Here you can see, at a glance, what Combat-Helo is about and what it will feature. There are also lots of handy weblinks.

http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/chelo/showcase.html

Great idea and well done!

Good show Flyboy. Apreciatted

Elaborate please... Spirit of 90s Attack helicopter sims?

Games like Longbow II, Gunship 2000. Hind.

I didn't understand what you meant by "spirit"...

Basically what Flexman meant about "Spirit of 90s Attack helicopter sims" was the emphasis (or "spirit") which characterized the simulations (and not only Attack helicopters ones) in the 90's period which were not only directed to realism but also directed to other gameplay aspects, specially (but not only) in the campaign or pilot career areas. Lets look at a small comparison:

A modern day Attack Helicopter sim - the DCS: Black Shark:
- The campaign or pilot career consists only in several limited and scripted missions strapped together and which are always the same everytime a player starts that campaign and where in order for you to advance in such campaign/career you must complete a mission with sucess (if you fail a mission you'll have to repeat that mission again).
- The enemy or other friendly units (usually AIs) have only the objective of fighting you or making the mission scenario looking a bit more interesting around the player "area".
- Resuming this kind of simulation have what is called a LINEAR gameplay.
- The action on the campaign/career missions are only centered on the player's actions.
- Usually limited array of mission types.
- Poor GUI and limited personal pilot progression stats/menus like medals, promotions etc...
Note: Since I don't own "DCS: Black Shark" (because I don't buy Starforce protected games) I'm basing these comments on "Lock On" in which "DCS: Black Shark" is definitly based on.


A 90's Attack Helicopter sim - For example Jane's Longbow 2:
- The campaign or pilot career consist in usually unscripted missions which are always or usually diferent everytime the player starts the same campaign. The player can fail any missions and even if the player fails a mission the campaign will still moves on but of course mission results will influence how the campaign will flow and with some/many missions failed the player will likely lose the campaign and with many missions sucessfull the player will almost certainly win the campaign. This kind of campaign is in fact a virtual war which is run together with the simulation and mission part and the player's decisions (or sucess/fail) will influence the war's result.
- The enemy or other friendly units (usually AIs) have their own independent objectives with the goal of wining the war, this means that battles are NOT centered on or by the player's actions.
- Resuming this kind of simulation have what is called a NON-LINEAR (or "unexpected") gameplay.
- Wider array of mission types.
- Richier and visual appealing GUI and strong emphasis on personal pilot progression stats like medals, promotions etc...


Resuming and unfortually, modern day simulations (and not only helicopter ones) only emphasis on the technical aspect of the sim like flight and damage models (which are usually excelent I admit). The "spirit" of the 90's simulations goes much further than only the "technical aspects" like flight and damage models!



I hope to have explained well that is this 90's simulation "spirit" about...

I understand now what you guys meant. I could not enjoy any other sim than I enjoyed F-16 COMBAT PILOT in 1991 on my Amiga. I seek those days, in all honesty. Unfortunately, the only benchmark is DCS, which is not completely fair IMO. I am hoping CH will change that, there should be a fair blend of every aspect, and then maybe more. That is what Falconeers want nowadays.

Over the previous decade the majority of simulation development has occurred in Eastern Europe. The employees in those development studios appear to have strong engineering backgrounds that allow them to develop extremely capable simulators. Whilst developing fantastic simulator they push-out unimmersive and often dull games.

Back in the 90's, when we didn't have the computing power we do today, developers had to look to other means of immersing a player in their simulator. One of the main aspects they put effort into was the menu system. It's difficult to find a 90's simulator that didn't try to make you feel like you were there, on the airbase/carrier/farp, with your aircraft.

Richard and I have been doing our homework on this topic. We've been looking back at some of the classic sims to see how they immersed us in the environment so well.





The menu screens you saw were directly in relation to the service you were flying for, or the aircraft you were going to be flying. You got your mission briefing in some kind of operations room, and you armed your aircraft in a realistic looking environment. Compare that to the sims of today where you see random screenshots of aircraft, followed by an unrealistic looking map with some text next to it for a briefing and finally you choose your load out on a screen with an empty blue background and a control that allows you to spin the aircraft through 360 degrees (like some kind of toy) and pick things from a drop-down list.

For all of their low-tech crudeness, the menus I posted above are vastly closer to their goal of generating immersion, than any of menu systems I've seen in modern sims.

Now we have the computing power to render these environments in real time 3D, and we have the fantastic aircraft mounting system Richard has developed, we're going to use it to our full advantage.



This tent wont just be a piece of scenery, it'll be a functioning area. A place you'll goto to read-up on your next mission. There are similar areas for other aspects of the game.

You'll 'live' on a base. You'll always be in the environment.



There'll be no click-clicking between menus. No load-in, load-out times.



Once you're in, you're in. Thre's only one way out



Cheers

Love it.

Couldn`t describe it better guys.
Although the most menue screens where static, they looked like so real and authentic.

I remember the Janes simulation games menues. Even the canceled Janes A-10 Warthog have had such menue screens. http://www.index.migman.com/index.php/simulations/air-combat/746-a-10-warthog-gallery
Ah, the good old days.

Base pics look good. How detailed you guys are willing to go on the base? What I see here seems pretty much function based, rather than being realistic. To be fair though, I was stationed at a larger base in Baghdad and our ops never took off from a small FOB, so I just want to ask your opinions on this. When I say not realistic, I only think about what I experienced, you know. We used to take buses from work to our tents

Those pics were just to get the idea across. We can dress camps with a lot of detail and there's a lot of small details to put in still. There's a trick to making this work but we're not there yet. I don't want to hijack Flyboys' thread but I'll try and explain.

For gamers like me, tedium is not an option (like having to take a bus ride to your tent), I want to play. If you look at the Janes A10 menu screen of the airbase, it compresses everything you need into a small space, fantastic. Currently our test bases (which won't be available in anything other than our daily builds) are too small to even fit everything we need atm. We're not yet in production map mode. When we do being final map production all the textures will get a colour pass to match up tints and hues so everything will be neatly color matched.

For the moment they get the idea across. We've been using as reference images and photos of active camps, Camp Stone and Camp Bastion to make decisions on what furniture we need. The latter camp is a huge sprawling complex with smaller posts around it separated by hundreds of yards of not very much, impractical to implement at full scale for what it is.

They have to be large enough to allow for all the vehicle and helicopters, players to move around , find each other, perform tween mission activities. At the same time, small and practical to enable everyone to feel "at home", quickly performing whatever activities they need to do.

We have yet to fulfil the sound requirements. We need ambient recordings of mundane stuff to populate base sound-scapes. Sound goes a long way to bring these places to life. A radio, a ball game, power tools, vehicle engines. That sort of thing.

Like the idea too. Will be good to be back at the 90's, I still remember the old Jane's Longbow 1

The Longbow sims had the best sim UI so glad to see someone agrees and tries to bring it ressurect something like it in modern sims
In fact, come to think of it, at the time I was glad to see the Longbow sims kind of ressurect it themselves. Since by the time of Longbow UIs of other sims had already become much more "windows and menus", compared to the even earlier sims like F-19, Strike Eagle and Gunship were this kind of immersive UI was common.

Anyway, glad to see it make a return And try to make the base feel alive, with flights taking off, vehicles driving around etc.

It`s not about flight nor simulation, but I found the start in CoD:Modern Warfare2 have a good example how to make a base feels alive. You are in the middle of a briefing and then you have to walk to the training areas. Surrounding by a humvee with crew, radio is playing, a helicopter is starting on the nearby helipad and something more.

I also agree that the UI is a vital part for a game, specially for a military simulator and I'm also extremally glad to see that important efforts will be made for the UI of this sim.
The UI in real time 3D looks an excelent idea and such system is IMO the real sucessor and the "next logical step" to the UI we had in the 90's simulations and not the dull, unimmersive Windows like UI we have in most current or modern simulations!

Thanks, I thought I was the only one that thought Lockon's GUI was poor. And while I didn't quote your entire post, I wholeheartedly agree with it. Lockon is pretty, and fun for awhile flying around, but it just doesn't grab me like Longbow2 and Falcon did. That's why I've held off buying Blackshark, I really don't want a helo sim w/ Lockon characteristics. I believe the upcoming A10 will be more of the same unfortunately.

ricnunes - thanks for elaborating on the 'spirit' of '90s simulations.

And for me, LB2 was the only attack helo sim that made me feel like I was actually in the US Army. The base screens, menus, access to the Jane's book, the CP/G voice - everything! I felt like I was in the US Army, based abroad, fighting the enemy with my buddies in their helicopters, planes and ground vehicles.

EEAH for example, just felt like a Longbow in the middle of a civilian airfield in the middle of nowhere. Crap voice acting, and not a very immersive feel.

Although not as authentic as LB2, the only other helo sim that comes close to that level of immersion, I believe, is Comanche Gold.

Glad that you found my elaboration regarding the 'spirit' of '90s simulations usefull.

BTW, I want to add that the screenshots posted by AD also explain very much what was IMO a great, usefull and emmersive GUI (please note those where old games which had resolutions of 320x240) and seeing those menus from 1942-Pacific Air War and Gunship 2000 (which together with F-14 Fleet Defender were perhaps my DOS-era favourite sims) really made me nostalgic about those great old times!

Yes, I agree with most that Longbow 2 menus where the best ever made for a helicopter sim. But just to add to this I want to mention an another simulator which has IMO menus as good or even better than Longbow 2, this simulator is B-17 II - The Mighty Eighth!
The B-17 II menus idea were very similar to Longbow 2 ones where they made you fell that you were actually inside a military base but in B-17II when you enter a room (which was actually an option) it would reveal another areas (or options) of your base. And added to this was an amaising soundtrack (another thing which is missing current or modern games, and not only in simulation games) which gave us players the feeling that we were actually preparing to face death itself!