ÆþelrædUnræd

I'd like to add that for those of us who are programmers that do have a good understanding of AI and its challenges, that should be a good DD to read as well 🙂 And yes, it may indeed help to curb the somewhat unrealistic expectations that some people tend to have. As we say in the Netherlands, "de beste stuurlui staan aan wal"; "the best helmsmen stand ashore" meaning that it's easy to criticise things if you're not responsible or even knowledgeable yourself.

Exactly! I just picked up MSFS again, and as my PC isn't powerful enough, I'm forced to use 2D. It feels so... cumbersome just looking around. Even without the added immersion factor, a simple thing such as checking a certain dial requires so much effort.

While I'm sure the AI you describe is excellent and tremendously fun to play against (and I certainly do not want to detract from the obviously great quality Buddeye delivered), there's nothing in the above description that's especially innovative or that cannot be done by pretty much any other AI programmer, given enough time and money. I'm pretty sure the Devs will prefer to develop it in-house with the AI experts they already have, rather than hire an external person with less access to the team to do it for them. We've entered an era where it may just become feasible to use a fast and shallow Neural Net though, which might revolutionise AI. If external people were to be hired, I'd go the Neural route instead of hiring another "traditional" programmer that I'm certain they already have.

Actually, there is a way to do that. You need to have some programming skills though, and I don't think it'll work in multiplayer. If you really need such a thing, I'd be glad to help 🙂 I don't think custom key presses are suitable though; let's say someone has mapped the X to the bailout action and you require the user to press X. The only two possible solutions are that either the user cannot bailout while you're waiting for the keypress, or the user will always bailout whenever he presses X. (Note that IL2 has reserved the Win+0-9 keys for user interaction). Other than that, I agree with most of your points though. And most of them were rubbish. The fact that the IL2 editor requires a certain minimum skill means that only those who are prepared to put some real effort into it will ever publish a campaign, which IMO has positive effects for the average quality. If an easy to use editor for the "uninitiated" can be done alongside (or perhaps merged with) a full editor with all bells and whistles, then all the better. But if a choice has to be made, choosing the easy-to-use editor will have disastrous effects on what can be accomplished by experienced mission creators and hence the quality ceiling of the more popular campaigns. Personally, I much prefer quality over quantity.

It's quite simple really; the AI will take the shortest path, unless it's configured to go off-road in which case it'll drive straight towards the target. 🙂 Well said - although I recently found out that IL2 has a way to write custom scripts, then communicate back to the Mission Logic whatever you did using events. This makes at least some of the things IL2 is lacking possible (e.g. higher/lower). It does require some programming skills however, isn't officially supported and has 0 documentation. If you want I can send you an example 🙂 Anyhow, IF it's possible to combine ease of use with deep functionality, then that's fine too of course, but personally I think two separate editors is the easier option.

I'll be of the dissention opinion here then. Please give us a mission builder with which we can do anything that's possible in the game engine, without limits. In other words, a mission editor that has people's knowledge and preparedness to lean as its limiting factor, rather than ease of use. Popular campaigns like Gambit's Hell Hawks Over the Bulge, the many free ones of Jaegermeister, or even my own Hürtgenwald campaign wouldn't have been possible with a mission editor that doesn't expose the many options that exist in IL2. Versatility and ease of use for the uninitiated public are two aspects that are generally very hard or even downright impossible to combine, so if a choice needs to be made, please choose for versatility rather than ease of use as it will tremendously increase the quality of user-made missions and campaigns (rather than the quantity, which an easier mission editor tends to do). Of course, if it's possible to make a small, easy to use in-game mission editor like the one in IL2 1946, that's perfect too, as long as there is at least the possibility to use a "complete" mission editor.

Oops. With all those New Something thingies on the wrong side of the globe, it can get a bit confusing sometimes which is which 😉 I meant New Guinea obviously.

Hi there! I'm seeing some familiar faces from the IL2 forums 🙂 You may know me as AEthelraedUnraed there, which is basically the same thing spelled out in Roman letters. It amazed me that the IL2 site didn't support the æ and þ characters since they're included in the most common ASCII256 character set around... Anyhow, I can write my name the proper way here 😛 Oh, and I'm glad to have my old avatar again 😄 When I changed it in the wake of the February 2022 "happenings" (is it still forbidden to discuss anything of the sort here?), I didn't expect to be stuck with my new one for 1.5 years. Anyhow, looking forward to see what Jason and his new team will do. Like many, I think the Pacific War is a very interesting piece of history. Even though I'm not quite sure what to think of the chosen battle - flying hours on end over a monotonous sea doesn't sound very exciting to me; now ground-attacking Japanese positions on Guadalcanal, New Guinea or the Marianas is an entirely different thing! Only time will tell where this whole thing will get us though... I wish the team all the luck!