Hi Oleg,
thx for answering questions here, it gives a much better idea of the detail in the BoB project
hope you can answer these questions to:
1) will there be "terrain masking" in BoB ?
- "terrain masking" means that AI aircraft and enemy radar can not see through mountains and ground obstacles if they are blocking "line of sight" . so for ex if we fly a german aircraft very low over england (say 30 meters altitude) then the english radar will not see us, and similarly when i fly behind a mountain then the radar and AI aircraft on the other side of the mountain will not see me.
(you answered the question for clouds now blocking AI aircraft vision, but you have not answered it for mountains and hills blocking radar and AI visibility)
2) will there be civilian road and rail traffic in BoB ?
- right now in il2 when you see a truck or car on the road it is always military (even the bicycles), same with the trains they are always a military target. if we have some civilian road traffic (few buses and cars maybe doing a programmed "loop" journey) and trains in england (and they existed in ww2 period) then points could be deducted for destroying innocent civilian objects, and that means we need to correctly identify a target before engaging it, not just shoot at anything that moves !
3) will there be AI traffic and activity at the airfields we fly from ?
- microsoft flightsim X already has this, there is refueling trucks, baggage trolleys, other trucks and shunt vehicles driving around the airfield, giving it an "alive" impression
- you mentioned you will have ambulances and fire trucks maybe rushing to a crashed aircraft, but can we have some active vehicles like refueling trucks, ammo trucks, tea truck, jeeps with pilots, base commander in jeep on inspection tour, etc type activity ? (could be switched on/off in options for low end pc not wasting resources)
- can we have similar friendly AI activity in the sky ? in real life there was not just fighter planes and bombers flying in the sky, there was supply planes, transport planes, replacement aircraft etc. can we have some of that activity in the sky and at our airfields ? for ex AI flying in new replacement aircrafts for the squadron, and maybe supply aircraft bringing in parts and supplies, or new pilots etc.. that means other planes will be landing and taking of at our airfield, and flying in the skies near our airfields.
- adding that type of simple activity can make a big difference in bringing the BoB world alive, instead of flying in an empty world like we have in il2 right now.
4) will destroying objects/buildings at an airfield affect the availability of resources at that airfield ?
- for ex if all the fuel dumps at an airfield are bombed it should take X amount of time before fuel is again available at that airfield (new supply needs to be transported to the airfield), during that X time delay there should be no fuel (or ammo for ex) available at that airfield. same principle if all aircraft stationary on that airfield are destroyed by an enemy bombing raid, then we should not be able to magically spawn a brand new aircraft from that location (or hit refly and get a new aircraft) for X amount of time (new aircraft need to be flown in , or damaged aircraft need time to be repaired with spare parts). same if a runway is bombed, the bomb craters should remain taxi/landing/takeoff obstacles for X amount of time till the runway is repaired (you can still use the part of the runway that is not damaged)
- in practice this means that we can gradually shut down an enemy airfield, and force their aircraft to use a more rear located airfield (so it forces the enemy to waste more flying time to reach the frontline)
5) will you correct and improve the "distant object visibility" problem we currently have in il2 ? ie seeing distant LoD models correctly as you would see the the same object (plane/truck/tank) from the same distance with the naked eye in real life
- this is not a problem in il2 when you look at a distant aircraft against the open sky because it is a black (or dark grey) object that is seen against a uniform light blue sky background, but there is a MAJOR problem looking for a small LoD model against the textures of the terrain background, it blends in to much.
- for ex right now in il2 when you fly your aircraft at 1500 meters altitude and you look down to scan the ground for objects, you can not see/locate/track an enemy truck or tank that is standing in an open field or is located on an open road (as you can in real life see it, and historical ww2 pilot reports available), but instead in il2 you need to fly at 500 meters altitude to be able to see it (using the 30 FoV zoom function is not the solution, because it creates tunnel vision and you can only scan a very small narrow part of the ground at a time, and loosing all your peripheral vision it makes you very vulnerable to fly like that). this is because the il2 LoD model blends in to much with the terrain textures (with pc grafix it is a flat 2 dimensional LoD model blending in with the colors of the flat 2 dimensional terrain textures, but in real life it is a 3 dimensional solid object that stands out much more)
- will you compensate for this pc grafix problem in BoB and make distant LoD models stand out more so they are correctly visible ? you mentioned we will have more LoD models in BoB, instead of the 3 currently used in il2, but i am asking about making the LoD model stand out more so it is correctly visible and we can see those objects like tank/truck/planes from the exact same distance as we can see them in real life !
thank you for any information you can provide
