| Quest for the Grail Part 3 by Dan "Crash" Crenshaw |
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With that in mind, its interesting that this is also the only area that one of the 2 dominant sims did NOT win (as far as the top ten list is concerned at least). While EF2000 was mentioned (as was FALCON 3.0, but no mention of SU-27), the winner was a sim that has few if any of the other qualities that were considered critical and even had several features that were big No – No's. An easy, single key stroke, logically laid out command structure to tell the computer wingies what to do is imperative. There must also be the flexibility of more than 4 or 5 commands. Bracketing, dragging, breaking high and low, left and right, engaging, disengaging, form up, formation choices, ground attack, target hand off, weapons status report (before they are down to guns only), RADAR sweep, cover me, return to base, scan sector assignment, etc. These and many more are necessary to allow tactical control and have wingmen make a real difference instead of being missile bait. Without solid wingman control, many basic strategies become impossible. Head-on merges are not the best way to live through an initial contact! For example, standard two on one or two on two doctrine requires the ability to send your wingmen off to bracket on one side (preferably 2 of them while the third remains with you) while you and your wing bracket the other. This greatly increases the likelihood of a kill. By the same token, to command two of your flight to watch a different sector of the flight path with RADAR gives you better situational awareness. SA is the sister to "lose sight, lose the fight." A sanitize or sector scan command enables this control. If you miss your target, (of course this NEVER happens to the rest of us), the ability to have your wingman take your target out could be crucial in cutting off supply lines or stopping that pesky SAM site from killing any more of your allies. Also, total and separate control of your wingmen gives the illusion of being an actual Wing Leader instead of just being a cog in the wheel of a computer run war. Think of all the actions you must perform because you can not instruct your wingmen to do so. Now consider how much more involved and better prepared you would feel if you could have your wingmen perform some of those functions, allowing you (the Wing Leader, after all!) to pay more attention to strategic assessment of the unfolding situation. When was the last time you "Called for help" in a hot and heavy furball and hit the wrong key. "Bugging out, sir!" is NOT what I want you to do! Even the LAN players agree: we sometimes are required to take along some computer run wingmen to fill out a flight. Having more control over their actions would move them up from Bandit Bait, to being strategically useful. If the AI is extremely well executed, a computer controlled wing could become as valuable as a human player. In short, the player needs complete tactical control of wingmen. Commands should be in a logical and easy to access format. The sim that succeeds in this area will add more than most designers have acknowledged to the overall enjoyment and realism of the simulation. The human players will also have a higher success rate, which means more fun! Closest sim in this category? USNF/USMF/USNF 97 This was another category that has been improved on by all sims since this was originally posted and continues to progress with every new release. Janes F15 took us to new territory, and the structures that will be available in Flanker 2.0 and FALCON 4 will be second to none. |
Now the sims that seemed to be the closest look a bit weighted. Here is a quick list of sims that got at least one vote (or an "either/or" vote) in at least one category: EF2000/TACTCOM, SU-27, FALCON 3.0, Flying Corps, Hornet 3.0, USNF et al, Longbow FPK, Back to Bagdad, TOPGUN Fire at Will, F14D, Tornado, AV8B Harrier, iF22, Air Warrior, Warbirds. Also realize that the people polled have between them probably flown every sim ever produced, so we got a pretty good cross section here. Also, as time progresses, sims keep getting better and better, so it is only logical that the newer sims are closer to the Holy Grail than sims of past years. I also promised a full list of items that came up (many items were obviously mentioned by several of us):
If we look at the coming barrage of simulations in the next 6 to 9 months, we see that many if not most of these items are being incorporated. Between the pending release of LONGBOW 2, F22: ADF/TAW, FALCON 4, SU-27 Version 2.0, F-15 …. etc., we should be in virtual heaven. I do not expect any one of these sims to be the "Holy Grail", but we expect them to help lead the Sir Galahads of Programming teams closer to their goal. I would like to thank everyone that participated in the survey. Without your help, this article would not have been possible. The next generation of simulations will get us so very close to this list of "needs" that the temptation to state that the "Grail" is upon us is great. To say, "FALCON 4 is the HOLY GRAIL" would be so easy to do. But we must remember, the "HOLY GRAIL" in any field or area is never attainable. The closer you get, the farther away it gets. Next we will expect sims to interface with full motion cockpits ... or actually fly. As I look back at the total list of 30 items, I see nearly every item improved upon or implemented. And none of them slightly, all have been great strides. Never the less, the year has been good to us, and the next one looks brighter than ever.
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