Friday 2011-02-04 Dev. update and Discussion

[luthier]

Originally Posted by HFC_Dolphin

I once kindly asked Oleg to have a view of the airport and our plane's position when we get into the mission. Something like a fly-by/helicopter view, where we see where we are and where should we go to get into take off position.

That's actually a cool idea, but we probably can't do it at this point. We do plan to expand the pre-flight experience a lot either in day-1 or the first immediate patch. We'll keep it in mind.

Originally Posted by klem

By the way the A2A actually models engine wear against the use and abuse it gets (and gear etc) and it is carried over to the next flight unless you repair it. I can imagine it would add a big new dimension to fighting in the aircraft.

This was all planned as part of our dynamic campaign - mechanics, repairs, etc. Most of the components needed for it are there, it's just there's no top-level repair functionality or wear carry-over.

Originally Posted by Heliocon

As for the smoke vortexes, isnt it a similar mechanic to water physics/movement which is in alot of games, direct compute could hack it (it was made for that type of simulation).

Well that would require a completely different visual technology for smoke and clouds. Clouds obviously get the same exact wake vortex as a smoke column.

Right now our clouds and smoke are just big puffs, either 2D circles, or 3D spheres. They're pretty large. You can only turn a puff into a smoke vortex if the plane flies directly through a predetermined point at its center or at its edge, only if it flies wings level, and only if only one plane flies through that puff at one time. That, of course, is never going to happen.

To allow for dynamic vortexes anywhere the plane flies, and that interact with each other if more than one plane flies there, would require us to break the puffs into tiny parts hundreds of times smaller than our current puffs. That means that each smoke column and the edge of each cloud would be a thousand times more resource-intensive, i.e. it just can't be done. Or at the very least we can't think of a way to get it done.

Originally Posted by Chivas

I wonder if the LOD of objects (buildings) will be about the same as IL-2? The pop up buildings are an immersion killer, but I understand that its sometimes necessary for fps issues. Will there be a user option to increase the LOD distance. In IL-2 right now a high end system can get many hundreds of frames per second, so it would be a nice option to have, when the new IL-2 series goes forward and people have strong enough systems.

It's hard to imagine a system in which we can have unlimited building visibility coming in the next 3 to 5 years. You'd need to constantly resort the relative positions of millions of objects.

Originally Posted by Zorin

1. Regarding the Bf-108. As you concieved it as a AI only plane so far, is its internal model inferior to a flyable plane?

All external models are built to the same standard. All are potentially flyable with no changes to the outside model.

Originally Posted by Zorin

2. If that should not be the case and I would pay someone to build the cockpit to your standards, how long would it take you guys to get it implemented? I believe that is a crucial questions for all third party developers who want to have their work approved and implemented by you.

The plan is to allow 3rd party developers to approve, implement and release their own work once we release the SDK. We do not plan to implement anyone's work before or after the SDK is released.

Originally Posted by Zorin

3. Can you estimate the number of planes that will be missing from CoD when it reaches IL-2s current stage? Are we realisitically looking at 1/3 of the number of flyables or even less?

What do you mean by IL-2's current stage? 10 years after release? Hopefully with the 3rd party SDK it will be much bigger than Il-2.

Originally Posted by Zorin

4. On the Bf109 screens you posted, the markings are not part of the weathering process. Is that about to change in the future?

Maybe.

Originally Posted by Zorin

5. Oleg mentioned some time ago that the organisation of ground units, vehicles columns etc, is entirely up to the mission designer. For example, being able to recreate a typical "leichte Panzerkompanie c" and saving it as a preset for future missions. Is this still the case for CoD on release?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Chivas

Will we be able to map Zoom View to a Rotary. I find the Wide, Normal, and Gunsight view less than ideal.

We have smooth POV zoom, but right now you can only adjust it to a button. We'll see if we can make it an axis as well.

[kimosabi]

Originally Posted by Tanner

BTW this is what a real Developer Update looks like:

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20110204

And how frequent are those updates? No way in hell that's a weekly update, more like monthly or less.

[Chivas]

Will we be able to map Zoom View to a Rotary. I find the Wide, Normal, and Gunsight view less than ideal.

[kristorf]

Nice stuff, many thanks

Can I just say though that the roundels still look 'wrong' in colouring

[Ironman69]

Luthier,
Are you happy with the sounds of CoD? For example, engine noise, gun effects, etc.. Can you post a quick vid of the sounds at full blast? Are the sounds .wav files? Synthesized ? On a further note, can you hear outside noises such as other aircraft from within your own cockpit in flight?

[luthier]

Originally Posted by Ironman69

Luthier,
Are you happy with the sounds of CoD? For example, engine noise, gun effects, etc.. Can you post a quick vid of the sounds at full blast? Are the sounds .wav files? Synthesized ? On a further note, can you hear outside noises such as other aircraft from within your own cockpit in flight?

We're still working on sounds. Engine and gun sounds are pretty good in my opinion, but a lot of people will take some time to get used to them because they're not what you expect, especially guns as heard from inside the cockpit. We got some funny bug reports about that from some beta testers.

You can hear outside noises, yes. As you should. We can argue this based both on memoirs and on scientific formulas.

[NSU]

Originally Posted by luthier

We're still working on sounds. Engine and gun sounds are pretty good in my opinion, but a lot of people will take some time to get used to them because they're not what you expect, especially guns as heard from inside the cockpit. We got some funny bug reports about that from some beta testers.

You can hear outside noises, yes. As you should. We can argue this based both on memoirs and on scientific formulas.

good, i think you hear a shoot inside the cockpit more mechanic as a explosion

[ATAG_Bliss]

Oleg and Luthier,

Thank you for taking the time to give us our addiction this week

Very lovely screenies and video. I know you guys are working tremendously hard. I know your whole intent is to release a sim that will do what it says. If that means holding back some features, so be it. I'd much rather have a sim that starts on the ground running than a few I've boughten that are still bug infested. Thanks for being upfront and honest. That's pretty much all anyone can ask for. I too wish other people knew what WIP means as well

I can't wait for a copy to be in my hands!

Cheers and Thanks!

[David198502]

i really appreciate all the answers we have been given today!!!thx a lot to the dev team!!!!
ps:the screenshots look awesome!!!hope my rig will run it at medium settings without stutters.

[DC338]

Originally Posted by luthier

We're still working on sounds. Engine and gun sounds are pretty good in my opinion, but a lot of people will take some time to get used to them because they're not what you expect, especially guns as heard from inside the cockpit. We got some funny bug reports about that from some beta testers.

You can hear outside noises, yes. As you should. We can argue this based both on memoirs and on scientific formulas.

What sort of outside noises? Other aircraft? Can you point to the memoirs and formulas? I would like to see the arguments that you can hear much that goes on outside the cockpit.