Developer Diary, Part 47

[Rigsby]

I bet it doesn look much different in the release the game is 1/3 ready yes, but believe me the city is about 9/10. it just looks static as the RoF cities do, this wont change.

The overall look is set I believe, the same is true for the airplane models and trucks and stuff (wich are good to me).

 

I dont think it looks bad, i really like the textures on the ground but as I said, the city itself looks very lifeless to me (as they do in most sims btw). And some dedicated mods could build or place some objects that make the city more vivid.

So dont shush everybody who dare to not praise every little detail from the sim, thanks.

 

@ LukeFF

 

Haha, ok... so the trees are also just 1/3 done? The snow is just 1/3 white, the wheels are just 1/3 round, the houses only have 1/3 of its windows...

Again: the GAME in its quantity is 1/3, not every single object. What they release to us is NOT 1/3, its "almost" done.

 

Listen: the devs ask for feedback, I and some others think the city looks a bit lifeless so we sound off, in a productive manner.

 

IMHO: this 35% thing is rather some psychological thing for us to have a number than a real value to relie on. Or do you know how many percentages is an air plane? How many is the FM? Effects? Textures? No? So therefore the 35% is rather worthless. A smart developer (which 777 is) would never show the real "real" % of the game to us. The devs could release a 80% game which is acutally 100% in their opinion (or the other way arround) and just say: you dont quite like it? Well its only 80% done! Its fine with me, the devs are pros and are doing an awesome job, but don't take this 1/3 thing too seriously.

 

Regards

 

Yes the city does look a bit empty, but given this is a flight Sim, who cares? Not like I will be nipping down the butchers to buy some sausages or trying to escape policeman plod for skipping a red light is it? Anyways, I really wouldn't comment on something that is only 35% complete. I would prefer they got on with the main game and if Porkies butchers isn't included in the Sim on final release, then Modder can have a look at it. Far to many other important things to do first.

 

I swear...circling the village in my LaGG 3, searching for moving ground targets, with the sound of the wind on the aircraft is pure simulation bliss. Got my first A/G kills on a group of trucks using the 37mm cannon. It was very obvious when those rounds hit, and the burning hulks illuminated the surrounding area long after the kills.

 

Now, all I need is pitch trim and a functioning VSI and I'm good.

 

 

Funny you don't have pitch trim when I have been using it and it's in my controls.

Edited December 28, 2013 by Rigsby

[Volkoff]

I am having a great time with this early access session. The game is running very smoothly, for the most part. I get a freeze once in a while, but my frame rates are generally very smooth and I don't have a state of the art computer, either. I love all of the additional new content and everything I have tried out works great. I am having a great time learning the LaGG-3. Thanks for the screenies of the future map. The map really looks impressive.  MJ

[Matt]

The city itself looks good (of course it's empty without ground units around..), but i think the buildings are all too dark. Even if they all burned out, i don't think they should be that "black" as they look like on the last three screenshots with the shallow viewing angle.

 

Funny you don't have pitch trim when I have been using it and it's in my controls.

 

If you think you're using pitch trim in the LaGG, then you've just been imagining things.

[Bando]

 

Funny you don't have pitch trim when I have been using it and it's in my controls.

 

In the Lagg??????

 

Video that and we'll all be very, very impressed.

[Heliopause]

^{Looks good so far}

 

^{Happy New Year!}

[Frequent_Flyer]

Piles of rubble surrounding the devastated buildings would add some of the missing  ambience . Enjoying myself and looking forward to the  implementation of the remaining  aircraft. Personally, flight model and damage model in that order, interest me the most.

Quick question, will you implement the 37mm on the LaGG in the dogfight mission ?

[DD_Arthur]

Quick question, will you implement the 37mm on the LaGG in the dogfight mission ?

 

You can do that now.  Aircraft load out is independent of mission.

 

[Frequent_Flyer]

You can do that now.  Aircraft load out is independent of mission.

 

Thanks for he heads up, Arthur

[Emgy]

Yep. And that also means, if you were doing an A2G mission with bombs, and then load up a dogfight mission, you'll spawn with your A2G loadout. So if your plane feels heavier...

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Stalingrad looks sterile because soldiers seemed to have cleaned up debris after bombardments?

I see damaged houses but no debris and rubble around. Just black and white scorched facades.

 

When it comes to talented modders they should hire or contact a guy like Canonuk. Mostly on his own he created in his spare time the huge and highly populated English Channel map for modded IL2.

Created literally dozens and dozens of objects and simulated human activity by adding things like the typical English phone boots, streetsigns and so forth. It all looked very lifelike.

 

CanonUK is a genius with these kind of things, no question. I do miss the debris, but (and this is a major but) debris woukd have been covered by the latest snowfall. The only debris one would see from the air would be things blown about after the latest snowfall. If I am to point at something amiss with the way the map looks, it would be lack of snow on the ruined buildings themselves.

[Zmaj76]

OK...this time my impression is much better...I like FM (spec stalls)..DM is nice also...effects (though still WIP) are nice....explosions etc....sounds great also. What should be better are cockpits...But its not a dealbreaker for me. I noticed that external flyby view has different default FOV than ohter externals...plane is too far away from camera....I hope SSAO would be possible to turn off completely within game GUI (currently possbile nly via config file). Its night and day difference - performance wise...Im looking forward to MP....

[Feathered_IV]

The city itself looks good (of course it's empty without ground units around..), but i think the buildings are all too dark. Even if they all burned out, i don't think they should be that "black" as they look like on the last three screenshots

I tend to agree. The black needs to be toned down or be made less uniform. Also every single window in the city shouldn't necessarily have streaks of soot coming out of it.

[Nankeen]

Thank you to the devs and the community for making this happen.

Here are some maxed out, full resolution in game screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

[71st_AH_Hooves]

Great shots Boomerang!  I dont know how but these look even better than Mine.  but I too am running everything full!

[Nankeen]

On the seventh pic, plane ramming was given a try. This experiment was a complete success this day.

In game: The Lagg3 rudder delayed before comming away and the 109's wing remained.  

This persistant Lagg did eventually go down and i manged to land my plane in some what of a shabby manner.

In short good people, maybe i was just lucky, or maybe this could be an option when the ammo runs out!

You never know unless you give it a go

 

Regards,

Boomerang

Hey SYN,

I focused mainly on the light direction, when taking these screen shots.

[Jochen]

On the seventh pic, plane ramming was given a try. This experiment was a complete success this day.

In game: The Lagg3 rudder delayed before comming away and the 109's wing remained.  

This persistant Lagg did eventually go down and i manged to land my plane in some what of a shabby manner.

In short good people, maybe i was just lucky, or maybe this could be an option when the ammo runs out!

You never know unless you give it a go

 

Regards,

Boomerang

Hey SYN,

I focused mainly on the light direction, when taking these screen shots.

 

Great shots! I've rammed the LaGG-3 too after running out of ammunition, with success.

 

[Nankeen]

Hey Jochen,

Great to here you had success with the ramming also

 

I managed to capture what looks like a 3D screen shot, (fn game no Photoshop or Gimp).

 

Its the 4th one:

 

 

Looks nice for an Alpha

[SR-F_Winger]

That looks like the heat distortion effect that has also been added to the ROF engine a few patches ago. If you mean that distorted 109 wing there...

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Man, these shots look good!

[Bando]

WOW awesome shots Boomerang. Really.  

[dburne]

WOW awesome shots Boomerang. Really.  

 

No kidding, I wish I was that fast on the draw to take some screenshots.

 

This morning I was practicing ground attacking, and was making a strafing run with the Lagg and the 37mm cannons - well I got too low and pulled up fast to avoid a tree, and felt the back of the plane shake. I switched to exterior and was missing the left and right horizontal stabilizer, then the top of the vertical peeled off and the plain began an uncontrollable roll - and descent - to terra firma...

 

Immediately I thought dang wished I had of thought to hit the screenshot button to grab pics of that would have been cool.

[Rjel]

Immediately I thought dang wished I had of thought to hit the screenshot button to grab pics of that would have been cool.

Don't you record your flights? I think it's far easier to save the perfect screen shot when I'm in playback mode.

[dburne]

Don't you record your flights? I think it's far easier to save the perfect screen shot when I'm in playback mode.

 

No can't say as I have given that a try yet... perhaps I should.

Edited December 30, 2013 by dburnette

[Nankeen]

Destruction with the buildings will be awsome and the work on the maps looks amazing

[71st_AH_Hooves]

About the stalingrad screen shots. The one with the large plumes of smoke look great. Forgive my lack of knowledge here, but is it possible to make the anvil looking cross shaped smoke clouds? The ones pictured in so many documentries and pictures from the battle? Technically speaking could the devs use the cloud technology to build black clouds that and there and react to the winds?

 

I only ask as i know its.never been done becore but it looks as if the dev team wants to recreate this effect.

[Nordkindchen]

First: Congratz to your beautifull small map we are allready allowed to fly!

The small towns with the open landscape look really beautifull!


However the screenshots of the Stalingrad map are missing some very important things! Small objects like fences or smaller houses!

Thats exactly what makes the small towns in the allready accessable map look realistic. And these are missing totally in the Stalingrad map!

 

I assure you that smaller objects between the houses will make a huge difference! Without them the town sadly looks a bit like playmobile=/

You wrote that the Stalingrad map is still WIP and many important parts are still missing. I can only hope that these objects are a part of that.

On a side note: You dont have any bushes whatsoever on the current map. Same thing here: They would add a lot to the graphics.


Pls consider adding these smaller objects. The impact will be huge.


Best regards!

Edited December 31, 2013 by Nordkindchen

[JG4_Sputnik]

First: Congratz to your beautifull small map we are allready allowed to fly!

The small towns with the open landscape look really beautifull!

However the screenshots of the Stalingrad map are missing some very important things! Small objects like fences or smaller houses!

Thats exactly what makes the small towns in the allready accessable map look realistic. And these are missing totally in the Stalingrad map!

 

I assure you that smaller objects between the houses will make a huge difference! Without them the town sadly looks a bit like playmobile=/

You wrote that the Stalingrad map is still WIP and many important parts are still missing. I can only hope that these objects are a part of that.

On a side note: You dont have any bushes whatsoever on the current map. Same thing here: They would add a lot to the graphics.

Pls consider adding these smaller objects. The impact will be huge.

Best regards!

Exactely my point. The map doesnt look bad by any means, but details as stated in that post would make a huge difference without being too time consuming.

777 maps tend to look a bit plastic and playmobile like unfortunately, which imho is one of the few flaws that comes with the digital nature engine and the static placement of objects.

[Panzerlang]

All maps in all games lack small clutter at distance, even FPS shooters. And that reduces the effect of 'texture'. Given that fact I see no effective difference between CloD and RoF/BoS apart from palette and choice of shapes of stuff. I prefer RoF's landscapes over CloD's but that's an entirely subjective preference because both are equally good, imo.

 

Plus Digital Nature's trees are 'real' (you can collide with them).

Edited January 1, 2014 by II/JG3Siggi

[Freycinet]

Pls consider adding these smaller objects. The impact will be huge.

!

Yeah, the impact on frame rates will indeed be huge.

 

If you guys want to come with constructive input then give suggestions that are 'polygon-neutral'. Tell what should be taken out so other stuff can be put in, for instance...

 

I don't know why that seems so hard to get when dealing with a computer game. In other aspects of life everybody is surely used to dealing with a budget, right? Well, there's a budget when making a flight sim too. Too many polys or textures and it won't fly...

[Pierre64]

'...If you guys want to come with constructive input then give suggestions that are 'polygon-neutral'...

Telegraph/ telephone poles, railway lines for example?

Edited January 1, 2014 by Pierre64

[StG2_Manfred]

Of course more objects always costs CPU time but as we don't know how many polygons the game engine can bear we cannot judge whether or not additional objects would slow it down.

Edited January 1, 2014 by StG2_Manfred

[Uufflakke]

Well, there's a budget when making a flight sim too. Too many polys or textures and it won't fly...

 

The 'Budget', 'Small Team' and 'Niche' seems to be an excuse for everything this alpha stage game is missing.

 

That mantra doesn't work anymore.

 

Perhaps it works for backers, members and others that are for a long time now in the WWII combat flight sim community but if you want to attract a new audience you need to come up with stuff according modern standards in gaming industry.

 

Till sofar it all reminds me too much of a mixture of default and modded IL2:1946 when it comes to visuals like landscape textures, houses, cars, tanks, effects, clouds.

 

This weeks screenshots of the (nuked?) city of Stalingrad were such a disappointment to me that I gave up on it for the time being.

 

Probably I expected way too much of a 2014 WWII flight sim (my fault).

 

Better for me to come back in a couple of months to see if anything improved yes or no.

[Nordkindchen]

Yeah, the impact on frame rates will indeed be huge.

 

If you guys want to come with constructive input then give suggestions that are 'polygon-neutral'. Tell what should be taken out so other stuff can be put in, for instance...

 

I don't know why that seems so hard to get when dealing with a computer game. In other aspects of life everybody is surely used to dealing with a budget, right? Well, there's a budget when making a flight sim too. Too many polys or textures and it won't fly...

 

I like your negativity. Actually not every added object means the game will be unplayable.

 

In case you didnt read it (or didnt want to read it) - the current map allready has those smaller objects. And these are the reason why the towns actually look good! And I see nobody seriously complaining about frame rate drop.

 

Leaving them out in Stalingrad would be a really bad design decision.

 

In fact the only real visible difference in the design of the landscape is the addition of these smaller objects. And these make the towns so much more believable!

 

Towards your performance issue: Compare the maps of BOS to the ones of ROF flight for instance. The setting alone leaves way less objects needed on the map. Therefore there is much more space for objects as such.

 

All maps in all games lack small clutter at distance, even FPS shooters.

 

I can see the fences on the current map at rather big distances - can you? On top of that the current screenshots we got of Stalingrad show of some rather close up detail. At this distance fences, telegraph poles and such should be visible.

 

 

 

Performance is of course an issue. But objects like fences that and poles are not the kind of thing that take away much performance. They are the part of scenes that add diversity and authenticy. And since snow maps tend to have less details like vegetation - theres room for these objects.

 

On top of that if I remeber correctly, the technologie has moved on and computers are actually more potent.

 

 

 

In the end: The level of detail we see on the current playable map made me very interested in this game again. And this is strongly connected to the stated objects.

 

If however they decide to hold this back again - then thats where my interest is going too.

 

You might be more interested in the dogfights in high air. I however am very interested in ground attack missions. And on the current landscape it looks splendid! Stalingrad however looks like  a huge step back at the moment. Hopefully its because its still WIP as they stated.

 

Enough said.

 

Best regards!

 

 

[Bando]

I do agree with Nordkindchen. I too love the  ground attack and Close air support missions. I do hope the map will come alive when the sim is released. I think that it will revive the sim a lot.

We'll see. So far, so good.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Bando

[Nankeen]

I have really enjoyed testing the damage model in this Alpha! I have had all sorts of collisions, some intentional and some not.

At the present time, this title runs as smooth as silk and loads quickly on the current system I'm using.

Questions:

                How many PVP will be able to play on the server/servers at any one given time?

                The ME109 F4, is it the F-4/Z featuring the GM-1 boost?


IMO: I think this BOS sim is shaping up to be epic! It's rare to play an Alpha that runs as well as this. Speaking for myself, my PC has not crashed yet.

Keep up the good work guys

In game screenshot playing/testing/recording and using the camera of this Alpha BOS sim.

 

 

[=38=Tatarenko]

The current Stalingrad map is NOT FINISHED YET.

[hiro]

those screen shots are great . . . I'm going to get higher video card than I originally planned . . .

 

Merry Christmas & Happy new year to all . ..

 

for an alpha I am impressed

[LukeFF]

The ME109 F4, is it the F-4/Z featuring the GM-1 boost?

 

No, it is not.

[Nankeen]

Hey hiro,

 

If your looking for a good graphics card for the look and performance of this game, (a little over kill maybe), the ATi R9 290  is good value for the $pendoolers.

It is 512 bit memory bus,4096 MB of memory . The Nvidia 780 is a good card also. Its has a 384 bit memory bus, 3072 MB ram, but it co$t$ more.

There are other 384 bit cards out there that are cheaper also, (if your build is to budjet) Hope this helps.

 

Regards

[71st_AH_Hooves]

Boomerang, have you tried using sweet fx in your game yet? If you think it looks good now. Try out sweet/flight fx. Its amazing how it brings out details.