I've been having some fun on the side playing Dovetail's Train Simulator when I started seeing more and more videos of their new Trainsim World. It doesn't have steam trains yet, so I haven't bought it yet either. I read some more literature on it, and here's what I've found. TSW looks very good. This is partly due to the 64-bit nature of the game, but more so to the fact that they have switched to the Unreal 4 game engine. My passing thought was "What if WOFF had that graphics engine and Direct-X 12? People talk about how good WOFF looks, but this would look that much better.

I'm not saying this is something that can or should be done, but I just imagine how good it would look if it were. Also, there are many air combat games and only so many yeast spots to shoehorn WOTR into. DCS World looks really good where WW2 is represented, and it's going to take something really different to Make WOTR so much better.

Bit I'm old, and probably don't have time fore new tricks.

Good thing it was just a passing thought

I've got TSW... I quite enjoy playing it, and it looks great.
Yes, also waiting for them to add steam trains as well, but also waiting for them to get Raildriver support or at least support for other systems such as my Warthog.

Last year, I built a machine for a kid (he's 22 now) that was pretty healthy...but not at all like the others I'd built for people his age. The others wanted gaming machines.

He wanted a machine set up for building games himself, using (you guessed it) UE4. Not my usual area, so I had to spend some time looking into it. This kid is working full time, pretty much minimum wage retail, so he doesn't have a lot of money (or spare time TBH; he has family responsibilities, too). And, of course, being as it's a development platform, the 'building' (or what we used to call compiling) these environments is extremely processing intensive, so I built a machine with a Xeon server CPU, high core/thread/cache CPU, lots of RAM, and plenty of PCIe lanes (to support high-performance storage).

While doing this, of course, I had the same thought you've had: Why not WOFF?

I mean, it seems most of the forum has concluded that the CFS3 'engine' is the source of whatever remaining performance issues there are (although to be accurate, I don't think OBD has commented on it at all). And, as remarkable as the Dx9 work is, you're right - imagine what Dx12 (or even 11) could bring.

Epic (who produces UE) even offers the entire environment, source code etc, and it's free for over 5 years now. Even if you sell your project, they only require a percentage of anything over a certain amount you make per month (which is very easy to manage). It's a complete and scalable development environment, which means even big projects are possible. (Heck, if I had any interest in pursuing development, I'd at least try it...what do you have to lose for free? But me, I'm a hardware guy.)

And get this: They even offer grants for development projects. I admittedly don't know the particulars, and I'm sure there are some challenges...but that's an enormous potential. And there are people here - myself included - that would/have donated additional resources to aid progress.

But it made me think: Here's this kid, already working full time, and no real resources at all, but interested in game development, taking advantage of the free platform to pursue his dreams and projects.

It does make you wonder what if...

I think everyone, the Devs included, would love to see WOFF / WOTR in a 64 bit. multicore aware, DX12 supported engine. Given the size of the Dev team and the very limited income and resources they have at their disposal, I think we will all be continuing to enjoy WOFF as it is, plus whatever magic they come up with for their next expansion - which I am so excited to see.

On the flip side...Flying Circus has all of that stuff. Know what they wish they had? Any kind of a campaign at all (let alone a dynamic one), way more planes, a reasonable damage model where the wings don't melt off after 3 bullets, challenging AI, many more and much larger maps, etc.

If only WWI flight sims had a vastly larger audience these days (like they had back in the 90s), the money would be available for both sims to advance in ways I'm sure each of the dev teams would love to happen. That said, the tiny preview videos Pol has released showing in cockpit animations and the new wing buffeting flight model look amazing. Despite all the obstacles against it, WOFF continues to shine brighter with each iteration and update.

Hellshade, you are so correct when you draw attention to the size of the Dev team and the income resources. I would hazard a guess that any conversion would be a long time in reaching fruition and if that direction was taken, current development and updates for WOFF/WOTR would cease for some time to come, as would sales and you can imagine the impact that would have.

Any undertaking would more than likely have to be a shoehorn approach.

Best Regards

Stimulating thoughts gents - my own 2 cents, I think the most practical option for OBD is to continue developing both WOFF and WOTR within the context of the modified cfs3 code. Granted, new code would open all sorts of possibilities, but, judging from the great rumbling cockpits and animated engines I've seen in the posts with latest developments - I'm sure that flight sim fans are being well served.

Looked at differently, the challenge of coding within cfs3 limitations is perhaps what makes the OBD sims so great and with marvelous AI (tighter code, more originality when coding, etc.). I like to think of OBD as old-school programmers - from back when programs had to be small, tightly coded, etc., for the limitations of comp. hardware from a while back. Today, modern sim programs can be much more bloaty without worrying about other things.

Also, I have a hunch that - and this is of course open to speculation - the excellent developments made with AI in WOFF/WOTR might not be possible in other code, such as used in the IL2 BoX series, etc. It may not be such a simple thing merely to "transplant" everything OBD does from one set of code into another set used in other sims, and to expect the same or similar results with AI and other things.

Happy flying all,
Von S

IL2-FC has the more modern and natural absolute flight feel and handling in an overall sense. It also makes better use of modern PC resources. It runs smoothly and has very nice graphics and extra details. But FC also still feels very limited - like an addendum to a WW2 simulator. The single player aspect isn't there really. AI is just so-so. Damage model has had issues lately. It also seems to be affected, negatively at times, by being tied to a WW2-oriented game. FC is very much a 1-map multiplayer experience. The audience is still somewhat small, but the 50% off sale has helped grow the base a little. One of the most troubling things about it is the fact that the western front still feels kind of sterile and not very active. Better than Rise of Flight in that aspect, but still. I really like the modern complexity of FC as a simulator (working radiators, complex engine management, natural-feeling of flight, etc), and I enjoy multiplayer. But it has been difficult for that game to reach a place where everything is working and feels "right". You're limited to 1918 for now, and one map. It's has such potential, but seems to be taking a backseat to WW2 because of the money you can make from a WW2 title. Tweaking FC to work on your system is not entirely simple, but it's relatively straightforward.

WOFF has more dated absolute flight modeling and physics because of the basis in the CFS 3 engine. CFS 3 was a good game, but it's pretty old now. WOFF is less adept at making full use of the resources on a modern computer. But WOFF presents the most complete WW1 simulator to date in terms of aircraft, environment, and history. The western front feels very much alive and dangerous in WOFF. The AI is quite strong and realistic. The single player campaign is likely the greatest, most dynamic and lively campaign in any flight simulator for WW1 to be produced (it even exceeds the Red Baron series in this achievement). The single player focus does not rely heavily on having other live players on at the same time, whereas FC is dependent on other people being online. Also, the "relative flight model" - that is how the planes perform relative to one another is stronger in WOFF (e.g., the FC SE5a has been a point of controversy for some time, whereas planes in WOFF seem to really compare to one another in ways consistent with historical accounts). WOFF captures the feel and danger of the western front, and the planes interact in realistic ways, even if the absolute flight physics are more dated. Tweaking WOFF to work on your system is tricky and can be time-consuming, but can yield helpful results if you are patient. It's really nice that the developers have created a WW1-only, free-standing title reaching all the way back to the earliest days of combat flight.

They both achieve different things, and are oriented toward different crowds (single player versus multiplayer), traditional campaign-based simulator versus multiplayer-based simulator. I think you have to own both, to be honest, because they're different games. I just don't think the WW1 genre is all that big - I own FC, ROF, and WOFF. If you buy all of them, you're spending a fair bit of cash, but if you wait for sale periods, you can certainly own all of them at a reasonable cost.

Sorry but you do forget one thing, as FC1 how limited and sterile that game is, it does have THE VR EXPERIENCE and in combination with the (based on RB3d) Pat Wilsons Campaign generator, it is still something that every WW1 combat flysim enthusiasts should have on his shelf.
But we could all discuss here about how good/badly FC is because I also admit that Russian design buro Yugra Media did do a terrible bad swap job, that is a real shame for the whole WW1 community and because of this amateurish Yugra Media, the porting all the ROF planes to FC has now reached point of zero. But this whole discussion about bad/good is complete useless, as this is going to be historical, like RB3d.

Warning this will hurt when reading further:
the whole prop combatfly sim and I think that even count for the jet simworld, is since 2010 on holt, no major improvements have been done only tweaking& tweaking of an old aged game engine, fiddling some game aspects, introducing old DirectX9 & 11 versions. It seems that every development in the whole flysim world from DCS, 1c to OBD has been on holt. Until I did see the youtube videos from the new MS-2020 flysim. Here you will see finally the real major improvements, this is the new benchmark in flysimming. If the videos are true, we finally see real clouds, real terrain and real airplanes, real flightmodels, all very close to real life. No more splitscreen Youtube videos needed to detect the very small difference in Clod/DSC/BoS here it is very clear it’s improvements for FS-2020.
Only it needs lots of modern technology like fast internet, powerful hardware, Its build full off AI calculations and from what I did read its based on cloudgaming (=monthly fee) if needed the full pack.
I do hope, an combat game engine is also in the pipline, if thats happen a new generation of combat flysims will finally come.

If it's a combat flight sim that is going to incur a monthly fee they can stick it up their hoop!
Because if MS 2020 is going down that road, and only people who can afford it can play, they will be loosing people like me who are now retired, limited income, and really have to think about what they do with their money.

Except the Pat Wilson Campaign Generator doesn't always work - I get random crashes to desktop while in-game both with FC and ROF. POOF - whole mission and everything done is gone suddenly. VR isn't a real issue for me - I'm not throwing that kind of money into a game of any sort. I usually end up saving that level of funds for a new, replacement computer about every 10 years or so.

Your point on FS-2020 versus older technology is well-taken. It looks like it may be a real leap to the next generation of fly sims. Cloud-based for-pay models are in a grey area for me. I'd have to see what the terms are and how expensive it would get. A monthly fee is a turn-off for me as a general thing, but maybe it could be done in a reasonable way, have to see how it goes.

For RoF avoid the buggy 3.x.x version stay to the 16.x PWCG because he has build the 3.x.x with BoS in his mind. Read my old post at the RoF forum for the additional info.
For FC the 8.7 was indeed crap but this weekend I have tested the 8.8 for FC and this is rather good. Pity that Jason still refuses to integrate this tool into FC.

About VR, I was always very skeptical, and the old Vive and Rift are indeed rubbish, the new VRgen is real smashing, once trying you never go back a very big immersion factor. But indeed without the decent hardware and VR headset its an no-go.