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Unsung Heroes, Part II
By Aaron "Spectre" WatsonArticle Type: Feature
Article Date: March 22nd, 2001
The continued exploration of the Unsung Heroes of combat flight simulation presses on. In this installment more semi-random acts of kindness will be investigated.
Fighter Squadron: Screamin' Demons over Europe
Just a few months before the much ballyhooed New Benchmark of Flight Simulation (Falcon 4.0) was to be released, a few prop sims came out with the Glide API as their graphical basis. I investigated a pair, one from the aforementioned MicroProse called European Air War (EAW), the other from Activision called Fighter Squadron: Screaming Demons over Europe (FS:SDOE). I gave the early nod to MicroPose's entry as it did have a dynamic campaign. A few nicely crafted add-ons were forthcoming and I played a single campaign through to a retirement as a Colonel. Variety was not high, however, and the missions became tedious. I shelved it after trying to get into a second campaign. Besides, the pointy-nosed oil burners were calling, Falcon 4.0 came out, and an eighteen month affair began.
Sometime later, after moving out of state and getting my network setup again, I came across one helluva deal on FS:SDOE which I had passed on previously. Discretionary cash was not a big factor by this time since UnbeatableDeals.com would fire off a copy for just $4.95! While waiting an entire week for FS:SDOE to arrive, I rummaged around the Internet, and found COMBATSIM's own FS:SDOE resource page and another gold mine: the ever-happening Fighter Squadron Information Center.
At the FS Information Center you will find the latest and greatest on this sim which is built upon the OpenPlane standard. Though a little tough for neophytes, the OpenPlane system was built-in by the programmers to ALLOW end-users like us to work on a whole series of simulated items. From the terrain to the aircraft and all the little ground items. Masters of the art like Razer (who just won't quit) have come up with some beautiful aircraft. I am particularly fond of the P-38F, which features 3D super-turbochargers.
A beauty, ain't she?
Another of the very neat things the FS:SDOE community has come up with is a packaging method. Although intended to keep on-line players on the same page, it is a really nice way to implement the latest, greatest add-ons. The orchestrater of the latest incarnation, Plane Pack 6.1, is Tailspin who is also hosting the Plane Pack 6.1 download.
Another major enhancement is the inclusion of other nations' equipment in the Nations Pack 2.0. Werner Molders in the project coordinator, and hosts the latest version. Currently, the original three countries has been expanded to eight with three more in the works. Debate on a separate ground pack is underway as Harman_5 has picked some work from a year or so ago and made drivable ground vehicles; namely, a French car called the Citroen 7.
An M3 half-track, Matador 40mm, and various tanks and trucks were also recently made available. The rate of expansion for this three year old sim only seems to be accelerating! Diego Lozano made a remapping of textures that converts the African theatre into a Pacific arena, complete with density of palm trees being user adjustable.
Come on in, the waters fine!
With all these highly talented individuals still hard at it, the end of the road seems a long way off, and I love it!
European Air War
As previously mentioned, my dabblings with European Air War started shortly after its release. Wandering around on the Internet yielded little except an add-on by Charles Gunst named Enemy Coast ahead, version 1.1. It was an ambitious project in its infancy, which I lost track of during EAW's shelving. I have recently rediscovered this title while researching this article. I must say, LOTS has been going on while I've been away! It seems that the best source of reference for all these add-ons is right here on COMBATSIM: Check out the EAW Recommended Add-on Guide and the EAW Downloads and Interactive Links Page.
There EAW Recommended Add-on Guide is a twenty-five page listing (if you print it out, that is) of all the different add-ons that are available to anybody who owns a copy of EAW. Not surprisingly, with such a strong community, the most active forum here on COMBATSIM is the EAW forum since the subscription service was implemented. This group also seems to be the most diversified as there are few central figures. New skins have cropped up from many interested parties, along with total revamps of theatres. Charles Gunst came up with another admirable add-on, ECAPanel, which allows the swapping in and out of different aircraft for a given scenario. This allows for a total redirection to the Pacific theatre of operations, aircraft wise. Separate addons allow pacific terrain, islands and ocean, campaigns based on the area, and even name changes.
Rounding it all out are add-ons to kill the extraneous junk in the sea. They're all based upon the existing 1.2 patch, so much so that the A6M5 Zero's look like P-47 Razorbacks with meatballs on the wings and fuselage. Definite diversity compared to the original product. There seems to be a lot less finagling allowable in the EAW engine than the FS:SDOE architecture, though us off-line line folks like the campaigns, which can be very difficult to recreate with the mission builder that came out with FS. There is a large contingent of folks that have a definite opinion on which of these older prop-sims is better. I like them both, for different reasons. The plain ol' feel of FS:SDOE is a great thing, but the theatre size of EAW keeps things different. The incredible amount of user-created mission files offsets the repetitive nature of the missions in EAW's dynamic campaign. I am glad I have them both, as the work of all the folks out there keeps them both fresh and alive!
Alive does not seem to fit the flight sim genre as of late. If it were not for these Unsung Heroes, sim-heads like me would have to resort to . . . shudder . . . 1st person shooters or something! ;->
In the upcoming and final article in this series, I will try to do a roundup of some other fine efforts, and a look at contributions from publishers! Stay tuned.
Click to join a discussion about this article.
Publisher's Note:
COMBATSIM would like your input for a new category of awards devoted to the efforts of end-user-created game enhancements. We would like your suggestions for not only the categories of awards and those who should be nominated under each category, but also what we should call the awards. For example, award categories could include the following:We will use the Article Feedback forum for the input and then, when we've all agreed on the categories and nominees, we will create a publicly-accessible poll (i.e, you won't need to subscribe to the articles and forums to vote). COMBATSIM.COM will arrange for some prizes for the winners and we'll also create a special, and again, publicly-accessible section of the site to display all the winners' names.
- Best Skin
- Props
- Jets
- Chopper
- Etc.
- Best Terrain
- Best Add-on
- Best Modification
- Best Utility
- Etc.
We do not want these to be a COMBATSIM.COM awards per se; rather, we hope these awards will be something like the People's Choice Awards for movies. Perhaps an appropriate name for the awards would be Players' Choice, or Simmers' Choice. We can vote on that issue too if required. All we ask is that we be allowed to remain the main sponsor of record for these awards.
We hope this will become a regular event each year!
