Civilians?

[Borsch]

Even simply civilian truck/cars/buses would be good - empty roads are immersion killer. Running for cover pedestrians would be icing on the cake...

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Borsch

Even simply civilian truck/cars/buses would be good -..

this is being modeled already. there are london double decker buses following a programmed bus route, and are even able to stop at buss stops iirc. civilian cars driving around can even park themselves. i havnt seen oleg mention it, but i presume this will also include some civilian trucks

i suspect initially this will be introduced in a limited form (low on cpu/gpu drain), but it is designed to increase in volume/complexity later

one element i hope he is including, and i believe he is ( might not be 100% visually modeled from the start, but all signs are it is incorporated in the engine), is that we will actually see supply trains and supply truck convoys carry logistical supplies for airfields and combat units at the front. if you interrupt or destroy those supplies sufficiently you will be able to affect the performance ability of the troops/airfields (in the same way that destroying fuel dumps at an airfield makes that airfield low on fuel supplies till new deliveries arrive). destroying bridges/roads will similarly affect new deliveries (with some predetermined "repair rates" added).

mig alley already had that idea implemented in some limited form 10 yrs ago, getting a more modern version of the same idea in BoB would be great !

[Borsch]

Sounds awesome! Keeping fingers crossed it actually happens

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Borsch

Sounds awesome! Keeping fingers crossed it actually happens

this is one snip of info oleg previously provided to related questions (there are many related bits he released over the last few years on this)

the question to him was (in this forum):

2) will there be civilian road and rail traffic in BoB ?
- right now in il2 when you see a truck or car on the road it is always military (even the bicycles), same with the trains they are always a military target. if we have some civilian road traffic (few buses and cars maybe doing a programmed "loop" journey) and trains in england (and they existed in ww2 period) then points could be deducted for destroying innocent civilian objects, and that means we need to correctly identify a target before engaging it, not just shoot at anything that moves !

oleg's answer

2. It is possible. Probably we will minimize it in release, becasue of hit to resources, but in general Buses already now can travel by their own trajectory in a city and make stops as well cars will try to find place for parking in a end "waypoint". It is working already. Just would repeat the amount of such action probably we will need to minimize due to resource eater feature. But for Editor we will offere to use it for enduser to modify scenery, etc...

[zapatista]

some more snips along a similar vein (the greater plan for BoB)

question:

99) Oleg I have seen that models of planes and vehicles have hinges that can be manipulated. Is this also a feature that the player will be allowed to use? Like opening hatches on a tankturret or opening the cockpit of a fighterplane?
And will this feature also be applied to human figures? So the player will be able to position the arms and such of the body?

oleg's answer

From the beginning we are making all things openable... I dopn't know how many of these features will go in final reelase... but as with Il-2 this means we will modify the code that to use the BASE input at initial development. With the release we will have AA-guns controlbale by player... this is intersting for Online, but it will also works in a single missions, if you only like to create such.

And as I told... the code will be partially open in terms of modification with the use out of normal fixed parameters and code servers...

In time I think we may see even U-boat controlable The water is transparent in engine.

[SlipBall]

I had a favorite mission that I had made in IL2. It was a ground based mission that had 50 vehicles on the road. They were jeeps, buses, fuel trucks all on the roads as singles, through out the scope of the map. My machine seemed to handle it well, but I had a hell of time finding many of those moving possible target's. Its a big map, with lots of roads and eyestrain, looking and searching non stop. But when one was found, it sure was fun to make an ID with a low pass, and if one of ours I would tip my wings and move on. If Oleg could offer human figures in the objects list, I think it would add a lot to the map, while not causing too big of a PC hit. The vehicles could always be just added by the mission designer.

[artjunky]

I think it was about 4 or 5 years ago that I brought this up last time...it seems to have a better reaction this time.

To add to what others said, having no life in the game is a killer and with how beautifully this sim looks, it's too bad that it's not complete.

I've heard Oleg's remarks about the buses and I'm TOTALLY for keeping the number of "civilians" to a minimum. Of course it would be great if they were actually 3d with natural movement on paths like the buses but even if the are stationary, I think that would work pretty well.

I also think humans would help put things into better scale. When flying over cities, at times, the buildings seem somewhat out of scale and to have people near them, it might make it more natural.

I would really like having people out on farms.

It would also be interesting to be able to build columns of refugees leaving battle areas. Of course, in WWII Concentration camps put people on Death marches and it might be interesting to be forced, as a pilot, to pay attention to details and not just shoot everything on the roads.

Again, I keep coming back to the using civilians to make it a more interesting by creating an incentive NOT to kill civilians.

I've been reading "The Monuments Men." It's a historical book about the Soldiers who were put into action to guard the irreplaceable monuments and artwork of Europe. As The Allied Soldiers move in through Europe, the Germans were moving artwork out of France and then through Germany. There was actually a Burt Lancaster movie called "The Train," that followed part of this story. In this case, it was a train and the French underground (in the movie) painted the top of the cars with artwork, white so as to warn the Allied bombers.

Anyways, I think it would be VERY interesting to set up scenarios like this.

Oleg, please make this available.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

I had a favorite mission that I had made in IL2. It was a ground based mission that had 50 vehicles on the road. They were jeeps, buses, fuel trucks all on the roads as singles, through out the scope of the map. My machine seemed to handle it well, but I had a hell of time finding many of those moving possible target's. Its a big map, with lots of roads and eyestrain, looking and searching non stop. But when one was found, it sure was fun to make an ID with a low pass, and if one of ours I would tip my wings and move on. If Oleg could offer human figures in the objects list, I think it would add a lot to the map, while not causing too big of a PC hit. The vehicles could always be just added by the mission designer.

exactemundo !

there are several problems with the current empty and dead il2 world we have now, and by the sounds of it oleg recognizes this to and is in the process of addressing both elements

1) for the lifeless empty world of il2, oleg is now adding "life"
- some animals will be added as static objects and have been confirmed (? cows, horses, sheep in fields ?). and some bird groups/flocks will fly around and exist as "objects" you might hit (bird strike)
- i hope this will include some further objects like tractors moving around in fields, some civilian cars/trucks/bicycles on roads (driving a preset trajectory or loop probably). civilian ships on the water to, fishing boats have been seen in screen shots already.
- airfields will have a certain amount of AI ground activity now, probably jeeps and trucks driving around. ambulances and fire crews responding to damaged aircraft landing is likely. refuel and rearming on the ground will get some sort of animated ground crews

2) the other aspect is having to identify ground targets before you engage them, so it isnt the current "shoot anything that moves".
- even over enemy territory there should be civilian traffic, and penalties for hitting them (even some civilian air traffic ?)

about having individuals modeled and function in an animated form, we already had the single cyclist modeled in il2, having more of this type of single human action should be a logical progression for BoB (farmer in field, a pedestrian walking around in town, single mechanic/technician/pilot walking around the airfield, civilian cyclist on road ?). the articulated skeleton oleg developed for pilot and aircrew could be adapted to function in that role i presume (maybe in a lower detail mode, like the ships/vehicles are lower detail then the high polygon aircraft.
- i havnt seen oleg post much about it so far (other then as human animations he is planning on for refueling/rearming etc), but if it is possible in the new engine and he adds a few "active" objects like this, then it can be added on or expanded on later (3e parties being able to develop this further ?)
- modeling groups of individual humans marching/moving will probably be the most difficult from a technical point for programmers and seems unlikely for a while. like troops marching on their way to the front, columns of prisoners, roads clogged with refugees, etc .. and would be the most cpu/gpu hogging.

what i am hoping for in BoB, and there are direct confirmations that oleg is adding several of these elements already, is to get a living breathing active world to have our air war in.

to take this one step further, i am hoping we will also be able to fly some transport and resupply missions in unarmed or even civilian planes (mail, parts, troop transport etc). i initially this might be missions like flying supplies into Stalingrad for the germans, air dropping some allied supplies to the french resistance at night at a specific grid position (with points obtained depending on accuracy), picking up downed pilots from french fields, etc.. other missions might be flying photo reconnaissance over enemy lines etc

hopefully eventually the dynamic campaign engine will be able to "task" missions like that in the same way that combat missions are available for fighters and bombers.

[ChrisDNT]

The problem is that if you include objects like that there will be a certain percentage of people that will target them out of preference. It would also lead to vartiey of tasteless video's and movie sequences.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Simple, to avoid the legal actions of the PC police, just make the civilian objects not destroyable.

[zauii]

Originally Posted by ChrisDNT

The problem is that if you include objects like that there will be a certain percentage of people that will target them out of preference. It would also lead to vartiey of tasteless video's and movie sequences.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Simple, to avoid the legal actions of the PC police, just make the civilian objects not destroyable.

I doubt that there would be any controversy surrounding SoW BoB at all. We're talking a flight sim here which means no gore, which is usually the number one thing people complain about if it involves civilians.

Secondly as long as you're not tasked with killing civilians on purpose i see no problem at all, the PC police has enough to do with games like GTA and even there Jack Thompson and his fellow babies failed. This is the least of issues Oleg has.

Then there are some folks around here that think this Flight sim is gonna be the new multi verse simulator, maybe it's time to wake up...or someone is gonna get disappointed at launch..