Future of simulations 2010 discussion

[whatnot]

What I find odd in discussions of this nature where more realism is requested is that you often get two types of responses:

1) It's boring to perform these additional tasks and and you should go fly a real plane if you want to spend your time performing these boring tasks.

2) If you do the requested X level of additional realism related features it's an impossible road to take as you don't have enough development resources or CPU power to model the aerodynamic effect of a mosquito hitting the windscreen

I want to comment these typical responses in general with no pun intended:

1) If people go through the trouble of registering to a forum to request it apparently there is interest towards it. If you're not interested on that particular area why the hell do you need to take a dump on other people's areas of interest?
We don't need a police force filtering the good ideas from the bad ones, let the developers do that and keep the forum as a platform for sharing the hopes and dreams of future sim genre.

2) Modeling X does not mean that you need to model the movement and causality of every atom on the planet. In this particular example where procedures are requested it's not rocket science. It's been done several times and to save Maddox resources the request has been to leave a possibility for that to be leveraged by third party. It's doable and it has been done. Several times.
This is not away from your point-and-shoot experience or whatever you desire, it's just a door left open to pour a lot more dollars into the sim from audiences titles like IL-2 might not attract.

I think Sutts summarized a lot of my thoughts pretty well in his post a few pages back. Already a lot positive comments have already been posted by different individuals in this thread alone on possibility to extend plane control realism. This micro survey alone proves that a market exists and that's the market in my experience that is willing to invest 20x the cost of the initial title to expand it further.

This is not an 'either this or that' discussion. It's about reaching the widest possible market by looking into the features from a broader scope than what IL-2 comes from. It doesn't have to be the initial SOW release, I'd just like to see this being a part of the business model in the long run.

And what comes to the categorization of the market segments: atleast I'm a sample that crosses a lot of the suggested categories. I want to click my buttons, follow the appropriate engine management to get the most out of my crate, fly on-line and score a lot of kills.

[Wolf_Rider]

Reaching the widest possible market also means taking into account a wide range of PC hardware capability and playing style... but no matter what, there will be those who insist that modelling the bug splat is necessary and required and there will be those (if bug splat is modelled) who will insist the bug doesn't go splat in the correct manner. Meanwhile, for a reasonable amount of fliers out there, the splat will bog their PC hardware down.

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

Reaching the widest possible market also means taking into account a wide range of PC hardware capability and playing style... but no matter what, there will be those who insist that modelling the bug splat is necessary and required and there will be those (if bug splat is modelled) who will insist the bug doesn't go splat in the correct manner. Meanwhile, for a reasonable amount of fliers out there, the splat will bog their PC hardware down.

Not just the actual PC hardware is a limiting factor. Look at the controller options. You have to buy a joystick and doing so is a real mixed bag. A lot of the entry joysticks are either crap with horrible deadzones or non-ambidextrous, leaving a small segment to be even more limited in their option. Plus if you want to do well you need a rudder. Some joysticks have twist rudder, but if you want a rudder that doesn't suck you need to drop another $100 on a set of pedals. If you go the hotas setup you have to drop $100-500 on something that has a good chance of being a lemon.

The Saitek X-52's have crappy spikes in a lot of their units, and G940 still has the reversal bug in the rudder and throttle plus some units overhead and shut down the force feedback. Even the warthog, the holy grail of Hotas setups have issues with DOA units and spiking in them.

It's hard enough for those of us who like flight sims to stay in the game, think about someone just getting into them!

[LukeFF]

Oleg: Really, not always. I have said many times that it would be good to sell separately joystick and throttles for flight sims. Users should be able to select by the price, features, and quality by themselves. Also, a user would like to build customizable system of peripheral controls — and get just what he needs.

This is exactly why I like CH Products. I get exactly the controllers I want to buy.

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by speculum jockey

Not just the actual PC hardware is a limiting factor. Look at the controller options. You have to buy a joystick and doing so is a real mixed bag. A lot of the entry joysticks are either crap with horrible deadzones or non-ambidextrous, leaving a small segment to be even more limited in their option. Plus if you want to do well you need a rudder. Some joysticks have twist rudder, but if you want a rudder that doesn't suck you need to drop another $100 on a set of pedals. If you go the hotas setup you have to drop $100-500 on something that has a good chance of being a lemon.

The Saitek X-52's have crappy spikes in a lot of their units, and G940 still has the reversal bug in the rudder and throttle plus some units overhead and shut down the force feedback. Even the warthog, the holy grail of Hotas setups have issues with DOA units and spiking in them.

It's hard enough for those of us who like flight sims to stay in the game, think about someone just getting into them!

exactly

and then there are all the different flavours of PC Hardware itself, from CPU's to mobo's to soundcards, not to mention the plethora of VGA's.

I find the G940 just has issues - period... and made a mistake in purchasing it.

[Flanker35M]

S!

I bought IL-2 for 40€ but have spent a lot over 1000€on my rig to get the most out of this game. And will do the same with SoW. Hobbies cost and where you put your money is a matter of priorities. I rather buy a new controller for simming rather than shell it out on a night in town and puke the next day And there are Difficulty Settings for a reason

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

exactly

and then there are all the different flavours of PC Hardware itself, from CPU's to mobo's to soundcards, not to mention the plethora of VGA's.

I find the G940 just has issues - period... and made a mistake in purchasing it.

Thankfully we don't have to drop $50-200 on sound cards any more. Pretty much the only reason to get one is for professional sound work. Today's mainboards are great for onboard sound (most even support 7.1) and the odds are you're going to have to spend a few hundred on your speakers before you're even close to hearing the limits of onboard sound quality.

[whatnot]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

Reaching the widest possible market also means taking into account a wide range of PC hardware capability and playing style... but no matter what, there will be those who insist that modelling the bug splat is necessary and required and there will be those (if bug splat is modelled) who will insist the bug doesn't go splat in the correct manner. Meanwhile, for a reasonable amount of fliers out there, the splat will bog their PC hardware down.

I'm not a game developer but still quite IT literate and I doubt that realistic controls and engine management would swallow a huge load of resources. You don't need to render anything extra, just have a model for monitoring relatively simple and logical rules of engine behaviour vs control inputs.

Like if you don't enable booster pump while switching between tanks fuel flow might have hickups which in sim would be represented in a similar fashion as negative g's on early Hurris for example.

Also I have not seen too many comments related to adding realism to the plane controls that would have gone to extremes that would have been in the same ballpark of irrelevance as bug splats you (and me) used in previous examples. So I'm not exactly following how this comment is relevant for this discussion or was it intended as a response to me in the first place? If it was then it's a classic example of Type 2 response I posted above.

[Wolf_Rider]

Originally Posted by whatnot

I'm not a game developer but still quite IT literate and I doubt that realistic controls and engine management would swallow a huge load of resources.

It depends on how deeply the want for modelling is really. You're right in a way that "procedure" (flicking switches in the right order) doesn't require any extra rendering but the math required for the "procedure" (the want for the effects of worn seals/ almost rancid hydraulic oil/ a dodgy injector/ intermittent loose wire on a cockpit gauge, for instance, or the added "realism: of the bug splat) involved is what would bog down hardware.

we need to be careful that we don't make the mistake of misinterpreting realism/ realistic/ procedure, lest we end up in casuistry to further agenda

[Sutts]

Originally Posted by Wolf_Rider

It depends on how deeply the want for modelling is really. You're right in a way that "procedure" (flicking switches in the right order) doesn't require any extra rendering but the math required for the "procedure" (the want for the effects of worn seals/ almost rancid hydraulic oil/ a dodgy injector/ intermittent loose wire on a cockpit gauge, for instance, or the added "realism: of the bug splat) involved is what would bog down hardware.

we need to be careful that we don't make the mistake of misinterpreting realism/ realistic/ procedure, lest we end up in casuistry to further agenda

I take it you are describing the effects of a worn engine on how easy it is to start? If so then I agree that keeping track of the state of the oil and the degree of wear in the individual components would be way over the top and would affect performance.

However, I think all this could be easily modelled through a simple factor applied at startup that is based on the degree of abuse an engine has suffered. I believe Oleg is already keeping track of the "abuse factor".

The procedures we're talking about are pretty straight forward really. Things like:

If number of prime strokes are insufficient based on current engine temperature then make engine fail to start. (pre take off check with no framerate hit)

If master switch is not turned on then ignition and all electrical services won't work. (pre take off check with no framerate hit)

If booster pump is not used while switching tanks then % chance of fuel lock and engine cutout. (check state of booster pump only when fuel selector changed)

This kind of thing will not effect performance at all really (I program for a living). The problem Oleg has is that each aircraft has different sub system requirements. He just wants to stick to the features common to all and avoid having to spend time implementing the details specific to each type and sub type which is understandable.

While I hope he does make an effort to model the parameters and limitations of each type (boost/rpm/temps etc) I can understand his reluctance to turn this into a study sim (which was never the intention).

What I hope is that third parties can step in later and give study sim status to specific aircraft as has already happened with FSX. I believe strongly that this could be done without affecting the competitive nature of online play. The systems we are asking to be modelled are either only used on the ground or are of a nature that won't give the player an advantage in combat (in fact the player will be MORE likely to die if they fail to follow procedures).

The systems that would give advantage in combat are modelled already - Supercharger, RPM control, Mixture etc. A boost pump or a circuit breaker is not going to sway things one way or another.