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CSIM: Does weather, i.e., wind and sea state, play a role in carrier operations? Is wind / weather / clouds modeled in other operations?

Rob Brown: While we do not specifically model wind we do model sea state in the form of pitch and roll to the carrier deck. Weather is modeled and CFS2 will use all the weather functionality from FS2K.

CSIM: How is the campaign structured? In other words, does it span the whole war- from Pearl Harbor to Midway to island hopping to Iwo Jima to the Atomic Bombing- as a continuous campaign, or is it broken up? How is it broken up?

Rob Brown: As a pilot you will start just shortly after Pearl Harbor and wind your way through the Solomon and into the island hopping campaigns. It culminates with the big battles for Siapan and Tinnian. We decided to stay away from Kamikaze attacks and attacks on the Japanese mainland for political sensitivity reasons. Users can, however, create any of these if they so chose.

Fig. 2. A6M5 with its new Virtual Cockpit

CSIM: Are the campaigns dynamic in nature, the branching "if / then" causal types, or purely linear? Is damage to structures / facilities / shipping persistent? Can you "change history" (i.e. can the Japanese win at Midway)?

Rob Brown: Campaigns are a branching tree structure. You can't change history in our campaigns. As the Japanese you are going to lose the war. But you have to try and survive, not lose too many wingmen, complete your mission goals, and earn medals and promotions, and fly increasingly higher performance aircraft. Failing to perform will result in your early retirement. You will be able to enter the campaign at any of 10 different historical points. So for example you could decide to join at the battle of Midway and fly to the end of the campaign. Alternatively you could decide to fly from nearly the end of the campaign and play only a few missions before you finish. This allows for shorter play times.

Damage is simulated as persistent through the mission builder. You will be able to damage any object in the game. Persistence becomes a mission design issue. If you want to show that a target has been attacked before, you would simply place some destroyed and damaged objects in the area along with some bomb craters.

CSIM: Does the mission editor allow for setting ship or land vehicle waypoints? If they come within range of enemy units, will they engage each other?

Rob Brown: Ships and ground units will not battle each other. You can place waypoints in the mission builder for both ships and ground vehicles.

Fig. 3. A6M2 with pilot, high above the Solomon's

CSIM: Can missions be built / scripted specifically for multiplayer gaming (i.e. task force v. task force)?

Rob Brown: We won't be doing any multiplayer changes for CFS2 other than security fixes to prevent cheating.

CSIM: Can aircraft created for MS FS2K be imported into missions?

Rob Brown: Yes as well as CFS1.0 aircraft. Ships are created like aircraft this time around, so it will be possible for people to create their own ships and import them into CFS2 as well.

Fig. 4. N1K2-J "George" under a full head of steam