Oleg Maddox's Room #1

[MiniMe]

Hello,

a interesting question from simhq:

Can players join coops after mission start?


Best regards MiniMe

[Meusli]

What we normally do Oleg is to get the lead flight, usually Thor, to bomb aim for us. As we fly in formation behind him all our bombs can fall behind him and some quite far behind so they miss the target. To try and correct this we try and delay the bomb drop so they fall on the target together by Thor saying drop drop drop and we drop on the last drop. I think what Thor wants is in the old Micrprose and Infograms game where you targeted the target with the bombsite and got a red light showing when to drop the bombs which also made the rest of the flight drop theirs perfectly on target.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by zapatista

Hi Oleg,

thx for answering questions here, it gives a much better idea of the detail in the BoB project

hope you can answer these questions to:

1) will there be "terrain masking" in BoB ?
- "terrain masking" means that AI aircraft and enemy radar can not see through mountains and ground obstacles if they are blocking "line of sight" . so for ex if we fly a german aircraft very low over england (say 30 meters altitude) then the english radar will not see us, and similarly when i fly behind a mountain then the radar and AI aircraft on the other side of the mountain will not see me.
(you answered the question for clouds now blocking AI aircraft vision, but you have not answered it for mountains and hills blocking radar and AI visibility)

2) will there be civilian road and rail traffic in BoB ?
- right now in il2 when you see a truck or car on the road it is always military (even the bicycles), same with the trains they are always a military target. if we have some civilian road traffic (few buses and cars maybe doing a programmed "loop" journey) and trains in england (and they existed in ww2 period) then points could be deducted for destroying innocent civilian objects, and that means we need to correctly identify a target before engaging it, not just shoot at anything that moves !

3) will there be AI traffic and activity at the airfields we fly from ?
- microsoft flightsim X already has this, there is refueling trucks, baggage trolleys, other trucks and shunt vehicles driving around the airfield, giving it an "alive" impression
- you mentioned you will have ambulances and fire trucks maybe rushing to a crashed aircraft, but can we have some active vehicles like refueling trucks, ammo trucks, tea truck, jeeps with pilots, base commander in jeep on inspection tour, etc type activity ? (could be switched on/off in options for low end pc not wasting resources)
- can we have similar friendly AI activity in the sky ? in real life there was not just fighter planes and bombers flying in the sky, there was supply planes, transport planes, replacement aircraft etc. can we have some of that activity in the sky and at our airfields ? for ex AI flying in new replacement aircrafts for the squadron, and maybe supply aircraft bringing in parts and supplies, or new pilots etc.. that means other planes will be landing and taking of at our airfield, and flying in the skies near our airfields.
- adding that type of simple activity can make a big difference in bringing the BoB world alive, instead of flying in an empty world like we have in il2 right now.

4) will destroying objects/buildings at an airfield affect the availability of resources at that airfield ?
- for ex if all the fuel dumps at an airfield are bombed it should take X amount of time before fuel is again available at that airfield (new supply needs to be transported to the airfield), during that X time delay there should be no fuel (or ammo for ex) available at that airfield. same principle if all aircraft stationary on that airfield are destroyed by an enemy bombing raid, then we should not be able to magically spawn a brand new aircraft from that location (or hit refly and get a new aircraft) for X amount of time (new aircraft need to be flown in , or damaged aircraft need time to be repaired with spare parts). same if a runway is bombed, the bomb craters should remain taxi/landing/takeoff obstacles for X amount of time till the runway is repaired (you can still use the part of the runway that is not damaged)
- in practice this means that we can gradually shut down an enemy airfield, and force their aircraft to use a more rear located airfield (so it forces the enemy to waste more flying time to reach the frontline)

5) will you correct and improve the "distant object visibility" problem we currently have in il2 ? ie seeing distant LoD models correctly as you would see the the same object (plane/truck/tank) from the same distance with the naked eye in real life
- this is not a problem in il2 when you look at a distant aircraft against the open sky because it is a black (or dark grey) object that is seen against a uniform light blue sky background, but there is a MAJOR problem looking for a small LoD model against the textures of the terrain background, it blends in to much.
- for ex right now in il2 when you fly your aircraft at 1500 meters altitude and you look down to scan the ground for objects, you can not see/locate/track an enemy truck or tank that is standing in an open field or is located on an open road (as you can in real life see it, and historical ww2 pilot reports available), but instead in il2 you need to fly at 500 meters altitude to be able to see it (using the 30 FoV zoom function is not the solution, because it creates tunnel vision and you can only scan a very small narrow part of the ground at a time, and loosing all your peripheral vision it makes you very vulnerable to fly like that). this is because the il2 LoD model blends in to much with the terrain textures (with pc grafix it is a flat 2 dimensional LoD model blending in with the colors of the flat 2 dimensional terrain textures, but in real life it is a 3 dimensional solid object that stands out much more)
- will you compensate for this pc grafix problem in BoB and make distant LoD models stand out more so they are correctly visible ? you mentioned we will have more LoD models in BoB, instead of the 3 currently used in il2, but i am asking about making the LoD model stand out more so it is correctly visible and we can see those objects like tank/truck/planes from the exact same distance as we can see them in real life !

thank you for any information you can provide

1. Yes. Will be another technology, but means the same. The polar pattern of radars we try to model as close to real things as it possible. Of course with some approximations, but anyway close.

2. It is possible. Probably we will minimize it in release, becasue of hit to resources, but in general Buses already now can travel by their own trajectory in a city and make stops as well cars will try to find place for parking in a end "waypoint". It is working already. Just would repeat the amount of such action probably we will need to minimize due to resource eater feature. But for Editor we will offere to use it for enduser to modify scenery, etc...

3. See above. Yes we plan some life on airfields. But the main goal of course still will be the air battles

4. Yes. Also we are currently working over "real" 3D craters of bomb hits on the ground.. that will destroy the usability of airfields for some time (real time for repair of runway or the time that defined in tunings of mission or on server)

5. The resolution of detials and LODs is way higher than in lL-2. How far we we will see the type of the object... I can't say right now. All will depends of the all final resource-eaters....
In Il-2 once we did halfransparent dot for the groun objects that to make some ability to see it from longer distance... howver users dislike this system and preffered to go back as it was.
It isn't definitiopn of the LOD only. It is definition of the screen resolution, and power of a system on which we will run BoB in fuuture in a middle settings.
Also due to online gamplay we will need to make it absolutely identical to medium system for the fair gameplay. Its a rule... Or the player with more power PC and greate resolution of the monitor you would be named as a cheater.... We already have great experience in that and many items of gameplay when we need to go for some middle level of details on middle to high power game machines...

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by Meusli

What we normally do Oleg is to get the lead flight, usually Thor, to bomb aim for us. As we fly in formation behind him all our bombs can fall behind him and some quite far behind so they miss the target. To try and correct this we try and delay the bomb drop so they fall on the target together by Thor saying drop drop drop and we drop on the last drop. I think what Thor wants is in the old Micrprose and Infograms game where you targeted the target with the bombsite and got a red light showing when to drop the bombs which also made the rest of the flight drop theirs perfectly on target.

Sorry what is about individual tunings of bombsight for each aircraft that fly in your formation... If the leader say drop it doesn't means you all should drop immediatly if there is no special order for square bombing, where the leader defined when to drop you all that to get the known effect. In the case you talk in each plane the cre should set the bombsight individually and it will drop as it should. I don't think that waht was done in mentioned above games that it is real thing...

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by MiniMe

Hello,

a interesting question from simhq:

Can players join coops after mission start?


Best regards MiniMe

Can if there is free place. One of selected in a special menu AI will be replaced by new player.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by wjc103

Oleg, thank you for the answer regarding muzzle flash (never thought about speed of camera frames, or powder issues).

Quick question: As you say ground AA guns will be playable, Will AA guns on naval/merchant ships be playable as well?

Sure with the release will be only ground AA-guns of some more or less similar by power types for both sides for the fair gameplay online. Later - we will see. The code will aloow much more than Il-2 code. And even more

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by Tbag

@Krasno: I asked for the wing icing before. He said it is possible to model it with the SoW-engine but it is not high on the priorities list and will most likely not be included in BoB.

Right. Don't know will be or not at the moment. The main issue how to model it visually that to get close to real picture. The code isn't hard, but the visual efect is hard that to get looking real.

So, currently can say it will be 50:50

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by Antoninus

Hallo Oleg!

1. You've mentioned earlier that SOW series will be open for 3rd party add on makers and that they can implement a more detailed simulation of an aircrafts operating procedures than the default planes will feature. (realistic start up procedures etc.)
Can you say us what level of detail will be possible, what subsystems can actually be simulated?

2. Especially will it be possible to switch between different fuel tanks, which was very important in some aircraft like the P-51?

3. I've read in an old interview that AI crew members in BOB can panic and just fire around wildly. Is such an feature also planned for AI flak gunners? Something like crewmen abandoning their guns when under fire, so that you can use historic tactics to suppress the enemy AAA with strafing runs.

4. Will it be possible for the user to edit the available loadouts for each plane in any way or will there be a fixed predefined set like in Il-2?

1. Can't say at the moment. I only can say that in each cokpit we model we make all switches operable in 3D models. But not operable in the intial code. As I told it is for "masochists"

2. To switch different fuel tanks should be possible in intial release.

3. Not everything. Partially panic, but close to very historic types of attach - yes.

4. Probably. It will depending of the final GUI complexity. I can say that we now can change the load of the bullet/shell belts, but it will be anyway in a way of some amount of standard sets. And special effiency of each shell/bullet type will play more greater role than in Il-2.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by ZaltysZ

Bringing back from the beginning of the thread:

1. 1 Damage of coolant lines; coolant leaks: will it be modeled? (yes/no, however detailed answer is welcome too).
2. 2 Reversal of controls; wing twist;

1. Yes. More detailed when will be ready.

2. If you mean the problem on ailerons of Spitfire before and including initial series of MK V due to rodation of the wing relatively aileron - Yes we plan it. Wing twist - visually separate of each console - not.

[Oleg Maddox]

On this week we are starting the development of new separate website for SoW series...
When ready - don't know. But I plan there forum as well. As a main forum.