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[SAS~Tom2]

Yes a dynamic campaign would be good.

Recce finds an aircraft factory. Heavy bombers bomb it. Less aircraft available.

That sort of thing is easy to code.

I don't know about IL-2, but I was part of the FreeFalcon campaign dev team as tester (Not dev, but so proud I use every opportunity to me brag with it  !)  and the dynamical campaign in the Falcon 4 engine is one of the most complex things in simming history.

But I know sht about java and IL-2.  Or C++. 

A new and improved version of IL-2--way to go.
Can't imagine anything better sim wise as long as it has a better base for FMs/atmosphere coding.
Me love IL-2

Aside all fromer conflicts etc it would be very wise to see what the new HistoMod aka IES 1 has to offer as insight and inspiration. They coded a new weather system IIRC with help of their infamous SFS guru here and have some really cool features badly missed in IL-2.

I am no more on their testing team but these guys are hot. Of course that is still the old IL-2 and a new version with all the modding knowledge gathered here and on other IL-2 forums would so rock. And be a huge task over maybe a decade or at least 5 years.

I would trust IL-2 coders here like Lutz, Storebror, benitomuso, the Histo guys to pull such a stunt off, but still the question would be how make it legal.

[Screwball]

Bloody hell Stainless, what a suggestion! Honestly, if such a project came to fruition it would change the entire nature of the flightsim market. (Modded) IL2's assets in a modern engine would change the arena new 'modern' flightsims enter - much to their devs dismay I'd imagine. I've no technical knowledge, but only know that such an undertaking would be huge - there's no doubting your abilities, and I'm sure the entire community would get behind you to offer you all possible support and wish you all the best. However, I just hope the community will have the patience to see it through...you know what we're like...!

Broad suggestions for the perfect flightsim:

1. Modern engine - full multicore use, latest DX compatibility for all the graphical wizzbangs for terrain and damage modelling; truly immersive AI, historical control over them (and they over you for leaders, FACs, GCI etc), and including good inter- and intra-aircraft communications.

2. Modern physics - A2A Accusim appreciation of aircraft 'feel', DCS appreciation of systems and pilot workload

3. Il2's archives - woe betide any new sim that doesn't offer me full unit types for every major and minor aerial conflict for a century...

4. Starting campaigns that show off what makes that sim the best and that offer all the immersion. To display the confidence it takes to tell a player they can have, for example, a 1940s RAF campaign but that they'll train on the Tiger Moth, Anson and Blenheim before they can go on ops driving a Whitley or Wimpy would be deeply attractive. Imagine completing your 1944 USAAF fighter training to be assigned to a recon P38 or Spitfire and to go with it because the campaign design and level of immersion is that good. That's what I dream of

If this goes ahead, which I sincerely hope it does, then the very best of luck to you and all who join you Stainless. Who knows how much hard hard work would lie ahead, but for those us that just see the end results it'd be worth it

Screwy

[Herra Tohtori]

What I would love to see is some kind of weather modeling that goes beyond fixed presets.

For example, clouds appear when the temperature of an air cell drops below the dew point and moisture starts condensing into droplets.

The air can be moved by several things. Wind is usually caused by air flowing from high pressure zone to low pressure zone, moving large air masses with it. If on the way the air encounters something like hills or mountains, it goes up and cools down - and clouds form around those mountains, eventually causing precipitation.

Locally, thermal currents can also drive up weather phenomena like cumulus clouds and even powerful thunderstorms. It would be really great to have some kind of system that would handle a reasonable number of air "cells", which would move relative to each other and track their own status regarding temperature, horizontal and vertical wind speed, humidity, condensation, precipitation and other variables - and then have that cell include a graphic and physical representation of those parametres that would affect the game environment.

If the cell parametres show that it should have cloud in it, there will be cloud particles in that cell. If there should be rain, there should be rain. If the air in that cell is flowing up, you would feel that as a "kick" upwards when you enter that cell.

With cleverly done transitions between the "cells" or "blocks" of air, you could do fairly impressive weather modeling for game purposes. It wouldn't need to be anything on the scale of models used for actual weather simulation experiments - everything it would need to do is have enough resolution to not appear "blocky", and provide a variety of dynamic weather effects, and I would be very happy.

[Stainless]

I don't think doing anything with the IL2 engine is possible. Putting aside the legal issues, which are huge, the engine was of it's time.

Things have moved on, you can't just take a single threaded render engine and make it multi-threaded, it just doesn't work. You can't take an old engine and just make it a deffered renderer.

No I don't think there is any mileage in that.

When it comes to weather, well that's a bit of a hobby of mine. I even have a copy of Cloud Dynamics by Houze which cost me over £70. I've been trying for years to make a physically based planetary cloud system. Even now there isn't enough power in a gaming PC to do it though. A simplified system for a particular region would be viable though.

[SAS~HolyGrail]

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.

Stainless , looking at what you've said in the first post I am afraid there was and still is some kind of misunderstanding going on  .
The whole new flight sim project did sound more like you're going or would like to do it and want to know what the community would love
to see in the newer IL-2 sim version or at least that there is a chance to make things happen .
So it's more like you just wanted to know what the others think about it right ? 

I don't think doing anything with the IL2 engine is possible. Putting aside the legal issues, which are huge, the engine was of it's time.
Things have moved on, you can't just take a single threaded render engine and make it multi-threaded, it just doesn't work. You can't take an old engine and just make it a deffered renderer.
No I don't think there is any mileage in that.

Yep , it ain't gonna happen , roger that ! 

~S!~ 

[SAS~Malone]

When it comes to weather, well that's a bit of a hobby of mine. I even have a copy of Cloud Dynamics by Houze which cost me over £70. I've been trying for years to make a physically based planetary cloud system. Even now there isn't enough power in a gaming PC to do it though. A simplified system for a particular region would be viable though.

this alone, would be more than we could dare to hope for, mate.
certainly no need to model an entire planet's weather, but variable localised weather conditions would add immensely to the sim

[benitomuso]

I don't think doing anything with the IL2 engine is possible. Putting aside the legal issues, which are huge, the engine was of it's time.

Things have moved on, you can't just take a single threaded render engine and make it multi-threaded, it just doesn't work. You can't take an old engine and just make it a deffered renderer.

No I don't think there is any mileage in that.

When it comes to weather, well that's a bit of a hobby of mine. I even have a copy of Cloud Dynamics by Houze which cost me over £70. I've been trying for years to make a physically based planetary cloud system. Even now there isn't enough power in a gaming PC to do it though. A simplified system for a particular region would be viable though.

Stainless,
                     not to be discouraging, but have you ever noted the list of contributors on programs like FSX, X-Flight, Lock On, CloD or the Il-2 1946 itself? 90% of them were employees, people who worked for a salary for a long term project to make those commercial programs available.

  Even though with a lot of money spent on them, we recognize that they are not perfect.

  What logical process could lead to the conclusion that a group of amateur (not professionals to this Project at least) working part time, without a leadership, without a real interaction in the same office, without meetings of advance, strategic planning, etc, etc, etc. Why would we be able to generate something that would be superior to all what was developed up to date?

  It is a strange way of thinking, isn't it?

[Maty12]

What should there be...To me, only a few things:
-Battle of Stalingrad Graphics
-Birds of Steel like Quick Mission builder (Select the place, the year, the mission, the weather, the time, the skill level, if airstart, takeoff and proceed to target or take-off and then teleport to target, the last one not being in IL-2), plus cars, trucks, trains, AA and other stuff appearing rather than having to be set up through FBM
-Aforementioned squadrons (Check page 1)

[Chaoic16]

This is truly GREAT idea!  I have spend decades playing games, beta testing, and being analyst for games.  I will write reports whenever I am free about what kind of features that this simulation project can benefit so much for community for sake of fun gameplay and enjoyment simming!

And for now, I will add few things of what I think this sim really should have for a start:

1) Weapon customization and loading screen = IL-2 1946 have been missing this HUGE time and it would have been really nice if we could customize weapon loading in much more friendly user with GUI involved.  For example:

Being able to load any kind of bombs, rockets, and different weapons under each hardpoints under wing and/or fuselage of any aircraft.  And it should be limited by certain types of ordinances that hardpoint allow and by year availability.

2) Mouse user control system = Similar to what War Thunder use for mouse + keyboard and I have REASON for this = THIS SUPPORTS friendly user for disabilities.  For anyone who can not use joystick effective for any reasons will be able to really enjoy flying without needing joystick.  I was skeptical about it until I tried it in War Thunder and I was very impressed.  Wherever you point mouse cursor anywhere, aircraft automatically follow it while respecting the limitation of flight model specifically made for each aircraft individually and their flight character and performances. For example, if you use spitfire and as mouse user, you would be able to turn sharply while A-20 would turn much less than spitfire as example right?  So having mouse cursor as flight control aircraft will make it much easier for anyone with specific disability, especially for anyone who doesn't have joystick will be able to get chance to take tastes of simulation fully.  And at same time, it will attract any people who actually doesn't want to use joystick to actually decide to buy joystick and get involved into more realistic level of simming if they wish to!  This kind of control system will invite many more people to join this community.

>>> More to be added. <<<

[Stainless]

Stainless,
                     not to be discouraging, but have you ever noted the list of contributors on programs like FSX, X-Flight, Lock On, CloD or the Il-2 1946 itself? 90% of them were employees, people who worked for a salary for a long term project to make those commercial programs available.

  Even though with a lot of money spent on them, we recognize that they are not perfect.

  What logical process could lead to the conclusion that a group of amateur (not professionals to this Project at least) working part time, without a leadership, without a real interaction in the same office, without meetings of advance, strategic planning, etc, etc, etc. Why would we be able to generate something that would be superior to all what was developed up to date?

  It is a strange way of thinking, isn't it?

   I am strange.

Why do I think I could do it, because I work in one of those offices, 150 staff working on a single game, meetings every day (we call them Scrumms) etc.

The vast majority of those people are graphics artists and designers, that's what you lot would be doing. Only a very few of them are coders. Which would be me.

I wouldn't try to reinvent the world, just the bits of it we need to be different. So grab a good FOS engine and modify the terrain system for flight sim use. Write a flight model and import some meshes and we suddenly have something that works.

It would be crap, but it would work.  After that comes the long slog of making it good.

It can be done, I think it should be done, but I want us to do a sanity check first. That's why I started this thread.

How many of us would be willing and able to devote their spare time to the project?
How many of us can fit into slots in the team?
How many of us want to do it?

It's a big project, but a project designed by the players rather than a designer.

Designers can be funny bastards, look at the latest Final Fantasy that came out. The designer just imposed a time limit on the game because he wanted to. Didn't matter that it ruined the game. Didn't matter that it went against everything that had come before. He wanted to so he did it.

Arrogant little shit who should be taken to the nearest old peoples home and locked inside it. Forever.

[SAS~Malone]

well, i am still keen on the idea, so consider me a tad strange, as well...
in answer to your 3 questions - willing and able - check ( i think my time spent over the last few years with this forum speaks for itself, lol - too much free time, i guess - but that's on and off)
can fit into a team slot - check - of course, as long as someone creates the slot first, lol
want to do it - check, and double CHECK

i've kind of dedicated half my adult life to IL-2 already, and am quite happy to stick with improving it until my dying days, if that's what it takes.
i am happy to leave the new sims for the next generation to run with, and more than happy to keep IL-2 fresh and interesting.
it is the one pc game that grabbed my attention (by the throat, lol) and since then, anything else has been not much more than a passing distraction...
so you have at least one sucker willing to play this scenario out, whatever the outcome may be.

[Herra Tohtori]

So grab a good FOS engine and modify the terrain system for flight sim use. Write a flight model and import some meshes and we suddenly have something that works.

If you're serious about this, there are a few game engine options that would be worth considering:

Unreal Engine 4
*very modern and apparently quite nice to develop content for
*quite affordable licensing - USD 19 per month for indie game development, and 5% of gross revenue
*not necessarily geared for flight sims - default world size is 5x5x5 kilometres cube, but it would be possible to scale everything down by a factor of 10 or even 100 to create significantly larger maps.

Unity Engine
*accessible, multiplatform support, flexible
*not the best performing game engine (multithreading support needs a lot of work)

CryEngine
*Technologically perfectly up to the task of making a flight sim as far as world size is concerned
*free SDK
*If game is released for free, no additional licensing required; If you intend to charge money for the finished product, some sort of "attractive licensing options" are available but I can't seem to find them...
*CryTek is in some financial problems and future support may be uncertain


...Feel free to add more options if you guys know any worthwhile game engine options. As far as I'm concerned, the CryEngine seems pretty well suited for a project like this considering the SDK is free to start working on.