Falcon 4 Designers Notes - By Microprose - Page 1 of 2
Designer's Notes Series #1
Dear Falcon pilots,
Sorry about going cold mike on you, but we've been real busy working on Falcon 4.0. This is going to be the first in a semi-regular series of "Designer's Notes" on Falcon 4.0. I just wanted to give you a quick update on our status, squash some rumors and give you a sneak peek at what Falcon 4.0 is going to be.
First of all, reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated. We have been working for about a year now, and we have made great progress. At this point, we have aircraft flying, missiles and guns firing, bombs dropping and planes being destroyed in the sim. The campaign has an integrated air-land battle going on, including fully developed strike packages with SEAD, escort, strike, ECM and recon flights included.
Second, Falcon 4.0 is not Top Gun: Fire at Will in an F-16. Top Gun was a separate product, and while the two teams do talk to each other, it caused no delay in Falcon 4.0 and did not steal any resources from our team. The two programs are aimed at different audiences and each has a different focus. Falcon 4.0 is designed to be the ultimate in F-16 realism. From the texture-mapped terrain to the Doppler notch in the radar, realism is our highest goal. (Second, actually, it has to be fun as well.)
Having said that, let me give you some details about what to expect in Falcon 4.0. In a nutshell, Falcon 4.0 is a Windows 95, multiplayer air combat simulator set in the Korean peninsula with a real-time war in progress in which you take the role of a single pilot in an F-16C Block 50/52.
We've been concentrating our efforts on four main areas of the game. We are improving the networking, flight model, campaign and graphics capabilities. I'll be giving you more details on each of these areas in upcoming notes, but here's a sneak peek.
NETWORKING
From the beginning, Falcon 4.0 has been designed as a multiplayer network game. This lets us integrate other players into all aspects of the game from the time you select a campaign through mission debriefing. Multiplayer modes will be available over a LAN (local area network), modem, direct connect and through the Total Entertainment Network (TEN). Of course, you can also play Falcon 4.0 in single-player mode. We have also included various levels of Instant Action, both single-player, cooperative and head-to-head.
SIMULATION
Of course, the simulation will be of the highest caliber. All of the avionics models will be faithful to both the F-16 avionics and the laws of physics. For example, the radar model will have over 10 different modes (including Track-While-Scan, Single-Target-Track, Air-Combat-Mode and Ground-Map) and will include ground clutter, resolution cells and Doppler notches. The HUD will also have over 10 different modes, including AIM-9, AIM-120, AGM-88, guns, CCIP (Continuously Computed Impact Point) and CCRP (Continuously Computed Release Point). The HARM modeling will also include the new Wild Weasel capabilities being added to the new F-16s.
Working with our F-16 expert Pete Bonanni (who you may remember from "Art of the Kill"), we have redefined the AI for wingmen and threats to create a much more realistic engagement both within visual range and beyond. Communication with your wingman has been enhanced, and the AI has been taught a lot more about team tactics.
CAMPAIGN
On the campaign side, a full war will be going on around you. At any given time, missions are being flown against targets on both sides of the front and the ground war will continue. The campaign will also provide the player with data on how the war is going. It will be fairly detailed for the player's side and best guesses based on recon for the enemy. Also, the campaign will provide AWACS coverage of the theater. The AWACS coverage will warn the player about things happening in his vicinity.
GRAPHICS
For the visuals, we've gone with a fully texture-mapped polygonal terrain, covering the entire Korean peninsula -- all 1,000,000 square kilometers of it. Objects are 3-D, of course, and will be texture-mapped and articulated as well (you'll get to see the control surfaces move). We will, of course, be taking advantage of Windows 95 3-D graphics accelerator cards. Another neat feature is the ability to put one of your multifunction displays on an old Hercules monochrome monitor so you can see your radar without giving up any screen space for it. The mission briefing screens let you redefine your waypoints and time on target, while the mission builder lets you assign all friendly and enemy air and ground assets. We are also going to include a mission debrief/ACMI recorder so you can see just what you did right or wrong. You can learn how to use all of these new toys in the training section.
Thanks for reading!
Leon Rosenshein,
Producer/Technical Lead for Falcon 4.0
Designer's Notes Series #2
E3 REPORT
First off, for those of you who didn't get to E3 or haven't seen any descriptions, let me tell you what we demoed. Basically we set up an Instant Action scenario. The player started in the air behind a drone target. If the drone was destroyed, it was replaced by a MiG-29 with an attitude. Each time the MiG was destroyed, another one came to take its place. This setup was customized for E3 and is not what we will have in the final product. For air-to-air combat, you had at your disposal a gun, AIM-9s, AIM-120s and the radar to go with them. Radar modes included RWS, ACM (20x30, Vertical Search and boresight), VS and TWS. These were coupled to the HUD to provide the EEGS, LCOS and gun snake -- as well as missile dynamic launch zones. Two MFDs (multifunction displays) were available, with and without a cockpit display. This means that in the final product, if having just the MFD on the screen bothers you, you will be able to have a full working cockpit. But if you only want to see the MFDs (which is my personal choice), you can do it that way as well. The MFDs were capable of displaying the radar, RWR (Radar Warning Receiver), Stores Management System or the HUD. The full cockpit view also included a working RWR. One system also had a Hercules monochrome graphics display attached, and you could put one of the MFDs there. Rounding out the system were ThrustMaster's F-16 FLCS and TQS, with full HOTAS support.
PADLOCK VIEWS
We also demoed one possible padlock view. The view is based on a system I helped develop for the U.S. Air Force back in 1992. While the system is not realistic in that you won't find it in any production aircraft, it has been tested in well over 1,000 sorties flown against a full-view domed simulator and has been proven to compensate for the tunnel vision a computer monitor gives you. History aside, let me give you a description of the system. When a padlocked object is within your normal field of view (that is, on the screen), you see nothing unusual. As the object leaves your field of view, it is replaced by a boxed image of what you would see if you were actually looking at it. The position of the box around your screen gives you the maneuver plane that the object is in. The plane is defined by the center of the HUD and the box. The box also includes various cues to help you determine the actual position and orientation of the object. Having that description out of the way, let me say again say that this is only one of the padlock views that will be available. We will also be including the Falcon 3.0-type of padlock and a scrollable cockpit. We realize that different people like different things, and we try to be responsive.
Other notable things about our E3 demo include our three different hardware configurations for your viewing pleasure. The first setup was a Pentium 166 with 32MB RAM and a Number Nine Motion 771 video card. We had two machines set up like this. People seemed to like the display and the feel of flight. The second system was the same except that the computer had Intel's MMX extensions built in, which improved the frame rate about 30%. The third setup, and my personal favorite, used a 3Dfx hardware accelerator board to draw the image. This system ran at over 20 frames per second, with bi-linear interpolation on the textures. It was truly impressive. Unfortunately, we were unable to show the cockpit on this system which is maybe how the rumors about having only pop-up windows got started.
To show the multiplayer capability of Falcon 4.0, we networked all four systems together. Typically we had two solo players, and a 1v1 (one-on-one) going on, but we did occasionally set up three- and four-way competitions.
THE SIMULATION
For Falcon 4.0, the simulation core has been completely rewritten. Taking the best parts of the logic from Falcon 3.0 and extending it, we have come up with the new and improved simulation core. The simulation core includes air and ground AI for tactical engagements, avionics modeling, weapons modeling and other aircraft systems modeling.
A lot of work has gone into upgrading the avionics. As you may remember, Falcon 3.0 simulated a Block 15 A model F-16. Falcon 4.0 will simulate the newer Block 52 model. This includes the new APG-68 radar and the HARM Targeting System (HTS). The new radar will give you better detection capabilities and better cluster resolution, letting you know if that blip you are tracking is one aircraft or a whole flight. The HTS will let you take on the F-16's new Wild Weasel role.
The APG-68 simulation gives you complete control over the radar. You choose the azimuth and elevation scan, the number of bars, the search range and the Doppler notch size. This will be important as you try to sort out the new AI tactics which include altitude, elevation and azimuth splits. To help you maintain your situational awareness, you will be able to tell your wingmen which way to point their radars and the intraflight data modem will let you see what they see. Of course, your wingmen will also understand about new tactics, so the BVR (Beyond Visual Range) air battle should get interesting. The radar also includes air-to-ground modes including Ground Moving Target and Ground Map, with and without Doppler Beam Sharpening, for those mud-moving missions.
At your disposal, you will have a full complement of stores that you can load as you see fit (within weight, carriage and supply limits). The stores will include Sparrows, Sidewinders, AMRAAMs, Mavericks, HARMS, GBUs, CBUs, rockets, fuel tanks and ECM pods. The radar and HUD work together to give you all of the cues needed to properly deploy these weapons. For air-to-air, you get the standard seeker and DLZ (Dynamic Launch Zone) symbology or your choice of EEGS (funnel), LCOS (Lead Computing Optical Sight) or snake for gunnery. Air-to-ground includes CCIP (Continuously Computed Impact Point), CCRP (Continuously Computed Release Point), Dive/Toss and Strafe.
We have also put a lot of effort into making you feel immersed in the simulation. You will be able to hear the radio calls of flights around you (provided you're on the right frequency). The CAPs and interceptor flights which you encounter launch from an air base and will be tracked by AWACS for you. Depending on the mission you select, you can depend on AWACS for threat vectors, target calls and steering to a tanker if you need one.
That should give you a little more detail on the simulation core, and I hope answer some of your questions. To recap:
In a nutshell, Falcon 4.0 is a Windows 95, multiplayer air-combat simulator set in the Korean peninsula, with a real-time war in progress in which you take the role of a single pilot in an F-16C Block 52. Our goal is to ship in the first half of 1997.
That's all for now, I'll keep you posted. Thanks!
Leon Rosenshein
Producer/Technical Lead for Falcon 4.0
Designer's Notes Series #3
NETWORKING
From our experience with Falcon 3.0 and Top Gun: Fire at Will, we realized even before we started that networking needed to be an integral part of the design for Falcon 4.0. With this as our design goal, we designed a system in which there is no difference between network and single-player modes. Well, there is the slight difference that your buddy is flying the airplane next to you, but as far as the game is concerned, there is no other difference.
Falcon 4.0 will support at least four different kinds of networking. Of course, there will be modem support and direct connection for two players, as well as local area network support for multiple players. We will also be available on Total Entertainment Network (TEN) for multiplayer Internet play. Modem and direct connect will obviously only work for two people, but network play will be limited only by your network and computer speed. Based on our experiences with Top Gun: Fire at Will, over 30 people should be able to play over Thin-net. TEN support is still being worked on, but we expect to be able to support hundreds of players in each world. Networking is also designed into the game play. For example, say you're in the middle of planning a critical campaign strike when your friend Bob calls and wants to fly with you. Easy! Just hit the Comms icon on the toolbar, select Bob's name from the dialog list (assuming you have already created a configuration entry for Bob) and hit "Connect." The chat box (with voice transmission capability if your sound card supports it) will pop up with Bob in it. Now drag "Bob" into an aircraft, and you're set to fly the mission together. You and Bob can choose to fly as wingmen, in different flights in the same package or on entirely different missions.
MISSION PLANNING
All players in a mission can assist with the mission planning (or one player can be designated to do it all). Any changes will be updated on the mission planner as they occur. The planning system allows additional flights of aircraft to be requested for a package in case there aren't enough slots for everyone who wants to fly. (This is subject to available resources, of course, and any added aircraft won't be out performing other missions.) With the chat mechanism, the flight crews can discuss the mission and the plans until everything is just right or it's time to take off.
TACTICAL ENGAGEMENT
In Tactical Engagement (Falcon 4.0's equivalent to Red Flag), players can create their own missions and fly them either cooperatively or competitively (since F-16s can be assigned to any team). In addition, Dogfight (head-to-head) allows players to quickly and easily set up multi-fighter dogfights. In Dogfight, up to four teams of four aircraft can duke it out. Setup options support limitations on the types and number of missiles, computer wingmen if desired and a reentry option which will keep the fight going for as long as you can take it. The results of a single or series of Dogfights can be saved as a text file for easy reporting back to the Dogfight ladder.
That's all for now, I'll keep you posted. Thanks!
Leon Rosenshein
Producer/Technical Lead for Falcon 4.0
