Missions, LODs, and Bombers / BOB

[Donnybrooke]

I was asking Pat Pattle about the Battle of Britain missions and the possibility of increasing the number of bombers for BOB missions by decreasing the complexity of the models used for the bombers. The idea is that the less complex the model, the greater number you might be able to place "in mission". Since they would be strictly AI controlled (with no possibility of human pilotage), this would not present a problem. For instance, the virtual cockpit can be removed. I have GMAX and the base JU-88 model from the SDK, but I have a few questions before I proceed with deletions.

1. Pat indicated this has been discussed before, but since many old threads have vanished, I was wondering if anyone had tried this and what the results were?

2. What is the relative effect of model complexity on game FPS? Does the complexity of the model have a greater effect than the processing power to control an AI aircraft? If you have 100 simple models, would the game still slow to a crawl due to the processing power needed by the CPU to control 100 AI aircraft?

3. Does removing LODs from aircraft have an effect in game? Say you remove the LOD100, would this cause the game to crash because it cannot find it?

Thanks for reading this and for any insights you may have.

 

[flashgordon]

The B17 is one of the worst offenders.

I wanted to put a number as statics at dispersals for the 8th AAF bases in ETO but had to restrict these to a representative few due to the fraps effect.

 

[Pat Pattle]

Don if you delete the Lod_100, you'll have to rename the next one down to replace it. ie Lod_90 becomes the 100. you could probably leave the rest as they are.

It may be that a better method would be to lighten the existing LoDs, remove/simplify the cockpit & crew for starters then delete as much as possible generally.