Oleg Maddox's Room #1

[ChrisDNT]

"Really it was discussed in the past and some modern military guys confirmed this..."

I've been an AA gunner in the Swiss army: for years, I shot during military courses with 20mm AA canons and saw many times too 35mm canons firing.

I never saw, even at night, flames in my gunsight.

In fact, flames can be seen (and not always, depends of the shutter time, exposure and weather conditions) on pictures or videos, but there are almost invisible to the human eye, because the flashes are too fast and very transparent too.

[ChrisDNT]

Btw, it's simple logic, do you think the technical services of any air force would accept a weapon system whose firing would annoy or even block the aiming of a pilot or a gunner?

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by ChrisDNT

"Really it was discussed in the past and some modern military guys confirmed this..."

I've been an AA gunner in the Swiss army: for years, I shot during military courses with 20mm AA canons and saw many times too 35mm canons firing.

I never saw, even at night, flames in my gunsight.

In fact, flames can be seen (and not always, depends of the shutter time, exposure and weather conditions) on pictures or videos, but there are almost invisible to the human eye, because the flashes are too fast and very transparent too.

Partially agreed about transparency at day.
As for the WWII time there are enough recalls of gunners that was blinded at night from their MGs firng in enemy.

You also should take in account that the changes in modern guns and the evolution (better to say revolution) in gun powder changed a lot of things even in muzzle flash due to more greater speed of "powder" combustion

But really if you will take a look on modern camera shots of some terrorists shots - the muzzle flash is great from even 7,62 mm Kalashnikov .

I personally also many times fired from guns (sigle and many) at everning time and almost always got partial blinding. The hunter gun of 12th caliber (with is like 20 mm cannon) that I used often in the past gives the same effect... And amount of powder in a cartrige there is more small than in 7,62 AKM cartridge....

[Thunderbolt56]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

...You also should take in account that the changes in modern guns and the evolution (better to say revolution) in gun powder changed a lot of things even in muzzle flash due to more greater speed of "powder" combustion

But really if you will take a look on modern camera shots of some terrorists shots - the muzzle flash is great from even 7,62 mm Kalashnikov .

....

The point about modern powders is one of the biggest differences. Most of the weapons 70 years ago used cordite as it's combustible in closed cartridges. Today's modern smokeless powders, while still producing flash, burn much more efficiently than good 'ol cordite and produce a smaller, faster-burning flash.

As far as the in-game voice possibilities, I'd love to see something if able to be done without causing too much of a performance hit to the sim itself. Obviously the IL2 in-game voice attempt didn't pan out completely and TeamSpeak is still an excellent free alternative either way.

Personally, I'd really like to see a spartan user-friendly server-finder included for online play, but that's just me. Hyperlobby is a great service for the genre, but a bit klunky with limitations and not the most user-friendly proggy out there. I don't like the chat function in a server-finder. It just becomes another forum for 12 year olds to taunt one another. ASE was the best IMO and now I use XFire. I have no doubt that an included server finder would be a better alternative to either of these.


TB

[NSU]

Hello Oleg,

I have some questions regarding the multiplayer:

Will it be possible to change the inflight briefing during the game and will it be possible to paint the flightroute and mark objects on the map?
If so it would be helpfull to add an option to send that customized map to all other squad members during the game.
I also wonder if there is a chance to display own jpg's on the briefing screen (like air recon, notes or tactical maps).
Will the player be able to conquer airports and does that influence the support or reinforcements?

I do have some more questions regarding the mission editor:

Is there any chance of changing the ingame maps, to add markings or notes visible to other players?
I'd like to add a video to the briefing to present the map in the old fashioned "wochenschau" style will that be possible?
And last but not least, is there some sort of trigger so that a sound file (like a radio message) will be played when the player activates the trigger?

Thanks in advance

Best regards

NSU

[Oleg Maddox]

Originally Posted by NSU

Hello Oleg,

I have some questions regarding the multiplayer:

Will it be possible to change the inflight briefing during the game and will it be possible to paint the flightroute and mark objects on the map?
If so it would be helpfull to add an option to send that customized map to all other squad members during the game.
I also wonder if there is a chance to display own jpg's on the briefing screen (like air recon, notes or tactical maps).
Will the player be able to conquer airports and does that influence the support or reinforcements?

I do have some more questions regarding the mission editor:

Is there any chance of changing the ingame maps, to add markings or notes visible to other players?
I'd like to add a video to the briefing to present the map in the old fashioned "wochenschau" style will that be possible?
And last but not least, is there some sort of trigger so that a sound file (like a radio message) will be played when the player activates the trigger?

Thanks in advance

Best regards

NSU

This old biker always ask many questions

I can't say yes to all your questions. Recon maps we would like to make and it is in plan. However I don't know if it will be in release. The format of brief is HTML... so theoretically there is possible to use recon map and send to others across the map. But it will depending of many factors, so I can't tell you 100% yes.

As for the capture airfield.... we plan several online modes in additional to what we had in Il-2... Also can't say you final features


As for changes of map... don't know yet all features that will go in final. You know I never promise when I'm not sure, if you are NSU that I know...

Video in gif or flash player format probably will be possible in a brif. I don't know which type of HTML we will use in final. You know there is going the new version of HTML in future... Proabbly we will stay with the current for a long time. So if to make everything manually for single missions - then you probably may use all features of current HTML version . If automatic - then just limited amount of features... However the engine of campaign (doesn''t matter single or online) will be open for modifications. Or even someone may developm completely own. We will give access to that item of code for modifications that will not damage the fair online gameplay.

You will be able to put on the map trigger with sound message with the defined radius of action.

Hope everything answered clear enough.

[NSU]

Thank you for your answer, sounds very good.

und meine NSU fährt sich immer noch gut

Best regards NSU

[Monterey]

Oleg,
Thanks for the updates.

One question....Will the AI still be able to make those impossible maneuvers like they do now? I mean the instant flips, turns, etc... It gets very annoying. I hope they will behave more realistically, and be subject to stalls, blackouts, redouts, etc...

Thanks again.
Monty


Old biker here too.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by Oleg Maddox

Video in gif or flash player format probably will be possible in a brif. I don't know which type of HTML we will use in final. You know there is going the new version of HTML in future... Proabbly we will stay with the current for a long time. So if to make everything manually for single missions - then you probably may use all features of current HTML version . If automatic - then just limited amount of features...

Hi Oleg!

Wouldn't it be better to have the missions, including briefings etc in xml? If you want to show the briefings as HTML you can just add an xslt file for parsing the briefing part. That way all mission briefings will follow a specified format - but let mission builders add their own xslt:s if they do not want the standard format.

Example xml (start of it - indentation lost pasting it here - full code in a zip at the bottom of post):

<sow-mission>
<briefing>
<meta-info>
<name>JG51-7</name>
<mission-date>1940-09-07 18:35</mission-date>
<version>1.0</version>
<creator>Mazex</creator>
</meta-info>

<images>
<region-images>
<region-image id="1" filename="region1.jpg">The London docks area</region-image>
</region-images>
<mission-overview-images>
<ov-image id="1" filename="overview1.jpg">The intended route</ov-image>
</mission-overview-images>
<recon-images>
<r-image id="1" filename="recon1.jpg" target-id="1">Target 1 - Recon image showing the football factory at XXX</r-image>
<r-image id="2" filename="recon2.jpg" target-id="2">Target 2 - Recon image showing the football yard of the team that beat Maj Molders sons soccer team in 1936 at XXX</r-image>
<r-image id="3" filename="recon3.jpg" target-id="3">Target 3 - Old image showing the ship that we added to this briefing for fun</r-image>
</recon-images>
</images>
...

Using a very simple xslt to parse it giving this look (just an example without the right WWII look etc. - not using all the xml data available like strategic map images etc, I did not have the time...)


Full "code" download here (xml+xslt+css+images)

Please observe that the xml structure is just an example. There should be a lot of other attributes in it!

This is just a suggestion, but I really think that XML should be more "future proof" than HTML. If you later decide that you do not want to use HTML rendering of briefings, just show the info from the xml in the "thick GUI". Want to search all missions on disk that have a certain author? No problem... Someone wants to do a custom mission/briefing editor? Just follow the xml spec and you can make a WYSIG editor for it... There are many advantages in my opinon vs HTML.

What do you think?

EDIT: For interested people not familiar with xml/xsl - just unzip the file above to a local directory and double click the file "briefing_mis123_camp4.xml" to do a local inline xml/xslt transform in you browser (you will hopefully see the page above). The tag <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="jg51_campaign.xsl"?> really shouldn't be there but it's simple for easy local testing. The data is in the .xml file and the html formatting is done in the .xsl file... If you open the file "briefing_mis123_camp4.xml" in a text editor (right click -> open with notepad) you will see that it actually contains xml data and not HTML. It's the row <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="jg51_campaign.xsl"?> at the top that does the magic. It tells your browser to create HTML output bu using the specified .xsl file as a template for interpreting the xml data (for output). Maybe not the best explanation in the world

/Mazex

[proton45]

Hi Oleg, it's nice to see you kicking around the clubhouse again (sorry your not feeling well)...

At the moment I have just one little question about "off-line" mission building. Will we be able to add "AI" objects that suffer from "battle damage"? Let me give you an example...I have always wanted to add an "in-flight" B-17 (that had 2 engines leaking oil and burning) to an "off-line" mission...right now that is not possible. Right now, if you want to make an off-line mission with wounded straggling bombers limping home as you and "AI" team mates B&Z them to death, you have to set their flight path through a FLAK barrage or something (their is no practical way of doing it) and hope that a few of them get hit. Also it might be nice to be able to set damage on AI aircraft carriers or battleships...
Thanks Oleg, and hope your feeling better soon.