I think many of the accusations flying in this thread are due to misunderstandings...... 110G has a far better command of English than I do of German, but there are still mistakes and it is easy to read things into a statement when we are not face-to-face with someone.
I understand what 110G was getting at when he replied about the smaller scale maps.....we DO have far fewer types of allied tanks than German ones....if you do not count the Russian ones the British and US have about 3 or 4 (and we DO have the Crusader...110G)
With FC's shippack there are destroyers for the RN and KM......
I had to laugh when in my mission on the Channel map my Bf109's landing at Calais were being shelled, quite accurately, by ships in Dover harbour :wink:
Even at 1:1 scale we can only approximate things....especially the scale and population of towns and cities
sorry....my mistake.....I was thinking of the valentine.... :oops:
Ok can i just say something here
RAF_Magpie has worked really hard and if he would make another thing for this game i don't think he'll even be on anymore
now im not saying its just magpie but everyone who works to make this game better
i am myself making a 1:1 Hawaii map well i was and its really hard i was just finished Oahu when my PC crashed
As trooper said you cant say anything until you contribute now you work as hard as some of these people here and come back when you have.
Well 110G, thanks for posting that mission. I wasn't able to download it from Filefront but I appreciate the intention. I didn't know you had worked on the DCG thing so my hat is off to you there. You should upload it and share it with other players so that your work is enjoyed by others.
Regards,
FlatSpinMan
@vampire_pilot - nahh, not likely I'm afraid. I am working on a campaign for the slot map though and also an anti-bomber campaign. That last one will take a long time.
What this comes down to in my opinion is whether or not people want to play a game that is intended to be a sim or if they simply just want to play a game.
There is no such geological event that could have caused or will ever cause the surface of the Earth to shrink down in size so therefore a map created for IL2 which is not made to 1:1 scale can not possibly be modeled after the real world as it was or ever will be. Such an out of scale map made for IL2 can only be considered a fantasy gaming map and this point is a fact and not an opinion.
I have found that the vast majority of IL2 players have little concern for realism. The proof of this can be seen by going on the hyper lobby and finding that the servers with the most unrealistic settings always seem to be the most populated with players.
I must also point out that on a 1/2 scale map for example there is no way for one to determine if the map maker is trying to say the surface of the Earth could have somehow shrunk or if he is instead saying that all of the aircraft have been modded to have an increased ground speed and maximum range. In either case the game would not be a sim.
It comes as no surprise particularly on a site that uses the word "arcade" in their name that when someone comes on the forum and wants to find support for realism in the game from other players that they will instead be disrespected and or called names by people that reply to their post.
The argument that reduced scale maps reduce flying time from one area to another on a map is not valid in the context of playing a sim since a map that is not made 1:1 scale quite simply is not a map that was modeled after a real place in the world. The surface of the Earth never seems to shrink in scale and if it had done so in the past it certainly would have been consider worthy to notate in a historical accounts.
The argument that 1:1 scale maps take too long to load is only valid if the mapmaker tries to encompass too large an area for the amount of things that will be included into the map.
The argument that campaign style games are more playable on a reduced scale map cam only be valid if the goal is to play a fantasy game and not a sim, and even then the game will only be more playable under certain conditions.
The argument that reduced scale maps make the game more playable can be quite valid if the goal is to play a fantasy or Arcade like game. I suggest that people take a look at the name of this website.
The idea of shrinking down the surface of the Earth in order to reduce flying time or to allow a map to load up in less time would never even be considered a valid option in a Civilian flight simulator, and that is because the makers of these types of software would know that if they were to do so no one would take their software seriously as a tool to help people learn about aviation.
I must also point out that if one were to create a 1:1 scale map for use in this game assuming it had a reasonably loading time the majority of players would choose not to use it since there are very few players of IL2 who seem to want to play the game as a sim.
In my opinion if given a choice between four different maps for a region of the world assuming they all had the same loading time, for example one, 1/4, 1/2 ,3/4, and full scales the vast majority of players would opt for the 1/4 scale.
I have already heard people in certain squads refer to the people who use 3/4 scale maps as being "retarded" for not opting to use the 1/4 scale maps instead. Therefore because of this it seems to me that the idea of introducing out of scale maps has certainly resulted in animosity between the players as apposed to making things better.
The solution to all of this in my opinion is to simply play a different game entirely where it is not possible for anyone to reduce the scale of the virtual surface of the Earth in the game.
"The argument that 1:1 scale maps take too long to load is only valid if the mapmaker tries to encompass too large an area for the amount of things that will be included into the map."
LOL
I'm sure thar everybody wants maps to be 1:1 and as real as possible.
The truth is that it is virtually impossible to make tactical scale maps, so that they are flyable and look good at the same time. They look boring. No houses at coutryside, few villages and towns that propably look all the same due cloning tool. big cities sucks big time because of FPS drop.
But there is nobody stopping you. The tools are there. Community will help. You just need to ask!
And someday we will fly over whole Europe 1:1. I just wonder what Oleg says, when he sees that...
The argument that 1:1 scale maps take too long to load is only valid if the mapmaker tries to encompass too large an area for the amount of things that will be included into the map
That actually made me laugh. If realism is your main concern, then you are really contradicting yourself with this statement. Accurate 1:1 maps have to be limited in size and/or object density in order not to cause any slowdowns, and reducing the size so you can afford to populate the map more densely isn't really the best way to go. What's the point in a 1:1 scale map of just London or Berlin or the Ruhr ? You'd have to spawn US/RAF aircraft in the air, would be limited in the flyable area, and could probably no use Zoom looking down for fear you'd fry your GPU.
Whatever theatre you're most interested in, planes flew hundreds of miles from base to target, and the most intense battles took place in heavily urbanised areas. This means that for a map to be both realistic and interesting to fly in, it'd have to be enormous and very heavily populated.
It's all about making compromises. You can either have full scale, lightly populated maps or smaller, more heavily populated ones. And even when lightly populated, some 1:1 maps remain very hard on some systems and have to be so limited in size they don't allow for perfect representation of key battles. The Central_Med map by Maraz is a good example of this. Objects count has been kept low (to the strict minimm) but the map still takes some time to load, and very important places have been left out. Central Sicily or a bigger chunk of Tunisia would have been great to have, because planes operating above these areas were often based on Malta, but that would have required a much too barren map which would have just looked no good. ( Note that despite this very little 'flaw', I am completely in love with this Map and her Malta sister. )
Let's consider extreme cases :
Even the Slot, which covers an area that is mostly water and jungle, takes ages to load and causes serious slowdowns on some machines. Just imagine the same area in Europe. Unfeasable unless your towns are only just textures with no objects, no trees, just bare ground. Even then, the ground would have to use all the available texture slots in the load.ini, which the Slot doesn't, and will have to use a much more complex layout than the Slot to look good (plus if you want your flat textures to look good a lower altitudes, you'll have to make them HiRes, making it only worse...) which would result in worse performance, even if devoid of objects.
Cheers
Nico
