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[Stainless]

That's one of the reasons my game uses an Earth centric coordinate system.

All locations are defined as latitude,longitude, and radius from the centre of the Earth.

This means you can fly directly over the north pole and the game won't fuck up.

[flare]

Awesome work Stainless. I'm totally looking forward to this sim. A few things:

1: 3d non-clickable and 2d "zoomed" clickable cockpits. I'm not to keen on the idea of hitting a key to view my radiator lever and then clicking it. That's almost a step backwards from just hitting the "open radiator" key. Gameplay-wise, it would probably be better to have certain 3D objects in the 3D cockpit clickable, à la CloD or DCS. That would make switches easier to use and find. In DCS I often am looking around for a switch and I mouse over it in game and see the helptext to find the switch. If I have to hit a key for the panel to then click the button I won't be able to search for switches, and it'll be two actions (key command, click.) I suggest having 3D objects in the main cockpit clickable. It will be harder to code the click triggers but the gameplay will be easier, more fluid, and you won't have to create new textures for the 2D "zoom" cockpit.

2: Dynamic missions: I'm kind of hoping for something similar to Falcon 4 BMS, but I don't know if that is possible with your engine. Good luck with this aspect of the sim.

3: 3D models: I have a (albeit pretty bad) Gloster Meteor that I could give you if you wanted. It's probably too bad for a sim and it's not textured but  if you wanted i could polish it up a bit in the next two weeks and give it to you.

I also might be able to help with some small aspects of the sim like GUI art or making a cool trailer once you're near release Will your sim be able to use IL2s .trk and view systems?

Flare

[PappyBruns]

Sounds like one helluva long road, destination ought to be worth it 

anything you would want help with that could be taught in a couple ts/teamviewer sessions I'd be happy to do my best with

[Stainless]

The main thing I need help with at the moment is research.

For the campaign mode I'm going to want huge amounts of data.

Aircraft strengths per country at the start of any conflict. Production rates during the conflict. Factory locations. The list goes on and on.

Effectiveness of weapons also comes into it. You listen to some of the reports about bombing raids from WWII and even now you get propaganda included in the data.

Before the installation of the Norden bomb sight the American day time bomber force was considered totally ineffective by some pundits, but what was the truth?

I also really need proper, constructive criticism of my work.

I published some graphs of various flight parameters a while ago hoping that someone could check them for me, I haven't got anything back at all. I don't have a huge amount of time to work on the project. So me doing internet searches and checking data when I could be writing code is not the best use of the available time.

That sort of work is really important to getting the FDM right. It's not glamorous, but I think it's interesting.

Same for the atmospheric model. Which is an horrendously complicated piece of code, really I went over the top on it, but it gives me the sort of data to model things like icing and contrails correctly.

I published graphs for that as well that I need checked.

Anybody who can help with that sort of thing would be a real boon to me.

I will also need graphics doing. I'm not a graphics artist. I can do programmer art. I can generate graphics from physical theory. When it comes to drawing stuff...... not so hot.

Help in this area as well will be vital to getting a game people want to play.

[DD_BadAim]

While I can not offer much as far as computer code or art, I have been studying WWII for 40 years (since I was about 10).

 While my technical expertise (if you want to call it that) is much more oriented towards the ground war, I have also studied the geopolitical and social aspects of the war, and of course simming has brought my interest more towards the technical aspects of the air war in the last 15 years.

 I think my particularly (and from my experience unusual) broad range of studies might be useful to you, and of course I have a couple of books. (I have managed to keep my library largely in tact through many years of trials and tribulations, and not without some considerable sweat; books are bloody heavy!) 

Where would you like to start?

BTW, My time is also limited, but I love research, so I'll give it my best.   

Edit: Just as teaser this little number offers a great overview of the Luftwaffe and it's failures and ultimately that of the entire system and it's just chock full of useful info. (And it's a great read too) I picked it up more than 20 years ago, and it's long out of print, but through the wonders of the interwebs.............http://ebookee.org/Strategy-for-Defeat-the-Luftwaffe-1933-1945_288063.html

[Stainless]

That's the spirit 

At some point in the next couple of months I want to start doing the logic for the campaign mode.

The way I work is I skip between parts of the project, so one day I'll work on the FDM. When I get bored, I work on something else.

I find this is the only way to complete a project for me. If I had to grind away on one area until it was complete, well it would be work rather than fun.

The campaign mode can be written as a stand alone app. You do the mission planning and results as if the human player had not flown a mission.

To do this I need a huge amount of data.

I think the easiest place to start would be WWII. Western front, using the existing map on this web site.

I need to know things like...

Where are the bombing targets ? (factories, dam's, airfields, oil production, etc.)
What aircraft are available and where ?
What defenses are there at the targets ?
What are the production rates of war material ?
What are the main transport routes ?

All those sort of questions lead to a interrelated mesh of data nodes. You start out with a steady state, then tweak nodes based on game actions and re-solve the network.

For an example.

An aircraft factory at site A produces 10 BF109's a day and keeps 10 days stock of components.
It needs 10 units of components from site B. 10 units of components from site C. etc.
The components from site B travel by rail through site D.
The components from site C travel by rail also through site D.

The player attacks the factory and does 10% damage. Factory produces 9 aircraft the following day and loses 10% of it's component stock.
The next day the player attacks site B doing 20% damage. Factory produces 10 aircraft, but loses 1 days stock of B components. Site B loses all production for 2 days.
The next day the player attacks site D doing 50% damage. Factory produces 10 aircraft, but loses 1 days stock of B and C components.

You can see the way the data can be organized into a complex system with very few rules. These rules can then be changed in game testing to improve the accuracy of the simulation.

We can also add other rules as we think of them and see what happens.

 

[asheshouse]

The other logistic aspect you should not forget is the supply of trained aircrew and factors influencing that.
Often aircrew supply is more critical than material supply.

[PappyBruns]

Assuming this is a fully fluid campaign, Rate of Repair for said sites, especially targets like rail hubs, relatively easy to take out, but repaired much more quickly than a factory.

As to the research, I've got some emails out to Wargaming and Gaijin, see if there is any chance they will share the raw historical data they have compiled, would at least have the data sets for aircraft. Beyond that looks like a week or so before I'll be able to dive into anything, have some odds and ends work to make bills.

[Stainless]

No rush.

This is obviously going to be a long term project with a development team of one.

[Sputty]

Holy cow, been away for a while, and all of a sudden there's an effort to overhaul the ancient game engine!

I love what you're doing, especially the Falcon BMS meets Google earth style of map and warfare.
If only we could inspire 1C, 777, X-Plane, DCS, etc etc to join in 


My own personal wishlist would be the flight physics of X-plane combined with good dynamic damage modelling, sort of like in Star Citizen.  From that point, there are aspects of IL-2 BoS/BoM and even (gasp) war thunder that would do good, like ground handling, graphics, textures, trees/vegetation.
The amount of time and effort required to bring that together is not something I'd wish on or expect from a mere mortal however .