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Typhoon Interview with Rage Studios
by Geert "Warrior" Vervoort

In our first interview with Don Whiteford, Typhoon project leader at Rage Studios, Warrington UK, Don answered some general questions. In this second interview, we will go more in-depth into the campaign part.

Fig. 1. Typhoon coasts over the hills

COMBATSIM: At first, there was a lot of speculation about what you referred to as "event triggered phases" in the campaign. Could you expand on that?

Don: The dynamic campaign that DID pioneered uses AI commanders to determine what strategy to use, which targets to attack, what forces to deploy with which aircraft/vehicles. It is based on John Warden's 'five ring principle' which is technically an incredible achievement by the campaign's designer, Steve Hunt. However, real war is never straightforward, and events happen that all the exercises in the world can never prepare you for; e.g. Exocet in the Falklands, Scuds in the Gulf, VI and V2 rockets, the H bomb, the death of a key commander, the capture of key territory thought to be invincible, etc, etc. When you read accounts of wars, they focus on the tactical successes and blunders, and the unexpected. Sometimes, when all hope seems lost, something turns up that changes the tide of war. Our challenge was to inject these qualities into a campaign that fights according to known doctrine. There is another motive: surprise the player constantly. Once a pattern of missions is established - bomb this target, intercept that aircraft - a routine is established, and although the dynamic campaign makes it hard to determine whether it will be an easy or difficult mission, the mission objectives remain constant (airfield interdiction always means taking out key airbase targets). By setting up key events, and firing them into the dynamic campaign at well-chosen points, we inject a new element of chaos into the war that will take the player by surprise. When we say a 'triggered event', this is not a pre-scripted mission, but a set of conditions that will give rise to the possibility of certain events happening.

COMBATSIM: It seems there are some elements in it from Total Air War's campaign engine ( WarGen2). Did you upgrade the engine or is Typhoon's campaign engine an entirely new product on its own?

Don: The campaign engine is indeed a refinement of the one in TAW, which in turn was refined from EF2000. As you can imagine, there are a lot of man-years development time in the engine and a lot of experience of what works and what doesn't. I don't know of any other company that has a campaign engine with a heritage like Typhoon's.

COMBATSIM: Another important part of any sim are its multiplayer capabilities. Will we be able to play a campaign with multiple players?

Don: In short, no… we don't provide a multi-player campaign. There are co-operative missions and a host of other multiplay challenges.

COMBATSIM: Will there be integral support for internet multiplayer services like Mplayer or The Zone? How about voice comms over internet with features like Roger Wilco or Battle commander?

Don: While we don't support a specific service provider, Typhoon has the features needed for hook-up over the Internet. We don't provide our own voice comms system, but in theory products like Roger Wilco should work with Typhoon (not tested as yet, however).