From: opus@ihlpf.att.com (Robin Kim)
Subject: SVGA Air Warrior vs. AOTP
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:23:58 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
Keywords: SVGA Air Warrior, Aces of the Pacific

Last week I posted a "mini"-review of "SVGA Air Warrior", by Kesmai.  In it,
I included some off-the-cuff comparisons between it and Dynamix'
"Aces of the Pacific."  I've played AOTP extensively, and thought I would
be able to compare the two fairly without playing them back to back.  I
was wrong.

After I'd logged innumerable hours in "SVGA Air Warrior" (hereafter referred
to as "AW"), I fired up AOTP just for the heck of it.  I was fairly shocked
by what I had found.

- Once you get used to SVGA, you don't want to go back!  With 1/4 the number
  of pixels, everything in AOTP looked like crap!  The instrument panel
  looked so clunky compared to AW, it was comical.  However, after playing
  for about 10 minutes, I didn't notice it anymore, as I became too busy
  playing the game.
- Resolution aside, the use of shading in the AOTP artwork is very nice.
  The AW cockpit art is much sharper and more detailed, but AOTP's looks
  more realistic if you squint.  :^)
- I originally said that AW's flight dynamics blew away AOTP's in every
  way.  I've got to eat some crow on this one.  AOTP models rotational
  inertia (e.g. if you center your stick during a hard roll, the plane
  will keep rolling for a short while before dampening out), while this is
  almost completely absent in AW!  The only inertial effect that seems to
  exist in AW is for pitch changes, and it is very small.  In fact, it
  is probably more an artifact of AW's excellent modeling of AOA effects.

  AW's Strengths			AOTP's Strengths
  --------------			----------------
  High-speed stalls			Roll and pitch inertia
  Spins, flat spins			Aileron lock (e.g. Zero can't roll
  Realistic acceleration rates			well at high speeds)
  Good modeling of induced drag AOA
	except at low speeds
  Planes vary widely w.r.t. the above
	characteristics
  Fine granularity of control input

  Summary:  While AOTP's rotational inertia makes the plane feel pretty
  realistic, its unbelievably high acceleration rates, too-low stall speeds,
  and lack of accelerated stalls (high-speed stalls where max AOA is exceeded)
  make dogfights much less realistic than in AW.  Some may wonder why I
  keep harping on significance of modeling high speed stalls.  When you're
  in a hard turning fight, you're bumping against this limit ALL THE TIME.
  Take one small step over the line in a plane with bad stalling
  characteristics like the P-51 Mustang, and you'll INSTANTLY find yourself
  spinning out of control, plummetting toward the ground completely
  disoriented, hoping you're kicking the rudder in the right direction to
  pull you out of it before you auger in, and cutting the throttle so your
  engine torque won't drive the spin.  Do the same thing at low speed in
  a FW190A and you just may flip over onto your back and find yourself in
  an unrecoverable flat spin.

- Planes appear MUCH bigger in AOTP.  This shows off the nice exterior plane
  graphics in AOTP, but I don't know if it's realistic or not.  In AW, planes
  look pretty small until you close to around 180 yards.  With the 640x480
  resolution, though, you can determine approximate attitude at up to
  800 yards (this varies a lot depending on the actual attitude of the plane
  you're looking at).  Of course, this range is significantly longer when
  viewing bombers and transports.
- After getting used to the 22 views from the cockpit available in AW,
  I found it very difficult to go back to AOTP's 5 views.  I've decided that
  for me, AW has the best viewing system of any PC combat flight sim I've
  played.  I find it superior to even Falcon 3.0's padlock view.  With
  some practice, you can track a target through any maneuver without ever
  losing sight, unless it goes where you shouldn't be able to see it in, such
  as below your plane.  Because there is cockpit artwork for 16 of the
  most commonly used views, you always know which way you're looking, so
  you don't get disoriented like you might using F3's padlock view.  Keeping
  tabs on multiple targets is much more difficult in AW, however, since you
  can't just keep hitting "t" to cycle through the planes in your vicinity,
  but I like it that way!  It SHOULD be hard to keep track of more than
  one plane in a furball!

I'm still looking for modem-link opponents!  If you're at all interested,
please send me email.  Long distance is not a problem--I work for the
phone company!

Rob
opus@ihlpf.att.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games