Dante-JT

heheh nice videos Steve! I'd place then in the official site if not by your nonsense plot of british gunners taking a cup of tea. :) Go and implement that naval gunners AI instead! It's top priority. Btw, how is Track IR? Can you do a close-quarters dogfight video using Track IR ? Also, it's desirable to implement that sun blinding effect as it plays a role in close-range turn fights, more important than guns vibrations IMHO.

As the small bomb glitch was promptly fixed by Steve, I've upload a new version of video, replacing old one, it's the same "script" of going north then towards southeast and drop the low-drag Mk-82 in the frigate, but now the bomb can be seen clearly dropping from centerline pylon in the external view. I also placed a version of the video that doesn't requires the DivX codec for playback, I used plain default Intel Indeo 4.5 codec, overall quality isn't that good, but we respect the people that doesn't want to install extra codec packs into their systems. The bomb nicely falling from A-4B's centerline: This one missed quite badly, compared to the first video, hitting the water more than 300 feet always from the british frigate :) I was slow ( less than 300 knots, dunno exactly, I bleed a lot of airspeed in that sharp turn) and 100 feet high or more - I'd be easy prey for the Bofors AA gun in the bulhead side of that frigate. :ph34r:

Don't worry MadJeff, as soon as the frigate can fight back, I'll show it being hit. To keep things balanced, and not be accused of being biased towards this side or that side of the conflict. I mean, if I post a video showing a frigate being attacked, I'll post then a video together showing the frigate fighting back and the plane being hit too. This would keep things balanced IMO. :ph34r: B) I did this video in a hurry without Steve's supervision so I don't like it too much, as the bomb is loading some sort of semi-transparent texture I don't know why - a thing only Steve can fix <_< (you can barely see the Mk-82 on centerline pylon as the A-4 turns - it's slightly misplaced too - we need a sort of editor to set child-objects in a plane's tree hierarchy - at the moment this is all hardcoded - ) I plan to do a new video this week with the Bofors AAA batteries each side of the Type 22's bridge opening up - so I'll have to came much faster and lower :)

Very good Fates. Indeed I'm specting that Steve will add a variable for heat in each object and a 'scan arch' in each missile, according to its capabilities. So the variable will be a given value at close range, and another values at long ranges, and this will determine how well the missile heat tracker will lock on to a target. We're doing iron bombs launchings at the moment, and behavior when it hits the sea - depending on angle, altitude and speed, the bomb could bump in the water and jump over a ship's deck. Next will be missiles, mostly simple AIM-9B and Shafrir air-launched by A-4s and Daggers. The AIM-9L will require integration with the Ferranti Blue Fox radar system of the Sea Harrier, which we don't have yet much information (please email me at dante@thunder-works.com if you got some material about some of the airborn radars used in the Falklands. Specially Blue Fox and Thomson-CSF Agave.)

Good question, and good idea too. One of the features I like most in IL-2, is the blinding sun - sometimes I really loose an enemy plane from sight when it crosses the sun - specially after AEP add-on expansion. But it is WWII and tinted helmet visors weren't used afaik. In Lomac for example, we don't have the same effect, probably they're supposing the pilots visors are down all the time, I don't know. It is not a very hard effect to implement, an alpha-channeled sun object and a sudden scene gamma increase when camera points directly to the sun object, would do the trick.

An interesting chapter in Cmd Ward's book "Sea Harrier Over the Falklands", he described the air combat against the Pucara as very dramatic - he indeed didn't achieved lock with AIM-9L, then he switched to guns, he also said he almost hit the ground in the pursuit that followed. I'm not sure exactly why the AIM-9L didn't worked and if it was really unable to track the puc's engines, or it was due to the conditions in the scene (too hazy, humid, too low or at high G maneuvering), I have to check this closely to avoid misunderstandings.

That's a good thing if implemented. Imagine a modern scenario where one guy online sits in an AWACS, directing the strike packages, for example. As we don't have AWACs in the Falklands, some guy would sit in a surface vessel as you mentionated (or ground control). I'm not sure, but I;ve heard that the upcoming first person shooter Battlefield 2 will feature a commander interface for the guy directing the soldiers in the battlefield - if it works, it'll set a sort of trend in other online battlefields.

At least one sortie was flown with Shafrirs in the conflict, according to this source: "On May 1st, the first sorties were conducted, including one of the A-4Cs with Shafrir air- to- air missiles, but without having contact with the British." http://www.laahs.com/art66.htm Of course, I don't always believe what I read in the internet :ph34r: but the Latin American Aviation Historical Society seems trustable, and I've read a similar report on "Revista Força Aérea", a brazilian military aviation print magazine. From a plain technical point of view, if we manage to achieve total control of units in both sides of a campaign through an artificial inteligence playing the role of 'Admiral', nothing stops us to implement an 'override' mode, even for alpha/beta testing debugging purposes, where a human player is who assigns waypoints and goals for units while receiving 'the big picture' (what is known from friendly and enemy movements/positions). The well known problem for dynamic campaigns in the past was of the 'bubble' boundaries, or in other words, where a dot in the map representing a tank platoon with its overall status, actually "detaches" into individual tank units, each one with driver, gunner, commander, and its sensor, performance and weapons constraints. For flight sims, this 'bubble' will 'fly' alongside the player's plane, so, only the tank platoon who is really entering an interestingly enough range from the player's plane, will then 'detach' into each individual member of the platoon with their specs and all... but if it's too far away, it's a waste to do so and it's represented only as a 'map symbol' with its more generic (strategic, not tactical) status. But in our situation, if the choosen campaign mode is the one with the player taking decisions "in the big picture", this can turn the sim into a huge RTS but with really large and accurate terrain (and flight models/avionics!) where you can play all the time managing units here and there and taking decisions and not flying any bit! For me, actually there's no problem, as this imediatelly resembles the ultra-ancient Microprose's M1 Tank Platoon - I remember playing that game most of the time in map view, clicking in my tanks, moving them here and there, and never really switching into gunner or driver cockpit view to actually drive the things. :) Any other game/sim came to mind as allowing the player so much control that it actually doesn't need to switch into a vehicle's view to play, but kept it there for players who wish only to sit in cockpit and accomplish the given orders?

Very good reading, I've read all, thanks Mothman and MBot! Indeed, the subs weren't almighty or the aborted raid on the RN carrier battleground would not had even be planned - I have photos of the time, with Snakeyes being loaded into A-4Qs with the sayings "for her Majesty" or ship names like "Invincible" and "Hermes" written in the ordnance - they were in fact ready to launch, they only awaited for the good weather conditions (wind) to launch the A-4s with full payload, but that wind didn't came. As already said above, a release with half the ordnance was not worth (too high the cost of lost planes/pilots to pack just half the punch in the task group). But in JT, as a simulation, where lives and military hardware aren't in risk, the player could indeed release such mission from the argie carrier on the 2nd of May - with little bomb load and all, after all this is one of the things that made us all have fun with simulations - to see what would have happened. IMO it'd be a palliative attack, with such reduced payload. But with luck and returning carrier planes, at least a high moral will be brought into the minds of argie crews, like "see, we managed to strike the almighty carrier battle group and survived!"... :ph34r: That's where our campaign design reaches a crossroads: to give the hability for the player to have these campaign decisions at control (to order the carrier battle group to face the RN or withdrawn to port..?) making JT's campaign more of naval warfare strategic simulation rather than a flight sim.. or to simply follow the missions generated by the campaign engine (with a commanding AI playing the role of Admiral and the player just receiving his orders, as a pilot). Or a possibility to have both campaign modes ;) Well, IMO I hope our campaign system and AI will be able to work convincigly and 'alone' (without player input), because I'm in the mood (now) to just follow the orders like a good jet pilot and to feel immersed in a dynamic war enviroment. About the Shafrir missile and the Dagger, MBot, also the FAA A-4C was able to carry them, so, if it's a good missile like the israelis say, it'll somehow at least balance the gameplay in deathmatch multiplayer JT servers. I was argued by many that the AIM-9L was unfair and JT's multiplayer will be unbalanced also because the Sea Harrier has "magical" VIFF'ing capabilities, but Sean Trestrail, RAAF Mirage pilot, said that it was not that much ;) Some things where simply overhyped (specially the AIM-9L IMO). Regarding the Tigerfish torpedoes, I've read they released the screen of vintage Mk.8s torpedoes in the slow/aging Belgrano, to save the modern Tigerfish for Belgrano's much newer, faster Type 42 escorts if the chance arrived.

So, seems Chile was the biggest worry for the argie military at that moment, but, lets suppose if Chile was not a threat and the argie military decided to pack its full naval and air assets against the RN, would it cause some serious trouble for the brits? I guess so. Of course the british nuclear hunter-killer submarines such as HMS Spartan, Conqueror, HMS Valiant make this unbalanced, as the argies had only conventional subs in poor conditions and without the same level of crew training as the british (who where training to defend themselves against the URSS navy! Cold War times) - but both sides showed a deficiency in ASW assets - the argentine submarine incursion in the Falklands Sound, if true, prooves that the brits also weren't doing a good 'sub watch'.

At current rate, I guess it's still some years ahead... blame the programmers (just kidding, Steve! ;)) Seriously, the product should be considered an alpha when we have at least one functional game element of all listed features (at least one of the 'flyables' working, at least one side of carriers operations working, at least one category of each kind of weaponry working (guns, a-a missiles, bombs), and at least one simple mission to acomplish based on events generated by the campaign engine. At the moment, we have basically planes flying in a 3D engine enviroment, they have a rather generic FM more or less coherent with the type of plane (although I've been gathering a lot of accurate specs on their real FMs based on docs that Edgardo got with the argie air force and other docs submitted by real pilots). These planes are able to be flown by the player or by A.I., the player being presented with a virtual cockpit, mouse/trackIR compatible (based on A-4B Skyhawk FAA, Edgardo's photos). It has also the basic functional cockpit instruments, but no rather complex radar systems like the SeaHarrier's Blue Fox are being worked at the moment (I'm still trying to get info in this particular device). Early iterations of the engine/flight model demonstrated that it can support thrust vectoring in a very convincing way, so the Harrier/Falklands concept received a 'green light' back in that time. The only kind of weaponry working at the moment are airborne guns (Steve is working in AAA now - ground and naval Bofors tracking and firing at air targets are the goal for this week). We have also a simple damage model now, but a plane hierarchy for damage / dettachable parts in planes is being worked on by the art team. There's already a pretty complete particle system whitin the 3d engine able to do tracer bullet smoke trails (much like in IL2), wingtip streams, missile trails, debris, dust/smoke being kicked up while strafing the ground and of course, engine black smoke for a badly hit plane. The "fun" part, is that there's two main blocks of code, one comprising pratically the whole of gameplay features (FM, damage, bullets particles etc) and the other comprising the whole accurate Falklands Islands terrain, sea, and easy-to-use objects loading... When (if) these main blocks of programming code are seamlessly assembled, and we have at least one complete mission involving (for example) an anti-shipping mission against surface vessels, with working A.I., AAA, guns, bombs and missiles, then we could declare we reached an alpha. Not yet, but lets cross our fingers for his success. :)

Mothman, thanks very much for the very complete and useful Naval Order Of Battle for the argentinian navy! On paper, as you listed, it looks like the argie navy could indeed hold a tight surface battle against the RN - was the impact of the Belgrano sinking so big to motivate the withdraw of their entire surface fleet? Well, if you can read Spanish, there's a pretty good 'what if' scenario written by an ex-naval pilot of the argie navy, it gives an idea of what would be a direct confrontation between the ARA 25 de Mayo carrier battlegroup and the Hermes & Invincible carrier battlegroups: http://www.fav-club.com/1demayo.htm

Indeed, at the moment the hangar inside didn't exist, but I'll model its interior, so we can see Lynx helicopter coming in and out of it. I just actually need some references about this ;)

Yes I know..Normal Mapping for ships superestructures and/or coastline rocky formations in the isles, and the subtle lighting glow in the whole scene (like in that upcoming WW2 game Brothers In Arms despite very subtle, it gives a realistic feel to open scenes It's all advanced shaders programming, and unfortunately, our skilled programming team still needs someone with this knowledge - current JT iteration is more or less like the original IL2 regarding graphical features (and it's OGL) - so, if anybody with shader/DX9 programming skills/realtime post-production shader effects wish to volunteer to help us, contact us, you'll be very welcome!

Good poll Steve :) Myself and Steve are always discussing this issue, at the current iteration of Jet Thunder's engine the effect is put to a minimum, so it's OK i think. But the effect in full strenght (as show in the upper pic that Steve posted) looks like the plane's pilot seat has a pivot in the base and keeps pivoting to the contrary sense of plane's roll :) When I drive a bike/motorbike and I do hard, knee-on-the-road turns, I align my head to the front of the bike and I feel like if the road/horizon ahead is tilting, not the bike - well that's just me, dunno how it feels for other bikers/flyers.. The best will be to wait until we reach alpha status so we can present JT's alpha for some test by real fighter pilots - at the moment we already received very useful input by pilots, specially Sean Trestrail, who sent a diagram showing strained observation from cockpit view and casual observation (rom Mirage's cockpit)- more about this issue later ;)

Bingo ! Fates ;) That was a easy one indeed :) Will be not so easy when I start asking for the names of the argie frigates and destroyers lol - well they've hardly saw any action (withdraw after Belgrano cruiser was sunk by a sub) but will be featured as well as the order of battle needs them and, well, in a dynamic scenario they could face the RN vessels.

Me too :) And to show how things are progressing, a little update in the status of our Type 22 Batch 1 model - with some texture work now at last: In the programming side of things, Steve was testing today some A.I. fights - A.I vs. A.I., guns only. Next step will be to place some A.I for naval AAA gunners. Then, we'll proceed to the mighty Seawolf missile system. But this will take a while (I plan this after the integration of the AI/FM system with the terrain/rendering parts of the code who generates the isles, sea and all). Well, little quiz: what vessel name had the Type 22 above and what name it has now? :)

The Pucaras actually employed napalm in combat in the battle for Goose Green, at least once, according to this site: "Now into the late afternoon, aircraft from both sides come on the scene, starting with two MB.339's of CANA 1 Esc and two Pucaras of Grupo 3 which hit the school area. One of the Navy jets is brought down by a Royal Marine Blowpipe [a59], and minutes later one of the Pucaras drops napalm and the other is shot down by small arms fire [a60]. (12) Then three Harrier GR.3's bring much needed relief by hitting the AA guns at Goose Green with CBU's and rockets." http://www.naval-history.net/F48goosegreen.htm

Ground units and Scorpions will be featured, of course - walking soldiers, will be a tough job to animate (run for cover, aim, crouch, and all) but will be worth as the war on Falklands ground was fought by men, in fierce firefights with rather small units. The birds strikes aren't that far fetched either, we model the bird (a seagull for example) and it has a colision mesh just like a plane model, causing damage if impacted (like of a bullet damage if hit at high speed). I've always tought of setting up some of such 3d bird models and giving them coherent patterns around the islands coastlines, it is technically feasible, just demands time (and could add some new bugs as well...) The crusted windscreen maybe is the most simple to implement. Just another .tga alpha channeled texture for cockpit cover, with a variable opacity value (maximum value = can't see anything, could crash like the aforementionated argie plane). Raindrops are also possible to do. All this demands some development time of course. Groundcrews doing their jobs, hmmm I like the idea of ground crew pointing their arms/giving the way over the deck or airstrips - It's quite complicated to do, but I've saw something slightly like that being done in Vietnam Medevac helo sim but its depiction was rather simple - also D.I. Super Hornet had static deck crews as well.

Very good post and great ideas as always. I remember 'something more' regarding downed crews, since a old Commodore Amiga title called 'Combat Air Patrol (CAP)', I remember you had to switch to a SAR radio channel to declare an emergency and then bail out. I have Janes F/A-18 and Janes F-15, but all I remember is the ejected crews standing in the desert ground with a little pistol in hands, but doesn't doing anything just waiting. :) I'll dust off these this week to study this issue. As an overall simple rule, an ejected pilot with known position, will spawn a rescue helicopter in the carrier (Lynx or Sea King for brits) - or nearby argie base, UH-1H or Super Puma for argies), this rescue helicopter will then procceed autonomous (A.I. commanded) to the pilot's known position; as it is a helicopter with a specific flag (brit or argie) it can be shoot-down by other A.Is (for example, if our brave brit Sea King cross the path of some argie Pucaras, and then the pucaras decide to open fire and shootdown the helicopter). The problem is, if the helicopter ditches/crash lands, the campaign engine must check for survivors, their position, if they made contact with nearby friendly units, and then, to spawn another rescue mission to rescue the helo crew - a lot of triggers and events to be generated by the campaign engine, quite demanding indeed. Would be a lot simpler in terms of development, if a rescue helicopter downed has its crew always KIA, and only fighter pilots are really "rescuable" :) Well, this is an issue that would be better discussed by Steven, our campaign programmer. :) But of course, we'll try to make our downed pilots do more than a simple scripted animation of run away and take cover :) It'll add a lot of variety if we are in a mission to bomb Goose Green (for example), then one of our Harriers is shoot down by AAA, the pilot eject and the Goose Green argie troops start to move to the downed pilot's position - you know that they will capture the pilot and will change focus, from bombing the targets in Goose Green, to at least slow down the argie troops by strafing the nearby ground with your 30mm guns - another demanding campaign/AI programming issue (to make AI ground troops retreat or slow down their advance if an enemy plane flies by blazing its guns...) Anyway, rest assured that we'll feature individual ground troops (as they're the mainstay of Falklands war on ground, armour was rarely used there, it was a man vs. man fight). Individual troops invading ships, that's a more complex thing to do.We're pondering at this point of development, if is possible to include some deck crew doing their stuff in our ships so they won't look like 'ghost ships' as in other simulators, butif these will be individual AI objects or parts of ship hierarchy (like turrets and gun placements) - I don't know what is best for development - of course I would desire dozens of individual AIs doing their stuff in the ship's decks, but I yet never saw such thing in other sims, lets say Flight Sims :) Well, thanks again for the feedback and the good ideas posted!

Unfortunately, it'll take a while - we're still a small operation for such a project of this size, but we're trying hard to keep the public updated. Here some pics of "La Chancha" :) being painted in argentinian colors: Still a lot of details to add, like the cockpit interior painting and details, gear structures details, and much more.

Indeed, it will be really long. But not uneventful, as navigation must be accurate and there's up to 11 (eleven) air-refuellings with Victors in the mission. I wonder, what was the longest (in terms of distance and time) mission in combat flight simming history? The problem with Brazilian coast, is of contend creation - it's a huge coast, and at the moment is feasible to only include Ascension Island in the correct coordinates and then infinite Atlantic Ocean in all directions...then load the Falkland islands...then more infinite Atlantic ocean going west...then load Argentinian coast up to Commodoro Rivadavia or slightly northwards. But it is not impossible to make a maybe generic area around the main points for Vulcan emergency landings in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro?).

Thanks Mothman, and MBot, for the msgs and positive/encouragement comments :) Yes Mothman, we'll have air-to-air refuellings. Here's our untextured, incomplete model of a C-130/KC-130: But this model have been set to a lower priority, compared to other more important parts of the content creation (such as naval units). Also, the programming side of the engine have been more time-demanding than expected, now we have a good FM/sim module (Steve's) and a good landscape module (Romano's), if we manage to integrate seamlessly these two parts we will end with a good and complete flight sim framework for the task ahead - we didn't tested yet, but in theory, Romano's approach to 'load on demand' landscape blocks could made possible the inclusion of not only Argentina's mainland, but Ascension Island for Vulcan bomber flights, with a lot of air-to-air refuelling over the Atlantic made by Victors ;) The campaign will start with the correct status of forces on May 1, 1982, but then, as it has a dynamic nature, the unfolding of events could lead to 'what if' situations. Trackers, Nimrods and Sea Kings are part of our Air Order of Battle and will be present in the campaign (A.I.), doing their missions. Thank you very much :) it was a pleasure to answer (sorry for the delay in replying, been real busy this past week).

Type 22 frigate, batch 1, work in advanced progress:

We're deep into naval units 3d modelling, expect soon to see screens of the HMS Broadsword (a Type-22 Batch 1 frigate), also I'm gathering all the info to model the systems, weapons and functionality of this frigate model, also HMS Hermes (british flagship carrier in the campaign) will be shown soon too - the shaking sea mesh is also under programming, so soon we can have a showable sea in the engine, the progress in all this is in sparse bursts that's why we're so quiet recently - we prefer to show the ship models in action actually in the 3D engine rather than just preview/static renders! ;)