by Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson

Click for a larger image...

To date we've taken a peek at comms and wingman control, talked a bit about the cockpit, rehearsed the feeling of flight, and reviewed a scramble mission. We've also hit at the damage model and physics and talked about HOTAS issues, and reviewed some info on the TEWS and radar Auto Acquisition modes. This time around I want to look at the padlock and views, and give you an overview of the mission and campaign structure.

Mission Structure: From Training to Campaigns

As you would expect from Janes, its all here: training missions, configurable instant action, single missions, campaigns, and Janes online.

The screen at left shows the instant action setup. If you bring up the larger image you will see that the parameters you are selecting offer a great deal of variety. So if you want to just jump in and fly, you can go for it! Want to try me against the world? Its there. Want to set up a ground attack mission with a single wingman at night, against the toughest defense the enemy can muster? No problem. Well, it might be a problem, but you can fly it if you want to!

Meantime, the single mission choices are substantial. What surprised me was the variety of ATO that has been designed by Janes. You can choose from the typical ground strikes or air to air engagements, a combination style mission, and even some rather unusual ones like stopping hijacked aircraft or defending yourself and your mates from your old friends after having gone rogue!

Training missions range from getting the feel of your aircraft from takeoff to landing, learning to operate its systems, to actual combat. You won't find the instructor supervised missions of Longbow, but you will have ample opportunity to learn systems in environments ranging from non-threat to high challenge.

As we already knew, there are two possible campaigns: the UN war with Iraq (Desert Storm), and a hypothetical action against Iran in 2002. Once you have chosen a campaign you will get a video introduction and text summary of the situation. Then the briefing screen will come up and you can view the mission map, adjusting and filtering various components according to your personal preference and also accessing intel data.

There are three rows of buttons to the upper right of the map interface that control the information displayed on the map. You can toggle friendly, neutral and enemy aircraft, ground defense and radar sites, weapon ranges, airbases, and labels. Then you may also add, move or delete waypoints. And, of course, you can zoom in and out or even click on REVERT to restore the original setup.

Having done this, its time to choose an airframe. Initially your choices won't mean much, but in later missions an airframe that is shot up MAY have to be flown if you are low on aircraft. And wingmen will grow in skill, so losing members of your flight later on will be costly. Going into battle with seasoned vets has its advantages!

Following this selection you go to arming and assign loadouts. There are about fifteen pre-determined loadouts, but the genius of this station is the ability to create and save CUSTOM loadouts. Of course, that doesn't mean your preferred load will always be available. Choose AMRAAMs for your first ten missions and you may not have any available for the next five or six, depending on how you set up the realism options in your campaign.

An interesting addition to this section is a Weapon Advisor function. Clicking on the Advisor button brings up a brief tutorial that matches weapon types to targets. The match can be made either way: choosing a weapon brings up a list of appropriate targets, and vice versa.

After this you move to the Targetting screen. The primary use of this screen is to get a look at the target area so you recognize when it you get there. A more advanced use, however, is that whenever a mission has a ground target you have the option of undesignating targets or choosing alternate ones. One target is assigned per waypoint per pilot and you can adjust assigments to your liking.

As for the feeling in the campaign, if you've read Smallwoods' book on the Eagle in Desert Storm, you will know what to expect! CJ Martin commented on the newsgroup recently: "The Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign is based solidly in fact. The ground defenses are pretty numerous, and the full up KARI air warning network is in place at the beginning of the war...to be taken down piece by piece during the opening days (and nights). The Iraqi Air Force did make some feeble attempts at interception (and now with post war analysis, it seems likely that they got a single kill against a USN F/A-18). Will there be 'waves of MiGs'? NO! However, the AI level you set for the enemy aircraft could have a dramatic difference on how well the bad guys fight (obviously). And yes, later in the conflict, the Iraqi's will attempt to flee to Iran... "

Room with a View

Views in F15 are similar in layout to those in Janes Longbow. Cardinal views are supported, and also a virtual cockpit with a pan function. The vc has roughly 60 degrees field of view and a padlock function very similar to that in Longbow.

Thats good, because it means the learning curve for using the cockpit in F15 will be a bit shorter for those familiar with Janes Longbow. Hit F4 once to get to the virtual cockpit, and F4 the second time as a padlock function. F1 brings you back to the fixed view, and F2 brings you the look down full instrument view.

Padlock is implemented in such a way that in high realism modes you will NOT be able to crane your neck beyond standard human limitations. If an object moves beyond this physical limit for more than a few seconds you will lose your padlock and have to manouver to reacquire.

However, there is an unusual function supported in F15 that would have been great in Longbow, but perhaps is even more necessary in a fixed wing sim where you can't hover to look over your instruments. F15 gives us the ability to pull up a quick MFD view while in VC mode. The MFDs that appear when you invoke this function pop up in the center of your screen in one block and will be the ones you currently have active in your three forward MPD displays, most likely radar, TEWS and TSD, though in some situations it will be a LANTIRN display or Frozen ground map.

As you can see from the shot above right, Longbow doesn't hold a lot over F15. Dynamic lighting, glare and smoke effects are very nicely done and explosions are coming along nicely also.

As noted in a previous article, there are TWO separate manuals designed for F15: a casual mode, 4o page manual, and the expert mode, 350 page manual. Here is a summary of the main sections in the Expert manual:

1. Interface. General instructions, Main Menu, Training, Campaigns, Instant Action, SIngle Missions and Reference.

2. Cockpit. Front seat/back seat, Master Modes, HUD, MPDs, UFC, Additional Cockpit features.

3. Flight. 20 pages on dynamics including physics, g-forces, flight characteristics and flight disruptions, another fifteen on takeoff and landing, navigating and refuelling.

4. Combat. Loadouts, A2A Engagement, A2G Engagement, Getting out alive.

5. Mission Builder. Main Screen, Designing a Mission, Intro to Mission Builder, Mission Features.

6. Multiplayer.

7. Appendices. Campaigns. Acornyms. Glossary. Fuel Flow. Bibliography. Credits.

Main

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Last Updated February 25th, 1997