Games Domain have posted a review of IL2: Forgotten Battles, here's a snip:
Although most players won't give these details a second look before flicking off the Complex Engine Management toggle, these are further proof that IL-2 has one of the most remarkable physics systems and damage models this side of the military. If you hit a rudder, you'll damage a rudder. Hit an engine and you'll damage an engine. Watching the effects of an oil leak on your engine performance shows that this isn't a game about scripted states and broad hit bubbles. If you're so inclined, Forgotten Battles lets you dig a little deeper into all this and therefore does the near impossible feat of taking IL-2 Sturmovik's remarkable fidelity up another notch.
Aspect Simulations announces the development of their World War I combat flight simulation, KNIGHTS OVER EUROPE. Brought to you by a team whose collective experience includes Red Baron II, the Falcon 3 series, the Close Combat series and Fly II, KNIGHTS OVER EUROPE brings the dawn of aerial combat up-to-date with leading edge graphics, high fidelity flight models and precision damage modeling. Dozens of highly detailed aircraft with historically accurate markings will set the stage for an experience that will attract both hard-core flightsim fans and novices alike.
KNIGHTS OVER EUROPE is currently scheduled for release in the second quarter of 2004. Expect more news and announcements about this exciting new product in the coming months.
Pilot's Assistant is a toolset to support flight planning (including fairly realistic fuel planning), navigating, and carrying out common flying manoeuvres. It contains fuel/performance data for several popular aircraft, and is intended to be a useful learning and reference aid for several aspects of simulated flying.
Pilot's Assistant is provided as an Excel multi-sheet spreadsheet, with one tool on each sheet (if you don't have Microsoft Excel, look here). These tools include calculations and information as follows:
1. Flight profiler / fuel planner 2. Performance data for a number of simulated aircraft (can be extended by the user) 3. Altitudes and altimeter settings 4. Standard Atmosphere table 5. Speed conversions (KIAS, KTAS and MACH) 6. Wind corrections 7. Descent planner, climb and descent calculations 8. Altitudes, Temperatures, Speeds and Descent/Climb Rates table 9. Lat/Long calculations (distance, heading, great circle routes, magnetic variations) 10. Turns, bank angles and manoeuvres involving turns 11. Unit Conversions
The toolset can also act a useful place to store information on various aircraft that you fly, for your own reference and for automatic use by the tool.
The toolset is not intended to be a "magic calculator" that produces results by hidden methods, but rather something that explains the calculations being carried out, and provides rules of thumb for pilots to carry out calculations quickly or in their heads. In this sense, the toolset could perhaps be useful as a training aid (but see disclaimers/restrictions).
Christian "Ripper" Thomsen Posted the following on the F4LE mailing list:
This - my friends - is a 3D-rendered volumetric cloud shown in F4 !! The graphics-engine, although old, is able to handle it.
You can fly into it, getting blinded, fly around it, above it, below it. IT WORKS AND LOOKS GREAT!!
I got the idea from Mike, who mentionend how to offset Special-nodes with DOF's. Also thanks to Fred who's just gotten me on the right tracks regarding png's with alpha-channel. The model is basically a number of standard DOF-nodes, placed randomly within a box; on which a Special and a rectangular PT is placed. The rectangle is of random size within certain limits. The model in the screenshots consists of only 10 polygons, and is *very* simple to make. My plan is to make a bigger model of a Cumulus Castellanus-type of cloud, by combining a couple of these "boxes" in different sizes and places.
Now, we simply have to make the data for a cloud-"aircraft", that flies slow, straight and level.
You can check it out by appending the attached lod and texture, and assign it to some aircraft (a bomber or transport is best). Just make sure the parent has a big "Radius"-value (100-200) and nDof set to 1.
Gamers Depot have a review up of Delta Force Blackhawk Down
quote: Once you’ve deployed and begun your mission, probably the first thing you’ll witness is that your fellow soldiers already rushing out to the action and killing everything that’s holding a gun. The whole game plays a little bit different than any other game crossing Rainbow Six’s realism with Soldier of Fortune’s fast paced action,
I have posted a review of the CH Yoke USB & CH Pro Pedals USB. Here's a snippet:
The programmability of this kit is simply phenomenal. There is pretty much nothing you could want these to do that they can't do. At the simplest level the buttons and axis can be assigned as Direct X buttons within the sim. Most modern sims allow you to do this with ease. The Control Manager software allows you to fairly simply assign key presses to each of the buttons, so it is still possible to get the yoke to do exactly what you want even if your sim doesn't allow you to remap the controls from within. The real power is in the new Control Manager Scripting language (CMS). CMS is an extremely flexible and powerful language that will allow you to do practically anything you could possibly want to do with your Yoke.
SimMarket recently released an important addition to the already famous and as yet unbeaten MyTraffic package ; MyTraffic Big Twins ! The new expansion pack to MyTraffic is a 13 Mb, Euro 11.95 download that adds 8 new, twin-engine airliners in multiple liveries, totaling in all to 244 EXTRA aircraft for your fully customizable AI traffic.
MyTraffic has been setting the bar for AI Traffic add-ons since its first appearance and stays in the lead with this new expansion pack. Together with the separately available MyTraffic Editor this system allows everybody, from beginning FS users to FS experts, to create true-to-life air traffic in the simulator, almost at the press of a button. It also allows for more experienced users to build AI traffic totally fro scratch. MyTraffic works seamlessly together with tools such as AFCAD, TTools and of course the Trafficbuilder SDK from Microsoft. All information about MyTraffic can be found on the dedicated website:
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Jam has posted a couple of preview videos of the upcoming BDG v0.97 update for Battle of Britain. These videos show the new weather and sky effects that will be in v0.97.
This is a few days late as ive only just realised it had been released! (HD1 slaps himself) Phoenix Simulations have released their New Avro Vulcan package for Microsoft Flight Sim 2002. This is a very special package for many people, as 50% of the proceeds are going to help the real XH558 return to flight.
Heres some information on the new PSS Package: The Avro Vulcan XH558 package utilizes the usual PSS web based installer system, highly detailed GMAX built visual model, 2d panel, virtual cockpit and sound set. Expect all the usual advanced PSS features such as Full Moving Parts, Mike Hambly (Sound Guru) Sound sets, Reflection Mapping, Flight Dynamics Engineered and Tested by Squadron Leader David Thomas, Designated Vulcan display Pilot and BBMF Lancaster display pilot. as well as Dynamic Specular Highlights and 2 Speed Functional Windscreen Wipers.
Just wanted to let you know the my own Military Photo website - www.hotdogone.net has closed down due to the financial difficulties that I am currently experiencing. I would like to thank all those who visited the site and had nice things to say about my photography for your support.
Codemasters have opened a new site, and released the following press release announcing Operation Flashpoint 2
Codemasters today confirms that Operation Flashpoint 2, a true sequel to the million-selling military simulator, has been commissioned. The setting and theme for the game will be revealed at E3, the global games expo (Los Angeles Convention Centre, May 14-16).
Operation Flashpoint 2 is in design and development at Bohemia Interactive Studio, the Prague-based creators of the original title, and will launch late in 2004 for PC.
Focussing on another theatre of modern-historical warfare, Operation Flashpoint 2 will continue the title’s reputation as the ultimate military gaming experience.
Marek Spanel, Operation Flashpoint’s Project Leader at Bohemia Interactive Studio says: “We have great plans and massive ambition for Operation Flashpoint 2 but, for the moment, we are not revealing specific details of its content and gameplay. Following the success of the original game, it’s great to be working with Codemasters on the sequel and we are confident it’ll become another major landmark in PC gaming.”
Codemasters will trail Operation Flashpoint 2 at its E3 booth (#746, South Hall). Until then, gamers can register their interest in the project and sign-up for development updates online at: www.codemasters.com/flashpoint2HERE
Chunx has updated his column with a fantastic new entry!
We took our flight of 3 over to a lonely desert valley about 40 miles east of the base. Since we only had one two-seater, we decided to make it the "tapper," which would allow the two-man crew to practice crew coordination skills. By that I mean that the pilot picks the bogey he wants to prosecute, and the WSO keeps an eye on the other guy to make sure he doesn't get a shot off and ruin our fun. When it is time, the pilot and WSO 'switch' bandits, and the pilot prosecutes the other bogey while the WSO performs his assigned role on the other plane. Pretty much like a kid's game of "tag." Only faster. With $30 million jets.
A new review of Il2:Forgotten Battles has been posted over at TomsHardware
Quote: The advent of IL2 Stormovik was a revelation for many combat simulator fans. Suddenly, we had the pleasure of discovering new types of airplanes and felt the need to master these unknown flying machines from the Eastern bloc. The graphics of IL2 took care of the rest, and the game soon became a benchmark for the genre. With IL2: Forgotten Battles, there are new campaigns, 53 new aircraft of which 30 are pilotable, and the option of playing all the positions in a bomber. Anyone who thinks that Maddox Games is trying to get an edge on Microsoft and its CFS3 has gotten the message... What was originally supposed to be an extension has become a game in its own right
SimMarket today launched ACLoader Version 4 by Scott Campbell. ACLoader - Aircraft Loader & Revenue is an add-on product for FS2000 and FS2002 that allows users to pick an aircraft that he or she will fly, and assign a passenger and cargo load to it. ACLoader then writes that information to the aircraft.cfg file for that aircraft, thereby adjusting the center of gravity because of the changed weight and balance of the aircraft. ACLoader also displays and writes a report file showing the cost and revenue of the aircraft for that particular flight. It can even be used to calculate flight cost without any flight simulator running at all. ACLoader has been in around for many years and Version 4 is the culmination of years of improvements and additions.
ACLoader V4 is sold through simMarket as a downloadable product of some 3.64 Mb, including a very elaborate documentation in pdf format. It costs only Euro 14 (some US $ 14.86 today) and the manual can be downloaded for free to have a look at what the program will do. There is also a user support forum available, which one can find here: ACLoader Support Forum Find more information and the free manual on ACLoader's website:
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Bubba "MasterFung" Wolford has posted a review that looks at Intels latest offering. The new Canterwood motherboard running at a staggering 800mhz FSB is a true powerhorse. Heres a short quote from the review:
What is most surprising about today’s launches is that Intel is doing a great more than just introducing a new CPU. Truth be told, the 3.00GHz CPU being launched today is (going by clock speed alone) slower than the 3.06GHz CPU launched in January. This is an indication of the confidence that Intel is bringing to this launch. They are introducing a slower CPU into the market today while increasing the performance bar. How? Let’s talk about it.
The review is a very interesting read, and the future looks bright for our CPU intensive simulations!
The LO-MAC website has been updated with a new video and a few screenshots. This week they have some video showing off some of the AI aircraft included in LO-MAC. Look closely and you can see the heat effect from the engines too!
SimHQ's Andy Bush and Leon "Badboy" Smith have put together a guide on how to get your bombs on target in Strike Fighters:Project One.
Heres a short quote: Every weapon that is dropped or fired from a plane is affected by gravity. When the weapon is released, it moves both forward and down. Forward due to the velocity of the releasing aircraft and possibly, in the case of rockets and bullets, due to their own propulsion. And then down due to gravity…how much "down" is a function of the time from release to impact.
Its an interesting read, even if you dont fly SFP1.
