Some new official info from ubi forums

[The Kraken]

Originally Posted by Avimimus

But, if the plans for an SDK hold up, we should see entire new aircraft created (which requires this level of access).

Sure but the SDK won't come with the release, and no details are known so far about who will get access to it at all. But yes this would certainly require full access to all modeling features of the engine. Even more reason to open up the skinning process already before so people could get some practice in that field

[Heliocon]

Not even going to read the whole thread - 21 bombers? That is utterly pathetic. Seriously, and the whole cpu bs is also, it doesnt take cpu power to have a damage model unless it is being damaged, otherwise there isnt any calcs. AI aswell, and bombers fly in formation so the ai for them I would imagine is less intensive also.

But come on 21? Whats the point of making it for really crap machines that will not be around in a year anyway? Will this be change able in the scripted mission?

Oh and to the people who are talking about AI - why can shogun 2 total war have 56,000 units fighting on screen with motion capture animations and pathfinding in an enviroment full of obstacles with many properties, COD cant have more than 21 bombers flying in a straight line? Oh and then you have the tactical ai commanding the troops, unit ai, physics calcs etc etc etc. The machine limitation excuses are BS, a modern lower end quad core can easily hack it. There has only be 1 genre ever to push CPU limits and thats a small number of RTS's (unfortunetly now pretty much just TW series and a few other smaller titles) and stuff like Civ5. CPU's havent been the bottle neck for years, gpus have. Currently there are only a couple of titles that push pc's because of the big console market which means comp software lags behind 5+ years.

[Stiboo]

Yes Kendo I agree

that sounds like a good idea to put weathering to zero. This would work best for user created missions and campaigns as the official missions/campaigns will already have the weathering levels set for all a.i. planes...but it wouldn't be too big a job to re-set all the official mission weathering to zero if the player wanted to use custom skins.

This will also help with unit emblems and nose art - in the screenshots i've seen so far these do not have any weathering/rivets/panel lines and look false against the otherwise great skins, with the greater detail/quality custome skins in COD we'll have better quality emblems/nose art as well for custom skins.

Templates for panels/rivets is another story !....we'll have to wait and see.

[Zorin]

Originally Posted by Stiboo

Yes Kendo I agree

that sounds like a good idea to put weathering to zero. This would work best for user created missions and campaigns as the official missions/campaigns will already have the weathering levels set for all a.i. planes...but it wouldn't be too big a job to re-set all the official mission weathering to zero if the player wanted to use custom skins.

This will also help with unit emblems and nose art - in the screenshots i've seen so far these do not have any weathering/rivets/panel lines and look false against the otherwise great skins, with the greater detail/quality custome skins in COD we'll have better quality emblems/nose art as well for custom skins.

Templates for panels/rivets is another story !....we'll have to wait and see.

Well, as the rivet layer will be placed over the colour layer pre weathered skins will look kinda odd. But lets wait and see.

[addman]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

A bomber-formation of 21? I understand if the user can increase this, but that is just pathetic. I hope there is an easy way for the user to select formation sizes in order to increase them for the campaign.
I was hoping, with the improvement in technology, that it would be possible to have huge formation sizes like in BoB2. Of course, this could all change, but I was hoping for a larger size than this as a baseline.

"We balanced our campaign missions for minimum spec machines"

[Sven]

Originally Posted by addman

"We balanced our campaign missions for minimum spec machines"

Exactly.

[philip.ed]

I understood that part; hence me feeling that as a base-line it was still quite low (IMHO), and that I hoped the user could easily increase this

[Blackdog_kt]

To let the user increase this in a scripted campaign, they would have to make each mission at least 3 times to account for a bare minimum of low/medium/high aircraft density settings.

There's nothing stopping me from creating my own scenarios with 100 bombers in the air, or flying online in a server with a few dozen people if my PC can handle it.

Nevertheless, when the dynamic campaign is ready it would be a cool feature to be able to select the desired aircraft density.

"Q. Are the airfields and surroundings 'alive' in campaigns - you know, vehicles moving around, crew figures, a NAAFI truck?

A. All life has to be hand-built by the mission designer. All our stock missions come with very busy airfields."

Sounds great, I would love to have a situation where I belly land and smash into the naafi wagon or maybe some peeps watching the guys come home

[kikque]

[QUOTE=BigPickle;224547][I]"Q. Are the airfields and surroundings 'alive' in campaigns - you know, vehicles moving around, crew figures, a NAAFI truck?

A. All life has to be hand-built by the mission designer. All our stock missions come with very busy airfields."


I'm looking forward to seeing detail like this. I know that Luthier has said he is gutted that there aren't many 'human' figures populating the ground in-game e.g running from strafed vehicles etc. But again I think this answer suggests that the potential is there for future development. Thanks for posting the FAQ answers..... Stuka campaign anyone?