128 planes online...same for offline play?

[Bobb4]

Originally Posted by Heliocon

I am sure there will be many more offline. Online its not a computer issue but a server side issue with managment and ping. If one person has a network hiccupt it ripples to everyone else, due to this the more you add the harder it is to get smooth gameplay. Also the more players, the closer the server has to be on average to the players to reduce the ping.

But offline those dont apply.

We have heard nothing about how the game handles online or offline (lan in this case I believe) so making a sweeping statement about the network is pointless.
If we are talking about offline as player vs ai then it will all depend on your CPU and ram. Chances are you will be playing a lot less than 128 enemies offline in that case.
BOB2 handles this problem by creating bubbles of planes that flew as a single entity until the player reach a certain range and then slowly activated individual planes to the proper ai as an if required. I know this is a rather simplistic explanation. But the same applies to RoF which only activates ai within 10km of the pilot I believe. Again a rather symplistic view.
What is awesome is the 128 player online straight-off the bat. This can only mean many, many more as we go into the future.

As for distance from the server, that is not the factor, quality of ping is. And your bandwidth as well.
If the network is a reworked il2 code then everything is controled on your computer with the dedicated server used as a conduit of information to and from each player.
This allowed for pings of 400 plus to be still playable.

The downside is the more you add ai the more unstable it becomes.