DD today?

[Amiral Crapaud]

7 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

This means @Jason_Williams has to provide a true flight simulator, not a limited, static and flat playpen.

Providing a successor to 1946's own rendering of the PTO would be enough for me not to call it a limited, static & flat playpen 😉

On the other hand guys, you gotta acknowledge that the PTO, for all its charms, is a very different diversified environment where unique challenges have to be tackled, from a design perspective, for each & every battle you'll be covering. Anything involving carriers is requiring advanced mechanics as long as you're doing something else than just starting from the flight deck, and all of it for the sake of a 2 or 3-days battle (which means a long-term ROE in regard of the sweat expended, until you do end up with many more scenarios/environments to play with as far as carriers are concerned).

That's a challenge in itself - but then, you have the wildness of the PNG for instance, with the issue of ground elevation, to be injected in a game that will only have known flat waters until then (remember when in PAW in some instances your TBDs would end into a mountain in the Owen Stanley range following quick travel to Lae? Or vanilla Il-2's hardships when it came to the AI managing anything higher than a mere hill?).

Then you have, over the Solomons & PNG too, new headaches of your own, when indeed - as mentioned earlier - you have to manage two crowds, the one made of those who want to get into action with little wait, vs the ones who enjoy the idea of flying 5 hours from Rabaul to Lunga/PM to Rabaul (a hard pass on MP obviously too). Cohabitation of all gameplay modes, immersive features & even basic expectations within the same product & larger gameplay loop is quite a requirement - and not an easy one at that.

Lot of issues that can be solved with innovative thinking - but we can't pretend that the PTO is a theater like any other over there in Europe. It really is a cruel, sadist place to extract its gameplay from. Successful designs will require new thinking. But the road there is most exciting still, that at least is quite a given! 😉

And in that regard, I believe they have the right kind of crew to face these intimidating waves ahead.🙏

Cheers

Edited May 22, 2023 by Amiral Crapaud

[Feldgrün]

9 hours ago, Trooper117 said:

Did you read the interview with Jason?

 

Will there be regular Developer Diaries posted for Combat Pilot?

Absolutely! Oh how I miss doing DDs! They were my favorite part of my old job. We will post them on our forum as often as we can, but they will be slow at first while we get our sea legs and build up. Please don’t hold me to every week in the beginning!

Yes, but I'm asking if "every week" is the eventual and realistic goal.

[ZachariasX]

8 hours ago, HerrMurf said:

I think this belongs in MSFS but is not a realistic expectation of the typical CFS participant. This level of navigation is very niche and would likely commit development resources, at least in the initial run up, which could drive away more sim pilots than it might attract.

Well, what is the expectation then if you ask for a specific theater, but when it looks like that theater, it's no good anymore?

Besides, if you have the planes, you can always spawn them next to each other if shooting 'em up is all you care for. But that is like a Brit coming to blows with a Frenchie over a spilled beer in a bar, and we think of it as reenacting Waterloo.

I understand that there is a notion that a "combat fligh sim" somehow doesn't need to meet even remotely bare minimum standards of what is a flight simulator, as long as there is plenty of dakkadakka and we can count the rivets on a plane. This is probably due to historic reasons. Back then like when three people in the basement of their parents house coded a sim that fit on a floppy (we're old enough to remember such times), they had to set priorities. Same were set when Rise of Flight was created. ressources were put in aircraft and dakkadakka, but flight simulators spent their efforts on a believeable world, hence the two games forked and evolution turned them into two different games, FS and CFS, even though they shouldn't be.

Today, I'd say such an approach is just not ok anymore. At least in my world, a "combat flight sim" ADDS functionality and scope to a "flight simulator" and does not take away neither functionality nor scope. I would however agree that there is a fundamental requirement for making the game open to various modes of gameplay. And the MSFS way of gameplay made monumental sales. Record breaking sales for MS. If I were to sell anything, I'd be careful before crossing that of the list, given the clientele who is just here to shoot up things and does not go WT are probably just a rounding error to the sales numbers of a simple "flight simulator".

[Robli]

If and when there are multi crew bombers, then AI navigator would make sense indeed. I would also expect them to model Hayrake navigation. What did the Japanese use to direct their planes back to their carriers?

[Lusekofte]

I for One would hope this culminate to something more than a dogfight sim. 
obviously that is what we get in the start. 
I can’t really see my vision of a good PTO flight sim culminate next two years. But I sure support any who attempts it

[dburne]

2 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

I for One would hope this culminate to something more than a dogfight sim. 
 

Pretty sure Jason has already addressed that in recent discussions. Torpedos and Bombs were mentioned initially and they aren't exactly for dogfights.

[CG_Justin]

Here we go!

[Lusekofte]

13 hours ago, dburne said:

Pretty sure Jason has already addressed that in recent discussions. Torpedos and Bombs were mentioned initially and they aren't exactly for dogfights.

Potentially Gb also was not dogfight focused. 

[Trooper117]

There's bound to be dogfight interest and servers... it comes with the territory in any combat flight sim.

As a SP flyer I wouldn't be interested in that side of things, but even when I was playing MP a lot with the old IL2, I never ever wanted to visit one... my focus was co-ops and the big online wars, working as a team player to complete objectives and hopefully survive the missions.

If I get back into MP again with this new step into the Pacific, my focus would not include dogfight servers.

[Skelthos]

1 minute ago, Trooper117 said:

As a SP flyer I wouldn't be interested in that side of things, but even when I was playing MP a lot with the old IL2, I never ever wanted to visit one... my focus was co-ops and the big online wars, working as a team player to complete objectives and hopefully survive the missions.

This is exactly right, no interest in the big PVP dogfights, personal preference is more realistic missions and co-op for multiplayer. 

[dburne]

5 minutes ago, Trooper117 said:

There's bound to be dogfight interest and servers... it comes with the territory in any combat flight sim.

As a SP flyer I wouldn't be interested in that side of things, but even when I was playing MP a lot with the old IL2, I never ever wanted to visit one... my focus was co-ops and the big online wars, working as a team player to complete objectives and hopefully survive the missions.

If I get back into MP again with this new step into the Pacific, my focus would not include dogfight servers.

 

Yeah if I should ever decide to get into the MP aspect that would be the only way I would do it. Co-Op missions and campaigns.

[GPatricks]

Or, if the AI was done well I would be happy online with co-op PvE events.... 

[Calos_01]

Well, It´s Friday.....can you feel it? It must be coming 😁 

[Jason_Williams]

Guys,

No DD this week. We’re still a little ways away from doing any DDs. I ask you guys to meditate, pray and exercise patience. Long road ahead, but we’re in the road. But very happy you guys are excited. This week was more about establishing the community and recruiting team members. Definitely caused a disturbance in the force which has been fun to see. Enjoy your weekend!!

🫡
 

Jason

[MITB2N]

See you all in two weeks then😀

Edited May 26, 2023 by MITB2N

[Calos_01]

55 minutes ago, Jason_Williams said:

Guys,

No DD this week. We’re still a little ways away from doing any DDs. I ask you guys to meditate, pray and exercise patience. Long road ahead, but we’re in the road. But very happy you guys are excited. This week was more about establishing the community and recruiting team members. Definitely caused a disturbance in the force which has been fun to see. Enjoy your weekend!!

🫡
 

Jason

One would say this thread is the perfect place for meditation, prayer or developing zen isn´t it. Thank you and enjoy the weekend as well.🙂

[HBB_Hunger]

1 hour ago, Jason_Williams said:

Guys,

No DD this week. We’re still a little ways away from doing any DDs. I ask you guys to meditate, pray and exercise patience. Long road ahead, but we’re in the road. But very happy you guys are excited. This week was more about establishing the community and recruiting team members. Definitely caused a disturbance in the force which has been fun to see. Enjoy your weekend!!

🫡
 

Jason

Thanks for the DD! 🥰

[Ohka]

1 hour ago, Jason_Williams said:

Guys,

No DD this week. We’re still a little ways away from doing any DDs. I ask you guys to meditate, pray and exercise patience. Long road ahead, but we’re in the road. But very happy you guys are excited. This week was more about establishing the community and recruiting team members. Definitely caused a disturbance in the force which has been fun to see. Enjoy your weekend!!

🫡
 

Jason

No rush! Just glad this is in the works. Enjoy the holiday weekend.

[Trooper117]

1 hour ago, Jason_Williams said:

I ask you guys to meditate, pray and exercise patience.

[JediMaster]

Sure, they could've waited to announce all this until they had the first DD ready to go, but I don't think that was necessary.

Planning a marketing campaign before you have a finished product is no easy feat and I'm glad it's not my responsibility.

It's been almost 20 years since PF, we can wait for the successor now that at least we have confirmation one is being developed.

Now if this all comes to naught and nothing is ever released, then I will grant it was too soon. For now, though, they need time and luck...and of course whatever funding they can scrape up!

[LuftManu]

DD or no DD, this is the thread for it! 😄

[ItsBillyFrazier]

Funny how this thread is on its third page already... and so far we have nothing but hopes and dreams to play with. 

Looking forward to the first actual DD...stay busy Jason! 🍻

 

 

 

[DBFlyguy]

I think most folks over from the GB forums are just happy to see some positive energy and some fun.  It's a nice change of pace.  DD's will eventually come.

[Jason_Williams]

1 hour ago, JediMaster said:

Sure, they could've waited to announce all this until they had the first DD ready to go, but I don't think that was necessary.

Planning a marketing campaign before you have a finished product is no easy feat and I'm glad it's not my responsibility.

It's been almost 20 years since PF, we can wait for the successor now that at least we have confirmation one is being developed.

Now if this all comes to naught and nothing is ever released, then I will grant it was too soon. For now, though, they need time and luck...and of course whatever funding they can scrape up!

We should have been able to launch this in January, but a bunch of goofy crap happened that delayed us. We could have been 5-6 months further along. All I wanted to do here was create a community and plant our flag. The response has been even greater than I planned. Shows how much I know. LOL We haven’t even made an ‘official’ announcement yet. This is still and informal soft launch that’s caused a ripple in the CFS space-time continuum. But was necessary to shake some trees and see if some coconuts fall out. If we fail, no harm to anyone as we’ve not asked anyone for any money yet. Only person hurt will be me. But that already happened last year by the Russians so nothing to loose now. If I didn’t love this genre so much I would have not bothered. 
 

A lot of good people have reached out to us to help or work for us since our coming out. Like I said if we hit our technical marks over the next year money isn’t going to be a problem. We have good partners and the team so far is galvanized to do the hard work. Creating something from nothing is not easy and takes time. We just ask for patience for the time being.  
 

I’ve tried to be very clear that this is a difficult task going up against teams that have decades+ head start, but what the hell let’s try. Pressure be damned. 
 

Jason

[Boomerang]

Awesome! 🙂