John and Co.


I know that you guy's just finished Phase II of Rising Sun. I look forward to phase III Great work, I love the attention to historical detail. Now, if you could please shed a little light on any future developments regarding YAP2 and the next mission set # 10. Also, considering all the changes that went on with the third wire series, any luck on converting the entire yap2 mission sets to run with SF2/Windows7? and one more thing, I hope everyone has a safe and great 4th of July.

This goes out to all the men and woman serving and who have served in a military uniform and fought for our country. Your sacrifice is the reason why our country is so great, thank you for your service.

Tango & God Bless America
Heat2151
US Navy Retired, 2008

I would like to 'coattail' of heat2151 - Thanks to the YAP/RS team and their great YAP versions/msn sets, and RS phase I & II. The team and leader Zerocinco have brought us three of the best/outstanding re-creations of combat history for the PC ever! Their product quality and customer support are second to none! I only hope their ambition to continue these and possible future historical air combat msn sets will continue.

I would also like to thank and ask God to bless all past, present, and future warriors who fight and sacrifice for freedom and democracy for our country and abroad.

Vr NIELS

Funny that its brought up as John and I were just discussing that a few days ago. A SF2/YAP2 conversion is still on the table and I had just started some testing with what I'll call the W7 version of YAP2, unofficially YAP2W7.
(yes, I finally broke down and bought a W7/DX11 system).

I just have no idea how far into we will go with patch levels. I do know we will not sacrifice things that work fine for sake of rivet photo op.

On the current YAP2 front, we are awaiting one plane for sure from our Master Aircraft supplier, perhaps another for set #10 of YAP2.

Hinch still has the Turner Joy in dry dock. He is busy with the Essex and some other items for Rising Sun III and
Edward is trimming the terrain and planting Orchids.

So, as long as 05, our Creator/Producer sees fit, we shall plod along. I think he took time off to get some flight time in his Sailplane over the Sierra Madre's.

I guess it's time to get back to work.

I am checking on the last plane for Set 10 and thinking of adding another. There is one freeware clunker we might use for a one-mission story that we think is important history. After the quality we put into the RS models, using junk sort of grates on our nerves. But this is going to be a free set to members and there is not much profit in that.

Like Eight says, the shipyards are busy. Also, it seems that a lot of this stuff runs in ways that are counter to information...a nice surprise after testing.

Phase Three needs to be worked out but after YAP. We skipped over things that we had already completed that we need to find a way to work in. The First Darwin Raids are done. There are several continued stories in Burma. Burma is important because it is where the Japanese lost the war, possibly even more than at Midway. There are some great air battles and Edward has made some stunning terrain.

We are now putting together the last set of missions for Yankee Air Pirate. We are planning to introduce several aircraft and, possibly, something afloat also.

We have a surprise in the works that is being tested right now.

The missions are of aspects of the war that are generally unknown. We will also include some that are more standard...missions that just didn't get included before. We cannot do them all because research and briefings are time sinks and Rising Sun has quite a few models coming in. But we will be generous.

We didn't want to release this last set until we had something unique to release. We do now.

I cannot say when because we have 3 or 4 new aircraft to bring in and texture...and maybe one or two ships. That's 3 weeks just for paint working full time once they have arrived and we have paid for them.

This last set is going to be free to our customers who bought our mission sets.

We promised it and it is now on the front burner.

You must have patience for the good things in life - such is the case with YAP.
Thanks YAP/RS team for what you have accomplished and will bring in the future.

Vr NIELS

John,

I'm with NIELS, on this all good things, come for those who wait. I appreciate the feed back on the future plans for yap2, and the hopeful conversion to SF2, and the final set.

Thanks guy's for all the hard work and attention to detail, in terms of getting as close to perfect as you can, believe me with RS it shows. So, considering all the hard work and effort, what's next on the horizon after Rising Sun and YAP2.? The concept plan is outstanding, will their be other eras
of air warfare that will be covered ? 91 Gulf war, 51-53 Korea, (World war II have been covered in depth) with possible (Israeli conflicts).

I'm getting ahead of myself, just a huge fan that's all.

Tango,
Heat2151

As far as the future goes I'd like to see a set that encompasses the "Line Of Death" actions from the first swing wing aircraft encounters, Operation Eldorado Canyon to the modern nato lead actions I'm just thinking that the Yap team already has most of the major USN ships in there fleet with just a little update to air wings and such. I have always thought that the epic flight from England by the varks has to rate as one of the greatest single missions in air combat history.

John has it and we walk pass the F-111 and we keep talking about it. Its sitting there in the repair shop and we keep doing the head scratch saying "what about if we do this....with that....."

Along with a proper version of "Charlie dont surf" right down to the PA system actually working on the Helo's. So theres a lot of logistics to consider.

We are bringing the pieces together for Set 10. We are waiting on our favorite airplane modeler who is having trouble finding the time to finish this last bird for us. Set 10 will have some surprises and several aircraft. The trick this time is that by now, you must know how to fly.

Here's a couple of shots:

By popular request



We are going to refit the deck aircraft to match the cruise we are using in this set. Lots of painting to do.



It's kind of exciting to open up the YAP toy box. We have learned some things making Rising Sun and we will put those skills to use in this last go-around. I had wanted to turn out 238 combat missions (the number I flew) but even doing it our way...telling the story of the entire air war...repetition is hard to avoid.

We have created things for Wings Over Vietnam that has made it the game I thought it should have been when I saw it at Best Buy all those years ago (things like ships, new aircraft, transports, helicopters and helicopter flight, aerial refueling, lights, carriers, too many I guess). Most of all, we gave you a chance to fly real missions as they were told to us by other real pilots.

I have not decided about a couple of jets and one helicopter but there is plenty in Set 10.

This last set is the necessary end piece to our efforts.

Here are some shots from Jolly 71, a mission we always wanted to do. And some people have wanted a VPAF mission.

A SAR was in progress near the Mu Gia Pass on the NVN side. Seabird (and F-105G) had been shot down by a MiG while hunting SAM's.

MiG calls were coming in from Red Crown.



King had moved off west to refuel the spare HH-53.



Jolly 71 and 72 were inbound to attempt a pick up of the downed pilot.



Sandy was working guns and providing cover.



Two MiG-21's made a pass through the operation firing at Jolly 72 but hitting Jolly 71.







and too far south to do any good.



The Wild Weasel crew which had ejected safely was not recovered and their remains were returned.

Out of the paint shop. HC-2 from the CVA-66.




Also, checking to be sure our Spads have hard props.



MPPD sent his part of his airplane and it's gone into finish. We have 4 new aircraft, a carrier, and two deck birds going for Set 10.

Nice to be in the YAP toy box again.

I'm glad to see that the sea king, got all gussied up in it's dress whites, and America is finally officially coming on station.

More coming out of paint...needs some refining yet.

This won't be where we play with the PC-6.



Full beta approach.



We will have a real Lima Site runway for you. All you have to do is land, turn around and leave.



Piece of cake.

Superb stuff.

Colmack,

Here's your ship. I just need to paint the Phantoms and arm the A-7's and it floats...Oh, and change the fuel tanks on the KA-6D and decide if we like the helicopter sitting up there as they do for launch. The blade turns but it's kind of eerie. Nobody hovers that smoothly.

looking forward to it Zero! are you going to making the others have 70's era deck specific too?

The setup and mission(s) are suppose to be representative of her 72-73 Westpac cruise. We have a few changes/touchups on the skins to do, is that what your referring to?

No not just her - America - , but the others for instance Connie with the 720510_Showtime_100.msn I was just wondering I never try to look a gift horse in the mouth



on a side note

It would be cool if the YAP could do DLC with the carriers like TWire is doing now with the planes

you know

connie through the ages

connie 65 comes with yap
connie 72 showtime era
connie 80's tomcats
connie 2K dsertstrm\gulfactions

It's hard enough just setting them up for the missions we put on. We could do it with one ship but we will have released 26 counting the Launch and Recovery versions. If something comes up, we can but it would be huge. We still have a Nimitz but no war for it. It's very highly detailed and just itching to go. We just need a reason. We had thought of putting our own high poly fighters aboard but, again, no war stories.

How bout tying Nimitz with some of your RS stuff, I.E. "The Final Countdown" or that very famous swingwing encounter over the Med

I totally understand the problem of doing all the others that would be a feat or ah fleet either witch way allot of work :-)

John,


Having CVN-68 in the dry dock and ready to go brings out incredible possibilities to expand beyond YAP2. Colmack has some great ideas, a combo of RS and the Nimitz "The Final Countdown" man, that's great. Colmack, also brought up operation up Operation El-Dorado Canyon, on April 15 1986, once the USS America CV-66 with CVW-1 (Tail Code (AE) is ready, bring in the USS Saratoga CV-60 with CVW-17 Tail Code (AA) and USS Coral Sea CV-43 with CVW-13 Tail Code (AK), you have great mission set's, first combined strike of multiple platforms F-14A,A-6E,A-7E & F/A-18A and USAF with F-111F's. Now back to the USS Nimitz, could this open up, any possibilities of Nimitz class carriers incorporated into future mission sets.?

A pair of VF-41 F-14's VF-41 from the USS Nimitz CVN-68 where involved in the 1981 Gulf of Sidra shoot down of two Libyan SU-22 Fitters.
In 1989 another pair of VF-32 F-14's from the USS Kennedy CV-67,shoot down two Mig-23's in the gulf of Sidra.

If the USS Roosevelt CVN-71, can join the fleet, along with the existing fleet of carriers, we can have look at mission sets for the 1991 Gulf war Operation Desert Storm, and the 1985 Operation Allied Force. And, at the start of Operation Enduring Freedom from the USS Enterprise CVN-65 after September 11, 2001.

8 LIEN had posted a pair of screen shots picture of the Enterprise with F-14's on her flight deck, is this from the first operational deployment of the F-14 for the evacuation of Saigon, from the west pack cruise in 1974, did they mix the F-4's and F-14's in the same air wing.?

Thanks for keeping us fans updated with those great screen shots, and the lates developments.

Heat2151
US Navy Retired, 08

I guess I should have kept my mouth shut if I didn't want to get into that. We will put the Nimitz Class into the line and start lining up the appropriate hardware. Now that we have an SH-3 flying at launch and recovery stations, we are thinking about having seagulls circle around the scuppers.

We have an F-111 we were thinking about finishing. This might be the time. Sort of a Goodbye Gaddafi Game.





If we update models (as we are considering), that A-7 has got to go. The B-57, too.

Looking forward to set #10! The 'Vark' mission(s) would be pretty cool since they finished in the latter time frame of the war. Rework of the B-57 would be great also, some good Canberra skins have come about but the pit defiantly needs attention. A B-57G for some night trail LGB missions would be outstanding.

Thanks for the great missions and history review - Outstanding work on the YAP & RS series!

NIELS

Here is something from Set 10. Need a whole airplane for two drops.





Time to fix up the battlefield.

Working out the kinks in the CATS on the 66. Skin on the way for the RA-5C.

and it has arrived. RVAH-6.

Testing testing testing...

It's hard to imagine a game that would allow us to trick its programming enough to demonstrate every aspect of the air war in Vietnam from start to finish...but we did. We are finally tackling some problems to keep your game going on new machines.

Here are a few shots from our tests. Mike did an amazing job of improving the helicopter FM. Now, if you practice, you can do anything a real helicopter pilot did in that era's helicopters. In YAP, you can do everything that was done. All you have to do is read the briefing and FLY the machine.

In this mission, after you take off from a mountain top (where they usually waited to save fuel while the SAR progressed), then go rescue the downed pilot, you have to find and join on the HC-130P to take on fuel or you won't make it to NKP. I watched the pick up attempt of the one Phantom crewman that they did not get out.







This one is Big Mother. You depart from a tiny deck on the stern of a destroyer, fly INTO Haiphong Harbor to rescue a downed Scooter pilot. Then you return to the Mahan to land on that tiny deck. The Editor of The Hook got a Navy Cross for this mission. Sometimes the mission is to be able to fly.




This is Isabelle, the southernmost outpost at Dien Bien Phu. Your mission is to drop a howitzer to them.





This is just a pretty shot of our new C-47 landing at an isolated base in Laos at night.



We are working full time in getting this release out ASAP. We are awaiting two aircraft. We might have another ship from Hinch to show off if we get it mapped in time.

Soon. Very soon.

More test shots. New plane this week and one to go then we will be ready to release it...we hope. There are a lot of things to clear up before we can run this the way we think you will want to run it.

Sky Puke test.



From Last Stand



Sundowner Hi-Res skin.











Forgot how much fun YAP is to fly. We are taking some of our RS upgrades and putting them into YAP to make it prettier.

zerocinco:

Have read that YAP2 Mission 10 Pack will run with Win7 and SF2. Would Mission Packs 1-9 then work with SF2, YAP2 Msn 10 Pack, and Win7? Or must they be painstakingly converted and be updated one by one to work with SF2/Win7?

V/R
Bob Mercer

Bob

It is indeed painstaking and we are taking those pains for you. We are doing Set 1 and Set 10 now. We are going to update all the mission sets in order...and make some additions along the way.

Just playing all the missions takes a couple of hundred hours during which we start screwing around playing and modifying them with skills we picked up in Rising Sun. Mike and I have put years of our lives into Yankee Air Pirate and have no intention of letting it become an orphan. There is no other way to experience this stuff but through YAP. This is our history book on the Air War in Southeast Asia. Someone who reads the briefings and flies the missions knows the history better than sitting in a college classroom.

zerocinco

The Silver Lining


LZ Xray


Fire Support Base Cunningham


SeaWolves (Mobile Riverines)

Some pictures from Set 1 and Set 10

Our scariest mission just got worse.






Photo Recon shots




New plane in paint.






One plane to go. One ship to paint. A runway to install. Ground objects to create. Some bugs to work out. Then we will be ready to go.

Great job on the T-28. Flew them at Whiting Field as a student, then later a tour as an instructor at NAS Corpus Christi. The detail is impressive!

Wait until the finished product. That's just the pre-paint model. When you get the final version, you will be able to smell the upchuck from the previous tenant.

Half done:







Have to get MPPD to paint the pylons. It needs dirt, smoke, oil, inspection ports...and ground fire.

All done.

One more plane. One more ship. Lots of bugs.








Skyline Ridge

Some new stuff. Waiting for a plane, a helicopter, a cruiser and a carrier which are all in various stages of completion. We needed some parts for the a very big mission to a very bad place.

One big change we have had to deal with in updating to Oct2008 is the loss of what we call the X-planes. These are regular game aircraft that have had their programming modified to allow them to be used as ground objects. Originally, this was the work of PNT, who has kept up with the changes all along. This use of the aircraft is no longer possible. So, we have had to create GroundObject aircraft from all our Max files. We are just as committed to making the ground environment as realistic as we have the carrier decks.

Here's 4 F-4E X-planes self-destructing on mission opening.



Believe it or not, this is just a few of the Groundobject aircraft we have made.

















Then, of course, we have been building the missions for the last set.




And, finally, playing with 8's new helicopter flight model which makes landing in little places very easy.

Awesome, I was just wondering if there were any missions for the OV series!

We have a mission. We don't have an OV-10.

Long hard week working on YAP's Set 10 in YAP3 format. Finding shadow spikes, moire in meshes but we are getting there. Putting missions together. The scenery is so good now, it's fun just to watch.

Another groundobject to decorate the airports so they look like a war.



Just a nice shot.



Our new A-26K pre-paint. Nice, though.



RLAF T-28 over Na Khang.



Lima site.



Actually, you are supposed to do this after landing. And some of the landings will be appropriately impossible.



Two more groundobjects.



MPPD's Voodoo needs a repaint. And that shadow spike welded.



Two groundobject Hueys in 101st colors




The mechs at Camp Eagle before the ultimate gunship fight.



Gotta re-pose these guys...or maybe they just don't want to go?





Snakes arriving at the Last Stand.



Covey FAC at the Last Stand.



We have a target date for release that I think we will make. A long explanation of what we are sending out will be sent out soon. It's pretty good. It is a lot of work but we are very proud of where we have taken old WOV.

We have two aircraft on their way for Set 10 missions but they will arrive in time. As you can surmise, we are going places that aren't normally visited in war games to do things that weren't talked about much.

FSH

Very impressive!

NIELS

I need a break! But I did have time for one nit-picking thing that has bothered me for years. The napalm cans. Now they look right.

Attention to detail at its best!

I have a question regarding the YAP3 conversion/mod. I have read about mission series 1 and 10 being worked, will the other 8 be modified in due time also?

Vr NIELS

All of them are going to be reworked in order and replaced; 1) at the website store for any new customers and 2) sent out as replacements for any current owners that want them (or a new customer that buys a YAP2 set still at the store). We aren't charging customers to replace their YAP2 mission sets. We may charge a small fee for YAP3. It is taking a lot of time and money to convert.

We intend to replace several aircraft and bring them up to a higher standard like in Rising Sun. Those will be inducements rather than objects for sale if we can afford it. There are a few new models we with to introduce but they do not fit into any mission set. We don't know how we will deal with that yet.

The process of changing missions sets over should go quickly.

Details: Maybe too much?

Outstanding - the more detail the better!

NIELS

One down, one to go...

The magnificent...Dollar Nineteen. (Huh?) Stay with me here.

Have you ever seen this painting? It hangs at CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA. It's "Earthquake's Last Flight". It is about a drop by American mercenaries the day before the French surrender and long after AAA was considered lethal in the valley by everyone else.



I heard the story...several versions...of James McGovern at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu from Air America guys a long time ago. At the time, they had not recovered his remains or acknowledged that he was an American at war.

So with great detail we put together his plane...the C-119. Some pics (not done yet).



All this for one mission? We have done it before in Big Mother and that included a ship from Hinch. Our motto at YAP is "Is anyone here good at math?"



Speed brake.



Zoom in on this pic.



On the way to Dien Bien Phu.



Drop over the camp.



So...540506 Earthquake McGoon. The first Yankee Air Pirate to die in the air war in Southeast Asia.



So...you kinda see where we are going.

The last addition will be ready on time and it will knock your socks off.

I admire this attention to detail. Looking forward to YAP3

Final paint C-119C. It was too clean.

Clamshells will be removed for the mission.







What's missing from this picture? The puddle of oil beneath the engine. We have a tga....no.





Cat Bi being made 1954-ready.





C-47, we know but a C-119 pit for one mission was way over budget.

My Father was in the Utah Air Guard when they had C-97's, C-124's, & KC-97's. From an aerial photo you knew big time where those good ole piston thumpin, smoke pukin, oil drippin recips parked. A good friend of my Dads was a flight engineer on all three, his flight (cu#*t) cap never lasted but a few weeks from oil and grease drippings. And boy did they ever sound GRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOD!

NIELS

Testing continues. Air America keeping Lima sites supplied and the Marines busy finding haulers in the hills.

I know. I know. Quit screwing around and get done. I did not give you the new terrain yet so I took the opportunity to play around in the Pilatus Porter.











Our Vientiane.



Their Vientiane.






YEE HAW! Full beta descent!





The Alternate.



Okay. I will send it all to you now.

No, 8, really I AM working. These are just some details. Tons of details. Plus, we are pulling out the daytime B-57B missions since the airplane is so ugly so I am looking over replacements.

I always thought that the airport at a capital city at war should look busier than Barstow on a weekday.



Our Thud is in paint.







Back to Photoshop

See, Mike? I am working. I finally painted the C-130. It only took me three years to "age" it.




So I took her out for a spin. With the shadows, Khe Sanh gobbles up memory. Going to have to remove some things.







I love that mission. It's one of the things YAP developed that no "game" has ever done...doing everything that air power does starting with logistics. LAPES at Khe Sanh.

Okay...going to go paint MPPD's Voodoo again.

Its great to see so much attention to detail before release!

Keep up the good work

I promised MPPD, I would put a better paint job on his RF101C. We have work for it. This is 7 hours and it's 85% done. A few errors. Some refinement. It needs the right amount of aging.








Next into the booth, our new Thuds.

New much-needed napalm can by MPPD. BLU-23-B.

And...finally...they tumble.





Paint the Thuds and we are on final.

Does YAP work with SF2 now? And are there any existing mission packs for the Seawolves and/or riverine ops?

I have to admit, I am almost totally confused now with the offerings from Thirdwire. Rising Sun runs on SF1 and SF2. SF1 on XP is perfect. SF2 on a Win7 has some problems that were corrected in a patch that nearly killed our ability to launch a strike from a carrier. Obviously, that's not something we can work with.

YAP has always been an add-on to Wings Over Vietnam. SF2V is kinda, sorta WOV but really isn't. The only advantage I have seen in Rising Sun on SF2 was the rising of the sun and a slight increase in clarity...while a huge decrease in the sky condition back to cartoonish.

To take YAP2 to the October 2008 patch, we think is the best we will get out of it and it has been grueling to create our own patch. It has shadows and aerodynamic drag. Deuces already made the jungle that brought the ground to life. Deuces made us a sky that looks real. We populated the carriers. We are populating the air fields. We are replacing the worst models. We don't see any improvements since then.

The glaring problem now is the unrealistic water and the fuzzy ground. But even if those were opened up for modification, we would still get dinged because it is not as good graphically as the new ground games. A point we cannot make because our customers are not combat pilots, is that it DOES look real...certainly more real that knurled knobs to adjust the Kohlsman window or feet on the pedals. This is because to fly these missions the first time, the real time, the pilots average what they see. They make judgments and adjustments. You do not concentrate on details or you won't make it. Refueling requires you to NOT look at rivets but to see it all at once. A2A maneuvering requires you to keep your mind fluid. So we are impressed by what we see and are quite comfortable saying "this is what the pilot saw who flew the mission". In that respect, TK has it nailed.

So anything that will improve that experience...the experience of being in the story, we will embrace. The other stuff? Not so much.

And, yes, we have several SeaWolves missions. And with our improved helicopter flight model, taking off and landing on an LST is simple. There's a picture on the last page of a UH-1B taking off from an ATC.

Zerocino. I love your attention to detail and dedication to history.

But I would dearly love to see you guys working with a newer game engine platform. The SF engine does look dated.
Having said that, I'm not sure what the options are. Will they ever work the bugs out of the cliffs of dover engine? Is it practical for you guys to build a sim based on it? I don't know. I love the business model and engine for rise of flight, but again, I'm not sure how practical that would be for you.

I would love to see you guys build a full switch, vietnam or korean war senario based on a modern game engine.

That's my dream sim. Your passion for history, and cutting edge flight models and graphics. I'm sure I am not alone.

Keep up the great work mate.

I know the feeling. We went looking for a game engine years ago. It's a long story.

You already know the chant: "There is no money in flight sims." Well, there isn't for big game companies who sell at Wal-Mart. But profit is profit even if it is not enough to satisfy Blizzard. I would do it in an instant but the skillset required resides in very few heads. The quite obvious choice of people to make a new flight sim involving our models, stories, the game's campaign engine, our sky, our trees, our objects...all that? TK.

Our new set of planes just landing at Takhli. I have been painting all day, have a headache and am going blind. If I paint the G first, the other two will be easy. So I am about half done with it now. The aluminum one is going to look nice.

To me, the Thud was always THE Air War in Vietnam. It's our Crown Jewel.



Note: drag chute hatch. Upper and lower petals close when gear is down.



A couple more tricks not ready to show yet.




Now check this.



We can make it spin.



New ejection seat is so good, we need to make a new pilot.



Lots of placards and aging and continuity but we are now all ready to break the Bombing Halt.

'scuse my ignorance, but what is TK?

Thud looks great by the way.

T Kawahito, the programmer who wrote Strike Fighters.

I would recommend the Feb 2010 patch level of SF2, this is the last patch level before TK began his campaign of hard coding (locking the modders out) of the environment system settings and randomly breaking other things and just saying screw it you'll take what I give you.(LOL) I have ported my Yap2 terrain over to my SF2V install and brought it up to sf2 effects shader compatibility and it looks very good... the water still needs some work to look as good as you had it at the 8/06 patch level but for the most part the terrain looks awesome.

I really liked the mission sets and the terrain... I'm really looking forward to playing this on SF2 because the new shaders make a huge difference in graphics.

From the screen shots you have posted I notice an odd ghosting issue between the trees and skyline, is that due to TKs hard coding with the latest patches? I'm not getting any of that with my modified data and the Feb 2010 patch, Id be happy to share my data settings with you if you are interested.

No. I think he solved that but when we increased the tree size, it made that one pixel band more prominent. We might be able to reduce it before release. One way is to decrease the tree size but it stops being a jungle right away.

We will look at SF2V as you suggested. But I am afraid that the farther we move from his original games, the more we doom ourselves to being screwed over and over again. I mean, it's his game. He sells a flight sim that has a very specific purpose...which I will not define because I cannot make it come out sounding positive.

The new shaders look good in Rising Sun but every patch causes problems. You can imagine how we felt when we had spend a fortune in time and money developing the US and Japanese fleets and watched all our aircraft fly off the end of the deck and into the water. Giving them the power to take off without benefit of the "wind" made them perform crazy. So, we said to hell with it.

I imagine he has other irons in the fire and comes back to this one when he can. I think he could have made something great but it costs money and the money is in not in flight sims.

Is the engine used for cliffs of Dover unusable? Would love to se someone make a deal to take all those Korean war models they made that will now likely rot on a hard drive somewhere

I don't know much about it. I talked to them about the original IL-2 engine long ago but their price was absurd. They have done some smart selecting. IL-2 was fought over the tundra as SF1 was fought over the desert. When IL2 made Pacific Fighters, take a look at their version of Pearl Harbor. When the polys went up the game met its limit. That's the same with this game. But since this one started, the power of the average computer has increased at least 8-fold.

Getting people to operate a virtual airplane requires skills that the bulk of the gamers don't have. It's the same in real life. It's a lot easier to point a gun than to point an airplane. I think the general market is no place to go. That leaves history and aviation nuts, like us. There are a lot of them.

Send me your settings. I'd be more than happy to test them out. Zero is swamped in paint. He's going to audition for the "Blue Men".

I understand the frustration. Being a ship builder, the 'sea' annoys the hell out of me. Moving 'waves' have been an industry feature for sometime now............. along with moving ensigns/flags. Pretty shifting tga shaders are very much 2001.

Sure, it's a flight sim, but if you include complicated ground/sea objects........... said objects and environment need to be 'complicated'.

Once TW includes real shifting seas, proper ship movement............. I'll build complete hulls to compensate.

Some of those little details. Like reg numbers for the 707's. Just a nice touch.




Or a skin for "Streetcar 304."

8! Look what a Thud looks like neked! I just slapped the aluminum on and took a look. I remember a friend who was a test pilot in Thuds had one like this on his coffee table from Republic.





I will rig it up right and send along.

Hey, I just saw one of those silver models at the museum at Republic. They also had a clearcast cube with three Thuds inside. Ah for the days when companies could hand out quality gifts rather than just pens and foam squeezies.

I know what you mean. I saw one of those on eBay once and bid on it but my position on the who-gets-what-list was about two pilots below the Thud line. I thought for a fighter pilot it was a little like wearing a Boston Marathon jacket when you haven't run the race. McDonnell-Douglas gave us a sort of nice plastic model (which my dog ate). I don't want to sound unappreciative. But when I deposited one of their aircraft into the jungle (thereby initiating a re-order), I think I should have been given a set of steak knives anyway.

That was careless.

There is A lot of greatness in TK's games, But the main problem is TK himself (He does not listen to his customers) and his vision. He just does not "get it". TK is stuck in his own head... in his world the dated "cartoonish" sky and terrains he provides his customers in the stock releases are more than adequate. In reality his models are excellent and his flight models are very good, the vast majority of things he has put together in the game are excellent however the sky, the terrain and his refusal to fix various bugs or give his customers the tools and new features they have asked for... hundreds of times... and his refusal to use beta testers to work out the bugs... have to go.

He has a loyal following of fanbois ... they do not care that virtual world that they are flying in looks nothing like the world we live in. Nor do the scold him for locking out out the modders (with hard coding ) that have turned his sim into something that looks like the earth. They only seem to care about getting their hands on some new official TW aircraft DLC. The only DLC for SF2 I would be willing to pay for is a modders pack that unlocks all of the things that tool has hardcoded in the last year or so. And how about an upgrade that simply ads multi core support to any previous patch level of the game with out changing anything else... I'd be willing to pay for that too. It's time that the members of this community come together and give TK a figurative shoe to the nuts.

John

You are right. Looks about the same.



I agree with you on the steakknives. Maybe the Oriental Wind Chime given your location? My brother-in-law is a picker, so I will let you know if I find one like above. Would be great getting it into the right hands. Happy Thanksgiving!!

That seems unjustly angry. It's a game. It's his game. Buying it doesn't necessarily make your one viewpoint valid.

A few tidbits. Final details. Mission tweaks.

It's important that the tanker shows up in front of you instead of twenty miles behind you.
And the peace-loving AI enemy goes on the attack.
And the cool weather doesn't obscure the target so badly that you cannot find it...realistic or not.
And that the trucks you are to bomb don't park under a karst mountain...realistic or not.
And that the door gunners hammer away at the ground targets all by themselves.

Oh yeah. The Last Big Target. We decided a long time ago that we could not bomb this bridge until we fixed that city. Experimenting now just how much city we can fix and how.



Starting to stutter here. Add clouds and AAA and this might be the limit with this solution.



But we built that Thud to drop this bridge and we are going to drop this bridge.

Is that the infamous Paul Doumer bridge? John Piowaty and 2 'SHAKERS/MOVERS' (M-118s) should do the trick.

Bridge bustin at its best........105 style! Bitin at the bit for the BIG #10 msn set.

The problem is our deadline. I want this thing out NOW. But those cities need to be "fixed". In Rising Sun, we just shrunk the cities (as the world was smaller then) and the mind buys it. But these big yellow Hiroshimas cannot be filled with buildings...even for a 1000 foot fly over. I think I can make the area believable if I can shrink it all down to a few areas where the targets are. To cover it all will freeze game computer cold.

Also, the bridge. We changed the thing you see to have intermediate lengths without the suspension, painted it the color the bridge really was and used detail from the bridge itself. It's still a cartoon. So we tried another bridge we have not used yet. It's more realistic but it's not the Paul Doumer Bridge...and it's a slightly less Disneyesque cartoon.

Sure, we can say to stay in the cockpit and fly the mission, fill the sky with AAA and tell you that a Thud is not a Pitts Special but you are still going down there to look around and it's not ready for prime time.

The fact is, it was very long and ran across a river flood plain but was still in the middle of town. Faking this is going to be tough but the mission has been written for years awaiting some fix to the city. Right up stream is the Canals de Rapide Bridge just waiting to be socked and it's right there in the wasteland, too.

Gotta talk to Edward...and fast.

Right ON! Gettin it right is what makes YAP series the best for the history they cover. Attention to detail is what makes these events so immersive for the air combat sim enthusiast......At least thats what fires my appetite for this complement of air combat sims.

Vr NIELS

The two experiments are great missions but goofy targets. They are better since I shot these pics.

This is the Paul Doumer Bridge:




This is the game's bridge with sections lacking the suspension. Not good.



This is a new bridge. More realistic but with Hiroshima in the background, not very convincing.



This came out better and is a sure sign that we are through and it's time to put it together as a package.



But it IS Vietnam, after all. You have to have chickens.

What? No water buffalo? I thought those things were like the family car...

Here are our critters.

They want me to drop iron, on them peace loving simple farmers?

The chickens, you may have noticed, are REDS. Rhode Island Reds but REDS.

There has got to be some pigs around there somewhere.

Why don't I see any dogs??

This is a Vietnamese venue. Don't tempt me...

Testing from Hamburger Hill with the Hog. Rather busy around this hill. Whew! Tight!!

Jammer. You haven't lived until you have seen a 19-year-old boy maneuvering a Jammer around at 30 mph carrying 750 pounds of iron and Tritonal.

Seriously clownfish?... my "one viewpoint"? Thank you for helping me to prove my point .... out of respect for the Yap team I will drop this discussion now .

Look's Really good!! This is going to be Epic.

John & Co,

Sierra Hotel thanks for the early Christmas present for the release of mission set #10. How soon for will the set be ready for the SF2/Windows 7 users of the world



Heat2151
USN Retired, 08

Just days. We have a bug in SET 10 that we don't want to go any farther. When we clear that up we know it won't be in YAP3.

Here's some slides from SET 10.

http://www.yankeeairpirate.net/files/SET10.html

Thanks to a great endeavor by the YAP Team! Have experienced many fine hours of combat simming and immersion into the missions of these warriors of a war of politics and excruciating ROE! God bless them all and may they find peace and happiness for the rest of their time and then some.

Job Well Done!

John & Co,

Regarding YAP3, and the SF2/W7 conversion. Can you give us a head's up on what you have working on long term.
Tango

Heat2151
USN Retired, 08

Happy New Year Everyone...