Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[baders]

Hi there Stainless and all. I am just getting the urge to get back into combat flight sims. An older model I am, having started with what was Air Warrior way back accessing through GEnie. (What is GEnie I hear the youngsters ask). Came up through Confirmed Kill/Warbirds/IL2 and became a developer for "sicks" (Sylvan Clebsch) Targetware/Target Rabaul. Sadly, sick pulled the plug on Targetware core code and that was that. Been looking for a project ever since.

Your project looks very interesting. Is there an overview of it or what you have in mind ?

Will it be modular (as in Targetware eg. different theatres) ?
Are you writing the engine yourself ?
Will it be open to modding by community ?
Will it have an online capability ?
What security (anti cheat etc) will it feature ?

I do apologise if these questions are answered elsewhere.

[Stainless]

Will it be modular (as in Targetware eg. different theatres) ?

Yes.

Are you writing the engine yourself ?

It's looking that way. I have been looking at various existing engines, including UE4, but none of them can do everything I need.

Will it be open to modding by community ?

Yes. Totally. Even the source code will be available.

Will it have an online capability ?

Yes.

What security (anti cheat etc) will it feature ?

Whatever I can come up with down the line.

[baders]

Thank you ! Does an overview of what you want to achieve exist ? What stage are you up to (pre pre Alpha) ? Millions of questions with apologies.

[Stainless]

I'm still getting the base technology to work.

I've written a flight dynamics model, but I'm not happy with it and I am going to write it again.

I've written code to read and animate the 3D objects from this site.

I am now writing code to read and display the maps from this site.

When I get the three things working I will be able to do a demo of just a terrain patch with an aircraft you can fly around.

The the real hard work begins. Make it look pretty, make it a game instead of a technology demo. All the fun stuff.

[Koty]

Would it be technologically possible to have player-operated ground units as well?

[Stainless]

Yes,

Don't see why not.

Might even be some fun different levels for the single player game if you had to drive to the airfield while under attack.

Hmmm like that idea.

[Koty]

Or for example drive a tank while under cover/attack from the air.

Possibilities would be endless. With working ammo however.

[Stainless]

It's one of the things I have been thinking about for a while, real historical missions with as many of the details correct as possible.

Then tie them into the game story line so your performance really does affect future missions.

Like the air attack on Rommel, taking on Richthofen, etc.

Could be really nice for the single player game and a fun short mission for multiplayer.

[Pursuivant]

I am now writing code to read and display the maps from this site.

Will it be possible to create new maps which allow terrain elevations higher than 5,000 m?

Current IL2 maps don't allow higher elevations which make it impossible to produce good-looking maps of high mountain areas (notably the Caucasus and Himalayas).

[Stainless]

Sure.

I'll just have support for 16 bit greyscale images.

Currently you only have 8 bits, so if the max height is 5000 meters, then the scale is 5000/256  = 19.53125.

16 bits at the same scale will give you a max height of 1,280,000 meters.   Probably too much IMHO.

I would probably use a different scale say 15000/65536 = 0.2288818.

This will not only give you a greater max height, but also more accuracy.

[Koty]

Wow, 0.2m per average? That would be awesome. But it also would make the map folders really big...

Also preferential detailing would be nice - as in - that we can make some areas more detailed. (As currently in IL-2, the height map is for each 50 m of distance.)

[Stainless]

Actually it looks like each pixel of a height map represents 200 Meters in IL2.