Off topic from Questions for Developers

[Bearcat]

Quite. What one can get out of an engine is largely a matter of time and money. If 777 finds a way to secure funds for development through their business model, then they will be able to develop their engine. So far, this looks very promising.

 

Oh, and hi Bearcat! That's a face I haven't seen in a while!

 

Hi FF good to see you too.. I've been around.. I am still enjoying IL2.. I think the RoF business model is not bad now that  have really looked at it again. I think that if IL2 had had a similar model CoD might have been a better product or at least released sooner but there was so much of UBI involved with the decision making there. Here the developer and the distributor are on the same page.. and both are simmers. One of the inspirations for the 99th back in the day when I first got to IL2 when we would be 16-22 strong on HL nightly was the  777 AVG. When I made the first website for our squad it was Jason's site that was one of the inspirations and I remember when he left to persue his business interests ..  so from my POV the facts just mentioned make me feel that this has to be a win win for us. I don't have every plane in RoF but I have most of the ones that I used to make balsa models of as a kid and read about ... I am wondering if some of the upgrades for BoS will be different in that several variants for a given AC at once or if each variant will be it's own upgrade. I woner what the pricing will be like. I realize there is no way for that to be answered at this point so I am not really expecting any other answer than "We haven't worked it out yet.."

[Krupi]

Question - Will we get proper historical german marking or "politically correct" one like in Il-2 1946 and CloD ?

 

Politically correct ones of course!!! You do realize its banned in a certain counties...?

[exhausted]

+1 From what I saw on the CLOD forum there were a lot of dissatisfied, disillusioned players, including me. By keeping things simple and elegant there's more of a chance of BOS reaching full potential while satisfying all but the most demanding of gamers (not forgetting that computers will have more powerful chips and graphics cards by the time this is realeased in in 2014, so there will be more scope for developing patches and improvements that will be able to take advantage of this). Another problem with CLOD - and lots of other games for that matter - was that there was so much pressure to grab a position in an increasingly crowded market that it was released prematurely and full of bugs, many of which are still unresolved.

 

I think its up to gamers not to demand too much (phffpt - fat chance!), and to be more forgiving if a product is released later than scheduled - if it's released late and full of bugs then there are grounds to complain, but if it's released late with as few bugs as possible, showing that the developers have taken care over the product, I see no grounds for complaint.

 

All of which leads me to a question, what features used in CLOD can be dispensed with for BOS?

 

Absolutely true. I think that this makes sense from both a business point of view and from the point of it being achievable.

[Foobar]

Question - Will we get proper historical german marking or "politically correct" one like in Il-2 1946 and CloD ?

 

Paint a Hakenkreuz on your skin if you desperately need one.

[csThor]

The problem is the legal situation. Fact: Russia has a less than clear law on "national-socialist propaganda". As a result 1C made the decision a while back not to use the swastika in any of their future games. I'm using google translator to get an overview of the discussions in the russian board and the swastika question was asked ... the thread was ultimately closed. Should tell you what the answer will be.

[ATAG_Slipstream]

IIRC there are user made skins already in RoF with the swastika (maybe called something else?) so it might be acceptable, but it could be dodgy ground for WW2, with the nazi connotations.

http://riseofflight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=208&t=27211&hilit=swastika

http://riseofflight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=204&t=20446&hilit=swastika

Edited December 16, 2012 by JG52Uther

[SYN_Vander]

On the topic of skins and markings, how will the aircraft codes and unit markings be applied? Also, will the squadron emblems and (particularly for the LW twin-engined planes) the codes be accurate? It'll be hard to track all the changes of course, but these were so weak in the original IL2 - inaccurate, plastic-decal looking.

 

Good one. I'm also hoping that some kind of decal system will be used for BoS. In multiplayer, having lots of different/custom skins can eat up a lot of memory, but decals with squad markings or codes don't have that problem and will be very useful for identification.

[=IRFC=Jorri]

I would like to know more details about the engine management, ballistics, damage and flight model.

 

Also, if you have plans to make CoD Open Source.

 

Hi Slamelov, Jason already commented that he has nothing to say about the CloD engine, so it's not up to him or the new team. Not sure who owns the rights to the CloD engine, though.

[=IRFC=Jorri]

1C who are still involved in this venture, which is why we can expect components to be transplanted to it from COD's carcass

 

Yes that has me puzzling as well, apperently the new company has no rights to the CloD engine but they can import models from it?

 

Anyway, I found Jason's answer to the question:

 

 

Could you please advise if 1C transfered the rights for CloD and BoM engine to your joint venture or 1C keeps the rights to themselves. Whom community should talk to about releasing (parts of) CloD code to modders? E.g. if Diados team decides to work on CLoD engine, whom they should talk to?

 

You mentioned that your team may use some models from BoM in BoS. Doesn't it mean you own the rights for BoM now and these questions should be discussed with you?

 

 

 

I'm sorry but there is nothing to discuss. I have nothing to do with CLOD code or and decisions about it. I think you guys are barking up the wrong tree on this, I highly doubt that code will be released to anyone. 

 

Jason

Edited December 16, 2012 by hq_Jorri

[Feathered_IV]

Yes that has me puzzling as well, apperently the new company has no rights to the CloD engine but they can import models from it?

 

So far it seems like the BoS team are able to use the unreleased material, but not the stuff directly from clod.

[Fishbreath]

Will Battle of Stalingrad include "dumb" static objects (trucks, tanks, aircraft,...) that can be used to form potential targets for bombers and such without taking up as much resources as would a bunch of AI enhanced objects like we have in RoF?

There are some recent videos on Jason Williams' Youtube channel that show some things that look like static airplanes: very simplified damage models (pristine, exploded), no pilots. That bodes well for ground objects.

[LukeFF]

I have few questions. Since it supposed to be about Moscow and Stalingrad battles, how true to real events this sim will be?. What  time frame, proportion of the sides and character of the fight we will get?

 

It's not covering Moscow.

[Foobar]

I agree.

But as you may know skinning in RoF has its rules. http://riseofflight.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=112&t=8093

 

That's why I asked in "Questions for Developers" thread.

 

As far as I've understand this thread you'll be fine with BoS if they'll go the RoF way.

[Sturm_]

It would be in direct competition with the actual project, so I don't think 1C would even sell it. The only chance is to crack it, and we all know it has legal implications.

[Bearcat]

Personally I think they are going to shelve it for a few years but I don't know that.

[ACG_Dickie]

Politically correct ones of course!!! You do realize its banned in a certain counties...?

 

Which counties Krupi?  I live in Gloucestershire and it's not banned here  

[BlitzPig_EL]

Good point Bearcat.

 

Not much use of artificial light sources in 777's current sim as we don't have Gotha's over London.  Another area that will need to be  properly addressed.  Lots more night flying in WW2.

 

The in/on aircraft lighting should not prove a big issue, but buildings, fires, etc... will need to be addressed in a believable manner.

[PeterZvan]

Acctually currently in RoF you have fires (at night the fires mark the airfield) and spot lights (to spot the big bombers).

There are also some really good muzzle flashe effects  - just fire up a night mission and you will see. Also one can have cockpit lights - I remember a formation / orientation flight we did at one point with our squad - well over a 2 hour flight with a landing in between -  crossing a big part of the map and in the night landing at an airfield marked by fires. Due to not having positional lights we had to rely on the faint cockpit lights and a flare here and there. That was quite a special experiance.

So I dont have much fears about the dev. team making the night lighting... belivable.

[=IRFC=Jorri]

Well there be ground lighting at night in BoS ?

 

Like Peter says, a lot of excellent work has gone into lighting for night flying already with the DN engine. Lit windows at night (so the textures eminate light) is not one of them, so that could be a good addition.

Edited December 18, 2012 by hq_Jorri

[Bearcat]

Not convinced.  One of the 'features' of COD is the lights in the windows of house in the towns but nobody at 1C researched something which was strictly and rigorously enforced called 'blackout'.  This was not the case in France until Gibson and friends started taking their bombers over.  It's actually very annoying, not that night missions are popular anyway.

I think this is in DCS as well.

[PeterZvan]

Ups - forgot those. Just shows how little I fly with the big birds.

[Skoshi_Tiger]

Is it possible that we get the "anthropomorphic controls" feature? You know, the virtual pilot has only two hands and ten fingers which means he can only do so much at one moment?

They tried it in COD and It was the most annoying feature in any Combat flight sim I have ever used. Thank God most server administrators had it turned off as an option.

 

I use a HOTAS and a custom built swich pannel. If the delay programmed in by the developers is not realistic it just a pain.

Edited December 19, 2012 by Skoshi Tiger

[ATAG_Slipstream]

TBH I think you must have been one of the few to use that feature.  The thought was there, but it was horrendously bugged.

Edited December 19, 2012 by JG52Uther

[dburne]

I don't know how popular that feature was, but I myself never much liked it.

[FTC_Karaya]

We havent had tabled FMs for the past 10 or so years so why go back to the '90s?

 

As an experienced FM modder of sorts within the IL-2 modding community I can shed some light onto how IL-2 works:

 

IL-2 (the original) never had fixed FMs, all that was defined (within a simple text file) were the (control) surfaces of the aircraft, the weight and polares as well as the engine parameters in a seperate file and the sim calculated all performance "on the fly" so to say. If I recall correctly according to Oleg the sim calculated the FM every 100ms for each plane, taking into account every slight change of fuel and ammo and thus calculating the handling of the aircraft in its current state of flight.

 

In CoD this is very much the same and the overall structure of the FM files is the same as in IL-2 '46 just with the addition of even more FM related factors and variables.

 

I guess it is therefore quite easy to see why its not just a case of "putting" the right performance into the sim, the FMs have to be tested one by one and adjusted if need be.

 

I have no clue how RoF handles FMs but I would assume that it is comparable to CoD in that regard

 

Luthier posted extensively on this on the CloD forums.  Even though it's patched together fairly well now, the code base is a mess.  They can't change FM characteristics without enormous effort and fixing many unintended consequences when they do get it in.  This tells me it's a mass of spaghetti put together by a revolving door of programmers.  Kind of blows my mind... as a database guy, I always assumed various FM parameters (speed at altitude, thrust / accel, roll, etc.) would all be in a nice, neat table, allowing simple changes of performance by altering associated values.  Definitely doesn't seem to be the case.  His entire tone in that post was one of immense frustration.

Edited December 21, 2012 by JG52Karaya

[Krupi]

It may still not be worth it for y'all to do it, but I'd put $20 down on a 109 pit that looked like the one from CloD in a heartbeat.  There may be enough of us out here to make it worth your while.

 

I most certainly would do the same, they are amazing and without a doubt worth every penny... or cent in this case

Edited December 21, 2012 by JG52Krupi

[JG27_Chivas]

Oculus Rift Virtual reality head tracking set.

 

I know there is a thread in the hardware section, but I'm interested in Loft's take on the feature.

 

This IMHO its a must for developers to look into, especially flight sims.  The developers kits are coming out in Mar/Apr for around three hundred dollars.   The Oculus Rift incorporates a number of features that could take flight simming to the next level.   I've been looking for a new combat flight sim monitor for quite sometime, but there is nothing out there that interested me until now.  I've never been that interested in 3D, but I recently seen a short 3D film with some flight scenes that blew me away.  Couple that with head tracking and the wide field of view of the Oculus it may be a winner. 

 

http://www.oculusvr.com

 

http://www.oculusvr.com/faq/

[AndyJWest]

Oculus Rift Virtual reality head tracking set.

 

I know there is a thread in the hardware section, but I'm interested in Loft's take on the feature.

 

This IMHO its a must for developers to look into, especially flight sims.  The developers kits are coming out in Mar/Apr for around three hundred dollars.   The Oculus Rift incorporates a number of features that could take flight simming to the next level.   I've been looking for a new combat flight sim monitor for quite sometime, but there is nothing out there that interested me until now.  I've never been that interested in 3D, but I recently seen a short 3D film with some flight scenes that blew me away.  Couple that with head tracking and the wide field of view of the Oculus it may be a winner. 

 

http://www.oculusvr.com

 

http://www.oculusvr.com/faq/

 

Thread on Oculus Rift http://forum.il2sturmovik.net/index.php?showtopic=71&hl=oculus

[JG27_Chivas]

Thread on Oculus Rift http://forum.il2sturmovik.net/index.php?showtopic=71&hl=oculus

Yes, as I said in my post I'm aware of the other thread, but Loft never gave an opinion in that thread, and as he appears to be the lead developer of BOS, I would be interested in his thoughts.

[dburne]

I wonder, will the same gui regarding controller settings be used in BoS, as what is used currently in RoF?

I downloaded RoF about a week ago to check it out, and unless I am missing something, I don't see a way to assign modifiers' in the controls menu?

Like in some other sims, you can assign a key and/or button press to use as a modifier, to where you can use the same button for instance for more than one command. As these WWII planes have more controls to deal with, it would be nice to be able to use modifiers' to increase assignment capacity to buttons.

 

My apologies if RoF does have the capability, I am new to it and have not noticed where it does...

[Bearcat]

1. I hope to have a free demo of some sort. The business model will be different than ROF so an F2P client is not probably something that will happen.

 

 

By F2P do you mean free to play like Hyperlobby?

[SR-F_Winger]

Hi Jason,

 

do you guys know about the Oculus Rift VR Headset? - Its one of the most successful kickstarter projects and gives the player a total immersion to the game, no mulit screens or track ir?

[BlitzPig_EL]

Apologies if this has been asked before...

 

Will the ground war be realistically portrayed with sufficient ground objects, vehicles and tanks? Do you have an anticipated ground object limit for multiplayer play, eg 1000+ or whatever?

 

Hood

 

This is really the big question that I have with the new sim as well.  Some enlightenment from the devs would be welcome about this.

[Feathered_IV]

 

 

By F2P do you mean free to play like Hyperlobby?

 

Jason, would be referring to the Free to Play system that RoF currently enjoys.  The core game is available at no charge.  Hyperlobby is just a third party server browser and chat utility.

[Kling]

 

Hello Jason !

 

Ok...Is this an accurate statement ? We know that your philosophy is to not promise anything at this point, but...Can we hope to benefit from it ?

 Found this on the Banana Forum....

Thanks !

 

 

Originally Posted by FS~Phat 

I know this is a bit naughty cross posting but this is important.

 

DX11 and 64bit is on the horizon.. will it make it to BoS? Probably, but maybe not on release. We may not get DX11 and 64bit on release of the new sequel but the 777 way is to make things fun, get it out and then continually tweak it. So if they are already working on DX11 and 64bit expect that will probably make its way into ROF (or maybe another project?) before the sequel for refinement and testing.

 

Bottom line. Dont dis 777 just because today they are DX9, they are already looking beyond that.

 

More here on the graphics engine 

http://www.cleared-to-engage.com/cat...777-studios-2/

 

Extract:

"It???

Edited December 31, 2012 by Kling

[Bearcat]

5. Of course skinning will be a big part of BOS. In ROF we took skinning to a whole new level with providing detailed templates and official skin packs etc. I don't think much will change in this department.

 

Jason

 

It seems to me that BoS will probably have an even larger following than RoF which currently has 47 squads listed onit's squads page if my memory serves me right..  and many squads from IL2 will move over to BoS if it takes off like I suspect it will...

 

Will the same skinning system be used as in RoF as far as user made skins go.. where skin packs will have to be submitted.. ?

 

Points to consider... 

• The online community, though historically a small portion of any overall sim community (this is surprising to some but it is.. most virtual fliers fly offline) is still IMO an integral part of the sim community. Currently at least in the CFS series and IL2 individual skin use is possible which of course is like a virtual uniform to many squadrons. The ability to create and display aircraft skins easily is not something to be taken lightly (Not that you or anyone else at 1CGS does..) so I am wondering..
• How will this work for squadrons.. especially the larger ones like AH and some of the JGs ..? It seems that the process of submitting and approving skins could stretch out the process a bit..
• In our heyday we had as many as 20+ members and everyone had an individual skin .. How will that be implemented if only pre approved skin packs can be submitted like in RoF?
• If that is the case could there possibly be some kind of default skin for each squadron with decal/noseart/numbering possibilities for individuals similar to what is now done in IL2?
• Is whatever policy you are considering going with already etched in stone or is there possibly some flexibility as to what the final outcome will be for the use of skins online?
• Will we be able to add our faces to pilot skins like in IL2?

[FlatSpinMan]

Hi there rcsuardi - just to clarify your post, do you mean you hope that neither the IFR system nor the ADF system will be included?

[ACG_Suardi]

Hi there rcsuardi - just to clarify your post, do you mean you hope that neither the IFR system nor the ADF system will be included?

 

Hi Flat Spin!!!

 

I want a IFR system, and this include a ADF or another instrument used on that time. But I want to see the instrument appoiting to a radio beacon (like the German Lorenz system that I posted), not to a virtual point on the map.

 

This type of navegation was included in the IL2-1946 with the patch 4.10, made by Daidalos Team. And will be very nice to see this in the BoS.

 

This video shows how to use the Lorenz system in the IL-2 1946... I think it's simple to add this to the simulator, and very pleasure to operate.

 

Edited January 3, 2013 by rcsuardi

[71st_AH_Mastiff]

and what was the original concept of IL2; Sturmovik?

[fly_zo]

Will Bos have a Boxed Version , and a Boxed Collectors edition?

 

I always want to have the Sims on Boxed version, would be a cool idea of the Collectors edition to have for example the First Dlcs or addons free or something

 

Salute

 

+1 on boxed version

 

... pretty please

 

reg

Z