Avionics

[+Fates 63]

One of the biggest problems with modern days flight simulations have been avionics. They become so taxing on even the high end game systems and almost intolerable in multiplayer. Avionics, to the best of my understanding, our the biggest reason why WW2 sims are so much more playable online. With modern and historic sims being equal graphically, the taxing amount of avionics in modern day sims simply kill it for online play.

 

My questions would be,

 

"How far do you plan to take the aircrafts avionics package, including weaponry?"

 

"Do you plan on concentrating more in one area? Navigation vs Weaponry?"

 

"Will you stray away from hardcore Simulation, to develop a more commonality of avionics across a wider variety of aircraft platforms to make online play easier?"

 

<C>

Fates

[scary_pigeon 0]

yeah.

 

lol. Kind of wish we were doing a wwi game.

 

so much easier. rotating dials - how hard is that? not very.

 

I agree with you about popularity of wwii simming. I myself never got into lomac or even falcon4. complicated for my little mind. the realistic simplicity of IL2 was far more too my liking..

 

..however, in jet thunder - we have a sort of inherent compromise.

 

The avionics are not that sophisticated. in the harrier case, I think some of it is 'broken' undevelopped, like some sources say that sidewinders may have had no radar cue - simple limited to uncaged mode.

 

both navigation and weoponry are very important to get right. we still lack a bit of information so at first the radar will be a generic.

 

dante explains it to me, making sure I do it right:

 

 

I am thinking that the difference in the sea harriers search mode will be subtle and largely superficial. We will be modelling realistic radar - probably with spherical mapped radar cross sections (and a similar approach to infrared cross section) - maybe it has other do dars and widgets too, like brightness - gain? - if its in, we'll try and model it.

 

I suppose this and the weapons has a sort of priority because we find ourselves doing this now and the nav stuff later - but we want it done right. maybe with an IL2 like GPS for newbies - beacons and things like that for the keen.

 

what I am excited about with this is that its going to have some good potential for online scraps. realistic and yet fun due to what I imagine to be accessibility of relatively simple - not much above - WWII avionics.

 

the Skyhawk which along with the Sea Harrier will feature in a demo in the near future are quite simple in their avionics. The Skyhawk itself doesnt even have a radar. :-) just what appears to be a WWII style gunsight.

 

And with aircombat being up close and personal, it should appeal, I hope to the both fans of jet sims and wwii simmers who are in it for the close combat. the scripting approach we use makes it possible to model a lot of different electronic cockpits with lots of function.

Edited January 4, 2005 by scary_pigeon

[+Dante-JT 6]

Good post, Fates.

 

That screen above is our bare start of generic radar modelling, to start training Steve's WWII-oriented mind to the basics of air-to-air radar modes, search mode, track-while-scan, boresight etc. Its following a learning curve to not overwhelm poor Steve, so it may look shamefully simplified to seasoned jet sim veterans. Yesterday, our radar system display came alive for the first time showing a contact - plotting a blip - and also a manual cursor to lock a contact. It'll be a long way ahead, avionics and campaign are my biggest worries, and probably the worries of any other combat flight sim dev group.

 

Steve and myself are JT's fathers. My view is slightly different than what Steve wants. We hope to find a good balance between our two visions. Steve sees JT more in the 'online fun' aspect, with multiple flyable planes, lots of scenarios, good and enjoyable gameplay, but enough realism to provide an enduring and tense experience. Much like what IL-2 series does today in the WWII arena. Very good and popular stuff indeed. Steve is right market-wise, he wishes that as many people play the game so it becomes a success and can at least pay the bills of a very small but efficient dev team (us).

 

On the other hand, I am a old-school flight simmer, more single-player oriented, I wish to play campaigns from start to end, mission by mission, with all realism and options maxed out; I love a gigantic printed manual explaining step-by-step every avionic system of the simulated aircraft; I also would prefer a flight sim with just one but very well simulated aircraft (like Falcon 4) rather than a flight sim with many aircraft but rather generic/commonality between all them (like USAF for example... however, Lomac impressed me, half a dozen planes and seemed all well done).

 

To sum up, in my vision I'd prefer a really 99% simulated and complex Jet Thunder with just the Sea Harrier flyable in a boxed old-style release with a huge printed manual telling the whole Harrier history and describing all its systems and an in-depth campaign with great historical accuracy.

 

Probably JT will end as something between these two visions - also notice that IL-2's original Oleg's vision was to be an in-depth simulation of just the IL-2 Sturmovik aircraft - the other planes started being added later as the project grown.

 

So, what you guys think ? Is the lack of popularity of jet sims in online multiplay is due to hard avionics and steeper learning curves, or other factors? What about SFP1/WoV ?

 

"How far do you plan to take the aircrafts avionics package, including weaponry?"

 

In february (cross your fingers) we will got a SeaHarrier FRS.1 flight manual. Then we will dive in deep in it.

 

"Do you plan on concentrating more in one area? Navigation vs Weaponry?"

 

We'll try to cover both equally.

 

"Will you stray away from hardcore Simulation, to develop a more commonality of avionics across a wider variety of aircraft platforms to make online play easier?"

 

The word "sim-lite" or 'mid-core sim' scares simmers away, it's a well known fact that hardcore sims can have options to be accessible and playable by newbies, but softcore sims like Jet Fighter V or Ace Combat series doesn't have hardcore options for the seasoned flight simmer :) So we choose to be as realistic/harcore as we can reach but with options to cut down complexity to allow new people to get the grips with the flightsim.

 

To end, I'd say that we choose the Falklands scenario and jets from 60's/70's/80's as a goal because how can a team like us, with just 2 fully active developers (Steve and myself) and a small group of people who contribute through the internet, face Oleg's sims experience and expertise in the WWII arena? No way, we prefered something really new. Falklands, V/STOL, carriers...;) Altough Steve would have loved to do a biplane game because he thinks it would be less work for him look the trouble that the Knights Over Europe team faced, in the end, any flight sim, be it about WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, modern, futuristic, is a very large and complex project - a WWI flight sim project would indeed have its own oddities and specific difficulties that will appear further down the road.

Edited January 4, 2005 by Dante-JT

[andersblume 0]

On the other hand, I am a old-school flight simmer, more single-player oriented, I wish to play campaigns from start to end, mission by mission, with all realism and options maxed out; I love a gigantic printed manual explaining step-by-step every avionic system of the simulated aircraft; I also would prefer a flight sim with just one but very well simulated aircraft (like Falcon 4) rather than a flight sim with many aircraft but rather generic/commonality between all them

 

I totally agree with you... I love realistic sims!

 

Have you tried to mail BAe to get some info about the shars blue fox radar?

Edited January 4, 2005 by andersblume

[andersblume 0]

Oh and by the way, If you havent already seen this, I think you should check this link out: Radar Simulation Software

 

 

The Camber Radar Toolkit® has been used to develop the following radar simulations:

 

APS-145 (E-2C)

APS-130 (EA-6B)

APQ-159 (F-5)

APG-66/68 (A-4, F-16)

APQ-180 (AC-130U)

APQ-170 (MC-130H)

APQ-122 (MC-130E)

APQ-174 (MH-47E and MH-60K)

APQ-158 (MH-53J)

APQ-186 (CV-22)

APS-115 (P-3C Update III)

APS-137 (P-3C Update IV and AIP PACT)

APS-130 (EA-6B)

AWG-9 (F-14A and F-14B)

ARINC-708 Weather Radar (KC-135, B777 and others)

TWR-850 (Beech 1900, T-400)

WRS-700 (B737, B777, B767, A320)

RDR-1F (C-130)

Sea Harrier "Blue Fox" Radar

APN-241 (HS-748)

APG-65 (AV-8B II+ and F/A-18)

Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Development Radar

 

Cheers

[+Dante-JT 6]

Oh and by the way, If you havent already seen this, I think you should check this link out: Radar Simulation Software

The Camber Radar Toolkit® has been used to develop the following radar simulations:

Sea Harrier "Blue Fox" Radar

 

Cheers 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Yep I knew that :) Interesting to see how taxing would this be in the whole simulation, I think it reaches Fates' point, just look at the specs to run this radar simulation properly:

The radar simulations can be run on single and multi-processor platforms. The standard configuration for an integrated simulator system is a 2 processor system with 256 Mbytes of RAM

 

2 cpus and 256 Mbytes of RAM for the radar...and the rest of the simulation runs on another rigs probably :)

Anyway, would be great to license such radar simulation software...if people in forums is complaining that Blue Fox radar is performing too well against low flying contacts, or too bad, or whatever, all the hate mail will go to Camber company, not Thunder-works Getting back to reality, I this could be way too expensive...

 

But, about jet sims' avionics being the cause of a heavy system's requirement specially for online play, well I'm not so sure of that - in Lomac, a game room with furballs of radarless A-10 vs. Su-25 doesn't play much different than a room full of F-15 vs. Su-27... but we have to look closer at this issue.

[scary_pigeon 0]

actually there is a sort of online issue that might slow down play.

 

obviously i am speculating, but it might be like our skyhawk is internally - basicall a harrier the nossle command paths disconnected.

 

(and a helecoptor will also be a harrier with nossle commands disconnected :) ) - well no doubt there would be some sort of net code being passed about.

 

normally in a wwii type game you cant see planes beyond a certain distanced so updates never need to be given - perhaps in the lomac net code information on all aircraft is being updated to ensure that the radar simulation can pick out what it can see.

 

so in a battle between SU25's and A10's the internal model might be just the same still - its a craft with radar displays switched off, but it may have been simpler for the programmers to have the same routines bobbing about.

 

of course, I'm just guesses - its what I'd be tempted to do, and what I'd definately do if time was short.

 

it is true, I do prefer online play than single play, however - I very much enjoyed IL's series of missions, played once, you can pretend they're a campaign, its just boring to do it ever again. Infact, I found it very atmospheric and I thought philosophical thoughts as I flew my 109 against the russians listening to the excited and seemingly well acted radio chat...

 

...the sim with a true campaign I've played is Birds Of Prey (Amiga) - as simple as it was, i found it engrosing. So I can well understand the desire for a campaign in jet thunder. And so there will be a dynamic campaign in it. I like a challenge, and online play is sort of, make your own fun - its code wise - apart from the network code - kind of simpler, less challenging. I am really looking forward to when we start working more thoughourly on the campaign system.

 

We may expand the team then. we are using a lot of scripting now, more and more and game play script programmers might be what we need.

 

as for the subject of Strike Fighters project 1. which I also have. Its kind of nice, I've some fun combat in it. Its main problem, is in my opinion - the difficulting in seeing other aircraft, i think they aircraft may be depth culled to invisibility too soon or something.

 

I think the main reason why I never got into falcon 4 was because I lost the CD - I was going to buy another copy but could never find one. The improvements the comunity made - in particular, the higher resolution mode was to my mind, impressive. But really, I needed a teacher to tell me how to play it.

Edited January 4, 2005 by scary_pigeon

[Ivankuturkokoff 0]

As real as you can make it IMO. The radars we are talking about are pretty simple affairs, No TWS for instance, other than boresight no ACM modes. In the case of the Mirage ALL the info you need is available ... to whatever ever detail you decide to take it.

 

As to NAV systems again pretty simple affairs in the case of the A4, Mirage and dagger. A little more complex in the case of the sea Harrier.

[HawkHums 0]

I think a combo is in order...

 

Easy NAV and realistic radars.(dont want to spend two hours flying to my objective, STALL AND CRASH.!!)

 

Or just

 

Totally customizable.(I see problems for this one, still can be done though)

 

Still cant wait !!!

[+Fates 63]

IMHO, there needs to be a fine balance between sim and playability (Multiplayer). I like the approach that Janes USAF took with their game. They created 1 avionics package and applied it accross multiple aircraft. This accomplished 2 things. It provided for easier coding (only one avionics package to do) and therefore made Multiplayer easier and playable. The fact remains that the NAV mode was quit simplistic, and the radar seemed to work it's magic as well. I believe that the avionics can reach a degree of simulation where the player perceives it to be accurate, yet the games code is simplified. Janes USAF reached this goal and became a very successful online game.

 

Next Gen flight sims should still add in more modes and abilities as the aircraft require and playability admits. If adding the ability for a player to bring up a moving map and datalink to a ground or airbourne station is going to kill online flying, then I'd prefer it not be in the game.

 

Playability and believability should outweigh pure sim.

 

 

And let me ask one more question....

 

 

How will avionics failures be worked in?

 

 

<C>

Fates

[+Dante-JT 6]

...Janes USAF reached this goal and became a very successful online game.

 

SFP1/WoV follow the same trend (SFP1 specially), but, why aren't they so successful online games? I like them. Maybe due to so many mods and variations between installs from different players?

 

How will avionics failures be worked in?

 

I would wish to add some climate factor, for example, in extreme freezing conditions, it is a fact that some instruments in argentine aircraft presented malfunction. There could be also the simple random factor: at every "x" hours of flight, there's "n" chances of a failure.

[Mothman 0]

SFP1/WoV follow the same trend (SFP1 specially), but, why aren't they so successful online games? I like them. Maybe due to so many mods and variations between installs from different players?

I would wish to add some climate factor, for example, in extreme freezing conditions, it is a fact that some instruments in argentine aircraft presented malfunction. There could be also the simple random factor: at every "x" hours of flight, there's "n" chances of a failure.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yup. E.g., The 2 argentine Neptunes for naval exploration had to be grounded early in the conflict because their radar screens just burned. Also, the A-4B had some probloems with their radios, afaik.