Don't get me wrong, I'd love to fly a lanc as much as the next bloke. But a truly immersive heavy bomber experience in Il-2 still seems to need a lot of work.
The first steps have indeed been taken. There is now the beginnings of working in-game radar at the early beta stage. Small mods like turning off the navigation lights have been put in place. But this is just the start of the mods that are going to need to be done.
The ground damage model is far too crude. A small bomb still blows up a house, or even a factory. This is a far cry from the sort of small-step cumulative damage it really took to destroy a heavy's ground target. We need a more realistic damage model. We also need incendiaries and other specialized bombs and an appropriate damage model for ground targets.
We need pathfinder flares. And we need fires and flares to be visible at more than the 1000 meters default distance in the current game. How about 8 or 9 times that? And what would that do to FPS?
We need points scoring based on accuracy of bombing. There really is nothing else appropriate for a lanc or a B-17.
For the Germans, we need appropriate ground control vectoring. As well as a fully developed radar system.
We also need a randomized system where sometimes the lanc "spots" the nachtjaeger and evades/ defends and sometimes it doesn't and gets shot down. The current system where the a/c becomes predictably aware of the aggressor at a predetermined point is going to get boring.
I just throw all these ideas out as challenges to the modding community and for any comments or crits that people feel like tossing back.
Great...that should be done in about an hour... and two years.
Yes,...that should be done in about an hour... and two years + of course our so called two weeks....be sure!
Anyway,a BIG BIG first step and improvement would be just to get rid of those RADAR-LASER-GPS gunners.
Hope in the future....
Cheers
Titus
mandrill, some of the things you have mentioned are already possible in a makeshift way.
Indeed, once I finish my current campaign under construction, I'm going to switch my focus to work on a night heavy bomber campaign.
Don't really want to give away my ideas yet though, but i'll say it does include scoring based on accuracy, as well as more simple versions of some other things you mentioned.
In the mean time how about B17 Flying Fortress. That's about as immersive a large bomber sim as there is! Old and somewhat clunky, but given the year it was produced WOW! What a sim! And there's a forum still available with a few occasional new posts! Just google bombs away. It would take about and hour and 2 years to master it! LOL!
A hour and 2 years is a very accurate estinmate really. The game by defualt didn't even have a bomber cockpit. And for the most part we still don't Were just using the B-25. Great I dea I would love it but the truth is even as a team it will be a over whelming job . And by the time it'd 100% done in a asence I would think it's to late
Those arn't terrible ideas, but they would take way too long to create as explained. I can say from years and years of flying the B-25 and then moving onto the heavies when the mods came out that bombing static objects is boring as hell. I mean you climb climb climb drop your shit and go home. I love to bomb in dogfight servers between 25,100 and 35,100 feet railing people on seperate passes. Bombing actual people is 100 times more fun because it's going to piss them off or they will appreciate the effort.
Well, the problem I see is the following:
The bombs don
[quote="Jg3_Hartmann"]Well, the problem I see is the following:
The bombs don
In terms of aiming they're not really all too accurate. I'm a bomber pilot, I fly bombers. Whenever someone is on my tail, I turn stab on, and jump to the back gunner, if you've tried it a few times, ripping up an FW-190 on your tail is NOT hard (tricky part is when they have gunpods).
Heck, I love it when a BF109 jumps on my tail, they light up like matchsticks, and because of the physics (real, not oleg's) aiming is very easy. The fighter may have a good shot on me, but I have just as good a shot on him, and my plane has a LOT more armor :wink: .
On the physics part, you have to realize that both the planes are moving in the direction of the bomber, the gunner just has to aim a little out away from directly behind his plane and it's an easy shot, and he doesn't even have to move his plane to aim, just a small berral pointing out the back. It's almost as easy as point and shoot.
Part of the problem of asking for an immersive experience in simulating bomber missions is what we expect to experience.
There was that Microprose B17 sim that came out way back when. Graphically challenged, but the there was a real sense of drama as you droned across Europe. When the ack-ack stopped near a town, you knew fighters were closing in. I remember feeling genuinely wary about this fast moving pixels and the elation when you actually managed to hit an enemy plane.
It isn't therefore a matter of detail, but rather how the game plays. Eye candy is great but I think too many people focus on how things look rather than how it plays. There are still those who play Red Baron (like me) because the game plays well rather than appeals visually, and so far, no other WW1 sim beats it for feel.
There are little details that might have improved things visually. Nav lights for one, sure. But how about a 'green lamp' from a truck beside the runway to send you on your way? Or the red flare to warn you to go around rather than the ahistoric need to radio ground control. Navigation could be improved, and like B17 used to do, you should be able to readjust your position on the map (and potentially get hopelessly lost - some crews did) and thus arriving at the target by your own efforts rather than relying on autopilot and waypoints (which are modern in concept and simulate GPS, unavailable in WW2)
Then there's an issue with communication on-board. A crewman should alert the pilot when an engine is catching fire. Gunners should mention you're crossing the coastline (the navigator might want to know that!). Lead pilots should issue commands on formation, especially approaching the target. They do some of that already, but it could be improved.
So what makes a sim immersive. Funnily enough, it isn't graphics. Microsoft proved that and still haven't learned the lesson. Its all about drama, uncertainty, an intuitive level of control, and an atmosphere that there are people out there around you, not just you and a squadron of pixels.
i only suffered on each flight from navigators that got lost, otherwise it was perfect. Specialy for the year it was made in the graphics were stunning at that time.