Developer Diary #337 Discussion (The Past and The Future)

[ZachariasX]

If they go for Korea and manage to do so before a certain other sim that already has an F-86 and a Mig-15, that would be a fantastic facepalm. I mean they would also require B-29‘s when we currently can‘t have B-17‘s in any way, and neither carriers. I mean, seriously.

[Noisemaker]

15 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

If they go for Korea and manage to do so before a certain other sim that already has an F-86 and a Mig-15, that would be a fantastic facepalm. I mean they would also require B-29‘s when we currently can‘t have B-17‘s in any way, and neither carriers. I mean, seriously.

That certain other sim just announced and upcoming dynamic campaign mode, as well.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Yeah, and you can count on "that other sim" to have it done in, oh, 7 to 10 years, with a disjointed plane set and all for probably $500 US when all is said and done.  And that cost would just cover the aircraft.  Then you would have to purchase the map, and then a pack for all the ground units.

Edited January 2, 2023 by BlitzPig_EL

[Guest deleted@83466]

I’m aware that it’s considered gauche to compare other games, but I think you’re being too harsh on DCS.  My perception is that DCS has been steadily picking up the pace.  When I started playing our IL-2 here, the only 4th Gen fighter module in DCS was the Mirage 2000.  Now look at the things to chose from.  Their ww2 lineup, maps, helicopters, trainer aircraft offerings etc, seem to have expanded greatly.  Lots more 3rd parties involved now.

[Rei-sen]

All this talk about real time hydrodynamic calculations, yet you literally have engine timers

[Guest deleted@83466]

6 minutes ago, Arthur-A said:

All this talk about real time hydrodynamic calculations, yet you literally have engine timers

 

It has engine timers now, but maybe it won’t if AP’s efforts were to be realized way in a new game engine.  But even so, there may always be the need to artificially limit how far guys push their engines.  In real life, crew chief Micklin is like “what’d you do to my engine, college boy!”

Edited January 2, 2023 by SeaSerpent

[PB0_Roll]

On 12/30/2022 at 8:22 AM, AnPetrovich said:

I would like to add a bit to Daniel' words.

Just to make it clear to those who think this is some simple system or just drop tanks.

 

In fact it was an attempt to develop a technology for simulation a pipeline network of any possible configuration (in LEGO style, with new systems assembly via config-files only, without further coding), for a two-phase aggregate state of matter (gas + liquid, not necessarily fuel... turn on your imagination), including damage/repair models of every pipe and device, with any possible number of controls (including auto mode for beginners). And it had to be based on real-time hydrodynamic calculations of gas/liquid flows and pressures at any points in the system, with time-based (not instantaneous) transfer of contents through the system.

 

Those of you who have been following me since AFM know that I am all about simulation technologies. This is my passion, and I was very excited to make this attempt. This technology promised so many benefits! In realism, immersion, and most importantly, in speeding up the development of any liquid/gas systems for the all plane set.

 

The intermediate result met all requirements I mentioned above, but was computationally unstable when increasing the number of elements of the system. The struggle for computational stability took the bulk of the time and unfortunately this physics wasn't always working stable.

 

This is what sometimes happens with R&D tasks. You never know in advance what you will achieve until you go all the way through.

 

Finally I came up with a new approach but it took some time to make a transition to a different solution. I've done more than I could to redirect the system physics to the new solution before I left the company. It was almost done but yeah, still not 100%. It comforts me that the engineering team knows how to do the rest.

 

It was a very ambitious and hard run with unknown in advance results, and eventually took me over a year of ups and downs. Not an easy (I would say crazy), but very meaningful experience for me, an important and valuable experience for the team in the further R&D planning, and many useful outcomes for future use. I'll be very glad to see the "fuel system" on your PC one day, whichever project (current or the next one) will include this.

 

This is the perfect illustration why russian devs are able to produce bad games from accurate modelling. Flying planes and understanding their sometimes very complex systems is my day job, not what I want to do for fun. When I play a WW2 sim, I want to immerse in a WW2 world that runs around the plane, not to droll on a beautifully modelled fuel system.

 

Heck, I'd probably have more fun in EAW with modern graphics than in current state GB (and yes I do have fun with GB despite its limitations, just less). I even feel the need to play 46 at times, it was already miss managed but at least with current gaming machines I can have a fight involving dozens of aircraft with decent frames. Am I the only one missing EAW'S several hundred planes fighting on my screen ,while I could use the radio to give orders AI would follow, full squadrons of mustangs dropping their fuel tanks to engage full squadrons of interceptors while full bomber wings  would drop their bombs over occupied Europe, then after the fight was over press one key, if I wanted to, to skip the 4 hours return flight to england in 5 seconds and land my plane there ?

 

Please , current GB devs, stop thinking about ultra accurate systems, think about ultra believable worlds that works without killing CPUs and, above all, think of what will be the PLAYER experience.

 

Leave the beautifully super accurate systems that kill frame rate to MSFS pro pilots wannabes, and the super complex AI that can fly the same flight model as players but can't hold formation flying or let the game have more than a handful of multicrewed bombers in player sight without killing the frame rate to.... oblivion.

 

My wallet is ready.

[Alexmarine]

1 hour ago, ZachariasX said:

If they go for Korea and manage to do so before a certain other sim that already has an F-86 and a Mig-15, that would be a fantastic facepalm. I mean they would also require B-29‘s when we currently can‘t have B-17‘s in any way, and neither carriers. I mean, seriously.

 

Korea is actually much more about tactical aviation doing CAS and Interdiction than just B-29 tbh, they are not that needed (though nice to have)

 

Btw, that other sim F-86 is not even a Korean war model... 

[Trooper117]

F-86A, F-86E, and F-86F were used in Korea...

[migmadmarine]

F's made it to korea, but I don't know off the top of my head if the 86F-35 version that DCS has made it before the ceasefire or not, though the differences between the -35 and prior versions seems pretty minor in game terms, but even then the F is still a version coming into service in the last 6 months of the conflict...

[Alexmarine]

49 minutes ago, Trooper117 said:

F-86A, F-86E, and F-86F were used in Korea...

 

The one in the other sim is an F alright but it's a dash-35 with LABS as delivered to the USAFE in 1954/55 with bolted on GAR-8 capability (which points to dash-40)

 

Edit: I had forgot the actual dash version 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Alexmarine

[Bonnot]

1 hour ago, PB0_Roll said:

When I play a WW2 sim, I want to immerse in a WW2 world that runs around the plane, not to droll on a beautifully modelled fuel system.

 

I love reading something like this : so I'm not the only idiot to think that and consider a game is not only a pro-teaching device   ?

....but the opposite may be also true -as a point of view-  if everybody is satisfied  !

[DBFlyguy]

 

 

2 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Yeah, and you can count on "that other sim" to have it done in, oh, 7 to 10 years, with a disjointed plane set and all for probably $500 US when all is said and done.  And that cost would just cover the aircraft.  Then you would have to purchase the map, and then a pack for all the ground units.

 

Nick Grey in his office right now (when's he's not busy flying warbirds) being "really broken up" about a "disjointed plane set"... what ever will ED do with DCS ....??

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

56 minutes ago, Bonnot said:

 

I love reading something like this : so I'm not the only idiot to think that and consider a game is not only a pro-teaching device   ?

....but the opposite may be also true -as a point of view-  if everybody is satisfied  !

 

 

Some simmers need to learn the difference between a survey and a study.

 

DCS is a study and a real hardcore simulator.

 

RoF, IL2-1946, IL2-CoD and IL2-GB are surveys and, therefore, softcore simulation.

 

War Thunder and World of Warplanes are both arcades and softcore (very soft...).

 

 

[Livai]

On 12/29/2022 at 1:28 PM, Robli said:

The style of the announcement really gives the impression that this new project will not be compatible with current Battles

 

Why should this screenshot not be compatible with current Battles? - it share the same plane name "Typhoon" and the same plane skin.................

Edited January 2, 2023 by Livai

[343KKT_Kintaro]

17 minutes ago, Livai said:

Why should this screenshot not be compatible with current Battles? - it share the same plane name "Typhoon" and the same plane skin

 

 

What the debate is about is if whether or not the "new project" will be a completely new core engine. If it is the case, then all the content that is currently existing in "Great Battles" will be incompatible with the "new project". They would be different games just as "Cliffs of Dover" and "Great Battles" are different games thus not compatible to each other. If the new project is some kind of compatible continuity of the currently existing core engine in "Great Battles" then... no problem. At this point we don't know which of the two possibilities is the right one.

 

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by 343KKT_Kintaro
the "new subject" --> the "new project"

[Livai]

10 minutes ago, 343KKT_Kintaro said:

What the debate is about is if whether or not the "new project" will be a completely new core engine. If it is the case, then all the content that is currently existing in "Great Battles" will be incompatible with the "new project".

 

Remember Rise of Flight. Is the Rise of Flight content incompatible to this Game Engine? The Answer is not more, because you can always import content later to the newer Engine.

[sevenless]

56 minutes ago, Livai said:

 

Why should this screenshot not be compatible with current Battles? - it share the same plane name "Typhoon" and the same plane skin.................

 

Hey that´s a Eurovision Typhoon, which can be equipped with semi-nuclear ordnance, dunno about the jet in the background though...?

[Bumfluff]

Korea please.

 

[Rjel]

5 minutes ago, Bumfluff said:

Korea please.

 

CAG. Great film.

[343KKT_Kintaro]

9 minutes ago, Livai said:

 

Remember Rise of Flight. Is the Rise of Flight content incompatible to this Game Engine? The Answer is not more, because you can always import content later to the newer Engine.

 

 

"Great Battles" is a bud of "Rise of Flight", it was not a different core engine back in 2012, but both games evolved separately and always were treated as separate games. What you call "import content" is, basically, people who paid for "Rise of Flight" now pays a seconde time for "Flying Circus". You cannot launch your "Rise of Flight" game and play "Battle of Bodenplatte" or "Tank Crew". You cannot launch your "Great Battles" game and shoot at a "Rise of Flight" Ilya Murometz IN the "Rise of Flight" game.

 

So... again:

 

A) if the "new project" is a completely new core engine, thus different than the core engine that is currently being used by "Great Battles", then no player purchasing the "new project" will use it in the game user interface (GUI) and/or environment of "Great Battles". In such a case, possessing "Great Battles" and the "new project" in the same computer will be equivalent of, as it is possible now, possessing "Great Battles" and "DCS" in the same computer. Or "Great Battles" and "Cliffs of Dover" in the same computer. Or "Great Battles" and "Wings Over the Reich" in the same computer, etc. Following this hypothesis of item A, the "new project" is a different game, that's a all.

 

B) if the "new project" is a further evolution of the core engine, and if the "new porject" happens WITHIN the "Great Battles" GUI and/or the "Great Battles" environment... then all "Great Battles" modules will be compatible with the "new project".

 

"Flying Circus" is "incompatible" with "Rise of Flight" and, at this point, what we need to know is if whether or not the "new project" will be in compatible with "Great Battles".

 

 

[Bumfluff]

1 hour ago, Rjel said:

CAG. Great film.

So underrated. A real anti war film in a lot of ways. 

And to the Korea haters. Tell me again how you want yet another iteration of the 109 (maybe with galland’s ashtray as an optional unlock) and not these beasts of super props?

 

Horsepower!

 

 

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

40 minutes ago, Bumfluff said:

And to the Korea haters

 

 

Korea "haters"? What about Korea "fans"? Korea fans are like WWII fans or any other conflict fans: most of them can be considered as haters of much historical air conflicts... for examaple as Spanish Civil War "haters"... or 1939 Poland "haters"... or Vietnam "haters", etc. Such is my experience as a simmer on the forums: as soon as one mentions the possibility of reenactment of a given historical air conflict... "haters" appear whining, grunting, making fun of, or even ranting about any air conflict not corresponding to what they want. I'd be happy with a Korea flight sim, but I don't think about myself as if I was a vital piece on chessboard of the market of combat flight sims because I have no power to influence the devs in this game, nor the market in general: I witness what the market has to offer and I use it if I like it. As a conclusion, I see no point discussing about Korea or whatever other historical air conflict if we simply cannot find it among the elements which constitute this development diary 337.

 

 

[Guest deleted@83466]

Here is my thing with Korea, and armchair historians will gladly correct me.  UN Forces obliterated the NK Air Force in short order in early days.  Then around the North, Mig-15’s start appearing giving B-29’s a hard time.  So it’s Sabres vs MiGs.  The rest is Bridges of Toko Ri stuff, which for a game, which features Multiplayer, is very one sided.  When I say correct me if I’m wrong, I’m serious, not snarky.

[migmadmarine]

Co-op gameplay is great fun as well, perfectly valid form of gameplay.

Just look at all the folks who fly war on terror style scenarios in DCS

[Alexmarine]

5 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

Here is my thing with Korea, and armchair historians will gladly correct me.  UN Forces obliterated the NK Air Force in short order in early days.  Then around the North, Mig-15’s start appearing giving B-29’s a hard time.  So it’s Sabres vs MiGs.  The rest is Bridges of Toko Ri stuff, which for a game, which features Multiplayer, is very one sided.  When I say correct me if I’m wrong, I’m serious, not snarky.

 

Historical situation is barely taken into consideration already in MP servers, if we have 109K flying escort for Heinkels and Junkers against people flying Tempest and Mustangs flying escorts for A-20s (we didn't got the B-25/26 flyable ?) I totally see people escorting Mustangs in their F-86 against people escorting Il-10s in their MiG-15.

 

In short: MP will sort itself out with very small consideration to historical accuracy, it always did so and I don't see it changing for Korea

[Han]

On 1/1/2023 at 5:34 AM, Lusekofte said:

I just want to know what is coming. If they start that unlock crap again I know and move on. It is after all their product. 

Never again, you can be sure.  ))

[wolfbojan189]

please no korea..for jets you got dcs .

Stick to the ww2,there are more theatre of operations,italy,pacific,like to see some late east front...

And for tank crew also..

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

11 hours ago, Rjel said:

CAG. Great film.

CAG stands for?

[Lusekofte]

1 hour ago, Han said:

Never again, you can be sure.  ))

Phew, I am very relieved 

49 minutes ago, wolfbojan189 said:

please no korea..for jets you got dcs .

Stick to the ww2,there are more theatre of operations,italy,pacific,like to see some late east front...

And for tank crew also..

Korea would suit GB just fine. I also would like DCS go at it. But when did they finnish a complete battle. 
Not my fist wish, but far from the last pick also

[AnPetrovich]

17 hours ago, PB0_Roll said:

This is the perfect illustration why russian devs are able to produce bad games from accurate modelling. Flying planes and understanding their sometimes very complex systems is my day job, not what I want to do for fun. When I play a WW2 sim, I want to immerse in a WW2 world that runs around the plane, not to droll on a beautifully modelled fuel system.

 

Heck, I'd probably have more fun in EAW with modern graphics than in current state GB (and yes I do have fun with GB despite its limitations, just less). I even feel the need to play 46 at times, it was already miss managed but at least with current gaming machines I can have a fight involving dozens of aircraft with decent frames. Am I the only one missing EAW'S several hundred planes fighting on my screen ,while I could use the radio to give orders AI would follow, full squadrons of mustangs dropping their fuel tanks to engage full squadrons of interceptors while full bomber wings  would drop their bombs over occupied Europe, then after the fight was over press one key, if I wanted to, to skip the 4 hours return flight to england in 5 seconds and land my plane there ?

 

Please , current GB devs, stop thinking about ultra accurate systems, think about ultra believable worlds that works without killing CPUs and, above all, think of what will be the PLAYER experience.

 

Leave the beautifully super accurate systems that kill frame rate to MSFS pro pilots wannabes, and the super complex AI that can fly the same flight model as players but can't hold formation flying or let the game have more than a handful of multicrewed bombers in player sight without killing the frame rate to.... oblivion.

 

My wallet is ready.

 

Yes, I agree,

except maybe one thing I'd like to mention: I don't think anyone here wants to fly a banana that looks like a Mustang. We want a plane to be realistic, right? We want to feel it real, to "sit" in a real cockpit that looks real, works real and smells real. We want to have realistic aircraft behavior, its reactions to our actions, various damages, all those leaks and pump failures and even something to do in the cockpit of a multi-engine bomber en route.

 

After all, we all want to take part in an interactive movie, don't we?

 

The complexity of the game shouldn't mean that you have to study 500 pages of the manual to play the simulator, I absolutely agree with that!

 

But developers can not create a "movie" without increasing the complexity of the simulation. No one wants to go back to the realism level of the 90's, but I'm sure many of us want to have THAT gameplay. It's absolutely possible, I'm sure. Working on technologies like the "f̶u̶e̶l pipeline system" or realistic FM is a necessary base to achieve satisfactory gameplay in a simulator. But this necessarily requires the "auto system control" and "easy flight" options, which, by the way, are part of the technology.

 

So the solution is not to give up working on new technologies. The goal is to pay more attention to usability, to make gameplay easier.

 

These are different subjects.

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by AnPetrovich

[BMA_FlyingShark]

They can always keep those features optional for people who want them.

Some want realistic flight and just that, some want to get every little detail modelled and player controllable.

Both can coexist I think.

 

Have a nice day.

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by FlyingShark

[Wardog5711]

Quote

CAG stands for?

@1PL-Husar-1Esk

CAG stand for Commander, Air Group.

In that movie, the CAG was a solid guy who really looked out for his men and their aircraft.

[CountZero]

4 hours ago, Alexmarine said:

 

Historical situation is barely taken into consideration already in MP servers, if we have 109K flying escort for Heinkels and Junkers against people flying Tempest and Mustangs flying escorts for A-20s (we didn't got the B-25/26 flyable ?) I totally see people escorting Mustangs in their F-86 against people escorting Il-10s in their MiG-15.

 

In short: MP will sort itself out with very small consideration to historical accuracy, it always did so and I don't see it changing for Korea

exept your limited to fights in F-86 vs MiG-15, you dont have many differant options like in ww2 MP. Just look what mess is when you have 262 in map where props are doing DF, even small number of them ruls the fights of props, no one will be doing dfs in Yak-9P or La-11 vs F4U or F-51, when you have F-86s and MiG15s as options, and they were main fighters, not side dish like 262 is. So it boils down to boring one airplane type MP. And if you remove the jets, no one will be on server, so servers are incentivised to host best set. Also in MP no one is doing escorts ?

 

[343KKT_Kintaro]

1 hour ago, AnPetrovich said:

Eventually, we all wants to take a part in the interactive movie, don't we?

 

 

"Interactive", that's the clue word. AnPetrovich you just defined video games. Most video games are not really movies, "Tetris" for example, but their gameplay deploys some  kind of narration, some kind of action, simply because of their gameplay: one plays with them, one does something to win, or at least to entertain himself. "Pac-Man", for example... same thing. So not all are 100% a fictional story-telling process... but all video games, including flight simulators, are interactive: the player interacts with something not being human, something that is electronic, provided by a computer-science terminal, either a console or a PC. Arrival of multiplayer in the 1990s didn't change that fact: video games still are some kind of "interactive movies". I praise this brilliant intuition of AnPetrovich: if we want our air combat flight sims keep getting improved, we need to think about them as interactive films where not only the graphics look realistic, the interactive part also needs to be improved... this is: modelling of systems, damage and flight models, in a nut shell: the player's management part. When in 2019 the audience seated at a cinema theatre and watched "Midway", aviation fans might have thought about good or bad special effects in the film they were watching, but nobody in the theatre could decide, "ok, now I'll fly this Dauntless towards the opposite direction". Our movie here, "Great Battles" IS interactive, let's make it better in a balanced proportion at both levels: the graphic level and the serious-simulation level.

 

 

[JG27_Steini]

2 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

Phew, I am very relieved 

Korea would suit GB just fine. I also would like DCS go at it. But when did they finnish a complete battle. 
Not my fist wish, but far from the last pick also

 

I think for Korea multiplayer doesn't work well. A mixture of propeller and jet engines will never work. At the end you have 1-2 jet planes fighting each other. Same for SP. Who wants to play a propeller carrer where you constantly are attacked by jet planes. Korea was at the decline for prop planes.

Edited January 3, 2023 by JG27_Steini

[SCG_motoadve]

3 minutes ago, JG27_Steini said:

 

I think for Korea multiplayer doesn't work well. A mixture of propeller and jet engines will never work. At the end you have 1-2 jet planes fighting each other.

Korea will be boring, WWII is a lot more interesting.

[343KKT_Kintaro]

4 minutes ago, JG27_Steini said:

 

I think for Korea multiplayer doesn't work well. A mixture of propeller and jet engines will never work. At the end you have 1-2 jet planes fighting each other.

 

 

The "Combat Box" server makes not all players can fly a Messerschmitt Me 262, only a few do that and the historical proportion is somehow respected. There are ways to make it realistic. "Air Marshall" is apparently planned to be included in the "new project". The air marshall will make it realistic. Furthermore, I'm a true aviation fan: if, for the sake of historical accuracy you want to fly a MiG-15 and shoot at me while I bomb the korean ground from my P-51... so be it. We have historical fact, let's love historical aviation and its reenactment in flight sims... let's stop being flying munchkins.

 

 

Just now, SCG_motoadve said:

Korea will be boring, WWII is a lot more interesting.

 

 

Please read this.

 

 

[Lusekofte]

10 minutes ago, JG27_Steini said:

 

I think for Korea multiplayer doesn't work well. A mixture of propeller and jet engines will never work. At the end you have 1-2 jet planes fighting each other. Same for SP. Who wants to play a propeller carrer where you constantly are attacked by jet planes. Korea was at the decline for prop planes.

Multiplayer is already boring. Question is do we need a chronological approach on next theatre? Next dlc is subject for guessing. After that they set the bar to Pacific. 
Next one will not be Korea, they ruled out jet’s. I guess it might be an east Europe theme on it. 
If I am confident on PTO after that I might buy next module just to support next build, also to check out this “new”. 
So Korea is a no go, why discuss it?

[JG27_Steini]

16 minutes ago, 343KKT_Kintaro said:

 

 

The "Combat Box" server makes not all players can fly a Messerschmitt Me 262

 

 

 

This only works, because there are 20+ other planes left to choose from. If we get like 3 fighter planes each side and 1-2 are jets, you wont have much left. Jets work well versus jets, prop planes will in every aspect worse.

Edited January 3, 2023 by JG27_Steini