[Marcov]

So, I know of all this stuff about an aircraft simulator for Freespace, which I found out to be "Wings" (via FS Wiki).

Out of curiosity, the aircraft can crash to the ground, right?

Anyway, so I have an idea in mind, a WWI Flight simulator based on the FS Engine. I AM NOT PLANNING A PROJECT; this is just a theoretical analysis.

Firstly, I'm picturing a game that focuses on aircraft that are about as maneuverable, but not as slo-ow as the spacecraft in the Unification Wars Mod. Secondly, the pace of fighting fellow fighters will be much slower, as WWI aircraft did - if you could score over 30 kills in a mission involving A LOT of opponents and YOU ALONE in a FreeSpace canon mission, you could only score about 4 or 5 in a WWI Simulator, as dogfighting before was much slower (and actually cooler).

It would be realistic if the FS Engine could allow structural flaws in the plane - aircraft before were subject to this - shearing off of wings at high negative G Loads, collisions, forced crash-landings, etc. And, hopefully, to add more to the realism, the player (or any NPC aircraft) automatically die when the pilot is shot - as you might know, early military pilots didn't have glass windows covering them (even WWII pilots could probably be shot and killed, if I'm correct).

Unfortunately, I don't have any ideas on what the Capitals would be...there would be AA gunners on the ground for sure, balloons to strafe, but Capital Ships...Zeppelins maybe, to an extent; but hell, you could bring down a 500-foot hydrogen-filled balloon with a few tracer bullets!
Or warships? But primitive war planes can't damage warships a bit; they did not have the sophisticated torpedoes WWII navy fighter-bombers had, if I'm not mistaken.

So, any ideas? Comments?
Again, I do not plan to make a project. Just a brainstorm.

[The E]

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=72062.0

[Marcov]

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=72062.0

Uhh...isn't Crimson Skies based on WWII weapons? This isn't WWII, this is WWI, where, you know, biplanes ruled the skies. Like this:

[lostllama]

Generally, aerial combat in WW1 was very similar to that of WW2, although top speeds and service ceilings were different. In both cases the main aim of dogfighting was to jostle for position on the opponent's six, and a lot of the tactics of WW1 aerial combat were utilised in WW2 and beyond. So I'd say that a WW1-style mod would include features that would be close to those that The E proposes for his project. Of course there would be differences in the models, flight speeds and so on but the dynamics would be very similar.

I like your suggestions for damage modeling. I was wondering if it would be possible for models in Free Skies to have "critical hit" subsystems, such as a pilot/cockpit subsystem that would have 1 or perhaps a few hitpoints. I'm also wondering if fuel tank subsystems could be implemented, with the potential for damage to cause fires to start which lead to a cascading damage scenario (meaning that other subsystems take damage as a result, say for a limited amount of time until the fire goes out, or maybe until the tank empties). I've refrained from bumping the thread to ask about whether or not those features would be possible, because I don't want to risk making suggestions that might be akin to asking for the Moon on a stick from a coder's POV.

[The E]

Oh, they're definitely possible with a bit of sexp magic.

[Dilmah G]

Marcov, man, you should try some 'Over Flanders Fields' and 'Rise of Flight'. Both are WWI sims (well the former's a mod, I believe) and although re-enacting the exploits of McCudden and Rhys-Davids isn't my thing, I've heard good things. I'm thinking that trying to shoehorn a mod with all of that stuff in in an FS environment that you're looking for won't be as satisfying as you hope. OTOH, The E's FS mod is something I reckon'd be quite nice.

[yuezhi]

is there any mod out there that has gravity? crashing would be impossible without it. otherwise, biplanes would just be blown to pieces before they reached the ground

[jr2]

Hmm, there is a gravity script, IIRC Nuke was working on it...

Anyone try Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons Over Europe?  They have a lot of upgrades... including a WWI mod.    See their forums here (OpenPlaneSim Forums)

[Marcov]

Just out of curiosity, does Crimson Skies (or any other atmospheric-based FS mod) have plane crashes?

[lostllama]

Crashes (be they collisions with the ground or other aircraft) are possible in Crimson Skies, although I've noticed that it seems to have a sort of player-assist mechanic that helps you avoid hitting the ground unless you force yourself to crash (probably because part of the game involved pulling off daredevil stunts, like flying through caves and between buildings - I'm referring to the first CS game by Zipper Interactive). I don't know if mods like Wings support crashes.

[SypheDMar]

Safety landing is possible in Diaspora, and gravity exists in BP2:R2. Neither are released, and BP2 only made gravity affect debris 'cause of artificial stupidity.

[yuezhi]

I remember some flag in FRED saying "affected by gravity" which i think kara said was never finished. Why did they even bother?

[Mongoose]

One of the few concrete details put out about a planned FS3 (at least until the recent big interview) stated that there were plans to have "planet-sized" objects in the game.  I'd assume that FS2's dev team played around with the gravity concept a bit at some point.

[Black Wolf]

AFAIK, affected by gravity was for us at TI, but, as you said, was never finished. We now have it thanks to m|m's scripting though. And you can kind of crash.

[yuezhi]

AFAIK, affected by gravity was for us at TI, but, as you said, was never finished. We now have it thanks to m|m's scripting though. And you can kind of crash.

any demonstrations of this out there in the forums?