Friday 2010-10-22 Dev. update and Discussion

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by Sutts

I think you're missing the point here. Flying a heavy bomber mission was almost all about procedures. Without procedures there's very little else to keep your brain active.

Take away procedures and what are we left with:

1. Hit the start engines key
2. Ignore the gauges as they're boring and don't have any effect on anything anyhow
3. Firewall throttles and bounce into the air
4. Fly 2-4 hours in general direction of target
5. On approach to target, forget about the little boring details like wind speed, drift, altitude. Setting the bomb sight up would take procedures which are for nerds.
6. Push button to drop bombs over target
7. Turn around a go home for tea and medals


While I find it hard to accept that all those detailed add-on products for the MS series were produced for a "tiny" minority, I do agree that Oleg needs to focus on the things that matter to him.

I'm very happy to leave the extras to third parties and will gladly pay good money for their efforts. With all the research and coding already undertaken for individual aircraft, I should think existing third parties may be able to produce add-ons for SoW quite quickly.

I find it a shame that that the modern generation has such a short attention span that anything other than instant combat and glory is considered boring and therefore mocked. We mustn't forget that to the guys who actually flew these aircraft in combat, procedures (both on the ground and in the air) were everything...their lives really did depend on them.

From which modern game it is?
I think it isn't even from Il-2....

[Sutts]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

From which modern game it is?
I think it isn't even from Il-2....

Oleg, I was responding to the following comment by brando:

And that's only the drill for a single-engined fighter. Try sorting that for a twin-engined bomber + taxying to the line + waiting for the rest + taking off + climbing to a mimimum 10,000 feet over France + + picking up the escorts ...... something near an hour so far ...... and then the fun begins. Let's hope you didn't make some kind of mistake during the start-up procedure and need to abort your flight!

He is suggesting that the fun only starts once you get over enemy territory. I guess this kind of attitude is created by the constant adrenaline fueled online furballs. I think if you asked real aircrew you'd find that procedures were vital and because of these procedures, aircrew were kept very busy and were far from bored before they reached the enemy coast.

I think takeoff with a full bomb and fuel load was probably the most dangerous/exciting/terrifying time for an aircrew. Lose an engine on takeoff and you'll most likely die in a fireball. I'd like to feel the same tension on take off....if I take a short cut and skip the warm up or fail to check the vital signs of the engines then it really is quite serious.

I still feel strongly that combat is only part of the simulator experience and knowing your aircraft systems and limits is just as important as being good in a dog fight. There are still a large number of us who prefer the offline experience. Without the checks and procedures there's very little to keep the mind occupied until you meet the enemy.

I'm not criticising your decisions at all and as I've already pointed out in a previous post, by modelling the systems you've already given us the majority of what we need for a startup procedure anyhow.

What I am trying to counter is the view that a combat simulator is JUST about the combat.