Bomb Craters! - Why so little? So complicated to improve- Really?

[IckyATLAS]

As this topic was requested so many times over the years but never addressed by the devs, I am wondering is it really such a complicated thing to a much higher or unlimited number of bomb craters that are displayed on the map. Or otherwise said instead of a limitation to 4 to have them limited to 100 or 200, whatever but make it more realistic. Say 10 Bombers with 10 bombs that 100. Seems good to me as an important visual improvement. Some craters will be bigger and some smaller depending on the bomb as before.

 

In my campaign I do display even more than that on the map (but it is fixed like an object at mission start) and the resource impact or loss of FPS is invisible. Maybe the fact that those ones created ingame are dynamic and maybe they tax a little more the resources but we are now so many years after the creation of IL2, the GPU's and CPU's have made such an incredible progress that these limitations become an immersion killer instead of bringing in any advantage.

 

So why not address this so immersive visual impact. You offered us multiple bombers but never addressed this topic which is inherently connected to bomber campaigns.

 

During say the bombing of industrial facilities cities whatever after 4 bombs that left a crater all the next bombs get a crater and the previous ones vanish. You end up with destroyed buildings facilities even in flames burning, smoke and all and no craters at all, like if the fire was an arson act.

 

It is really time to make this happen and give us a major visual upgrade. I cannot believe this would be so complicated. You give us new planes (and we thank you about that) which is a much more complex endeavor and just this simple change would visually have such a major impact. You have shown that you want to keep IL2 updated and alive so please Devs spare a few minutes at this problem for the next update round. 

 

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

On single player mode  I don't see any reason to limit number of dynamic craters, in multiplayer it might increase available bandwidth but limit should be also higher than 4.

Same immersion  killer as when plane despawn midair before impacting the ground because pilot died few thousand feet above the ground.

Second please give mission builders tool to remove grass and paint the ground, if there are units to be stationing there for weeks, terrain should not look pristine , untached by boots and wheels.

 

 

Edited June 16 by 1PL-Husar-1Esk

[=AKR=Sundial]

One problem with crater not dissapearing would be to witness a runway riddled with crater and still be able to takeoff from the said runway.

 

As you already know crater in this game is purely texture and does not alter landscape in meaningful way.

 

We see things will be different in il2 korea as we can see locomotive tumble out of railway as it hit the crater ridge. So naturally i expect that title will allow much many more craters.

[Dutch2]

Believe me flying in VR mode (nomans land) these craters look even worser. Think they are terrible made, just like fuzzy ink spots. 

But we have to accept this poor craftsmanship, as it will never be changed. 

Edited June 16 by Dutch2

[BraveSirRobin]

It’s always remarkable to me when someone posts “why have they never changed the thing that we all dislike?  Is it really so difficult?”  As if the developer is too stupid to make an easy fix to something everyone, including the developer, thinks could be better.

 

As a general rule, if something that everyone dislikes is not fixed after several years, then it is probably not as easy to fix as you might think it is.

Edited June 16 by BraveSirRobin

[[CPT]Crunch]

It's most annoying in the ground attack role, turn your head for a second after the damage sprites disappear your whole target zone has every reference to damaged items removed.  You end up attacking the same destroyed stuff all over because of a washed out overly dark hazy game.  Persistent damage markers can help avoid this. 

[Avimimus]

Will be improved in Korea (part of new map technologies)

[IckyATLAS]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

Will be improved in Korea (part of new map technologies)

For me this is not a valid answer except if you decide IL2 is over and stop everything related to it. But this does not seem to be the case, and IL2 has still potential. Before Korea has a similar amount of campaigns, planes, and maps like IL2 this will take years. So adding some improvements to IL2 like the one on craters is perfectly worth doing.

Maybe for VR players that is not an improvement but the majority of us are not VR players so it will be a plus. 

 

It is true that planes will roll on a runway with dynamic craters but in a mission that you create with the editor you can make the runway unusable if you wish. This means make planes be destroyed if they roll on a bombed runway.

 

Conclusion, it should be done as no argument was really given about the easiness to do it or the difficulty that justifies not doing it. Korea is not an answer.

 

 

 

[Avimimus]

Nonetheless, the answer is: To expect these improvements moving forward in the updated engine for Korea, but not to expect major development of the existing engine (unless it is announced).

 

I'm personally hoping that the new infantry technology will be ported back into the old engine (something that wouldn't require a major rework of existing content to use the new technology). But I don't think it is reasonable for me to expect it.

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, IckyATLAS said:

For me this is not a valid answer except if you decide IL2 is over and stop everything related to it. But this does not seem to be the case, and IL2 has still potential. Before Korea has a similar amount of campaigns, planes, and maps like IL2 this will take years. So adding some improvements to IL2 like the one on craters is perfectly worth doing.

Maybe for VR players that is not an improvement but the majority of us are not VR players so it will be a plus. 

 

It is true that planes will roll on a runway with dynamic craters but in a mission that you create with the editor you can make the runway unusable if you wish. This means make planes be destroyed if they roll on a bombed runway.

 

Conclusion, it should be done as no argument was really given about the easiness to do it or the difficulty that justifies not doing it. Korea is not an answer.

 

I think you both need to go back and rewatch our latest videos about how the map technology is changing (and the one coming likely this Wednesday) and also come to terms with the fact that the maps made for GB and the technology underlying them are essentially finished products - that is, don't expect any significant changes to come to them. At some point, similar to the GUI, the team decided to focus on substantial improvements in the new series. Otherwise, you end up with feature creep and never really break away from the old series, instead of making a more or less clean break with the old tech and focusing on the new one. 

[Aapje]

10 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

So adding some improvements to IL2 like the one on craters is perfectly worth doing.

 

Reality is that there are limited resources, and the older technology holds back development on GB. So they have a choice between spending the resources on a mediocre improvement to GB that takes a lot of effort because the game engine is not really suited for those changes, or making a bigger improvement to the Korea engine, in less time.

 

And that second choice is almost certainly also the better financial choice for them.

 

Ultimately, technical development has already been reduced for GB for a while, and it's not like GB is getting worse.

 

Quote

Before Korea has a similar amount of campaigns, planes, and maps like IL2 this will take years.

 

And it will take even longer if they have to spend a lot of resources on GB, rather than develop new tech, campaigns, planes, and maps for Korea.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

23 minutes ago, Aapje said:

Reality is that there are limited resources

It's common knowledge but they still adding new content and fixing issues. The pase is low but it is not abandon entirely. They fixed some old  couple years issues/complains while developing the Korea also.

Edited June 17 by 1PL-Husar-1Esk

[BraveSirRobin]

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

It's common knowledge but they still adding new content and fixing issues. The pase is low but it is not abandon entirely. They fixed some old  couple years issues/complains while developing the Korea also.

We’ve had basically the same craters for the last 16 years. People have complained about them for most of those 16 years.  Changing them would obviously require a significant amount of effort.  That does not seem likely to happen just before they abandon the game.

[Kubert]

To be honest, I never noticed that craters disappear. 

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

12 hours ago, BraveSirRobin said:

We’ve had basically the same craters for the last 16 years. People have complained about them for most of those 16 years.  Changing them would obviously require a significant amount of effort.  That does not seem likely to happen just before they abandon the game.

You are doing their job just fine.

[BraveSirRobin]

25 minutes ago, 1PL-Husar-1Esk said:

You are doing their job just fine.

I’m not doing anything for them.  If you want to believe that you’re getting new craters just before they abandon the game, feel free to continue to rant about it.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

11 minutes ago, BraveSirRobin said:

I’m not doing anything for them.  If you want to believe that you’re getting new craters just before they abandon the game, feel free to continue to rant about it.

I'm not saying I believe and I'm far from ranting, just support  forum member. 

[Aapje]

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

I'm not saying I believe and I'm far from ranting, just support  forum member. 

 

That's not what you did. You made an allegation that Robin was 'doing their job,' whatever that means.

 

I understand that people may think that this is the last opportunity to still get things for GB, and it may be frustrating to have to accept that certain things you want may never happen. However, there is also such a thing as being realistic, and to think that significant investments will be made into a game engine that they are moving away from, is simply not very realistic.

 

Fact is that the only reason why we got/are getting the Siege and Liberation module is because third parties did a lot of work, so 1CGS could produce a module with substantially less effort. Without those third parties, FC IV would have been the end of the line for the GB engine.

 

And extra paid content directly results in income, while general engine improvements are more of a long term investment, that only pay off over time, when a whole bunch of modules get released that all benefit from those improvements. But it doesn't work that way retroactively, because most of the sales happen early, and older modules often get sold at a big discount.

 

What is being asked is a lot like asking someone to replace (part of) their kitchen, just before they are moving out to a new house. It's simply not reasonable, because the effort/cost to improve the kitchen only pays off over time, as you live in the house, so if you only live in the house for a short while still, you'll never get a decent return on that investment.

 

The complicated part here is that 1CGS is in a different position to players who will keep playing GB. From the perspective of those players, they will be living in that house for many years to come, so they will benefit quite a bit from that new kitchen. However, from the perspective of 1CGS, their sales from GB will be declining more and more over time, and they spend most of their effort in making things for the new engine, so they will primarily be living in the new house.

 

So from your perspective it may seem a lot more logical to keep investing in GB than it does from the perspective of 1CGS. However, it is their perspective that matters here, because they would be doing the work and making the costs. You can't expect them to damage their finances, or take too much time away from making their new engine, that they will depend on for many years to come.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

7 minutes ago, Aapje said:

That's not what you did. You made an allegation that Robin was 'doing their job,' whatever that means.

 

You clearly don't understand me. I don't blame you . Comparison to kitchen is stupid, since you wouldn't be using two kitchen in the same time. How you know that we are  asking about big or risky task? You don't know that, you don't how it works and  you don't know what could be done or not. You are not a GB developer stop acting like you know better because you don't. You have opinions that's fine. We want change not hear why it could not be made by you  and if can't we would like to hear it from someone who is actually competent , you are not because you don't know - you are  just speculating. We are asking, the difference is that your job/mission is none use to community or wait maybe to descurade the good change or else worse than that.

[marcost]

They might not be able to sell the house if the kitchen has an ugly crater in it

[Zooropa_Fly]

As I remember there's no scope within the engine to add subterranean level.. or to do that would require a big overhaul.

Been discussed since way back in RoF.

 

Runways are the big issue here I think, so if a crater object could be set to 'break' planes when they run into it, that alone would be an improvement.

 

There's an existing issue (or at least there used to be) with a few building objects that have an invisible 'crash barrier' around them.

If that could somehow be applied to craters..

 

 

[MajorMagee]

It's dangerous to think that, like many software companies have done in recent years, they might not want to sell the old house with an outdated kitchen at a discount, but would rather become landlords. 

 

Putting their legacy users on a subscription plan provides them with a predictable income stream that they can both borrow operating capital against, and use to hire support staff that "might" "eventually" update the kitchen.

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of renting my software to maintain access, but it is the preferred business model de jour, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to avoid falling into its clutches.

Edited June 18 by MajorMagee

[IckyATLAS]

I see that the topic does not leave everybody unconcerned, because yes there is behind the crater other improvements and why craters and not other improvements related to the map. I completely agree all about investment technology change etc. All are pertinent answers. There is a risk reward equation too. But the reason why I targeted craters and say not other improvements for some fighter planes where the ejection of spent cartridges has not been implemented and where there you have to invest into some work and cost. All this is clear to mee too. 

 

But let's be frank nobody nor even Luke did answer my initial question. How much work it is to change the limit from 4 to 50 or a 100.

 

This means that instead of erasing the previous craters after the 4th one, with the same code start erasing after the 50th crater or 100th one. 

In terms of coding I do not have any source code, but a well designed code for me means that for just this limitation change there is very little work to do.

The reason is that the implementation and functions do not change there is a value change somewhere and that's it.

 

At this point I see really no reason why not to do it. We have excellent coders out there and I wonder if they have a different opinion.

 

[IckyATLAS]

1 hour ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

Runways are the big issue here I think, so if a crater object could be set to 'break' planes when they run into it, that alone would be an improvement.

 

There's an existing issue (or at least there used to be) with a few building objects that have an invisible 'crash barrier' around them.

If that could somehow be applied to craters..

There is a simpler way to do it. Use a Spherical Check Zone on the ground level with a radius a little smaller than the crater size. Then put a big ammo ground explosion in the middle of the check zone. When the plane is detected in the check zone activate the explosion and this will destroy the plane. If you are in you plane cockpit, this will kill you and destroy your plane. You can try with a smaller explosion and see it it only damages the plane. I did not try all of them, but in one of my campaign missions I simulate a direct artillery hit on the plane this way and to ensure the destruction and the killing of the pilot I used the biggest explosion.

 

This is very realistic to do for craters that are already existing on an airfield where you have put the craters at the design of you mission with the editor.

What is more tricky is when a runway is bombed and craters appear, yes just four for the time being, and so you cannot plan in advance where to put the check zones.

There is a way though, and this is to carpet your runway with a grid of checkzones and explosions connected to them, all being deactivated.

I have not tested that but if we can have a transparent object in each checkzone that can sense an explosion by being hit, then we can use this signal to activate the corresponding checkzones in the grid. When you then taxi or roll over or very near to a crater you would be destroyed by the explosion.

I did not find such a transparent object or deactivated object that could sense the explosion. Maybe the fake vehicle would do it but did not bother trying to implement this as it was not an element needed in my mission. But who knows, it may come. Zooropa_Fly you are welcome to try.

 

Edited June 18 by IckyATLAS

[Jaegermeister]

53 minutes ago, IckyATLAS said:

I have not tested that but if we can have a transparent object in each checkzone that can sense an explosion by being hit, then we can use this signal to activate the corresponding checkzones in the grid. When you then taxi or roll over or very near to a crater you would be destroyed by the explosion.

I did not find such a transparent object or deactivated object that could sense the explosion. Maybe the fake vehicle would do it but did not bother trying to implement this as it was not an element needed in my mission. But who knows, it may come. Zooropa_Fly you are welcome to try.

 

 

Yes, a fakevehicle would work for this. You could name it NOICON so it would be invisible, and "On damaged" could activate a small checkzone that would detect the presence of a friendly coalition plane and explode. You could link them all to a checkzone connected to the enemy bombers to activate just after bombs are dropped. Copy paste multiple times and it would work 

[BraveSirRobin]

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

 We are asking, the difference is that your job/mission is none use to community or wait maybe to descurade the good change or else worse than that.

I don’t have a job or a mission.  I’d love to see an improvement to craters.  And we will.  In Korea.

[Aapje]

5 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

But let's be frank nobody nor even Luke did answer my initial question. How much work it is to change the limit from 4 to 50 or a 100.

 

True, and they didn't answer a very similar request from you in 2022 either. And there have been other discussions about craters on the forum as well. And at no point did the team go: 'that is quite easy, we will just implement it', because otherwise it would have been done already.

 

We do know that there are still crater limits in Korea and that they seem to have to make pretty big changes in Korea to make craters work significantly better. They will introduce a priority-based crater removal system in Korea, where the crater location matters. According to DD 11.

[IckyATLAS]

5 hours ago, Aapje said:

And at no point did the team go: 'that is quite easy, we will just implement it', because otherwise it would have been done already.

 

I am not so sure but we will never know.

 

Anyway, this was my last try, and I failed miserably, but I had to.

I will now archive in the depth of my brain hard disk this crater issue, until IL2 code will become available to those who would like to improve it, expand it, like it happened to many other sims, but it could take years. I am in no hurry, statistically I should live enough years to see it happening 🤞

 

[=AKR=Sundial]

12 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

 

I will now archive in the depth of my brain hard disk this crater issue, until IL2 code will become available to those who would like to improve it, expand it, like it happened to many other sims, but it could take years. I am in no hurry, statistically I should live enough years to see it happening 🤞

 

There is problem with this deafeated optimism. Not with your attitude but the future prospect regarding il2 GB.

 

This is all purely my speculation and I dont claim to be prophet of any sort. Having said that, here is what I see for future of gb.

 

Development team's stance for wrapping up with gb and directing all resource to korea could be stemming from the fear of repeating faillure of clod's launch back in 2011. 

 

What do I mean by this? Well clod had troubled beginning with several technical problems holding it back but those problems were not the sole reason of its relative faillure compared to 1946. Matter of fact one can argue big part of its faillure was due to 1946. 1946 was solid game. Solid to the point that people were relunctant to move on to the newest shiniest game that was il2 clod. 

 

Now, with release of korea is at the horizon, would it be too big of a leap of logic to assume that the current il2 team is fearing repetition of clod's launch? Their previous success bitting their ass?

 

It is unlikely they will let third party to modify and improve upon. It will be their competetor.

 

And their fear will be only excerbated with how some playerbase are uncomfortable with the company's pr mishap and some even wanting to boycott the game.

 

What I can read from development diaries is that the dev team consider them to be somewhat of computer artisans and craftsman. Well if I were to have my self image as such I will probably want to be satisfied with what I create, and I am convinced il2 dev team wants just that (within the confines of production budget of course.). 

 

The problem modern artisan faces is they are uncertain if their creation will sail. It requires tremendous amounts of resources and it will leave them to be hunted by their investors if it was to sink. If you will just put your self in their shoes. Can you increase the budget another 1000k just to add a real crater not knowing if it will sell enough to reimburse and even profit? They simply were not certain at the time of development. At least thats what I want to believe.

 

Edited June 19 by =AKR=Sundial

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

It doesn't take a conspiracy to make a 10 year old game look like a 10 year old game. It just takes the truth, it is what it is.

[[CPT]Crunch]

Your getting new actual craters in the new game, what more can you ask for.  Put a fork in this one, development is over beyond adding more assets and maps.  Nothing hard to understand about that.  Every game has a life cycle, and this one is on the final glide path.

[BraveSirRobin]

10 hours ago, =AKR=Sundial said:

Now, with release of korea is at the horizon, would it be too big of a leap of logic to assume that the current il2 team is fearing repetition of clod's launch? Their previous success bitting their ass?

There is virtually no chance that Korea will be a dumpster fire on the same scale as Clod. 

[Aapje]

@=AKR=Sundial

 

I think that you are thinking about it the exact wrong way around. The worry is less that the new engine will fail (which is somewhat distinct from whether Korea as a module will fail to sell), but that the current game can't keep up with the competition.

 

So they have to make a big step forward. The issue is that the existing content was holding many advances back, so they have to make a new generation of engine, with new content. This is probably less risky than just keep making content for the same engine, which ages more and more.

 

Of course, they may miss the mark with some of the things they change, but it seems like the new engine won't be a radical change, but just a ton of improvements on all levels, without diverging from a successful formula. So I agree with Robin that the chance seems pretty low that it will be bad, although we might see some things not work out, but in most cases that should be fixable.

 

Quote

Development team's stance for wrapping up with gb and directing all resource to korea could be stemming from the fear of repeating failure of clod's launch back in 2011. 

 

No, I think that the main issue is that GB has reached a point where significant improvements to the engine are very hard to do, and this in turn means that it is very hard to keep making a step forward with each module. And game developers want to keep improving things, but also know that they have to, to keep selling their games.

[MaxPower]

12 hours ago, =AKR=Sundial said:

Well clod had troubled beginning with several technical problems holding it back but those problems were not the sole reason of its relative faillure compared to 1946.

I saw an interview wit the Fusion team recently.  In the interview, what happened with the original Cliffs of Dover came up.  It was a while ago, but IIRC, they claimed that Ubisoft wanted the sim out the door years before it was ready and wouldn't budge.  A lot of stuff hit the fan, including many crucial staff exiting, and the release is the result.  My memory of this interview might not be perfectly accurate but that is what stayed with me.

[ST_Catchov]

I don't like this negativity.

 

Peeps need to understand that everything is possible and nothing is impossible. We have dreams. And we can make it happen. Together. Yes, we can. There is no limit to what can be done. There is no obstacle higher than a mountain or lower than a politician that cannot be overcome. Let not the light be snuffed out leaving nothing but wretched darkness. We are not Norway. Let it shine. Let's do it. IckyATLAS is right. But he's been shot down and left to struggle against his own beliefs spiralling into confusion and depression. Icky, you'll get through this. Trust me. When you're in a bunker deep underground with a choice between a pill and a sidearm, then you know it's over. But until then, anything can happen. Don't give up!

 

I was gunna embed an inspirational music clip but well, you know .... thought better of it. Emotions are still too raw.

 

[Dutch2]

The video creators did read this topic. 

 

[Aapje]

8 hours ago, ST_Catchov said:

I don't like this negativity.

 

Peeps need to understand that everything is possible and nothing is impossible. We have dreams.

 

It's not negativity, but realism. Not everything is in fact possible, and there are limitations on money, time, available workers, human intelligence, what physics allows, etc.

 

 

[IckyATLAS]

On 6/19/2025 at 11:55 AM, =AKR=Sundial said:

Can you increase the budget another 1000k just to add a real crater not knowing if it will sell enough to reimburse and even profit? They simply were not certain at the time of development. At least thats what I want to believe.

Just a small precision. I am not asking to have true craters in IL2. This cannot be done due to the map technology. I just ask that the existing ones that are visually simulated craters (no change here) just to have more of them that stay during the mission. The number is limited to four, I just ask to raise the limits and not erase them until a higher limit is reached.

The craters seen from above or afar are fine visually. When you are near them and look from the ground level, or roll into them with your plane, then they are not terrible. But that's okay. 

[PhilthySpud]

I'm with Icky on this: the number of craters retained is presumably on a simple counter and it doesn't seem like something requiring a huge amount of effort to change. Given the advances in average computing power since this game was first released, a modest increase in the number of craters retained to, say, 25 or even 50 does not seem an outrageous suggestion. And I believe it would add significantly to the game for very modest effort and cost in processing power.

[[TWB]80hd]

On 6/16/2025 at 11:11 AM, Dutch2 said:

But we have to accept this poor craftsmanship, as it will never be changed. 

 

Poor craftsmanship implies a lack of skill or desire, and that's never been the case with IL-2 graphics.

 

It's a limitation of the technology and/or system requirements considerations.