| Flight Sim Evolution
by Gavin Bennet |
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Yes, simulation machines might be a future option, but seriously, these are COMPUTER games, and computers are used by most people for lots of other things, not just flight sims. Yes, maybe in a few years, Thrustmaster or Microsoft might make a home cockpit machine like that old Afterburner arcade game, and it might actually be affordable. But again, we are reaching beyond the limits of the definition of "computer game" even "flight sim." This is idle speculation.
For the last twenty years computers have been: case, keyboard, mouse, and monitor, with a joystick for games. That does not look like it will change any time soon. Yes we might even end up with VR sets that can have a 3d OS activated by movements of our fingers and arms. But one thing that every futurist should be aware of is that the future sneaks up on you and never looks like your dreams; it looks a lot more like your reality. That monitor might get smarter but it's still gonna be a monitor. (To digress, one possibility for VR helmets might be to have something like those Israeli HMDs. We have a monitor with our work on it (say MS Word) But we have a "virtual desktop" that exists around us. So using a VR chip on a pair of shades we can look around. The sim applications would be cool.. The more I think of this, the more I like it! Are you all thinking what I'm thinking??? Okay, have a main, say, 25 inch monitor. A smaller secondary monitor. A very big projection monitor. VR shades, and maybe some kind soul would make a USB MFD widget. OOOOOOH). Graphics, graphics, graphics. After all, immersion can only be improved by better graphics, no?
In that USENET article, I argued that "pure simulation" was reaching an end. I believe that a hybrid of strategy and simulation (ala TAW or M1TP2) represented the future; only with a far better, far more realistic and wide ranging strategy than either of those games. In short something that a C+C player or a Harpoon player or a People's General player would like, and buy it as a genuine, all singing, all dancing, real time strategy game. Only with the ability to fly stuff (or whatever). (Ed. Note: sounds like the original game plan for Janes Fleet Command). That strategy element would take away the problems of the dynamic ground war. (I sent an email to DID at one point, suggesting that Wargasm could be used as a basis for a ground war for EF2000 V.3.) The strategy element could get deeper and deeper, with smarter and smarter AI; but this isn't a "pure-sim" feature. (For a remembrance of the original EF2 see EF2000 v.2.) |
 I do not think we shall ever see a Virtual Battlefield. The more complex sims become, the more bandwidth they need to communicate what is going on to other computers. DID claimed, and I believe them, that it would be a "nightmare" to co-ordinate even just the air-war of TAW on multiple computers. MPS managed it, and we all see how much trouble they are having. Yes, one hopes that EF2000 V.3 has a ground-air dynamic war, and that it can have 8 player LAN co-op, and no doubt they will manage it, eventually.
 Total Air War. Click for 800x600. But a poor man's virtual battlefield, with maybe four well modelled units fighting in one theatre area is the likely result. A Flanker, F-16, F-15, MiG-29 combo, maybe; an F-22, EF2000, Su-37, Rafale combo; a Flanker, MiG-29, Mirage 2000 and F/A-18 combo, an Su-33, F/A-18, Sea Harrier, F-14 combo; an Aegis, 688, Type 22 combo; an M1, Challenger, Ah-64, A-10 combo? Or an AH-64, AH-1, UH-60, OH-65, A-10, AV-8B combination (this was my big idea for LB3: make it a strat-sim of the ground war, but fought at 30 feet off the ground? There are reasons for those choices… think about it.)
 Flanker 2.0 This may well be the Golden Age of sims, and we may well be watching its twilight, but if we are lucky, it's only the beginning of a new era of war games. Yes, we are all going to need faster computers and expensive toys, but damn it, is that not the way of the world? They talk about a MINIMUM of a P300 for an office computer doing boring accounting crap….. Flight sims kick Excel's ass….. And if you are going to have to upgrade for Excel, then why not treat yourself to some intense graphics, and some wonderful sims? And see war played out, in all its terrible beauty. For other views of the way the world may be heading, see our Editorials page or recent articles on coming hardware like the AMD K7 and Voodoo3 Revealed. We'll bring you more information on Longbow 3 as it becomes available.
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