Kill Flags/Markings

[BornToBattle]

Looked through here and couldn't find anything on it but thought I'd thrown it out there anyways...but kill marking on the aircraft. Bombers typically went with the stencil of a bomb per mission flown, fighters the flag/symbol of the nation downed plus special markings for ground targets killed, etc. I had made drawings of the planes my brother and I flew along with AH Luftwaffe board game (wow, I'm old) and we added the markings to the fuselage sides as we played. How times have changed.

 

Just a little graphical enhancement/eye candy for you and others to see if parked, particularly if nothing else for taking screen shots and establishing bragging rights. Naturally, it couldn't be easily hacked of course so therefore I believe this is something that would be implemented from 1C's side in an update. I know 1C and 777 have other things to worry about but just thought I'd bring it up for discussion anyways.

 

Cheers!

Jeff

Edited January 8, 2017 by BornToBattle

[Finkeren]

It's not possible unfortunately.

 

The game engine doesn't support decals of any kind. For the same reason we can't have individual aircraft letters or numbers as well as different styles of markings as was possible in the old IL-2 without creating unique skins for it.

[BornToBattle]

Ahhh...bummer. K, question answered though! Thanks!

[ShamrockOneFive]

Jason has heard us asking about the feature and you never know... It may show up sometime in the future. I'm sure the devs would like it as much as we would. Just takes time to develop.

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

It's not possible unfortunately.

 

The game engine doesn't support decals of any kind. For the same reason we can't have individual aircraft letters or numbers as well as different styles of markings as was possible in the old IL-2 without creating unique skins for it.

 

It doesn't support it because it hasn't been programmed to work that way.

 

I don't mind the current skin system but it adds a massive amount of overhead for squadrons and surely burdens the netcode in some way.

[IRRE_Centx]

While we speak about that!

 

 

 

Something which was always a mystery to me:

 

fighters the flag/symbol of the nation downed 

 

... except Soviets!

 

Anybody knows why VVS added Red Stars for air kills?

My first guess would be something related to propaganda purposes... but if anyone has an explanation/source?

[Beazil]

It would be cool to have those marks appear during missions and reset after a death. But of course, not possible atm.

[Finkeren]

It doesn't support it because it hasn't been programmed to work that way.

 

I don't mind the current skin system but it adds a massive amount of overhead for squadrons and surely burdens the netcode in some way.

I should rephrase: It's not impossible, but it'd require a significant rework of the game engine. It's not something that's easily done, as the OP seemed to think.

 

But who knows? Maybe DX11 will open a door for this as well? (IIRC performance issues was the main reason it wasn't done originally for Rise of Flight)

[curiousGamblerr]

surely burdens the netcode in some way.

 

I don't think so. Custom skins aren't sent over the wire. You can't see them unless you have a skin of the same name installed, otherwise you just see the default. The only thing send over the net is name of the skin, which is the case for Official skins as well. (This is my understanding after researching the issue with the ambitious idea of solving this problem)

 

On the topic at hand, the skin situation kind of stinks in this game, but it's a difficult problem to solve and I don't blame the devs not wanting to spend time on it at this point. They have been very conscious of feature creep given their small team, and this is a good thing for the long term health of the game.

 

Moreover, I think this would be tricky for multiplayer. We all play on different servers, with different settings, etc. so it could get complex very quickly. When do kills reset? What servers count? What about assists and joint kills (which were a thing historically)? Different players and squadrons will have different ideas about how it should all work and it will be one more thing for people to complain about.

 

For single player it would be easier, but honestly you could just do it yourself at that point with a custom skin. All you have to do is make the first decal, and after that's it's copy paste as you get kills while proceeding through Ten Days of Autumn or a procedural campaign. You could decide for yourself when it resets, etc. so everybody can have it exactly how they want. If the new ROF style campaign with BoK is good enough to pull me away from MP, I might do this myself and play Dead is Dead like I the old Red Baron days.

 

In short, it's a great idea so I hate to crap on OP's suggestion, but when it comes down to it I just don't think it's practical.

Edited January 9, 2017 by 19.GIAP//curiousGamblerr

[Scojo]

I should rephrase: It's not impossible, but it'd require a significant rework

 

 

So who wants to make a script that reads a mission file of some kind to search for number of victories and then opens up gimp, loads a plane template, adds flag/bomb .png's in certain locations for each victory, and then saves it to the game files location for custom skins?

Edited January 9, 2017 by 71st_AH_Scojo

[curiousGamblerr]

So who wants to make a script that reads a mission file of some kind to search for number of victories and then opens up gimp, loads a plane template, adds flag/bomb .png's in certain locations for each victory, and then saves it to the game files location for custom skins?

 

LOL 

 

I actually thought about this because Adobe has a scripting language. And then I decided I liked my sanity 

[[CPT]Pike*HarryM]

The other issue is that markings and their locations changed over time so to please the whiners you'd have an extremely convoluted and complex system if done 100% accurately.

@OP, I still have Luftwaffe! (used to play it with my brother in the 70s/80s) I tried to get my 15 year old to play it with me but he was not interested...

[BornToBattle]

The other issue is that markings and their locations changed over time so to please the whiners you'd have an extremely convoluted and complex system if done 100% accurately.

@OP, I still have Luftwaffe! (used to play it with my brother in the 70s/80s) I tried to get my 15 year old to play it with me but he was not interested...

Lol, too cool! I recall the day I bought it and brought it home. Opened it up and was just what I was expecting but my dad looked at it and says "Well, gee. I thought it came with little planes." Unphased in anticipated hundreds of games yet to be played I responded with something like "No dad, this is realistic." If only he could see what we devote our time to today. I sold off all but a couple of my games as when the PC really came into being it was pretty much the death nail for companies like AH and SPI. So your 15 year old didn't want to play? Lol. We are just a couple of old school simmers my friend! I love it. Too bad you don't live near Tucson.

 

As Finkeren mentioned in the thread, not as perhaps easy as I would have thought it to be but then too with the implementation of DX11 perhaps a shot? Then again, after reading the posts here (very much appreciate them all) seems more like a can of worms than anything.

Edited January 9, 2017 by BornToBattle

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

So who wants to make a script that reads a mission file of some kind to search for number of victories and then opens up gimp, loads a plane template, adds flag/bomb .png's in certain locations for each victory, and then saves it to the game files location for custom skins?

 

That's not what I'm implying at all.

 

Also, I don't really care about kill markings but tactical markings are entirely handicapped by the current system.

 

How do you guys manage professionally if you intentionally go out of your way to over-engineer a solution to a simple issue..? Or maybe you work in management.

[Scojo]

That's not what I'm implying at all.

 

Also, I don't really care about kill markings but tactical markings are entirely handicapped by the current system.

 

How do you guys manage professionally if you intentionally go out of your way to over-engineer a solution to a simple issue..? Or maybe you work in management.

I wasn't saying you were implying that....

 

It was a joke.... The ridiculous over-engineering of that solution was literally THE JOKE..... No need to insult people

Edited January 9, 2017 by 71st_AH_Scojo