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Into the Blue: OFF & FE2


By 33LIMA, March 9, 2014
Recreating a classic WW1 pilot's tale flying Sopwiths in France!   This mission report was inspired by my reading material on a recent short holiday. I had last read Norman Macmillan's 'Into the Blue' back in the early 1970s along with other classics then available from the local public library, such as my favourites, Arthur Gould Lee's 'No Parachute' and 'Open Cockpit'.   While the latter two are back in print, I had to go to eBay to get a copy of 'Into the Blue', and I much enjoyed re-reading it, after all those years. The book comprises segments originally written for publication at or about the time, expanded to book format in 1929, then expanded again for the 1969 edition to include recent research by the author and with real names replacing some pseudonyms used in the earlier edition. This composite origin makes it hard sometimes to distinguish what is or isn't genuine contemporary observation or terminology; but the work is not just a good read, it's a mine of many useful snippets of information on RFC and RAF operations and training, as experienced by the author.      The book   The story starts with initial training at Netherhaven and Upavon in England, 1916-17, flying first Maurice Farman MF17 'shorthorns' - also known as 'the Rumpety' - then moving on to Avro 504As and Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutters, the latter as the type on which the author would expect to fly operationally on posting to France. The main impression is that even by early 1917, flying training was very rudimentary, lacking not just combat training but even basics like spin recovery. This part of the story is brought to life with many experiences and anecdotes. The one I like best is told of one of the COs at Central Flying School, Upavon, the dapper Major Gordon Bell, who had a bad strutter. One day, the story goes, after having been shot down while on operations, he crashed into a tree:   "As he shinned down the tree to the ground, a resplendent staff officer rode up to him and said, 'Have you crashed? 'N-n-n-n-no,' replied G.B., 'I a-a-a-a-always l-l-l-l-land like that.' "   From training, the author was posted to 45 Squadron RFC, at St Marie Cappel on the northern part of the British sector, not far south of the English Channel coast. He arrived at the end of March 1917 and flew Strutters right through 'Bloody April' and beyond, regretfully finding that the 2-seater Sopwiths, though fine flying machines, were long past their best as fighters. Despite that, they had to soldier on, flying the same types of patrol as the single seater 'scouts', with the added hazard of also flying longer-range reconnaisance missions. For the latter, being fighters, they were expected to escort their own photographic machines, and though they rarely failed to get their pictures, a particularly heavy price was often paid on these missions. For some reason the author records that fellow-Strutter outfit 70 Squadron did sometimes get escorts, but never 45, who had to rely on help from whatever friendly patrols might be operating along their route. In that regard the author is fairly scathing about the failure to make any serious attempt to co-ordinate with or even inform patrols, though he also accepts that such efforts would have been prone to all kinds of difficulties.   Among the many interesting details is of course the experience of flying Strutters. They were apparently prone to 'float' on landing, making it too easy to overshoot landings on small operational airfields. The airbrakes fitted to Strutters may have been designed specifically to help with this. But the author records they were too close inboard to have much effect and instead, disrupted airflow over the tail so badly that pilots generally used them once and then never again! Macmillan also records the replacement of the original Ross synchronisation gear for the front-firing Vickers with the more reliable and faster-firing Sopwith Kauper system, though he also notes that the former system left the standard gun trigger in place and this was sometimes used to engage a fleeting target, regardless of the holed propellers which resulted. Macmillan also records the arrival of 130HP Clerget engines which offered little improvement over the previous 110hp versions. Despite this, the squadron performed solidly and even generated some aces, especially those who learned to fight their Strutters as crews later learned to fight the Bristol F2B Fighter, using the front gun as well as the observer's Lewis.   The squadron re-equipped with Camels, in the field, only during August 1917. Late in the year, they transferred to the Italian Front after the disaster at Caporetto. However, Macmillan suffered burns in a non-flying accident and when fit again back in England, was posted as an instructor. Here, his accounts of the training regime make a fine contrast to his description of his own initiation, thanks to the improvements made by then Lt Col Smith-Barry whose approach to flying training is often credited with setting the foundation for the modern syllabus, as we know it today. Macmillan primarily trained Camel pilots, and he records that no pilot he was instructing was killed or injured in a Camel crash. Interestingly, he attributes this partly to his insistence that all heavy landings must be reported so that centre-section rigging could be checked and tightened. Apparently the Camel's centre-section struts were not firmly fixed to the upper wing, but set into sockets, where they were held by the tension of the centre-section rigging. The latter could become loose, especially after a heavy landing and the author reports that after the war, the famous Hawker designer Sir Sydney Camm, confided his own belief that this was a cause of many Camel crashes.   The mission - Over Flanders Fields Keen to see how well I could re-create for myself the author's experiences of combat in Strutters, I decided to start with OFF (not yet having acquired its recent successor, WOFF). There were two reasons for this. First, in my experience of WW1 sims, OFF is perhaps the best at the 2-seater experience. Second, I was sure that, with OFF's particularly faithful recreation of WW1's air war orders of battle, I would be able to choose a career in 'Forty-Five'. I was not to be disappointed as regards the second point; though with the first, I would be less happy with the results.   I started by creating a new pilot and his unit. I found 45 Squadron listed as a fighter squadron ('bomber' being the alternative, under which most two-seater units are listed in OFF, though it is not a very satisfactory term for WW1). I gave my character Macmillan's surname and wanted to start about the same time as he did, just before 'Bloody April'. As potential OFF careers seem to have start dates associated with a change of base or aircraft, this wasn't possible and I started instead on 28 April; near enough!   In the briefing screen, I was pleased to see that although I was the only Macmillan on the squadron roster, this included, as historical aces, several of those named as such in the book. Good stuff and typical OFF attention to detail!   Kicking off my first mission, came more typical OFF stuff, though not so good this time. Our first mission was a 'scramble', to intercept incoming enemy aircraft. In OFF there are far too many such missions and your own airfield is often the target of strafing fighters, including German ones which generally operated on their own side of the Lines and just did not undertake this kind of mission, not in early 1917 anyway and not much if at all, after that.   Unable to change to a different type of mission, I had to start it up, then cancel the mission, after it had loaded. Then start another mission. This wasn't much better - a railyard attack. At this point in the war this would have been a common enough target for a bombing raid, but for BE2s or the like, not our squadron or other fighters. The RNAS operated Strutters in the bomber role but these were I think generally the single-seater version. Besides, 45 Squadron was listed in OFF as a fighter squadron and as Norman Macmillan's book makes clear, that's how they operated, along with southern neighbours and fellow Strutter unit 70 Squadron - as fighters who sometimes also flew longer-range recce missions.   Third time lucky, my next effort generated a more realistic mission - a reconnaisance. This was only up to the trenchlines, and thus not really the sort of mission commonly flown by RFC Strutters by Macmillan's account, but it would do nicely. Unusually for the period, we had an escort - four RNAS Sopwith Pups. Here's the mission briefing screen:     OFF sometimes assigns rather large numbers to a mission but the five squadron machines on this show was pretty representative of the period. Here we we are at St Marie Cappel - naturally, OFF has the squadron operating from the correct airfield, even though these are now generic layouts not the accurate airfields commonly featured in the previous release, Phase 2.     Oddly I think for late April 1917, the default 'skin' for the squadron has PC10 brown wings but clear doped linen fuselages and red and white tailplanes - more accurate I'd think for the squadron's early days, in late 1916. Macmillan several times refers to their planes as being brown and both the operational Strutters pictured in 'Into the Blue' have dark fuselages as well as upper wings. For my own machine, I opted to use a different skin, that for the aircraft of the man who became better known as Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris. He's noted as an efficient flight commander in Macmillan's book and it's a nice OFF touch that I can fly in a plane flown by someone featured in the book. The overall PC10 uppers, with the forward fin in a lighter colour, white fuselage band behind the roundel and white number ahead, nicely matches a 45 Sqdn Strutter pictured in flight in the book, numbered '2' and said to be flown by Garratt and Carey.   I don't know how I did it but in fiddling about unsuccessfully to get Ankor's DX mod (which adds self-shadowing to WOFF planes, and has been got to work in OFF and CFS3 by MajorMagee over at Sim OutHouse, but caused my missions not to load) I seemed to have messed up many of my OFF settings. For one thing my 'Always lead' option was not working on this mission. I didn't notice this in the briefing nor did I twig when one of the flight - the real leader - took off ahead of me. Anyway, getting over my irritation at one of the chaps taking off (as I believed) in front of the boss, I checked controls, started up and roared off down the runway and into the air. I say 'roared' but the OFF engine sound is rather muted.     Turning to orbit the aerodrome, I found that, although not tail-heavy and stable enough in level flight, she needed a great deal of bottom rudder to avoid her tail drooping badly in a turn.     The OFF Strutter is a good-looking bird, with a nicely-appointed cockpit, complete with reproductions of brass manufacturer's plaques and a padded windshield. I suspect many pilots removed the latter for better visibility and hoped not to regret its inclusion in OFF, later! Wing ribs are enhanced by what appears to be bump-mapped textures. Another nice OFF touch is the rendition of the transparent material on the centre section. She has the French Etevée Lewis gun mount for the observer, which was probably something of an antique by Spring 1917, in the RFC anyway. It may better suit the French Strutters; but tho the Aviation Militaire ended up a bigger user of the Strutter than the British, they were late adopters and I suspect most French machines would have had the British Scarff ring mount. I don't know if the WOFF Strutter changes this but I'm sure its textures are much improved.     I duly orbited the airfield in a climbing spiral, still not having realised that I was not leading the flight. This may be why I wasn't able to select 'Next waypoint' on the Tactical Display and get my blue route line to skip to the heading of the objective. Or it might be down to my lost settings, which included my joystick key assignments and my lower-visibility tactical display and labels (an Olham mod).     So I ended up following all the many waypoints before the leg to the Lines. As I did so, I used the padlock and 'player-target view' to have a look at our escort, the RNAS Pups. OFF uses the limited CFS3 view system which is much less satisfactory for this sort of thing than, say, FE2 or RoF; but I gather WOFF has made some improvements in this direction.     Finally, the current route line switched to the direction of the objective and I settled down into a steady climb towards the Lines, still thinking myself the leader and watching to see if I needed to throttle back to let 'my' flight catch me up.     ...to be continued!
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GermanCE Terrain Re-Work Preview


By CowboyTodd41, March 9, 2014
The Strike Fighters series is over a decade old this year. The series is renowned among combat flight enthusiasts for it's open modability, gentle learning curve, and (foremost) the scenarios it models. When it comes to The Cold War, no other sim does it like the SF series does. As amazing as something like the DCS series may be, it won't let me shoot down Mig-15's over the Yalu one mission, then without even transitioning to a new program, shoot down a flight of Backfires with AIM-54's the next.   That being said, the sim is not without it's issues. The first being the aforementioned fact of the sim's age. At eleven years old, it's certainly beginning to show some wrinkles. One of the most obvious wrinkles the sim shows is in the terrain engine. When creating SF:P1, TK elected to use the old style TFD/HFD terrain engine rather than the new .lod based terrains of his other contemporaries Lock-On and Il2. I presume this decision was for ease of design as TK is basically a one man show, and he probably had a lot of knowledge of this terrain type from it's usage in European Air War. While this terrain type isn't as detailed as others, it does have one great upside; ease of modding.   The terrain releases over the years from the various modders for both sims has mapped virtually the entire planet as jet sim playground. We have maps for everything from Ethiopia to Cyprus to San Diego. The terrains have been getting more and more detailed with large numbers or new targets and target areas. The recent Desert v4 release being one of the shining examples of this. One area the detail has always been lacking though, is in the detail of the airfields themselves. When designing the original Desert terrain, because it was fictional, TK chose to create a number of air bases that use the general look of 60's-70's USAF bases. They look fine in a place like Dhimar, but once you port them to a place like Germany, they begin to stick out like a sore thumb.   For forums member Rends, the look was too jarring. After learning the Strike Fighters modding basics, he got right to work. Gathering other members of the renowned German Modders Group they set out to turn the most important map in the SF series into the Real Deal™.   I reached out to Rends to ask him some questions about this most massive undertakings.     Your main project right now is your total reworking of the GermanyCE terrain. What was it that sparked you to take on such a large and complicated task?   Well it was the watertower that disturbed me. I got SF2 because of the A-10 and found it a nice feature that it has a Germany Terrain. Once ingame i noticed the watertower and it looked so out of place. I felt like being on a US airbase in the States rather than on a German airfield. I realy wanted to change the waterower only but by then I was looking at the terrain no longer as a gamer but a modder. That's not good if you ask me ;-)     An A-10 over the new GermanyCE, with targets moved into towns   The screen shots you've shown off so far in the forums have been truly incredible. The level fidelity in the airbases is something we've rarely seen outside of say, Yakee Air Pirate. Buechel Air Base in particular. Do you plan on maintaining that level of detail throughout the whole map, or do you have a few "set peice" bases and then a number of "generic bases" to supplement them?   You mentioned Büchel Air base. Once here at Combatace i found Images of Gepards german airfield mod and i asked at the german Forum where to get it. It took only a few days and Florian Ravenclaw007 and  76.IAP-Blackbird jumped on the bandwagon of what is now the Germany rework. Sure it's a Project started by me but a lot of stuff is done by other guys. Büchel and Pferdsfeld is Florians work and Ravenclaw and Blackbird made some stuff i couldn't found in the download section. Not to mention the help i got from the community here. It's fantastic. And yes the plan is to recreate most of the airfields. But as you mentioned this is a large Project and not be done in a few months. But don't worry i plan to upload an open beta soon*. I just want to know how it works on different computers. And there will be a release a short time after. From there on there will be regular updates until we have either finished the project or lost interest (i hope not,lol)     The main gate at Büchel. Pretty fantastic!   I metioned earlier about the scale of a task this large. But beyond just being a large task, it seems it would be quite tedious as well. Has the process of inserting objects via the notepad driven you to madness yet?   I wish there was a real Terrain Editor out there with no need to place objects using notepad. Yes it can be boring and it is boring sometimes. But then you fire up the game and if all the stuff is there were it belongs, I'm satisfied. This helps not to become mad (sometimes) ;-)   Continuing along the same lines, object placement and terrain re-working is a pretty complicated task. Did it take you long to pick this up?   Once you understand how the game works [modding] isn't that difficult anymore. There are a few Tools out there and they are very useful. And I have modded other games in the past. Guess that helps too.     A great before and after look at a factory target. The difference is huge.   I noticed you're fairly new to the community, having only been registered since December of last year. Were you playing the SF series before then?   No SF2 europe was the first game of the series I got. And I got it at the end of the last year. I knew some screenshots before but that's all.   Before being a member of the SF/CA community, have you been a memeber of any other simming communities?   I'm a longtime member at simhq to hang around, graviteam.com, a forum for 'Steel Fury 42' WWII tank drivers, and gametoast.com.A community dedicated to mod the StarWars Battlefront series; my second love after flight sims.     Well thanks very much to Rends for allowing me to interview him and providing us with some great insight into this much anticipated mod!   -Todd   *This interview was conducted about a week or so before the article was posted. The afternoon just before this article was finalized, Rends provided an update about the beta version.    
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Game Developer Interview: Tricubic Studios Combat Helo


By Skyviper, February 26, 2014
In 1972 the United States Army sought a new aircraft for the anti armor attack role that was once filled by the AH -56 Cheyenne. This aircraft would need to be under Army command so platforms such as the A-10 were out of the question due to the Key West Agreement which forbids the Army to own fixed winged aircraft. In 1983 the first production model of the new Advanced Attack Helicopter rolled of the line; the AH-64 Apache.   Many of us are the hunt for those very rare and very illusive combat helicopter sims. CombatACE has your six covered wingman because we have the scoop on such a game being developed right now… a game that is nearing its release.   CombatACE got the chance to catch up with Richard Hawley the lead the developer of Combat Helo, an AH-64 flight simulator. Thank you Mr. Hawley for taking the time to do this interview with us.   Please, tell us a little bit about Tricubic Studios.   My wife and I founded the company back in 2010 as the business entity for Combat Helo developed by myself, David Hopkinson and Fred Naar. David is responsible for the 3D art and map building, Fred is well known in his own right as the author of Helicopter Total Realism (a free add-on for Microsoft FSX) and I glue it all together into a coherent mess…make sure everything gets delayed and annoy people. The name comes from Tricubic Interpolation, a method from which you can derive points in a regular grid from points around it. It sounded clever at the time, now it’s just pretentious.     What inspired you to start creating games?   No bolt of lightning or sudden realization. This has been a singular, life upsetting tumultuous pain in the ass determination for over a decade now. But like most things it started small and grew over time. I’m in my mid-forties now, in the 1980’s computers were a new thing, school hadn’t seen a computer so when I got my first computer I was asked by my teachers to bring it to show. Four years later it seemed like every teenage boy had one hidden away in the bedroom for playing games. At least the cool ones did (grin).   How long have you been in the gaming industry?   Tricky one that. Before it was an industry in a very real multi-billion dollar sense it was a cottage industry. By the time I left school I had already contributed to three games. When I was 14 I helped out an outfit called “Assassin Software” publishing games on the ZX Spectrum from a board games shop. MY gaming origins are polluted with all those first edition Steve Jackson and Avalon Hill mega games that take months to set-up and play. All the table-top strategy games and RPGs. We sold them, played them. So when they moved into video game publishing I was added loading screens, machine code effects and duplicating the tapes. Later I was doing conversions of some of those games to other 8 bit home computers such as the Amstrad CPC and Memotech MTX 500. They were all extensions of those strategy games but on a computer.   Flash forward to present day; recently I installed an emulator on a tablet, I searched on one of our games (“Next War”) and I was shocked to see graphics I drew over 30 years ago appear instantly on a device in the palm of my hand. I want to go back to that young me and shout “Look at this awesome thing! You should have done more of it!”   In my life I’ve done a lot of things, freelance work. Microprose UK didn’t want me, then they did. Sometime later they had their famous financial breakdownto be bought out by Hasbro.After that I ended up writing working with Longbow 2 mission editing tools. Thenwriting stuff for Empire Interactive Enemy Engaged helicopter games. Then more game tools and QA work for third parties. You’ll see my name in a few sim manuals over the years in various roles.     What do you enjoy most about creating games?   I don’t think of myself as someone who makes games, I make things, I’m a maker with a need to be working on something all the time. I see a cool tool in a shop and think of possibilities,“What can you make with that tool?”I leave behind a trail of electronic projects, last year I completed a five year build of a video arcade machine, this year I started working on prop replica StormTrooper E11 Blaster. I wrote a book on Terrain Modelling for game engines (available on Amazon etc.)So many projects, not enough time. For Combat Helo I think the biggest thrill was Dave’s creative process. Watching something come to life. And later it will bewatching what other people will make with it, or build around it. That’s a big motivator for me.This guy at Komodo Simulations makes replica helicopter controls for museums and such; he’s got designs for 1:1 size Apache flight sticks in the works. I can’t imagine anything more thrilling than sitting in our cockpit on a huge screen feeling actual flight sticks. I’m happy to add features into our game to allow people to build crazy stuff so long as it doesn’t have a knock on effect to our schedule.   I have also found the perfect blend of my old school table-top origins and computers with this Augmented Reality technology. I really wish I had time to work on that.           What inspired the creation of Combat Helo?   Originally it was some time after the demise of the Origin Jameslabel behind the Longbow series. I wanted to play Longbow 3 and nobody was there to make it. A combination of a fanatical fan base and falling sales resulted in publishers dropping the genre like a hot potato. I attempted to have a go at a making Combat Helo back in 2002. During that time we made some progress but all I ended up with was a lot of prototype code for different ideas and systems will little cohesion. The cockpit was designed by a very talented guy from Italy who used the references I gave him. In fact we had a lot of good art contributions but the problem you quickly discover is that once you have art kindly contributed by six different people, you get six different styles. The hi-res cockpit that was built was never textured however you can maybe still see it today, it used to be included as the ‘test’ Apache helicopter in the Outerra demo. Due to work pressures I had to park the 2002 project and nothing happened for a few years. The world changed in that time.   I heard a news story about badly managed helicopter resources in Afghanistan with British commanders asking for more and British politicians saying everything was fine of course. In Afghanistan combat rescue units were stretched in the early days. What would it take to fix that? Was the mission possible given such limited resource?I liked resource management problems in simulations, so called strategic decision making. So when a query about my abandoned 2002 Combat Helo project came up I considered in detail what it would take to complete.Would Combat Rescue be a good topic for a game given the touchy subject matter? So I read Ed Macy’s books, Immediate Response by Mark Hammond and just immerse myself in the subject.   Then came along the idea of incorporating a counter-insurgency (COIN) type of campaignbut it tied into the question I had about resources.Thus was born the hidden agenda of Combat Helo and its COIN campaign, to find out what force levels were required to achieve a pre-set goal. In the end we never completed the implementation for that (nice subtext there). But it’s all good design work that one day could be resurrected. The system behind this was partly inspired by Physicist Sean Gourley’s work on the mathematics of war; his team identified an amazing yet counter-intuitive fact, that war (even asymmetric conflicts) had structure.That structure could be described as a simple one line equation (which I have pinned in large print on my wall). I ran with that and prototyped a model for our COIN campaign. As it happened we didn’t have the man power or funds to deliver that so it’s been parked until we can do it justice. I’m never in any hurry.   So the Apache, COIN, Combat Rescue, the need for a successor to Longbow. All these things conspired, we had to do it. And I was fortunate enough to find Dave. Couldn’t have carried it forward without him.     What are some the challenges that have been encountered during development and how have they been overcome?   Lack of funds from the outset. I agreed to re-start Combat Helo if it was funded. But after we had shown a simple prototype the economy went south and money vanished. I should have taken the decision to abandon it there and then. I totally regret that choice and trying to muddle on. If I had left it, when crowd-funding became a thing we could have returned to it. By that time I was already in huge personal debt and now my family was suffering as a result. So the project had to be parked. That’s why there are huge gaps in development after then end of 2010. It became something I could only pick up as a hobby project until things got better, which they eventually did.   The other challenges were technical. First you had a helicopter that had many classified systems. Then you had a large world that needed to be populated with trees with physical properties that would work in an off the shelf game engine.In 2009 Leadwerks engine was the only engine outside of EA’s Battlefield and possibly the new ArmA game was doing deferred rendering (that’s rendering geometry in one pass and then all the lighting in a later pass).In our ignorance we hit every problem in the book when it comes to trying to create large worlds with game engines designed for small ones. David worked hard with the primitive tools he had. Getting maps of a decent size and performance required us to use every trick in the book. Since we were going for a retro sim look we can get away with a lot of it. The best feature of the engine is real-time lighting, so we make use of it where we can. Play to your strengths. If we had to do it all over we’d do it differently of course.   One of the problems you get is that of floating point math error. The further you move away from the origin of a world the more error creeps into every calculation until eventually the whole model is a jittering mess. You saw this in Longbow 2 in the virtual cockpit mode, that cockpit jitter everyone thought was a vibration effect was actually the fixed point math routines crapping out. And also one of the technical problems of the ill-fated A10 game. We had the same issue although I came up with portals to fix it. Everything in the cockpit sits at the world origin so it’s steady as a rock. I match up lighting with the outside world, you can hardly see the join, even leaning out of the cockpit with TrackIR.   Normally dedicated simulation games get around this by both tiling and resetting the origin, camera matrix manipulation or 64bit math.     How long has Combat Helo been in development and how much research went into its development?   The first lines of code started in September 2009, I was fortunate to meet David Hopkinson. We looked at what the order of battle would be, drew up a list of assets we’d have in game and how to build them.   My research material dates back to 1996. I literally have boxes full of articles from journals, periodicals, sales brochures. All the historical material from when I was writing material for Enemy Engaged, hours of video. Pretty much anything I find and notes from conversations with crew. If you go back through our blogs you can see it evolving over time. Dave helped research and drive the asset list, looking at Iranian equipment, US equipment, the area around Herat in Afghanistan and together we came up with a fitting scenario where they all fitted. We drew up ideas for how radio comm trees would work, the handing over of flights between brigade combat teams (BCTs), we had all this really cool stuff researched that went into the master design documents. Sadly most of it is on the cutting room floor as we need to publish a simpler game. We hope that Gunnery will give us the opportunity to go back and build the original grand campaign.   We certainly drank a LOT of coffee.       How will Combat Helo standout from other similar games such as DCS Blackshark?   They are chalk and cheese, an English expression meaning they may look similar but are very different. The DCS series is a purist simulation product, written by engineers and enthusiasts with an engineering eye. All very procedural and institutionalised. PC combat sims as a genre used to be very different, they were more like animated documentaries. Different experiences.   One forces you to conform, the other indulges. We’re all about indulgence. Our Apache cockpit experience lets you learn as much as you want, go out and blow things up, play with it. We’re working on improving the content pipeline so we can keep throwing new maps and missions, even a dynamic campaign in there. We’re also trying to optimise your up-time. In our Apache you can spend 10 to 15 minutes prepping your ship or hit a key to get going, it’s your choice and we won’t judge you for it. There will be one initial load time and that’s it. No wait time between menus or “small” accidents. Doing a barrel roll will NEVER be an option (well you probably can pull it off but it’s tricky).   One of the features I tried to bring to Combat Helo was this notion that you can walk around in a limited way. Do inspections and arm the aircraft, interact with base objects. I know this is all been done with military games and we’re not trying to be those games either.   Later when we activate co-op play your friends will be able to act as a load-master, arming aircraft as they are ready. We have laptops in the command tent that act as interfaces to the mission engine. A player will be able to assign specific missions to any aircraft ready at the airbase. Everything is message based, we experimented with pulling out game information and updating a HTML 5 page in real-time. That worked quite well, when it’s time to implement a user-facing mission editor we might go the route of SOAP messages from a web page. I’ve got code stubs in there just in case. It depends what people want and how they fly with their friends.   What can users both novice and veteran expect from your game?   We’re creating a game for a generation that missed out on those simulations from Origin and Microprose, PC combat simulations were a genre of their own. Those games were jingoistic indulgencies, escapism with a fair amount of technical depth.   They can expect to install the game and get up and running fairly quickly. This is an authentic representation AH-64D. It’s an odd bird, you can think of it as a Block I that’s undergoing a rolling upgrade to Block II. We made deliberate design choices about readability and ease of use.   95% of the cockpit switches work, engine start-up, APU, lighting settings, store jettison etc. Even the wipers have two speeds and an intermittent wipe mode.Pilots should expect some confusion about how the weapon systems interact between the front and rear seats (I still get confused). My advice is not to keep jumping between seats if you can avoid it, learn to go through the steps you need for the task at hand but we don’t force you.   The real Longbow is a very complex aircraft and there is a lot we don’t cover. It simply isn’t practical or possible to do without touching on areas that are secret. In those areas that are sensitive I take my cues from other games and make a best educated guess. The feedback I get from pilots is along the lines of “good enough” which suits me.   The initial release will contain a typical representation of a live fire gunnery range, operating out of a local stage-point. Essentially you’re given the keys, an ethereal instructor pilot and exercises to complete. You get to try different gunnery techniques, operating the aircraft systems and then engaging in some dynamic (but totally fictional) survival missions in SAM infested hills moving from point A to point B.   The AH-64D is armed with a 30mm cannon, a selection of rockets (including illumination and smoke) and AGM-114 L and K Hellfires (Radar and Laser guided respectively). TrackIR head tracking support is included so you can slave the cannon to your physical head movement if you wish. We’ll have a mode for pick-up and play with a 360 joypad so you can fly instant action missions Comanche style. We have some lively crew speech to keep things interesting.   Initially we won’t ship with multi-player, it’s logistically difficult to debug and test. The game has been designed around messaging for multi-player so I don’t anticipate major problems, just lots of little ones, we will be enabling co-op (font seat / back seat) play around the third major release on our published roadmap. The cross-coupling of the systems presents interesting play challenges. You can actually fight your co-pilotfor control of systems. Also expect the occasional exploding cow (if you know which setting in the config.ini to tweak).       What can users who play hardcore flight sims expect from your game?   The best I can hope for is that they feel nostalgic for the games they played in the mid to late nineties and enjoy some of the attention to the flight model and cockpit experience. We have a really advanced flight-model thanks to Fred Naar who created the amazing free helicopter physics replacement add-on for FSX. There’s nothing else like it.   “Gunnery” is best described as Longbow 2 Tutorial Mode with trees mixed with a little Comanche Maximum Overkill. It’s a rolling release meaning we have a roadmap for the year in which we will be releasing upgrades and new content to extend the experience. Eventually moving towards our ambitious grand design.   Will you allow your game to modded? Will users to be able to add custom skins, sounds, and helicopters?   We acknowledge there’s scope for improvement. We’re only a small team and there are many talented individuals who make awesome texture and sound packs that can improve the experience. It’s something we’ll try to help with, any reasonable requests for information on the games forum will be answered by us. Anything really cool we’ll try and make it happen. Sadly making new helicopters is likely to be impossible without a lot of code behind. However if someone created a UH-60 that fits the game style we’d love to hear from them and maybe make it an official add-on/plugin. Same goes for more armour and other threats. We’re happy to update our internal database to add new entities.   If Combat Helo becomes successful what other titles do you plan to create? Is there a Cobra sim in the future?   Not a Cobra (although we did consider that and others). If “Gunnery” is reasonably successful we have a CH-47D already built, just needs us to integrate it into the code. This will allow for more mission profiles such as co-operative armed escort and combat rescue. I would like to add something like the “Little Bird” or a BlackHawk.   Post “Gunnery” and the roadmap want to crowd-fund the next phase. We have been experimenting with an amazing new engine UnigineSIM which delivers everything we need out of the box for our huge open-world campaign.We’re still in talks with Unigine so we don’t know which way this will go. I have high hopes, it’s a great engine, great design and we can do some amazing things with it. One of things we’re certainly going to do is make it much easier to add new cockpits and aircraft. But the focus will always be on helicopters and joint operations in that easy to pick up but hard to master game style.   Real-time 3D cockpit interior of the CH-47D.   Fully clickable overhead panel   Unigine SIM engine - Combat Helo (2) could look like this.   When do you plan for Combat Helo to be released and how can it obtained upon release?   We will be publishing the game on Steam, we’re currently listed in the Steam Greenlight Concepts area if you want to stop by, comment or start a discussion. It’s been well received on Steam Greenlight so far, hitting the number two spot at the weekend. That’s pretty encouraging for a PC simulation. Clearly people want these things. We don’t talk about dates but we’re aiming for around the end of Q1 this year which is not far off. That’s why you see all the activity on Facebook, Twitter, and the new official site (that’s www.combat-helo.com). Sérgio is new to the team but not to flight simulations, he’s community building. And importantly, he reminds me about my obligations and expectations. He’s been fantastic. Don’t worry, when it escapes on Steam we’ll be sure to tell everyone.   What are the final system specifications going to be?   NVidia Shader Model 3.0 GPU or ATI Shader Model 4.0 graphics card (NVidia GeForce 6600, ATI Radeon 3000). Or better. Most modern 3D cards.Any mid-level gaming PC, i5 2.5 GHz or better. 3.5GHz CPU and upwards is recommended for higher detail scenery.HOTAS Joystick configuration strongly recommended for simulation mode play. The lighting and post-shader effects are GPU intensive so I would strongly recommend the beefiest card you can muster. You can get a lot of performance improvements by selectively turning off effects. I can tweak it to run fine on my gaming laptop with an nVidia mobile GPU.   Do you have anything you would like to tell your supporters?   Stick with us for the ride. We have some amazing things in the pipeline and we need you to help us make it happen. PC Sims are as strong as ever and there’s room for variety. Support for Gunnery means we can carry on, taking it to the next level. And above all, thank you for the support and patience.   Combat Helo looms over developer Richard Hawley   Once again Mr. Hawley thank you for taking the time to answer all of these questions and I'm sure I speak for a lot of members here at CombatACE when in saying that I look forward to the release of Combat Helo.     We're aren't done yet. Somebody had to create the terrain, the Apache, and a  number of other things in the world of Combat Helo.Dave Hopkinson, a teacher from the UK who now lives and works in Asia, is the artist that brought the world of Combat Helo to life. He too agreed to an interview us and for that Dave we thank you. 


How long have you been creating art?

On and off I've been producing 2D and 3D computer art for about 16 years. My original 3D art experience came from making levels for the first person shooter series Quake and also DukeNukem 3D. Later I moved onto 3D modeling and I started with Gmax (a free version of 3d studio max that was designed for developing game mods) and then moved on to 3D studio max. I worked on a variety of new aircraft for the Strike fighters series and then worked on Battle of Britain 2: Wings of victory. I also worked on a handful of total conversion mods for Medieval 2: Total war.

What are some the things you like to create?

Cockpits are an area that I really enjoy working on. The skill set involved in developing an accurate and detailed cockpit is quite unique and it can be very rewarding. To build an accurate cockpit you really need to work along side real world pilots and often the materials are written rather than visual. For example it's very rare to find a complete set of blueprints for a cockpit which means you really need to do some investigations, experiments and thorough research. Cockpits also allow you some artistic license as you have room to include small details that vary in individual aircraft. Photos of babes on the dashboard, colourful magazines in the map tray, odd quotations, comical re-spellings etc. Easter eggs in other words.

What inspires you to create the art you make?

As a technical artist there isn't a great deal of need for inspiration. Generally my job is to recreate objects that appear to be the same in 3D space as they are in reality. My production level is usually attributed to motivation which typically comes from seeing the developments on Richard's side of the project.

What are some of the things you enjoy about art and graphic design for video games?

For me the greatest reward comes from seeing people use and enjoy the artwork I create. Overcoming challenges and proving to myself that I have the ability to accurately reproduce an object also brings a sense of satisfaction.

Your work for Combat Helo is great. How much research went to the design of the AH-64 Apache?

Richard is a walking Apache encyclopedia of AH-64 knowledge and therefore there wasn't a great deal for me to do in this regard. He provided a huge quantity of images, videos and other reference materials that I needed to produce the artwork.

What are some the challenges you encountered while creating the Apache for Combat Helo and how have you overcome them?


The 3D engine that we are using to develop Combat Helo provided both Richard and I with a long list of challenges that we slowly had to work around and deal with. The main challenge that I encountered was getting the cockpit model with over 500 sub objects (switches, knobs, buttons, controls etc) to render at an acceptable frame rate. We had to experiment with the way the objects were grouped and arranged in order to optimize render time. We developed a method of hiding small detailed objects in the CP/G cockpit when you were in the pilot seat and vice versa. Thankfully the leadwerks engine provides support for lua scripting so we found ways to solve rendering problems through scripting.


How long did it take for you to create a model the Apache and get it to a point where you were pleased with how it looks?

We were lucky enough to inherit a basic Apache fuselage model from the earlier Combat Helo project which I used as a basis for developing the model. I re-modeled all of the components attached to the fuselage (landing gear, rotors, IHADs, cannon, stub wings, pylons, stores, weapons etc) then went through the usual process of UV mapping and painting it. We knew from the start that we were looking for a 90's sim retro feel and that super detailed models were not going to be in order.  Typically a model of that quality will take a solid week of working to build, uv map and paint.

How does it feel to know that your artwork will be enjoyed by thousands of people?

Hopefully tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands! :P  The more the merrier.
  Fun question: When creating the terrain … did you have a Bob Ross moment?

I definitely had a few Rolf "Can you tell what is it yet?" Harris moments. In all honesty, terrain development is no joke. It's the one area of artwork where you really need to 'embrace the grind'.  We're hoping that Combat Helo 2 will feature a much more detailed terrain while involving much less work.

Do you have anything you would to tell your supporters?

Thank you for waiting patiently. Please buy Combat Helo     I don’t think you’ll have to tell many of us that twice. Especially considering a how a flood almost killed the project and how current events in Bangkok are troubling for you, your family, and Combat Helo. Please stay safe over there. Once again thank you Mr. Hopkinson and Mr. Hawley for taking the time to do this interview. You can visit the Combat Helo Album to check out more their screen shots and art work.   Thank you for taking the time to stop by and in the words Wrench “Happy Landings!”    
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Tiger, Tiger, burning bright - SF '42


By 33LIMA, February 25, 2014
Roaring into battle with the famous Tiger tank in 'Steel Fury - Kharkov 1942'!   'Tyger, tyger burning bright   In the forest of the night   What immortal hand or eye   Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?'   William Blake, 'The Tyger', 1794   And now, for something completely different. No, not a Monty Python sketch, but a change of pace and scenery: from the clear blue skies and snarling aero-engines of combat flightsims to the solid earth and thundering heavy weapons of perhaps the best available tanksim, from Ukrainian developers Graviteam - 'Steel Fury Kharkov 1942'.   The sim My first tank sim was back in the early 1980s, believe it or not. It was played on my younger brother's Sinclair Spectrum and compared to 'Pong', 'Rommel's Revenge' was a revelation, albeit the wire-frame graphics were perhaps not quite what we're used to these days. Fun, though; I was pleased to see that it's been preserved for posterity on Youtube:     Turn the clock forward about 15 years, and my first modern tanksim was Ultimation's 'Panzer Commander'. Graphics had come a long way and despite simplified (but very usable) targeting, odd bunker-based anti-tank guns and no infantry at all, this was a great product, with a dramatic musical theme and varied and engaging single-player campaigns covering US, British, Soviet and German tanks and AFVs.     It was soon joined on my hard drive by another classic, Microprose's 'M1 Tank Platoon 2', showcasing the US Army's formidable M1A2 Abrams. This also had its vicissitudes, like near-instant deluges of lethal artillery fire which usually killed off any attached APCs early on and a tendency to over-rely for successful gameplay on the simulated IVIS real-time tactical display, where, as one reviewer put it, you could spend the whole battle watching little blue and red squares firing pixels at each other. Still, with high production values (including newsreel-style video intros from 'MPS News' to each of the campaigns) it was a great sim, a classic that, with a bit of fiddling, can be played on modern PCs and is still great fun:     Tanksim fans were rather spoiled back in those days. There were other less capable but still fun modern tanksims like Novalogic's 'Armoured Fist 2' and 3 and Interactive Magic's 'Spearhead', soon joined by the original 'Steel Beasts' from eSim, which simulated the mechanics of tanking with unpredecented accuracy. For World War 2 fans, as well as 'Panzer Commander', there was Interactive Magic's 'iPanzer 1944', but the best of all came with Wings Simulation's 'Panzer Elite'. Modders soon appeared who tweaked the original rather cartoonish graphics and by the time the Special Edition arrived, this was clearly the premier WW2 tanksim, and I think still is, in many respects. This is not least due to the continued work of the mod community, notably Aldo and other members of the PE Development Group and BobR and the Ostpak team. PE is still playable on modern systems and well worth it, too, as seen in this 'playthrough' of the Beresov mission from Ostpak:     And so to modern times. 'Steel Beasts' is now a grapically-improved professional military training tool with a spun-off version for simmers, and if you want something simpler and cheaper there's IDDK/Crazy House's 'T-72 Iron Warriors/Balkans on Fire'. Although you're often just a single tank driving around and clobbering stuff with little opportunity to co-operate with fellow AI, this looks good, has plenty of detail and plays well:   http://store.steampowered.com/app/1670/   For World War 2, there was 'T-34 -vs- Tiger'. Like the same developer's 'T-72', this is a pretty good simulation of the operation of the featured vehicles. Again, you're essentially on your own in missions, with the other AI, friendly and enemy, acting out their scripted functions. Looks and sounds great though:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmyM-WLyd8U   Which brings us to Ukranian developer Graviteam's 'Steel Fury Kharkov 1942', which at last puts you in the role of the leader of a platoon/troop of tanks and pitches you right into company-sized combined arms operations on the Eastern Front. While the original release featured a decent set of German and Russian tanks (including the Lend-Lease British Matilda infantry tank, of all things!) it was limited, as the title suggests, to the mid-1942 era.   While the sim's mostly still Eastern Front only, the modders have been at work, making AI AFVs playable and adding new missions and vehicles. And unlike other Graviteam titles like the 'Achtung Panzer/Graviteam Tactics' series which are essentially wargames, or 'Steel Armour - Blaze of War' which is an unusual sort of tanksim within a 'strategy' game, SF'42 is a proper tanksim, through and through   SF'42 was hard to come by for a while but is now available at GamersGate:   http://www.gamersgate.co.uk/DD-SFURY/steel-fury-kharkov-1942   The mods are now de rigeur for anyone wanting to get the best of this sim and the best place to start is I think over on Tanksim.com:   http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=178218   Edit - since writing this I've discovered that the best place for SF mods is Gaviteam's on forum for the sim:   http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0   Use of Jonesoft's Gerneric Mod Enabler is essential and many mods seem set up to use it. Install order is important and as with most sims there are some aspects of modding with which you need to have a bit of patience. But most or all of what you need to know is there on Tanksim.com. And most of the stuff you'll want seems to be on Mediafire, here, courtesy of Godzilla1985:   http://www.mediafire.com/?q38nkzaginphq   Edit, August 2014 - the SPM mod was used for this mission; the later NTA mod has been discontinued, but its successor, the STA Mod, is now available and I think it's fair to say STA is the latest and most comprehensive mod for Steel Fury: http://stasf2008.eph...d-on-steel-fury   Fancying a slice of tank action for a change, I dusted off my old modded install of SF '42 and knowing that it is better to give than to receive - especially if the 'present' is a solid round of 'Armour-Piercing Capped, Ballistic Capped' travelling at over 2,000 feet per second - I decided to start with my favourite tank - the German Tiger. Which by all accounts, is pretty good at both giving and receiving.   The tank The Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger I needs little introduction. Its unsloped armour reflects the fact it was designed more for superiority over the likes of the British Matilda and French Somua than the T-34 or KV-1 which so shocked the Germans on meeting them in the summer of 1941. But the Tiger proved an excellent antidote to the superb Soviet tanks and indeed, to the Shermans, Cromwells and Churchills it would meet in the Mediterranean and North-West European Theatres. 'Nuff said, except that I count myself privileged to have met the mighty Tiger 131, now restored to running order and authentic appearance by the Royal Armoured Corps Tank Museum at Bovington Camp, Dorset, having been captured, abandoned, from Schwere Panzer Abteilung 504 at Medjez el Bab, Tunisia in April 1943 after being damaged by Churchills of 48 RTR:     The mission Here's the mission briefing; the tail end of it, anyway. It's preceded with other sections which help set the scene, telling me that my platoon of three Tigers is part of a Kampfgruppe of Panzer Regiment 201, 23rd Panzer Division, tasked with following up a successful counterattack. Our Kampfgruppe appears to be a combined arms force of reinforced company size, with artillery and air support. Our mission is in two phases - first to destroy enemy defensive positions along a low crest then to swing left and clear the village of Nepokrytoe.     While the briefing has the semblance of military orders it could still be rather better presented. The current NATO format for 'orders' like these - Ground (technically a preliminary to the orders), Situation, Mission, Execution, Service/Support and Command and Signal - would be better. Not unrealistic either, as it is essentially the same as the British WW2 format (with detail differences, eg 'Situation' was 'Information') adopted also by the Americans. Convergent evolution being what it is, the German WW2 format wasn't much different. The SF'42 format doesn't give me as much info as I'd like on the operation, eg the composition of the other subunits my platoon's operating with. And the attack itself could have been better described, more clearly broken down into its two constituent and distinct phases, with the detailed tasks given for each subunit for each phase stated, including my own. As it was, while the narrative didn't provide a clear picture of the composition of our force this was apparent from the map, which showed unit type symbols - diamonds are tanks, the 'pointy rectangles' are infantry in APCs. In our case the APCs are SPWs (Schutzenpanzerwagen) as the Germans called their Hanomag half-tracked armoured personnel carriers. The map itself isn't bad but despite the presence of contours and the occasional spot height, it doesn't make the lie of the land very clear (a vital consideration in ground ops) and it doesn't zoom out enough, so you have to pan around to try to orient yourself properly.   The map screen is also were you can issue orders to your platoon, which you can do 'in game' only by calling up and clicking on this map - there are no hotkeys to order (eg) a formation change. The scope for giving orders is pretty low, perhaps better suiting Soviet tanks where radios were limited and hand or flag signals were the norm. The most useful orders are 'do as I do! and basic formation commands, options being line (abreast), column/single file, a sort of 'blob' (as near as you'll get to the common arrowhead or wedge formation) and the ability to order 'spread out!' or 'close in!' I probably need to spend a bit more time on this map/briefing screen to better appreciate its facilities.   One other issue is that the map is from the original sim which is for operations in the Kharkov area in mid-1942. While this wasn't the only period when there was fighting around this town, even my mission's date is in May 1942, some months before the Tiger first appeared in action, in the Leningrad sector in September 1942. But this is a modder-made tank in a modder-made single mission which makes the best use of what's available, and I for one am most grateful for the opportunity to fight in a Tiger in a modern sim.   From the map, I could see that my platoon was sited to the centre rear of the mission's Start Line, which was a track running across our front. You can see this more clearly below, with the briefing panel minimised. We are the three blue diamonds, roughly bottom centre. To our right are some Panzergrenadiers in their SPWs. To our left are some more SPWs with  more tanks, all still in column formation until they reach the Start Line clear of the woods. The latter will evidently be our Kampfgruppe's left-hand boundary. So I will be in the centre, as ordered, with a Panzer Grenadier platoon each side, with some other tanks for a bit of extra firepower.     Enough of the preliminaries! Time to get the show on the road. I started the mission, the loading screen helpfully giving me a snippet from a German tanker's manual, this one a warning that stopping after spotting an AT gun close by was suicidal and that only a fast-moving attack with all weapons would do. I'd try to remember that! Soon, I found my virtual self standing tall, hatch open, in the commander's cupola of my Tiger, looking up at the Start Line, which I could make out in the form of a line of trees interspersed with telegraph poles, maybe a hundred meters ahead. Here we go!     ...to be continued!
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CombatACE Spotlight: Interview with FalconC45


By Skyviper, February 24, 2014
CombatACE Spotlight: Interview with FalconC45 “The support on the forum is just amazing… I feel like they are my true friends…”-FalconC45   Aviation; according to the encyclopedia, it's the word used to describe the design, production, and operation of heavier-than-air aircraft. It’s defined as an art form by some and yet inspires many children to dream of soaring in the clouds. Some are fortunate enough to not have to extend their arms out their side and make buzzing noises as they get the chance to fly and yet many others enjoy the feel of a joystick and allow their computers to take them places they couldn’t go and let them do things they may never do. Whatever our reasons are many of us enjoy a number of flight simulators and better yet enjoy being in the company of other aviation enthusiast and fellow flight simmers. CombatACE is a great home to many of us who enjoy these things and as time goes on the community grew and while others come and go many of us have stayed; like FalconC45 who has been with us for nine years and has made some really awesome mods. We would like to take a few moments and shine the light on him in the CombatACE Spotlight. Thank you, FalconC45, for doing this interview with us.   To start off, please tell us a little bit about yourself? I’m Erik Glascoe. I am in a wheelchair and can’t walk or talk. My disability is Cerebral Palsy. My brain got severely damage when I was very young. According to my mother, she had a difficult birth and I had a real high fever when I first started to walk.  I’m from Dayton Ohio originally. I lived in Ohio many years until my mother got married in ’86. My mother & my step-father moved to Colorado for three years and we moved to Upstate New York for a year. We moved back to Ohio when my Grandmother was really sick. Currently (and in the past) I’m living right under Wright Patterson Air Force Base’s flight paths.   What interest you about aviation?  I guess it was when my mother brought me to the USAF museum when I was about 2 or 3 in a stroller. The impression of seeing the shark mouthed P-40 staring at you was awe inspiring to a kid. From there and on, I was bitten by the military aviation bug. The bug really bit me when I saw both the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds flying the F-4s demoing the aircraft. The idea of being a fighter pilot as a kid (without really understanding about my limitations at the time) came to my mind was when watching the TV show “The Black Sheep Squadron” with along my Grandpa. So I studied hard in school and in my teen years, I bought every military aviation book I could find. I studied the details of each era of the wars and such. I even drew 3 sided ID Flash cards so I could ID aircraft in flight (in which I can even today).   The realization of being a fighter pilot was just a dream was when I began understanding about my disability and the limitations of it came to light. That sucked hard big time. So I thought hey how about designing military aircraft so the disabled could defend the country as well. That dream lasted a few years when my stupid math teacher said I can’t use a calculator in my dream job; I had to do the formulas in my head.  I knew I couldn’t because I get lost without using a pen and paper or using a calculator.   What are your favorite types of aircraft and what do you find most appealing about them? I like all eras of military aviation. I don’t stick to on era of it like most hobbyists do.  My favorite aircraft from WW1 is the Fokker D7. My favorite aircraft from WW2 is the Spitfire MK 9E. My favorite aircraft from Korea era is the F7F Tigercat. My favorite aircraft from Today is the F-16 (especially the Block 50 C Variant). But I love them all.   What got you interested in flight simulation? My step-dad showed me one on a friend’s computer. My jaw dropped. My dream of being a fighter pilot could be lived through a computer.   Do you remember the first flight sim you ever played? Yes. It was the first F-15E Strike Eagle sim on a Desktop PC with the CH Products Flightstick. After that I was hooked. In my young mind, I was being a fighter pilot.   What motivated you to arrive at CombatACE and stay over the years? Dave who I knew from SIMHQ & Column5’s forum invited me over and I stayed ever since. We tried to meet in RL one year but it failed. But I know if we ever meet in RL, we’ll hit it off in an instant.   When did you start modding? I created the HDR Mods when TK didn’t turn on the dx10 shaders in a SF2 Build. I tried simulating the RL lighting with the shadows on the engine at the time. The surprising part about my mod was when the frame rates increased A LOT. My jaw dropped when reading reports about my mod about it increasing the frame rates. My HDR mods aren’t necessary anymore since TK turned on the dx10 shaders. His shaders are better anyway except for the shadows.   What do you enjoy most about modding?  To create something for the players to enjoy.   What do you least enjoy about modding games?  The headaches of finding bugs LOL    What modding tools do you use and why?  Notepad for the ENBSeries ini files    What is your favorite mod that you have created?  The HDR Mod for ATI Card users   What is your favorite mod that you did not create? A tie between the Viper packs & the TMF Tomcat   Who is a Modder or group of modders that you admire or has inspired you to start modding? Stary & Dave.   If you had the time and resources what would be a mod that you would like to make? A JDASF and G-Force mod (Anti-Godzilla force) complete with giant monsters. But I don’t think the SF Engine could handle that. So realistically I would love to help beta test a WINGMAN mod (hint to Wrench).    Fun Question: What song is your theme song?  Hell on Wheels by Cinderella   Do you have any favorite quotes or thoughts about being here at CombatACE you’d like to share? The support on the forum is just amazing when I told them about my cancer. I was overwhelmed with friendship on the site. I feel like they are my true friends even though they are just text on the monitor. I hope someday we’ll meet face to face.   Thank you FalconC45 for taking the time to do this interview with us and I wish you the absolute best.   Thanks for checking out this CombatACE Spotlight Segment in our next segment we'll be interviewing Gepard. Once again thank you for stopping by and good hunting.
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Mosquito night intruder: IL-2 '46


By 33LIMA, February 20, 2014
Beating up the enemy after dark, in Prangster's Mosquito campaign for IL-2!   To adapt the 'Redneck's' line in the movie 'Outpost', you can say what you like about Hermann Goering, but he had style...and a perhaps characteristically brutal but effective way with words. Of all the pithy statements attributed to 'der Dicke', as the rotund Reichsmarschall was unceremoniously nicknamed, one I like best concerns his opinion of the 'Wooden Wonder' - the justly-famous DeHavilland DH98 Mosquito. Of this superlative aeroplane, Goering is said to have remarked:   'In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I'm going to buy a British radio set - then at least I'll own something that has always worked.'   It's said (eg in Crowood's Me262 history) that - far from having been forced into development as a bomber by Hitlerian ineptitude - the famous German jet fighter was heavily marketed by Willy Messerschmitt as a multi-role plane from the outset. And that this was partly in an effort to cash in on widespread German recognition of the Mosquito's success as a very fast warplane which excelled at many roles: fighter, night bomber, precision day bomber, fighter bomber, night fighter, anti-shipping, reconnaisance. Whatever Messerschmitt's motivation, the Mosquito is one of those aircraft which, as the saying goes, looked right and was right. It also sounds pretty good:     A little while back, my plan to feature comparative Mosquito mission reports in a few different sims didn't get beyond CFS2 add-on 'Mosquito Squadron' when my graphics card failed. Restored by heating it to re-flow possible failed soldered connections, I can pick that up now. So it's time for 'Mosquito Squadron' again; this time not the CFS2 add-on but Prangster's mini-campaign of that name, available for IL-2 over at that peerless resource for all things Sturmovik, Mission4Today:   http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=1172   I was especially interested in flying the included Amiens Prison raid in IL-2, by way of comparison with the CFS2 equivalent. But that will come later. This report is on the first mission in Prangster's campaign. Intriguingly, this is for a night intruder mission, which I knew Mossies flew in 1944 around the time of the Normandy landings. Some of these operations are described by participants, in Osprey/del Prado's 'Mosquitos of World War 2', a good basic source. One of the units flying these missions in 1944 was the Royal New Zealand Air Force's 487 Squadron, squadron code 'EG', assigned to the RAF's 140 Wing, No. 2 Group, in the famous Second Tactical Air Force (2nd TAF). And this is the very squadron featured in this campaign! Go, Kiwis!   Night intruder missions were a new departure for me. I knew they had earlier been flown by black-painted Hurricanes and Bostons, stooging around in the dark, low over enemy-occupied France and basically shooting up anything that looked like it needed shooting up. Now, I was going to attempt this in a Mosquito...a virtual one of course but the darkness would be real enough. So with the room light turned off and illumination provided from a light outside filtering through a partly-open door - the better to be able to make out detail on a dark screen yet see a little of my keyboard - I braced myself for a new simualtion experience.   Here's the mission brief. I have to say that it is short but exceptionally good. Mission objectives and important parameters are clearly stated and appended to this is some immersive, realistic extra, military-looking stuff, starting with a met report from the meterolo...meteriolo...you know, those weathermen chappies.     From what I remember, this is the original IL-2 Normandy 'map', which I think came with the Aces Expansion Pack or thereabouts. No South of England provided. So I'm taking off from a small island where no land should be, out in the English Channel and quite close to the French coast. But I for one much prefer this to an air start. And the island is a reasonable substitute for Thorney Island on the southern coast of England further north, at which Mossies were really based at this time.   Though it's February 1944 and D-Day is still four months away, knowing what's coming I can read off from the map and savour all those names about to become famous on The Longest Day...Pointe du Hoc, Ouistreham, Courselles-sur-Mer and all the rest.   In short, on this sortie I must fly west at low level and orbit at the enemy airfield near Valognes, knocking down any Gerries silly or unfortunate enough to be caught in the circuit there. Then I fly south for a bit, clobbering all and sundry ground transport as I go. If I can see any. It being dark, this doesn't seem very likely. How on earth will I manage? I have no idea. But there's one way to find out...   I started the mission. Here I am in the cockpit...and in the dark. At least it's a moonlit night. When you're out and about in the countryside, away from the city lights and relying on just the Mark 1 Eyeball suitably dark-adapted, you appreciate the massive difference between visibility on a moonlit night, compared to a truly dark, overcast one. This was bad, but it wasn't impossible. At least I could see my immediate surroundings and most important of all, a horizon. So I had at least a sporting chance of getting airborne...and maybe even staying there. So far, so good.     Switching to the external view, I had a look around. Against the lighter sky to the west, I could at least see my own aircraft, on its own as this is a solo mission. Our little island base seemed quite well-appointed and the flarepath was nicely illuminated for my takeoff. Feeling a little less uncomfortable, I called up the 'mini-map' and oriented myself.     Sad to say, I completely forgot about using my own cockpit, navigation or landing lights. Not enough training in night flying, was my excuse. What are they thinking, throwing people like me to the lions, on operations like this, that we're completely untrained for? Feeling still slightly peeved, I started humming to myself that old airman's refrain...all together, now:   'I didn't want to join the Air Force I didn't want my b*****ks shot away I'd rather hang around Piccadilly Underground Living off the earnings of a high-born lady.'   Not much hope of that now...maybe later, if I make it back and that transfer to a training unit comes through. Oh well, nothing else for it, but back to the night's business. I started up, checked my controls, set flaps two notches down and opened the throttle. Very slowly. This seemed to have the desired effect in minimising swing. Keeping well between the rows of lights either side of the long runway, I lifted off and climbed away. Early days yet but so far, still so good. Maybe I'd do alright at this night intruder lark, after all.     ...to be continued!
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