This is a "big $#&*ing deal" for single players of IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad
It has been announced that Pat Wilson is working on a version of his campaign generator for BoS. For those who aren't familiar with PWCG for Rise of Flight I did the following write up about it on SimHQ:
I thought I would repost this one more time for this thread for those who aren't familiar with Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator (PWCG). My note below is for Rise of Flight, but now knowing Pat is working to convert PWCG for IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad its worthy to note the strengths of PWCG and its potential for BoS in this thread. I know nothing about the specifics of the conversion, but PWCG has enormous potential to open up unlimited game play in BoS. So here it is one more time:
"For anyone who hasn't tried PWCG but has RoF and is looking for something more, it is a must have. If you want shorter "instant action" type missions, but with career tracking, then shorten the mission distance in Advanced Config. If you want longer more realistic missions (like me) then increase the mission distance. If you want some "no contact" missions in the mix, never knowing if or when you'll make contact with the enemy, then move the percentage chance of contact to 70 or 80% instead of 100%. If you want to change the skill level mix of the AI pilots you face, then change the random skill level generator percentages. If you aren't happy with something about the missions you are flying PWCG lets you change it. I'm guessing there are over a hundred different mission parameters you can change in Advanced Config. And of course there is a Simple Config for point and click changes that can be made in just a matter of seconds. PWCG is incredibly flexible for both beginners and advanced users.
In PWCG I've had missions where I'm rolling off the field with bullets kicking up dirt all around me and wingmen on fire as I take off during an attack on my field. And I've had missions where I thought I would have no contact while taking out a bridge in an RE8 flight, only to be hunted down after a 90 minute flight while I'm trying to set down on my field. I've flown 3 hour Gotha missions into England, sometimes not intercepted, sometimes intercepted over England, and sometimes hunted down on the way home over the channel from squadrons patrolling out of Dunkirk (you can use time acceleration to turn them into 2 hour, 1 hour, or 20 minute missions).
Or fly Handley Page bombers on night raids into German territory only to be intercepted by Albatros night fighters from Kest squadrons coming in at you out of the dark. Or fly for a British Home Defense squadron or a German Kest at night trying to find the Gothas or Handley Page bombers in the night sky. When the big bombers reach a major target and the search lights come on its an incredible light show (whether you're in a bomber or in a fighter hunting them). The stuff that can happen in a PWCG mission pretty much blows my mind when I really think about it. Its absolutely white knuckle. If you haven't used PWCG with RoF, you really haven't played RoF as a single player. PWCG showcases features you didn't even know existed in RoF. Oh, and you can also fly in the role of a traditional hotshot fighter pilot"...
Edit 1: Another important feature in PWCG is the ability to set the density of ground and air units to tune the mission size to the abilities of your computer.
I guess I'll add little tidbits about PWCG as I think of them. I'm sure there are others who know more about PWCG than me, but I guess I would be considered a "geek" level user of PWCG...
Edit 2: PWCG uses an internal system generated "dice roll" when setting probability percentages for any parameter. For instance, when you adjust the skill level of AI pilots to say: 25% Ace, 50% Veteran, 25% Rookie that means that overall you will face 25% Aces on the average of say 100 missions. It doesn't mean that on every mission you will face 25% Aces. You could run into a squad of rookies, but on the same mission you may run into a squad with a couple of aces and two veterans. So you can control the overall big picture, but on any given mission, or any given encounter within a mission you won't know for sure who you're up against. Of course, you can skew the percentages to 0% Aces and 0% Veterans if you only want to fly against Rookies. But any reasonable spread of percentages makes things fairly unpredictable but with a slant towards the percentages you have specified.
Edit 3: Here is a YouTube tutorial for PWCG done by a player. It focuses on initializing a new campaign and does a pretty good job of showing you most of the screens within PWCG:
PWCG runs outside of RoF as a separate application. It can be launched from within RoF using an in-game GUI or it can be run as a stand alone application using Alt-Tab. I really consider PWCG to be a separate game that uses the RoF engine for missions (PWCG is that comprehensive). Other than flying you will spend almost all of your time within PWCG. Pat Wilson is a professional Java programmer, but does not work in the gaming industry. PWCG had humble beginnings, but in his spare time over the past 3 or 4 years Pat has turned PWCG into one of the best 3rd party applications I've ever seen for any game.
Edit 4: Matt Milne (a professional composer with credits including scoring Star Trek TV episodes) has donated music for PWCG. Here is one of the tracks that you will hear as you move around inside PWCG:
All told, PWCG has the "wow" factor of a complete separate game where you will realize "oh, yeah, I'm using the RoF engine to fly the missions." Combined with PWCG, RoF becomes one of the best combat flight simulators of all time IMO (or maybe its the other way around)
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Topic: Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator for BoS (Read 9634 times)
