Friday 2010-12-03 Dev. update and Discussion

[dflion]

Originally Posted by nearmiss

Most mission builders are probably like myself... very excited about this update.

The scripting ability is very important.

I recall trying to build missions campaigns using Pokryskinin air tactics in 1943 flying the P39. I could not do it because all flights would attack en masse. Pokryskinin's tactic was to maintain aircraft in altitude tiers until the air combat advanced. The upper altitude flights would incrementally drop into the combat with greater E onto the 109s and 190s destroying them with the P39 cannon.

This is just one example of course. The AI performance package should have some scripting options as well, to create tactical encounters.

The ability to arrange objects then group and store them as files would be a great help. Groups that would allow including objects with waypoints and other data would make mission building much more efficient. A further help would be to have timing you could set for certain objects within groups of objects at one time. Example : If you are setting delay time and direction for Flak guns at one time for all flak guns.

It would be a great help to have explosions and and other such objects on waypoints so you could build battles in process as you fly into combat areas.

Very important to have navigation ability for player to fly without having to follow waypoints. No matter if AI aircraft fly waypoints. Player flight should not be restricted to flight paths or altitudes. Autopilot for player should be determined with individual player settings on-the-fly.

Most programming tools developed for IL2 were just text editor tools that worked with the *.mis files. The QMT is a good example.

I can go on for pages and pages like many other mission builders.

One thing that would be awesome... to know the FMB will get periodic updates to further facilitate mission builders as new patches and addons are made available.

Thanks Oleg, I'm printing out all the screenshots and carefully studying them to get a more thorough understanding. Oleg there are some excellent mission builders who have posted this thread. It is good to see them here responding to your update.

Some very good observations on your post nearmiss. With the 'scripting trigger point' option you will be able to make much more precise missions that simulate historical situations. It looks like there will be much better control of the AI aircraft.

The ability to arrange and group objects and store them as one collective file would be a great time saver. For example a complete airfield, target area or a large bomber formation with waypoints. Timing is also a major issue in IL-2 mission building - trying to co-ordinate everything to arrive at the same point of time. It also looks like this problem has been addressed in the new FMB.

Independent navigation without following waypoints would be another excellent option with voice command 'trigger points'.

The 'scramble', 'idle', 'Script Spawn C' tick boxes in the 'Group properties' tab most likely answers 'FlatSpinMan's' question on taxi and take-off from dispersed positions.

Anyway the main thing is that very thankfully Oleg has kept the FMB format basically the same, with some very exciting additions. Hopefully he will be able to give us all some more detail without giving too much away?

DFLion

[heywooood]

beautiful update Mr Maddox.

with these few shots you demonstrate rather clearly the quantum leap forward you have achieved over the Il2 FMB.

mission builders should be extremely giddy about these few 'maps' haha

as to the the few who do not yet realize the importance of the features and capabilities of this new tool - just relax - the people who do understand it will be providing you with hours of incredibly imersive action with it, soon after SoW is released! be sure...

I can see already how some of these features will benefit future SoW releases (Pacific Theater nudge nudge) so as to provide a far more seamless progression through all phases of WWII in the air.

[C_G]

One word: "triggers"

Hurray!

[Blackdog_kt]

First of all, thanks for the weekly update. I'm not a mission builder, but i'm a mission flyer and the better the editor is, the more enjoyable the missions we get from our talented community members are going to be. So, thanks for improving the FMB for all of us.

With that being said, let me go on to a couple of specific points...

Originally Posted by Sutts

A very interesting update this week Oleg, thanks. Nice to see the full map at last. Should allow for some great missions. Is there a possibility in future that the map could be extended northwards to include the 12 Group fields or would that be pushing the current hardware too far? It would be nice one day to reenact the 12 group Big Wing attacks.

Someone mentioned specifying waypoint times of arrival and having the FMB work out the necessary speed to get there on time. This would be a great feature and was implemented incredibly well by the Tornado simulator years ago.

As far as I remember, you could do things both ways i.e. specify arrival time OR speed for a waypoint. If the time you specified required an impossible speed to get there, the waypoint track changed colour to red I think. I used to spend hours creating multi-flight attacks which would come in from different directions at different heights and speeds at the critical moment to avoid the blasts from the previous pass. A very enjoyable experience I've got to say.

The map looks very fine resolution which is great. I'm hoping we can zoom in and out smoothly (like google earth), rather than in clunky increments. A slight concern is the size of the waypoint marker....will it still allow for very accurate positioning Oleg?

Thanks Oleg.

Actually you raise a very important point. Since we've been told we'll have accurate systems modelling and that the same rules will aply to the AI (that is, they won't be invulnerable to overheat anymore), there could be cases where flights couldn't reach the waypoints without breaking their engines.

For example, a flight of fighters might be able of a 350mph airspeed but only for brief periods of time (like war emergency power settings), with their sustainable airspeed being much lower. Or, they might be unable to reach higher speeds until burning some fuel and getting lighter.

Throwing the indicated-to-true airspeed conversions and ground speed calculations into the mix could get interesting, as they depend heavily on weather conditions (which are adjustable and also possible to dynamically change).

So, in order to ensure a flight overflying a waypoint at a specified time the mission editor would have to:

1) Calculate the needed ground speed (GS).

2) Reference the GS value with the weather conditions set for the mission and extrapolate the corresponding IAS value the aircraft would need to fly.

3) Check the needed IAS value for the specified leg of the flightplan against the aircraft specifications and operating limits.

I'm not a mission builder but this is very interesting, especially if you consider the possibility of some randomness in the way the weather evolves. For example if you have built a mission that relies on some closely orchestrated attacks and/or depends highly on keeping to the schedule, an occurence as simple as a change in wind direction and strength could make the mission goal very easy to achieve (ie, the flight reaches their target area with time to spare), dangerous or even totally unattainable.

For instance think about this scenarion in a future add-on, due to strong head winds the train carrying the enemy generals has departed when the mosquitos reach the target area and now they have to split up and look for it by following the railway lines. Certainly not a welcome event when a quick "one pass and away" mission turns into having to prolong the amount of time you will be flying low inside enemy airspace.

Originally Posted by Ibis

Great update Oleg, mission building will be much improved, thanks.

One small request:
would it be possible to get the AA to lay a barrage in front of bomber formations as well as directly at them . At the moment most of the AA arrives behind the formation. I think this would add greatly to the visual effect for bomber pilots as they near the end of their final run to the target.
Waiting impatiently for the release of your work.
cheers,
Ibis.

Very nice of you to bring this up. I still remember when i flew my first mission in B17:the mighty 8th (the sequel to the original) back in the day and the reason is just that feature. Having to fly steadily and sedately into an already well developed flak barrage in order to maintain bomb aiming accuracy was one of the most memorable events of all my simulated careers.