Main Page

This documentation site is now in a reasonably stable state. It has been converted to static HTML pages, still showing the Mediawiki look and feel but no longer offering account creation and content management functions. Changes will still be made to the content from time to time.

News Flash: SEOW v7.3 now supports native Iron Front maps for ground-only campaigning! Of course, all IL-2 functionality continues in SEOW, as before.

This is the SEOW Wiki site - the complete documentation set for the Scorched Earth Online War (SEOW) system. This site will contain the authoritative documentation resources for SEOW. More information and resources for SEOW can be found at SEOW Software Home Page, at Official SEOW Forums and at SEOW HQ. Many different squads around the world use SEOW in all kinds of ways, ranging from dogfight competitions, to speculative combat scenarios, to extremely detailed historical re-enactments of WW2 campaigns. SEOW is flexible, so how you use it is up to you.

* SEOW Overview

Scorched Earth Online War (SEOW) is a persistent coop campaign system for the IL-2 series of flight simulations, and is fully compliant with Daidalos Team patch 4.12.2 and with HSFX v7.x. SEOW allows users to download a variety of pre-built campaign templates, or to build their own campaign templates using the IL-2 Full Mission Builder (FMB). A SEOW campaign, basically a set of opposing forces placed on a map, is initialized with a starting template which includes the order of battle (on both sides) that will take part in a given theatre of operations. The system will then allow for sequential hourly mission (or multiples of hours) generation based on direct input from at least two opposing commanders, one Allied and one Axis. The system will also allow sub-commanders of individual units.

All air, sea and ground operations are planned using a web-based mission planner. As a commander, you classify which flights will attack available targets, and when. Similarly, you command your own tanks, guns, vehicles, trains and ships. Fog of war persists throughout, with reconnaissance levels affecting the amount of information that opposing commanders can use to plan missions. The mission plans for any given hour in the day cycle are merged based upon the plans of the opposing sides. One essential difference between SEOW and other IL-2 online wars is that there is no computer-generated movement or opposition (although computer-generated opposition can be scripted if desired). SEOW is fundamentally a head-to-head, human-vs-human strategic contest in terms of planning, PLUS you also get to fly each mission as a tactically oriented pilot - the best of both worlds.

The mission is generated local to the Host computer, then hosted to the squadrons taking part in the online campaign using standard IL-2 coop hosting methods. The best part of all of this is that the combat outcomes in each mission are persistent. If you take out a bridge early in the day, it will still be destroyed several hours (missions) later. A tank destroyed at a junction will leave a burning wreck in the precise location. Bombing of industrial area will destroy buildings and cause smoke visible for miles. As you can see, SEOW expands upon elements featured in previous online campaigns, but a major aspect of SEOW is that it offers persistent damage templating and full command over all units, as well as an open source software format. If you feel like a part of SEOW is not to your liking, code a new one. We hope to make the process of providing modifications to the system as smooth as possible and centralized via http://www.sourceforge.net/

* Software System Overview

There are three main parts to SEOW: the Dynamic Campaign System (DCS), the database (DB), and the Mission Planner (MP).

The SEOW DCS is a Win32/Win64 executable program front-end to a SQL-compliant database (DB) backend. The front-end is written in Visual Studio 2015 Express (VB .NET) and allows for the initialization of a template mission for a given map in the campaign and subsequent campaign management. It is intended that the full release system will support most of the important IL-2 maps, but only maps fully completed in the DB can used. Once you see the granularity of object tracking you'll understand why not all maps are currently supported, but there are 93 maps supported at the latest count. Of course, Pacific Fighters is supported as well: carrier group operations and planning are fully functional in SEOW. As noted above, SEOW supports the Team Daidalos 4.12.2 upgrade to IL-2, and the HSFX 7.x mod packs. Support for the mod packs can be disabled using a single configuration checkbox in the SEOW DCS.

The SEOW MP itself is a web application that acts as a mission planning tool for all commanders active in the campaign. The MP handles all aspects of mission planning, reconnaissance, reinforcement etc. Presently the MP is available only as a PHP application, connecting to the standard SEDB via a (free) third-party ADO library. The MP runs seamlessly on Windows and Unix/Linux architectures, in fact on any web server that supports PHP.

As of SEOW v7, the SEOW DB comes in only one format: MySQL. MySQL is a free database server product that runs on a variety of platforms. Many SEOW users have set up their DB and MP components on Linux and on Windows systems. Previous support for MSAccess database formats is now deprecated in SEOW and there are no plans to maintain MSAccess functionality.

A full SEOW installation requires all three components in order to run, however these components need not be on the same (single) host machine. Installation can be reasonably involved, but this is not surprising - SEOW is an industry-strength database application designed for running multiple online persistent campaigns simultaneously. If you are still interested, dig further in these pages. SEOW is not for everyone, but if you are interested in ultra-real, strategic/tactical WWII simulation, you may just have found the right place!