Friday 2010-08-27 Dev. update and Discussions

[Insuber]

This kind of "realism" is better left to sick people.

[major_setback]

It would be nice if earth/soil thrown up from an explosion could hit the plane if you were too low. I imagine that soil will be thrown in the air, so you would just need a few sounds added.

[BG-09]

Originally Posted by Insuber

This kind of "realism" is better left to sick people.

Sick of what? Sick of War? War is not a game or simulator - everything happens. Of course I do not mean intestines rotating over the air screw! Ugly but realistic, ugly but historic.
I am meaning only equipment to fly in to the air.

Here is what I have found - the same IL-2 Veteran memories:

"It happened on January 18th 1944 when I received an order to seek out and attack in two ship formation by any enemy means of transportation on the road Volosovo-Narva. After we took off I got separated from my wingman due to heavy snowstorm. Trying to locate him I opened canopy, so it froze in the open position. What’s worse – I was unable to find my wingman. To make situation completely awful I found out that the right undercarriage leg is not working and sticks out into the wind stream. Still, there was no other option for me but to try and accomplish the mission. So I flew at airspeed of 320 km\h, with an outside temperature - 18°?. Snow easily filled my cockpit, ice covered the instrument panel and I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. To be able to fly I had to clear most important gauges by fingers. This all seriously distracted me from keeping situational awareness at appropriate level.
When I noticed first trucks it was already too late to attack. I begun turning to set an attack pattern, but first trucks had disappeared under the trees. I even became upset – the target escaped! But then I flew out of the clouds, and in front of me I found a long snake of infantry column. It was a gift from God!
Infantry was not covered by AAA, soldiers had to fight strong wind blowing them into the faces, so they were not looking at the sky, and that same wind did not allow them to hear my engine. I simply pressed the trigger and saw blue traces disappearing in the column. When first soldiers disappeared under the nose of my Il I released bombs. That time my bomb bays were loaded with 16 AO-25 fragmentation bombs with a delay set for 5 seconds. I kept firing, but there was no end to this mass of infantry, so I fired all eight RSs. By this time I flew as low as tops of telegraph poles. I had to abort the attack.
When I begun gaining altitude with a turn, my engine begun stalling, from the sides I could see the traces of awakened small caliber AAA.
With great caution I piloted my airplane by the shortest route to our airfield. The good point – my engine seemed to begin recovering, it sounded more and more stable, the bad one – German small caliber traces were getting closer and closer. As I got to the home base it was clear that there was no way for me to land on Gora-Valday – the right leg did not lock, so I would get dragged from the runway right into other planes parked along narrow airfield.
Borki had a round appearance, so I had more freedom trying to land there. With lots of luck I landed safely. I tried to stand up, but couldn’t. Then I noticed some hands searching through the cockpit, and someone said:
— You idiot! You forgot to lower landing gear as emergency procedure says. You crippled the plane!
I wanted to say that airframe is not so seriously damaged, but then I suddenly was engulfed by undeserved insult.
I took out my TT pistol, and tried to hit the source of the voice. Somebody grabbed my hand and took away my pistol. I was escorted to the HQ. There I ripped off the face mole mask. Usually it protected our faces from frost, but this time it froze to my skin, so I took the mask with bits of skin. I reported to the 7th regiment commander Major Karasev that I attacked the infantry column, that AAA cover lagged 800 meters behind, and that the weather was getting better. The Major asked me to show on the map where I caught the Germans, and ordered to prepare 9 Ils for the mission. Meanwhile somebody called the doctor, he checked me out, but there was nothing but mortal tiredness and little frostbites. The regiment commander ordered me to go to the canteen and then to rest.
In the canteen girls gave me 100 grams of vodka with pepper as a medicine against flu. As I ate, Ivan Bezhanov, a pilot I knew, told me that their engineer was not too keen on trying to send me to the court martial.
When two girls guided me to the dug-out, where I was supposed to have some rest, they brought me to the newly-formed crater. As a passing by seaman described:
— In this crater you can see all that remained from the German ace. Some time ago four FW-190 tried to strafe the airfield. An ace from the 14th Guards fighter regiment Konstantin Kovalev shot two of them down. One fell right there.
In the crater I saw man’s “device” with no trace of the rest of the body.
It was warm in the dug-out, but I was still shaking under heavy fur coat. Then I got all sweaty. For a long time I was unconscious. I woke up from poking:
— Comrade Commander, the regiment engineer ordered to give this to you as a present... We recovered it from the cowling of the engine and from the wing of your plane.
However sleepy I was, I still understood that he showed me pieces of soldiers’ overcoat, belt and one German shoulder board. But I was too tired to think about it and dozed off again.
In the morning I woke up as good as new. I carefully examined my “souvenirs” in the daylight. After breakfast I was told that my plane was ready, examined it and flew home. But I forgot the “souvenirs”.
While I was resting after the flight thinking of the «trophies» that I left behind, I recalled events described in the brochure that I read in the flight school before being assigned to the Baltic’s. This brochure was about combat activities of the Black Sea aviation ground-attack pilot Captain Suslin who arrived to our flight school and spearheaded forming of our regiment. In Odessa area Suslin lowered his landing gear to pretend he is flying German Ju-87 and strafed a column of Romanian infantry. It became clear that it was Romanian infantry column only back at the airfield, where pieces of Romanian uniforms, a helmet and a scalp with hair were recovered from the wheel wells! At that time I did not believe that such an episode could be real. Any impact of the wheel creates a strong roll-over moment and the plane would be drawn to the ground. This is a 100% risk. But these bits were actually raised into the air by explosions of RSs, through which my plane flew.
Now we are flying with Akaev with a task to strafe Klopitsy airfield. He flies at an altitude of 400 meters in a straight line. It was shocking but I maneuvered to avoid the AAA explosions..."

These Il-2 Sturmoviks have been busy with the dirtiest job...
The rest is here - very interesting:
http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/pilo...batievskii.htm

[philip.ed]

The thing is this; if a simulator was bloody enough to make you feel bad, then that is good. I will explain. You see, in il-2 I always try and aim for the cockpit when I can and I don't feel bad about seeing a cartoonish character get killed. If, in SoW, the effect of shooting an enemy gunner/pilot was realistic and gruesome enough to make me feel bad about taking someone's life like that, I may be more chivalrous in my fighting in the game. So by this i mean that I may think twice about aiming for the pilot to at least give him a chance to bail-out.

[Insuber]

Nice read BG, thank you! Don't forget nevertheless that Oleg expressed very clearly his position on blood and gore, and for very good reasons by the way.

Cheers!

[philip.ed]

I agree though that blood and gore are the last things to worry about modelling in a sim like this

[BG-09]

Originally Posted by Insuber

Nice read BG, thank you! Don't forget nevertheless that Oleg expressed very clearly his position on blood and gore, and for very good reasons by the way.

Cheers!

Thanks Insuber! I am proud to be part of this community! I am just trying to help Oleg's team to recreate the Battle Of Britain in greater detail. The devil is in to the detail, as often people said.

Cheers!

[tourmaline]

Originally Posted by BG-09

Thanks Insuber! I am proud to be part of this community! I am just trying to help Oleg's team to recreate the Battle Of Britain in greater detail. The devil is in to the detail, as often people said.

Cheers!

With the political debates going on banning gore/hard core violence games, this isn't much of an issue here, no gore means no problems. And i have no doubt whatsoever that Oleg will go this route...Furthermore, when you shoot down a plane, you not always see what's inside the cockpit...

Some of you have a wild fantasy of details here...

If a pilot was hit and his head + body would fall over, constrained by the safety belts, that would be more then enough. Like someone in a sleeping postion in a chair.

[BG-09]

Originally Posted by tourmaline

If a pilot was hit and his head + body would fall over, constrained by the safety belts, that would be more then enough. Like someone in a sleeping postion in a chair.

Yes, it will be good enough. But mate, think about the realism: what will happens, when Ju-87 drops a 1000 kg bomb over double-decker bus in London, full of passengers /as Oleg is planing/ - every body of the passengers "will sleep in a chair"? It does not fit. Or may be, the passengers will fly "sleeping" a 100 meters away?

Cheers!

[Aviar]

Originally Posted by philip.ed

The thing is this; if a simulator was bloody enough to make you feel bad, then that is good. I will explain. You see, in il-2 I always try and aim for the cockpit when I can and I don't feel bad about seeing a cartoonish character get killed. If, in SoW, the effect of shooting an enemy gunner/pilot was realistic and gruesome enough to make me feel bad about taking someone's life like that, I may be more chivalrous in my fighting in the game. So by this i mean that I may think twice about aiming for the pilot to at least give him a chance to bail-out.

How about if you just witnessed your wingman's head being blown into a million pieces from that same 'enemy gunner/pilot'. Would that still encourage you to be 'more chivalrous'...?

My real point is not to forget that this is just a computer game. Although I personally like a lot of realism in my simulations, I do think that some people get a little carried away with their requests. Just my opinion, of course.

Aviar