From: jao@savanna.UUCP (J. A. Ollinger)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.simulators
Subject: Re: Your ideal flight simulation/game
Summary: Suggested features on a flight sim game
Keywords: Simulation Game
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 92 20:03:02 PST
Distribution: na
Organization: Savanna, Ltd.

rych@festival.ed.ac.uk (R Hawkes) writes:

[edited]
> I'm currently looking at a scenario for a high
> quality flight simulation/game.  I'm currently working
> on the basis that the user will have a number of
> aircraft to choose from and also a selection of
> missions to undertake.  The games system will allow
> the player to "save" their status and return to 
> undertake another mission at their leisure.  This
> game will involve a network of machines, so players
> could be pitted against each other or working 
> together.
> 
> What I'm really like are your opinions on what this game
> should offer in features e.g. aircraft, missions,
> visual quality etc...


If it's an arcade game, and not a PC game, I'd suggest making a
real-looking cockpit and a bunch of switches to mess with.  You should
have a joystick with various buttons on it to handle the frequently used
stuff (radar, missiles, cannon), or a yoke.  But there ought to be a
separate throttle, a separate gear deployment switch or lever, a flaps
lever, trim wheels, a bomb arming switch (don't put it on the stick where
you can hit it by accident), and a radio switch if you decide to have
radio chatter.  This would be particularly effective if you have the kind
of game where a person would sit down to play it, but it would look good
on an upright game too.  Rudder pedals (on a seat version) would be good
too.

On this cockpit, you have various real-looking gages and readouts.  The
main CRT screen would have the external view and your HUD.  All the
backup and supplimentary info, would be down on the console.  This frees
up precious CRT space and it makes the whole thing look more interesting.

And if you go for that, the more gages that actually MEAN something the
better (IMO).  One of the things I really liked about SWOTL was the fact
that they actually used a lot of the little dials they provided--oil and
manifold pressures, etc.  A lot of games will draw a beautiful cockpit
and then actually use maybe one or two gages.  Why bother?

The only other suggestion I would make (at this point) is to seriously
consider modelling ONE or two airplanes really well, instead of offering
a bunch.  I usually wince when I hear of game companies that offer 100
airplanes that are "accurately modelled."  Uh-huh.  Yeah, right.  Most
often they fly very similarly anyway, and a whole lot of programming
space gets wasted on making unique cockpit layouts and out-of-aircraft
images.  Pick an airplane and use as much resource as you can makeing it
the best simulator of THAT aircraft, and forget all the rest.  If it's
good, people will play it.  If I had a choice between a game like ACES OF
THE PACIFIC or BIRDS OF PREY, which attempt to offer you every airplane
ever made, and including my own favorite, the P-38, and a game called
P-51 MUSTANG which models ONLY the P-51D, but does it *extremely* well
, I'd pick that P-51 MUSTANG game, even though I don't care that much for
them.  I think FALCON 3.0 bears out this theory.  SH *could* have
modelled every airplane under the sun, but instead they choose JUST the
F-16, but they did it in detail and they did it well.  People are buying
it and taking it seriously.

My 2 cents, for what it's worth.



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