will the new career mode kill scripted campaigns?

[ICDP]

You haven't done much actual military flying (or flying in general) have you?

 

Deviating from the flight plan does NOT have happy endings. Particularly in a combined arms situation where everyone involved is expecting a certain unit from a certain direction and altitude at a certain time... In the real world, failure to stick to the plan has had catastrophic consequences. The ground forces moved a little early and managed to overwhelm the target area before air support showed up? Well, looks like the attackers are gonna bomb some friends today (And before you call BS, this was a legitimate problem on the Eastern Front). You decided that approaching from 055 was too predictable, so you came in from 330 instead? Well, that 16 year old AA gunner who has only been on the front for two days just sees dots coming from NOT the direction friends are, so he opens up on you...

 

You wanna fly anywhere, anytime, just because you feel like it? FSX might be more your speed.

 

Now, I DO agree, that a good dynamic campaign will have the war keep going even if you failed the mission with consequences. That would be a lot of fun, but the issue there is, how do you code for that? Because now, we're completely off book, and Russia might lose the war, certain aircraft and upgrades are no longer available... there become a LOT of variables to plan for.

 

I never said if we fly off in a random direction on purpose, though doing so does highlight what's wrong with scripted missions.  You kind of made my point for me because in real war if you lose your bearings or get caught up in bad weather, the ending for you could be fatal.  In most scripted missions there is nothing but an empty map and anything you do outside the designers "mission" means absolutely nothing.

 

For example, one of the scripted campaigns I played.  I took off with my wingman and we encountered a flight of He111's on route.  I attacked shooting down 2 of them and I rammed another forcing me to bail out.  I landed in my parachute just inside friendly lines but all I got when I hit end mission was brought back to the briefing page again.  As far as the "campaign" was concerned my flight didn't happen, I was just dumped right back to mission briefing before take-off.  Scripted campaigns do nothing for me, I'm entitled to that opinion same as those who feel they are the epitome of flight sim SP nirvana.

[Gambit21]

Please don't fall into the trap of thinking that because your points are being respectfully challenged, that your right to your opinion is also being challenged. Not the case at all.

[ICDP]

Those MP fronts are painfully simplistic compared to what we're asking of an SP campaign. An SP campaign that sees a frontline moved 20 miles because 10 tanks, 1 train, and 8 artillery positions were destroyed is bit laughable. If you want a proper scaled campaign, truly dynamic, each bridge you blow up means that the entire rest of the campaign now changes, because the computer must reroute the attacking force to another crossing. What if there are no other crossings? I'm not saying it's IMPOSSIBLE, but it's a LOT to expect for something of this scale. 

 

As for the deviating of flight plans, you're right, deviating has no punishment. It should. Leave the flight plan, get shot for cowardice. Then you can't complain about there not being enough to see off of the main route anyway.

 

I'm sorry but such dynamic campaigns had existed for decades in the FS scene.

 

Falcon 4 1998

EF2000 1995

F-22 Total Air War 1998

Digital Integration's Tornado from 1993

Rowan's Mig Alley 1999

Rowan's Battle of Britain 2000

 

The fact this was being done on PCs from over 20 years ago negates any argument that current PC hardware is simply not up to the job.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

It's convenient to mention that neither simulator mentioned required as much work to code flight models or design objects as this one, and that Falcon's dynamic campaign engine took so long and cost so much to develop that the studio behind had to close.

[ICDP]

It's convenient to mention that neither simulator mentioned required as much work to code flight models or design objects as this one, and that Falcon's dynamic campaign engine took so long and cost so much to develop that the studio behind had to close.

 

Do you think this is a strawman argument?  The point is it was possible to do convincing dynamic campaigns on 25 year old tech, so the argument that PCs are not powerful enough is inaccurate.  Some of the games I listed were from the same developers, so the idea that creating a dynamic campaign = bankrupt is invalid.  I would argue that those who develop the FM are not the same ones who develop the campaigns, or the ones who do the 3d modelling and or texture work etc.

 

DID made EF2000 and F-22 TAW within a few years of each other.  If there was no money in flight sims at that time they would not have done so.

Similarly Rowan made Mig Alley and Battle of Britain a year apart.

 

Rowan did go bankrupt but it was more because they were a pure sim developer and games development moved on.  Flightsims had a golden era around mid 90's to 2000.  After that they just dropped in popularity and that was the demise of most pure flight sim developers, not the fact they made a dynamic campaign.

Edited August 3, 2017 by ICDP

[Gambit21]

I used to build missions/campaigns in Falcon 4.0, and flew the dynamic campaign. The level of immersion in those missions was laughably poor compared to what is possible with this editor.

 

So the front line moved all by itself since last mission and a new mission was generated for me with no life on the base, no vehicles moving about and no other flights taking off - color me not blown away by what that lends to my experience.

[Nicolaas5000]

As a sworn SP proponent, I play them all, campaign, QMthingy, PWCG, scripted campaigns. I do really enjoy the immersion level on most of the scripted campaigns and I think it is just "Blazing Steppe" then I have them all, free or not!! The coming campaign mode will obviously take up some time in the first few months but I will dare to say that a lot of single players fly everything so eventually the scripted campaigns get their well deserved attention.....well now as for the Blazing Steppe, only a matter of time !!!

[sniperton]

Lowengrin's Dynamic Campaign Generator for Il-2 1946 is one of the reasons why many people (including me) still fly the old title. For SP guys it's priceless, it's truly dynamic, it tracks plane losses and damage made to objects, it has a supply system, which can be crippled by bombing depots and columns, and anything you do has an impact on how the ground war goes on.

[ICDP]

I used to build missions/campaigns in Falcon 4.0, and flew the dynamic campaign. The level of immersion in those missions was laughably poor compared to what is possible with this editor.

 

So the front line moved all by itself since last mission and a new mission was generated for me with no life on the base, no vehicles moving about and no other flights taking off - color me not blown away by what that lends to my experience.

 

Genuine question, are you claiming it would be impossible to have airfields dynamically populated in a dynamic campaign using today's tech?

Edited August 3, 2017 by ICDP

[SYN_Haashashin]

Are you claiming it would be impossible to have airfields dynamically populated in a dynamic campaign using today's tech.

 

With a huge/non realistic/unlimited budget?? It could be done I think...but thats only half of the equation, the other half is that everybody would have to upgrade their computers to a level not many can affort. So if you ask me, it will be business suicide to do that in a niche market.

[Gambit21]

What Haash said.

[dburne]

I personally will take  all the single player action I can get myself!

The new career mode, scripted campaigns, you name it!

 

I have flown the BoS campaign, Blazing Steppe, and now am currently working through Ivan's War. And I am really looking forward to the new Career. I have PWCG installed and at some point soon ( probably after Ivan's War) I will start flying it some as well.

 

At least for me, the more the merrier and I very much appreciate the efforts by all!

Edited August 3, 2017 by dburne

[Gambit21]

Yep - bring on the new career system and it's medals etc. It's all good - looking forward to it.

[ICDP]

With a huge/non realistic/unlimited budget?? It could be done I think...but thats only half of the equation, the other half is that everybody would have to upgrade their computers to a level not many can affort. So if you ask me, it will be business suicide to do that in a niche market.

 

I'm not talking about to the levels of scripted missions, where your home airfield has scores of aircraft and cars and trucks giving the illusions of a living world.  Once you fly to a different airfield it is completely empty.  I mean where a few static aircraft are about, maybe some AAA and a few static trucks and buildings.  This is the kind of thing that I used to get in Lowengrin's DC for IL2-46.

[Gambit21]

I could place vehicle groups in a trigger on every airfield - but why? That would impact performance for what gain exactly? Because we know they're there?

 

I could spend weeks build a template map with life everywhere - but it would run at 4 FPS if it ran at all.

[SYN_Haashashin]

I'm not talking about to the levels of scripted missions, where your home airfield has scores of aircraft and cars and trucks giving the illusions of a living world.  Once you fly to a different airfield it is completely empty.  I mean where a few static aircraft are about, maybe some AAA and a few static trucks and buildings.  This is the kind of thing that I used to get in Lowengrin's DC for IL2-46.

 

In my campaings I try to populate things around the fly plan, I mean you can get lost and still see "some" life...but as Gambit says, its impossible to populate all map just for us to know its there and even harder knowing where and how long the player will be lost. Not to say it will run at 4 FPS...its a huge map.

[Ribbon]

Generated missions can't be detailed and exciting as handcrafted ones, i'll enjoy both of them so no worry here!

[ICDP]

In my campaings I try to populate things around the fly plan, I mean you can get lost and still see "some" life...but as Gambit says, its impossible to populate all map just for us to know its there and even harder knowing where and how long the player will be lost. Not to say it will run at 4 FPS...its a huge map.

 

Then it sounds like a problem with how BoX handles objects.  Maybe we are stuck with it as is.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

From the last DD, the campaign will be very dynamic but without the one-man army effect where your flight changes the frontlines.

 

In this mode, you'll build your character, a military pilot. His career will develop day by day in the chosen theatre of war. Each morning (except the days with non-flying weather), the plan for the day is set and the outcome of an each sortie influences your squadron (the pilots can be wounded, lost, the aircraft can be damaged, etc.). The player character will participate in some of the sorties, while the results of other ones will be generated automatically based on the overall frontline situation, how experienced the AI pilots are and which aircraft with what armament they have, weather conditions and so on.

 

At the end of the day, all pilots stats are updated and in the course of the following days, they could be awarded and advance in rank. When the player character becomes the regiment commander, new tools are given to him during the planning phase to assign other pilots to a mission, set up their aircraft, weaponry, fuel and plot the flight route.

 

One of the planned features of the Career mode are historically correct weather conditions for each day (averaged for the theater of war), squadrons positions and what aircraft they had. The daily tasks reflect what the squadron was up to during the set timeframe. Overall, this mode will let you learn more about the battle of Kuban (and Moscow and Stalingrad).

And for the record, even the current campaign is populated by random air and ground assets. I've been chewed up by hidden fighters and AAA many times while attempting to sneak around.

[Gambit21]

Then it sounds like a problem with how BoX handles objects. Maybe we are stuck with it as is.

Everything has a 'brain' operating with various instructions in place, settings, triggers, detection radius' etc. One thing triggering another depending on events in the mission.

 

This makes the editor/sim powerful but all that functionality doesn't come cheap with regard to CPU cycles.

 

I can actually do quite a lot before it becomes an issue, especially for SP missions...but I can't populate the entire map.

[LukeFF]

As for current SP missions not having consequences for deviating from the flight plan, sure they do. Case in point - I recently flew the mission in Juri's Yak-1 campaign where the goal is to attack sinned's beloved Ju 52s headed for Stalingrad. My flight did quite well, and I decided to pursue them all the way to Pitomnik, where we were greeted by 109s guarding the airfield. Yeah, that didn't end well. If I had stuck to the plan, we would never have encountered those 109s.

[sinned]

Hello Haas,

 

Yes, I have played Black's premium campaign.  Completed multiple times.

I have also enjoyed your campaigns, and Juri's, Vetene, monkey's, gambos' and pretty much everything that's currently offered as sp campaign.

 

While they are all enjoyable, the biggest issue is this - no current sp campaign (nor foreseeable future upcoming ones) offer continuation of battle ground.

Hence, every mission, it's totally a new map, and there is no link between previous mission to current one.  

Mission 1, Day 1, 9AM flight, i lead my flight on my egress to a near by enemy field.  Field is all destroyed.

Mission 2, Day 1, 2PM flight, i intercept enemy flights, and they run. I follow them to the same field that my flight attacked at 9AM.  Field has everything rebuilt in 5 hrs time.  

 

No sense of progress.  After a while, it just becomes a quick mission after another quick mission.  

 

I raise this in hope that sp campaigns do not become a stagnant product.

I sincerely hope Blazing steppes does well money wise, but i fear that it may not sold as hot as 10 days autumn did because users are becoming indifferent to 'just a series of missions'.

 

Implementing a strategy element in sp would be a killer.  Coconut and random expert have done this nicely to a large degree.  

[sinned]

Then it sounds like a problem with how BoX handles objects.  Maybe we are stuck with it as is.

 

No, it's not a problem with BoX.  4FPS just means a poor optimization. 

 

Player bubble concept - which was achieved and realized with technology more than 20 years ago - far away objects can be computed with array of vector data.  This results in much much smaller data to process the entire universe.  This is why in F4, you just do not go wander around in enemy's territory.  All AAA location, placements, vehicles etc are already in place the minute you enter the world and the dynamic campaign engine uses less than 5% of CPU allocation.  

 

Similar concept is already in place with BoX by PWCG as the author has confirmed.  

[LLv24_Zami]

And for the record, even the current campaign is populated by random air and ground assets. I've been chewed up by hidden fighters and AAA many times while attempting to sneak around.

This is true. There is more variation in the stock campaign missions than people think. At least I have seen these random things many times.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

Well for me this all was in ROF so it's just other era plus some improvements, i do realise that rebuilding all things needed for dynamic sp campaign cost to much devs resources and as I'm mostly mp flier I would like to see new time-consuming work in other departments. But also I understand that majority of game owners are sp players. So they are paying for other stuff we get. If we get only next step in evolution it might work ok and bring enough money from sp community but I personally would like see something new if not true dynamic campaign maybe possibility to fly sp campaign in coop mode ...

[Gambit21]

No, it's not a problem with BoX. 4FPS just means a poor optimization.

 

Player bubble concept - which was achieved and realized with technology more than 20 years ago - far away objects can be computed with array of vector data. This results in much much smaller data to process the entire universe. This is why in F4, you just do not go wander around in enemy's territory. All AAA location, placements, vehicles etc are already in place the minute you enter the world and the dynamic campaign engine uses less than 5% of CPU allocation.

 

Similar concept is already in place with BoX by PWCG as the author has confirmed.

 

Similar would be the operative term there, as it's all of the objects (or groups of objects)themselves that have the bubbles.

These triggers that detect the player presence inside that radius take up CPU cycles, as well as the entities themselves.

 

Again you can actually do quite a lot - just not the entire map at once.

 

Edit: Now having typed that I'm shaving, and contemplating the proximity trigger MCU that technically could be used for the player bubble...I think. You'd have to link the player to every object (group) on the map. I'm not sure about this - still learning things about editor functionality.

 

In any case, that would only take into account proximity as a trigger device, and there are many other ways we trigger things in a mission besides how close you are to something - so it's not as simple as you might imagine. Without getting into the weeds of mission building, this also highlights one way in which a generated mission will always be more simplistic than a good hand crafted one.

Edited August 4, 2017 by Gambit21

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

-snip-

 

The fact this was being done on PCs from over 20 years ago negates any argument that current PC hardware is simply not up to the job.

 

I'm sorry but it really doesn't...

 

Lowengrin's Dynamic Campaign Generator for Il-2 1946 is one of the reasons why many people (including me) still fly the old title. For SP guys it's priceless, it's truly dynamic, it tracks plane losses and damage made to objects, it has a supply system, which can be crippled by bombing depots and columns, and anything you do has an impact on how the ground war goes on.

 

The back end system of triggers/timers/etc. is handled a lot differently in BOX than in 1946 - they're costly, resource intensive and limit what is possible - I'm not a mission builder but I'm sure Haash or Gambit could lend more information on that.

 

I'm not convinced BOX is optimized enough to handle persistent dynamic campaigns.

Edited August 4, 2017 by Space_Ghost

[Lusekofte]

 

 

I'm talking mission quality.

 

This is true, if the maker have tested and populated it as good as possible, I choose scripted campaign any day. Career mode gives maybe a better sense of progress in some ways. But a good campaign will always be better  

[PatrickAWlson]

In my campaings I try to populate things around the fly plan, I mean you can get lost and still see "some" life...but as Gambit says, its impossible to populate all map just for us to know its there and even harder knowing where and how long the player will be lost. Not to say it will run at 4 FPS...its a huge map.

 

Same with all PWCG missions.  There is a box around the  flight plan in which things are included.  In order to balance the need to limit the number of flights with the idea that you want to encounter something, I keep the flights, ground units,and objects that you are most likely to encounter on your flight path.

 

The fact is that I had to write a lot of code to do this.  It would actually be easier for me to put flights into the air across the whole front and to populate everything with AI ground units and static items, but your  computer would never handle it.  The limitations are a BoS thing that any mission maker - hand made or dynamic - will have to deal with.

 

P.S.  If anybody wants to experiment, go into your PWCG campaign, increase the maximum number of flights to something ridiculous and then increase the inclusion zone 1000 KM.  See what happens.  If your computer can handle it then you now have a completely active and populated front on every mission.

And per the original question: of course not.  There is a place for allsorts of different SP modes.   Scripted, dynamic with fixed history, dynamic that can alter history, etc.

[SYN_Haashashin]

Mission 1, Day 1, 9AM flight, i lead my flight on my egress to a near by enemy field.  Field is all destroyed.

Mission 2, Day 1, 2PM flight, i intercept enemy flights, and they run. I follow them to the same field that my flight attacked at 9AM.  Field has everything rebuilt in 5 hrs time. 

That field has everything rebuilt because the maker forgot to destroy it for next mission. Its totally possible to make, but will mean the use of different missions templates and its time consuming, its up to the builder as far as I see it. At least the handmade ones, generated ones as PWCG ones I dont know, he may answer you there.

 

Similar concept is already in place with BoX by PWCG as the author has confirmed.  

It seems, by Pat answer above, that he use the same approach as I do...only he coded it and I do it manually. No IT guy here just a gamer for a thing for history.

 

Haash

[sinned]

That field has everything rebuilt because the maker forgot to destroy it for next mission. Its totally possible to make,

 

Haash

No, the maker did not forget. The missions have no clue in carrying results of previous mission to the next.

 

Hence, current all offered campaign is just a series of quick missions with no connection of one mission to another.

 

Enjoyable? Yes.

Do I appreciate the effort of makers? Yes.

Replayable? Hm...

Will this type of sp product be stagnant? Very likely be soon stagnant as it offers little replayable value.

 

If Blazing steppes does not sell more than 10 days Autumn within similar time period, it is a sign of: 1. More ppl find current sp scripted campaign stagnant. 2. Vvs planes are not as popular as LF

[sinned]

What I am asking is to please take a look at coconut and random expert server's offered dynamic, inventory mgmt and strategic element required inflight planning.

 

I dont think neither was made by professional coders, but by ppl with a thing for history.

 

Haas, your sp missions are awesome btw. I really enjoyed them. You spend personal time and resources for community as a moderator and a creater of great sp missions. Very honorable as i presume you do this without a seeking compensation.

Again, i raise these things in hopes for a kickass dynamic campaign development.... someday...

[Gambit21]

No, the maker did not forget. The missions have no clue in carrying results of previous mission to the next.

 

Hence, current all offered campaign is just a series of quick missions with no connection of one mission to another.

 

Enjoyable? Yes.

Do I appreciate the effort of makers? Yes.

Replayable? Hm...

Will this type of sp product be stagnant? Very likely be soon stagnant as it offers little replayable value.

 

If Blazing steppes does not sell more than 10 days Autumn within similar time period, it is a sign of: 1. More ppl find current sp scripted campaign stagnant. 2. Vvs planes are not as popular as LF

 

In all sincerity appreciate your appreciation!

I would with respect submit that the missions are/can indeed be connected, one to another.

How and to what extent is up to the builder and his style, wishes, time resources.

[sinned]

In all sincerity appreciate your appreciation!

I would with respect submit that the missions are/can indeed be connected, one to another.

How and to what extent is up to the builder and his style, wishes, time resources.

Are you saying that some of the offered sp scripted campaigns offer a persistent arena between missions? If this is possible via editor, i presume there must be one campaign that utilize this tool.

 

Which one? I want to revisit.

 

If this is possible, I need to ask B6 that this is a must for high quality sp scripted campaign.

[Ribbon]

Vvs planes are not as popular as LF

Spit campaign could change that, even sell better than previous ones!

[sinned]

To the OP,

 

Is your campaign offering persistent world? Or a series of different missions played in sequence, where maps are "refreshed" regardless of previous mission events?

 

If former, i think well scripted persistent campaign will have merits of its own unmatched by auto generated missions.

 

If latter.... I will still buy your campaign but less like to play any more than once.

[coconut]

It's convenient to mention that neither simulator mentioned required as much work to code flight models or design objects as this one, and that Falcon's dynamic campaign engine took so long and cost so much to develop that the studio behind had to close.

 

It is true that adding a dynamic campaign engine opens the risk of feature creep, and it's a substantial effort, but I also think people exaggerate the cost. You can implement something as simple as Risk or as complete as Heart of Iron, it's up to how much one wants to invest. It can be done without bankrupting a team, but it's also possible to make a combat flight sim without it.

 

 

 

The back end system of triggers/timers/etc. is handled a lot differently in BOX than in 1946 - they're costly, resource intensive and limit what is possible - I'm not a mission builder but I'm sure Haash or Gambit could lend more information on that. I'm not convinced BOX is optimized enough to handle persistent dynamic campaigns.

 

BOS is limited to about 20 AI planes or so, and to 100 ground vehicles. These limits apply to all mission types, dynamic or not. Some may think it's more of a show-stopper in a dynamic setting, but I don't think so.

 

Tracking damage to buildings (as in "damaged vs non-damaged", no detailed damage) and persisting them is a non-issue as far as CPU and memory usage is concerned. It does require some programming knowledge, which is why you don't see many people doing it in 3rd party tools, but it's not intrinsically hard.

 

Note that persistence and triggers are unrelated. You don't need triggers or complex logic to have some buildings damaged at the start of the mission. It's simply a matter of changing a few default attributes of static groups.

 

What is difficult is the war game engine, and the AI you need for it. But all computations it requires can be done after the mission ends, so it's not too much of a problem if it takes a minute or two to do its thing.

Edited August 5, 2017 by coconut

[sergio_]

What I don't completely understand is why ground units, or even other AI planes, take that much CPU and, if they do, I wonder if this is an optimization issue.

 

I don't claim I know how to solve it nor telling anyone how to do their job. I genuinely don't get it.

 

Computing a flight & engine model is very complicated and CPU costly. So much that I understand that only a handful of AI planes will eat your CPU.

But you don't need a complicated flight (or ground) model for objects out of your effective radius, they can behave in a very simple way until their deeper intelligence is needed. How do you explain otherwise that Cliffs of Dover (now a study simulator) can handle hundreds of units moving?

 

Let my comment be constructive, I LOVE BoX, I just bring other example because I think is is possible to achieve. Too expensive to implement? Probably/maybe...

 

In addition, I also think scripted campaigns still would have their place as much as now for the already stated reasons, and while I still haven't played any, it's enqueued as one of my next purchases, looking forward to it as much as to a dynamic campaign.

[Juri_JS]

Tracking damage to buildings (as in "damaged vs non-damaged", no detailed damage) and persisting them is a non-issue as far as CPU and memory usage is concerned. It does require some programming knowledge, which is why you don't see many people doing it in 3rd party tools, but it's not intrinsically hard.

Would tracking damage between missions really be possible in BoX campaigns? The problem I see is, that every building needs a fixed ID number that doesn't change between missions. The problem in BoX is, that these ID numbers get reassigned when new objects are added or deleted in a mission, so I am not sure how tracking damage could work in BoX, no matter if it is in a scripted or automatically generated campaign.  

[SYN_Haashashin]

Would tracking damage between missions really be possible in BoX campaigns? scripted or automatically generated

 

I would like to know this to, it would be great if possible.