Talk about how to include the tanks gameplay

[tintifaxl]

Originally Posted by addman

... Also, if you saw that video in the last Friday update you could hear the planes buzzing above from the ground. If I'm in a tank and hear that sound I'll be sure to drive under some trees and sit still, good luck spotting anything.

Trees and grass are of course disabled, houses at minumum in a competitive multiplayer environment. Now try to hide

[mazex]

Originally Posted by tintifaxl

Trees and grass are of course disabled, houses at minumum in a competitive multiplayer environment. Now try to hide

Well, in a well implemented game that won't be a problem. If you are hidden in a forest that someone has disabled you will just disappear in the middle of an empty field. Guess if its better to know that there is a forest there or not?

/mazex

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by tintifaxl

Trees and grass are of course disabled, houses at minumum in a competitive multiplayer environment. Now try to hide

Why hide?

Or do you think the vehicals shown in the videos thus far are the only vehicals they are ever going to make?

I think not.. I fully expect that you will see not only fixxed base AAA but mobal AAA like this



So I wouldn't loose any sleep over it thinking your going to be at the mercy of planes.

[sorak]

I just cant wait until they start doing Helicopters... Ive allways wanted some helicopters in this game. I know they hinted about the Gyro Copter they supposnly said they were messing around with but still never heard anything about it.

but man it would be fun to blow them out the sky

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by tintifaxl

Trees and grass are of course disabled, houses at minumum in a competitive multiplayer environment. Now try to hide

That won't be a problem, the server will decide what graphics level your game will be set at.

[Les]

I can imagine at least two combined-arms mission types, with four objectives to choose from, that could make use of tanks or other ground vehicles or artillery.

1. Attack and capture a position.

2. Defend and maintain control over a position.


3. Get from point A to point B.

4. Stop opposition from getting from point A to point B.


With the current state of the AI control capabilities (and come to think of it, even if they were perfected), these game-modes would be most playable in some kind of co-op mode with re-spawn available.

Each team would have enough tank and plane slots to allow the players to make a tactical decision about what ratio of planes to tanks (or other vehicles or artillery) they want to use.

The maps would be large enough to force the planes to have to fly from distant spawn points, so they don't spawn directly over the tanks or the objective being fought over. But the tanks would spawn closer to the objective so they don't have to drive for too long and so the tanks and planes will converge roughly in the same area.

I don't see map-balance issues being any more difficult to achieve than with any other kind of game-play. If the map is well made and you make the wrong choices as a team, or don't work together to achieve the map objective, you lose, nothing new there.

Having played ground attack missions in the original IL-2 series (online and offline), and having played territory-capture tanking maps in the original Red Orchestra game, I think the inclusion of tanks and other vehicles and playable artillery in the new IL-2 series opens up the potential for some of the most engaging ground and air combat ever.

And no, on a macro scale, I doubt we'll have the player numbers to recreate any historical scenarios, but on a micro scale, from the point of view of the tank driver or pilot who has a specific limited mission to accomplish, I think the potential is there to show very realistically how difficult it would have been to have done what they did in real life.

Ground pounding is hard and requires skill, and with human opposition in the air with you, it's even harder. Intercepting ground pounders is also difficult, especially if they have escorts.

Taking and holding (and/or defending) territory in a tank is also difficult, especially against human players. It's a tactical affair, even when it gets down to one on one. Having to consider the possibility the opposition might get through and attack you from above adds a whole other level to your tactical considerations.

I do think though the potential is there for the ground aspect of the game to become the best of it's kind and draw in new players to the IL-2 series.

I think if the developers cover a few certain basics in the implementation of ground vehicles and artillery it will be up to the players to make of it what they will. It may turn out people find the tanking or ground-pounding too hard to do with realistic settings, but if using easier settings helps overcome limits of the computer-gaming medium itself, so be it.

The devs may also have to introduce some new game features though, in order to get planes and ground vehicles working together properly. I'm thinking along the lines of new map features (to help with capturing territory etc.) and new re-spawn features (giving, for example, the ground-pounders an option to re-arm at a closer base than the one they would spawn from at the start or if they were destroyed). That's all to be seen though.

To be honest, I have no expectation that the potential of the game will be fully realized, on the ground or in the air, but only because I don't want those expectations to lead to dissappointment. I'll definitely keep an eye on developments though, and support the team in their efforts to fix and refine and add new features to the sim, because you never know, as long as they keep trying they just might succeed.

[tintifaxl]

Originally Posted by Chivas

That won't be a problem, the server will decide what graphics level your game will be set at.

And the moaning from people with slower machines will be unbearable.

We'll see were the IL2 series will be in 3 years. My prediction is: there will be driveable vehicles but there will be no gameplay provided (campaigns, missions, etc...) so noone will use them.

I'd be very happy if 1C can pull this off, but I doubt it.

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by tintifaxl

And the moaning from people with slower machines will be unbearable.

We'll see were the IL2 series will be in 3 years. My prediction is: there will be driveable vehicles but there will be no gameplay provided (campaigns, missions, etc...) so noone will use them.

I'd be very happy if 1C can pull this off, but I doubt it.

The new patch will allow people with average systems run with trees and buildings on.

The developer won't need to provide campaigns and missions as the community will do all the campaigns and missions you could ever play, and some probably much better than the developer would ever do.

I'm sure the developer with the communites help will do more than pulled it off. The far more advanced FMB , especially Triggers option will be making very complex and interesting missions. Far more immersive than we've seen from IL-2 1946 or any other combat flight sim.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by csThor

Sorry Blackdog, but closing ones eyes to the realities of "gamer's attitudes" is simply counter-productive. Without a solid framework for player-controlled ground vehicles it will simply dissolve into what we see at World of Tanks (which I play regularly, just to make that clear) - a mindless, pointless bar room brawl in which you will neither find coordination or a common goal nor (sadly) any indication of plain intelligence. People will do what they please the way they want it and give a f*ck about realism, teamplay or a mission goal.

Even in scenarios, which are an exception and not the norm, or within tight-knit groups of people I don't see much if any use for tanks or ground vehicles because the players that frequent scenarios or prefer playing with like-minded players are the minority and will generally stick to flying aircraft.

I can't really answer you without knowing the kind of standards you judge it with. For me absolute realism is impossible, so i want a simulation in the sense it's meant when doing scientific models for physics, etc: a set of mechanics that create a behavior proportional to the real one, while being easier and faster to implement.

If we want people to drive 10 hours only to be taken out by a Typhoon with rockets, it's obvious nobody will drive vehicles. However, we can provide game mechanics and mission designs that place vehicles near enough to the action without making it a free for all. Best of all, we are already doing it for aircraft, i really can't see the problem here, it's just a different scale.

I mean, how long does it take to cross the channel in CoD? 10-20 minutes, depending on how wide it is where you cross. If i was hosting a mixed aircraft and vehicles server i'd do the same, but in a way that creates incentives for the player to "work" for each advantage:

1) moving frontline script
2) set up forward HQ script: move X amount of supplies here, enter a server console command to trigger the HQ setup, guard the supplies for Z amount of time and if you succeed, you get a respawn point.

This way, vehicles will be on average 15 minutes away from the action, just like aircraft currently are. If we can fly 15 minutes to be bounced by someone out of the sun and we still respawn and do it again, the vehicle drivers can drive for 15 minutes to be bombed and respawn to do it again. It's not like it happens everytime.

The only difference is to make it in a way that makes for interesting gameplay, with a sense of tactical objectives in mind.

For example, in a battle of France campaign the blue players advance in their panzers, move supplies forward and give the console command to the server to create a forward staging area and gain a spawnpoint closer to the enemy lines. If the red pilots can bomb those supplies before the timer completes, the blue panzers lose that spawnpoint and the supplies they had stockpiled there and have to do it again.

This in turn makes it necessary for the blue pilots to get involved and protect their ground troops, while at the same time attacking enemy spawnpoint locations. Of course those locations are not known in advance because they are created arbitrarily by the players and once the script completes its timer, a trigger spawns a set of HQ related objects there.

So, we now need to make reconnaissance flights too, while the enemy needs to stop those flights, etc, etc.

I'm not saying it can be done tomorrow, but for someone with time on their hands and knowledge of C# it's no big deal, it will just take a while. So, either the developers provide some examples when they release the SDK and we take it from there, or we wait for community programmers to pick it up and run with it.

The waiting period doesn't mean it's not useful for tactically oriented gameplay however. It just means people need to roll up their sleeves and tinker with it if they are in a hurry to see it implemented, or they can just stick to flying until someone else makes it for them.

Either way, the only thing that's missing is a spawnpoint object for ground units in the FMB, the rest is already possible and many servers run scripts that do similar stuff, they just haven't been combined this way yet. Which is the good thing about scripting in an object oriented language, people can package parts of their code that does specific things and exchange it among each other.

If i started out tomorrow to code the scripts i describe i wouldn't do it all by myself. I would e-mail the guys that run Repka and ask permission to use their moving front line script. Then i would e-mail Bliss and ask him permission to use the script he runs on Atag for managing ground targets objectives. And so on.



In any case, these are all solvable problems and not a single one is a matter of game design. They are all matters of mission design and scripting: if the server admin wants a realistic server he will provide suitable missions and attract the relevant crowd, if he wants a relaxed realism server he can give them what you describe.

There's no harm in either.

It's like swiss says:

Originally Posted by swiss

Pretty much what we have today with the spitII in place of the Tiger.
Reality teaches us everybody wants to fly the best plane.



Everyday business in IL2 too. CF in the air. What you want requires the players too change - it's not the games fault.

It's a matter of how far the player and the server host want to go with it.

What i'm trying to say is that just because some people will use the new feature in a non-realistic manner it doesn't mean the feature is bad, because you can choose to use it in a realistic manner yourself.

Originally Posted by xnomad

Well obviously the whole ground vehicle concept is for the Eastern front. The Luftwaffe and the VVS were tactical airforces and their original purpose was to support ground units.

If you want to simulate the Eastern front properlu you have to have the ground vehilces in the mix.

I'm guessing it will be as mentioned that you will have AI tanks with you and you give them instructions just like we are 'supposed' to have with radio commands for our AI wings.

I'm also guessing that mission builders can build AI tank battles and if you want you can jump into a tank just like we can do with aircraft, or you can just let the AI battle it out.

This could be interesting as it's going to encourage more divesity in the air as we'll have more people willing to get into ground pounding, and they'll need escort cover. So rather than dogfighting for the hell of it, air superiority will actually be the aim of the fighters so that the bombers and fighter bombers can get through and anhilate the objective.

You can say that we have this already but I reckon it's more enticing to players when they know that a vehicle may be manned by a human rather than AI. So you are more tempted to get into your Ju 87 or IL2 and go drop a few bombs on the guy!

Pretty much what i expect. I don't expect another steel beasts pro out of the blue, i just expect something that will give players a reason for fighting it out: pilots will help the ground units because their airfields depend on them, ground units will help the pilots because their ease of moving around on the battlefield depends on the lack of enemy bombers.

Originally Posted by tintifaxl

Trees and grass are of course disabled, houses at minumum in a competitive multiplayer environment. Now try to hide

Again, this happened in the past as well with cloud settings back in IL2. People running the high detail clouds couldn't see AC in the clouds, people running low detail clouds could. The solution was that the server admins told people to stick to low detail clouds for an even playing field, until everyone's hardware caught up.

The solution for CoD is dead simple as well: server enforced forest/building amount settings, just like the difficulty settings are enforced.

Set it to low so everyone can have fluid frame rates, everyone can see the same thing and nobody is having a disadvantage.

I see a lot of obstacles being considered insurmountable, when they are not only relatively trivial to overcome compared to some of the things we're getting in the sim (like the graphics engine rewrite or the new FM calculations), but also similar things have happened in the past and were also successfully overcome.

IL2 was a game with 16 or 32 people in multiplayer and a handful of flyables, now it's got 200+ flyables and 128 player online sessions. CoD will probably go a similar route as long as it survives, so let's just ride it out and see where it goes. Rome wasn't built in one day either

Originally Posted by Les

I can imagine at least two combined-arms mission types, with four objectives to choose from, that could make use of tanks or other ground vehicles or artillery.

1. Attack and capture a position.

2. Defend and maintain control over a position.


3. Get from point A to point B.

4. Stop opposition from getting from point A to point B.


With the current state of the AI control capabilities (and come to think of it, even if they were perfected), these game-modes would be most playable in some kind of co-op mode with re-spawn available.

Each team would have enough tank and plane slots to allow the players to make a tactical decision about what ratio of planes to tanks (or other vehicles or artillery) they want to use.

The maps would be large enough to force the planes to have to fly from distant spawn points, so they don't spawn directly over the tanks or the objective being fought over. But the tanks would spawn closer to the objective so they don't have to drive for too long and so the tanks and planes will converge roughly in the same area.

I don't see map-balance issues being any more difficult to achieve than with any other kind of game-play. If the map is well made and you make the wrong choices as a team, or don't work together to achieve the map objective, you lose, nothing new there.

Having played ground attack missions in the original IL-2 series (online and offline), and having played territory-capture tanking maps in the original Red Orchestra game, I think the inclusion of tanks and other vehicles and playable artillery in the new IL-2 series opens up the potential for some of the most engaging ground and air combat ever.

And no, on a macro scale, I doubt we'll have the player numbers to recreate any historical scenarios, but on a micro scale, from the point of view of the tank driver or pilot who has a specific limited mission to accomplish, I think the potential is there to show very realistically how difficult it would have been to have done what they did in real life.

Ground pounding is hard and requires skill, and with human opposition in the air with you, it's even harder. Intercepting ground pounders is also difficult, especially if they have escorts.

Taking and holding (and/or defending) territory in a tank is also difficult, especially against human players. It's a tactical affair, even when it gets down to one on one. Having to consider the possibility the opposition might get through and attack you from above adds a whole other level to your tactical considerations.

I do think though the potential is there for the ground aspect of the game to become the best of it's kind and draw in new players to the IL-2 series.

I think if the developers cover a few certain basics in the implementation of ground vehicles and artillery it will be up to the players to make of it what they will. It may turn out people find the tanking or ground-pounding too hard to do with realistic settings, but if using easier settings helps overcome limits of the computer-gaming medium itself, so be it.

The devs may also have to introduce some new game features though, in order to get planes and ground vehicles working together properly. I'm thinking along the lines of new map features (to help with capturing territory etc.) and new re-spawn features (giving, for example, the ground-pounders an option to re-arm at a closer base than the one they would spawn from at the start or if they were destroyed). That's all to be seen though.

To be honest, I have no expectation that the potential of the game will be fully realized, on the ground or in the air, but only because I don't want those expectations to lead to dissappointment. I'll definitely keep an eye on developments though, and support the team in their efforts to fix and refine and add new features to the sim, because you never know, as long as they keep trying they just might succeed.

Pretty much my take on things Les. We could have pre-scripted missions with rigid objectives like a COOP, or free-form scenarios.

This last one is my favorite and if i have enough time during the summer i'll get into C# and try to code a supply tracking script.

*Convoys (land/air/sea) moving supplies between elements of the supply chain, spawning under AI control by triggers if necessary. Eg, if manstonFuel<X gallons then call up a c# method that triggers a resupply AI truck convoy. This in turn checks to see if there's enough fuel in the regional fuel dump, otherwise it waits to be resupplied itself from the main refinery, or waits for the AI ship convoys spawning in the channel to reach port and unload.

*Each unit spawned, AI or player controlled, takes up supplies (ammo, fuel, etc)

*Each team has a supply pool, as well as a pilot, aircraft (per type) and vehicle (per type) pool of resources to use. Pretty similar to what we had in some DF servers in IL2 where each team has 200 planes and 200 pilots and if you lost them you lost the map, but on a much bigger scale.

*Supplies of all kinds and manpower get replenished over time. A working factory might produce 20 Spitfires a day and flight schools generate extra pilot slots for each team. However, if the enemy bombs these facilities the resupply rate drops. For any supplies getting moved by convoys, resupply relies on the convoy reaching its destination. This gives each team enough incentive to go after the opponent's means of production, fly battlefield interdiction sorties and do recon flights.

This would be a good mix of historical and what-if under realistic conditions, to the limit allowed by current technology and playability concerns, because by controlling the starting conditions and variables (resupply rate, initial supplies, etc of each team) the mission designer could make the campaign as realistic as he wanted to.

Then it would be up to the players to work as a team and win the map.

For example, in a BOB scenario the blue team would try to stop the convoys and attack radar stations and fuel depots to mess with RAF's ability to intercept them. Then they would start going after the airfields to deplete the resources on each airfield and at a certain point a trigger would start the invasion phase (eg, when the red team fell bellow a certain threshold of available aircraft or active airfields).

The red team on the other hand would try to protect these same assets, while at the same time trying to sneak in enough attacks of their own to deplete the blue team's resources across the Channel.

By setting the initial variables of the campaign well enough, a mission designer could thus give the players an environment with near infinite replay value. I mean, what if RAF attacked the LW airfields in France (one of the reasons the LW was slow to start attacking, they wanted to secure their airfields first)? Or what if the 110s flew smart instead of acting as close escort under Goering's orders?

The trick in all this, is that the mission tries to give the players the same tools as each side had back then, but lets them use these tools as they see fit: the outcome might not be historical and be different on each playthrough, but the framework around it would still be realistic.

It's like combining a tactical and strategy layer on top of it all.

The best thing for such an environment would be a revamped briefing interface. It's already possible to make your own menus for the sim (i've seen some very impressive stuff, there's a campaign in the FMB sub-forum made by a guy from sukhoi.ru that has a totally custom interface).

It's also possible to set-up waypoints on the in-game minimap but only when actually spawned in the aicraft.

So, imagine we get the ability to set up a lobby within the server and have these map tools available to us in the briefing screen. I could then create a mission by adding waypoints on the fly, typing a briefing and inviting people to fly it with me. The people in the lobby would get a copy of my waypoints and briefing notes, we'd spawn into our aircraft and go bomb the enemy oil tanks or airfield, etc.

I'm not dreaming here, all of this has been done to varying levels and with various purposes in mind with the current version of the sim. It just hasn't been combined in this manner yet because the devs are too busy debugging the game to release the SDK and the people in the community who can code in C# probably have a daytime job to take care of. It just needs some time to start snowballing

[David Hayward]

Blackdog, could you please include a table of contents with your posts.

Thanks!