One of the areas I've always felt is somewhat lacking is the Air Traffic Control element in flight simulations. Too often, the number of aircraft that are around are fairly small, and it makes you feel like there aren't that many other crews around. Why are airbases not staffed with a jammed flightline of aircraft, including freighters, tankers, Airborne troops, etc. As a result, the ATC is limited to asking for clearance and not much else. I want to change frequencies, do a handoff from ground to tower to control. Also, why not throw in random failures like aircraft fouling the deck in a carrier sim, broken catapults, etc. I guess what I'm looking for is a bit more of what real pilots have to deal with, ie. equipment failures, accidents, etc. =20

Actual ATC holding patterns if there's no room. Proper ATC approach vectors, and approach plates for landing, more realistic landings and takeoffs, with procedures to follow in case of engine failure, etc. =20 On the technical side, I would like to see multiple monitor support included in future sims for those crazy enough to buy multiple seventeen =inch monitors. It's one of those "When I win the lottery" features.

The bottom line out of all of this is that I'd like to see a bit more realism in terms of the environment, ATC, weather, ground crews, procedures for various problems, rejected takeoff, engine failures on takeoff, catapult failures on carriers. I want to see people doing maintenance on aircraft, when I taxi in...I want to see other planes getting prepped, other planes holding short at taxiways on approach. More cargo aircraft taking off and landing, etc. Sean Hardiman.

I would like to see near future enemy fighters in DiD/Ocean sims. How about the S-37 Berkut or the stealthy "Super-Fighter" based on the Mig-1.42 which was mentioned way back on page 228 of the EF2000 manual? These high-tech planes could be reserved for key missions; the stealthy "Super-Fighter" would be an excellent choice for anti-AWACS missions and the S-37's powerful radar makes it ideal for CAPs around vital areas (such as air bases). The appearance of these high-tech planes should be limited so that players feel the adrenaline rush during engagement and the feeling of accomplishment after victory.

I also think it would be fun if wingmen would be assigned names and paired up with other wingmen. Supposedly EF2000 and F22 already keep track of individual stats and experience for each fighter pilot. So, why not take it one step further and assign names to these pilots. After awhile players would become familiar with and attached to their wingmen. If my loyal wingman with whom I've had 20 missions together suddenly screamed, "Help, I'm hit!" I certainly jettison all AG ordinance, turn, and burn to give him a hand. Compare this to my current reaction of thinking, "Oh well, another solo mission" and I think you see my point. I would also like to see many more communication options between my wingmen and myself. For example, consider a case where my anti-air base strike group of 4 planes is confronted by scrambled fighters. I should be able to tell wingman 2 to jettison his AG ordinance and help me engage the fighters, instruct wingman 3 to initiate a strafing run against parked planes, and tell wingman 4 to continue attacking his primary. Lance Levendowski.

First, I'd like to see the ability to fly various aircraft in their respective roles. During a campaign, you'd be able to fly F-14s from carriers, A-10s on ground attack missions, F-117s and B-2s for night stealth attacks, F-111s and B-1Bs on bombing missions, Cobra and Apache helicopters on ground support, etc. In other words make it possible for the gamer to interact with each aviation-related area of the campaign.

My second idea would be to create a U.S. battlefield. Sort of a "Red Dawn" scenario where a foreign power controls part of the U.S. and the player is part of a "rebel" force trying to take back their homeland. A good place for this would be the central California coast area around Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo. It has rivers, an ocean, beaches, mountains, broad flatlands for tank battles, small cities and towns, airports, major highways, etc. And a railroad runs through there where train attack missions could occur. One possibility would be a mission where a bridge and a train had to be taken out, this could be done separately, or with precise timing, the pilot could destroy the bridge just as the train passes over it, or just before the train arrives. And it'd be pretty fun to get a radio message to "Attack SAM site behind Morro Bay McDonald's on Hwy 1." Or "Locate tank column hiding in sand dunes near Pismo Beach." Thomas Locker

In my opinion, DiD/Ocean makes some of or perhaps the BEST sims on the market today. EF-2000, while over 2 years old is still my favorite flightsim. I have several of the newest sims out, and EF-2000 still stacks up to anything out there. It just has that "you are there" feel to it, from the graphics, to the sound effects, to the feel of the flight model (Awesome landings and takeoffs!).

There are two types of sims I would like to see DiD/Ocean produce. 1) I would love to see an adversary sim released for ADF, perhaps simulating the Su-37 Super Flanker. Something with the same scope of ADF; an awacs control section, a dynamic campaign, and the same detail to avionics modeling. Researching the Su-37's avionics would be difficult, but not so much as before the "Iron curtain" dropped.

2) I would very much like to see a simulation of the F-4 Phantom II. (Perhaps even more than wish #1 !!) I realize DiD has significant experience in creating simulators for modern weapons systems (thier TIALD simulator), and are more oriented towards sims that recreate the cutting edge of modern combat aircraft, but I would probably die and go to heaven if they produced a Vietnam sim with the same fidelity of thier others. Again, this would be great by it's self, but even more so if produced in conjunction with an adversary sim of the MiG-21 or MiG-17. Go DiD/OCEAN !! A. Breidenbaugh

I would like to see a very detailed simulator of World War II bombers. I have the old B17 simulator from Microprose and played it for hours. There were a few things I would have liked to change, but the sim remained great. I have been very impressed with many simulations OCEAN has released, the best being EF2000. A simulator where you could choose between flying for the three major air forces in the European conflict of World War II would be excellent, because there are a lot of sim pilots out there just waiting for a chance to get behind the wheel of a B17, B24 or even the HE-111. I have not seen many sims where you could take a flight of bombers to the heart of Germany and be attacked by FW-190's and Bf-109's as you try to put the bombs on target, except on the very few online games that are out there.

The simulation portion of computer games is always getting larger, and more and more impressive, and seeing a simulation where you could take control of a group of bombers would be so very cool. Tim Mills

A walk onto the apron scene should be included (accurate time of day and conditions eg day/night or raining) where from the pilots eyes the door opens and a ramp awaits where you walk out and mount your aircraft look down at cockpit and movie morphs into sim cockpit (which is as accurate as possible:), Hatch closes in sim mode to continue the mime. Pilot should be respnosabile for all functions that a real pilot is responsible for - Easy flight models should be discarded and replaced by Training Missions where missing a flight plan will not have you tracked down by friendly aircraft and blown out of the sky!!!
It is lovely to fly with a variaty of accurate looking background aircraft so I would keep them in the sim but not have two many transports flying around unless they are the actual mission objectives.
Some sort of representation of groups of trees that match the ground, Ground forces should be not exactly camoflouged.
The ground war should be a self running campaign with such features as Emergency landing strips made available out of highway when your airfields are knocked out - Late arrival of a carrier force in campaign to bring in new friendly aircraft to help eg you start seeing JSF's and Tomcat's providing air cover. Maybe even a retreat to the carrier might be necessary under certain circumstances.
Factors like a nuclear strike against an airbase causing no fly zones and electrical disturbances - Anit-Satellite missions with your F-15(or F22?) in preperation fo roffensives!!!! The list goes on.

I really enjoy flying the aircraft more than fighting my way through Electronic Boundaries and Missile Maximum ranges - so whatever the combat involves it should be built after the aircraft is reproduced down to the unwinding of stitches in your Martin Baker ejection seat when pulling +10G.
1st the Aircraft
2nd the atmosphere representation eg Clouds Rain Turbulance High Altitude effects (on aircraft eg (engine and control) and views eg (darkness and contrails)
3rd Airfield accuracy and Ground representation
4th. Voices and traffic control and Airspace navigation eg VOR's and assigned flight paths
5th Enemy aircraft AI & Aircraft representation
6th Ground War
-------- All these are packaged into a streamlined shell that doesnt take to long to display info that can be organized with an external application before your flight. eg ala Flanker with its Mission Planner.

The placing of the players existance into the role of fighter pilot is foremost and the paying sim enthusist wants to fly real fighter jets from their desktop -I think wars and Commanders positions are the role of Front End software and servers playing Multiplay Virtual Wars. Which is also important Multiplay is geat and should be included to the best of technology at the time!! One last thing is when I say the sim should be realistic I mean the Aircraft and the Environment - some things should be comprimised eg Enemy Aircraft size at range should be a little exaggerated to allow better gameplay and gun warfare . A little black dot at 6 miles might be realistic but I'd rather pull into a Flick Roll and watch the world roll round, BUT if their was a Cy-37 at 6 miles I would LOVE to push around and wipe his Canards off!!! Robert KPO

I don't believe this has ever been done, but I would love to see a flight sim that made the player a pilot and not simply a plane. In other words, upon takeoff the player would actually walk to the plane and climb aboard, at which point the game would shift to the standard flight sim. If the player ejected, however, and made it to the ground safely, he would once again return to controlling a human figure. At this time, all the nuances of being rescued would be performed by the player in order to make it back to the air base and continue the campaign. If an ejected pilot landed in water, he'd have to cut away his parachute and inflate a raft before calling for help on the radio. I believe that the inclusion of the human factor in a flight sim would add a great deal more realism as well as depicting a more accurate picture of the life of a pilot. Thanks, Justin Rhodes

1. BETTER FLIGHT MODELING Although current flight modeling isn't all bad, I am one of the hard-core crowd who really likes realistic flight models. Some manufacturers use the FBW systems to scapegoat their laziness saying that FBW will prevent that, disallow that.... and so on. For example most of the modern flight sims don't allow departure from controlled flight (the only fighter sim I know of that allows departure from controlled flight is SSI's Su-27 Flanker and that sim is my current favorite, with EF2K coming in far behind, but second none the less) for example in flanker you can do flat spins, tailslides, inverted flat spins, in all other sims you simply take a nose dive when you stall. I know for a fact that you can flat spin F-16's, F/A-18's because I have talked to the real pilots, I have also seen videos of their spin testing....

I also know you can flat spin F-22 because one of the LM prototypes had a parachute for spin testing. And even if you do believe that F-22's FBW system will be able to totally prevent spins, tailslides, high AOA stalls then there should be an option to disable the FBW limiters. Why am I whining about the flight model so much?? Well it is because I love doing aerobatics, and the only sim I can do it in is Su-27 Flanker, I always wanted an fighter aircraft sim where you can utilize the aircraft's grace not for killing but for its simply sheer beauty and the love of flight.

2: More realistic padlock Current padlock systems are not very realistic, in the sense that you can turn your head 360deg around like you're possessed. Also sim don't model POV(Point of view) limits which takes away from the total atmosphere, remember the expression "loose the sight loose the fight"? Well again the only sim where that case applies is Su-27, in all other sims you simply don't have POV limits.

3: Realistic load out limits
4: Realistic flight envelope
5: Realistic fuel economy
5: Realistic weight effects
6: Ground Effect
7: Good mission recorder
8: Thrust Vectoring Post-Stall control
9: Imperfect AI.... An AI which will get tired, get low morale, or maybe adrenaline boosts... The AI pilots have to have the same "inefficiencies" as real pilots. But the AI pilots should be very hard in dogfights, not because they have a better airplane but because the are very skillful.
10: Realistic weapon performance (for the enemy also)
11: Realism configuration
Where all these features can be disabled for novice or less hard-core players. Slava Poliakov

I would like to see more interactivity between air forces and ground forces.. Actual communication with a ground based forward air controller. I would also like to see a Vietnam sim, featuring F4's and "Bird dogs", foward air controllers in prop planes. Keep up the 3dfx graphics too. K. Dresker

I think it would be relly cool if in your next flight sim or add-on to f22 adf/taw that you could not only fight the s-37 Berkut but actually FLY it against f-22's and such. The Berkut should become an imensely capable aircraft and flying f-22s vs. s-37s should prove very popular. And I have seen pictures of Berkut models that show a much sleeker, sexier, stealthier and more front end, and the vertical tail fins will probably not(it is pretty safe to assume) the tail fins depicted in many pictures, angled at 90 degrees straight up, will be on production fighters, so such changes to the prototype pictures would look good on a game. And the strengths and weakneses these aircraft have over the other should be depicted, such as a more maneuverable Berkut and a stealthier Raptor. Features such as rear facing radar and over the shoulder missile shots shot be depicted on the Barkut, as well as a degree of stealthiness.

Also, radio comms should be drastically improved. Giving wingmen orders takes a long time with a keyboard and when using HOTAS each individual command would take up valuable buttons. So if microphones could be used to deliver the messages in single and multiplayer the games would progress faster, be easier, more fun and increase the sense of being there exponentially.Being able to actually talk to wingmen would be awesome. Also the number of commands should be increased. Claire

I would like to see a voice recognition feature built into single play and voice communication capabilities built into the multiplayer aspect of DID/Oceans future sims. I believe these features would take pilots' focus away from the distracting keyboard and allow more time for immersion in the sim itself. Imagine a flight leader being able to simply say to his wingman, "Break left!" instead of having to locate and press a series of key commands. With the voice recognition technology available in windows programs today, I am sure that 15 or 20 preset commands could easily be programmed for recognition. I also believe that the added realism would be well worth the cost. Emory Rowland

For tank/jet/helo sims: Player should be given the option to NOT start in the cockpit. Here a DOOM/QUAKE like game should start in barracks, officer's club, on the can (heheh) etc. From any point here there can be numerous permeutations/scenarios.

One for example: Scramble scenario. Player starts in bunk. The claxon sounds of the air raid siren wake you up (screen fades in) and you figure out you're in bunk. You run to locker using your joystick to steer, suit up, and make a mad dash for hardened aircraft shelters! You try to avoid the mass of vehicles and peoples that have sprung to life (it sure would suck to get run over by the refueling truck and not even get the chance to let loose a few sidewinders). You glance sideways and see your multiplayer wingie climbing into his plane (how'd he get there so fast?) You find your plane (maybe using a airbase map to find your plane). The crew chief says you're all set and gives you a quick run down of the plane's quirks (since when do all planes run flawlessly?). You angle your joystick towards the ladder to the cockpit and are buckled in. You start rolling as the canopy closes. You follow the commands of the flight personnel directing your plane as you tune into the ATC frequency....then the game can proceed as most do...beginning in the cockpit.

One last feature that ATF, SU27, and other upcoming sims look like are beginning to implement are pre-flight damage. In ATF/USNF, you could be forced to fly with bad rudder controls, aerilons, or limited armorments, etc. This should be included to give more of a sense of "being there" and dealing with the operational problems that are a part of military readiness. Steven Reyes

What I am looking forward to in future installments of ADF/TAW is simply more realism. The ability to control your wingmen's every move, larger selection of weapons, but not allowing ANY weapons to be loaded on an F-22. Keep it authentic, I only want to be able to load weapons that would actually be on the F-22. I would like to be able to COMPLETELY control the air war for a campaign. By letting myself pick the targets, and assign different planes to attack those targets as I see fit. As well as being able to jump into an F-22 at any time to fly some missions myself. I want my the AI in the game to be appropriate, for example, I do not want to see F-111 on a bombing run try to engage a flight of MiG-29.

Simply put, I want a game that will model all of the tools and abilities that a U.S. air commander would have if he were to run an air campaign, but I also want a very authentic, realistic, and challenging flight simulator. Shadowmind

I think that a great feature for sims of all kinds in the future is a virtual battlefield. I mean having different sims connect together to an ongoing war, with people flying the planes, driving the tanks, making the strategic decisions, and so on. A real total war, with people being the main participants, not just silicon. I guess with current internet latency and bandwith, it's a few years before it it plausible, but I would love to see it. Marcel Petrin