[shakthamac]

Ok so I've been thinking about something. I've got a number of missions I've built where I fly with or against a bomber stream, some of which contain 60+ bombers. When you enter the stream, obviously your frame rates go to hell. I'm sure this is due to both gunfire and the poly counts of the bombers.

What I'm wondering is this: Could you take the default LOD 1 or 2 model of the B17 and copy it for the LOD 0 model, or just make the planes a lower poly count, with the idea being you could put several more in the air (like a couple hundred) without experiencing frame rate hits?

Or, could you, say, in 3DS Max or whatever, make a bomber combat box of 18 aircraft but export it as a single aircraft? Obviously the animations would be non-existant and the planes might look wonky when they turn.

I envision this as being a bomber stream filler of sorts, so a mission builder could have the effect of having lots of aircraft without the huge FPS hit. The DM model could simply be that whatever "low res bomber" is attacked blows up, but the low res combat box continues along its way. The mission builder could then build a combat box of regular aircraft and have the player focus on attacking that box in the mission parameters.

Thoughts?

[amharic]

Very cool Idea. Though it might have been though of before. It might take a WHOLE lot of work for someone to do. Might have to remodel a bit, (making a new low poly plane) out of scratch. I think that if if easily be done I'd agree fully, only if not I would rather have new slot airplanes instead. Depending on your computer some can handle up to 100 with decent frames. For those bigger raid missions If you just placed alot of bombers, (if your comp can handle it) spread them out in groups of 20 but within a close radius but not too close to save frames you would have the feeling of MANY bombers. Anyway I hope youre Idea is doable.

[VonWaffen]

Better way to save FPS.......Drunk a lot = See double
Drunk to much = See triple
Drunk to death = See a geschwader....lolll :lol:

[ROSOBORONEXPORTCORP]

Its not the detail of the models, its the calculations for the FM's, Physics and AI.

Nice idea though (if it could work).

My recommendation: At least two GB of ram.

[anti-addick]

GPU to crunch the numbers, not ram.

[greybeard307]

Have you considered using the UberDemon mission generator ? there is a utility on it which allows AI aircraft to spawn in waves at set intervals. So you could have flights of 4 at a time spawning at 5 min intervals. During the course of the mission you would only have a manageable number on screen at any one time. You can clone a huge number of flights using this method

[Scharnhorst1943]

I see an oversight.

If you have a huge block of 100 bombers as a single object with FM ... what happens when you shoot a single bomber down? With the way the game engine handles things, all 100 bombers will be shot down when you shoot a single bomber down.

Good idea, but this one is not practicle I don't think because the game cannot have a single object of 100 bombers but have each be singly shot down.

[shakthamac]

I see an oversight.

If you have a huge block of 100 bombers as a single object with FM ... what happens when you shoot a single bomber down? With the way the game engine handles things, all 100 bombers will be shot down when you shoot a single bomber down.

Good idea, but this one is not practicle I don't think because the game cannot have a single object of 100 bombers but have each be singly shot down.

I referenced that previously (or thought I did). If you shot down a single bomber from the stream, then the singular bomber in that stream is destroyed, much like shooting off a wingtip on a current aircraft.

Its not the detail of the models, its the calculations for the FM's, Physics and AI.

Nice idea though (if it could work).

My recommendation: At least two GB of ram.

I'm currently running 2 GB's of RAM, but I also like playing in perfect mode. So what your saying is, if a low res B17 were to be made, the FM would have to be simplified as well as the AI and Physics. Hmm

Maybe another way to think about this could be:

Could you clone an aircraft? If the physics, FM and AI are all the same, could you clone an AI aircraft several times over so that they all did the exact same thing, and the game sees it as one aircraft with a number of instances of itself?

I know when that aircraft got shot down all the clones would disappear. But lets say you made a combat box of 18 planes in the FMB and were able to "clone" that several times over. Each successive combat box would have the same properties as the original, right? So when the original turned, climbed or dove the copies would turn, climb or dive as well.

I know that reading this you guys are like "WTF, why would I want that?" Again, the idea here is bomber stream filler. I wanna see hundreds of planes on my screen and not get FPS loss. How else could this be made to happen?