Click for full size shot.

About 2 months ago, two fellows from opposite sides of the world pooled their talents and embarked on a path they'd both dreamed of for quite some time. United by their passion for combat simulation gaming and the hunger for more than what the software developers had meted out in their programs, they freely offered their resources to put their ideas into action, not knowing exactly where their efforts would lead. They were determined to satisfy their gaming hunger and give others what they also had longed for.

Inspired by the pioneering efforts of a couple of European fellows, MadCowan and Henze, a guy from the U.S., WarDogz, began experimenting with making addons for F22ADF. He was zealously persuing the co-op missions he'd been yearning for for several years from Digital Image Design.

At the same time, a programer from Denmark, Bimo, daydreamed constantly of programming a co op mission editor for EF2000. Bimo, having heard of WarDogz' great success in making both detailed single player missions for F22ADF and the first ever multiplayer co op missions, made first contact... and the fruit of that meeting has produced several programs beautifully suited for F22ADF. The flowering of that effort is AGE, ADF Gui Editor.

AGE is a graphical user interface that allows a player to both generate, recreate, or build from scratch detailed missions for F22ADF by Digital Image Design. The user will find in AGE both a quick method of generating new and surprising missions as well as a detailed tool to construct add on missions with the rich depth of detail that F22ADF offers in the missions it supports. A Windows95 interface, AGE supports point and click actions, drop down menus, hotkeys, clipboard actions, file and directory browsing, and a Windows help file system...and much, much more!

AGE's two main windows offer the user a highly zoomable game map of the F22ADF world that shows aircraft, ground mobile units, static ground sites and targets along with their waypoints, map co ordinates and many other items of information. The Properties window, contains detailed information for each selected flight or group and has tabs to open further windows with even more particulars. Going between screens, the player can see "the big picture" and "the little details" that make up this world at war!

Click for full size shot.

AGE offers the user many program options and features with customizable programs settings for frequently repeated actions; map symbiology colors, game and program directories, and other nice conveniences. Here a player can set things such as snapping waypoints to the nearest object when moving them, whether it be a static site or a ground or air target...for those precise flight and group movement actions. This feature is also nice when giving commands to ground mobile units to do a general attack on a static site...attacking the first buildings they come to. An option for auto switching between windows brings your properties windows to the front when the mouse cursor moves off the enlarged map.

The Map screen has many filter selections which the user can overlay the map with airbases or other static site locations for each nation. When an airbase is selected you will see an overlay of all airbases on the map. For static ground sites, Ports throughout the map are selected, then we add Industrial sites, and finally all static sites are displayed.

One of AGE's many nice features is the option that allows a user to "Import" and "Export" missions files. Being able to take an already made mission, such as one of WarDogz own earlier creations, the user can edit in new flights or ground mobiles, remove them, or edit the current or new mission's details. Importing can be done from the missions currently loaded in the ADF "Game" or from a mission "Folder" where you have all of your favorites stored.

AGE offers filters for viewing the missions information on the screen. This feature allows the user to limit the amount of information available to see for ease of editing object waypoints.

AGE allows the user options to limit the amount of what he can edit. This is done in the "Realism" option, which can be set for the players flight only, a "General" setting for his flight and the Allies flights and mobiles, or for "All" which give the user a picture of everything in the mission...this can be effectively used to represent the 'fog of war'. Say a friend makes a mission and sends it to you with a limited briefing, you can then load the mission and edit in your flights information, loading weapons, setting waypoints, and even placing new flights and mobile units...all this done with only a "hint" of what's out there.

AGE comes complete with a Mission Generator for quick instant missions. The Mission Generator allows the player select mission "Type", the missions "Objective", Time of Day, "Difficulty" (including a truly "impossible" level) and a "Randomize feature allowing the Generator to mix it up for you.

The IMC have also created a detailed Script Editor that allows the user to "Add" small or large missions to the Generators database. Loading missions into AGE, such as the AWACS, Covert Mission Scenerio, from the default game shown in these screens, the user can then select flights or ground missions from them and "add" them to the database of the generator which will then be used when generating missions. IMC are not releasing the Script Editor but plan to use it to add more intelligent missions to the generator's database. They will then be adding missions and posting the new generator database file/s on their site as well as settigg up a page where AGE mission creators can upload their masterpieces to trade with everyone. These missions will be compatible with the LE version.

One of the options in F22ADF add on missions is the capability to simulate aircraft sytems failures, and AGE has incorporated this option into it's mission planning. In this area, the user can elect from many of the aircraft sytems and set a percentage of damage to occur at any time in the mission. Here we've simulated a 30% failure to the pressurization system to occur 6 hours into the players' game. Multiple systems failures at different intervals are even possible.

AGE's Properties window contains volumes of information pertinent to each aircraft and mobile unit in the game. Here the user selects the aircraft types for flights, the flight type and waypoint actions for each waypoint. Weapons are selected for each aircraft type choosing from predetermined weapons packages designed for the various intercept and strike missions types, or custom pylon placement. Target selection is shown in the properties window as well mission completion requirements which the player determines. Furthermore the Mission Briefing screen is edited from here letting the player describe fully the details of the mission.

When you first run the generator or import a mission you will notice that you can only see your flight's waypoints, and you will see small green and red circles. These circles are representative of the other flights and mobiles that are in the mission. They are displayed this way because AGE is set to display only the players flight by default...this default can be changed, or, you can leave it as is and change the filter by going to the "VIEW/REALISM" feature and select from the 3 filter options. The 2nd level of information will allow you to see all of your allie's flights/mobiles, and the 3rd level will allow ALL units on the map.

This default "pilot only" setting enables the player to import missions by others and edit his flight info only (or his allies in the 2nd level of filtering, etc...) and remain in the dark for the most part as to what's in the mission...it's a surprise/fog of feature.

AGE will continue to grow; the IMC have a long list of new features planned. There is also a file on the site (f22swap.zip) with instructions that if followed will allow the user to have both versions of ADF (patched and unpatched) by including just 2 files from the original unpatched install (about 4 megs of additional files...f22.dat and game.cfg) and the means to switch back and forth between the 2 versions with one mouse click. This enables the player to fly co-op multiplayer missions in the unpatched version or switch back to the patched version at any time...it works VERY slick. There are many multiplayer/co-op missions available including base attacks with tons of tank battles going on and LOTS of AAA and SAMS around and between the airbases.

The limited version and FULL version of AGE are now available for download. The shareware version of AGE will generate missions but will only allow a2a mission generation. The registered version with all features enabled sells for $19.95 US.