Are proper trainbusting effects possible?

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by RPS69

You know, lots of this things were done so as to no generate lag on online playing, so that trains start being drawn a bit too near so as to minimize overtaxing the internet traffic.

Fair enough, but there has been a reworking of smoke & fire effects to maximize realism while reducing CPU load. Could the same thing be applied to ground targets?

The reason I asked as to whether it is possible for IL2 to improve the train effects is because currently the number of smoke & flame effects available in the game is quite limited.

A new effect would have to be added to get the "boiler explosion" effect. (But, as a bonus it could also be used to simulate a burst boiler effect on steam-powered ships and boats.)

The big plume of black smoke produced by a coal-fired steam engine could easily use the current "engine damage" smoke texture, if it doesn't already. That's already optimized for frame rates.

Originally Posted by RPS69

Oleg will always answer, this is a flight sim, not a tank sim.

I agree with Oleg's general philosophy, but even in a game where ground vehicles and ships are targets, you have to model their behavior accurately enough aircraft can hunt them in a realistic fashion.

Due to the smoke and steam they produced, steam locomotives were visible from miles away. At night, they could be detected at a distance when the firebox was opened, or more rarely, if the coal produced embers which flew out of the chimney.

That, plus the fact that they were limited to railroad tracks, made it easy for pilots to hunt them when they were on the move.