Friday 2010-02-25 Development update:Interview by Grégory Lemasson/Discussion Thread

[MikkOwl]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

The features of this is freezed already. Open was only about trims.

Frozen, ok But I was asking: force feedback taking any step forward (significantly) compared to IL-2? And then I made a wishlist request on how it could/should behave.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by MikkOwl

Frozen, ok But I was asking: force feedback taking any step forward (significantly) compared to IL-2? And then I made a wishlist request on how it could/should behave.

Can't say you right now. We put it in the final development.
As for my personal opinion - FF doesn't reflect real things. No one existed. And in realistic flight sim really FF is more bad then the good feature comparing to real life.

So the work over FF is the very secondary in our plan. This should be important for totally arcade game.

In the past I tried to communicate with all manufactures of FF joysticks to make some standard in forces, that would reflect more realistic things... Really only Trustmaster and partially Saitek were listening me in the past.

Hope with BoB this communication will be again up and probably we may set the stadards in future. But untill that time to spend a lot of time for FF I personally very dislike.

This should be done by some third party - special driver for any FF joy.
Manufactures should follow that standard (non MS SDK code, that we were using in the past with Il-2). Should be tunable special separate tool not in the sim, only external.

I can't spend right now time to explain all my thoughts about this issue.

You should talk to real pilots asking their opinion about joys with FF.
Probably they will say the same... also they would say that Joystick do not replace real control column 100% in feel of aircraft control.

With some of manufactures we had in the past the speech about what should be done for realistic control column useful in flight sims... But the price would be really more higher... and effect on the market (to sell it) will be not so successfull.

However I have several good ideas and drawings how to make it with more or less commercial success. But for this - SoW should be on a horse...

[Flanker35M]

S!

Thank you for the answer, that covered it all. I agree on the checklist etc. IT is a lot of work to implement correctly as you would have to know the procedures Luftwaffe, RAF and others used for their checks. And investing time for research it, code and implement = not worth it in terms of returns it gives. And most users would not use the feature after a few times anyway. So best is to just implement those that are used, not too hard to implement and give immersion to the sim.

Museums..you should visit some plane museums in Finland too, some nice planes to see. I have great interest in the VL Pyörremyrsky (Typhoon) and if it could be done for IL-2, we took pics and such at museum last time visited. 1 was made and it flew 27h and 31 flights. Performance surpassed Bf109G in climb and turn easily, speed was somewhat the same.

I am sure Ville and Raimo did speak about them when meeting you. Boy was I green in face when they showed the pics and told how it was Maybe some day could haul my son and myself to Moscow, Monino would be great to see and MAKS

[MikkOwl]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Can't say you right now. We put it in the final development.
As for my personal opinion - FF doesn't reflect real things. No one existed. And in realistic flight sim really FF is more bad then the good feature comparing to real life.

So the work over FF is the very secondary in our plan. This should be important for totally arcade game.

In the past I tried to communicate with all manufactures of FF joysticks to make some standard in forces, that would reflect more realistic things... Really only Trustmaster and partially Saitek were listening me in the past.

Hope with BoB this communication will be again up and probably we may set the stadards in future. But untill that time to spend a lot of time for FF I personally very dislike.

This should be done by some third party - special driver for any FF joy.
Manufactures should follow that standard (non MS SDK code, that we were using in the past with Il-2). Should be tunable special separate tool not in the sim, only external.

I can't spend right now time to explain all my thoughts about this issue.

You should talk to real pilots asking their opinion about joys with FF.
Probably they will say the same... also they would say that Joystick do not replace real control column 100% in feel of aircraft control.

With some of manufactures we had in the past the speech about what should be done for realistic control column useful in flight sims... But the price would be really more higher... and effect on the market (to sell it) will be not so successfull.

However I have several good ideas and drawings how to make it with more or less commercial success. But for this - SoW should be on a horse...

Agree that there should be standards. Third party tweaking - hmm. Sure, why not. It can allow specialists, or the manufacturers themselves, to tweak things to suit their hardware. Users too. Instead of having to rely on game developers to work with specialized hardware OR having 'one size fits all' force feedback which is not ideal either.

I have a personal story that I want to relay regarding the topic of force feedback. I like racing simulators, and racing around a bit in real life as well (especially in the past). The force feedback wheels used to be very crappy. The racing sims did not use even that old hardware well either. Back then, maybe I thought a bit like you, that it just isn't close enough to a real car and is even worse in many ways. But then comes some better simulators using hardware, and then the Logitech G25. It completely changed things. I have it now and it really turned force feedback from something clumsy and badly flawed into the most realistic option (for consumer price range).

Flight sims are the same now (SoW not yet released) with force feedback as 9 years ago. Maybe even worse. Manufacturers have not done anything for force feedback sticks over this whole time, except some optimizations (quieter, smaller etc). Only Logitech's G940 which just came out advanced the hardware noticably. But the market is empty of flight sims that use the hardware.

And think about what you said: you asked me to ask pilots what they think of force feedback joysticks with sims in the year 2001, not what it can be with existing hardware. If I ask racers what they thought of FF wheels with sims from the year 2001 they would also say it is horrible compared to reality. It is not a sound argument against force feedback for flight sims. You have such an innovative approach; I think you might have overlooked how the new hardware can be used, dismissing it based on how it was like in the year 2001.

EDIT: Maybe I was a bit unfair. You did point out that you cannot relay all thoughts on it, and that you have tried to make the manufacturers more responsible for allowing better force feedback programming (not just the hardware itself in the past) etc. I hope SoW will bring something new with FF to the market because that sort of thing is needed to get FF advancing. Only having hardware, or only software without hardware, does not bring it forward well.

[CZS_Ondras]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

As for my personal opinion - FF doesn't reflect real things. No one existed. And in realistic flight sim really FF is more bad then the good feature comparing to real life.

Well, I believe it is all only in deeper thought about the problem.. I do not think that there is anything unrealistic about increasing of forces with the speed and additionally sensing of flight envelope edges (everything of course applied and adjusted in accordance with known real aircraft data/observations).

Of course, all other kinds of "shaking" during various events are nonsenses.. (well with possible exception of take of run and landing... but that's only my experience with L-13 Blanik on grass field with many tumps and burrows of European suslik .. have no idea about WWII fighter plane.. )

O.

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by CZS_Ondras

Well, I believe it is all only in deeper thought about the problem.. I do not think that there is anything unrealistic about increasing of forces with the speed and additionally sensing of flight envelope edges (everything of course applied and adjusted in accordance with known real aircraft data/observations).

Of course, all other kinds of "shaking" during various events are nonsenses.. (well with possible exception of take of run and landing... but that's only my experience with L-13 Blanik on grass field with many tumps and burrows of European suslik .. have no idea about WWII fighter plane.. )

O.

Unfortunatelly FF systems do not give us increasing of force except that this force is present in a couple of levels. So what you mean is really iompossible to make realistic. Usually just one stage FF IS and FF no... with jumping as wish the driver and system of FF joy.

[RAF74_Winger]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Unfortunatelly FF systems do not give us increasing of force except that this force is present in a couple of levels. So what you mean is really iompossible to make realistic. Usually just one stage FF IS and FF no... with jumping as wish the driver and system of FF joy.

I understand your meaning Oleg. Do you think it would be possible to pursue an intermediate course and make certain flight parameters available through devicelink or equivalent interface? Such as: IAS, control surface moment of inertia and position, engine power, and perhaps some sort of buffet signal as the airfoil approaches critical AoA so that those that have the wherewithal can construct their own FF mechanisms. I know that much of this is already present through devicelink, but the control surface information in particular would be useful.

I'm aware that a buffet signal could be abused, so perhaps that shouldn't be available online, there isn't much stall buffet noticeable through the stick in some aircraft anyway.

W.

[Tartag]

Oleg,

It would be great if you could add compatibility with motion seats-motion platforms that exit outhere. More and more people are building their own motion platforms by themselves with their hands (see x-sim, mycockpit etc) for flightsimming and more companies are selling them too. Like Flightemotion, Ckas, Simbolrides, D-Box and so on. For my part I own a D-Box platform for flightsim. You often talk about immersion, and devices like this bring you a real sense of immersion.

I know for a fact that DCS Black Shark, FSX and X-Plane are compatible with D-Box. But the best one is missing: Il-2. I'm not an expert and I don't know how the compatiblity is done, but I heard it's very fast and easy to do.
How about something with SoW-BoB (and Il-2)?

look this with Black Shark: It gets more interesting at about 1m35'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL9dLB_5dT0

It's not my video.

It doesn't move a lot, but the effect combine with the view is incredible. Pitch, roll, engine vibrations, rolling on tarmac, rolling in dirt, grass etc.
I can imagine what it would be with gun effects and feelings of explosions.
Why not try with Il-2 first?

Like I said, more and more people are getting and building these and are less expensive than before. DSC is fantastic with motions. One part of future of flightsim is in this kind of immersion, I think.

thanks for considering
Ben

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by RAF74_Winger

I understand your meaning Oleg. Do you think it would be possible to pursue an intermediate course and make certain flight parameters available through devicelink or equivalent interface? Such as: IAS, control surface moment of inertia and position, engine power, and perhaps some sort of buffet signal as the airfoil approaches critical AoA so that those that have the wherewithal can construct their own FF mechanisms. I know that much of this is already present through devicelink, but the control surface information in particular would be useful.

I'm aware that a buffet signal could be abused, so perhaps that shouldn't be available online, there isn't much stall buffet noticeable through the stick in some aircraft anyway.

W.

In device link we plan to give alsmot any information. And now we wouldn't limit it only for single play. I do think now that it was my little mistake to listen user's votes to prohibit it for online gameplay. To know G loading or to have separate normaly visible gauges on other panel isn't a cheat. We simply closed the development of some small industry around Il-2 in this case. it was really some mistake.
Not I think by other way. Experince of Il-2 gave me a lot of things to think .

[MikkOwl]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

In device link we plan to give alsmot any information. And now we wouldn't limit it only for single play. I do think now that it was my little mistake to listen user's votes to prohibit it for online gameplay. To know G loading or to have separate normaly visible gauges on other panel isn't a cheat. We simply closed the development of some small industry around Il-2 in this case. it was really some mistake.
Not I think by other way. Experince of Il-2 gave me a lot of things to think .

I am working on getting the G940 throttle colored lights to work with IL-2. I already succeeded, and will soon release a version to support the G940 in IL-2. But it really sucks that some of the good information I need is blocked in multiplayer. I cannot make buttons light up if an engine is on or off, because devicelink won't even let me read such information in multiplayer. I cannot even know if the aircraft is airborne or standing still on the airfield.

If enabling this is a simple switch in the code, could you please let the Team Daidalos guys know that they should do it for the next patch they are working on? This way, you can also try out what the change can result in, ahead of SoW, and I can provide a bit more fun stuff for IL-2 for the community while Storm of War is still being worked on.

EDIT: I think I could possibly even improve the force feedback. If I read the airspeed, I could try to make a program to use the self-centering on the G940 (much tighter centering, and some damper type forces (a bit like hydrualic/wire resistance) become harder or looser with the airspeed, and set any threshhold. It would also fix the bug where FF is centering on the ground before take-off (only when lifting the tail a single time will the force feedback centering become normal).

EDIT: I can also make the AI crew speak a bit in multiplayer, and make it hard coded so that it only works in planes that have ALIVE crew members. A co-pilot can tell you your altitude, heading, radio beacon heading, and indicated air speed (fun when trying to bomb stuff, no longer 'alone'), they can freak out when pulling crazy maneuvers, they can tell you if you shot down someone or destroyed a target, and scream when they get injured or killed etc. This requires reading the logfile at the same time, but in combination it can bring some more realism and life to multiplayer without any chance of cheating.