http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/168-developer-diary/?p=12348266
Hi Everyone!
Today we publish answers to the most interesting and important questions of the forum community. Friday game update is still being worked at, and it will be released later today. Don't expect big content updates, it's mostly about bug fixes and improvements.
How will the single-player campaign work? Are we going to play as an abstract or real pilot, or we freely choose where to server and what plane to fly? Are separate missions in the campaign connected?
Our goal is to tell the story of Battle of Stalingrad to as many players as we can. This approach along with restricted development period surely limits us in comprehensive recreation of smaller details. Thus it will not be a single player campaign about a pilot or a squadron. It will be about aircraft and war history.
We'd be glad to avoid endless community arguments on that matter. However, there's a lot to discuss since even historians are not certain about some moments. So we just turn away a bit from these issues and create a game about planes. Let your imagination personalize your gaming experience. We're an unbiased story teller. You are pilots living virtual lives in the sim. Also, this community is quite segmented in its desires, just because you are the loudest, does not mean you are the biggest. A lot of players can't afford to spend more than 1 hour a day in the game while the other group of players is able to play the game 10 hours a day or even more. And we realized that it's not us making the game emotional, it is you. Our part is to deliver necessary conditions for your experience.
IL2:BOS campaign will tell you the story of Battle of Stalingrad from November 19th 1942 till February 2nd 1943. The whole period is split into operations (phases of the battle). Each phase has a realistic template on how ground troops and airfields were positioned. We did our best to be as precise as possible in this and all templates are based on historically correct data and real maps. We divided the battle into several key parts: Uranus, Little Saturn, Aerial Bridge, Winter Thunder and so on.
Meanwhile the player is not limited with anything and the playable character is impersonalized. Each player is going to have their own virtual life and singular, specific experience and emotions. You'll be free to pick any plane, any airfield and any mission that is available at that moment. And this unique experience of yours will build your personal campaign.
Missions are not connected with each other. There's sort of a "groundhog day" within each single phase. Time of a day, weather conditions (within a list of historically correct ones for each period) will vary every time you start the mission. And you play this or that phase as many times as you want. Several successfully completed missions open access to the next phase leaving the completed one available for reply at any time. This is akin to sand-box style gaming.
Players who are looking for precise reconstruction of particular historical events will have community created missions to satisfier their demands. Those missions can tell about specific pilots, events and real combat missions down to historically correct personal skins and battle conditions. But our studio is not able to deal with such amount of tasks right now, that's why community we'll need to provide themselves with those WWII reconstruction missions. And the main campaign will remain available for the wider audience.
Is there going to be an object viewer? The opening screen with the rotating plane is stunning. Really allows you to view the aircrafts details. It'd be great to be able to do that with aircraft and even vehicles and other objects as needed.
We have such tool, but it's been designed for development purposes and that's why its interface is too complex. I hope that we'll be able to make something like it for you. But this may happen after game release only.
What’s the final decision regarding the pilot’s exhaustion simulation? There was a users’ poll about it somewhere on the forum.
We’ll do it if we have time for it. You see, the feature is interesting, but still quite elusive. It’s already hard for players to figure out how to play such a complex game where an engine can fail about 10 different ways. So, adding such unexpected elements like pilot’s exhaustion could turn us into a developer with target audience of 20 people.
How will AI bombers behave in the campaign? A player tries to stay alive, maybe bots should do so as well? Speaking of AI pilots in general - will they try to keep their planes and their lives leaving the battlefield if fuels and ammo run out?
Bombers will not be that impressive as you described, but they do have a fear of death. They try to leave the battle and get back to the airfield by evading a threat. But nevertheless they are game objects only. They wouldn’t bring any enjoyment to players if that were not just objects. Imagine that bots would refuse to fly because they saw their battle stats and considered further attempts futile.
When will we have the full mission editor?
This will come after game release. Only those who we have worked with before will have a chance to get their hands on the editor during early access. The editor is too complex. It has reached functionality, but it’s too hard to learn to use it. Loft is sure that 95% of players don’t need it at all. The remaining 5% are actually capable of making something worthy. We’ll contact these 5% later, and I hope that some of them may offer the community their own user missions by the game release.
When will we actually see Skin templates? Can we have some sort of skin viewer to check if our work "works" properly on the model?
Yes, there’ll be templates and tools.
Will there be an option to see how many hours your buddy has flown in the game? What modes count flight time for the global stats?
Detailed stats will be done after game release. We’re currently creating basics of that stats system. One’s flight time counter can possibly be hacked as any other counter, but who plays with cheaters and liars?
How do you plan to count frags? The last one to hit gets it? Or the one who dealt most damage?
We have system of group victory. The one who deals critical damage gets the frag, other get group victory points. The algorithm is rather complex as well as the definition of critical damage. And we don’t have health bars so it’s impossible to count who dealt most damage.
Question, will we have AI that tries to belly land a damaged aircraft? Currently I see AI only bailing out also at low altitudes.
Yes, AI is currently able to bail out only after getting critically hit. Admit that most players do the same. I hope that we’ll be able to teach bots to land on belly. That would mean making AI more complicated which would scarcely be the wisest decision. Anyway we’ll get back to this discussion later.
How much of the code for BoS will be available for third party folks? Back in the day in IL2 there were several 3rd party utilities that came out from Sturmolog to the DCG and the UQMG etc... Will it be possible to do something like this in BoS?
You don’t need code for it. All the tools are in the game as well as full logs and mission editor algorithms. As of yet I’m skeptical about it because people would rather talk then do anything. But if somebody from the community actually did something worthy we’d help them personally as we have at times done with the ROF community. And please don’t compare the game to IL-2 1946. The original IL-2 game lived several years before such creativity came out to the light; we’re only 16 month old.
Will you give dedicated server to players someday this summer, before the release? Is it possible to control the server remotely?
Yes, we’d like to do so and give out the tools. But they are not yet ready and we’re still working on them. It means that you’d require our help and guidance and we’re currently unable to provide constant support to such enthusiasts. Please, stay patient for a bit more.
And yes, you can operate the server software remotely using any standard remote access software, and there’ll be no specific tools for it from us. We also use remote access to control the servers and its fine.