Q: Sound-effects overhaul for 1.31? What is the source of the sound effects for weapon fire, explosions, and crashes in WWIIOL?  Are they taken from recordings of actual weapon fire, explosions and aircraft crashes?  Are they taken from third-party's recordings of weapon fire, explosions and aircraft crashes?

KILLER: There are about 650 sound effects in the game. The sources for these sounds in game come from a pretty wide variety of sources. 

Some are from recordings of the actual weapons, some are from recordings of a similar type of weapon, some are constructed from other sound effects. 

We have license for a pretty large collection of sound effects libraries which we use, we also have recorded tanks and aircraft etc. from museums and such. We also have had many sounds recorded and sent to us from players as well.  We take what we feel to be the best sound available when put out a new weapon from our commercial library, library of our own recordings and the recordings sent to us by players.  The sounds are all converted to a common sampling rate converted to mono sound. The game plays the mono sound in stereo using 3D positioning and doppler effects from the point in space the sound effect is attached to.

Q: Quick instancing question for the rats or whoever else is able to answer: Is it possible, or has any consideration been given to instancing bomber raids from both sides? I'm imagining something like 30-40 AI-manned bombers flying in formation across the map with player escorts and interceptors. Would be pretty cool to see and you could always slip in player manned bombers to divert when near target.

KFS1: We've pondered a lot of instancing possibilities, but one thing we generally did not feel would be good for the game was splitting battles off. If RDP occurs in an instance, many people are going to see that as unfair if they aren't able to participate. I mean, that's a perfect environment for AAA gunners to play in for the very same reasons it's great for fighters. But the guys fighting the ground war aren't going to be particularly fond of losing their interceptors and AAA gunners to a sub-game.

Our hope for instancing is that we will be able to provide "off-battle" opportunities - from squad practices to mini-events to micro-campaigns. But our feeling is that what affects the campaign should play out in the campaign and not an instance.

Q: Ok so we get a couple of new buldings and bunkers and stuff for 1.31, thats excelent but what about after 1.31? Whats is store? what can be expected? Where is the P47?

GOPHUR: Our focus at present does not extend much past 1.31 since there are just so many new things. We've got a huge test burden coming up. You're draw is going to drop, fall off your face and shatter on the floor if your expectation is a few new buildings and some stuff. Until that is out I don't really want to speculate on what our needs are going to be but we do have several plans in the works for imnproved grouping and that covers many aspects of gameplay.

Q: RDP bugged?  On friday I look at the RDP counter on the gazette and it tells me that T3 is due to hit early sunday morning. Yesteday evening some squaddies commented that it had been at 88% for some time. Today, RDP is due to hit at 21:00 GMT.  What gives? Someone forget to put $0.50 in the meter?

DOC: RDP is adjusted according to our best estimate of how long a campaign might last beased on recent events in the campaign in question. Since the number displayed is gathered from a "default" duration that was in turn obtained by the average length of campaigns over the history of the game, it cannot represent any change we make based on the current campaign where we are using our best judgement to alter RDP cycles to better fit the campaign in question, that being the one you are in right now.
 
Eg: Let's say we have a default "cycle time" of around 10 days. This fits the average campaign length of 6 weeks divided by 4 minimum cycles, as an approximate calculation. If the current campaign is progressing to a likely end point faster than that average, we will adjust the length of a cycle to be shorter, thus ensuring that the chance of all equipment (4 cycles minimum) appearing in the campaign is increased. In the event of that happening, the reported "next cycle" arrival will be long, ie: it has a strong chance of arriving before that average calaculation can complete it's duration at 100%, since the campaign is probably going to be completed before the average, which is where that RDP number (which is an esimate) comes from. Since campaigns are not a fixed length it is impossible to accurately predict the length of each cycle unless they remain fixed in length rather than be dynamically variable. If they are fixed to result in accurate estimation of a cycle time, then they won't all complete during a campaign if that campaign is shorter than the average.

Q: Is it possible to have LOD phase in closer when looking through optics?  It is incredibly frustrating to have a tank shooting you through a solid texture.

GOPHUR: There's a pretty hard line where speed trees morph from 3d to 2d billboards. We don't have a lot of room to play with that because we need to keep it consistant across all clients and it can be a very major performance killer as the amount of speedtrees increase exponentially over distance. Still, there are a lot of changes in this area in 1.31 and this is the kind of thing we'll want feedback on when we go into open test.

Q: Crusader Mk.II getting APCBC? According to the read me the Crusader II will be getting APCBC rounds now. What kind of a performance upgrade will these new rounds have?

DOC: The capped round (APCBC) that the Crusader II now uses, after 500m starts to improve noticeably in penetration over the previous tank mounted QF.2pdr (impacts are measured at 0 degrees obliquety) ... note that the PzKw.IIIh also received a capped round increase also, that means it is doing a little better than the previous APHE round the PzKw.IIIh was doing.
 
The improvement in general doesn't help the Crusader II at short range (under 500m) as much as it does the PzKw.IIIh, but it helps it at longet ranges (1000m - 2000m) more so. This is due to the nature of the rounds themselves, as their caps were of different construction. The Crusader II can use it's slightly better armour (over the A-13 it replaces) more effectively at longer ranges where the improved APCBC round is giving it better punch, but still isn't improved at close range where it's armour is as thin as a can of baked beans. The PzKw.IIIh gets a little extra punch at all ranges and it's round has a more homogenous (evenly spread) increase at all ranges than the APCBC round in the Crusader II does.