IL-2 4th Generation Future Titles

[Jackfraser24]

Question about third party involvement in the new series. Will the IL-2 development team be more open to letting third party developers make modules based on less significant battles while they focus on making modules based on the more important and well known battles and campaigns of WWII that they didn't cover in Great Battles? For example, while the IL-2 dev team creates modules based on Midway, Okinawa, The Philippines, New Guinea, The Marianas, Kursk, Operation Bagration, Berlin, France, Britain, Tunisia, El Alamein, Tobruk, Sicily and Italy, third party's could cover lesser known battles such as the Coral Sea, Philippine Sea, Formosa, Carolina Islands, Gilbert and Marshall Islands, Odessa, Southern Karelia, Viena Karelia, Murmansk, Kiev/Korsun, Courland, Southern France, Greece/Crete, Yugoslavia (Axis Invasion and Soviet advance through the Balkans), Balaton, etc...

 

Would they allow third parties in on the new series?

[Avimimus]

4 hours ago, Jackfraser24 said:

Would they allow third parties in on the new series?

 

If I recall correctly, in one of the Briefing Room episodes they stated that they were working on documenting the new technical specifications (for third parties), but the documentation wasn't ready yet. This indicates an intent to keep working with third parties.

[Jackfraser24]

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

 

If I recall correctly, in one of the Briefing Room episodes they stated that they were working on documenting the new technical specifications (for third parties), but the documentation wasn't ready yet. This indicates an intent to keep working with third parties.

That’s good to hear. I think that it would be a good idea for the IL-2 development team to focus on the big battles that contributed most to WWII, while all these other lesser known/less decisive battles, especially the ones that occurred on the Eastern Front can be done by third party developers. 

[Jackfraser24]

How well would a First Indochinese War module sell? 

[Avimimus]

On 11/3/2024 at 1:59 AM, Jackfraser24 said:

That’s good to hear. I think that it would be a good idea for the IL-2 development team to focus on the big battles that contributed most to WWII, while all these other lesser known/less decisive battles, especially the ones that occurred on the Eastern Front can be done by third party developers. 

 

Arguably the battles in Eastern Europe were the big ones that contributed the most to WWII... with the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic, Strategic bombing, and Normandy having some significance (but a bit less importance).

 

So, if we were going by significance... the order might be:

1) 1941-1942 Eastern Europe (Moscow/Stalingrad/Leningrad)

2) Battle of Britain and Battle of the Atlantic (less significant, but important for ensuring Germany can't secure its Western Front)

3) Strategic bombing campaigns against oil production.

 

So, priorities would be aircraft like the

Yak-1 & Il-2

Lockheed Hudson & Vickers Wellington

Handley-Page Halifax & P-51

[Jackfraser24]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

I suppose we could create an alternative history scenario where the war breaks out in 1948, the Soviets commit large numbers of aircraft, and both sides are flying piston aircraft during daytime (with a few F-80 units)?

That's an interesting proposal. I like that idea because historical war games have been so focused on historical events (which is why it is why the word historical is used) but I think that there is a lot of potential profit from making modules based on alternative historical scenarios like Operation Unthinkable to name one. If they were to make a module based on a Soviet-American War scenario that happened in 1948, I think that it would still have to be kept as realistic "as it would have been" as possible, which you have mentioned with having few jet aircraft compared to piston powered aircraft. Though having a module based on a war set in the 1945-48 period on the plains of northern Europe that ends in a stalemate might be the most realistic scenario for pilot career mode. I like it. I'll give a list of suitable planes for this Third World War scenario.

 

Soviets (And Pro-Soviet Forces)

• La-7
• La-9
• MiG-9
• Yak-3
• Yak-9UT

Anglo-American Forces (And Pro-Western Forces)

• A-26
• P-47N
• P-51H
• Tempest Mk.II
• Spitfire Mk.18

The American jets from Korea: IL-2 would already be in the game.

 

Edited November 8, 2024 by Jackfraser24

[BlitzPig_EL]

3 hours ago, Jackfraser24 said:

How well would a First Indochinese War module sell? 

 

If I owned a sim company I wouldn't bet it's future on that conflict.

[BraveSirRobin]

6 hours ago, Jackfraser24 said:

How well would a First Indochinese War module sell? 

That probably depends entirely on how many copies that you can afford to buy.

[Gambit21]

3 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

 

If I owned a sim company I wouldn't bet it's future on that conflict.

 

I wouldn't pay one guy's wage to spend a single afternoon on that.

 

 

[Jackfraser24]

7 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

 

If I owned a sim company I wouldn't bet it's future on that conflict.

Maybe if it was done by a third party developer then there might be more chance of it being made. Same as the Malayan War. For both conflicts there have not been any combat flight sim games/modules based on these conflicts. You could argue that the reason why is that it probably would not sell well because of the very limited amount of air to air combat between the two sides, and that it was more of a war to try and contain communist and/or separatist insurgencies in those regions. If that is the case then all we would be doing is blowing up rebels, and that is nowhere near as much fun as shooting down enemy planes. But still, I would like to see modules based on the First Indochinese War and the Malayan War because it would still tell a story in pilot career mode. But again, I think it would be best to leave it to third party developers to do these modules. 

[Avimimus]

I actually enjoy counter-insurgency as much as air combat. Identifying targets is a significant challenge, as opponents are often very small forces mixed in with civilians and allied ground troops - so avoiding friendly fire and collateral damage, while identifying and attack enemy forces is a real challenge. The aircraft used are also often more lightly equipped so one has less ammunition to waste, making each successful hit more satisfying.

 

That said, for the Il-2 Great Battles series, scenarios with more air-to-air combat are probably the viable ones.

[Jackfraser24]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

I actually enjoy counter-insurgency as much as air combat. Identifying targets is a significant challenge, as opponents are often very small forces mixed in with civilians and allied ground troops - so avoiding friendly fire and collateral damage, while identifying and attack enemy forces is a real challenge. The aircraft used are also often more lightly equipped so one has less ammunition to waste, making each successful hit more satisfying.

 

That said, for the Il-2 Great Battles series, scenarios with more air-to-air combat are probably the viable ones.

I'd say that if a module based on the Indochinese War or the Malayan War were to be made after Korea and the modules based on the Pacific War, we'd also have another arena for multiplayer, and an interesting one with that.

[Aapje]

6 hours ago, Jackfraser24 said:

Maybe if it was done by a third party developer then there might be more chance of it being made.

 

"Third party developer" is not a magical incantation that will result in whatever module we want. If the third party is a commercial party, then the module still needs to make commercial sense. And volunteer teams don't come around every day and they typically have a specific interest, like the Finnish team having an interest in Finnish regions.

 

I don't see that many French people here, which is probably the only chance for an Indochina module made by volunteers.

[Jackfraser24]

1 hour ago, Aapje said:

I don't see that many French people here, which is probably the only chance for an Indochina module made by volunteers.

I was thinking more along those lines of a module based on the First Indochina War being made voluntarily. But I guess you are right about the fact that most third party developers will do wherever there is money to be made. They have to make their money back that they spent on making their project and make a small profit for themselves on the side for future modules.    

Edited November 9, 2024 by Jackfraser24

[Trooper117]

Tell you what Jack, put a poll up to establish how much this theatre is wanted... I bet you will have hundreds of responses!

[BlitzPig_EL]

The most exciting thing about "The War of the Running Dogs" would be having your Mosquito fall to bits because of the tropical climate.

 

The only one of these secondary or tertiary conflicts that would make any sense at all would be the Spanish Civil War, and you see how many sim developers are jumping all over that one...

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I'd buy it because the planes look interesting, and the map would likely be pretty, and that's all I care about in a module.

[Jackfraser24]

4 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

The only one of these secondary or tertiary conflicts that would make any sense at all would be the Spanish Civil War, and you see how many sim developers are jumping all over that one...

To be honest I would rather see a Spanish Civil War module over an Indochinese or Malayan based one. There was a lot more air to air combat over Spain than their was over French Indochina and British Malaya. And it would act as a chronological prelude to the WWII modules that we will definitely see, as it would give the Luftwaffe and the VVS a sort of a backstory. The plane list would be rather interesting too as you would get a mix of German, Soviet, French, Italian, British and American planes in there. And they (or third party developers) could get several modules out of this conflict. 

Edited November 9, 2024 by Jackfraser24

[Avimimus]

Funnily enough, I almost raised the question of an SCW scenario's viability in my last reply in this thread! 😄 Seems like many minds think alike.

 

It has some promising elements:

- Narratively it can be connected to WWII as a prelude

- It has rare variants of recognisable aircraft (e.g. Bf-109D)

- Foreign volunteer corps were raised from many nations (making it have some international relevance).

- It has historically been popular with forum users.

 

That said, it is likely that it wouldn't be nearly as profitable, and it might require a very dedicated 3rd party development team to pull it off...

 

It would be fun to theorise about the planeset for such a module (I know it was done in some past threads, but it would be fun to revisit).

[Jackfraser24]

10 hours ago, Avimimus said:

Funnily enough, I almost raised the question of an SCW scenario's viability in my last reply in this thread! 😄 Seems like many minds think alike.

 

It has some promising elements:

- Narratively it can be connected to WWII as a prelude

- It has rare variants of recognisable aircraft (e.g. Bf-109D)

- Foreign volunteer corps were raised from many nations (making it have some international relevance).

- It has historically been popular with forum users.

 

That said, it is likely that it wouldn't be nearly as profitable, and it might require a very dedicated 3rd party development team to pull it off...

 

It would be fun to theorise about the planeset for such a module (I know it was done in some past threads, but it would be fun to revisit).

I think that a Spanish Civil War based module would sell successfully for a couple of reasons. Firstly this conflict has not been covered by combat flight simulation in a really long time. To add to that if they were to make a SCW based module there be no rivaling competition from other combat flight sim developers. Secondly, there was a lot of air to air combat so we would receive a decent pilot career mode. 

 

[Avimimus]

3 hours ago, Jackfraser24 said:

I think that a Spanish Civil War based module would sell successfully for a couple of reasons. Firstly this conflict has not been covered by combat flight simulation in a really long time. To add to that if they were to make a SCW based module there be no rivaling competition from other combat flight sim developers. Secondly, there was a lot of air to air combat so we would receive a decent pilot career mode. 

 

 

I think the only commercial flight simulator to cover the SCW was Luftwaffe Commander (1999).

 

 

[Jackfraser24]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

 

I think the only commercial flight simulator to cover the SCW was Luftwaffe Commander (1999).

 

 

All the more reason for the IL-2 dev team to make a Spanish Civil War module. It is well overdue to be recreated in combat flight simulation in general. You could get several modules out of recreating the SCW. Would have to be made by a third party developer.

Edited November 10, 2024 by Jackfraser24

[BlitzPig_EL]

But what 3rd. party developer?  You are all pinning your hopes to keep the old game alive on non-existent groups of people.  Game development takes large numbers of highly trained people that either are doing it as a full time job or work on it in fleeting moments of "free" time.  If someone stepped up right now and said they were going to do a SCW module, with aircraft, for Great Battles, it would be three to five years before anything would be ready for release, if all went well.  By that time this title will be long dead and buried.

 

All this talk about third party stuff is just wishful thinking by people who won't let go of an aging platform.  Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

[BraveSirRobin]

If you replace “third party developer” with “Santa Claus” it will require less typing and have a relatively similar chance of actually happening.

[Jackfraser24]

36 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

But what 3rd. party developer?  You are all pinning your hopes to keep the old game alive on non-existent groups of people.  Game development takes large numbers of highly trained people that either are doing it as a full time job or work on it in fleeting moments of "free" time.  If someone stepped up right now and said they were going to do a SCW module, with aircraft, for Great Battles, it would be three to five years before anything would be ready for release, if all went well.  By that time this title will be long dead and buried.

 

All this talk about third party stuff is just wishful thinking by people who won't let go of an aging platform.  Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

We'll see what happens and who comes up. We can only predict, not tell the future. I may absolutely be wrong about third parties contributing to the new series, but again I may be right. I don't know. No one knows. But I like making contributions to these threads because it gives me a better idea of IL-2's future and people agreeing or disagreeing with whatever I say really helps me. So thank you for your take on the matter of third parties. I'll keep this in mind. 

27 minutes ago, BraveSirRobin said:

If you replace “third party developer” with “Santa Claus” it will require less typing and have a relatively similar chance of actually happening.

Careful, there might be kids around watching this! 

[BlitzPig_EL]

I hope you don't take my comment too personally, It's just my take on things.

 

Cheers.

[Avimimus]

3 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

But what 3rd. party developer?  You are all pinning your hopes to keep the old game alive on non-existent groups of people.  Game development takes large numbers of highly trained people that either are doing it as a full time job or work on it in fleeting moments of "free" time.  If someone stepped up right now and said they were going to do a SCW module, with aircraft, for Great Battles, it would be three to five years before anything would be ready for release, if all went well.  By that time this title will be long dead and buried.

 

All this talk about third party stuff is just wishful thinking by people who won't let go of an aging platform.  Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

 

This thread is discussing development on the Korea generation of the game engine - which will probably have ten years of use at least - so the timeline wouldn't be an issue.

 

The obstacle is mainly the immense amount of skill and labour required - but we've seen third parties for other sims somehow manage it... so it couldn't be entirely ruled out.

[Trooper117]

4 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

 

100% the most realistic and constructive statement so far... well said!

[Aapje]

If I were inclined to do the work for a new module, rather than fly, I'd either want to develop for the new game engine, so people won't constantly complain about the new features lacking from the module, or have extremely synergy with the existing modules.

 

But the barrier to entry seems quite high, given that the Karelia/Odessa teams are expected to both create a map and the modelling for the planes.

 

If a team would create a SCW map, would 1CGS then be willing to make the planes?

Edited November 10, 2024 by Aapje

[ST_Catchov]

 Ok I'll do it. But I need 1C to pay me in advance to cover costs. I've already modelled the BF108 "Typhoon" (including FM) as an example. DM comes later (after payment). 

 

 

1C can contact me by PM if interested.

 

# Note: clouds are placeholders for effect only.

[Jackfraser24]

12 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I hope you don't take my comment too personally, It's just my take on things.

 

Cheers.

Not at all. Water under a bridge is how I take it. Have an awesome day.

Edited November 11, 2024 by Jackfraser24

[Jackfraser24]

I'm going to leave this forum alone for a while. I admit that it is pointless to discuss what IL-2 is going to do after the Pacific or what exact modules the development team is going to do after the Korean War one. And I'll also admit that it is pointless to talk about whether third party developers are going to get involved with the development of the new series whether it is straight away or later down the track, so I apologize for unintentionally irritating others on the forum. I'll come back when there is something big to talk about, like the announcement of a new module. You guys can carry on posting whatever is relevant to this thread though. Cheers!

Edited November 12, 2024 by Jackfraser24

[Trooper117]

Jack, you don't need to apologise... being enthusiastic is ok, don't sweat it!

[Gambit21]

On 11/10/2024 at 12:46 AM, Jackfraser24 said:

I think that a Spanish Civil War based module would sell successfully for a couple of reasons. Firstly this conflict has not been covered by combat flight simulation in a really long time. To add to that if they were to make a SCW based module there be no rivaling competition from other combat flight sim developers. Secondly, there was a lot of air to air combat so we would receive a decent pilot career mode. 

 

There’s a reason other Devs leave the Spanish Civil War alone. 

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

6 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

There’s a reason other Devs leave the Spanish Civil War alone. 

Until someone do something nobody ever tried it and make successful business out of that "risk" decision.

[Avimimus]

8 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

There’s a reason other Devs leave the Spanish Civil War alone. 

 

1 hour ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

Until someone do something nobody ever tried it and make successful business out of that "risk" decision.

 

Exactly. People said in 1999-2001 "There's a reason Devs leave the Eastern Front alone"... and predicted the Il-2 would be a niche product with little market interest... instead we got Il-2, Il-2 Forgotten Battles, then BoS, BoM, BoK... if you weren't around back then (or don't remember) the amount of dismissiveness (up to around 2002/2003) was quite striking.

 

We're getting a bit of the same thing now with Korea... albeit less so.

 

P.S. I suspect that a lot of things can be interesting if people are imaginatively interested. Back when I was young there were still a lot of veterans from these wars, and even if they didn't talk, there was this human evidence around us... which led many of us to read autobiographies and histories... and I wanted to simulate bombing barges in a P-40 over North Africa etc. However, this is less and less common. I think the same challenges exist now, to some degree, for all theatres prior to the 1970s... developers have to some how communicate a story which draws people into the history. I think the SCW has potential for that.

 

  

15 hours ago, Jackfraser24 said:

I'm going to leave this forum alone for a while. I admit that it is pointless to discuss what IL-2 is going to do after the Pacific or what exact modules the development team is going to do after the Korean War one. And I'll also admit that it is pointless to talk about whether third party developers are going to get involved with the development of the new series whether it is straight away or later down the track, so I apologize for unintentionally irritating others on the forum. I'll come back when there is something big to talk about, like the announcement of a new module. You guys can carry on posting whatever is relevant to this thread though. Cheers!

 

You are wiser than me! I, on the other hand, get a lot of enjoyment about imagining possibilities (including unlikely ones)... so I'd mainly come to the forums for threads like these, and development updates...

[Aapje]

Due to this discussion I looked into the bombing of Guernica, which is the most well known part of the Spanish Civil War. Turns out that the narrative that I was told as a child is very much false, although it is of course not very politically correct to tell the truth about this.

 

Basically, the Germans wanted to hit the road network and didn't intend to hit the civilians, but area bombing was the only way to hit the road network. This is in contrast to how the Allies and Germans did actually intentionally target civilians during WW II.

 

Anyway, I think that it would be very cool, but only to those who have a lot of interest in history, so a hard sell for the casuals. Especially for the first time they go back to Europe (and surroundings) with the new engine, I would suggest/expect that that pick a more popular conflict/battle, like the Battle of France.

[Avimimus]

Honestly, I'm not even expecting the Battle of France (fascinating as it is). I'd expect possibly the Battle of Britain - but more likely a scenario in 1944-1945 for the first Western European module. I might also expect an Eastern European module first (in between the Pacific and Western Europe). The SCW would have to be done by a third party (maybe staged as a pack of four planes, then the release of the map, then a release combining the map with eight aircraft - or something like that).

 

As for Guernica, if the goal was entirely to target bridges and exposed vehicles in the road - I wonder about the presence of incendiaries in the bomber payloads. It makes me doubt that the revisionism that this was a completely justified raid targeting only military infrastructure captures the whole story.

 

It is, of course, true that the scale of the crime is less than what happened later in WWII, but I think it can be seen as part of the debate around Giulio Douhet's doctrine and therefore not entirely separated from it. It was an event that ended up encouraging bombardment of civilians (as well as being mobilised by opponents of both aerial bombardment and the 'Nationalists'). I don't think it is really that clear cut, just as the criminality of strategic bombing of cities in WWII is still debated.

[Aapje]

The downside of late scenarios is that the fight becomes much more one-sided. And we've already had so many late planes. In Battle of France, you also get France planes and such.

 

And with regard to Guernica, the main goal seemed to be to stop traffic as much as possible, although I wasn't correct in my earlier statement that they targeted just the road network to do this. They seem to have targeted the entire city center, as well as the bridge. But of course, with the crude bombing techniques of the time, there is little practical difference between targeting the road network that typically ran through the city center (ring roads being popularized later on, once cars became plentiful and city centers clogged up). And it is probably more effective to close roads by collapsing buildings next to them than to cause craters.

 

See: https://www.historynet.com/persistent-myths-guernica/

 

But we have hard evidence that WW II planners intentionally targeted civilians, while the planner of the raid on Guernica, Von Richthofen (cousin of the famous one), seemed indifferent to their fate, if you look at the statements in his diary.

 

Quote

 It makes me doubt that the revisionism that this was a completely justified raid targeting only military infrastructure captures the whole story.

 

I am not claiming that it is justified or taking any stance on whether the attack was morally or legally right, but more that the perception of this bombing as being intended to hurt civilians and the bombing being exceptionally gruesome, seems to be false, produced entirely by propaganda.

 

There are other raids which were far more gruesome and raids that were actually designed to murder and terrorize civilians.

[BraveSirRobin]

7 hours ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

Until someone do something nobody ever tried it and make successful business out of that "risk" decision.

Or it fails miserably and everyone loses their jobs.  And flight sim developers obviously look at SCW and think “I don’t want to lose my job”.

 

And this is not even close to being the same as Korea.  I can go to an air show in the US and see aircraft that fought in Korea.  Some of the most iconic aircraft in aviation history fought in Korea.  That is not the case with SCW.