No Four Engine Bombers and large swarms of planes because of Time Dilation. Really?

[IckyATLAS]

It seems like an established fact that Time Dilation (or TD in short) is the sole reason why we have a limited number of planes flying at a time and four engine bombers. I am a little dubious about that claim, as it is a very comfortable and easy way to just close the chapter related to having four engine flyable bombers, or even improving the game engine in that respect. If I remember well Jason once said in a post that there was no technical issue with the game engine to handle four engine bombers. So maybe the problem here is simply the cost of designing such a model, its cockpit and all what goes with it (FM, DM etc.) to fly it keeping the very high standards of this game. Which is also probably why we have no flyable B25 and other.

 

TD at least the way I measure it, is with an ingame timer compared to an external chronometer.

 

TD exists without any doubt as I have had this issue a few years ago, but our machines in a period over ten years have become so much more powerful, so that the impact of TD even if the game engine is not improved, should become less and less relevant. Yes, we do have improvements in visual quality and effects which have also increased the load but overall, and maps have become larger, we have more processing power GPU and CPU available. And to be noticeable you need something like say 5% TD or more.

 

Because Time Dilation is not related directly to the FPS, this means that visually the fluidity of the game is not impacted and thus the TD is not immediately disturbing except when it becomes high as I said above 5%. A few years ago I had a mission design concept that made me get like 20% of TD but with 80-90 FPS all along.  The impact of TD becomes noticeable for fast fighters that become slower in their reaction. On the other hand, it will be much less noticeable for large bombers fully loaded with bombs, and even more for B17 or B24 type bombers as these are slower and high inertia planes and do fly mostly on steady courses at high altitude. Same for planes like Stuka and the old Tante JU.  If you fly an A20 loaded with bombs you will not have the same feeling as if you fly a Mustang. 

 

TD is dynamic, I mean the value varies depending on the intensity at a given moment in the mission. So, we need to measure it when there is the maximum action intensity in the mission to have the max value, as well as a more global coverage to have a good average value on the mission.

 

I plan to make a specific benchmark mission on the BON map very loaded to have a recent measure of it. By the end of the year, I plan also to renew my hardware, and so I will be able to compare between two hardware generations.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by IckyATLAS

[BornToBattle]

Very interested to see how your benchmarks turn out.

[RyanR]

I've not noticed any problems with a pretty good swarm of planes with whatever is in my latest computer (I research parts, then forget...). 60FPS 100% of the time. I do a lot of 3D work and data processing for a living, so this rig is pretty well built out.

 

I'm a big B-17 nerd, so I'd love to see it, but personally, I find the B-26 fills the 4-engine bomber role as well as it needs to be filled in GB. As an escort, you tend to get up to 20K feet, so you can exploit the high altitude capabilities of the P-51/P-38/P-47.

 

There are a lot of reasons *not* to do 4-engine bombers from a gameplay perspective. Their missions won't fit on the map. An intercept would not fit on the map. Flying a B-17 in a "fighter" sim... especially in multiplayer has a lot of problems. They are not short missions. It takes a long time just to get to altitude. With that time commitment, if something goes "wrong" with the sim, people get angry. That's in single player.

 

In multi-player, the problems really start to compound with complaints with the "over/under-modeled" crowd.. then there's the ultimate problem: It takes, say, 30 minutes to get a B-17 to altitude. It takes almost no time to get a 109K with 20mm's to get to altitude.... and it's not real life. So, the guy in the 109 shreds you in the B-17. He "dies" in the process. Guy in the 109 is out 10 minutes of his real life. Guy in the B-17 is down an hour of their time. Consequently, you see fewer and fewer B-17's online. This has happened in online sim after sim for 25 years. 

 

Don't get me wrong, it'd be glorious to see 4-engine bombers in game. I still remember a single-player Pe-2 mission where everyone was putting out contrails: bombers and escorts... and then the interceptors came in from 12:00 high, streaming contrails, while on the bomb run. Contrails were everywhere as the escort went after them. It was very immersive and "tense". It was so reminiscent of the actual footage of B17/B-24 formations.

 

-Ryan

[CountZero]

32 minutes ago, RyanR said:

I've not noticed any problems with a pretty good swarm of planes with whatever is in my latest computer (I research parts, then forget...). 60FPS 100% of the time. I do a lot of 3D work and data processing for a living, so this rig is pretty well built out.

 

I'm a big B-17 nerd, so I'd love to see it, but personally, I find the B-26 fills the 4-engine bomber role as well as it needs to be filled in GB. As an escort, you tend to get up to 20K feet, so you can exploit the high altitude capabilities of the P-51/P-38/P-47.

 

There are a lot of reasons *not* to do 4-engine bombers from a gameplay perspective. Their missions won't fit on the map. An intercept would not fit on the map. Flying a B-17 in a "fighter" sim... especially in multiplayer has a lot of problems. They are not short missions. It takes a long time just to get to altitude. With that time commitment, if something goes "wrong" with the sim, people get angry. That's in single player.

 

In multi-player, the problems really start to compound with complaints with the "over/under-modeled" crowd.. then there's the ultimate problem: It takes, say, 30 minutes to get a B-17 to altitude. It takes almost no time to get a 109K with 20mm's to get to altitude.... and it's not real life. So, the guy in the 109 shreds you in the B-17. He "dies" in the process. Guy in the 109 is out 10 minutes of his real life. Guy in the B-17 is down an hour of their time. Consequently, you see fewer and fewer B-17's online. This has happened in online sim after sim for 25 years. 

 

Don't get me wrong, it'd be glorious to see 4-engine bombers in game. I still remember a single-player Pe-2 mission where everyone was putting out contrails: bombers and escorts... and then the interceptors came in from 12:00 high, streaming contrails, while on the bomb run. Contrails were everywhere as the escort went after them. It was very immersive and "tense". It was so reminiscent of the actual footage of B17/B-24 formations.

 

-Ryan

Thats why you can have airstarts, so bomber guys who dont have 30min time to waist on climbing go from there.

Onother problem with bombers in this game is,exept gunners that are made useless, is all objectives are based on objects destroyed so your more effective going down low and droping bomb by bomb precisly, so even if you had B-17 you would see them used for low alt pinpoint bombing, there needs to be ability for mission maker to select city/industrial zone, airbase, port ... and objective is finished when certen amount of bombs tonage is drop in that 2x3km area for example. That would provide need for bombing from higher up. Also game need to have AA that is just for effect (cant hit a thing) and AA that is laser acurate (hits anything in its area of fire), so then mission maker can place low-mid alt very accurate flak in low numbers to discurage low-mid alt attacks on objective, and add small number high alt low accurate flak for imersion... Then you have objective that is for bombers to bomb from high alt and they can already spawn on high alt. You then have option to move fight from down low that is now only option.

But in the end most ppl wont simple AI B-17 just so they can shoot at it not many would buy it to fly it, so it dosent pay to make one as you dont need to buy one to shoot at it, and thats main problem if they decided to do one as collectable, so only way to see one added is in DLC as AI only, as part of 10+ airplane pack.

Edited October 2, 2022 by CountZero

[Eisenfaustus]

I use a 2020 gaming laptop to fly in VR

 

Career: High density and hard difficulty - I get serious TD in the target area. Up to 75%. 
 

Birds of Steel in some missions gets also noticeably TD. 
 

when in career a flight of 8+ He 111 gets attacked and all the gunners start tracking and engaging targets it usually has quite an impact. Thus I find it very plausible to assume that a flight of 8+ B-17 with even more gunners will impact dilation even more. 
 

And concerning a flyable heavy:

we lack a suitable map and without a „skip to action“ function or true „fast forward“ extremely few people would actually fly it more then once. 

[Voidhunger]

20 minutes ago, Eisenfaustus said:

Career: High density and hard difficulty - I get serious TD in the target area. Up to 75%. 

+1 but even with medium or low density, theres big TD in the target area for me.

[BlitzPig_EL]

I have posted before about my experience hosting.  When one of the other BlitzPigs hosts one of my missions, I don't have TD, but he will, and vice versa.  It is noticeable no matter if I fly a fighter or a fully laden A20 or Ju88.

 

The comparisons of "Time flown" compared between players after the mission is often very different, and usually does not correspond to the actual time as noted on a time piece here in the house.

[Gambit21]

9 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

 

 

TD exists without any doubt as I have had this issue a few years ago, but our machines in a period over ten years have become so much more powerful, so that the impact of TD even if the game engine is not improved, should become less and less relevant.

 

 

Yes, but not like you'd think.

Imagine a water hose, with a partially open valve on the end restricting flow.

 

As you increase water pressure/gallons per minute at the source, your output at the end/valve will keep increasing, but not at the rate at which it would if you didn't have that restrictor on the hose. This is how IL2 behaves when you throw more powerful PC hardware at it. As we keep getting better hardware, the performance increases because we're just throwing huge amounts of processing power at it, and things can't help but improve some.... but not to the point where it should be. Basically your new PC improves per performance to where it should have been 2 PC build's ago. If that makes sense.

If you monitor your box or even just listen to your fans, you won't hear them working harder. Now increase time in another sim and watch what your PC does. That's the best illustration of the problem, and also what it looks like when that problem doesn't exist.

 

So it's not a matter of a mission being too heavy either, I've run into TD in light missions with say 5 A-20's going through their attack routine on the Rhineland.

I've heard that check-zone logic has changed, and this may have increased performance as well where lots of non-active units are no longer causing a resource drain...haven't tested this myself.

 

 

[MisterSmith]

Icky,

 

This doesn’t belong in General but I can’t decide between Complaints or Suggestions. I’ll let you pick the move. Lemme know.

 

Smith

 

 

[Gambit21]

Also Icky, complex tanks are very "expensive", so they would be useful to create a TD benchmark mission even on one of the smaller maps.

I made a TD benchmark mission already if you do a search, but my next step was the complex tank idea on Velkie map or similar. Never got around to it.

 

 

The reality is that TD is insidious, and creeps in during normal (not always very heavy) missions when it shouldn't.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Gambit21

[chanklaus]

I see the arguments of those who say that a flyable heavy causes problems.

 

Still the heavies are highly interesting as AI's for single players, especially for mission and film makers. I would be excited to see the B-17 and B-24 as "AI Collector's Planes" - and be willing to pay for them.

 

Though - wouldn't it be great to have a "Battle above the Reichshauptstadt" with the big heavies as AI's?

 

Greetings, chanklaus

[343KKT_Kintaro]

11 hours ago, MisterSmith said:

Icky,

 

This doesn’t belong in General but I can’t decide between Complaints or Suggestions. I’ll let you pick the move. Lemme know.

 

Smith

 

 

 

 

Hi Agent Smith. In my humble opinion this fits very well where it is now, here in the general discussion forum. That was my opinion only... Cheers.

 

[RyanR]

3 hours ago, 343KKT_Kintaro said:

 

 

Hi Agent Smith. In my humble opinion this fits very well where it is now, here in the general discussion forum. That was my opinion only... Cheers.

 

 

Agreed. It's been civil and objective so far.... and interesting.

 

-Ryan

[IckyATLAS]

16 hours ago, MisterSmith said:

Icky,

 

This doesn’t belong in General but I can’t decide between Complaints or Suggestions. I’ll let you pick the move. Lemme know.

 

Smith

 

 

Let's be positive and have it in Suggestions ? 

[Blitzen]

On 10/2/2022 at 3:18 AM, IckyATLAS said:

It seems like an established fact that Time Dilation (or TD in short) is the sole reason why we have a limited number of planes flying at a time and four engine bombers. I am a little dubious about that claim, as it is a very comfortable and easy way to just close the chapter related to having four engine flyable bombers, or even improving the game engine in that respect. If I remember well Jason once said in a post that there was no technical issue with the game engine to handle four engine bombers. So maybe the problem here is simply the cost of designing such a model, its cockpit and all what goes with it (FM, DM etc.) to fly it keeping the very high standards of this game. Which is also probably why we have no flyable B25 and other.

 

TD at least the way I measure it, is with an ingame timer compared to an external chronometer.

 

TD exists without any doubt as I have had this issue a few years ago, but our machines in a period over ten years have become so much more powerful, so that the impact of TD even if the game engine is not improved, should become less and less relevant. Yes, we do have improvements in visual quality and effects which have also increased the load but overall, and maps have become larger, we have more processing power GPU and CPU available. And to be noticeable you need something like say 5% TD or more.

 

Because Time Dilation is not related directly to the FPS, this means that visually the fluidity of the game is not impacted and thus the TD is not immediately disturbing except when it becomes high as I said above 5%. A few years ago I had a mission design concept that made me get like 20% of TD but with 80-90 FPS all along.  The impact of TD becomes noticeable for fast fighters that become slower in their reaction. On the other hand, it will be much less noticeable for large bombers fully loaded with bombs, and even more for B17 or B24 type bombers as these are slower and high inertia planes and do fly mostly on steady courses at high altitude. Same for planes like Stuka and the old Tante JU.  If you fly an A20 loaded with bombs you will not have the same feeling as if you fly a Mustang. 

 

TD is dynamic, I mean the value varies depending on the intensity at a given moment in the mission. So, we need to measure it when there is the maximum action intensity in the mission to have the max value, as well as a more global coverage to have a good average value on the mission.

 

I plan to make a specific benchmark mission on the BON map very loaded to have a recent measure of it. By the end of the year, I plan also to renew my hardware, and so I will be able to compare between two hardware generations.

 

On 10/2/2022 at 3:18 AM, IckyATLAS said:

I look forward to this test mission & perhaps even testing it myself.I've never quite understood how the older sim CloD can support larger number of well modeled aircraft & backgrounds and my favorite sin Great battles cannot in any of its forms from BoS to FC to TC...?

 

 

 

 

[MisterSmith]

At your request.

 

Smith

[Oboe]

Am I understanding correctly that Time Dilation is an effect whereby the in-game time "slows" down compared to outside world real time?  Further, the extent of this slowdown in game constantly varies, depending on the complexity of the current game situation, i.e. more planes, detail, etc = slow game clock?

 

 

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

3 hours ago, Oboe said:

Am I understanding correctly that Time Dilation is an effect whereby the in-game time "slows" down compared to outside world real time?  Further, the extent of this slowdown in game constantly varies, depending on the complexity of the current game situation, i.e. more planes, detail, etc = slow game clock?

 

 

Yes.

 

This issue will be the series Achilles Heel if it isn't fixed. We really need multi-threading support and DX12/Vulkan.

Edited October 3, 2022 by drewm3i-VR