SimGuild's Battle of Britain

The first simulation from SimGuild to utilize 3d hardware, Battle of Britain is currently in alpha. Here is the description of the alpha, and a quick summary of the results.

In the Battle of Britain alpha test, only two airplanes are available: the BF109 E4 on the Luftwaffe side and the Hawker Hurricane Mk I on the British side. The battle area is centered on the East side of the English Channel between Dover and the Pas de Calais.

The aircraft armament is modeled to be historically accurate. The Hurricane has eight wing mounted .303 machine guns and the BF109 has two nose mounted 7.92 mm MG 15 machine guns and two wing mounted 20mm MG FF cannon (for all of you who don't know this the E3 and E4 models of the BF 109 did NOT have provision for an engine mounted cannon firing through the propeller spinner.)

The beta test will have these four aircraft: Hawker Hurricane Mk I, BF109 E4, Supermarine Spitfire Mk I, and BF110 C4. Note that all of these are fighters and will not have provision for carrying bombs.

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The BF110 C4 is a two place aircraft as modeled in the game. The pilot will have the ability to man the dorsal gun of this plane (while it flies along pilotless). There will be server directed anti-aircraft defenses around the various airfields that should render airfield vulching a bit dangerous.

Long range anti-aircraft artillery (via server direction), also known as flak, will be placed near the airfields and along the coasts to provide air defense for the land area of the respective sides. (The flak guns are already in place in internal tests, and they are DEADLY at altitudes below about 8000 feet).

There is provision for setting your gun "Harmonization" or convergence range, radio channel setup similar to Flying Circus, and you can bail out of your aircraft. If your aircraft explodes, you can quit after a 5 second wait without having to ride your airplane all the way to the ground (other players see your plane explode when you quit after either a pilot kill or a bail out). And NO, you will not be able to shoot the dude in the parachute. Side selection is made in the game so you won't have to re-log to change sides.

Post beta additions to the game will be made periodically, possibly during the beta test, and afterwards. These aircraft will be added: Ju87 B2 Stuka, Ju88A1, and the He111 on the Luftwaffe side, Bristol Blenhiem Mk I, Vickers Wellington, and Bolton Paul Defiant (though who knows why someone would want to fly a fighter that has no forward firing guns) on the British side.

Look for these enhancements (which means we are working on them but it will probably take us a while to get them done)..

1. Multi-player aircraft (you can have a crew for the planes that have crew manned gun positions.)

2. Custom aircraft artwork (this is a big one, we still have to design the system to allow this to work between squadrons or teammates and still have the original art for the same planes that are flown by others (like non-squadron pilots flying on your side in the same plane type.)

Pricing:

We do not have an hourly rate figured out yet for Battle of Britain. When we do rest assured that it will be very reasonable. You will not have to make a separate account. Our business plan establishes that your one account allows you access to ALL of our games (this of course excludes alpha and possibly beta tests, although the Battle of Britain beta test will be available to all account holders.)

Q&A

We sent a few questions off to SimGuild and they were kind enough to respond with these answers:

Q. How will you differentiate BoB from other online sims?

A: First and foremost, game play will be smooth with high frame rates in our target platform. The individual aircraft will be modeled accurately and the flight models will be devoloped such that the craft fly like like real airplanes. This is based on actual pilot experience since two of our current staff are licensed pilots.

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The client server program that we design our games around provides these key elements:

a: The server will be up ALL the time (except for very brief periods for maintenance).

b: We maintain very tight control on bandwidth at the server side which minimizes net delays (hence - low "warp").

c: The "central server" based design allows massive player numbers in an arena without over-running an individual players bandwidth.

d: The server is always at the same place so there is no searching required.

We don't like "shooting at dots" and we think a lot of our players don't either. We design our games so that "aspect and closure" can actually be judged visually, aircraft type can be identified visually, and dogfighting tactics based on countering enemy craft manuevers (again by visual recognition) is easily accomplished. This goes for you and your potential opponents making the development of tactical skill very important and a very real consideration.

We estimate that the average player will require about two months of consistent play (read "practice") to become just a "decent" dogfighting pilot. This is based on our original game "Flying Circus" but could be a bit conservative since BoB requires much more accurate gunnery, and the energy considerations during manuevering are more complex.

Q. What are the key features?

A: As noted above, and in addition there is an "autopilot" feature that maintains an aircraft in level flight and adjusts "trim" for it's airspeed. This will allow players to concentrate on other game aspects while enroute to a battle area. There is also a "formation autopilot" feature that flies a player's airplane in formation with a selected leader.

There is a simple and flexible system of "communications" within the game based on a "channel" system. There is a broadcast channel that can be used to send a typed message to all players, a "Guard" channel that sends only to players on the same side, and a Radio channel that sends and receives messages from only players on the same "channel". Players can select and change their radio channel in flight and there are more than 60,000 available channels.

Aircraft damage is modeled in a complex fashion. Different parts of an individual aircraft can be damaged, and the damage depends on the type and characteristics of the "collision" (i.e. a bullet strike) that causes the damage. Also, different aircraft have different abilities to absorb damage. This results in very complex tactics and targeting during a fight based on the armament and ruggedness, as well as manueverability of the different aircraft.

Q: Tell us about flight modeling and physics.

A: The flight models are real rigid body models with force and moment equations developed with simplified aerodynamics. Atmospheric conditions at different altitudes and individual aircraft and engine behaviors at altitude also are considered (i.e. the spitfire Mk I was a good performer at medium altitudes but the BF109 E4 was the master above about 20,000 ft.)

Q: How many players will be able to fly in one world?

A: At present an individual arena can hold up to 256 players. Future enhancements may increase this number.

Q: Will there be offline play available?

A: At present there will be very limited offline play. You can fly offline to practice takeoffs and landings or become familiar with the terrain. The major game play will take place online. Future enhancements may include some offline "drone shooting" for gunnery practice.

We have been discussing the possibility of releasing a "head to head" ability in the future to allow players to practice formation flying, basic combat manuevers, or possibly some "head to head" dueling.

Q: What resolutions are available?

A: Currently BoB supports either 800x600 or 1024x768 and does require a very good D3D compatable 3D video card with 8Mb minimum (check out the system requirements below.)

System Requirements:

• 200 Mhz Pentium class processor with 32Mb Ram.
• 80 Mb hard drive space
• 8Mb D3D compatable video card (DirectX 5.0 or greater required) Joystick is REQUIRED

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