Operation Flashpoint/Armed Assault info

[GGTharos]

:icon_roll

 

Oh give me a break. I compare games, you go off to tell me you know the difference between doing it for real and playing a game. Congratulations on having average common sense.

 

The point is, insofar as simulation goes, OFP is far more appropriate than joint ops will -ever- be, and it beats BF2 in that area as well. If you want a good simulation on teh ground, insofar as soldiers go, OFP is -it-.

 

Tanks - steel beasts.

 

I mean, if it's 'all the same' we may as well be playing JF4 eh?

 

You're not here because it's 'all the same'. ;)

[pappavis]

:icon_roll

The point is, insofar as simulation goes, OFP is far more appropriate than joint ops will -ever- be, and it beats BF2 in that area as well. If you want a good simulation on teh ground, insofar as soldiers go, OFP is -it-.

 

I have bought countless of FPS shooters, the msot recent addition in my collection is Battlefield2. Graphically it excels, however its not ANYWHERE nowhere close to Operation Flashpoint. Yea, sure, OFP is alread dating from >2001, with current updates.. but even so, all other games does not have the imerssion which OFP have.

Neither OFP nor lo-mac is the real $30k deal, though but close enough for us armchair soldiers, ex combatants and would-be real life pilots ;).

If somehow OFP and lo-mac could merge then one would end up with one heck of a simulation. As someone has pointed out previously, it would probably take another 10 years before any game engine is advanced enough to merge OFP and Lo-mac. Meanwhile we will have to wait..

 

Some other idea was to use a network to share game files etc. but then one cant jump into cokpit etc etc. Probably the most feasible multiplayer solution is if for example, OFP could do the task of groundwar while lo-mac takes care of airwar. Two game engines could communicate to share a incredible air-ground experience.

[Weta43]

GG - True.

There's games then there's games.

I justy thought it was about to decend into one of those (F4 vs LOMAC) "you call that a SIM ? that isn't a SIM - THIS is a SIM! - THAT is a GIRLS game " things.

[Ice]

Call me stupid (now is your chance) But what has this got to do with Lock-On or Flaming Cliffs?

 

If I owned these forums and people started debating the ins and outs of OFP BF2 HL2 and so on. I'd be politely saying "Take it to SIMHQ". Ok maybe not politely (But thats just me). This forum is here to discuss LO-MAC Flaming CLiffs specifically and just right now distractions like this are not healthy IMHO.

 

Use it Dont Abuse it

[-GI- Xfire]

this thread discusses the possibility of put some games together into one big game (also lomac).

so where`s the problem ?

[ALDEGA]

Did you just call Joint Ops a sim?

 

OFP/OFP2. There is -no- substitute.

Did you just call OFP a sim?

 

It's a great game, not a sim. At best it's "the least arcade of all such games" ;)

[GGTharos]

Well, we could go down that path and I'd call all games games and consider only computational physics/chem/whatevr apps as sims, but what fun would that be? ;)

[JaBoG32_Prinzartus]

Did you just call OFP a sim?

 

It's a great game, not a sim. At best it's "the least arcade of all such games" ;)

 

OFP is rather an infantery simulation than an arcade game. Though "drive all vehicles you'll find" with ease gives it some arcade aspect.

 

But I'd also call it rater a sim. If you look at the gameplay it is definetly no (Ego)-Shooter. My 2 cents.

 

I absoultutely enjoed ofp SP and COOP MP in LAN. It has absolute great gameplay. And I am really looking forward to OFP 2, though it might again take a year after release until it is bug free. (Was the so with OFP 1)

Until then : :icon_jook

[Doug97]

Falcon 4.0: Allied Force is first in what is called the 'Battlefield Operations' series, which, rumour has it, will achieve this precise goal.

 

It was Gunship! not Gunship 2000 that was going to integrate with the sequel to M1 Tank Platoon 2, but the developers went bust. A shame, M1 Tanks Platoon 2 was a great game (Gunship! wasn't, though; it sucked).

[Trident]

And Flanker2 was supposed to be part of the 'Digital Combat Series'. Somehow I remain sceptical if a true digital battlefield with integration between air-, land- and seaforces is possible in the near future. Look at the development of Falcon4 and LOMAC, both had their share of problems without even attempting such a thing. Modern flightsims are so complex that one development team alone cannot possibly branch out to include tactical FPS elements without sacrificing elsewhere.

 

The only way I can see this happen is through cooperation among several development studios and with A LOT of funding to back them up. The new title would have to be started from scratch afterall, it is very unlikely that existing code could readily be made to interface with a different completely unrelated game.

[SUBS17]

Not really, lockon is a sure sign that such an approach isn't entirely necessary. With the Ka50 lockon will cross over into helicopter sims which is a start. Currently with lockons engine the graphics are good enough to also cross over into ships and possibly tanks. As for FPS its quite difficult to go in that direction but it is possible. My theory is Jets/helicopters then ships followed by tanks and then FPS.

[Ice]

Having been shown the light I will read this thread with a different view.

 

to quote:

"descussing about intergrating various sims into one scene, so it's not a completely offtopic"

 

some ED's participate in this thread, so it's interesting for them

 

I'll sit quietly in the corner :icon_jook

[Ice]

Well maybe not so quietly..

 

To make a Multi Role Simulation Theatre there's I guess 3 divisions.

 

Air: The Lo-MAc we know and love now with limited visuals on the ground.

 

Air and Ground: The middle ground: Choppers and small aircraft

 

Ground: Ground vehicles, Ships and the Infantryman.

 

Now lets look at each part in a bit more detail.

 

Air: Requires long distance views and plotting information of certain objects like other aircraft, larger moving vehicles such as ships and vehicles Already done effectively. But next to no information about a soldier on the ground.

 

Air and Ground: Choppers dont need as much of a distance view as the "Air" objects do but more importantly high detail on the Ground. So a mix of Air and ground information would be required.

 

Ground: Requires very high detail up close of other infantry, vehicles and anything within say a 500mtr radius.

 

So if a theatre was made that was common for all 3 areas it seems to my mind quite possible to only supply the required information to each and integrate them effectively.

 

For instance the Grunt on the ground doesnt need to know about a high flying jet's radar or flight physics or if it is firing a missile etc. Just its location in a 10,000 meter radius. Maybe seeing a contrail at high altitude or a dot maybe a bit of a sound effect until it comes to say 1000 meters where a profile might be seen. And then more information requested by that client's pc.

 

At the other end of the scale the high flying jet doesnt need to know about a dumb grunt until hes in stinger range, say 2000 meters and even then all he would possibly see is a very basic human like we do already. The fighter pilot doesnt need to see animated movements and so on.

 

So..

 

The way this would be done effectively is to set up protocols for the 3 areas. Each division is developed independently and sold seperately. The Map or theatre for the first person guy who could run around or jump into a truck, tank and so on would buy his game and log onto a common server which the chopper guy or the flight sim guy would also log onto with their own software and terrain maps.

 

This means you wont have the nicety of being able to jump out of a tank and jump into a jet or a chopper but you will still have a "Study" sims for each.

 

For this to work effectively the Server software would have to be completely independent of all 3 and definitley just be a dedicated interface that passes plotting information.

 

In fact there might be 4 servers for 1 theatre. A server for the Air, a server for the Air / Ground and server for ground. These 3 servers are what communicate to the master server. So in effect it would be a 2 tier system.

[GGTharos]

You got it right for the most part Ice, you're missing a few things, but that's the general idea.

[SUBS17]

The ships may well require more detail with the sea state and weather but sharing the aircraft object detail common to all of the above. They would also require sonar modelling as well as any anti sub aircraft such as helicopters, MAY and Orion.

[Weta43]

That's what I was saying earlier on - there's plenty in the LO/FC map as it is, you just (well not quite JUST - but you know what I mean ) need a couple of extra LOD on the map for the choppers & mechanised infantry etc. Grunts on foot need a much higher LOD for their models (internal floors for buildings ?), but only inside a very limited range.

I Guess ED would use the same map & LOD models they use now & for the chopper SIM, allow another party to use these plus their own higher ground LOD for the mechanised, infantry, naval etc.

 

I don't think technically it's impossible - or even very hard ( just a lot of work).

 

The tricky bit would be getting 3 companies to agree on things like the range & PK for a SAM, or the likelyhood of a tank downing a plane with a machine gun, how many hits from a SU25 cannon does it take to blow up the M1A1 that the guys in the ground game are playing in?

Is the (say) American company developing the tank interface going to want the range on the weapons of the A10 tweaked out & SU25/25T down to favour their home market. Will they want to increasing the resistance of pilots to G forces to allow F15 pilots to do sustained 8.5G turns so that their buyers can be assured of air superiority both on & of line ?

That's where the tricky bit would be - look at how many pages of arguments there are about the relative strengths of weapons / avionics etc in this forum already with only (essentialy) an air war going on.

If that can be agreed upon the ED realy only has to make the engine & map available to another party & let them develop their own interfaces & models etc.

When I say engine I don't mean the graphics or detailed physics engine - I mean that part of the program which calculates positions, weapon trajectories & FM's, AI behaviour etc.)

If that part were the same across the platforms (Not to the detail of the advanced FM's for the SIM players, but in so far as the planes in all the games have the same physical limitations - like the AI SU25 conforms to the same envelope as the player plane, but I don't suppose the game actually calculates all the parameters of the SFM for them, & all the T80 guns fire the same distance.) then any server for any of the games would be able to have people from any of the games log on & play without the palyers getting any nasty & off-putting surprises.

It would also allow missions & campaigns developed in one game to be played across the various games.

[SUBS17]

It wouldn't be 3 companies in one but one company with 3 divisions. eg after the F-16 get a couple of guys to make two ship addons while the 2nd aircraft Su30 is getting made. Would be one way, maybe with the exception of the FPS as they require alot more work to develop. That would be something that would require a separate company.

[Prophet_169th]

This would be a wonderful development for the sim world.

 

Each condition air/ground/sea would just need a different client environment.

 

Would be nice to have a pretty well player occupied war.

 

Infantry/armor/air. I would probably end up getting divorced.........

[GGTharos]

There's a lot more needed than just different LODs.

 

Different TERRAIN detail is needed to begin with.

 

This is quite a big stumbling block, and the whole thing would pretty much have to come on DvD ebcause of the sheer size.

 

In addition the network code would be a nightmare ... it would have to be -very- well designed as the wepaons would have different effects in each 'world' in some sense, so you would need to transfer weapon impacts to all the approrpiate clients or servers (well, let's say servers) to handle.

 

Eg. the air client/server shoudl not be handling bomb damage when an infantry server is connected to it: The infantry server should have the bomb impacts handed off to it, then delegate to the appropaite clients and send back results.

 

 

It's pretty complicated and not anywhere nearly as easy as you guys seem to think it is.

[Prophet_169th]

That would be interesting, have a different server for each different sim client. But allow the seperate servers to "network" their world.

 

Almost gets me interested in programming.

[GGTharos]

You'd pretty much be required to do it that way. This would 'bubble' things very nicely for network traffic. A single server couldn't really handle all of this properly IMHO, not to mention that it would be nearly impossible to run all three (or single one handling all three clients) and have a reasonable amount of people online at the same time over the same link, so you're also stuck with using one extremely high speed link, or three slower ones.

 

That is probably a fairly signifficant barrier to this as well.

[Ice]

Barriers are made to be broken. Nothing is impossible and everyday new developments are made in the virtual world. What we are discussing may not be possible this week but theorising on how it could be done in the future is healthy and gives programmers the ability to become creative.

 

It could even be developed like Councils are (Meaning a council is a server)

having local councils (local servers on the lower teir) and federal governement (Upper teir servers). Breaking up a theatre into provinces. So if Human player wanted to travel to a different province on the ground he would go through a checkpoint and therby switching servers. It will obviously be the case that the detail for a ground war on the scale of a jet fighter theatre will require many more servers. This could be one way of dividing them up.

[GGTharos]

Yes. The bandwidth barrier can and will be broken when everyone has gigabit ethernet. That'll be a long, long while.

[Ice]

The challenge GG is to be able to do this without everyone having gigabit ethernet. Hence multi tiered servers. Only the servers would need the high bandwidth uploads. Clients talking to servers, Servers talking to servers. Clients only get given required information in their bubble. Council servers ony get given information in their bubble Federal servers only talk to council servers. I think it could work alot sooner than you think ;)

 

There's an old saying i repeat quite often because its so true.

 

"If you think you can you will. If you think you can't you wont"

[Ice]

The ground detail.. hmm maybe not so difficult. Lets say Eagle Dynamics developed the flanker series and used it as the Base that all this was developed. How many first person shooters are there. More to the point how big is the first person shooter market? Its huge, i mean really huge there must be millions of people playing and buying BF2 and other such games. So, if ED said "Ok we will develop one province ourselves and us it as the catalyst for all other provinces and release the "editor" to develop it free to all other software developers who design first person games. Or issue licences, whatever then all of a sudden you potentially have 1000's of people developing the ground terrain. Things like Nasa Worldwind provide the ability to look in detail at real locations. The potential to market a product like this could be very good.