The gunships are coming back!

[Skybird]

I post this here because I could imagine it might interest some more people than only those visiting the flightsim forum.

Some years - many? years - ago I posted occasional updates on a private effort by "Flexman" Hawlewy to build a new sim on basis of the old Gunship! and Longbow titles. And then, in the past years, I lost track of it, and nobody spoke of it anyway.

And now its back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYV9v9WCYuE#t=244

Note the message at the end: "Coming as Early Access to Steam Greenlight soon."

:woot:

http://www.combat-helo.com/
http://www.tricubicstudios.com/combathelo.html
and a bit older:
http://combathelo.blogspot.de/

An older interview:
http://combatace.com/topic/81874-game-developer-interview-tricubic-studios-combat-helo/

The DCS series is a purist simulation product, written by engineers and enthusiasts with an engineering eye. All very procedural and institutionalised. PC combat sims as a genre used to be very different, they were more like animated documentaries. Different experiences.
One forces you to conform, the other indulges. We’re all about indulgence. Our Apache cockpit experience lets you learn as much as you want, go out and blow things up, play with it.
(...)
We’re creating a game for a generation that missed out on those simulations from Origin and Microprose, PC combat simulations were a genre of their own. Those games were jingoistic indulgencies, escapism with a fair amount of technical depth.

That certainly sounds like what we loved in the Longbow and Gunship and the old Microprose titles so much.


http://combatace.com/gallery/?module=images&section=img_ctrl&img=27339&file=medium

[Fubar2Niner]

Sounds promising Skybird, loved both those titles back in the day. Thanks for the heads up.

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

[Nippelspanner]

Desperately tried to get Jane's Apache Longbow II to run on my system a while ago with no real success...

I miss the Apache and still don't understand why it doesn't show up for DCS.

So I hope this project will go well. Since DCS though, I have quite high expectations when we speak simulations.

[Schroeder]

I miss the Apache and still don't understand why it doesn't show up for DCS.

So I hope this project will go well. Since DCS though, I have quite high expectations when we speak simulations.
I guess a two man cockpit would be hard to simulate especially with a modern combat helicopter... The gunner / Pilot AI for the Huey transporter is already awful and completely not up for the task despites it's rather primitive weapon systems so I can't imagine how a sophisticated two seater attack helicopter is supposed to be modeled.

[Nippelspanner]

It worked in Jane's before... Sure, it was no 3d clickable cockpit, but then...what's the difference, technically?

I fail to see the difficulty here. While it sure means lots of work... it should be totally possible after all from my understanding.

Shame though...

[Skybird]

Since DCS though, I have quite high expectations when we speak simulations.
Mind you, in that interview it becomes quite clear that they do go after recreating the Microprose experience, not the DCS experience. And both are very different approaches.

And I'm fine with that. Microprose used to be very immersive while almost telling a story - the story of the mission unfolding. DCS is superior from an engineer's POV: which was not necessarily mine, I never grew warm with DCS, it feels so very sterile.

What they are doing with Combat Helo indeed looks to me like bringing up the third generation of Jane's Longbow. Perfect plan, I say.

[Nippelspanner]

Meh... first you make my day, then you ruin it. Screw you Skyvogel! :D
I will decide if I get it when it's finished. Not everything needs to be a hardcore sim, but then again... it does.

Argh I don't know...

[Oberon]

I guess a two man cockpit would be hard to simulate especially with a modern combat helicopter... The gunner / Pilot AI for the Huey transporter is already awful and completely not up for the task despites it's rather primitive weapon systems so I can't imagine how a sophisticated two seater attack helicopter is supposed to be modeled.

I believe that there is an F18 in the works, so we'll have to see what the AI is like with that. I think that there might be a DCS Apache in the works. Not sure though. Pretty sure there was a mention of a Cobra at some point too. EECH is probably the best current sim for that, well nodded and updated too with a very nice dynamic campaign, ala Falcon 4.

[Skybird]

I always was at war - more or less - with the flight physics of EE, especially the hypersensitive collective, for which many workarounds were tried and suggested, but none ever worked acceptably well. The collective that the early developers once have confirmed to work eratically only and not working like they wished to design things, finally killed this sim for me. Else, it was a great thing, yes. I tried long and hard to love this, and I loved much in it, especially in EECH. But the collective finally grounded it for me, forever. Ruined an otherwise very good simulation that was round and polished around the edges.

Nippelspanner,

from the linked interview:


In our Apache you can spend 10 to 15 minutes prepping your ship or hit a key to get going, it’s your choice and we won’t judge you for it. There will be one initial load time and that’s it. No wait time between menus or “small” accidents. Doing a barrel roll will NEVER be an option (well you probably can pull it off but it’s tricky).

One of the features I tried to bring to Combat Helo was this notion that you can walk around in a limited way. Do inspections and arm the aircraft, interact with base objects. I know this is all been done with military games and we’re not trying to be those games either.

Later when we activate co-op play your friends will be able to act as a load-master, arming aircraft as they are ready. We have laptops in the command tent that act as interfaces to the mission engine. A player will be able to assign specific missions to any aircraft ready at the airbase. Everything is message based, we experimented with pulling out game information and updating a HTML 5 page in real-time. That worked quite well, when it’s time to implement a user-facing mission editor we might go the route of SOAP messages from a web page. I’ve got code stubs in there just in case. It depends what people want and how they fly with their friends.

http://combatace.com/gallery/?module=images&section=img_ctrl&img=27333&file=mediumWhat can users both novice and veteran expect from your game?

We’re creating a game for a generation that missed out on those simulations from Origin and Microprose, PC combat simulations were a genre of their own. Those games were jingoistic indulgencies, escapism with a fair amount of technical depth.

They can expect to install the game and get up and running fairly quickly. This is an authentic representation AH-64D. It’s an odd bird, you can think of it as a Block I that’s undergoing a rolling upgrade to Block II. We made deliberate design choices about readability and ease of use.

95% of the cockpit switches work, engine start-up, APU, lighting settings, store jettison etc. Even the wipers have two speeds and an intermittent wipe mode.Pilots should expect some confusion about how the weapon systems interact between the front and rear seats (I still get confused). My advice is not to keep jumping between seats if you can avoid it, learn to go through the steps you need for the task at hand but we don’t force you.

The real Longbow is a very complex aircraft and there is a lot we don’t cover. It simply isn’t practical or possible to do without touching on areas that are secret. In those areas that are sensitive I take my cues from other games and make a best educated guess. The feedback I get from pilots is along the lines of “good enough” which suits me.

The initial release will contain a typical representation of a live fire gunnery range, operating out of a local stage-point. Essentially you’re given the keys, an ethereal instructor pilot and exercises to complete. You get to try different gunnery techniques, operating the aircraft systems and then engaging in some dynamic (but totally fictional) survival missions in SAM infested hills moving from point A to point B.

The AH-64D is armed with a 30mm cannon, a selection of rockets (including illumination and smoke) and AGM-114 L and K Hellfires (Radar and Laser guided respectively). TrackIR head tracking support is included so you can slave the cannon to your physical head movement if you wish.
We’ll have a mode for pick-up and play with a 360 joypad so you can fly instant action missions Comanche style. We have some lively crew speech to keep things interesting.

Initially we won’t ship with multi-player, it’s logistically difficult to debug and test. The game has been designed around messaging for multi-player so I don’t anticipate major problems, just lots of little ones, we will be enabling co-op (font seat / back seat) play around the third major release on our published roadmap. The cross-coupling of the systems presents interesting play challenges. You can actually fight your co-pilotfor control of systems.
Also expect the occasional exploding cow (if you know which setting in the config.ini to tweak).



http://combatace.com/gallery/?module=images&section=img_ctrl&img=27343&file=mediumWhat can users who play hardcore flight sims expect from your game?

The best I can hope for is that they feel nostalgic for the games they played in the mid to late nineties and enjoy some of the attention to the flight model and cockpit experience. We have a really advanced flight-model thanks to Fred Naar who created the amazing free helicopter physics replacement add-on for FSX. There’s nothing else like it.

[Schroeder]

I believe that there is an F18 in the works, so we'll have to see what the AI is like with that. I think that there might be a DCS Apache in the works. Not sure though. Pretty sure there was a mention of a Cobra at some point too.
I wasn't aware that the F/A 18 was a double seater.;)
But yes, there was talk about that the same guys who made the Huey are also working on a Cobra... But I'm not holding my breath after the Huey AI experience.

[Nippelspanner]

Ok that sounds pretty neat indeed!