Non Friday 2010-04-15 Development Update :)

[Insuber]

Originally Posted by constant

You need to read my original post, which describes a situation that IL2 does not provide.
BTW I have over 1,000 flights in IL2 averaging 45minutes each.

Gee I admire people keeping a flight record... or it's just an estimate?

[Abbeville-Boy]

you guys should take the arguments to PM or go to the zoo to duke it out

[Novotny]

This is the new zoo, unfortunately.

[Blackdog_kt]

First of all, terrific set of animations in this update. Thanks Oleg and team.

Originally Posted by kendo65

I think this is a good idea - if we don't model the entire universe then navigation in nighttime bomber missions will be farcical and silly.

Oleg should model all the stars and constellations out to 40 million light years, and adjust the pilot's viewpoint based on latitude / longitude.

Anything else is a total cop-out.

It's not that far fetched, since stars are so far away they deviate from their paths only by a few fractions of a degree per year. It's been already done in Silent Hunter 3 back in the day and the night sky changes as the time passes.

It's not entirely essential, but it's a nice backup in case your compass gets damaged on a night raid, you would be able to navigate back to friendly airspace by using the stars. In real life there were sextants used to take accurate measurements and some hardcore SH3 fans used to navigate by stars, but the combination of radio navigation aids and smaller maps in a flight sim might make this redundant.

In any case, you don't need the entire universe because it's not visible from our night sky. The simplest way to have an accurate rendition would be to have a moving set of the major constellations, maybe add the most visible nebulas too, and superimpose them on a static backdrop/wallpaper of night sky. This way, the amount of objects is reduced sufficiently while still allowing for recognition of constellations and navigation by stars. Movement is also very simple, it all rotates around the north (or south, depending on your hemisphere) opposite to the earth's rotation as the hours pass, it's nothing fancy really.

Originally Posted by whatnot

This is a flight sim, not a parachute sim so that should be definately left out of the agenda and put that time on FM and DM.

Well, if it was something big and totally unnecessary i might agree, but it's just an extra keymap with a trigger. Not much time to save for FM and DM, since coding the "parachute open" command is about as much work as coding the "landing gear down" command.

It's just a separate keypress and it will enable people online to fall below the action before pulling the chord, with all the added benefits it brings: less chance of getting shot while hanging from your chute, less chance of having to fly through others' chutes or get lagged by them as well.

Originally Posted by lbuchele

The good news is:Oleg is working in the details of the game,a sure signal that the main part is already done.
I believe that if you really want a new and revolutionary game, the answer will be in the details.

I think i'm going to go ahead and agree with this

[Novotny]

Cool post - though for God's sake! Stop trying to increase the bloody workload!

I think the navigation thoughts are really sweet, though it seems pretty 'mod' or 'add-on' to me.

Also, press to bail (ctrl&e) but then a further key to deploy parachute - excellent idea.

Isn't it nice to hear realistic suggestions?

[BadAim]

Considering that Oleg had one guy working on just air currents and such inside clouds for two years, I'd find it hard to believe that the stars would not be accurate enough to navigate by already.

It's amazing to what extremes opinion on various aspects of the game go to. It makes me appreciate Oleg's level headed approach to development all the more.

[Novotny]

I could be wrong BadAim, however I think it's likely that if he had a programmer working on air currents and clouds for two years, it wasn't exclusively. If that made sense, then he'd have many individuals similarly employed in all others aspects of similar import: in short, there'd be dozens and dozens of specialists working on many aspects - all being well paid!

As ever: resources, resources resources.

I'm sure the area was looked at for the time mentioned - Oleg wouldn't fib. I just doubt that he meant that dedicated programmer(s) were on it for 24 months full-time, to the exclusion of all else.

[constant]

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

LOL, does that mean that soon you will be able to fly for a civilian airline

Hopefully, once ww2 is over I plan to do some commercial flying for one of those newer companies I heard about. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Originally Posted by Insuber

Gee I admire people keeping a flight record... or it's just an estimate?

That is actually an estimate, but I do save the records created by IL2 (DCG) for my completed campaigns where each missions time is kept. It's nice to revisit old missions from a logbook.

---

Thanks for joking over my point guys. It's coo..

---

Flight sims don't do "more" over "other" games. AI is AI, Terrain is terrain, objects are objects, etc.

Consider Oblivion, or Fallout 3. Games with weather systems. (And stars of some sort..)

It's really not a question of can it be done, it's simply will it be done. For the most part I believe companies try to avoid fine-tuning and feature adding because of the Duke Nukem Forever (r.i.p.) scenario. True perfection is a bad thing.

[TheGrunch]

Originally Posted by constant

Flight sims don't do "more" over "other" games. AI is AI, Terrain is terrain, objects are objects, etc.

Consider Oblivion, or Fallout 3. Games with weather systems. (And stars of some sort..)

I think that's rather the point - all of those games have benefited heavily from having an excess of RAM compared to more shallow games, which was what we were discussing. In any case, how do you think the physics systems of FPS games compare with contemporary flight-sims, generally? How much do you think the AI of such a game needs to consider compared to that of a flight-sim? The AI in Oblivion and Fallout 3 is an absolute joke, and the promise of Radiant AI never came about, the AI in Oblivion and Fallout from the player's point of view is exactly the same as that of Morrowind - essentially "start combat if you steal my stuff, hit me or I hate you enough and have a high enough aggression number, run for help if you hurt me too much" - with the exception that people are to be found in different locations at different times of day and that they can pick up weapons from the floor if they feel like it.
I don't really see what weather systems have to do with it, either. The weather system in Oblivion and Fallout is simple (I don't know how much modding you've done of those two games), all that happens is that each exterior cell in the overall game grid is assigned to a region, and that region has a particular percentage chance of each weather type assigned happening when the weather changes every few hours after what amounts to a dice roll that chooses the weather. It's not really a weather system as such.
As for stars, it's simply a series of domes with different textures applied with varying transparency that rotate depending upon the season/time of day/etc. No atmospheric modelling as we see in the screenshots Oleg showed of the Stuka at various times of day.
The point is, both these games needed huge amounts of RAM and powerful CPUs to run well at high settings at release, even with such simple AI and weather systems and so on. Comparing flight-sims to FPSes, even in Il-2 we require some fairly complicated modeling of aerodynamics and ballistics occurring essentially non-stop (although realism in ballistics is usually attempted in FPSes nowadays, it doesn't have to take such account of factors as relative wind), we need to have an AI that can effectively fly an aircraft without a) exceeding critical angles of attack constantly b) flying past the physical limits of the pilot (the AI are limited to 4G maneuvers, I think) and c) that understands how to effectively maneuver to a good firing solution given the capabilities of the aircraft it's flying and the position and capabilities of the opponent. Compare this to the average 2010 FPS AI and we're already talking about a more demanding AI in the 2005 4.01 incarnation of Il-2, never mind SoW. And crucially, given the focus of the next game on the Battle of Britain, Oleg and team are almost certainly aiming to have the game running reasonably on medium settings with a lot of aircraft on screen at once, after all the Battle of Britain was primarily about small groups of fighters intercepting large groups of bombers and fighters. How many FPSes do you see with more than a handful of people on-screen at once nowadays? The only FPS games that approach flight-sims in terms of difficulty of implementation would be tactical shooters (lots of fairly complicated decision-making AI and a basic physics engine), and how many of those often have lots of people on the screen? Only one that I can think of, ARMA 2, and that devours PCs even on medium settings.
So yeah, no wonder there are only a few flight-sim developers left, and thank God they have the dedication to work within such a difficult genre.

[constant]

Eheh, you make alot of really good points, if I was gonna quote you it would be the whole post You're not wrong especially when it comes to first person shooters eating computers alive these days!

However the level of difficulty for creation of the game types is still the same.

Physics is physics no matter how you roll the dice, its the implemented design that brings you flaws and limitations, not the type of game. I've used physics libraries that are powerful and fast and can be used for any game type. Aerodynamics is something else on its own, but with programming its not any different than say the basic ai: "if this occurs, do this".

Speaking of AI. FPS games do have really sad AI. Any AI is difficult. But the truth is in il2 the AI is the same as in FPS games. When I had the chance to peak at the AI code for IL2, I was amazed at how simplistic it was. I also saw code that seemed to give AI an unlimited and unreleastic "afterburner" (I believe that is exactly what they called it in the code, too)

Simplistic is not wrong, especially when it comes to programming, its always the best solution if its simple. But the AI you talk about and that actually exists are far from each other, flight sim or first person shooter.

The truth: The AI basically have pre-programmed flight manuevers and "characteristics" that are "executed" whenever a given situation exists, it is not "greater" than any fps AI, it's the same thing actually.

This is why the AI can go all wonky or do nothing at all independant of skill level, because they get caught in a situation not pre-programmed.

I was also surprised (but not completely..) to see in the code that the AI always were given the player's exact speed, location and altitude and maybe some other stuff as well, for all levels of ai skill (rookie, average, veteran, ace).

And if you watch the AI land, you can clearly see they are not actually "flying" like you and I would be flying.

FPS AI does the same thing. They get pre-programmed things to do in certain situations, but of course, and more common these days, they don't receive enough programming and therefore lack the neccessary reactions for many situations they run into.

FPS games these days are sad, focusing only on fancy shader/graphic technology, slamming the gpu with wasted effort just to put out a mediocre (or less) game that looks "pretty".

AI has not evolved much in games, no matter what type it is.

Don't get me wrong, AI is not easy, but again, the AI you talk about and the AI that actually exists are not the same.

I should wrap this up, so again, my point is the same. What it really comes down to is the game company and how well they pay their programmers.

I'm an atheist but Thank god 1c maddox is on il2 and sow

Also for an example of a non-pc killer fps game, check out Darkest Of Days was a history channel game, it uses a good physics engine, and for the most part has lots n lots of enemy on screen (and friendlies sometimes too) Of course the game isn't that great, but fighting off 100 or so enemies with a musket and a six shooter is ALWAYS fun. I run that baby on a CELERON (worst of them all!) 2.4ghz oc'd 2.9, 1.5 gig mem, geforce 850 or something like that, i forgot its model name, anyway, the same system i run il2 on and il2 still has comparable trouble with more than 8 planes. (not to mention ground units) and I've tweaked il2 as far as I can. Anyway.. time to switch class!