How to skip a long waste of time?

[TAKAO183]

When I play any single mission, I forced to wait a long time until reaching enemies.

I always think that it is a waste of time.

This game can skip this process by pressing "]" key, but even if I do it, still I have to wait a long time. Because this feature only means increasing time scale.

Instead, I want to skip (or cut) the process for reaching enemies by pressing any key.

On old flight games, this feature exist normally. Why not on IL-2 GB?

Please adopt this feature in next update on this game. Otherwise, all users forced to spend waste of time everytime.

[Juri_JS]

I don't think a real "skip to next waypoint/engagement" feature will be possible, because of the games mission logic. Triggering of events depends on the time passed in a mission. For similar reasons the old Il-2 1946 did not have such an option. What it did have was an option that would turn the screen black, which allowed higher time compression in missions. This wasn't really a skip feature, because the mission would still run in the background and a high number of AI planes would still influence how much time compression was possible. No idea if something similar can be done in Il-2 GB.

[Eisenfaustus]

for career:

- start as a squadron leader

- choose air start

- manually move your second waypoint as close to the action point as possible

 

now you should spawn close to the action

 

you can leave the mission after completion as soon as you are safe above own frontline

[AEthelraedUnraed]

3 hours ago, TAKAO183 said:

When I play any single mission, I forced to wait a long time until reaching enemies.

Please elaborate. The Quick Missions should put you right onto the enemy at mission start, and the AQMG missions are usually just a couple of minutes of flight as well if you choose the air start. Furthermore there's tons of free singleplayer missions to download, many of which have quick action too. It's true the career often requires you to fly longer stretches, depending on the career, but there's a lot of singleplayer content that doesn't. 

 

3 hours ago, TAKAO183 said:

Please adopt this feature in next update on this game.

You have a completely unrealistic view of software development if you expect the Devs to not only implement it at all, but in the next update.

[ShamrockOneFive]

Those old games used a very different structure to make their missions work. It's not something that modern sims can do because the mission logic needs to continue to run.

 

You have mitigating options. The AQMB scenarios are great for quick action as air starts and even airbase starts are never very far from the action - this is by design and intended to appeal to that kind of activity. There are other options like picking Career missions where you're close to the frontlines. Some are quite far back such as the Ar234 career I've got going at the moment where you're anywhere between 150-200km from the target. Others are within 10-20km and you tend to get into things quickly.

[=LD=Nephrill]

If I am not mistaken you can set the battlefield density in career mode. This will reduce your flight time.

[Soilworker]

5 hours ago, TAKAO183 said:

On old flight games, this feature exist normally. Why not on IL-2 GB?

 

Old games are far, far less complex than GB, if it was so easy to implement I'm it would have been added a long time ago. 

[PatrickAWlson]

 

7 minutes ago, Soilworker said:

 

Old games are far, far less complex than GB, if it was so easy to implement I'm it would have been added a long time ago. 

 

Based on what I know about mission design I don't think there is any technical reason it could not be done.  What the game would have to do is make believe it is doing an air start - put the planes at the WP in formation, just like it would in a regular air start.  I actually do something similar (probably more complex since I am doing intervals between WPs) where I have moving spawn points tied to a set of WPs.  When the flight actually spawns it begins to move towards the next WP in the mission based on their start point.

 

It's just not something that the team has prioritized.  Flight distances are short enough that it has not been deemed necessary.  Not sure that I agree with that, but that does seem to be the thought process. 

 

I think that I would agree if time compression worked to its stated goals.  What I would like to see is performance improvements that allow time compression to actually compress to 8x.  At the moment we ask for 2x and we get it. We ask for 4x and we get 2.1x.  We ask for 8x and we get 2.2x.  If that could be resolved then the longer flight distances would be more manageable.  

[CountZero]

5 hours ago, TAKAO183 said:

When I play any single mission, I forced to wait a long time until reaching enemies.

I always think that it is a waste of time.

This game can skip this process by pressing "]" key, but even if I do it, still I have to wait a long time. Because this feature only means increasing time scale.

Instead, I want to skip (or cut) the process for reaching enemies by pressing any key.

On old flight games, this feature exist normally. Why not on IL-2 GB?

Please adopt this feature in next update on this game. Otherwise, all users forced to spend waste of time everytime.

I was toled that SP players like to fly 1h+ missions and thats why we need to wait with other fixes for fuel systema nd Drop tanks to be added so SP players can fly even longer h missions, who whould wont to skip time when he has multiple h a day to just fly in combat sim for 1-5min of df... in reality i doubt SP players have time to just waist it on just flying to action, its strange what is priority in what is again said that its heavy SP focused game (90%SP 10% MP)...

[Jade_Monkey]

6 hours ago, TAKAO183 said:

Please adopt this feature in next update on this game. 

 

Coming right up, anything else you would like the dev team to do immediately?

[ShamrockOneFive]

2 hours ago, =LD=Nephrill said:

If I am not mistaken you can set the battlefield density in career mode. This will reduce your flight time.

Doesn't change distance. Just how much stuff is out there on the battlefield.

[Soilworker]

1 hour ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

 

Based on what I know about mission design I don't think there is any technical reason it could not be done.  What the game would have to do is make believe it is doing an air start - put the planes at the WP in formation, just like it would in a regular air start.  I actually do something similar (probably more complex since I am doing intervals between WPs) where I have moving spawn points tied to a set of WPs.  When the flight actually spawns it begins to move towards the next WP in the mission based on their start point.

 

It's just not something that the team has prioritized.  Flight distances are short enough that it has not been deemed necessary.  Not sure that I agree with that, but that does seem to be the thought process. 

 

I think that I would agree if time compression worked to its stated goals.  What I would like to see is performance improvements that allow time compression to actually compress to 8x.  At the moment we ask for 2x and we get it. We ask for 4x and we get 2.1x.  We ask for 8x and we get 2.2x.  If that could be resolved then the longer flight distances would be more manageable.  

 

Hmmm, good points there. 

Would probably still require more loading than the days of Aces of the Pacific, etc. 

 

(I'm still often reminded of coming out of the waypoint skip animation in AotP and AoE when I hear a perfect fourth played - I think that must be how they generated the engine sound, two oscillators set a fourth apart.) ?

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

You have mitigating options. The AQMB scenarios are great for quick action as air starts and even airbase starts are never very far from the action - this is by design and intended to appeal to that kind of activity. There are other options like picking Career missions where you're close to the frontlines. Some are quite far back such as the Ar234 career I've got going at the moment where you're anywhere between 150-200km from the target. Others are within 10-20km and you tend to get into things quickly.

 

Additionally, with Career mode, you can choose to start in the air, which cuts out a fair bit of time for units based farther back from the front lines.

[Skelthos]

2 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Additionally, with Career mode, you can choose to start in the air, which cuts out a fair bit of time for units based farther back from the front lines.

 

In addition to this you can always try to stay at units close to the front line, transfer units etc. to minimize distance to the front. 

[PB0_Roll]

European air war 1998

strike fighters project one 2002

 

Back when sims were (much) less accurate but fun factor was superior in priority.

 

Take off real time, press a key, get into a fight, get out of the ennemy zone, press a key, land real time, simulating an 8 hours flight in 20 minutes.

 

*edit* Smith

1 hour ago, Jade_Monkey said:

 

Coming right up, anything else you would like the dev team to do immediately?

 

I'll have markings for aircraft, good comms and AI responding to these, tiger's sounds for engines, higher resolution clouds and the ability to have 100 AI aircraft flying in the same airspace while not playing a slide show, thanks for asking.

 

Oh, and the Pacific too.

 

Tomorviks ?

[BraveSirRobin]

3 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

 

Based on what I know about mission design I don't think there is any technical reason it could not be done.  

I think the technical reason is that it would be a huge project and they don’t have that kind of money.  If you’re skipping to the next waypoint you still have to track all the things going on the mission up until the point that it restarts.  Does that sound like an easy project to you?  It doesn’t sound like it to me.

 

If they ever introduce the ability to save a mission that you can restart from the save point that might be a sign that they’re working on a time warp.  

[Noisemaker]

2 hours ago, CountZero said:

I was toled that SP players like to fly 1h+ missions and thats why we need to wait with other fixes for fuel systema nd Drop tanks to be added so SP players can fly even longer h missions, who whould wont to skip time when he has multiple h a day to just fly in combat sim for 1-5min of df... in reality i doubt SP players have time to just waist it on just flying to action, its strange what is priority in what is again said that its heavy SP focused game (90%SP 10% MP)...

SP campaign player here.  When I fly, I usually dedicate 4-6 hours of my time, just to enjoy the sim in campaign mode.  If I don't have that, then QM or AQMB it is!

 

I simply love the immersion of flying, though I will admit to using the auto level and going to grab a beer from the fridge on the long flights over friendly territory, especially in the U2.

[dburne]

3 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

 

Based on what I know about mission design I don't think there is any technical reason it could not be done.  What the game would have to do is make believe it is doing an air start - put the planes at the WP in formation, just like it would in a regular air start.  I actually do something similar (probably more complex since I am doing intervals between WPs) where I have moving spawn points tied to a set of WPs.  When the flight actually spawns it begins to move towards the next WP in the mission based on their start point.

 

It's just not something that the team has prioritized.  Flight distances are short enough that it has not been deemed necessary.  Not sure that I agree with that, but that does seem to be the thought process. 

 

I think that I would agree if time compression worked to its stated goals.  What I would like to see is performance improvements that allow time compression to actually compress to 8x.  At the moment we ask for 2x and we get it. We ask for 4x and we get 2.1x.  We ask for 8x and we get 2.2x.  If that could be resolved then the longer flight distances would be more manageable.  

 

Yes fully agree with this. It would be nice if time compression actually ran at the stated multipliers.

[Majpalmer]

If they plan to simulate B-17/B-24 with escort missions someday, flying from the UK to Berlin and back, they need to do something. 

[PatrickAWlson]

11 hours ago, BraveSirRobin said:

I think the technical reason is that it would be a huge project and they don’t have that kind of money.  If you’re skipping to the next waypoint you still have to track all the things going on the mission up until the point that it restarts.  Does that sound like an easy project to you?  It doesn’t sound like it to me.

 

If they ever introduce the ability to save a mission that you can restart from the save point that might be a sign that they’re working on a time warp.  

 

Usually skip to waypoint is disabled when you are in combat.  So let's say this holds true and we are just simulating where planes would be ... yes, it is ... at least not incredibly difficult. 

 

You know the waypoint that the player is going to .  You know the waypoints everybody else is going to.  You know the player's cruise speed so you know the elapsed time.  You know the cruise speed of the other planes so you can calculate how far they will get on their flight paths.  It's a bit of 6th grade math, a bit of 10th grade math, and a bit of 11th grade math.  How do I know this?  I have already written something very similar for PWCG virtual waypoints.  Same calculations.  And yes, I did have to dig out my then 30 year old now 40 year old school trig book to relearn some if it  

[Eisenfaustus]

3 hours ago, Majpalmer said:

If they plan to simulate B-17/B-24 with escort missions someday, flying from the UK to Berlin and back, they need to do something. 

I don’t think they do

[jollyjack]

13 hours ago, Noisemaker said:

...., though I will admit to using the auto level and going to grab a beer from the fridge on the long flights over friendly territory, especially in the U2.

 

SP too, but i also tend to set non cmpbin campaigns to single often, and exit those missions especially if there's too much beer getting involved.

Wife rationed my access to that fridge.

Pat mentioned 'skip waypoint'; on my wish list, also especially regarding testing my own mission experiments and exploiting 3rd party groups too..

[Gambit21]

13 hours ago, dburne said:

 

Yes fully agree with this. It would be nice if time compression actually ran at the stated multipliers.

As I’ve said before, it’s not a time compression issue per se. TD also occurs at 1X. You just notice it sooner at 2x and above.

 

 

[IckyATLAS]

17 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

I think that I would agree if time compression worked to its stated goals.  What I would like to see is performance improvements that allow time compression to actually compress to 8x.  At the moment we ask for 2x and we get it. We ask for 4x and we get 2.1x.  We ask for 8x and we get 2.2x.  If that could be resolved then the longer flight distances would be more manageable.  

The time compression is dependent mainly on the CPU load and your CPU capability (considering that your GPU is a good one). On my top system some of my missions even 2X is not a full 2X but maybe 1.7. In other missions you may have just 2. At 4X you get indeed a full 2 and a little more maybe and that's it. You se absolutely no difference going to 8x. If you play with an empty map or very locally populated and say three four planes and not much ground stuff, then you get a 4x  and an 8x does improve a little and maybe you get a 6x. So having a 16x or 32x multiplier does not make any sense at least as the game is made.

I see only the quick mission builder where you can choose to go directly to action, and sure you need still to fly a little, because in theory you should not know exactly where the enmy is and how strong it is, which is part of the real thing.

And now a small reminder, this is not an arcade game. So flying, and flying in a flight squadron, group or whatever is part of the game. For those who want to press a button and be instantly in a furball of planes and fighters you have as I said arcade filght game that are maybe better suited.

 

P.S.

As Gambit just said the notion of "time compression" is not exactly what it means as it is a little more complex but in any case what counts is the result which does not correspond at what you could expect a linear correspondence between the multiplier and the time position in the mission. We have also time dilation that will oppose the "time compression" is an element to consider if you speed up the game.

 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2022 by IckyATLAS

[BraveSirRobin]

9 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

Usually skip to waypoint is disabled when you are in combat.  So let's say this holds true and we are just simulating where planes would be ... yes, it is ... at least not incredibly difficult. 

 

You know the waypoint that the player is going to .  You know the waypoints everybody else is going to.  You know the player's cruise speed so you know the elapsed time.  You know the cruise speed of the other planes so you can calculate how far they will get on their flight paths.  It's a bit of 6th grade math, a bit of 10th grade math, and a bit of 11th grade math.  How do I know this?  I have already written something very similar for PWCG virtual waypoints.  Same calculations.  And yes, I did have to dig out my then 30 year old now 40 year old school trig book to relearn some if it  

‘The only problem is that it’s more complicated than just calculating where everyone else is when you get to the next waypoint.  You also have to determine whether any of the other units in the game triggered anything while they were moving.  Did they fly over a AAA gun, fight with enemy aircraft, or do anything else they might affect the mission?  Then you have to simulate the results of all of that.  

[PatrickAWlson]

8 minutes ago, BraveSirRobin said:

‘The only problem is that it’s more complicated than just calculating where everyone else is when you get to the next waypoint.  You also have to determine whether any of the other units in the game triggered anything while they were moving.  Did they fly over a AAA gun, fight with enemy aircraft, or do anything else they might affect the mission?  Then you have to simulate the results of all of that.  

 

No, you don't need any of that.  Never seen that done in any other game that implements warp movement of any sort, whether it's warp to waypoint in Aces Over the Pacific or fast travel  in Skyrim or Elden Ring.  

 

You implement it as "nothing happened during this time".  You reset the position of all planes currently in play and then begin the event calculations based on the new positions. 

 

The fallacy of "I need it all"  drives many a software project to failure.  Your proposal is a nice to have.  It is not necessary to meet the needs of the original request - implement warp to waypoint.

[BraveSirRobin]

3 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

No, you don't need any of that. 

You do if you want any level of realism.  In fact, one of the most important tactical changes that the Americans made was to send escort fighters out in front of the bombers to break up the German formations before they could attack.  If everyone is just warping everywhere without consequences how do you simulate that?  Just warping across Europe to get to Berlin without any fear of fighters or AAA would be pretty ridiculous.  

 

 

[BraveSirRobin]

There was a recent thread where a significant group of people wanted to cold start missions for the added immersion.  I assume these won’t be the same people warping across Europe (or the Pacific) without any consequences?

[PatrickAWlson]

1 hour ago, BraveSirRobin said:

You do if you want any level of realism.  In fact, one of the most important tactical changes that the Americans made was to send escort fighters out in front of the bombers to break up the German formations before they could attack.  If everyone is just warping everywhere without consequences how do you simulate that?  Just warping across Europe to get to Berlin without any fear of fighters or AAA would be pretty ridiculous.  

 

 

 

Your opinion.  Every game that I have seen to date does NOT do this.  

 

BTW: I am not advocating for warping to waypoints.  I  would never use such a feature.  If I was 1C  I wouldn't do it.  IMHO the existing capabilities are fine for a tactical sim.  I would much prefer a general effort around performance that would improve time compression as well as the overall experience, but that's my opinion. 

 

What I am saying is that a warp to WP option, in line with the same feature in existing games, seems to be feasible based on my experiences with the ME and my own code. 

[BraveSirRobin]

10 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

Your opinion.  

I don’t really care, but mostly because I don’t expect them to try to add warping of any kind.  
 

I just think it’s a mistake to assume that people are going to be happy warping all over the map without consequences.  Most of the complaining in this forum seems to be in favor of more realism, not less.  I understand that there have been a few exceptions, like the “no cockpit” view option.  But I’d hold off on calling this a relatively easy change until I was sure about what people really wanted.  

[jollyjack]

31 minutes ago, BraveSirRobin said:

 .... I just think it’s a mistake to assume that people are going to be happy warping all over the map without consequences.  Most of the complaining in this forum seems to be in favor of more realism, not less.  

 

At least it would make the devs quite happy designing graphics during this eventual warping; all the have to come up with is this:

 

[Majpalmer]

I've had a couple of brutally long escort missions playing the Vanilla campaign. (I've flown about a hundred Pat Wilson missions and never had an escort mission.) They were on the Moscow map against Tver, and it took forever to get there even with Autopilot and time compression. In fact, in the vanilla campaign you fly loads of escort missions and they are the longest in distance. What makes it worse is that you zig and zag to stay with the slow bombers. I've grown to hate HE-111s. 

 

I now use the Pat Wilson Campaign Generator, Air Start, and end the mission as soon as I'm back over my own lines, assuming I've either completed the requirements, am damaged, alone, or Winchester. 

 

Since I don't seem to get these long escort hops in the Pat Wilson campaign, it's usually not very long before I find myself in action. 

 

My recommendations are:  play the PW campaign, use Air Start and Autopilot, and don't bother flying all the way home if you want to cut down sortie times. 

[Fabioccio]

It's feasible. It depends on mission design. They already know what objects are in the mission before it starts and where the player flight is supposed to cross them. They should only add in mission despawn and respawn points and an animation like when you fly over the map boundaries. I don't play career anymore because of real life waste of time. I like to take off by myself (scramble missions), I like to land by myself, but nowadays the only way to spare rl time is to airstart and end mission in flight.

My opinion.

S!

[jollyjack]

On 7/19/2022 at 4:27 PM, Jade_Monkey said:

Coming right up, anything else you would like the dev team to do immediately?

 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

2 hours ago, Fabioccio said:

It's feasible. It depends on mission design. They already know what objects are in the mission before it starts and where the player flight is supposed to cross them. They should only add in mission despawn and respawn points and an animation like when you fly over the map boundaries. I don't play career anymore because of real life waste of time. I like to take off by myself (scramble missions), I like to land by myself, but nowadays the only way to spare rl time is to airstart and end mission in flight.

My opinion.

S!

Well, the problem wouldn't be just objects. Another big problem is all MCUs. There's quite a bit of "dynamic" triggers like Proximity and CheckZone, that might be used in missions, both for AI and player units. Skipping parts of the flight path could therefore break mission design.

 

Since it is not known beforehand where a player would skip time (if at all), any time compression system would therefore still need to simulate the mission, rather than just "respawn" planes. That could potentially still result in a massive speedup though since you could "switch off" the entire graphics engine and most of the AI (both the flight and combat AI can be ignored, basically, potentially with randomised combat results depending on plane types and skill in case planes of two different coalitions meet). "Skipping time" à la IL2 1946.

 

Mind though, that the fact that it is theoretically possible to create such a system, doesn't mean that it's easy to . Any such effort would likely take a lot of development time.

 

I do agree with PatrickAWlson though that it's more important to make the current time compression actually work at the advertised rates. This would likely also increase the maximum amount of aircraft at the same time, opening up the possibility to have true bombing raids. Such a thing would likely involve dynamic switching between different "levels" of AI depending on player/camera position relative to the aircraft, and possibly some aggressive culling of gunner AI. Again something that would require some serious effort on part of the Devs, although I think it might be justified in this case.

Edited July 21, 2022 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Irishratticus72]

Get a divorce.

[PatrickAWlson]

7 hours ago, jollyjack said:

 

 

Not ice cold - kills the taste.  There's a reason Coors Light wants you to drink their product ice cold.

 

Kind of funny story: my grandmother lived in a Gasthaus in a little village in NE Bavaria (Krotenbruck, outside of Hof).  My father worked for the airlines.  For us, a German vacation was cheap: free flight and free hotel at Oma's.  Funny - this link shows the street.  The Gasthaus Rauh (it's something else now) is be right across from Munzert's and next to the school.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=Krotenbruck+germany&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS880US880&oq=Krotenbruck+germany&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160.9916j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

OK, I'm babbling.  Just thought it was cool that I could Google Krotenbruck and it lands right on my street (Schulstrasse).   Back to my point ...

 

When I was a kid, walking to get brotchen  from Schirner's, the old guys getting their first beer in the morning would be sitting at the table with a purpose built electric warmer stuck in their beers.  Too cold coming from the cellars in the morning.  The idea was to get the beer from ice cold to cool (not warm!).  I still let my beer sit for 15 minutes after coming out of the refrigerator.

 

OK, what were we talking about?

[jollyjack]

51 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

... NE Bavaria (Krotenbruck, outside of Hof)

 

You could translate that to Spudbridge ....

[PatrickAWlson]

17 minutes ago, jollyjack said:

 

You could translate that to Spudbridge ....

 

Look  up Hof in Wikipedia.  it is not kind  .  I think it's a bit of a bad rap, but I am very biased.

 

For me it its great memories.  I was last there in 2015 with my father.   It felt great to walk around the center of town.  My grandmother is long passed and we had long ago sold the Gasthaus.  No cheap vacation this time.  We stayed at Munzert's and paid for the flight.  I still had thoughts of the toy store off the main square where I used to buy Timbo soldiers - also long gone.  Still, the center of town is not too much changed in the  past 50 years.  The area around the Gasthaus still has Shirner's, Munzert's, and the school.  I think the old building still said Gasthaus Rauh on the side in large but somewhat faded letters.

 

 

[Avimimus]

Honestly, being able to save and load situations would be a dream for me.

 

I actually really enjoyed the campaign format in the original Red Baron (not Red Baron II/3d)... it was possible to experience a much broader sweep of the war (because there was less time lost in transit between locations).

 

P.S. I also really enjoyed how there were different mission types which varied in difficult depending on the stage of the war or location on the front. Something which could be seen only through playing through the whole war and/or transferring squadrons.