I will put this post in question form for convenience. A "yes" or "No" answer is ok but if you feel you need to explain please do.
1) At the current build (3007) is it only the terrain data that Outerra is using and no particular land or water classification?
Yes
2) Is the next step for Outerra adding land and water classification such as roads, urban and rural cities and towns, lakes, rivers, forest plantations, and grassland? (feel free to add anything I have missed here).
The first steps go towards recreating a natural (or better said a "naturalized") planet Earth using the available data and procedural techniques. That's the natural order of things for Outerra tech.
Anteworld doesn't need urban areas, not in their current form. But it's been really designed so that it doesn't need them - we could as easily come up with a design for game that has got all the cities modeled and everything. But it would be completely unreasonable to expect that such a game could be made by a small team in any reasonable time frame, wouldn't it? I mean, even magics has its limits
So, we are working on procedural stuff - biomes, forests, rivers/lakes first.
3) If yes to the above will you be adding the classifications as the world stands at this present time then manipulating all of it to create Anteworld game?
Anteworld was (intentionally) set up to take place in a world that almost returned to its natural state, for reasons stated above. Recreating the world as it stands at this present time and then using it to create a game taking place 1000 years past would be a waste of resources.
4) Will Outerra provide textures i.e grass, trees, cities, and clouds to match their respective season, time of day, and weather conditions?
Ultimately, yes. But it's not essential for the game, so the priorities are low.
5) Will you be creating climate control as a separate engine in itself to control the weather and environmental changes?
Environmental data should be available, and given the character of the probabilistic procedural engine it should be tunable to some extent (i.e. not just the normal seasonal transitions, but also a simulation of global temperature and precipitation changes). Weather should be tied to that.
6) Will the climate control impact the physics of the vehicles used in the Engine itself? Can you provide an idea as to what length Outerra will go to achieve the results you will expect from it?
To the lengths allowed by our ability to survive and not overburden ourselves
Remember, primarily it's a world rendering engine, not a sim ...
7) Will the climate control be completely dynamic, meaning, will it be determined by certain variables and how these variables interact with each other? (I hope you understand this question)
Well. If you are asking whether we are going to model effect of a random volcano in Iceland blowing tons of ash into air resulting in excess rains in New Zealand - no. Sun shadowed by a large object - no.
Basically, no free-wheeling simulation, but approximation to some globals like time and external inputs like weather inputs.
8 ) Will you be adding time flow so that days follow their course naturally and automatically, and will this include different textures for the seasons? Will this incorporate world timezones accurately?
Time - yes, different textures - it's not just about textures, that's FS way of thinking.
World timezones is an abstract human invention, they have no relation to the world.
9) Will you remove user customisable environmental colouring such as exposure, sun bloom, RGB sliders etc... or will this remain under a seperate menu.
Don't know yet. Should go to the worldmaker app probably.
10) Will water have different shading respective of the time of day, weather conditions, and (if reasonable) seasons?
It's color is computed from real light and water scattering parameters already. Besides, the color doesn't change that much, it's the intensity and mainly the reflected light from the sky. With overcast it will be different.
11) How many types of textures will be added to Outerra i.e tree types, shrubs, bush, grassland, hilltops, concrete, runways, buildings, cities etc.. (basically what textures do you expect will be implemented?).
Many, but then not so many because of the procedural generation.
12) Will you be improving/enhancing the JSBSim Flight dynamics and Bullet Engine dynamics?
JSBSim - no, we can't dig in their code effectively. But we can bind other forces that are expected by JSBSim - from wind, turbulence etc.
Bullet physics vehicle implementation will be improved, because that's largely depending on us.
13) will you be adding more default nature sounds to the environment based on where you are i.e in a forest (with birds, cicadas, crickets etc...), residential areas (with lawnmowers, chainsaws, kids playing in the parks etc...), cities (with cars, trucks, horns, emergency sirens etc...) All that kind of thing.
Yes, minus the urban environments ^^
14) Will you be adding more aircraft, land, and space vehicles? And add water vehicles under the default installation?
The ones that are there just for some immediate fun with the alpha, the game setting will want something different. But we expect people will be adding their own.
15) Due to the large (and accurate) scale of the planet in Outerra will you be able to implement (using procedural algorithms) the current world database of airports/airfields in the base engine or as part of the land classification? And would there be an added menu to punch in the ICAO identifier, Country or City for that airport?
You got the idea by now
Let me just state it explicitly: we aren't making a flight simulator. We aren't committing to making any simulator (yet). Nobody sane would really expect that a global sim could be made by a small team in any reasonable time frame. We are just (slowly) making a world engine, and making a game that can utilize the engine in its early state, so we can survive and continue working on it, in order to eventually create a world sim.
I think people are being easily carried away by the potential, but tend to neglect the amount of resources things like these asked above are going to take. Just compare it with what went/goes into FS, X-plane or Flight - even with our tech it can't be lower by so many orders of magnitude. Basically, it's not enough to get people voting for a sim
it alone won't make it happen. It would need a bigger team and funding, and still it's going to take a long time.
Even the plan we have now with Anteworld is a bit ambitious because we are counting that we'll be able to expand and speed things up, but it's risky anyway.
On the other hand, the situation is now evolving every day; with the tech demo released people are realizing that it's not a vaporware tech and that there's a future for it. Once the right people get to it ..
16) Will you be providing an SDK for Outerra when it is released as RTM?
Some form of SDK interfaces should be shaping up during the development already.
