Sorry to hijack this thread a little, but everytime I see UberDemon posting here it brings back memories of the UQMG and make me think how coul would have been this utlity with the new planes and maps.
I am waiting to see CFM and DBW 2.0 before I start work on UQMG again.
It has been hard starting over again because I had to stop work on it for a long time due to issues I don't really wish to discuss here... what I can tell you is that the new design is made from the get go to work with mods (aircraft, and objects). But New maps will always be a problem. There is no good way to create dynamic content on IL-2 maps without a lot of personal time developing mission templates. Of course there are ways to develop ways around that... for example, interpreting the 2D maps, but to truly create a dynamic world, I would need access to interpreting the entire road/railway complex, detailed topography, detailed understanding of the towns, all bodies of water, bridge locations, and a detailed understanding of the design and points around airbases (taxi points, take off points, parking locations). I know this data resides within the 3D models, but I do not have a good grasp on how to extract that data from the existing files. Then there is quite a bit of trig and geometry to program all angular combinations in every map... and if the rotation axis is screwed up, then things don't work well... I have been banging my head against the wall for years trying to come up with better ways to get the whole dynamic map design going, but the IL-2 construct does not allow for that. The beauty of IL-2 is that from a mission design perspective, it is an empty canvas, allowing total artistic freedom (well, with some limitations) on the part of the author, but there are also difficulties.
Take for example Lock On, Modern Air Combat (LOMAC). The maps are quite alive without the need of too much tweaking when generating a mission. IL-2 maps are quite dead, unless you populate them. You could spend 50 hours populating every aspect of one of the smaller online maps in IL-2, and you will probably miss things, especially after hours of tedious repetition... now think of a map like the Gulf of Finland... the effort would be multiplied by at least 30 in time and amount of work to create the content for the maps. We are not even talking FPS yet.
The only way to overcome that is to programmatically create a way to add dynamic content to the maps. There's gotta be a better way to do that without having to create map templates . We all just need to figure out how to do it... not so much from a map design perspective (new map mods), because I know that already exist, but from a mission design perspective.
...but back to TFM. It rocks. And I can't wait for CFM.
UberDemon/danzigzag
www.uberdemon.net