4.13 development update discussion and feedback

[Oscarito]

Originally Posted by Asheshouse

The curved roads which appear in some of the images will not permit automatic route tracking in FMB, but they do look much better than the stock linear roads.

Good point. The "angled" roads hurt the landscapes IMHO.
If I could choose I would prefer only curved roads in all maps, like those in the pics.
Of course it is necessary to add more waypoints since automatic route tracking is out of question but even so the game would have a better looking...

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by Oscarito

Good point. The "angled" roads hurt the landscapes IMHO.
If I could choose I would prefer only curved roads in all maps, like those in the pics.
Of course it is necessary to add more waypoints since automatic route tracking is out of question but even so the game would have a better looking...

And what about campaign generators like DCG or DGen? There are waypoint number limitations per section IIRC. Good-looking roads would be pure eye-candy if no vehicles used them.

[Wolkenbeisser]

Any word on the new P-40's? I hope there aren't any problems with the new models, I really hope, they are coming, because I plan to use them in my solomon-campaign.

Btw: Early P-40's lost the tailwheel lock within one of the last patches - intention?

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Wolkenbeisser

Any word on the new P-40's? I hope there aren't any problems with the new models, I really hope, they are coming, because I plan to use them in my solomon-campaign.

Btw: Early P-40's lost the tailwheel lock within one of the last patches - intention?

Noted in testing and yes this was intentional. The P-40 had a steerable tailwheel rather than a lockable one. Its not fully modelled but the P-40 does seem to have an easier time of it on the ground than many... so there may be a halfway measure in there somewhere.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by sniperton

And what about campaign generators like DCG or DGen? There are waypoint number limitations per section IIRC. Good-looking roads would be pure eye-candy if no vehicles used them.

A possibility would be to change the way that ground vehicles turn in IL2, so that rather than pivoting, vehicles make turns that follow an arc. Then, each curved road section in the game could be given the same arc of distance as a vehicle is programmed to follow during its turn maneuver. No only would this allow nicer looking roads, it would also make for more realistic looking vehicle movement.

Another possibility might be to program vehicle movement so when ordered to follow roads or railroads, they will follow a particular color "painted" on the map, or to follow roads according to map c (or whatever map layer is used to lay out roads). Likewise, boats could be ordered to follow rivers or coastlines using the same routine.

But that might be very heavy on CPU resources if you have lots of vehicles in the game, since each vehicle would have to check map c as it moves then calculate the angle it must turn to follow a particular road.

This option would also potentially negate the need for waypoints when following roads, except to make a vehicle stop or to go in a certain direction when two or more roads meet.

[ElAurens]

Guys, Guys, Guys,

Much of what you are asking for in these very complicated "wants" would mean a complete rewrite of the game engine, in essence a completely new sim.

Do you not understand that IL2 is very very old already and we are lucky to have a very talented group of volunteers who manage in their spare time to keep this old girl alive a little bit longer?

Some of the things I see you asking for are just outside the scope of a volunteer team who do this for the love of it.

I count my lucky stars every morning when I check the forum that it is still here at all, what with the publisher actively supporting a new sim that is meant to replace IL2/46 and CloD, and actually make money for them.

Be thankful for what you have.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

Guys, Guys, Guys,

Much of what you are asking for in these very complicated "wants" would mean a complete rewrite of the game engine, in essence a completely new sim.

Copy that

[150GCT_Italo]

How about possibility to fly in co-pilot for school? Bombers apart, there will be a/some dedicated aircraft (Tiger Moth, Texan, etc.) with this dual-seat capabilities?
Should be wonderful and could fix a lack coming from firs release.
Thx 4 your work

[Treetop64]

All this talk about traffic on curved roads in this game is nice and all, but...

When the game was first in development - or any game simulating a physical environment, for that matter - the environment, or world, was created as a platform with certain rules that all objects within it has to follow. How everything moves in the environment is dictated by rules formulated by the mathematical framework of that environment. IL-2s linear road traffic is one of the manifestations of that.

If one wants to go in and reinvent how road traffic moves in the game, he must go in and rewrite how that part of the environmental framework is built and how it functions, including all mathematical functions associated with the change (the "rules"). In other words, it isn't simply a matter of just telling traffic to follow curves or a color, instead of straight lines, as has been mentioned, but actually rebuilding the environment that allows for road traffic to follow curves.

As can be imagined, it would be a disproportionately large and complex task for such relatively minor effect, and one that carries prohibitive risk since making such a fundamental "core" change introduces the chance of unintentionally altering other parts of object interaction with the environment. Also, it also involves yet another instance of having to go in and change someone else's code, potentially without notes or guidance, and this is something that most coders try to avoid if they can...

Considering it's age, the current road system, while it's not aesthetically perfect, works well. If efforts are made to change how it works then it would obviously be more efficient to just increase way-point and road data resolution to something finer than the - IIRC - 200 meter minimum that the current environment enforces. If doing that risks breaking the world, though, it is probably better to leave it alone and work with what you have.