Friday 2009-10-30 Screenshots Update discussion thread

[Insuber]

Hi Oleg,

A big "well done!" for what I've seen. You are a valuable person for the WWII combat flying sim enthusiasts community. I highly appreciate also the time that you and Luthier are now devoting to the forum, and after your honest explanations about the past workforce issues and the recent improvements, I am more optimistic about the release of this new masterpiece.

I have a couple of questions, one which you answered me a long time ago ...

1. what type of training are you setting up in the game, other than what seen in Il2, already quite good indeed ?
2. are you still considering an aerial gunnery training aid for beginners, e.g. a "mobile yellow dot", working as a predictive gunsight to show at any moment where to aim during the lesson ?

I believe that the training sections are key to get new adepts to our game, and the gunnery is by far one of the most difficult skills. Having a "predictive pipper" in a gunnery drill can dramatically improve the learning curve of beginners ... and of others as well...

Regards,
Insuber

[Billy885]

Insuber, boy that is what this old man needs also. At one time if I remember right Oleg said it would be included in training...

I hope so for my sake!

[zxwings]

Originally Posted by Insuber

Hi Oleg,
...

2. are you still considering an aerial gunnery training aid for beginners, e.g. a "mobile yellow dot", working as a predictive gunsight to show at any moment where to aim during the lesson ?

I believe that the training sections are key to get new adepts to our game, and the gunnery is by far one of the most difficult skills. Having a "predictive pipper" in a gunnery drill can dramatically improve the learning curve of beginners ... and of others as well...

Regards,
Insuber

Such an automatic aiming mechanism may be exploited by hackers and eventually become harmful to the sim. If it exits, some people will think about transplanting it into their own online flight and use it when shooting at others. No one wants to be shot at by a hacker who has an automatic, all precise aiming pipper on his screen.

I hope I have been over-cautious here.

[flyingbullseye]

Originally Posted by zxwings

Such an automatic aiming mechanism may be exploited by hackers and eventually become harmful to the sim. If it exits, some people will think about transplanting it into their own online flight and use it when shooting at others. No one wants to be shot at by a hacker who has an automatic, all precise aiming pipper on his screen.

I hope I have been over-cautious here.

Not really, its a pretty legit concern. The guys back then didn't have that why should we? Its where practice comes in. Its understandable for beginners but instead of having an arrow or sight showing where to aim why not an instructor voice teaching where to shoot?

Flyingbullseye

[zxwings]

Originally Posted by flyingbullseye

The guys back then didn't have that why should we? Its where practice comes in.

Exactly.

[TheGrunch]

Originally Posted by flyingbullseye

Not really, its a pretty legit concern. The guys back then didn't have that why should we? Its where practice comes in. Its understandable for beginners but instead of having an arrow or sight showing where to aim why not an instructor voice teaching where to shoot?

Flyingbullseye

In fairness, how would it be any more difficult (or unfair) than hacking any of the other difficulty settings? I think the idea of it is good for beginners, and the potential for exploitation is no greater than someone for example hacking the flight dynamics or weapon ballistics. I don't see how it makes a difference if it exists as long as the anti-cheat protection in the game is up to the task.

[Blackdog_kt]

Is it just me, or do some some of us expect "weird" things from this sim? I mean, it's a matter of taste obviously and every opinion is welcome, but think about it.
Given the limited development time remaining and the need to get everything right and released within 2010, wouldn't it be more important for a flight sim to have something else modelled in place of an FPS mini-game when you get shot down? There's countless of things that could be done to enhance immersion when you're still in the cockpit, why think about what happens when we leave the cockpit when we're still this early in the sim's life?

For example, if Oleg's team told us they had time for one more cosmetic feature and put up a poll on this forum, i wouldn't vote for "let me kill some women's auxiliary baloon corp members with my luger, before i dive from the cliffs of Dover and swim across the channel back to Abbeville"
I would vote for things like historical engine start sequences, with an option to have it both ways like FSX and Black Shark. That is, you can click all the switches yourself, or press the ignition button and the AI does it for you, but there's still a check-list to go through and you can't just get it running in seconds. It would make for some interesting scramble missions, don't you think?

Or the ability to be a ground controller in multiplayer, which would only take a screen of a radar scope to implement. Maybe the ability to have animated crewmembers inside a mutli-crewed bomber and give specific orders to them like lowering gear manually, putting out a fire or giving first aid to the tail gunner, like it was in B17 II: the mighty 8th.

If we really want to run wild with ideas, there's a lot of things we haven't yet covered about the experience of flying these aircraft. In a flight sim, i think these are more important than trying to turn the game around from a flight sim to a semi-tactical shooter.

Don't get me wrong, i'd love to see servers someday where we have air, land and sea units all battling it out and it could also be done in 1:1 scale maps. If a unit was too slow (eg, infantry or tanks) or too far away from the target (like a B17 flying a 6 hour raid), we could have certain nodes and tell the AI to drive there, then the players take control. So, a fighter pilot on a CAS sortie would start inside the hangar but the infatryman would respawn at a node much closer to the action, while the heavies would be halfway across the North Sea and nearing Holland before the player jumped in and took over control from the AI. There's a load of things that could be done and a lot of terrific ideas are being proposed, i just think it's a bit early to be focusing on anything else than aircraft and air combat right now.

In any case, i'm mighty impressed during the past couple of weeks. Keep up the good work Oleg and team and as for the rest of us, let's keep the ideas going.

[HFC_Dolphin]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Is it just me, or do some some of us expect "weird" things from this sim?

I hope they don't ask for a device link to a vibrator, that will make them...feel the turbulence

You are right, though there are things that can be added, with not much cost, in the game and add to it a lot.
It doesn't have to be the...walking from enemy lines to friendly territory (as Feuerfalke said, you can always play some FPS game), but adding some more RPG features (ONLY in stats/missions/other data and NOT in graphics which need a lot of development), this would make the game appealing to a much bigger audience.

Anyway, I'm sure that with every update, we'll see a lot of weird requests, but who knows, there might be some interesing ones as well, and Oleg & Co get inspired to make the game as good as they can.

[PeterPanPan]

Well, I don't think is too weird a request, and hope that Oleg & Co see it as a useful one. How's about the ability for the FMB (or whatever it is going to be called) to have the ability to generate realistic looking recon photos that you can easily annotate via a GUI. Then, in the briefing stage of missions, players can actually see this image. Something like ...



I think this would greatly add to the enjoyment, realism and immersion of the sim.

EDIT ... apologies if this wasn't really the right place the post this.

Cheers

PPanPan