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Flight Combat Preview
by Dan Crenshaw |
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Mission Options As with most successful sims these days, a full complement of features are included. There are two campaigns, the "Battle of Britain" and "Defense of the Reich", an Instant Mission generator, Instant Action, and a Training Module. All modules of the simulation will interface with the multi-player.
 The single missions will be pre-scripted missions, Instant Action will allow the player to manipulate the environment, and the campaign will be based on a "semi-dynamic" branching campaign. While there are some limitations to all "semi-dynamic" campaigns, the inclusion of primary and secondary targets will help keep the campaign fresh and ever changing. Weather will be adjustable except in campaign, where weather will be somewhat random (unless you have turned it off in the options screen.) And weather will buffet your aircraft and cause handling issues. 3D rain is also planned. The Mission Editor is designed to begin a story where you click on the highlighted areas to lay out the rough outline of your mission. Below is an example of a Bomber Intercept mission. Once you adjust the highlighted sections to begin your "story", go fly it and make history! Or as they say, "What happens next will amaze and astound you …" There is a similar template for each type of instant action mission in the game. This includes :
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 Gun Camera A full featured mission recorder and gun camera is planned. And the game will release with an aircraft editor that is the most powerful yet seen. You can tweak virtually any parameter and build your own unique aircraft. Online play will have an option allowing the host to restrict the use of home built aircraft to keep things fair. Graphics are not fully optimized, and there are plans for quite a few more enhancements. The version shown at E3 was very smooth, with a great deal of detail. The version being shown was very pre-alpha, so many of the features were not fully implemented, or may change by release time. I hope to get a beta to review sometime in the near future so we can look at AI, and exactly how the multi-station action works.
 Aircraft Editor It looks like FLIGHT COMBAT will easily compete with the current host of WWII simulations on the market as well as those being scheduled for release in the near future. This is one to watch and may turn out to be a sleeper with all the attention be given to other similar sims in production right now. Join a discussion forum on this article by clicking HERE.
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