Shockwave's "Battle Of Britain II"

[Squirral]

Hello Everyone,

I've ordered a copy of Shockwave's "Battle Of Britain II" yesterday from Target. I got a $50.00 gift card from my grandma for use at a Target store or online. After a few days of looking through the website I decided to get BoB II. However,I am starting to second guess my decision. I haven't really heard much about it so I have no idea if I made the right choice. I played the original BoB demo months back & thought it was pretty cool. Even though I felt it was an arcadish flight sim. So I guess I am asking you fellas that have it if I should cancel my order or not. My order hasn't shipped yet so I still can cancel it if I'd like to. But I thought I would get your guy's opinion on the game. They have the estimate of delivery between Jan. 19th & Jan. 23rd. If any of you could enlighten me about the game I would greatly appreciate it. But I just want to make sure I am making the right decision. There is a few other games that I have in mind to take its place. So please give me your opinions & critique's on the game if you own it. Thank you very much in advance. =S=

[Hunhunter]

This is on my 'to get' list too. There is a seperate forum here for BoB2 and Osram, the developer of BoB2 posts there quite often. If you have any questions you can try asking him. Nothing like speaking to the top man eh?

[Osram]

Thanks HunHunter .

I played the original BoB demo months back & thought it was pretty cool.

Good, it is similar, but improved from that.

Even though I felt it was an arcadish flight sim. So I guess I am asking you fellas that have it if I should cancel my order or not.

BoB2 is definitely not arcade, if people criticise the FM it is normally to say it is too hard and not too simple. Also there are details like simulating the amount of fuel in the fuel pipes, simulating the weather day by day as it was, a complex strategy game etc. You can spend ages with BoB tweaking stuff, learning stuff (say the campaign) learning about RL BoB stuff, learning to land, mod it etc.

As this is a skinner's forum:
The Skinner's Pack (aka SDK) is in final closed alpha testing and will go to public beta soon. You can do the stuff you can do in other sims like grab a texture and repaaint it, use compressed formats, test in game etc. Additional there are some nice things like change skin during runtime (test without clising the game). And IMHO the ?ber-feature: It allows shaders. Shaders on objects are the norma for AAA productions for a few years now, for example CryTek boasts every pixel to go through at least one pixel shader. Shaders are like a complex but VERY flexible extension of the concept of a "skin" aka "texture".

Here are a few cons and pros from my point of view (lead developer, so I may be baised, but I try to be objective)

- No MultiPlayer
- Still some stability issues
- Modding community not yet as big as some others.

+- planned as very moddable, but some things like 3D modding or FM modding are still a bit off / have not taken off yet.
+- ******** sim, will give back on time invested
+- Terrain gfx are very realistic but not high quality
+- Some people report low fps. Other even on lesser computers have good fps. The gameplay at the same fps is more smooth than some other sims.
+- "mixed" hardware requirements; Say a 32Mb gfx card or an integrated Intel chipset on a laptop will not work AT ALL. OTOH if you have 512 MB main ram and the rest of the computer is good, BoB2 will be very happy, while other sims want more.

+ Maybe most immersive WWII sim
+ Skinner's Pack
+ High realism, for example the terrain depicts 1940 and not (as can easily be done from satellite pictures) todays landscape.
+ BoB 1 is open source, IOW you can get the source code to the exe. This is not possible for any other commercial sim, including for example CFS.
+ Good sound.
+ The engine allows comparatively (to some but not all other sims) high poly count objects like planes.

[Squirral]

Hello Osram,

Thank you very much for your input. I guess it can't get any better than hearing it from the man himself.

Maybe I only thought it was arcadish because I played the demo. I obvisiously didn't get the whole feeling of the game. If memory serves me correct I never got the chance to take-off or land in the demo of the original. So maybe I will be pleasently surprised with the 2nd version of BoB. By the sounds of it there is alot to learn & enjoy. I'm personally not into modding because of my expierences with the CFS series of flight sims. Don't get me wrong here,there were some good things that I enjoyed in the CFS series. I mainly stay away from modding except for the skinning aspect. I will be looking forward to that portion of the flight sim when I receive my copy.

I do have some questions regarding the sim however. So here goes.

1.) Are the cockpits historically accurate as possible?
2.) Is the FM similar to what we have in the IL-2 series?
3.) Have the engine & gun sounds more realistic than the IL-2 series? (one thing I hate about the series)
4.) Have you considered a skin viewer so skinners won't have to go into the sim to test them? (that would be awesome)
5.) Could you give me your thoughts on how BoBII will run on my system?

Wondows XP Home (5.1,Build 2600)
Asus A7N8X-X Motherboard
AMD Athlon "Bartan" 2500+ (O/C'ed to 2.2Ghz)
2x512MB Corsair Value Select
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB/256Bit (5.12 Catalysts w/CCC)
Sound Blaster Audigy ZS Gamer Limited Edition (5.12.0001.0442,English)

Thank you very much for your feedback. I greatly appreciate it. If you have any other comments,please feel free to elaborate. =S=

[Osram]

Hi Squirral

1.) Are the cockpits historically accurate as possible?

Yes. You even have to manually pump the fuel
Seriously: You can do the engine startup procedure with magentoes etc including the right amount of strokes with the primer pump.

2.) Is the FM similar to what we have in the IL-2 series?

Yes, but there are also differences. For example landing is harder. I have a lot of (admittedly mainly circumstancial) evidence why this is more realistic in BoB2, however some people will disagree (mainly with the argument "it can't be that hard").

3.) Have the engine & gun sounds more realistic than the IL-2 series? (one thing I hate about the series)

Most say yes.

4.) Have you considered a skin viewer so skinners won't have to go into the sim to test them? (that would be awesome)

Yes, I have considered it and think my solution is a bit better. The only advantage of a "skin on object" viewer I see is if turnaround would be faster. But I prefer to optimise BoB2 for a very fast turnaround. It means I only have to maintain one program and it means for the skinner he sees the object under the conditions in game, say in different weather, different time of day etc. If I will expand the game to show reflections say for bare metal parts, you will see it while skinning exactly as it is in game, since it IS in game.

5.) Could you give me your thoughts on how BoBII will run on my system?

While not perfect, it should run well. Also, the skinners are at work filling your 256 MB video ram (right now that will be used only partly as our base line system is 64 MB).

[Hunhunter]

I am not sure that using IL2 flight models as a yardstick is such a good thing. I have flown in a number of warbirds including P51 & P40 and none had the 'twitchy' feel of the IL2 planes.

And Osrams point about the landings is very valid. I fly a Cessna 152 (a real one, not virtual!) and landing that is more difficult than most of the IL2 planes. I find it especially amusing when I can make a graceful gentle landing in a Bf109 in IL2 every time, and yet my Cessna often comes down with a thump! Kinda bizarre when you consider the 109 had a reputation of killing many pilots in landing accidents and yet the C152 is regarded as being very easy to land!! Something not quite right there

Another example is the P51, landing speed 105mph. Bring it in at that speed and then quickly open the throttle as if to execute a missed approach. In IL2 it will gradually accelerate and you can climb away. The real plane will violently torque roll into the deck killing the pilot. I used to know a P51 display pilot who said he would always bring the plane in closer to 120mph for that very reason, said it made it much safer and gave him more options should he have to go around.

Generally speaking, I have yet to find many virtual planes that have that 'real feel'. There are a few models in FS2004 (one P38 in particular) that come very close but thats about it. I am looking forward to trying Osrams sim, I wonder if he modelled the famous Spitfire "gear up rocking" on the take off?

[Osram]

I have flown in a number of warbirds including P51 & P40 and none had the 'twitchy' feel of the IL2 planes.

How do you define twitchy?

And Osrams point about the landings is very valid. I fly a Cessna 152 (a real one, not virtual!) and landing that is more difficult than most of the IL2 planes. I find it especially amusing when I can make a graceful gentle landing in a Bf109 in IL2 every time, and yet my Cessna often comes down with a thump!

LoL! Exactly the same thing for me: I have trouble landing a beginner's hangglider at 30 km/h that mother nature powers with about a horsepower and then in a sim manage to almost straight away land a 1000 hp plane at way over 150 km/h on a small strip?

I wonder if he modelled the famous Spitfire "gear up rocking" on the take off?

I am not sure what you mean

[Hunhunter]

Twitchy? Well, its difficult to explain. The planes in il2 (in standard configuration) seem to get a lot of movement from a very small control input. This leads to jet like roll rates on some models and often the amount of roll you require is exceeded before you have had a chance to stop it. This then needs a correction input and before you know it you end up moving the stick from side to side just to make a simple turn which gives it the twitchy feel. I find that if you run il2 on half speed, its almost more realistic than at full speed. I remember a thread on the UBI forums over a year ago when someone had a friend who was either a display pilot or combat pilot on one of the planes (P51?) Between them they tweeked the input sliders to what the pilot considered to be close to realistic. The guy posted the settings on the forum and everyone was commenting on how much slower the rate of roll and pitch were!! WW2 fighters are big powerfull planes which cut through the air very efficiently. They pitch and roll smoothly and progressively and the fastest rolling plane I ever flew in was the P40 which would out roll both the Spitfire & P51.

As for the "gear up rocking" its actually quite common on most planes, its just more noticable on the Spit for some reason. During take off roll, the pilot would have his left hand on the throttle and right hand on the stick. When selecting 'gear up', he would have to swap hands and operate the gear lever with his right hand which was on the stick. Some of the bolder pilots just used to let go of the stick and grab the gear lever, select up and then grab the stick again. When he let go of the stick, engine/prop torque would roll the plane to one side and the pilot would have to quickly catch and correct the roll resulting in a rocking motion

[Osram]

Interesting thoughts on the twitchiness . I look upon the word as meaning "too sensitive to small inputs when large ones are ok" but you see "all inputs too sensitive" as twitchy as well.

This then needs a correction input and before you know it you end up moving the stick from side to side just to make a simple turn which gives it the twitchy feel.

IOW, PIOs (Pilot Induced Oscilations). Happens to new pilots in RL as well and I guess the lack of feedback to your stomache, ear etc will "help" you make PIOs.

I remember a thread on the UBI forums over a year ago when someone had a friend who was either a display pilot or combat pilot on one of the planes (P51?) Between them they tweeked the input sliders to what the pilot considered to be close to realistic. The guy posted the settings on the forum and everyone was commenting on how much slower the rate of roll and pitch were!!

Yes, I think that was Eric Brown, a famous WWII test pilot, IIRC he has the record for most number of types flown.

WW2 fighters are big powerfull planes which cut through the air very efficiently. They pitch and roll smoothly and progressively

Obviously "small" and "much" are very subjective, but there is quite a bit of evidence that even small control (especially elevator) inputs could lead to quite large effects, especially in planes like the Spitfire.

About the "gear up rocking", ah, an AI effect, I thought about FM. I doubt this is implemented.

[Squirral]

Hello Osram,

Thank you very much for answering my questions. I truely appreciate the information about the simulation. Could you perhaps enlighten me some more about some features BoBII has? I would really like to hear more about this flight sim. I did have some other questions I wanted to ask,but they have slipped my mind. Maybe they will come to me later. Who knows. Well thanks again! =S=

P.S. Now only if Target.com would fix the "track it" button so I could find out where it is.