Ubisoft today announced that its new flight combat title, Pacific Fighters, will launch this fall:
WWII's Pacific theater was the backdrop for some of the most famous aerial battles in history. In places like Midway, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, allied fighters and bombers went head-to-head against the air power of the Japanese empire. Pacific Fighters provides the opportunity for players to experience the realistic action, intense flight combat and immersive gameplay of WWII's Pacific air war.
"Pacific Fighters will deliver even more of the high-quality graphics, historical detail and realism that IL-2 fans have come to expect, this time in a dynamic, new Pacific-war setting," said Alain Corre, EMEA Managing Director at Ubisoft. "We are thrilled to offer flight-sims enthusiasts the opportunity to fight in memorable aerial battles over famous locations such as Midway and Iwo Jima, while still enjoying extensive multiplayer options"
Backed by the Oleg Maddox team, Pacific Fighters allows players to participate in the most compelling Pacific air war experience ever created. Fly planes on either the side of the conflict, including U.S., Japan, Great Britain, or Australia. There are more than 40 flyable aircraft, including the F6F Hellcat, the deadly Japanese Zero, and the UK's Supermarine Seafire. In addition, for the first time in the 1C: Maddox game series, players will have the option to take-off and land on aircraft carriers during combat.
“We're extremely proud and excited to bring Pacific Fighters to the combat flight sim audience because we know they're going to be very pleased with improvements to the award-winning IL-2 game engine and enjoy the new Pacific war setting," said Ilya Shevchenko, producer. “Players will appreciate the variety of famous fighters, however, in this title more than any previous Maddox sim, we're emphasizing flyable bombers such as the SBD Dauntless, Aichi Val, Mitsubishi G4M Betty, and at least four versions of the North American B-25 Mitchell."
Players may choose from a variety of bombing missions, including torpedo attacks, dive bombing, and high altitude bombing. Targets include amphibious landing craft, realistic coastal fortifications, and a wide selection of ground vehicles, each built to an even higher level of detail than in the previous 1C:Maddox Games flight sims.
Players will be able to target enemy ships, vehicles, airfields and aircraft on one of the 16 new maps, including Guadalcanal, Pearl Harbor and Singapore. The online multiplayer options allow players to engage in live battles ranging in style from free-for-all dogfights to cooperative
Tom has made a great Hi-Tiles pack for Falcon 4.0:
Over 1100 summer textures, featuring a variety of sets with landscapes, cities, harbours and airfields Based on real world orthofoto imaging research 256x256 pixel resolution (256 paletted colors, PCX format) Properly resized to fit the scale (1 tile = 1 km2 / 1 pixel = 4 m) Careful, "natural" design to prevent "blockiness" and straight, angled edges Can be used as generic texture pool for various tile-based landscape rendering engines. Free Installers for various applications (e.g. Falcon 4)
Below is a run-down of the items currently addressed in the Lock On v1.02 patch (currently around 32 MB). Please bear in mind that this list is by no means complete and several items will still be added before we consider it ready to go. As to when that will be, just as soon as we feel it is complete and addresses the major issues that we wanted to address for this patch. Hang in there please.
Aircraft and ground vehicles can now be seen at much greater distances
Added combined gun and missile HUD modes for F-15C
Mouse cursor has been removed from screen during a network game.
Fixed the lack of some A2G weapon ID on Russian HUD's
Fixed the change of AGM-65 lock point when locked target is destroyed by another weapon
Fixed incorrect performance of Kh-25ML missile after a Kh-29MP missile has been launched
Dr. Stop made again some amazing add-ons for Falcon 4:
Get into the sim like never before with this new add-on from Stopworks. Improving SA, these "Pilot Cam" views permit the Falcon 4.0 player to see the action happening around him in detail. See your wingman cruise into formation, watch laser guided bomb strikes over the pilot's shoulder, or see the ground slipping away as you lift the F-16 from the runway. These 1600 x 1200 pilot views add a totally new dimension to the greatest combat sim available.
Peter Dowson has just released the newest version for his popular FSUIPC module for FS2004. This module contains many enhancements and is important for the proper functioning of many add-ons. The FSUIPC version 3.202 is available for downloading
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Microsoft has recently announced a new SDK, the Panel and Gauges SDK, for it's Flight Simulator 2004 product. This now brings the total to twelve available Software Development Kit packages for developers.
This new SDK includes: - Information on programming panels and gauges. - Sample code for several typical gauges that you can modify for your own use. You can find these samples in the \sample subfolder of the location where you install this SDK. - The complete Gauges.h file for Flight Simulator 2004.
The Ace expansion pack for IL2 is now available, a preview from GamePlanet:
What exactly do you get? There are 31 new flyable planes or variants including the famed P-51 Mustang, the German Bf-110, P-38 Lightning, and Japanese AM6 Zero. As a tip to the Battle of Britain sim scheduled for release next year are 4 variants of the renowned Spitfire and 2 Normandy maps.
To be honest, the expansion is a bit eclectic in the mix of new features, but that means it will probably have something to appeal to everyone. We think it is well worth it for the price, anyway.
The Fighter Collection and SimHQ are sponsoring a contest for the Lock On Community. Here are some more details:
Lock On: Modern Air Combat will be featured as a technology demonstrator for ATI Technologies at the upcoming Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California on March 22nd through 26th.
ATI, the makers of the popular Radeon video cards will be demonstrating several graphically intensive products at their corporate booth during the conference. We at TFC and SimHQ have decided to include the community in this opportunity by sponsoring a contest to see who can produce the best Track File of Lock On. The winning Track File will be used to demonstrate Lock On at the ATI booth during GDC.
Over at SimHQ, there is an interview with Jamie Carlson, the Associate Producer and Game Designer for SCS - "Dangerous Waters", which talks about the much anticipated new Naval Combat sim. Here is a sample:
Q: In Fleet Command, the platform list was quite extensive, even including French mine hunters. Will the list be just as, or more extensive this time around?
A. SCS - “Dangerous Waters” models 18 of the world’s navies to a high level. Over 200 platforms are available to fight or collaborate with (depending on mission alliances). The open architecture allows for modifications to the global order of battle as evidenced by the capable user-community for Sub Command who extended the list considerably (and that work can be quickly converted for use in SCS-DW).
Read about the new mission pack for Janes F/A 18 at the SimHQ forum:
The zip file is little over 4 megabytes and consists of 16 missions, based on the TSH F-14D. But if you want to fly the Super Bug instead you can just change that within the missions. Find the player jet (on a carrier, the USS Lincoln) and just change from F-14D (mod3) to F/A-18E and you’re ready to go and of course switching the cockpit from F-14 to the F/A-18.
Also 28 loadout files based on what the F-14 can carry is also available for easy use for F-14 missions.
You’ll need V.1.01F patch, TSH add-on V.1 and TSH IRAQ V.2.0 (Iraq Paq) to play these missions.
Check out the new article over at SimHQ by "Chunx" entitled "A Short Hop in the Viking" Here is a small taste:
Today I’ll be flying with our S-3B Viking squadron. Their mission is Sea Control — maintaining situational awareness on the seas around our strike group via their sensor suite of Inverse / Synthetic Aperture Radar, infrared (IR) sensor and Mk 1 eyeballs. If it’s necessary they’re also able to engage any threats with a mix of air to ground weapons including Rockeye cluster bombs, Mk 82 unguided bombs, Torpedoes and Maverick missiles. The S-3 is also the air wing’s primary organic (meaning "belongs to CAG") aerial refueling tanker, providing either fuel for the FA-18s or Prowlers to conduct their missions, or to ‘hawk’ those planes on their return to the carrier, in the event they return to the ship low on fuel or have trouble getting back aboard.
The official Fighter Ops website was launched today, March 2nd, 2004. We hope you enjoy the website and will continue to make additions in the near future. If you experience any problems with the website, please send an email to webmaster@fighterops.com and we will do our best to resolve the issue. Thanks for visiting and your support!
G2Interactive Inc. announces today its new association with GenAvSimulations, Inc. and that it will publish a new Ultra Realistic High Fidelity Combat Flight Simulator for the PC gaming market.
G2Interactive is partnering with GenAvSimulations, a privately owned development corporation that is experienced in high fidelity simulations, to announce a Q4 2004 release of Air Combat Command, Fighter Ops (working title) a new and extensive product that introduces single player, co-op multiplayer and dynamic game play modes that will make it the number-one online / offline combat flight simulation on the planet.
Erwin 'EagleEye' Neyt has announced the release of F4Glass V1.0
Well, at the rate my developments go at the moment, I guess I could keep adding features for the next couple of years. So while it is not finished completely (so many ideas) I have frozen the code and released v1.0
For those who are using the beta version, here are the features:
new and improved network code, update rates are al lot better (depending on your network setup) photo-realistic graphics for the instruments a lot of bug fixes
the available instruments are: ADI, Altimeter, AOA, ASI, DED, EPU, FuelFlow, FTIT, HSI, MFD (moving map only), NozPos, OilPress, PFL, RPM, RWR and VVI.
