We have been asked about the future of YAP2 quite a bit recently so here are some answers to the most common questions.
1- When is the (Free) Final Set going to be released? Everything is done except a couple of aircraft and the briefings. Our model budget is committed to Rising Sun right now. So, I cannot say when. I think it should happen around the time of the release of YAP3 (working title only). We have a basic model of a much-needed piece in these stories but there is a lot of work to be done to make this airplane a game piece. There are two other helicopters we are interested in introducing but, again, the budget...
2- Is Yankee Air Pirate going to be upgraded to Strike Fighters 2 Vietnam? Yes. It is being done now. YAPsters will get a break on an upgrade. The final product will be sold as a download or a flash drive but SF2V will need to be purchased from Thirdwire which will complicate the process but if someone wants the only real Vietnam Air war game that is the process. There is no mass market to absorb the costs like selling at Wal-Mart so you have to pay both vendors. We are just happy to be able to dump all those old SHD shadow files. It's just too much good story-telling to abandon to fantasy.
3- Will everything work? The helicopters already do. There are a couple of things to figure out but we are confident that we will.
4- Can you plug into the tanker to refuel. No, you cannot plug in but as one of the only people here who has actually refueled, the essence of the activity is intercept, join, maintain a position, glance at the fuel gauge, pull out, close up the valves and have the gas to get there or get home. The only thing missing is the "clunk". It is a necessary part of reality. Pilots think always of two things: the weather and their fuel state.
4- Will you complete the aircraft carriers by adding the FDR and America? We have one story for the America and it's almost a duplicate of a similar story on the same target two days earlier by the Air Force. We cannot see making another carrier unless we have a couple of unique and interesting stories...from witnesses, not from Google. We might do the CVS-12 Hornet, though.
5- Will YAP ever support Campaigns? No and yes. As far as we are concerned, we have produced the events of a war from start to finish. Real events, not war porn. Campaigns could have happened or they could be pure BS created by a random generator. YAP really happened as we present it and where we present it. What could be more realistic than that...aside from having done it the first time around? Two tales we are proud of are the two MiG's destroyed by Gary Retterbush. Talk about an un-sung hero. Real dogfights in the sky between a Phantom with a gun and MiG-21's. A determined person can find him (in Germany) but it's easier for me, as a combatant, to get the details that make the re-telling interesting in game format.
As far as supporting Campaigns, if you remove some of our "AAA"...that is, a soldier with a rifle...which the game will use to defend an entire air base, YAP stuff can be used. We are adapting some important objects to optimize them for Campaigns. We just won't be creating the Campaigns. They are not our thing. Our Ia Drang Valley or Khe Sanh cannot be recreated by a Campaign.
6- Are YAP helicopters unrealistic? I get this a lot. No. They require practice to fly but not nearly as much as a real flying machine. We understand that sim players do not wish to go to flight school but the thing that separates a flight sim from a First Person Shooter with a kid rolling a mouse around, is the fact that you must fly in a story. But our FM has been beta tested by a 6000-hour Cobra pilot who has flown in way too much combat. If he says it's good, you might wish to accept the challenge. We can land ours on ship landing pads. We cannot hover and heavy helicopters in combat often avoid this very dangerous practice anyway. It is good enough to fight with and retell the stories we have...and they are some of our best. THE programmer in THE helicopter game is TK. If he wants to create a helicopter game and needs models, he knows where to find us and we would be happy to play along.
FSH!
