max power 21 Posted January 11, 2011 Richard "Flexman" Hawley, a longtime mod maker of Jane's Longbow, has been developing an all new apache simulator. Y6ILqIQDaio He said recently in a roundtable on simHQ 20mm: What specific simulation titles have been the most inspirational to you in terms of what you strive for in the development of new titles, and why?Flexman: Everything by Microprose. M1 Tank Platoon and Gunship 2000 offered repeat play through simple mechanics. And I'd also go with Wing Commander for its attempt at a narrative. And a huge shout out to Jane's Longbow 2 which was a fine blend of action and simulation. What's interesting in those choices is (with exception to Wing Commander) are totally dynamic. Grand Theft Auto managed to blend narrative with a free-flow structure. That's a little of what we're aiming for, a blend of dynamic missions with a few narrative threads. Both M1 Tank Platoon and Gunship 2000 had crew advancement (or death), you could get really fond of those AI guys. We unashamedly copied the idea of a crew roster you can develop over missions. They have metrics for flight time, skill level, combat fatigue, aggression. The latter being quite important for AI sorties. Jane’s titles managed to walk a tightrope of action and simulation. The audio chatter went a long way to provide a sense of battle and excitement. F15 was super with calls of “shack†and “check your panelâ€. Even Falcon 3.0 has some amusing pilot chatter. All of that we scripted for our game too just because it added so much to the feeling of a Jane’s simulation and it’s not technically difficult to do. It adds value at little expense. But we didn't just copy other games. Here I risk sounding like PR but this is something I personally have invested a lot of time into creating. It was important to give Combat-Helo something unique to set it above anything else done before, the campaign system, it's fair to call it a separate simulation. The design document runs for 20 pages and it's about the only aspect that I think is totally out of the box and what I hope will show how much fun combat sims can be with a bit of thought. It was inspired partly by work done by an Oxford professor into conflicts and how they have predictable structure, which sounds counter-intuitive but they do. And also by a friend who spent time behind "enemy" lines recounting some of the ludicrous thinking that goes on. The agenda was to create a number crunching simulation that could educate and even yield some insights into real conflicts. And it does this by simulating terror cell structures, family connections and factional control of regions using a complex web-like data structure (my former day-job specialty). The math can be applied to any scale of warfare but we're starting small with COIN operations in Combat-Helo. As you ramp up the kind of warfare it requires more complex logic to build combatants (or a big order of battle look-up table). The true test of this game system will be when we use data from years of conflict in Helmand and see how our model reacts to military surges then compare that to what really happened. I've no idea if we have the time to get in the narrative material in the first content release; it's quite a major logistical problem of getting scripts and recording sessions done. Not to mention the mission scripting system which is currently a WIP. Sounds like fun! I think these little gameplay elements have really been missing from modern simulations. Check out the Tricubic Studios Combat Helo Page: http://tricubicstudios.com/combathelo.html Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Macadam Cow 1 Posted January 12, 2011 Damn, I need to know when this game will be released so I can drop my job at the right time, buy 200 frozen pizzas and tell my friends and family not to worry if I don't answer the phone for 2 months :D Really looking forward to this game Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
max power 21 Posted January 12, 2011 I forgot to add that to the first post. The expected release date is mid 2011. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jw custom 56 Posted January 12, 2011 Looking forward to this one :cool: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Daniel 0 Posted January 12, 2011 Excellent, definitely getting this. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nodunit 397 Posted January 14, 2011 If you are very interested and have not yet looked into it, I would suggest checking out their dev blog, it predates from 2009 from the very beginning of their first tests to the current of 2011. You can see various technologies that will be used, other units and landscape. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PigZ8zde4FA/TCoo2gZVR6I/AAAAAAAAAso/Wv2mSRpsUfE/s1600/screenshot_270.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PigZ8zde4FA/TCXx_zWzGuI/AAAAAAAAAro/_d3zu06tRzM/s1600/etads_screen.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PigZ8zde4FA/S6Ku2Gh-y6I/AAAAAAAAAbM/7tqB1hi2Giw/s1600-h/terrain_preview_01.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PigZ8zde4FA/TKUOlY8gJHI/AAAAAAAAA8E/IflgsfjVbSI/s1600/screenshot_517.jpg http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PigZ8zde4FA/TMcnpnyjBSI/AAAAAAAAA-M/D-H7UJT5VgM/s1600/freedom_monument.jpg It could very well be a successor to Janes Longbow, nevermind apache air assault. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
