You've got to remember you can only fly one plane at a time and that all the planes have different handling abilities. Me? I'm going to get to grips with flying one plane well.

Well, planes have different handling abilities in most sims anyway. The thing is it would be good to have some choice. Right now for example, if someone flies allied birds he's stuck with an energy fighter, no choice for someone who likes turn and burn contests.

I'd be content with 4 different flyables, one per nation, to go along with historical squads that flew them and somewhat of an ability to use that in an automatically generated campaign, say by including 1-2 AI craft per nation, maybe one AI fighter and one AI two-seater for each. Flyables should be unique, but duplicates would be fine for the AI ones.

I know it still isn't much to go by, but they're supposed to be selling addon aircraft down the line so they won't give out too many of them for free. This would be a good compromise between that and having an adequate single player appeal right out of the box. I think IL2 shipped with less than 10 flyables per nation initially, and SoW:BoB will have about 12 in total, so it would be a reasonable starting point by comparison.

Also, some of the possible fighters could be used by more than one nation (N28 and Spad), so you would have enough to run a good campaign with a variety of squadrons. I think that N28, Spad, Se5a and Fokker D.VII would be a good start for flyables. As for AI, it is easier since they only require external models and some can be used by more than one nation as well, not to mention that some people will want to buy the AI fighters and have them as flyables when the cockpits are done. For example a good AI list would be Camel or Pup, Breguet 14, Dr.I or Albatross, plus one RFC and one German two seater.

That makes 4 flyable fighters, 2 AI fighters and 3 AI two-seaters. It should be enough to run a well done 1917 campaign with some variety as to what you'll see on each mission.

For me the biggest letdown is still the connectivity requirement and the messy baggage that comes with it, like forced updates. I'll probably wait until they drop that or available aircraft are increased, whichever comes first.

I've got my money on a few more flyables upon release in the West. No inside knowledge here but just an inkling. Neoqb really need to give it a good kick in the guts and I think that would do it

some of the plane exteriors for this free il2 addon are starting to look very good, if you place some of those same new aircraft in the better and more recent il2 scenery the combination can be quite spectacular (using slovakia scenery for ex in this screenshot below, which came in the official 4.09b patch)

with the small group of part time folks who are working in their spare time on this project, it is looking pretty good

That would also justify the higher price. The only problem is that the preorder reads as only 2 planes.

Well, the game description in the sites you can pre-order from states that you can fly for any of the nations, not only US and Germany, but France and UK as well. Due to that, my suspicion is that at the very least we'll have Spad 13 for US/France, Fokker DVII for Germany and then that leaves speculating about the RFC flyable fighter. It could be an Se5a, as we've seen some screenshots recently, or the Nieuport 17, it will be outclassed compared to the others, but it's an easy way to add an RFC campaign. It also says you can advance through the ranks from Lieutenant to Colonel, so that hints at something more than the automatically generated 10 or so missions per pilot career in the Russian version.

I'm happy to say that being one of the most vocal critics about many things in RoF, if these features make it in the worldwide release we will be having something that more closely resembles a finished product. Maybe we didn't point out all those initial limitations in vain after all

As for the Albatross screenshot in the IL2 engine, what can i say. I'm amazed at how much we're still able to do with this 10 year old engine. That's also one of the reasons i prefer a lengthy delay that will give me a robust and expandable game engine, as opposed to rushing games out the door. To be fair though, 1c games is now a well established company. They made a big bang with IL2 and used that revenue to fund other titles in different, more widely appealing gaming genres, so now they can afford to "milk the cow" so to speak and do SoW:BoB in such a broad scope that will probably surpass anything we've ever seen. Other companies are new and can't afford that, but the better your initial product is, the more chances you have to stick it out for the long run.

Well Flybert, many of these gents just do not go as far back as you and I during our OLD jousting days of RB2 3d and our MEGA Wars. Some of these gents were fresh out of the oven if you get my drift when you and I were flying online 12 years ago.

I now have OFF and it is a great off line product. I have issues with it crashing to desktop our out of a game. I am sure it is a Vista thing though. I am loving playing it until the next WW1 sim hits the market.

To clarify the misconception, the d-Strict "Sikorsky" project was a totally different WWI effort.

http://www.d-strict.com/

There's been quite a few promised WWI projects that have died along the way. Whatever happened to that one called "17-hours".

Oh, geez, I'll bite on it.

1) The IL-2 engine is okay for WWI stuff; maybe a little long in the tooth for a commercial product that stands alone and makes a name for a new company, but certainly nothing to poo-poo.

2) The price for the mod simply can't be beat.

3) I want more. More WWI, more WWII, more helicopter flight sims.

Which is why no one wants to play with you in the sandbox after school...

"17Hours" died when the gamer engine programmer didn't trust the other parter-programmer with the source code .. I still have a demo tucked away ..

apologies if mis-remembering regarding d-Strict "Sikorsky" and where that did or did not go

Still have our old '17 Hours' website. That would have been something with the lead-programmer being an aerodynamics engineer programming real simulators. The problem as far as I remember was that he was allowed to use code from his company but wasn't allowed to share the source with anyone else. The main difficulties began with the transition from a private effort to a business enterprise.

"private effort to a business enterprise"

So eloquently stated Ruediger, but so difficult to actually do.

Knights Over Europe, a commercial WWI flight sim being built was cut in production in favor of the beautiful but arcade-oriented Wings Of War game. The guys behind Birds of Prey (the WWI sim effort by Wings with Wires) tried to do it with the SDOE source code. 17 Hours for whatever reason failed. D-Strict's project never has amounted to anything. Richthofen's Skies, which is modded to Targetware's source code is still subordinated to Targetware's business model, or lack thereof. There's been a host of WWI mods to other flight sims, of which I think OFF has seen the greatest success, with FS-WWI also deserving special mention, but then none of these efforts control the source code either. Then there's First Eagles by Third Wire, which is the only retail WWI sim which has actually come to the market in the last half dozen years or so that I can think of.

Good history lesson FlyRetired.

I also remember Down In Flames which some bloke was trying to do on his own. I think that RL probably got in the way of that one. It actually looked quite promising. It still has its own forum over at COMBATACE

Well, this is a interesting place to find this topic... I would have thought it would have been where it belongs, in the Il2 Section, but none the less;

As one who is involved in the project (I am the one building the Albatros D.III and other Alb D series) I think I have a right to stick my nose in and say something here;

What we are doing, is in no way intended to 'challenge' or 'compete' on any level with RoF, all of us who are involved have actually been waiting with baited breath for this new gen sim. What we are doing is just like anything else we do at AAA, and that is extend the life and scope of Il2. Thats it. And by doing so, we delve into the area's we are interested in. Our over all goal is to give a flyable scope from WWI to the end of Korea. Thats pretty much all the sim's engine is really capable of dealing with anyway.

Now, I see some shots in here comparing ready for release, or released cockpits and what not, with our Work In Progress shots (very early WIP shots none the less). Well, thats like comparing a month old featus with a 20 year old beauty competition winner. Its just not at the same level of developmental maturity for comparason. The shots you see, even that of my Albatros, are of projects in development (thus the label of WIP that seems to be over looked...) The D.VII Cockpit is mainly a tester pit anyway, with incredibly low-res textures and poly counts (from memory it comes to less than 2000 all up... Already the items mentioned are no longer the same, with more development already in the Albatros and pits as it is. A fair idea of what to expect with our pits you can gleam from these very early, untextured WIP shots of the Albatros pit;





The name... well, naming something is always the hardest thing to do, and well... we left it to the community to decide with a minority vote in the end. Not something everyone can be satisified with, but its not the name but the item which is important, and that is really where we're focusing our efforts on.

In the mean time, if those are actually interested, I would say go over to All Aircraft Arcade and check out the CK Forum section, and read up on it properly, and await the final MOD and then past your judgement.

Heya Magpie,

Thank you for your recognized respect of the topic. Thanks also for the "WIP" clarification.

I have been (and bookmarked) the CK site and eagerly await it's development.

...until then, I'll be keeping tabs on your project.

Thanks for stopping by Magpie, and thanks for showing us views of your 3D work in progress too.

I make it a habit not to compare mod efforts until comparisons have been drawn, and even then don't see much value in it. As you touched on, mods can extend or convert content and scope for existing simulations, while next-gen platforms come almost exclusively through commercial ventures, which are far and few between these days.

As always, it's respectful to encourage and wish all new mod projects well.

Thanks for the pics Magpie, I'm anxiously awaiting the CK mod release. Don't fret too much about people comparing apples and oranges, it's human nature to do so it seems. Yours, and others, is greatly appreciated! Keep up the good work mate!

I just stumbled across this post and I am so pleased that IL2 is going WW1 I can remember to joy of finding out Screaming demons was going WW1 that's a while ago now but that really did injected a little more life into the Sim I feel sure that this will have the same effect.

IL2 is a superb engine I like the DCgen and mission building options for single player mode. I'm really looking forward to this mod well done guys and I like what you have done so far.

P.S. a Pfalz DIII would be a great addition hint hint.

Happy landings

Gypsy9