Kind of air battles I would love to see in BoS

[Uriah]

See

 

 

The point is from this old game is the great air battle and I would love to see such in BoS.

 

I have played IL2 but never got to see these kind of air battles.  I have yet to see such in CoD but I have seen such in "Battle of Britain II Wings of Victory"

[Fifi]

Problem is BOS (as ROF) use same FM complexity for AIs as for players.

This is limiting the number of planes and objects an average PC can handle.

I remember with my "not too bad" PC of that time, handling a 30 VS 30 planes in ROF, but it was on the very edge for it: 

 

 

Sometime, i wished AIs had more simplistic FM to see huge dogfights as well 

[FuriousMeow]

We trade off more complex FMs, DMs, AI, further draw distances, higher polygon models, and more graphical features for less overall aircraft in the air at the same time.

[ShamrockOneFive]

See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt-7hwMZAJo

 

The point is from this old game is the great air battle and I would love to see such in BoS.

 

I have played IL2 but never got to see these kind of air battles.  I have yet to see such in CoD but I have seen such in "Battle of Britain II Wings of Victory"

Possible to do those types of battles in IL-2... and I'm a little surprised you haven't seen some on at least a similar scale. There are missions done that way by the mission building community... but you will find that only the very latest computers will be able to handle that smoothly without issue. So over 10 years after IL-2's release and we're just starting to catch up... I think with Battle of Stalingrad we'll see somewhat smaller scale battles. Then again, air battles for Stalingrad didn't tend to feature large bomber formations anyways.

[MarcoRossolini]

Wasn't the bombing of the city the heaviest air raid of the entire Eastern Front? (Kursk of course being the heaviest combat in general)

[ACG_Kraut]

Problem is BOS (as ROF) use same FM complexity for AIs as for players.

This is limiting the number of planes and objects an average PC can handle.

I remember with my "not too bad" PC of that time, handling a 30 VS 30 planes in ROF, but it was on the very edge for it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtkHaZDsv-g

Sometime, i wished AIs had more simplistic FM to see huge dogfights as well 

 

Well if it's done right, we should be able to get quite a few more than 30v30 stable I would hope. If they leave the stress of calculating the complex FMs of AI to the server and have player FMs done clientside it should be easy for clients to handle a large number of aircraft.

 

This is of course provided that the server is extremely powerful. I think any server that can handle running something as intensive as say Arma would be able to handle any stress that BoS could throw at it, even with a large number of AI. Guess we'll have to wait and see how everything pans out! 

[Feathered_IV]

We trade off more complex FMs, DMs, AI, further draw distances, higher polygon models, and more graphical features for less overall aircraft in the air at the same time.

Sometimes I still wish for those simpler times with less complex FM, DM's etc. I never was able to run EAW and missed out on those mega-formations.

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Wasn't the bombing of the city the heaviest air raid of the entire Eastern Front? (Kursk of course being the heaviest combat in general)

 

What city? What air-raid? I ask out of curiosity, I don't know more about the air war on the eastern front than what I've picked up throug IL2.

[Kaenzdhi]

Sometimes I still wish for those simpler times with less complex FM, DM's etc. I never was able to run EAW and missed out on those mega-formations.

WarThunder?

Sometime, i wished AIs had more simplistic FM to see huge dogfights as well 

DCSWWII?

Edited January 8, 2014 by Scorlhov

[=38=Tatarenko]

What city? What air-raid? I ask out of curiosity, I don't know more about the air war on the eastern front than what I've picked up throug IL2.

Right at the beginning of the battle on 23 August (and before the timeframe depicted in BoS) the Luftwaffe mounted a heavy raid against the city. The high amount of wooden houses meant that 80% of the city was destroyed. Much of the industrial zone was also destroyed through burning fuel spilling out of the huge ruptured oil tanks. Over 40,000 civilians were said to have died and 50,000 were injured, though these figures have been disputed.

 

It may be that the Luftwaffe, by turning the city into blackened rubble, actually impeded the advance of their own troops and contributed to the Russian defences.

Edited January 8, 2014 by =38=Tatarenko

[I/JG27_Rollo]

Well if it's done right, we should be able to get quite a few more than 30v30 stable I would hope. If they leave the stress of calculating the complex FMs of AI to the server and have player FMs done clientside it should be easy for clients to handle a large number of aircraft.

I don't think this is really appplicable for BoS as a game which will enable full offline functionality at some point.

All of the gameplay processing is done on the client machine and the servers are just there for handling the netcode and - in case of the 777 server - authentication.

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Right at the beginning of the battle on 23 August (and before the timeframe depicted in BoS) the Luftwaffe mounted a heavy raid against the city. The high amount of wooden houses meant that 80% of the city was destroyed. Much of the industrial zone was also destroyed through burning fuel spilling out of the huge ruptured oil tanks. Over 40,000 civilians were said to have died and 50,000 were injured, though these figures have been disputed.

 

It may be that the Luftwaffe, by turning the city into blackened rubble, actually impeded the advance of their own troops and contributed to the Russian defences.

 

What city? Stalingrad?

[Feathered_IV]

Yep.  Beevor covers it quite well in his book on the Stalingrad campaign.  A bit more here if you're interested to.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Stalingrad_in_World_War_II

[FuriousMeow]

Sometimes I still wish for those simpler times with less complex FM, DM's etc. I never was able to run EAW and missed out on those mega-formations.

 

Not me. There are already games I can do that with, such as EAW or BoB2 or even the older Il-2 series. I want complex FMs, DMs, etc because that's the whole point of air combat sims. AI actually doesn't matter to me, I prefer multiplayer.

 

I can't even remember what system I had when EAW was out, pretty sure it was before I even had a Radeon 9800Pro so it was something single core like maybe a Celeron - but I do recall the larger formations running just fine.

 

With RoF I have no problem with 15 vs 15 (max you can do in QMB currently), but I have an i7 4770k @ 4.4GHz. Video card doesn't matter as much as the CPU for large air battles with RoF.

I don't think this is really appplicable for BoS as a game which will enable full offline functionality at some point.

All of the gameplay processing is done on the client machine and the servers are just there for handling the netcode and - in case of the 777 server - authentication.

 

Not necessarily, when AI units are online the server is what controls those AI units. The clients just operate the netcode, and anything locally computed.

Edited January 8, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[I/JG27_Rollo]

Not necessarily, when AI units are online the server is what controls those AI units. The clients just operate the netcode, and anything locally computed.

Is that the case in RoFl? Sounds interesting.

If you could provide me with a link, I'd be happy to read up on that.

[FuriousMeow]

You know, I think you are speaking of SP and I'm referring to MP. So looks like I mixed up what you were referring to. My mistake!

Edited January 8, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[Uriah]

FuriousMeow wrote "that's the whole point of air combat sims.".  I disagree.  Being able to recreate a battle is as much about realism to me as the FM and DM.  If fighter aircraft are not having to defend or attack bombers then you just have a dogfight and one that does not include the restriction placed on the fighter pilots of fulfilling their reasons to exist.   And yes, I know it is more complex than that.  I love dogfights but I love them more in the context of an air battle where I have to defend or attack bombers.

[FuriousMeow]

It's not a sim if the FM and DM are simplistic.

 

And if you want large air battles with simple FM and DM, they already exist - so it's not as if that can't be done but it just has to be a different title.

Edited January 8, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[I/JG27_Rollo]

You know, I think you are speaking of SP and I'm referring to MP. So looks like I mixed up what you were referring to. My mistake!

No you've gotten it right, I did mean MP but somehow didn't think that the MP server computes the AI flights - though it seems reasonable of course.

What I don't know is whether in RoF an MP server computes all the AI aircraft's FM/DM/WM...

[FuriousMeow]

Oh yeah, the server does the AI as far as spawning it, flight plan and it's FM. The DM, however, should be operated on the client side to an extent - so more likely shared between server and clients. Client side you shoot the target, it hits a point, and the client side says "hit here with this at this range with this much power", in a much more calculated manner of course, and then the server recieves the information and places the damage into the AI's plane. The AI then reacts accordingly once the damage is applied. That is, of course, a very simple explanation.

Edited January 8, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Yep.  Beevor covers it quite well in his book on the Stalingrad campaign.  A bit more here if you're interested to.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Stalingrad_in_World_War_II

 

Thanks!

[BeastyBaiter]

I do miss the epic air battles of EAW. I can't remember much about the computer I ran it on. It had Windows 98 and either a Voodoo 3 or an ATI Rage Fury Max. No clue what the processor was, but this was way before any multicore processors. I remember there was a config file you could mod that would take the stock ~50 plane limit in campaign and make it 200-300. It was nuts and I loved it. Nothing before or since has come close that I know of. I wouldn't trade the detail of BoS for that ability however. We're talking about the days of spreadsheet flight models with no real attempt at actually mimicking flight dynamics.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Right at the beginning of the battle on 23 August (and before the timeframe depicted in BoS) the Luftwaffe mounted a heavy raid against the city. The high amount of wooden houses meant that 80% of the city was destroyed. Much of the industrial zone was also destroyed through burning fuel spilling out of the huge ruptured oil tanks. Over 40,000 civilians were said to have died and 50,000 were injured, though these figures have been disputed.

 

It may be that the Luftwaffe, by turning the city into blackened rubble, actually impeded the advance of their own troops and contributed to the Russian defences.

Yep, fairly significant bombing. From what I could find there were roughly 600 planes involved in the bombing. Not sure on the exact specifics and that's probably a rough number at best. Still it happens before the time period that 777 Studios has selected. Thus the Stalingrad we'll see is one during the Winter and with the city already well bombed out.

 

Still... it wasn't that there was one formation of 600 Heinkels flying over the city. It would have been smaller groups bombing in waves. So even if you did want to simulate said event from a tactical standpoint... you'd still be say a couple of flights of fighters up against a couple of flights of escorts and say 12-18 bombers or thereabouts. That'd be fairly realistically scaled and probably doable.

 

It wouldn't be the huge concentration of B-17s that you might see in the skies over Western Europe on some of the big bombing missions.

 

What city? Stalingrad?

Stalingrad, yep.

[=69.GIAP=C0NAN]

What is preventing the development of multi-threaded software? If most of the requirements are generated client-side, wouldn't we make large gains with this? 

 

I greatly appreciate the transition to the RoF model, but what would it take to get some usefulness out of our multi-core processors? Currently, it seems we use only two. One does the game and another the housekeeping of non-game rig functions. i.e.., what is the next evolution and how long will we have to wait?

[6./ZG26_Emil]

FuriousMeow wrote "that's the whole point of air combat sims.".  I disagree.  Being able to recreate a battle is as much about realism to me as the FM and DM.  If fighter aircraft are not having to defend or attack bombers then you just have a dogfight and one that does not include the restriction placed on the fighter pilots of fulfilling their reasons to exist.   And yes, I know it is more complex than that.  I love dogfights but I love them more in the context of an air battle where I have to defend or attack bombers.

 

This is why I am so desperate for them to produce a co-op style of play that we had with IL2. When the opposing sides are forced it to performing a certain mission and they take off at the same time you tend to get much bigger air battles than in modern sandbox type of servers we have now where there are multiple targets for both sides. Granted it can be nice flying an air patrol on certain other servers not knowing what you might come up against but I personally prefer some structure and a good chance to recreate a historical air battle.

[Rama]

You can create co-op style of play with actual RoF dogfight mode. You can force players in a given aerodrome to take off at the same time (in a very limited extend of time), and give objectives in the game briefing.

In any case, even in IL2 style coop mode, you can't force players to follows objectives. And in most airwar I remember, There were a lot of them that didn't followed the objectives.

 

It's up to the players and the squads they belong to play in co-op spirit. No software feature or limitation can enforce this spirit.

[M4rgaux]

 

 

It's up to the players and the squads they belong to play in co-op spirit. No software feature or limitation can enforce this spirit.

 

Autopilot ftw.

If you never allow the player to fly his plane, the plane will do the objective.

Moreover, the player now have time for poker. =D

[FuriousMeow]

What is preventing the development of multi-threaded software? If most of the requirements are generated client-side, wouldn't we make large gains with this? 

 

I greatly appreciate the transition to the RoF model, but what would it take to get some usefulness out of our multi-core processors? Currently, it seems we use only two. One does the game and another the housekeeping of non-game rig functions. i.e.., what is the next evolution and how long will we have to wait?

 

 

That's incorrect. Currently two cores minimum for BoS which is why quad core are recommended. The "non-game" functions go on another core, BoS uses two itself.

 

I have a quad core, all four cores are used.

[Rama]

Autopilot ftw.

If you never allow the player to fly his plane, the plane will do the objective.

Moreover, the player now have time for poker. =D

Good idea!!! You're right, if we replace all human pilots with IA in MP, then all mission will be correctly flown.

 

The only little problem would be that the IA don't have money and can't purchase the game... but it's only a marketing issue, not a real problem...

[BeastyBaiter]

That's incorrect. Currently two cores minimum for BoS which is why quad core are recommended. The "non-game" functions go on another core, BoS uses two itself.

 

I have a quad core, all four cores are used.

 

Indeed, my poor old 3Ghz Athlon II x4 gets pegged out at 90%+ in RoF, doesn't do that here but atm not a whole lot is going on. It does use all 4 cores though. After release I think they should make 8 core processor and 64 bit support high priorities. No one is using a 32 bit system to play BoS. 64 bit has been standard at least 6 years and anything older is going to be running a single core processor and a 256mb GPU. Somehow I doubt that will run BoS or RoF at any setting.

[LLv44_Mprhead]

Indeed, my poor old 3Ghz Athlon II x4 gets pegged out at 90%+ in RoF, doesn't do that here but atm not a whole lot is going on. It does use all 4 cores though. After release I think they should make 8 core processor and 64 bit support high priorities. No one is using a 32 bit system to play BoS. 64 bit has been standard at least 6 years and anything older is going to be running a single core processor and a 256mb GPU. Somehow I doubt that will run BoS or RoF at any setting.

 

This.

[Emgy]

BoS has 64 bit support.

It's no problem running a 32bit executable on a 64 bit OS. Just like Arma III and the latest Total War and Assetto Corsa. Many users also run Battlefield 4 with the 32 bit version because it performs better on some systems.

 

Main benefit of 64 bit client for BoS would be the ability to use more than 4gb RAM. Current client is not near using that much RAM, I guess we'll see what happens once we can make a mission with 100 AI planes.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Calvamos

[Finkeren]

I'm still amazed at what EAW managed to do back then. To think that game is 15 years old.

[Mac_Messer]

We trade off more complex FMs, DMs, AI, further draw distances, higher polygon models, and more graphical features for less overall aircraft in the air at the same time.

I certainly hope the devs can make a 16v16 mp mission model at least. Everything below that looks like Capture The Flag to me.

[FuriousMeow]

 

I certainly hope the devs can make a 16v16 mp mission model at least. Everything below that looks like Capture The Flag to me.

 

Current RoF servers have up to 50 players online at the same time - most servers allow more than that. BoS will be able to do at least that.

 

AI/FM/DM is calculated per client in MP sessions, the same limitations that exist for single player do not exist for multiplayer.

Edited January 10, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[steppenwolf]

In ROF on an I7-2600k/GTX 660Ti, on an otherwise 60 FPS game, three wounded bombers trailing smoke is enough to cripple FPS. I don't see it happening, but I hope they can pull off larger battles.  

[FuriousMeow]

I've never had an issue with bombers trailing smoke cripping my fps when I had my 580 or 770. Haven't had enough time with my 780 Ti, but I suspect it'll be much the same.

 

Smoke is a function of fill rate, which is only one aspect of a video card. I've been in air battles with 10 aircraft online with no issue. It hasn't been larger because as soon as the fight begins, it breaks apart and then you're either all alone with a victory or en route to being someone else's victory.

Edited January 10, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[Uriah]

EAW still has about 20 to 40 players and the modders group have greatly improved the game that you knew.  I only left because there were to few online players left.  By today's standards the graphics are just cartoons and the complex engine management is not so complex. 

[ShamrockOneFive]

I've never had an issue with bombers trailing smoke cripping my fps when I had my 580 or 770. Haven't had enough time with my 780 Ti, but I suspect it'll be much the same.

 

Smoke is a function of fill rate, which is only one aspect of a video card. I've been in air battles with 10 aircraft online with no issue. It hasn't been larger because as soon as the fight begins, it breaks apart and then you're either all alone with a victory or en route to being someone else's victory.

Interestingly if you spend any time reading diaries of pilots who fought in WWII they tend to describe something fairly similar. Everyone starts off in this big formation and then suddenly there is a huge clash and then the sky is empty. It's weird to read it but gameplay experience with numerous simulators shows the same type of thing happen time and again.