Dante-JT

In a perfect world I would like to integrate in Jet Thunder the ejector seat simulator - the graphics aren't great but the simulation itself is very realistic and the better feature is the pre-set scenarios based on real-world ejections that happened in famous air shows or other situations. http://ejectionseat.com.ne.kr/emain.htm

Books Diario de Guerra del Radar Malvinas, by Mr. Miguel Angel Silva, about the TPS-43 radar installed in the islands and was used to guide the air attacks over the fleet, warning about SeaHarrier CAPs, helped with the release of the ground-based Exocet that hit HMS Glamorgan, was damaged by a Shrike in Black Buck 5 but repaired and back to work until end of the war. http://www.radarmalvinas.com.ar/ FALKLANDS THE AIR WAR by BURDEN, Rodney A, et al, a comprehensive study of air combat during the 1982 Falklands War. Every detail is included in this history with illustrations throughout in the form of photographs, drawings, three-view drawings of aircraft, and even a small colour section of the squadron crests. http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetail...%2BWar%26x%3D71 (thanks IvanK!) Desde El Frente (From the Front) a detailed account about the intervention of the BATALLÓN DE INFANTERÍA DE MARINA Nº5 (translation would be 5th MARINE INFANTRY BATTALLION), in Malvinas (Falkland) Islands, in 1982. Written by the commander of the battallion and the collaboration of his Encargado de Batallón (it is roughly the person in charge of the battallion). Spanish only as far as I know. (thanks Pablo Diez!) Air War in the South Atlantic, by Ethell and Jeffrey L., with first-hand accounts from both British and Argentian pilots.: http://www.biblio.com/books/39793989.html Hostile Skies, by David Morgan, my favourite Sea Harrier book, it is not as technically in-depth as Ward's book but is more tense and dramatic: http://www.amazon.com/Hostile-Skies-David-...2742845-4539309 Sea Harrier over the Falklands, by commander Nigel 'Sharkey' Ward, technically in-depth and also a good read: http://www.amazon.com/Harrier-Falklands-Ca...TF8&s=books Dios y los Halcones, ('God and the Hawks'), by Comodoro Pablo Marcos Rafael Carballo, in '82 was commanding officer of argentinean Grupo 5 de Caza, responsible for heavy losses inflicted in the Task Force, like HMS Coventry and the Fitzroy attack: http://www.argentinidad.com/libros/malvinas/carballo.htm Unfortunately only in spanish language and so far released only in Argentina, together with its 'brother' book Halcones de Malvinas, it's the most comprehensive and complete account of the air war through the argentinean pilots perspective - Halcones also is built like a series of chronicles describing missions from A-4 Skyhawk pilots, as well as Mirage V Dagger, Pucará, Camberra, C-130 Hercules, helicopter and even air defense garrisons. I got my copy through a friend who travelled in vacations to Buenos Aires. Seems quite rare outside of South America. http://www.ediciones.argentinidad.com/ Vulcan 607, by Rowland White, The Epic Story of the Most Remarkable British Air Attack since WWII http://www.amazon.com/Vulcan-607-Ambitious...TF8&s=books Yo fui piloto Aviador Naval, ('I was a naval aviator') by Capitan de Navío(R.E.)Rodolfo Alberto Castro Fox http://www.fuerzasnavales.com/monog_c_fox.html Also only in spanish language and unseen outside of Argentina so far. La Guerra Inaudita, by Ruben Oscar Moro (thanks Baco!) http://www.tematika.com/articulo/detalleAr...Articulo=118872 One Hundred Days, by Sandy Woodward (thanks AWL_Spiner!) http://www.amazon.com/One-Hundred-Days-Fal...t/dp/1557506523 Bomb Alley: Falklands 1982, by David Yates http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bomb-Alley-Falklan...2/dp/1844154173 Through Fire and Water: HMS "Ardent", by Mark Higgitt http://www.amazon.co.uk/Through-Fire-Water...s/dp/184018356X Four Weeks In May - The Loss of HMS Coventry - "Four Weeks in May is a riveting account of how men prepare for a war they never expected to fight and how they endure its privations, terrors and, finally, its horrors." http://www.hmscoventry.co.uk/fourweeksinmay.html Last three books are naval warfare-focused but also on our subject since these warships suffered air attacks during the conflict. **two interesting books added by forum member Manocruel Exocet, by author Emilio Villarino, Abril Books S.A. Los Dos Lados del Inferno ('the two sides of hell'), author Vincent Bramley, Planeta Books S.A. Websites Royal Air Force official page on the Falklands war: http://www.raf.mod.uk/falklands/index.html Official Argentinean Air Force (Fuerza Aerea Argentina) website on the subject: http://www.fuerzaaerea.mil.ar/conflicto/op...nes_aereas.html (in spanish language) Honor Regained - comprehensive website in english about South Atlantic Conflict http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/ BATTLE ATLAS of the FALKLANDS WAR 1982 http://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1982FALKLANDS.htm Re-look at the Falkland Islands War: Lessons to be re-learned http://www.geocities.com/usnavyindanger/fa...snotlearned.htm Falklandkrieg air power dot at http://www.airpower.at/news02/0410_falklands/fleetattack.htm (in german language, but very complete too) Interesting posts in this forum, some material is extracted and translated to english from previous mentioned books about argentinean pilots perspective: http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4177 Movies Iluminados por El Fuego (Blessed By Fire) http://www.iluminadosporelfuego.com/ilumin...ash.php?lang=en (focused in ground war, drama movie with war frashbacks from a Malvinas veteran. It's a high budget, well rated movie). 1982 Estuvimos Ahi http://www.creavision.com.ar/malvinasesp.htm (It's a low budget movie with the polemical CG scene of the attack on HMS Invincible) Documentaries Line of Fire - Goose Green http://www.amazon.co.uk/Line-Fire-Goose-Gr...2/dp/B0000BXBZV Line of Fire - the Fall of Port Stanley http://www.amazon.co.uk/Line-Fire-Fall-Por...y/dp/B0000BXBZW Two good documentaries, although focused in the ground war, but worth neverthless. War In The Falklands - 25th Anniversary http://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Falklands-25th...=UTF8&s=dvd The Falklands War - A Military History (thanks Vince!) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Falklands-War-Mili...=UTF8&s=dvd Going Critical: The Sinking of HMS Coventry - a Channel 4 documentary, well made with step-by-step CG re-criation of the attacks by the Zeus and Volcano Skyhawk flights against HMS Broadsword and HMS Coventry which caused its loss. http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites...l/hms_coventry/ I will keep the list updated about new material. edit: added "Desde el Frente" (thanks Pablo Diez!)

I know lots of members of "Virtual Airlines", they seem to be much more popular than air combat virtual squadrons. and they do transatlantic flights all the time.

heh. This thread about realistic SR-71 Blackbird missions comes to mind: http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=29927

Homemade/proprietary. I'd like the Vulcan mission, I know many flight simmers that would do it from start to finish with realism maxed and no time compression ;)

I expect to have a demo indeed. It will include at least one historical mission. I dare you guys to guess here what mission it will be. :)

A preorder system will be surely available, with registered members getting discounts and freebies. This is useful to show to possible partners and investors, that there is enough interest in the product. One good measurement of interest is the half a million views my youtube JetThunder channel has. A googleads thing and donations are up the sleeve too.

Wow, I didn't know about this "Sucesso" magazine :) We recently been in "Pequenas Empresas, Grandes Negócios" (both magazine and a brief mention in the TV program, Sundays morning in Globo channel - we're assembling a parallel company that will use our proprietary engine technology to create some casual games to partners, such as web portals and stuff, so we will be able to finally have the needed funding to complete Jet Thunder as it should be.) Another interesting update, is that History Channel Latin America will be airing a documentary about Falklands/Malvinas air combat, it's pretty much like the "Dogfights" TV series shown in History Channel with 3D rendered CGI re-creations of the battles, Thunderworks provided most Jet Thunder hires models that will appear in the documentary (Mirage Dagger, Sea Harrier, warships etc) and all the in-cockpit images are taken in Jet Thunder itself, like for example a Sea Harrier Sidewinder lock on an A-4 Skyhawk! :) The credits will appear like "cockpit shots courtesy of Thunderworks Studios" ;) I'll get the correct schedules of the show and post here in the forum! Stay tuned! ;)

We all want a level of detail in the crashes, comparable to Lock On Flaming Cliffs. Honestly I have to say it's one of the most complicated parts, very tricky to get it all right. At the moment we have the basic 'infrastructure' of code to have a good damage model, but it needs a good deal of tweaking and coding to make it look impressive and also the correct physic effects to the flight, e.g. clipping a wingtip into a warship's mast should create a roll motion and so on. A kamikaze attack on a warship should be possible, it's what most people try to do when I show them the current development versions of JT :) Unfortunately this is not ready at the moment and all these people see is the plane flying through the warship and both undamaged. Yup ejections will be the classic Ctrl + E followed by a decent ejection sequence (eject out of parameters and you hit the ground and die).

Yup it will be.

This is all that Jet Thunder needs to be complete, and all invested in programming - art was ready and it was done naturally. Now, programming is the real headache. Problem is that publishers we have talked, didn't offered cash upfront :\

Yes, Steam is strongly considered as option. I don't know how much % of each sale goes do Valve, but anyway, it is probably worth because it attracts a lot of 'visibility' to the product. I bought a couple of games through Steam (Dangerous Waters for example) and I'm satisfied with the system so far.

All this, because it should match other flight sims around, but we're also planning to include ground crews and other airbase personal (characters) walking around.

Yup, I owe a video or update to you guys At the moment we're fighting against unitialized variables in the code - something that happened before, which causes strange things to happen while running in Windows XP which are not detected by the programmer running Windows Vista... it's hell.

This one looks good too, "Sea of Fire": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNUnbr_voHs...feature=related

Thanks for the heads up! I had watched the original version on television a while ago, but it's interesting nonethless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVDeN7iB4NE

Many simmers want that :) Specially the type that flies a 747 without time compression over the Pacific in a San Francisco to Tokyo route! Actually it will be much more eventfull than that, with many aerial refuellings in Victors and intense traffic, from civilian airliners crossing the Atlantic, to Soviet warships and Tu-95 Bears trying to gather intelligence on what's going on! ;)

Thanks for the feedback in our Camberra, nazca_steve! Fantastic work in the website you pointed, is that using MS FS, right? We're actually interested in having the Vulcan flyable to even the british vs argentine plane set. Although realistically, we probably will release JT with less planes than planned due to our lack of resources, then as said before, new ones will be added progressively as official expansions.

Thank you very much for the walkaround! will be very usefull! ;)

That's interesting. How Microsoft FSX deals with damage/weapons and other combat stuff?

Thanks Luiz! Indeed, all the planned features are there, we need now to polish everything for a final product. Which I hope will be around 2009 (depends more on beta testers feedback). And yes, we demonstrated some flyable helicopter FMs in the TV show. ;)

Welcome back, mate! :) Now things will progress at twice the speed or more ;)

Here is it, straight from lead programmer's plan: Gordon 1) AI: Aircraft: <-not much stuff here, but likely to be fiddly. Bomb/Strafe Static or moving Targets Landing: - mission completed/primary target is destroyed etc - player issued the radio command "return to base" - battle damage/specially fuel leaks or weapon systems gone(can't shoot/drop bombs) Air 2 Air engagement (the basics are working) Ship: follow path. Confirm defence AI still works against bit rot 2) Mission System <- simple but lots of little stuff. using lua. a monitoring function driven from update(float dt) in main game code. (done) hooks for mission time, position of objects, velocity of objects. able to spawn dynamically. (most likely works already, untested) able to modify AI used in any object. (lua hook written (untested)) 'Ground Controlled Interception' style verbal instruction. 3) Combat Simulation itself. aircraft reaction to damage. ships fight back, defensive maneuvering, sensors line of sight, ranges and limitations. 4) visual FX Airburst explosions flak 5)fm/ai bug fixing audit flight model - (I suspect my thrust mismatches air resistance) audit AI - any changes to flight model probably requires changes to AI to compensate. 6)what would be nice: i) improve load up times. ii) make greater use of multi-threading. iii) re-implement load on demand rather than load all at once with regards to terrain. Bell 1) sea shader 2) shadows/self-shadowing? 3) enviroment/cubemap/bloom/sun glare de Patta 1) moral encouragement whilst he has little to do until programming catches up to art 2) monitor development 3) help with testing of features, keep looking for bugs. 4) work with me on aquiring spanish accent english for voice 5) be thinking of a scenario that the mission is in... demo mission: ..I know we will be attacking a ship. but what shall the ship be doing? what is its defences, state of sea harriers in area, what sort of allied, counter british forces will help? - jamming, decoy attacks. are there any twists we can put into the mission to make it exciting? --- time scale. i hope to work through most if not all the above of my work by november 3rd. i am going to be taking off from november 3rd 2 weeks holiday which i will use to polish the demo since all major features required for it will by then be working. I expect that during this time a lot of effort will be applied to making the AI feel right so that it is challenging and that the missiles and things work appropriately. Come middle of november - we should then be in a position where we can do a closed beta with interested people from the forums and show to the current interested publishers. P.S.:memory footprint was high and removing either some terrain from terrain.cfg or some spawned objects enabled debug version to run. Will tick these features off as I complete them.

Obrigado pelo suporte, amigo! :) (thanks for the support, buddy!)

Luiz Carlos, Current system requirements are about the same to run IL2 Sturmovik series. It has less hardware requirements than, lets say, MS FSX or perhaps Lock On FC. The system I use to test the game, note they are quite low for current gaming industry standards: AMD 2.2 GHz 1GB RAM Nvidia GeForce 6600GT 128MB MS Sidewinder 2 ForceFeedback joystick Since there's a large market for Jet Thunder in Latin America due to the historical theme of the simulation, we'll try to keep the specs low and compatible with the reality of the latin american consumer.