Small Number of Aircraft On Screen

[Porkins]

I'm really enjoying BoS, and I was aware before purchasing it that there was a limitation on the number of aircraft they can render at once in the game. That said, I am curious as to why this is the case. I recall playing IL-2 Birds of Prey on the Xbox 360 and the game was able to put seemingly several dozen planes in the sky at once, and it ran beautifully. Now I'm playing BoS 4 years later on a computer much more powerful than a PS4 and the game can only put up 8 or so planes at a time.

 

Where is the bottleneck? Is it because they are also rendering a lot of ground action at the same time? The complexity of the flight modeling? Or is it the AI? I will admit that I find the enemy AI in BoS to be excellent. In Birds of Prey it seemed like the AI just kind of flew around in circles waiting to be shot down. BoS AI is much better, which makes me wonder if it has to do with more complex AI. 

 

Most importantly, is there any chance the plane count will be able to increase in the current engine? 

Edited January 19, 2016 by Porkins

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Increased AI and flight model quality which leads to much more intense CPU loads to calculate everything properly.

 

There are plans to optimise this

[Jade_Monkey]

Hopefully it's an engine upgrade and not just an optimization.

 

Optimization sounds like they will remove or downgrade things to make the game run smoothly. I know it's not always the case but it has happened before.

[Dakpilot]

AI use same FM/atmosphere laws as the player, this is different  than all other sims which use scripted or simplified FM for AI, this is why it is more CPU demanding, the FM is also quite a lot more complex than older sims

 

depending on your outlook this is either a very good or bad design choice 

 

(Personally) the fact that the AI have same constraints/limits as player I think is is a very good thing, and a huge upgrade from occasional unrealistic maneuvers and speeds the AI could do in old IL-2 

 

As equipment gets better it will be less of a strain and as AI logic improves it will be the best option to have taken

 

However this comes with the caveat of poorer performance with many aircraft and the need to be a 'tactical' flight sim, the 'collidable' DM trees also take their toll on overall CPU performance

 

there has been talk from devs on ways to improve performance with larger numbers of aircraft, can only wait and see what happens this year...so (maybe) some hope

 

Cheers Dakpilot 

[Porkins]

AI use same FM/atmosphere laws as the player, this is different  than all other sims which use scripted or simplified FM for AI, this is why it is more CPU demanding, the FM is also quite a lot more complex than older sims

 

depending on your outlook this is either a very good or bad design choice 

 

(Personally) the fact that the AI have same constraints/limits as player I think is is a very good thing, and a huge upgrade from occasional unrealistic maneuvers and speeds the AI could do in old IL-2 

 

As equipment gets better it will be less of a strain and as AI logic improves it will be the best option to have taken

 

However this comes with the caveat of poorer performance with many aircraft and the need to be a 'tactical' flight sim, the 'collidable' DM trees also take their toll on overall CPU performance

 

there has been talk from devs on ways to improve performance with larger numbers of aircraft, can only wait and see what happens this year...so (maybe) some hope

 

Cheers Dakpilot 

Thanks for the response, very informative! While I want more planes in the air, I do feel like the design decision to go with better AI/flight model at the expense of numbers was a good one. I find the enemy AI much more interesting to fly against than any other flight sim I've played. As I posted above, it is loads more interesting than what I saw in Birds of Prey. As someone new to the game I am playing against "normal" AI, and I find it plenty challenging.