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SDOE War

By Gregor 'Gecko' Veble

Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons Over Europe is an interesting sim. When discussion in the flight sim community turns to it, it invariably becomes a heated one. There seem to be people who just love the sim, and certain others who cannot stand it, be it for its troubled past or some missing pet feature.

Fig. 1. Ju-88 after a bombing pass

As I take a clear side on this argument, I will not go into describing the issues here. There are certain facts about SDOE that cannot be disputed, though. The physics engine is still something to be surpassed, giving potential to create extremely realistic planes. This is possible to be achieved with what is probably the most open architecture in a combat flight simulation, coupled with the seemingly unmatched creativity in the relatively small but tight community that exists around it. SDOE allows users not only to modify skins, which is a popular activity with most other sims, but to create new planes from scratch, and the community grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

The creativity in the community didn't stop with creating new items for the sim, it appears. Roger 'Private Roger' Hagerty dreamt up an idea so brilliant in its simplicity it's a wonder why it didn't appear in this or any other sim community before. For those of you who do not know him, he was the initiator of the SDOE plane contest, which resulted in the Contest Plane Pack, but he is also a writer, with articles published on various sites including this one, the latest one being the editorial SDOE: 1 year later.

Fig. 2. Ju-88 vs.Mustang

When released, SDOE was also criticized for a lack of dynamic campaign. Well, this new idea that goes under the name of SDOE War delivers to fill this void. Only, it's something much more interesting. It is a longer term online event, and the largest contributing factor to its enjoyment is what most usual dynamic campaigns lack, namely the social component. I've been involved in some preliminary testing, and I must say that what I've participated in has been the most immersive online experience I've had with any sim to this date, and other testers seem to share that opinion.