Test flight with VF-32

this week I have flown the first of many missions that will test my campaign. Since the campaign only covers 15 days (= max 15 mission) i can easily test one campaign session during the course of 3 days . The first missions always start on the ground, but after mission 4 or 5 I start near the target to speed up testing.

The first testrun was with VF-32 flying the F-14 Tomcat. Below is a list of mission flown.

Mission 1: fighter sweep: noticed some Mirage 5's without weapons
Mission 2: intercept - nothing special

Friendly F-18 in need for an escort

Mission3: CAP - noticed another flight of F-14's without weapons
Mission 4: intercept - nothing special

Twist and Turn

Mission 5: escort
Mission 6 intercept - intercepts never occur near the carrier, always near ground stations.
Mission 7: escort: this mission took me to the far edge of the terrain and I witnesses some fighters hovering in mid air, I'll have to check that some targets are not too close to the edge of the map.

Low ceiling fight

mission 8: CAP - suddenly I got resupplied! I'll have to check the campaign settings to ommit the resupplies.
mission 9: sweep
mission 10: cap

One enemy less

mission 11: sweep - the Mig-23's at the airfield had no weapons, I'll have to check that out too
Mission 12: escort
Mission 13: sweep - the campaign ended in a cease fire, the end image and end text still refers to the wrong country. I'll need to fix that too.

You only need one maverick

This first test campaign resulted in a small checklist::
check aircraft loadouts
Fix Target location
rewrite endscreens

The next test campaign will be with a dedicated strike aircraft to check the ground parts of the campaign.

PS in one picture you can see where the campaign will take place.

Happy Flying

CVN-75

Last time I showed how you can extract the CVA-63 carrier from within WOE. But in the campaign I am developping, I use the CVN-75 from Digital-Overload.

The CVN-75 Harry S. Truman is a Nimitz class super carrier. Nimitz class carriers are nuclear powered and can carry up to 85 aircraft. The CVN-75 was not yet build in the timeframe I use for my campaign, but there exists a mod with all ships from that class. However I don't use that mod because Digital-Overload is no signatory to the Freeware Licensing. So I can't know whether the author of the Nimitz mod, got permission to use and distribute his files.

After my experience with Diego, I have adopted these rules:
1/ only use material from authors in the freeware licensing list
2/ if the author is not in the list, ask his permission before release, but never use derivates from his work
3/ if the author is a team (ala Mirage Factory), make sure that at least one of the team members is mentioned in the freeware licensing list, so that I can ask for permission through him.

To showcase the CVN-75 in my campaign i made this little movie with some F-14's performing carrier trials.





Happy Flying,

Unnamed Project

A week passed after the release of WOE:BC Berlin Crisis and I am already working on my next project. At this moment the campaign has been downloaded 760 times. I don't know how many players actually fly the campaign. I guess most people will need about one week to download and install all the files, so I will post a postmortem on the campaign next week. That will hopefully create some response from the community (positive or negative).

Like I said I am working on a new project/campaign. It's location, time period and scope are heavily influenced by my experience with developping WOE:BC, but that will become clear when I post the postmortem. One thing is for sure, I will try to reduce the spoilers to a minimum. Not that I won't release pictures or post about it (people need to know at least which aircraft will be involved). I already encorporated one aircraft: The F-14 Tomcat. While downloading the aircraft, I noticed an error in the loadout configuration, which I correct.

I posted the correction at combatace, but here I like to show some more action shots.

For those interested:

Aircraft: Mirage Factory F-14A
Skin: VF-32 Swordsmen by paul.nortess
Pilots: created by me (They are not yet available seperatly but they are part of the WOE:BC install)
Carrier: CVN_Carrier beta 3 by Digital-Overload

The Mission

On the cat, the CAG aircraft sports a bit flashier art then the other aircraft, which are in low-viz paint.

The cat hurls us away, into the blue wide yonder.


We sport the typical CAP loadout: 3 sparrows, 2 sidewinders and 2 phoenix missiles.

A spread out formation, patrolling the skies around the carrier.


The pilot spots the carrier in the distance.


Catching the wire.


A busy flightdeck is a dangerous place for the ground crew.

Don't forget to check out my loadout post at combatace!

Happy Flying

Level Design

As I am working on my next mission, defending Clark Air Base in the Philippines, I wondered about level design.

I consider games as emotional roller coasters, you play the game because you want to feel a certain feeling (the thrill of finishing a race, the joy when you survive a hard battle against an opponent...). It's also important that i forget that I am playing a game. Games like Civilization and excellent written missions in Il-2, can suspend your disbelief. In those games I am really trying to make the Greeks survive, or I am really fighting it out with an enemy Zero.

Yet console games tend to fail in these field. As i played game after game, I noticed that these console games always boiled down to beating the level (and by consequence the level designer). There is no suspension of disbelief, because often you have to reload the game after the x-time fight with a boss monster. Thats the reason why I fell out with console games, the suspension of disbelief was no longer maintainable (on top, after you played your 10nth FPS they all start to look the same).

Ironically, while designing my next mission, I discover I have to do my own level design. But I try to avoid creating a mission that would not stand out. So I spend a lot of time, loading the mission, playing it (or viewing it) just to figure out if this or that explosion is right. The mission will be based on real events, but it is crucial that the player has a "wow" experience. At this rate I hope to have the mission ready within two weeks.

In the meantime I posted another AAR, this time based on the "White Sun, Blue Sky" - campaign. You can read it all at SimHQ or on this blog.

Happy Reading



PS This is a movie I discovered (I already posted it on SimHQ)