http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?p=438742&posted=1#post438742

I can hardly wait

Yeah it's pretty awesome and the mountains are amazing, I already have missions for Rabaul.

Looks pretty cool.


Wheels

Looks good but sadly only 3/4 scale

Maybe, but 1:1 scale places more demands on players' time. Compromises for the sake of game play are inherent and not always a bad thing. How many would be in favor of investing hours in transit time just to reach the action only to have the same prospect on the return trip? It would be easier for a single player offline, but online is a different kettle of fish.

IL2 is very capable of being made a better simulation. Scaling the maps down for game play reasons seems to me to want to hold IL2 back in the gaming arena. There just seems to be an accepted culture of scaling things down for this reason which they don't, IMHO, need to be.

I'm not making the map and yes you have a point for the online dogfight but it seems in map making there is often a heavy compromise for the online dogfight crowd who like a quick fly and die versus a lot of people who fly offline and relish the idea of doing the full distance and seeing the terrain at correct scale. Any scaled down map is made for what I consider, overall, is a smaller percentage of the IL2 community.

There are quite a number of people who would do the full distance online as well or at least start closer to target and fly the whole way home in co-ops or SEOW campaigns.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the long hard work that goes into the new maps so I'm not complaining by any means but full scale maps, of any area of the world for that matter, would be very ok for a large number of people and very appreciated.

Cheers,
5

Considering that some of the FM/AI combos seem incapable of getting anything approaching historical range performance out of their aircraft, not entirely sure scaling down is a bad thing . . . though I agree, I would prefer 100% accurate . . .

Well, we have to face the fact IL-2 and it's Mods can only get so close, I had some beta time and played missions with squadmates in the NGNB Map (Thanks Thrud) and I can tell you from looking at Photos of the Real against the Sim and try as I might even recreating a base on a small atoll


it is going to be nearly impossible to get it 100% exactly like the real thing within what Il-2 gives us to work with (without mod objects and extras of course) in here now a decade old sim and even having all the objects that would be necessary it would surely bring the average rig to it's knees,
case in point il-2:CoD. So you get it as close as you can.


Just imagine what 10,000 palm trees and assorted scrub would do to this and multiply it by all the well, you get the idea.
Those of us who tested in beta have flown the length and breadth of both this and the Solomons map we have now, can attest it takes a long, LONG time to get anywhere and you could potentially not see anyone in a full server. So 3/4 scale looks and works to our advantage in making the game a little less tedious and time eating trying to fly to the target, without losing too much realism. I can't wait to see what the Campaign Makers of the community are going to create with this.
People, to paraphrase Monguse "your're gonna pee".

Am I seeing right in that this map does not go far enough south for Port Moresby?

Dobodura New Guinea is as far South as it goes.

So that pretty much rules it out for any 1942 scenaries, such as the US Lae raid, etc.

Myself, being a dedicated offline campaigner, I don't like the idea of compromising anything for the sake of 'online playability and fairness'.

Why would you think that? just because we can't put the Entire South Pacific on a map? Use a little imagination, I don't really believe if we had a 1:1 scale map of the area between Port Moresby and Lae that anyone would fly that entire distance, without getting up from the PC even once, let's be realistic. Now should someone create a map with that part you could fly that section till you got to the edge of the map and then on the next mission fly the next map and it would work just fine in a campaign, after all we're not talking a few extra miles but thousands of square miles of sometimes nothing but ocean. Only in the gaming community can people be so demanding. Between the Team Pacific's two huge maps they had to make a cutoff point and make it under scale for not just playability but performance as well and they did an amazingly accurate job. We didn't compromise anything and I have edited this because I see I jumped to a conclusion unfairly. On the current map in 3/4 scale it takes 1-1/2 hours to fly round trip from Dobrodoro to Lae and 3 hrs from Dobrodoro to Rabaul round trip at 300kph, the entire map from NE to SE corner is 3hrs (a similar distance to the Solomons Map)> I sincerely doubt anyone here would fly a realistic mission never leaving their chair, no time compression, no bathroom, snack or Beer break in-between for the sake of realism and if you would you need to get a real life, just sayin'

Why would one assume no time compression? I never fly a mission in any sim without it. Skip to next encounter is your friend. My ideal game would have realistic distances, but time compression to skip all the flying in between combat and critical phases of flight. One of my big disappointment in RoF is that it does not have a skip to next encounter feature, and I was very happy when IL-2 introduced that.

Anyway, not complaining. Glad the map is being made, and can understand why the compromises. But, (and maybe I am missing something), AFAIK, we still do not have a map covering from Port Morseby to Lae-Salamau, which would be necessary for 1942 campaigns that if you don't want the IJN always (very innacurately) flying out of Buna-Gona.

I said that because time compression is a compromise and since it isn't realistic for someone who doesn't want to embrace compromise.


Maybe someone will, but I have seen many levels of map making with the introduction of mods, some exceed the originals in scope and quality and others are quite horrible by comparison and are rushed out with very little quality control or even fixing glaring errors. I have been privileged to get a glimpse behind the curtain and I have an immense respect for those who are talented enough to accomplish these things because it can be thankless in such a fickle community and maps are not as simple as you might imagine. I hope that should anyone do so it will have the same level of quality as the others in the same region and that starts with meticulous research. From the research phase I was given folders of every base that exists on the map with a multitude of photos, maps and diagrams for each one. It's that thoroughness that brings these places to life so that it looks like the picture, not a slapped on bit of texture and a few straw huts and then calling it an airfield.

edit: I should also say that even though I'm speaking for their side I don't consider myself part of the Team, the part I worked on might not even make it into the final release, the map has been around now for a while with only a handful of us having seen it in it's various states of completion but I'm just as exited to see it finally get to release so I can fly it again.

My remark was general and not in the least insulting to anyone, so don't get overexcited. I saw too many times developers say: No, we can't introduce this or that because it won't work online (usually meaning it will be used for cheating).
Besides, the good thing about a huge map is that one can enjoy different parts of it. For example, in the Solomons campaigns I can fly in defence of Guadalcanal, then from the Russells to New Georgia area, and then from Vella Lavella to Bougainville - and progressively enjoy different parts of the map. I don't have to fly the entire length of it every time!
And lastly, as Nimits noticed, one can always use time compression, even though I like to fly long distances (without bathroom, snack or beer) just to get a feeling how it was in real life.

Not insulted in the least, and none intended. I have to imagine stuck in a cramped cockpit under a blazing sun for hours and then be in the middle of a fight for your very life was an uncomfortable frightening and stressful experience and especially with the chance that if you went down even surviving you might never be found, and if you managed to get on one of the many islands either you would be captured by the enemy or some headhunting cannibals...I think people are going to be thrilled and impressed, it really is quite an addition to the theatre.

Here are some pics that may help.

The map was built for hardcore online campaigners/reenactors. The Dobodura complex is the only airfield that is shared between Oleg's sock map (covering the south) and this map. A balance had to be made between hardware/software capability, playability, and covering an area where the bulk of the sorties took place, paying special attention to having both the takeoff field and the target on the same map. As you can see from the flight times pic, to do a common B-25 straffer sortie it's gonna take you about 3 hours round trip (4 in real life). It was thought to be a good compromise of showing how huge the area is and keep "most" players time, RAM, and butt intact. Again, remember this was built with the fact that it was to be played online where there is no time skip.

color code for timeline pic
Red = allies
Blue = axis
Green = abandoned

Didn't I say in the first post of this thread that 'I can hardly wait'? I'm so sick and tired of that ugly stock New Guinea map. I keep my fingers crossed that this one gets included in the 4.12.

I didn't mean to come off so harshly, I think it will be in 4.12 I don't absolutely know but it will be awesome if it is.