to fly, and what they cannont, and I am not 100% you have a solid base to decide over that.

I am not in favour of 'purist' players dictating 'casual' players what they can fly and cannot; he majority of the customers are not 'purist', nor for the matter of fact these 'purist' have the right idea always; often they only have just some strong-headedness. Not that historical accuracy should be sacrificed, not at all - it should be available to the server HOST as a tool to decide what equipment does he makes available, and to what extent (ie. no rare/experimental loadouts allowed, limited number of plane types that saw service in small numbers etc.)

I've written that down clearly in my previous post, it`s a pity you don`t bother to read them.

Now, if one would want to fly in a 'purist' enviroment, he is free to create his own server or join a server made for 'purist' players with full real settings. But others should able to select more casual simulation experience.

The limitations of the plane are written down in their manuals. The manuals are available.
It`s easy to sort out what can be fitted to each plane and what not.
It`s also irrelevant from the point of historical/technical accuracy, wheter you choose that from a pre-set list or 'build' your own loadout from given modules (bombs, rockets,etc).

The advantage of a modular ordonance system would be :

- ability to use any and all historical combinations, not limited by the amount of resources spent on it by the developer
- much simplier and less work for the developer on the long term
- and actually easy-to-use GUI, thinking ahead when we will have dozens of planes with hundreds of loadouts.

Overall, you completely miss the point and simply do not get what I propose.

Bottom line for me is - history (and not just tech trials at Rechlin - frontline availability and use count as much and even more!) must be the fundament for the technical details.

In theory it`s a fine idea. Question is, where do you stop? OK, you say the MK 108 was not available in big numbers until 1944 (in the big picture), so let`s not make it, a loadout, unavailable. OK, that`s fine.

Problem starts when you have to apply it to all others - eventually, there will be hundreds of loadouts, and dozens of flyable aircraft.

Will you do the historical research on availability for EACH and EVERY aircraft, bomb type and so on? How many FW 190s were available on June 1942? How many droptanks for them in September 1943? How many P-47s had paddle props in March 1944? How many gondolas were issued to Bf 109 units on November 1944? How many SC 1800 bombs dropped by Stukas in 1943/

You have any idea how difficult would that be?

In Il-2 there are a load of ahistorical and useless loadout selections (Mk 108 and Mk 103 gunpods) which were never issued to the front and therefore misplaced while others, historically relevant loadouts (can you say Pb-1 and Pb-2?) were omitted because of time and ressource issues of the developer.

You keep arguing that somehow choosing from a preset would guarantee historical accacy; YET the current loadouts, choosen from exactly that kind of preset are in many cases ahistorical.

And again, it has nothing to do how the loadout it selected; the adding of the MK 108 gondolas had nothing to do with how the loadout was selected; the lacking of Panzerblitz rockets have nothing to do how the loadout is selected. Historical accuracy has nothing to do how the loadout is selected.

It`s purely a practical question of GUI and development. This decision must be taken early, as later it is difficult to revise it.

Right now I see the system in Il-2 as technically fine - just the loaudout details need a revision.

Disagree. It may have been sufficient when it was developed and all it had to do as to select 1-2 bomb loadouts for available for a single plane. In the long term it won`t do, and it will burden the development team to spend it`s resources to far more important task.

It`s simply inflexible, limits your choices to those that could be done in a limited amount of time, and later there`s usually no big change - new developments taking away resources simply.. for how long do we lack vital loadouts for the 109F and others because of this??!!

The other thing in the GUI that would be definietely useful with over time is a FILTER function for PLANE SELECTION.

I.e. ability to show only FIGHTERs, BOMBERS, ATTACK aircraft etc; this combined with some advanced, multi-lever filtering (ALLIED + BOMBER + MID WAR for example).

Again, it`s not an issue yet, but it will be when there will be a lot of planes.