Very valid point there Midnitmike, One mans trash is another mans treasure...

I like the Camel where as Tailgunner has stated his tastes run to the eirler vintage.. horses for courses we both have our likes and dislikes and need to be catered for..

Who would be the judge on which like is the one to be put in, and I presume that you will still be a small tightnit outfit so I imagine the judging and final implementation process will have to be done by a already busy individual, leading to what I imagine is a fairly long lead time from when it is first put in to when it finally appears in said addon.

True, but I think one can make the point why this is not the case. Also, one could use file checkers so that if different people agree on the same planes, they can use them online.

I have to say hats off to Oleg that he pulled it off. I was sceptical and I think it was critical after Luthier dissappearance. oleg made a good decision for himself and for l2, which is mainly an online sim. But I am a modder and an offline guy

If you can put the 3D model in yourself, you can:
a) test it while building
b) Ship it at once when finished
c) There is noone that can tell you to throw your model away.
d) Even newbie modellers have a chance and maybe at some time they get experts.

I do think you can pretty much get the best of both worlds, by either javing a vote-rating system and/or by having one group that can give a seal of approval. The difference is that there can still be planes without that seal. BTW, when I worked on FlightGear, some people asked for very specific, really exotic planes.

The future is here
If you wantr a free one, use Flight gear with YASIM.

If you want a commercial one, use X-Plane.

If you are an American and have a security clearnace, you can get "weather" for free. Unlike the name implies, you can not only calculate the air flow around a mountain, but also around an airplane.

Also, on the netwings Il2 forum there is someone from IIRC Spain with access to CFD programs. He seemed willing to try it if someone submits a CFD-able 3D model.

Well I'll resurrect my "Squadron Modules" idea here again, and offer this marketing approach into the discussion once more.

Basically, this was an idea to allow for add-ons that would plug in historical squadron(s), their aircraft, the predominant enemy aircraft they encountered, and the detailed terrain of the sector(s) the historical unit flew over during specific times during the war.

My example in our previous dicussions was for the British No. 56 Squadron, and the idea was to create in-depth the pilot roster, and the prominant historical encounters that this elite unit experienced from say early summer 1917 to (perhaps) the wars end. Therefore the idea is to allow the player to buy the sim modules he wants to try out, like buying a good unit history of a famous Great War Squadron to read, but instead you get to experience the history by actually flying with the real personalities that were part of the historical squadron, and on missions and in the aircraft that the unit actually flew during the war.

Furthermore, the idea is to allow the player to add to his base sim package those unit modules that most appeals to him, while not having to buy (pay) for maps, and aircraft, and code for segments of the Great War that don't interest him! Like most sim players, there's portions of WWI that I'm not interested in (at least right now), so if I don't want to purchase the module to fly Handley Page 0/400s of say RAF No. 100 Squadron, Independent Force, because making long distance bombers raids don't appeal to me, then I don't have to!

The great advantage of this marketing approach is that it lets the developer bite off smaller bits of the air war to create in-depth, while offering quicker turn-around to the public who may be intersted in experiencing something new in their getting-all-too-familiar WWI flight sim package. The concept allows a flight sim to grow more rapidly than waiting for a developer to create complete new "theater-size add-ons", and the customer gets to personally select the Squadron(s) Packs he wants to try out without having to pay for planes or eras of the air war he's not interested in, and all the while the idea helps keeps interest in the base sim package high because each player gets to "run what he brung"....er......."fly what he buys" that is............choice, choice, choice.

Online multiplay would be easy in that the individual Squadron Modules would act just like mini-campaigns, being self-contained in their specific required features, neccessary terrain and planes that are needed to fly in the air battles over the featured sector or front.

Additional Squadron Modules offered (if not already included in the base game) could be for formations like Jasta Boelcke, or No. 24 Squadron RFC, or Jasta 11 (of course) for example.

Eventually you might even see mega-packs of multiple squadrons offered, or maybe new Theater Modules like Italy including some of the prominant formations that served in the air fighting there.

Finally, let me just mention that this concept has worked in other gaming genres, and has been a boon for both the producer and the players alike.............both get what they like........quicker turn-around of product, which helps keeps enthusiasm high, and it also lets the consumer custom-choose what they want to play.

I think it's a marketing win-win situation for all!

In JG 1, our IL-2 109's and 190s have some indiviual markings and color flashes which help, particularly in formation. In a high speed dogfight, it is less useful.

Since WWI had no radio the individual schemes were a must have item.

I do like how IL-2 handles the skins for on-line opponents and friends. It simply keeps a cache of on-line skins you download everytime you play on line. These are re-used whenever that player is in the arena. This is a must have feature for WWI.

From the end user point of view the problem with linking what goes into the sim with the developer means that if people's needs and tastes don't match then it means that those add-ons will never see the light of day. A good example would be IL2 and WW1 - if IL2 were more open to developers then I bet by now we'd have a WW1 add-on, but as the developers aren't interested it's (probably never) going to happen.

Don't get me wrong I hate the 'mod' type plane as opposed to the 'add-on' type. Years ago when I'd first got CFS2 I went online briefly to see what it'd be like. The skies were filled with aircraft spraying never ending streams of bullets at each other, looking something like a quantum physics trace in the sky. Later on I went online with IL2 and the difference was huge, co-op missions especially being very rewarding to do. Even in that game though you'd get crazy and badly executed repaints and dogfight servers that seemed to be all about taking off, rushing to the combat area, getting shot down (hopefully after getting at least one other person first) and then repeating the whole process. To be honest I'd class that as very little different from what was going on at the CFS2 servers. Overall the key thing to me seems to be not about what can or can't be added to a game, but how much control you have over what is done with those add-ons.

Ideally what I'd like to see is people free to model and add items freely to the single player game (after all if an add-on is rubbish no-one's forcing you to use it, or even download it in the first place). Then to be usable in multiplayer it needs to be authorised by the developer who puts it through some tool or other and also standardises the flight model. I think that would combine the best of both worlds - plus of course the authorised ones are also consistent then with the stock models for offline use.

After thinking about it for a while though I'm wondering how likely it is that that could ever happen. The problem from the point of view of the game developer with this is - what do they gain from it? In IL2's case more planes in an expansion clearly means that expansion is going to sell more copies. Of course quite a few aircraft have been bundled in free patches, but what if adding planes was a free-for-all? It's almost certain that some of the aircraft (or maps, vehicles, etc) that were planned for add-ons would be added in advance by the community - possibly even to a higher quality than the 'official' models. Where does that put the sellability of the add-on pack if all it adds are a few graphical polishes here and there? Whilst some people might pay for a better game engine (I'm one of them) I'd bet most people looking at a box in a shop will be looking to see what planes are in it. Possibly campaigns too, but mostly planes. So if the devs have to authorise all models they end up working for nothing. If KOE is going to be released in stages then I don't see it going any other way than the IL2 model.

Maybe there's ways to make the open architecture sim model work with an expansion long term business model?

Have fun
Finn

Where does it out the sellability of add-ons? ...well..the CFS community has paid add on packages. Mind you..I never could understand the point in buying them when you could download most of the planes from elsewhere ;)Presumably, enough are sold to make them commercially viable.

I suppose you could hard-code the acceptable online planes into the game, with bought add-on's updating that list to allow their content to be used online. This seems to be the logical choke-point.

If offline pilots want a sandbox sim, then they should be allowed to. When it comes to online, then tight control is essential to keep things real and balanced. When I say 'real' I don't mean hard...I just mean 'possible!' No UFO Camels, and no 50 gun Dr1's ......

No. But you do now need to research which add-ons exist, where you can find them and whether or not they are rubbish - and opinions on whether or not they are rubbish are going to be varied. Either that or feel totally left behind and out of the loop.

I thought WWSensei summed it up pretty well on the Il-2 forum when he said that he reckoned you could find roughly the same number of genuinely quality additions in Il-2 as in MS Flight Simulator, except they have been cheaper and you don't have to go looking for them or reasearch how good they are - just grab the latest patch from the official Il-2 website.

As I say, I want to be sold a consistent version of reality, even if it's not 100% accurate! I find nothing so bewildering as the profusion of different models and worse, flight and damage models all for the same plane, and me with not a clue which one is most real or most consistent with the rest of the game. We talk about flying flight-sims being too hard, but if you're not careful just selecting and adding 3rd party mods becomes a full time job in itself...

Yes, but they aren't done by Microsoft are they? Imagine if Microsoft (or anyone else) were doing an expansion with a Hurricane in it and a couple of weeks before release (but after the master has gone to press) a free add-on gets submitted to them of higher quality than their own. What incentive is there for Microsoft to vet the model?

As to the number of add-ons, I'm afraid I disagree. There are far more quality add-ons for FS200X than there are for IL2. I play both games a fair bit and I'm very confident in saying that. Even if you limit it to freeware the number of planes of equivalent quality to a typical IL2 aircraft is huge. It may appear the same as IL2 if you look for just one particular group of aircraft but as a whole there's no comparison. There's also no user added maps in IL2 AFAIK - or how about air bases and vehicles?

I also think the quality of the various add-on planes varies more than people like to admit in IL2, whilst none are rubbish and a handful are superb, there's a fair number that are just OK (especially in the cockpit department). I'm not sure there's any plane in IL2 that truly matches the best of what's available for FS (graphics wise).

I do agree that the number of good add-ons for FS is dwarfed by the number of poor ones but a lot of that is people learning how to create things, and even if only 1% of them go on to make something better in the future that still very healthy for the sim.

Have fun
Finn

Well, we can talk about sim platforms that already exist, and the advantages and disadvantages that each present to the game modder or the game marketer, but of greatest interest here and now on this forum is how this advice can be applied to Aspect Simulations, and the situation that exist around their future plans.

Microsoft exist in a realm of its own........especially in it's ability to invest whatever capital it deems neccessary to improve and promote it's FS/CFS series.

With 1C/Maddox Games, through the amazing energy and devotion of one incredible man with a vision the IL-2 phenomenon was born, and as combat flight sim enthusiast we are all indebted to Oleg for showing us that when there is the will, there is a way!

Now how can this knowledge best be used to promote the eventual rise again of Knights Over Europe or it progeny?

I would think we should start with what we know about KOE and Aspect Simulations, before we begin to measure its future sim plans against the likes of Microsoft, or 1C/Maddox Games/Ubi Soft!

Take it for what it's worth, but when resources are few, and options limited, you don't shoot for "Pie in the Sky"................you focus your effort, target your energies towards the achievable, and work as hard as possible to avoid mistakes that could cost you the whole ball of wax.

I rather see Aspect pick itself up, and do what it's capable of doing within it's limited resources, rather than see it try to emulate the capabilities of the giants of our hobby.

If we get a tight, versatile core package, containing limited but expandable content, then this will be the best WWI sim news any of us fans could probably ever expect to hear in the next year or so.............and then we can see how it grows from there!

What's the saying, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. It's been said numerous times that to get an object (planes, trains, and automobiles) in IL2FB you need but model it to Maddox standards. Granted this requires 3dstudio Max and time , but trust me getting a WWI sim out of FB is not as far fetched as you might think. It does however as Zanty pointed out require modelers. The way I see it resources need to be pooled and focused on the best alternative...

I want KOE to be like Il2. I want 1 FM/DM. I don't want to see a fractured community fighting over which FM/DM to use depending on which day it is.

I don't want to worry about people riding the wall. (I don't know what that is exactly, but I hear it isn't good.) I don't want to see a Morane Bullet doing warp 9. I don't want to see a Fokker E.III acting like a TIE fighter.

Depending on when you have heard it, Oleg is either interseted in WW1 or not. He may be more likely to do it if a good number of models are done already. And done to his standarts.

As FlyXwire says.... this is a KOE forum, and the future of KOE is what started all this discussion.

As far as I can see it, the likelihood of Oleg doing a WW1 is slim. Why...well...

The IL2 FM's for one thing! They are highly modular, and geared to the planeset he has now. Putting in WW1 planes would involve a lot of changes. Far more than would be needed to make, say..a Pacific Sim

Secondly... the work he ALREADY has. His Battle of Britain project is due out sometime next year, and allowing for developemnt issues etc. he and his team have a big commitment for at least the enxt 12 months. Can't see him wanting to change his focus in the short term.

As far as making planes go, I am sure anyone who wants to do it can. I personally refuse to put in the many hours of work needed without some guarantee that a WW1 sim project will happen. There has never been ANY firm commitment from Oleg to do WW1....he just never actually said no That isn't yes though....

Based on the amount of work needed to finsih KOE from the hints and snippets given, it would seem like they have the solid base to work from.

As far as I am concerned, I would like to see a solid core of fligthsim released. In fact, if they released JUST a flightsim engine with all the features and engine management thigns we know a WW1 plane needs BUT NO PLANES!

Maybe with a toolbox that allows us to make planes. Input standard values for airfoils, weight, wing area etc. and let the game engine do the rest. Input a 3D mesh and away you go

Aspect can then take the best of the 'community built planes' and officially 'sanction' them for online use, ading a recognition code that assures online sacurity.

I am sure there are enough people who WOULD build planes if they could see them flying in teh sim engine without delay!

Well this is great consensus here actually!

As Ironhand (and Pen) have said before, they like the security of having FMs and DMs in the hands of the developers...........this I think is a wise suggestion (and it also helps to promote the maintenance of developer support for the mod community's efforts).

As Tailgunner says too:

This coincides with the sureness that quality and compatibility will be assured by following the "IL-2 model" for adding user created aircraft to the sim.

Now my worry........can KOE's code be easily "deconstructed" to allow for this degree of openess and versatility in a future release form?

This is a question that I'd like the programmers here to discuss with us, as I doubt if Gary Stottlemyer will do so. It'll be speculation of course, but educated quesses will probably be as good as it gets.

Any ideas?

I do not think it very hard to have a different behaviour for SP and MP. If in SP, read stuff (list of planes, FM of the planes) from external files into memory. If in MP, fill the memory from within the exe.

The two issues I see are:
1. Knowing which values there are might hacking the exe with a hex editor easier. However, if the values inside the exe and maybe even inside memory are "scrambled", I would think this effect is small (but not zero).
2. To allow external modding needs quite a bit of work from the developer. He needs to write documentation, the tools need more polish than otherwise, maybe he even wants to allow more 3D modelling programs than otherwise, everything has to be in external files and quickly hardcoding something is evil.

Issue 2. Means that the approach we speak of (open SP, closed MP) is much more time consuming todo than a completely closed approach. OTOH, Oleg needs quite some time to convert the models he gets from the 3rd parties, so there is some time involved with Oleg's that this approach does not need.

Compared to a completely open sim a la MSFS/CFS, issue 2 does not involve more work.

If we're talking about KOE specifically rather than theoretically, Xeidos has already made it very clear that any model, including models he makes himself, require an enormous amount of specialised work to import into the sim that he can't undertake.

If it's going to be made suitable for add-on planes its going to be a lot easier to decide to do that at the beginning rather than try to fit it in at the end of development. Better tools not only make it easier for 3rd party people to add plans, but the developers themselves - especially if the same tool or versions of it can be used in multiple games/future versions. Only the developers can know if the overhead of creating more friendly tools is balanced by the time gained in making the process simpler based on their circumstances, people's workloads, etc.

Have fun
Finn

Salute Everyone!
I just wondered if there could be away we could use the first Il2 version to create a WW1 sim. Hardly anyone uses it for online play anymore. And it was a great sim.
Just an idea!
Take Care!
Rooster

Forgotten Battles and Pacific Fighters are both built on the same basic code as IL2. It is still effectively 'current'. It has had tweaks to it, new planes added, and some improvements in rendering, but it is still basically the same under the bonnet.

We would have to wait until the thing was completely 'finished' with before such a thing would be likely. Wonder if the new BOB sim from Oleg is using a completely new engine... that might herald a chance to licence the IL2 code for a WW1 sim

I see no reason why KoE can't follow the same basic plan as that used by Sierra in building RB with just a few exceptions. In RB you have the basic game engine .exe and then external data files that make up the maps, aircraft, FM, DM and the like. This modular design allows you to compile a working exe file long before all your other assests are finalized. As development progresses you simply add the finished components into your external data files.

The only thing to avoid here is hardcoding in unneccesarly strict limitations into the exe itself. Build your external data files in such a way so that you have lots of headroom for future additions. It doesn't matter if you only have two planes finished for the project what does matter is that you have room for a 100+ in the game.

Concerning online FMs and DMs there is a very simple answer to everyones needs here. You build your MMP server software so that it has two or three stock scenerios available, but you also release the tools so that custom servers set-ups can generate their own security check system. This will satisfy the guys that want just one online FM/DM package, and yet allow the community the freedom to develop their own versions. If they need an example of what a real security system looks like then they don't need to go any farther then Rens' security set-up. It's bullet proof, fool proof, and yet fully customizable for any imaginable custom war scenerio.

I have no problem with proprietary model structures either, but here again if you release the conversion tools that are needed to bring those models into the game then you give us the ability to build whatever models we want to include in the game. RB models are built in the 3ds format with a strict naming convention that links it to the damage model. The model must then be processed through a program called Matilda that breaks it into two separate mesh and texture dat files. Ask anyone at SWWISA how much fun this can be. It doesn't matter how complex or tedious the process, just give us the tools and eventually we'll be building models every bit as good as the pro's.

The point I'm trying to make here is that no matter what KoE releases there are those of us out here that will have our own ideas of what the game should or could be. They should build the best game they possibly can but then let us take it where ever we want to.

The only question they have to answer is how do they go about the process, and how can they maximize the potential profit of their labors. Whatever they decide I just hope they don't ask us to pay for our online playing time because that is a sure fire way to end my interest in the game entirely. Probably the smartest thing Sierra ever did was make the server software free.

MM

Hey Midnitmike, just thought I'd shoot you a short note here that my sis lives in Juneau, and I've visted Skagway (and gone up into the Yukon) twice after stopping at Haines shortly on the State's ferry service.

Loved seeing the glaciers calving, and enjoyed the wonderous sites........just beautiful!