This is correct, FM's are not touched in sound mod or any other AI-made-flyable planes. They use the same FM that the AI use that was already in place. Even when this is not preferable as in the case of the avenger, it's a pain to fly and is not how it should be but since this is the FM the avenger has that is what we are stuck with as no one at AAA wants FM's touched for obvious and good reasons. The only things done to these planes is the addition of the cockpit.

I actually partially agree on the dynamic campaign stuff overly influenced by players. The real key to a realistic online experience is context.

DF maps try (and largely fail due to no fault on their part) to provide context. Real battles were mission based, and the pilots were not cats to be herded. they did what they were told.

Flying as a group is pretty much required.

Even coops will become boring as you play the same one over and over, though. That's really the point of a dynamic campaign. To try and provide a realistic context for missions that vary over time. You need to see the forest, and not the trees, though. Yes, the front may move too much, but what matters is not winning the war, but the answers to specific querstions:

"Are the missions so generated plausible?"

"Do the players have to chose a realisitc plane set to achieve their mission goals?"

That sort of thing.

Regarding the tactical nature of the sim (vs heavies), I'd argue that il-2 is really ONLY a fighter sim. The DMs for ground targets are poor. The AI for ground units (ships in particular) is nonexistent. CAS aircraft, IMO, are window dressing in il-2. When seen from the perspective of a fighter pilot, they provide targets, and a context for the air to air battles. Once inside a ground attack plane, you are in an "arcade game" IMO.

The usual response is that "it's a flight sim, not a tank/ship/infantry/etc sim!" That is true up until the point you attack a target on the ground.

Certainly, the DMs for ground targets can be simplified in many cases. Ships, OTOH, no. If a ship is any less complicated than the most complicated plane in terms of AI/DM, it's a cartoon IMO. Two flights of player B-25s can do to a convoy like the one in the Battle of the Bismark Sea what took hundreds of RL sorties to do. One sunk ship for every push of the pickle.

Or there is the massive damage done by bombs to the cities, a couple bombs will flatten many blocks. All and all, the ground battles are an abstration that is only good to provide context for dogfights, IMO. CAS is 2d rate (odd given the title of the game).

tater

CsThor:: Okay, now that is new. What are these personal experiences that went sour? I have great optimism and positive outlook on people in general when it comes to modding in the flight sim world, probably because if I don't like something, I don't have to use it, and I won't, and so any such "bad mods" are of no concern whatsoever -- they don't exist for me, although others may enjoy them for whatever reason. There is more than enough good stuff being made by modders in the open sims so we don't have to worry about any bad modding.

The problem I have is...an example...how in the world did Oleg totally mess up the Volga River on the Stalingrad map? Maybe its because of developer time constraints, which I fully understand, and is why the developers should focus on game engine development and advancement while the customers focus on gaming content through modding. That slip-up is something a modder with tater's or ianboy's fanatical fundamentalist attention to detail would never allow happen to their creations (tater radical fundamentalist about the Pacific, ianboys militant fundamentalist about the Norway).

Experience 1: European Air War

When I gave up in frustration was when there were 3 different FMs along with a devout group of worshippers who fought each other in page-long flamewars in various boards. Not to mention that "the modders" went down the same road as it currently goes at AAA - no coordination, no simplification of the installation process and certainly attempt at creating "packages". It all got sacrificed for the false god of diversity. I even remember a "campaign mod" which required you to download some 20 "mod planes" separately from separate websites. That was the point when I was fed up to the back teeth and uninstalled EAW.

Experience 2: Panzer Elite

Essentially the same as EAW (minus the FM, of course). Even though there were attempts at combining efforts into packs the coordination stopped at the borders of the tight-knit groups. Essentially Mod A (i.e. Britpack) could not be used when you wanted to play Mod B (i.e. Ostpack). Of course it didn't help that the developer (who was willing to cooperate with the various groups) went bancrupt at a critical time.

Plus of course the chore of CFS2. Never regretted spending money on software more than for this POS.

These experiences taught me that "free modding" is essentially an exercise in frustration and often more about "the fiddlers" than about "the players".

Thor, that sounds believable. I always figured Oleg should open the sim except for aircraft modding, since if there is one thing Oleg does do fairly well, its aircraft modding, and he makes enough to make most everybody happy. Other things, not so well...

As far as the AAA site goes, they seem to have a policy of no modding existing FM/DM/WM. Now there are plans to add new aircraft, but leave Oleg's stuff untouched.

DCG is Lowengrin's campaings right? I never played either them or ...who...StarShoy campaigns (is that DGEN)? What does DCG do, if anything, to slant a campaign towards player centric? StrikeFighter campaigns are extremely player centric, which is why I never bothered to play one of their campaigns either. Shucks, its even worse, since the StrikeFighters sim offers no map-wide combat event recording such as Oleg's eventlog text file, so an independent dynamic campaign engine can't be created. Since I consider campaigns as important as aircraft, ...

FB/PF --- closed aircraft, open campaigns.
StrikeFighers -- open aircraft, closed campaigns.

Neither are open sims, and neither are fully closed sims, just partially open in different ways.

---------

Bearcat:: But that claim or prediction was made in this thread, which is what set me off I guess.

btw, you had made those same two predictions for years at the ubi.com. http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...ileys/Wink.gif

Ask yourself: How long will this remain policy? How many websites do allow fiddling with FM/DM issues (e.g. in eastern europe or asia)? How many players "feel" there's smething off with Plane ABC or Weapon XYZ and change values 'cause this or that book said so?
The admin's intentions may be laudable but it's rather naive to expect all people interested to abide these rules. The internet is about the lack of borders, about being partially uncontrollable. And this is exactly what is happening right at this moment. Or have you seen any input from russian players apart from cryptic comments that "these things have already been corrected"?

I've never even seen a "this things have been corrected" thread. The closest thing to alterations that there are semi-common threads on are things like rebelting ammo (with types already made and in game). So far none has happened on AAA. The threads also get locked/deleted.

Hodge podge mods are temporary. Once things mature, I think you will see "supermods" that are one stop shopping (like GWX for SH3, or TM/RFB for SH4)

tater

Well Thor, for those who would like to stay with Oleg's FM, they can do that. Its so easy, even a flight simmer can do it.

For those who wish to experiment with FM, apparently they now can. Assume a little better than what I think is your worst case of 100% of aircraft modders are "bad" -- lets assume 90% of aircraft modders are "bad" and would place XLR-99 rocket engine and Phoenix missiles on the P-51 Dora, but 10% of modders are interested in adding a decent Hs-123 for Eastern Front ground attack. I would use the products of the 10%, and if I flew Online, I would fly with or against them.

More important to me would be the AAA advances in grafix, sim functionality, and most important of all -- new maps, especially for Pacific and Eastern Front. New 3rd Party aircraft are not as important to me (in this sim). Now, in the StrikeFighters I totally depend on 3rd Party aircraft modders to make 1940s to 1960s SAC and PVO aircraft that have always been ignored by all combat sim developers everywhere. For strategic size maps and grafix effects matching early jet age strategic air warfare, I have to depend on myself.

BTW, I am the least involved of the pacific mapping team. If the machine I can post with during the day ran il-2, that might be a different story :)

I'm no more fanatical, either :)

Thx guys good to see the discussion going somewhere..