JANE's F/A 18 may be the definitive F/A 18 simulation. It will be up
against stiff competition in the form of Digital Integration's F/A 18
Super Hornet (remember, DI made Tornado some years ago, still a
classic).
At E3 in Los Angeles in May JANE's F/A 18 was already looking very,
very good. In fact, it looked so good that two of our writers chose it
as the best of E3.
F/A 18 represents our ideal for JANE'S Combat Simulations. It's hard
core, yet typically accessible to the novice via a host of
configuration options that simplify the simulation and ease the
opposition. While it lacks a fully dynamic campaign system, the "semi"
dynamic system has evolved to the point that in some aspects it is
superior to a fully dynamic campaign.
With our last spate of information generated by hands-on experience
at E3, we were becoming anxious to get up to date information. Some
weeks back we fielded the following
interview. The restricted number of questions is due to the time
constraints faced by the Maryland team as they attempt to finish this
product.
Q. I understand that F/A 18 is modeling the E model. Tell us why
this was chosen and what the differences are over the earlier aircraft?
CJ Martin Says: This is a good question. There isn't a quantum
difference between the F/A-18E and F/A-18C in terms of performance,
weapons carried, or types of missions flown. The E model aircraft does
add two more weapons stations and has somewhat better range than its
little brother. It also has a more up to date cockpit interface, with
things like a LCD touchscreen Up-Front-Controller (UFC).
Most of the differences are not so obvious to the casual observer
though; things like a reduced radar cross section, more advanced
Electronic Countermeasures and the real biggie for the Navy of the
future, room for future avionics growth.
When I was a member of the F/A-18C/D Product Support and Development
team at NAS Patuxent River, it was always a major ordeal to try and
"shoehorn" a new box into that airframe without causing major
headaches. It's not just a physical space issue either; it's things
like having enough power, cooling air, and being able to get to it
quickly if it needed to be replaced. The new jet has more interior
space and generous electrical power and cooling air reserve margins to
handle future growth.
The "Latest and Greatest"
From a game design standpoint, it simply made more sense to model the
"latest and greatest" version of the F/A-18. A cleaner cockpit
interface means the avionics are easy to use, yet give up nothing in
realism.
In fact we've raised the bar even further in our avionics
modeling, doing stuff that simply hasn't been done before outside a
full up multi-million dollar Military Simulator. The advanced defensive
systems mean that even a rookie pilot has a chance against some very
capable air defenses. You can't consistently make mistakes and expect
to always survive, however it does give you a bit more leeway when you
are first learning the game. The extra weapons stations and range are
nice things to have as well. The two things real fighter pilots want
are more gas and more weapons than the bad guy has.
Q. The carrier ops fans are on the edge of their seats waiting
to see what you have modeled in the carrier ops and environment. Tell
us about your goals here and describe what we will see as we sit on the
Cat.
CJ Martin Says: We've done a lot of work on capturing the
"feel" of modern carrier flight operations. A real carrier airwing is a
tightly integrated team, and in Jane's F/A-18 you'll see the various
airwing aircraft launching from ship, carrying out their respective
missions, and afterwards recovering back aboard. You'll also hear all
this happening thanks to our extensively modeled communications.
Carrier Ops
For example, the carrier has four separate entities you'll talk to when
you are returning from a mission. First you'll contact the carrier's
Strike Controller, which can be thought of as a shipboard "AWACS"-type
controller. Strike will clear you inbound and hand you off to the
Marshal Controller. When you check in with Marshal, you'll be given the
current weather report. You'll also be told where to hold and when your
expected "push" (approach) time will be.
Once your push time has been reached, Marshal will hand you off to the
Final Controller, who will guide you in all the way until you reach a
point 3/4's of a mile behind the ship, where you'll be prompted to call
the ball. At that point the Landing Signal Officer (LSO) will take over
and give you last minute flight path corrections and guidance until you
catch a wire or bolter. If you do bolter, you'll be contacted by either
Marshal or Final (depending on how many other aircraft are waiting to
land), and the process starts over.
Catching the Wire
Speaking of catching the wire, we really are modeling both the actual
arresting wires and the tailhook of the aircraft. If the hook snags a
wire, it will pull it out realistically as your aircraft is decelerated
to a stop.
Also, during this time the deck is not stationary; not only is
the ship moving straight ahead, it is also pitching, rolling, and
heaving depending upon the current weather and sea state. The various
aircraft all have their own distinctive sounds as they spoolup for
takeoff, spooldown after landing, or taxi around the deck. It really is
a full airwing: in addition to the players F/A-18E, we have the
F/A-18C, F-14B, E-2C, S-3B, EA-6B and the SH-60 onboard.
These latter two features are points of departure from DI's Super
Hornet based on our most recent information. DI have chosen not to
model a pitching, rolling deck at this stage, and are not modeling hook
physics with actual wires. Until we have hands on with the JANE's
simulation, it's difficult to know how the differences will play out;
but they sound intriguing.
CJ: We recently had a real life former Hornet pilot (250+
traps) in the office and of course one of the first things he wanted to
do was try out the landings. First he did a couple of day traps just to
get a feel for the flight model and then he wanted to do it at night.
When the moon goes down in the game it gets VERY dark, and that's how
he wanted it. All you could make out were the lights on the ships
landing area; there was no discernible horizon even though this was a
"good weather" night. Smooth as glass he went right down the chute and
caught a three wire. Afterwards, he admitted that it got his heart rate
up, and that it was very close both to the real thing and to the Navy's
own multi-million simulators. That obviously made the team's day. :-)
Graphics Engine
Q. The graphics engine looks considerably beyond anything seen previously from Jane's. Tell us about its key features.
John Paquin: Here's a short list of the "money features."
1) Completely Dynamic Lighting: This means that you can change
the angle of the sun and it will change how the game looks. The sun
comes up, the moon goes down, shadows stretch down mountain slopes.
Many games give the player discrete times of day by starting the game
with a different palette, but you'll notice that the shadows on the
sides of hills never change. Our game accurately models the daylight
cycle.
2) Point Light Sources: Every object in the game that should
cast light on surrounding objects - does so. This means afterburners,
missile flames, explosions, fires and more. If you fly your plane off
of a carrier at night, expect to see your engines lighting up the ship
and the other planes on the deck.
Hornets over Murmansk
3) Shadow Maps: We have achieved some of the best looking shadows ever
in a sim. We've done it by capturing the object's shadow from the point
of view of the sun, then mathematically stretching the shadow across
the countryside. The result is completely believable.
4) Light Maps: F/A-18 relies heavily on vertex lighting to
achieve many of its effects. However, there are times when vertex
lighting cannot produce an image of sufficient quality. For those
situations, we have used light maps. Look at the sun's reflection on
the water or a missile's engine lighting up the ground. These are just
a few of the places we have used light mapping to enhance the final
image.
5) 3D Virtual Cockpit: Allowing a completely clickable 3D
cockpit was no easy task, but we managed to pull it off. Notice how
little distortion there is in the MFDs, particularly the FLIR images.
This is because we do not use an intermediate texture map to render the
view, we mathematically re-calculate the position of the polygons to
match the screen position of the MFD. This greatly reduces aliasing and
sampling problems.
This is another point of departure from DI's Super Hornet. The
3d cockpit is not clickable. Again, the difference is intriguing and
this is ground breaking work from JANE'S.
6) Volume Clouds: We went to the WWII Fighters team, who did what are
arguably the best sim clouds ever, and got the basis of their
algorithm. Then we took it as far as we could.
7) Volume Explosions: We took the cloud routine and used it to
make our explosions look even more realistic. When we first set out to
do F/A-18, we thought we would be doing a graphical modification to the
existing F-15 engine. Instead, we ended up touching virtually every
line of graphics code in the game!
Flight Model and Physics
Q. Does F/A 18 use a full force physics model for flight? How
does this impact the feeling of flight and flight performance across
the envelope?
Greg Kreafle: Boy, I could talk about this forever. F/A-18 uses
what's called a "stability and control derivative flight model." Let me
describe, in basic terms, how our flight model works.
The first thing that we simulate is the atmosphere. An accurate
atmosphere model is essential to a top quality flight model. Most
people think that air is, well, just air. The properties of air vary
drastically with temperature, and thus with altitude.
The nice thing about simulating standard atmosphere is that it is easy
to calculate and very well defined. With this model, we can calculate
dynamic pressure (often referred to as "Q"), the speed of sound (used
for Mach calculations), and temperature. The most important result of
this work is the dynamic pressure coefficient. This coefficient is used
to modify all of the force and moment buildup equations that we
calculate.
The net result of this modifier is that the airplane "feels" different
at high altitudes (where the air is very thin) than at low altitudes
(where the air is more dense). Since we calculate this "on the fly", we
gain an infinite variation in our aerodynamic effects, and thus the
feel of the aircraft.
The next thing that we do is accurately simulate all control
surface movement on the aircraft. These simulations can at times become
very complex, especially on the F/A-18. The F/A-18 has some
non-standard ways of using control surfaces. One example is the use of
leading edge flaps as lift devices during landing and high AOA
situations. We have painstakingly simulated all of the "scheduled"
interactions of the various control surfaces.
Once it is determined what a control surface should do (which comes
from the CAS - which I will talk about below), the movement is then
limited based on actual rates of movement, range limitations, and
various interactions with other control surfaces. We simulate exactly
what the real aircraft is doing. When the real aircraft commands a
certain aileron movement to effect a certain roll rate at a given
altitude - we also calculate that very same movement. We are modeling
the exact same things that keep a real aircraft in the sky.
In simple terms, we now have atmosphere and control surfaces
that are positioned correctly. What we do next is determine what kind
of linear forces and rotational moments are created on the body of the
aircraft as a result of the forces generated by the control surfaces.
We use what are called "dimensionless derivatives."
TALD
Dimensionless derivatives define the force that is created when a
change in position occurs over time. These numbers, coupled with lots
of other modifiers ultimately determine how much force a control
surface is commanding given its current position, the dynamic pressure,
and speed of the aircraft, as a few examples. Only when these
derivatives (or numbers) are correctly combined in force buildup
equations are we able to start to define the magnitude of forces that
are acting upon the airframe.
So, how do you get these kind of numbers? This is the whole
reason for wind tunnel testing. When aerospace engineers begin
designing an aircraft they calculate aerodynamic properties based on
well defined formulas. These formulas are very complex and accurate,
but are static in nature.
MiG over Russia
Since engineers need to understand how an aircraft behaves throughout
various regimes of a flight envelope, they use the only dynamic thing
available to them - wind tunnel tests. This is where most of the
aerodynamic tuning of an aircraft takes place before it is even
manufactured. It is important to point out that nobody can possibly
know everything about how a specific aircraft behaves throughout an
entire flight envelope based solely on static calculations.
One other interesting thing to note is that the aerodynamic
characteristics of an airplane in motion change radically with
altitude, speed, AOA, weight, and so on. This is where a lot of work
went into the F/A-18 flight model. Given the correct application of
these numbers, in combination with the control surface positions,
dynamic pressure, speed, AOA, etc., we are able to create the three
major linear forces of the aircraft defined in lbs., as well as the
three major angular moments on the aircraft defined in ft./lbs.
Combined, these forces define a 6 degree of freedom flight model.
Once we have generated these aerodynamic forces and moments on the
aircraft, we then feed these numbers in a highly accurate physics model
that generates linear and rotation accelerations based on the planes
mass and inertia, respectively. One of the reasons that our physics
model is highly accurate is because of the high sample rate used. It
also takes into account all of the complex aerodynamic inertia
couplings that occur in the real world. Once we have generated
accelerations we can then generate velocities. These velocities are
then used to update the aircraft's position in the world.
One of the most complex part of creating a state-of-the-art,
modern jet flight model is to accurately model the control augmentation
system - the CAS. The CAS is in many ways what gives the airplanes its
"feel." CAS systems are typically designed to monitor a pilots input
command, and adjust control surfaces appropriately based on the given
flight conditions.
Jane's F/A-18 has one of the most accurate CAS system simulations that
I am aware of. We use realistic control loops in all of our various
trim systems, as well as our numerous autopilot modes. Our CAS is
designed just like the real thing, allowing us to place the player in a
very powerful, but safe aircraft.
In addition, Jane's F/A-18 has a highly realistic engine model that
generates thrust based on altitude and speed - including accurate spool
times and an accurate fuel consumption model.
This description of our flight model is a very simplified
version of what actually occurs, but it should give you a taste of how
we go about things. So what does this all mean? Well, it means that our
flight model is dynamic, and can generate an infinite amount of
aerodynamic states (and thus "feel") based on user input and current
flight conditions. Nothing is "canned" and no lookup tables are used.
In short, our flight model is state-of-the-art and allows the player to
experience real world flight in the F/A-18.
That was a SIMPLIFIED description? There seems little question that
JANE'S F/A 18 will fully qualify as a hard core simulation. One of the
key differences between serious simulations and the "light" varieties
is in the accuracy of the flight model.
Q. Every generation of simulations builds on the previous, and we've
seen an incredible growth in depth in Jane's sims over the years. What
advances in AI pilot performance will see in F/A 18?
Scott Elson: The first thing we did was to enhance all of the
AI's so that they would interact correctly in a cooperative multiplayer
environment. This included not only the aircraft, but the ground
defenses and various vehicles as well. We also decided to increase the
amount of control you have over escorting aircraft.
We then focused our attention on what needed to happen around
the carrier. Things like planes taking off and landing from the ship,
helicopters flying nearby for SAR, and stuff like that. This also
included adding the comm's for talking with Strike, Marshal, Final, and
the LSO at the appropriate times.
Since ships were going to be a bigger part of this game we
totally reworked the way their defensive systems behaved. Getting up
close and personal to a fully functional enemy warship is not something
you want to do if you can help it, especially if its part of a larger
task force!
We improved, and greatly enhanced, the AI logic of our ground based
air defense systems. This was important because, unlike in F-15, in
F/A-18 the player will be tasked with SEAD missions. If they fail,
other flights will have a very rough time. I don't want to give
everything away, but watch out for the SA-10 - they aren't just sitting
ducks waiting for you to "pop" them with a HARM missile. We also
improved the logic the other SEAD aircraft will use to make them more
effective on what targets they select.
Another enhancement we did was to greatly expand the
capabilities of the ground FAC. We also added airborne FAC's to the
game. One of the cool aspects of the FAC's is that they can put smoke
on targets for you and, if the ground FAC has a laser, they can
designate for you.
These AI changes sound significant, especially the emphasis on enhanced
accuracy and control in the coop multiplayer environment.
Q. How does the padlock system work?
Matt Wagner: F/A-18's view system builds upon the comprehensive and flexible view system pioneered by F-15.
F/A-18 provides a broad range of fixed "ACM" views that quickly allow
the player to scan the airspace around his or her aircraft.
F/A-18 also includes most every conceivable "Padlock" view option. Some of these include:
Your designated target
Your in-flight weapon
Friendlies
Enemies
Ground objects
Vehicles (land and sea)
Incoming threats such as missiles
The target in the center of your screen
Your wingman
Tanker aircraft
The package you are to escort or the group that is escorting you
To ensure situation awareness while in the "Padlock" view, F/A-18
provides several means of assistance. These include canopy reflections,
lift lines, and the glance forward view that allows the player to
quickly monitor their instruments in the heat of battle.
F/A-18 also seamlessly combines the "ACM" and "Padlock" views by
allowing the player to access an "ACM" while padlocked to a target, but
have the view revert to the "Padlocked" target once the "ACM" view key
is released. This allows the player to quickly scan for new threats
while maintaining eyes on target.
In summary, the view system provides flexibility, ease of use, and choices, choices, choices.
(Click HERE for a cockpit interior.)
Q. I believe one of the theatres modeled is Yugoslavia. Why was
this chosen and what kind of action will we see?
Matt Wagner Says: F/A-18's campaign centers on the North
Cape-otherwise known as the Kola Peninsula-in the year 2004. The game
world is greater than two million square kilometers, is built from
satellite height data, and reaches from the eastern end of the Kola to
as far west as Norway's western coast.
The primary players in the campaign include the US Navy, US Marines, US
Air Force, the British RAF, Norway, Finland, and of course Russia.
Matt Wagner: Campaign operations will be concentrated in the
central-Kola region, stretching the entire width of the Peninsula from
the sub pens in the north around Polyarnny to manufacturing centers in
the south around Kandalaksha. Between these areas are a dense and
accurate portrayal of most every smoke stack, airbase, military
logistics center, factory, powerstation, port, and population center
that exists in the real world.
Defending this airspace are many enemy airbases, each consisting of
specific fighter or bomber regiments assigned to them. As the player
progresses through the campaign they will be confronted by new air
threats as operations take them deeper and deeper into enemy territory.
Threats in the operations area also include an accurate portrayal of
SAM regiment and AAA battalion order of battles, early warning radar
battalions, and an integrated air defense system (IADS) with several
levels of command centers. All of these air defenses are intertwined to
form the most comprehensive portrayal of a modern air defense system in
a civilian simulation.
Whether it's a factory, bridge, or radar site, F/A-18 also
tracks the status of all possible targets during the campaign. If you
destroy a runway in one mission, you can be assured it will still be
destroyed in the next. However, objects can rebuild so don't expect
that early warning site you destroyed to be down forever.
Q. The campaign is semi-dynamic but with a persistent environment. Will resource management be a consideration?
CJ Martin Says: Yes, resource management is a big part of the
campaign, probably even more so than in F-15 because in F/A-18 you'll
generally have less of everything to start with. This accurately
reflects the real life limitations of shipboard operations. You'll be
resupplied during the campaign, but you'll probably never have as many
of the latest (and most expensive) weapons onboard as you'd like.
F/A 18 uses a much enhanced version of the campaign system from F15.
The campaign is built in cells, composed of a group of missions that
are related by the goal. As you progress through the campaign there are
a number of pathways through the missions in a cell, and your
particular path is decided by each mission you fly along with some
random variables.
Cells in turn are grouped into phases which have larger goals. An
individual cell might contain three missions, such as escorting a
strike force, laying mines, and knocking out a radar installation. The
phase itself might have a goal like destroying a harbor and the supply
route to an airbase. Each time the player encountered the same phase
the goal would be the same, but the individual cells would vary
considerably.
Mission types are also diverse, including CAP, Air Superiority,
SAR, Interceptions and Scrambles, Strike Missions, Interdictions,
support of amphibious operations, and CAS. You'll be working with
allied forces, including the RAF. You'll also see carrier vs. carrier
engagements.
Q. Is multiplayer planned for both co-op and head to head? Will co-op be offered in campaign mode?
Scott Elson says: Yes and yes with up to 8 players in both
cases. You'll also be able to create your own multiplayer missions with
the mission builder so you could have one group working with AIs, on
one side, and another group on the other working with "enemy" AIs.
Q. Will F/A 18 connect to Jane's World War?
Greg Kreafle says: No. Jane's will be Beta testing World War
with USAF in a few months. We will not be patching products that ship
before this occurs.
Q. Tell us about the damage modeling, both damage resolution as well as
graphical effects.
Damage modeling is relative to exactly where the aircraft is
hit, based on the force of the impact, proximity of the weapon, and
then calculated according to what systems are in the area of impact.
We'll also see cascading damage, where one system may affect another.
On static objects (buildings etc.) damage is rated according
to a number of factors including hardness and resiliency. Objects like
fuel trucks or parked aircraft have different ratings because they are
also explosive, and secondary damage effects are modeled so that an
aircraft parked near vehicles will damage them or light structures when
it explodes.
Q. With the game set in 2004 will we see any next generation weapons?
The AGM 154 (JSOW) is modeled as well as the AGGM-84H standoff
Land Attack Missile. The Expanded Response cruise missile is here
(SLAM-ER) and JDAM GPS guided precision weapons. On the Hornet itself
the next generation AIM-9X is available.
Q. In high end simulations accessibility for the novice is always a
consideration. How will F/A 18 bridge that gap?
The game is built for easy access but is like an onion, where
you can access deeper levels of control at will. You can simply choose
a mission, receive the briefing and then fly, or you can edit waypoints
and customize your loadout, adjust the composition of your flight etc.
prior to take off. You can even build and save pre-configured loadouts
rather than selecting from a standard package.
Naturally, the typical options are here relating to difficulty and
challenge, and you don't have to fly with full realism if you choose
not to. Other features we'll see include a flight recorder (fairly
basic) and a mission builder. Expect to see a similar layout to that of
F15 but with even greater control.
Matt Wagner: The AIs use a different set of flight model calculations
than the focus aircraft (F-15 or F/A-18 depending on the sim). All AI
aircraft have their own flight model based on various data points. Some
of these include max speed, max G, acceleration, max instantaneous turn
rate, max sustained turn rate, max yaw rate, and such. However, they
all obey the same laws of physics.
Although not as detailed as that of the F/A-18E, each AI
aircraft has a close approximation of flight model of the real
aircraft. As you probably read from the interview, a tremendous amount
of number crunching goes into creating a high fidelity flight model. To
have such a flight model for the AIs would bring even the fastest CPU
to its knees. The pilots we've had fly against the F/A-18 AIs have been
very impressed. Dogfighting in F/A-18 is night and day compared to
F-15.
In terms of SA, they have a visual scan cone, but they may also
receive a "heads up" from other aircraft or radar sites. There is no
magic SA.
The primary difference with F/A-18's mission builder is that it gives
much great control over events. For example, you can now set a radius
around a vehicle and have certain events trigger when the player enters
that distance. In addition to such additions as that, there are all
sorts of features that enable you to take advantage of setting up naval
units and have them take part in the mission. The mission builder also
received a graphic makeover.
Wingman Comms
Matt: Yes, you can communicate with your immediate flight, but
also with members of the package (like SEAD and Sweep escorts). We've
added additional commands along these lines since F-15. There are
several new wingman commands. A couple of examples are of SEAD commands
and also the ability to tell wingmen how many weapons to put on
targets. And several new AWACS commands have been added.
Q: About SEAD (and AWACS for that matter). I seem to remember
in F-15 that it was kind of difficult to actually get help from a SEAD
flight or a CAP flight. AWACS would always say something to the effect
of, "Can't help you, they're busy right now..." (serious paraphrase
there! ). Someone asked Ellison on the F-15 listserver about it and it
turns out there were actual rules behind getting help. The helping
flights had to be within X-miles, etc...
Are there plans to be a little more complete in the manual in
describing the actions of the AI aircraft? Not just in SEAD and CAP,
SWEEP, ESCORT, but when you say "clear my six," (for example) what does
the AI take that to mean? And, has the code for AI actions been changed
any so that it is easier for us to get help from the AWACS?
Matt: You're much more likely to receive fighter and SEAD
support in F/A-18 for two reasons. First, more such flights are in the
missions. There is generally at least an alert 5 ready to go. Second,
the conflict area is generally smaller than in F-15. The determination
of getting support is based on distance, if they're tied up, and
weapons/fuel load.
I honestly don't know if this topic was covered in high detail
in the manual. As it is, we can't make the manual bigger because it
physically wouldn't fit in the box.
Hardware Support
While USAF has specific enhancements for the Pentium III, F/A 18 will
not. Unfortunately this also means no additional support for AMD's
Athlon either.
As to what sound APIs are supported, it sounds like it's
neither EAX nor A3d in this release. Instead look for DirectSound with
programatic sound positioning. On top of DirectSound
the team uses Miles Sound System for mixing and high level interfaces.
