I've been happy with F4:AF since it came out and I find myself thinking a lot (drooling really) about what might happen in the follow-on that LP has been too coy about for it to not be happening. What that follow-on is, or might be is the subject this e-mail. Note that this isn't a wish list so much as a list of what "just makes sense" for the franchise and for the company.

THIS IS PURE SPECULATION. I HAVE NO INSIDE INFO OR RELATIONSHIP WITH LEAD PURSUIT.

So without further ado, here is my description of the next installment in the BF Ops series:

"Allied Force: Hornet's Nest"

Flyable AC: F-18 & F-16

The F-16 is obvious. Why F-18. Well, it gets the BF Ops series a bit out of the Air Force niche (there are people who won't buy an F-16 title that would buy an F-18 title). Plus it fits with franchise history (After Falcon 3.0, there was a Hornet sim based on the F3 engine.) Plus a major draw would be to add full carrier ops like we have with airfields now. Could you imagine a ramp start in an F-18 starting from the hangar deck!!.
Doing this right means F-18 specific avionics in F-18 specific cockpits, but LP has already made strong hints that this series will be as real as real gets on a PC, so this isn't out of character. Plus many of the existing F-16 model elements will carry directly into an F-18 model, so the work is really in the HUD and MFDs.

Theatre: Taiwan Straits

All of Taiwan and surrounding China Sea, Parts of mainland china. This one has been discussed previously in the forums. This also explains the choice of F-18 above, because, at least from the US's perspective, getting forward air stations for this theatre will be difficult. Carrier operations are the only way we could have a shot at influencing this engagement early on. Plus, this is a very plausible situation. Surely it would be controversial, but game developers have never shied away from controversy (e.g. Grand Theft Auto), and a little controversy could do nothing but help a niche product like our favorite flight sim.

New Features:

- Graphics Engine: Evolutionarily improved (think Free Falcon quality or better). Why? Because the game needs it to drive sales and because they can do it without working hard. The existing engine can be stretched a lot just by improving texturing. Look what the FF guys have done part time. LP will do that much, plus enhance the engine where possible to take full advantage of modern day 3D hardware. So spiffy new explosions, new theatre tiles, 512x512 textures for the whole theatre.

- 3D Cockpit: The community wants it, back of the box features lists demand it, and its already done. Don't believe me? Check http://www.f16man.com/Barbarians.zip to see the results the Open Falcon team accomplished. Notice that the Open Falcon team have publically stopped their work. Where did it go? I'll bet directly into the new version of F4. Looking at the Open Falcon website and they are as coy as LP about what they are doing these days.

- Training Missions: Redone in the new theatre with additional missions for carrier ops & the F-18. Again, we've seen the carrier ops missions in the previous Super Paks. Where'd they go? Into the new F4. Integrated training with button cueing and voice overs. (Think highlighted buttons & voice overs to tell you what to do and when.) This is to answer the 'too hard' crowd and make learning the sim 'easy.'

- New Munitions: JSOW anyone. Its been done before, the code is all floating around somewhere. Where did it go? Into the new engine of course.

- Improved Campaign Engine: Further integrate sea-based operations into the campaign instead of their current 'also ran' status.

- On-line real-time campaign server matching hosted by LP. Advertising space in the lobbies to pay for the bandwidth and they have an online presence. The idea here is that they don't actually host the games servers, but they do host a lobby so server hosters can publish their presence and accept players based on a number of criteria. This would be really cheap to do and could hugely grow their customer base if one could get many of the VFS's to join into virtual wars in real-time. TrackIR, CH, and Thrustmaster would pay for the Adverts.

- Improved Multi-player: LP might be a partially limited here, because of the desire/need to deal with backwards compatability, so either they release an MP patch for F4:AF, or they teach their servers to deal with F4:AF players differently than players using the new product. But overall, the idea is to better support modern internet based network topologies (i.e. not have to shutdown your firewall to be able to play MP), and to enable object handoffs so things like in flight refuelling can finally be free of microstutters.

- And lastly, fully backwards compatible with the existing F4:AF product. So LP can leverage the existing base of previous F4:AF players while they are moving slowly to the new exe. The new features alone will cause many players to switch over, but with online play, you want lots of players, and not orphaning the F4:AF players allows them to get more people online concurrently. F4:AF players would be limited to the F4:AF theatres though to encourage upgrades.

Except for the the theatre development, most of the stuff I've mentioned wouldn't be too dificult to pull off since its been done before. This means that the LP team can focus on getting the F-18 experience as fully modeled as the F-16 experience. I'd guess a small team full time could do it in 6 months. Tack on some testing and management overhead time and you have a new release in Q1 next year, with a full press review (think screen shots & developers notes) out this fall, say late november.

"Allied Force: Hornet's Nest", coming soon to a store near you.

k guys, thats my take on what's coming for the franchise. What do you think?

Again just to quell any rumours:
THIS IS PURE SPECULATION. I HAVE NO INSIDE INFO OR RELATIONSHIP WITH LEAD PURSUIT.

AS Picard would say......make it so!

I'd buy it.

I think you took your tinfoil hat off for too long

Having said that, I'd like a 'bug to play with. Neat little planes.

Fulcrum 4: Axis Force

Uh...really?

Wello,I am dying to hear "Sweet, sweet, continue outbound" again....hehehe...

There's not enough now?!

New features and a/c are great... however...

After trying out being on the RED team on MVs campaign server, Id say that force on force online campaign with human pilots on both sides needs alot of work yet.

We often got dumped back into debrief after waiting for and getting into a RED side flight. Some times it worked others it did not. Even when planes, pilots and airport conditions were still good. We were in Korea 2005.

Then theres trying to fly some of some of the MiGs. Some got you into the right model, others put you into other models.

Its just not ready for prime time yet, IMHO

OK sure, but presumably you guys were playing with some kind of a hack to let you fly red aircraft, no?

Surely an OFFICIAL red-side expansion for AF would provide the correct flight models for a Mig or Migs and clear up all these glitches?

Mandrake

For me what would be cool would be something like F15SE-III revamped and able to be plugged into a common MP campaign engine with F4:AF.

Another possibility is a revamp of Gunship! - again with compatible MP campaign mode.

Lastly I think if anything just about everyone wants to use the A-10

Instead of making flyable stuff, why not improve the F-16 phisics? for instance, when you taxi, everything seems to jitter, like an earthquake. When you break the plane lkeans forward so much you wonder if it will flip over. Things like this should be rectified first. But how much can you ask from an old engine game? I'd rather wait for Fighter Ops instead on dwelling eternally around Falcon4 if the engine can't be changed or improved.

I give a big thumbs up to the Hornet idea! A new Hornet sim is long overdue.

Having China as the enemy would be perfect as well. They are probably the most credible and capable conventional threat, and their equipment is good enough to make it interesting. The Taiwan Straits also offers some interesting possibilities, like having outnumbered US carrier forces go up against a Chinese surprise attack. Play balancing takes care of itself in that scenario.

The Chinese OOB would be mostly Su-27s, some Su-30 attackers, and older stuff. Fast forward 3-5 years and there will be more new stuff, including AWACS and probably their indigenous J-10 .

Since the F-18 is more or less just a carrier-based Falcon, I'd like to see something different if they decide to add new aircraft. Two come to mind:

1. The MiG-29, since it's the F-16's main competition. With this, we could actually have competitive multiplayer games that make sense. The MiG would also be a fresh challenge. It's a very high performance dogfighter, yet it lacks fly-by-wire controls and many of the complex avionics that make the F-16 relatively easy to fly.

2. Or the A-10, because it's just a bad-ass plane. Who doesn't like hosing down tanks with a gigantic gatling gun?

but i can fly both of those in LOMAC. Gimme a Harrier, goddammit!

My guess will be no add on. I think F4AF did not do well and LP is on the verge. I love the product and LP has supported us in every way. Since they have been under wraps and quiet about ANY future product I am assuming the worst. I know that many are involved for the love more than the money. I see this product moving back to the modders once LP shutters their operation.

If someone from LP has something to say start by giving us a few sales numbers.

I'm with you on this one.

There's other planes out there that have never been done in detail that deserve some attention as well. The SAAB's come to mind to start with.

there is no flyable hornet in LOMAC is there?

I'm very confident there will be an add-on. LP has been very suggestive that there is stuff in the works, just check some of C3P0's posts. He has a knack for coming just shy of actually admitting that something is in the works.

As for sales. I'm not sure they matter much. F4:AF was all about proving the market. Which they did. F4:AF went to #23 on the Amazon best sellers list. You don't get there without selling some software.

I'm guessing they run LP as a virtual company with guys like Aeyes and C3PO on a contract basis with an expectation that they'll pick 'em up full time if/when the company ramps up for a real development cycle. All those guyes have been active in the mod community for years without getting paid a cent which tells me that a) they do it for the love, not the money, and b) they probably all still have day jobs until LP gets rolling.

As it stands LP put out F4:AF with virtually no marketing and minimal packaging and knocked it out of the park. Look at all the reviews. They have hit every major source and gotten A+ from every one. That will prove to them and anyone interested in investing that the Falcon world is robust and has legs to grow on. LOMAC and Fighter Ops prove there is money out there for this kind of Sim. If LP don't have money yet, I'm sure they will.

The thing about F4:AF is that it didn't pull together even half of the mods that have been created through the years for the F4 engine. They could take another 25% ( a new theater, add in some new munitions, some new terrain textures (hi-tiles anyone), and perhaps one of the other fliable AC mods) package it up and sell it for $20.00 and everyone on this list would snap it up.

F4 is going places I'm sure of it, and LP is going to take it there.

Bravo, Slamhound! Nicely said.