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[Stainless]

If I did decide to write a flight sim, and I'm not definetly going to, what features would I need to add to make it worthwhile.

I'm thinking of something that could use the aircraft and maps and missions from IL2 so you could continue have your own input to the game, but on a modern codebase.

The core of it would be a set of editors that take IL2 format "things" as inputs and spit out new game things.

So you load in a cockpit script class file, it gets munged into something else which you can edit and test and tweak before saving it out and using it in the game.

When making new "things" you would have standard templates available to make things simple (and possibly the option to spit out IL2 compatible versions).

How many of you would think it worthwhile and would want to play, and or , mod it?
 

[SAS~Storebror]

Having seen what great things you did already, you can definitely count me in, both for playing and modding.
To me IL-2 basically has what it takes, but it's age is showing through at some points:

• IL-2 is strictly single core, a new flightsim should be able to use multi core cpus much more efficiently
• The graphics... I think you know better what can be tuned here. Modern GPU's capabilities would be nice to get used by a new flightsim, as much as it would be nice to have some "low spec" derivative which deals well with APUs
• The multiplayer part would need to be redone from the scratch. IL-2's netcode is a nightmare and the lack of a centralized online platform will shine trough in all it's brutality if (god beware us) hyperlobby should once be shut down

Best regards - Mike

[greybeard]

Not sure to have understood very well, at any rate what a successful historical combat sim should have, IMO, are two things:

1). To be based on SQUADRONS; I mean setting squadrons included in game and then add consequentially which aircraft they operated in time, where they was based, what liveries they sported with which markings and so on. Any different approach brings to an historical (unmanageable) melee.

2). To be OPEN to any kind of modification (or patch, or add-on - each community calls them differently, lol). I mean there should be "folders" (like recently done by TD for sounds and already existing for skins) where game is set to look before to load "stock" stuff, allowing anybody to insert his own material in an easy format, not requiring sophisticated tools to be created and managed.

[SAS~Malone]

i'm very interested in such a project!
IL-2 Redux, ftw! 
sadly, at this point, i can't help much with the coding part of it (i'm slowly working to remedy this, but don't hold your breath, lol)
i can assist with texture work, if and where needed, and so i'll volunteer on that front.
for now, count me in as a supporter of the idea

just a comment on greybeard's post, which came up as i was typing this - my thoughts on the squadron thing is that that is a rather overly complicated way of going about it.
what might be better is to simply be able to easily edit your own squadron's, and that the game then applies markings as per your edits. this might be easier than having huge lists of squadrons having to be loaded up by the game each time.
just my thoughts, not based on any actual experience in this regard, though. add a pinch of salt as needed

[Tran Long]

Very nice idea, stainless.
About the sim, it should have a very open engine, easy to mod
With a sim like that, all of us can help you develope it, you just need to make an open game engine and main things, we can help you do the rest, and improve it
If you can make a sim that can use IL-2 stuff, that will be much better. IL-2 has an old engine that limited us in many aspects, your new engine can change everything, that will give us our IL-2 with a modern, open engine. The IL-2: World 
GOOD LUCK 

[DarkBlueBoy]

Great idea. I would fully support any project of this kind.

[SAS~HolyGrail]

Count me in both for playing and modding ! I am lately a little bit busy with RL but.....
Was waiting for something like this for ages :

The core of it would be a set of editors that take IL2 format "things" as inputs and spit out new game things.

Desperation with DirectX  : https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,8304.0.html



~S!~

[sniperton]

An integrated campaign generator perhaps?

Or at least a data interface for external or plugin-style campaign generators?

As per now, campaigns are only a sequence of static missions. They're generated by external applications (basically hacks) like DGEN, DGEN_mod, or DCG. These only get mission result data from Il-2 on mission debrief, and do their job (e.g. flight path calculation, arming, squadron management) on the basis of their own databases, which are 'guesses' or duplicates of the game's own database (think of cruise speeds, weaponry, etc). Campaign design could be made much simpler by making these in-game data dinamically accessible.

Unfortunately, I personally can't help in this, except perhaps with some testing and some more crazy ideas... 

[Stainless]

Well, you can assume a modern rendering engine. Nice terrain, volumetric smoke and clouds, visual effects, all the toys on that side of it.

I'm not worried about the flight model at all, I have written them before.

It's a lot of work though.

I would want a single player campaign to get people into the game. Starting as a raw recruit turning up at flight school in England/Germany/Russia/USA and graduating to flight orientation school.

In flight orientation school you get to specialise. Fighters, Fighter Bombers, Heavy Bombers etc. You get to fly them and pick one to specialise in. (I know this isn't realistic, but it would work better for the game).

After that a few weeks of Aircraft Orientation School. You fly your selected aircraft in a set of training exercises. Then off to the front.

I would have to really on you guys for all the content for that, maps, missions, aircraft, you name it.

Multiplayer is always an issue, but I can write better network code than COD so I'm not too worried.

I would have to write a load of tools for you, but again it's just work. Find the time. Write the code.

Let's all have a think about it.

[rockdoon]

stainless this sounds like a great idea... id love to help in anyway i can but sadly my programming skills are quite lacking and my 3d skills are limited to basic shapes haha

[Tran Long]

Hope you can make ships, tanks, cars,... driveable with their real physic, not a FM
What do you think about that, guys?

[VF111Sundowner]

If it can be coded and working a Truly Dynamic campaign, The likes seen in Falcon 4.0 and Mig Alley. Where your actions actually affect the battlefield from mission to mission.
Where if you knock out an airfield, bombers no longer harass yours. Blast a bridge and you'll find more traffic along another route. Flying a patrol and you stumble across a few JU-52 transports of FW-195 Owls recon your area.

That's probably my biggest gripe about IL-2 lack of a truly dynamic campagin.