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COMBATSIM: Looking back at TAW again, players had to rise through ranks ( stars) to be allowed to play the more difficult and important missions. Did you keep this or a like feature in Typhoon?
Don: You can't compare Typhoon with TAW in this respect. In Typhoon, your progress depends very much on how you manage the available pilots. If you lose pilots, you will ultimately lose the battle. The best players will keep all of their pilots fit and well through the campaign. You will be rewarded for good performance, and conversely if one of your pilots messes up badly he or she may end up being grounded.
Fig. 2. Padlock and Cockpit viewCOMBATSIM: Can you give us an example of one of the scenarios and the time it is supposedly set?
Don: There is just one scenario… the Battle for Iceland, set early this century. In addition to the more traditional mission profiles, there will be a host of special missions to fly as well. Typhoon is unlike any other sim - the campaign IS the game. You even do your training in the campaign by starting in peacetime.
COMBATSIM: Will we be able to set up new missions to fly for ourselves ( or possibly for AI pilots) like EF2000 TACTCOM let us do?
Don: You can pick missions from the lists made available to the pilots, then modify them if you desire. You can also generate 'ferry' missions to move your pilots around the island, either to safety if the enemy advance quickly, or to bring up reserves to a forward airbase. In addition, the types of missions generated is also determined by which pilots you select at the beginning. If you are a fan of mud moving, then choose the pilots with the relevant skills.
COMBATSIM: Will the ground-war be fully operational in campaigns? Will we see ground-troops move and position themselves stetegically and actually engage the enemy rather than shoot about when they incidentally encounter (again, as in TAW)
Don: The ground war is key to Typhoon. The enemy will capture 'sectors' of the island which you must recapture. You won't see individual troops as such, but you will see tanks and armoured vehicles fighting all over the island. Allied units will try to engage the enemy and will call for air support to help win the battle. The new Brimstone weapon is fantastic in the tank busting role (it's a modified Hellfire).
COMBATSIM: What about navy activities?
Don: Yes there will be enemy shipping and a marine assault force.
COMBATSIM: Will there be aircraft-carriers with planes taking off/landing, both allied and enemy?
Don: You won't see the aircraft carriers.
Afterword
Fig. 3. Takeoff from Airport
After reading through the q&a a couple of times, the goods and bads start to surface. Rage, formerly DID, has a high reputation to maintain in the sim-market; when they published EF2000 back in 95, it was a quantum-leap in combat jet-sims. It featured the first truly semi-dynamic campaign, had ground-breaking graphics and to me and thousands of other EF2000 veterans struck the perfect balance between gameplay and realism.
One thing people always desired from DID was a true integrated ground-war and mud-moving missions; the Eurofighter, now named Typhoon, is an excellent all-round plane and with its many weapon pylons and Rage's extensive A2G weapon modelling, you can really wreak havoc. IN EF2000 there were only SAMs, AAA guns, planes and buildings. Only 1 scripted mission let you interveine in a tank battle and that one ruled ;)
TAW introduced many vehicles but still, they did little more than purposely wander around the theatre and only engaged should they meet enemy units. Also, there weren't any missions that let you engage enemy ground forces. Although Typhoon still doesn't model troops, it 'll be a joy to go back up in the greyish northern skies, this time over iceland, with my sleek Typhoon, with even more extensive comms and when the commander of the 2nd armored battalion radios for help, I'll lose myself as I scream into the valley and cluster the enemy tanks, APCs, AAA, artillery, SAMs, jeeps, trucks,... striaight into oblivion (pardon the druling)The true innovation of this campaign engine is its "pilot-modelling" and the unique approach to random events. Many people who dislike truly dynamic campaigns do so because they feel they lack control and they also seem to excpect to be the one who makes the campaign a victory or a loss. Normal dynamic campaigns don't lean to such an approach. Now that you have the ability to manage pilots, you can go beyond flying the random missions and assign good pilots to important flights. This gives you some limited control over what goes on outside of your cockpit. As pilots are seemingly modeled 24/7 you have to keep them out of harms way, or suffer dearly. Also, the random events add some surprise to the campaign and should keep the player interested instead of working just working through the missions.
If you think about it I'm sure you'll realise the potential this campaign egine has. Whether it lives up to its promises, that remains to be seen of course. We'll keep you posted.
