Janes F15 is the most advanced military flight simulation ever released for the PC. In at least two areas it breaks new ground: flight modelling and wingmen command and control. In a third it goes beyond anything else yet seen: an incredibly deep and flexible mission builder.

In other areas it equals the best yet seen: avionics and weapons modelling. In graphics it lags compared to the standard set by F22 ADF or Hornet: Korea, but all the effects are there and object detail is as good or better than ADF.

After eight hours with the final master and about thirty with various betas I wanted to post a first look at what we will all be playing with for the next while.

First, in my opinion, this is the BEST single player simulation on the market. The combination of an incredible flight model and deep and broad flight control combine to make it so. To save some time, let me revisit an earlier posting in the box below.

One of the things that I noticed as I spent time in the sim is that you aren't the only living entity out there: AI pilots also interact with one another. Your wingmen will cover each other, warn each other, and even report problems they see. IN short: they treat one another almost the same way they treat YOU. I can't believe that this hasn't been modelled previously: leave it to Janes to push the edge in the virtual pilot modelling too. In one flight I heard THREE call to FOUR to tell him his left engine was on fire. FOUR then had another problem and called to "ANY ALLIED FLIGHT" that he was going to eject. Once he did eject THREE called in his location to Search and Rescue. = ) Believe it or not, these guys will even confirm one anothers kills! (Check out this Glossary if "ENGAGED DEFENSIVE" or "FOX 2" puts you in knots).

Your WSO (Weapons Officer) position is modelled with this depth too. This guy will be on your case when you make dumb moves and will butter you up when you do well. He'll also cue you to bandits and other things you need to know, like the smoke coming out of your left engine! You will hear him strain when you pull too many Gs.. a good thing to notice because pulling Gs in an F15 Eagle is not a good idea. Go past five or six Gs for a few seconds and it will take you a LONG time to get that energy back!

Better yet, when he calls out that missile inbound you can hit your Padlock WSO Threat key and instantly watch what he is watching. Damn, this guy is GOOD! Naturally, you can jump into the back seat whenever you want. The best use of this ability is just to keep other displays at your fingertips for quick viewing. The shot below taken from the back seat gives you a good sense of the effort typical of Janes.

Yes, this level of AI interaction places more demands on you. Bill "Cowboy" Wilson commented in the F15 mailing list:

The "setup" of the engagement once you have detected your enemy at long range (you had better see them first) by positioning your wingman/element/division or flight properly will usually count the most to determine the outcome of the engagement... you are not alone up there and you better learn how to work as a team or you will not get far... I assure you of this point. By the same token you cannot "hide" and send your men to deal with the threat alone all of the time either or they will die and not gain vital experience you need them to which enables them to help you later in the campaign. The information above also applies to enemy SAMs and AAAs as well.

You want AI? Janes gives us AI: "Q: Is "losing sight" modeled in enemy (and friendly, for that matter) AI?" A: If you think about it, if you manuever hard to avoid a missile, you won't immediately turn right onto the bogey. Sure, you'll turn in the general direction and begin another radar search, but (and this *is* a tactic) the enemy could have made a major altitude change after launching, making it difficult for you to regain contact. Usually it would be pointless to make such a manuever in a sim because the computer always knows where you are and the AI just points down or up and finds you right away, anyway. Same as for turning dogfights, etc, etc... YES, the AI will lose you like a real pilot would, the AI are simulated to have blind spots like real pilots.

Mission Builder

The mission builder is looking as amazing as promised. I haven't had time to explore the intricacies yet but we will have a full report soon. In the meantime, here is a jpg. Click on the image to bring up a larger screen. The options shown are the ones you get when you place a friendly aircraft.

I pulled up the M Builder yesterday thinking I would hop in and create an awesome mission to post for all you lurking fans. No way, this thing requires some TIME. But it will obviously be time well spent. Good grief, there is so MUCH here! Those of who loved to create missions for USNF are gonna be in your glory with this one, and I am already drooling thinking about playing the missions that will be floating around on the net. Yes, we will be happy to host missions here for download. The release of this powerful tool will keep F15 pilots happy for a LONG time this year!

A few of the salient features: You can add your voice as if it was a distress call from downed aviators, enemy planes trying to contact you, special orders from the AWACS, a patch through from Bill Clinton after you toast a target in Iran... whatever your imagination suggests. (Start bugging your voice impersonator friends...) I'm sure that many missions we see on the net will equal or surpass the stock missions that come with the game.

You can place objects anywhere (except on top of each other). You can create your own environments anywhere you want. Many of the cities are populated, but some are not (we leave that to you). There is NO an "action sphere" in this game. If you want to place a chemical facility and defenses someplace deep in Iran and have AI aircraft attack it, no problem. You do not have to interact with this or "be there" for these events to happen. So in other words, you could be sitting at the base at Al Kharj, switch views to a target in Iran and watch the battle unfold.

You can place factories, refineries, tank farms, airports, and a bunch of other buildings using the mission builder. The world is populated with something like 14,000+ objects (and campaign missions bump this up over 20,000+). In general, the further you travel from the center of the world, the less populated it will be. It's easy enough to add things in the builder.

Pushing the Limits

So, is this sim PERFECT? No, it ain't. There is no ground turbulence modelling and I was sorry to see that. I suspect that it was considered too demanding on CPU time, so maybe we will see it added in a later update for those who have V2 boards. The key mapper, while an incredible concept and taken to levels I've never seen before, doesn't always work and has even kicked me out to my WIN95 desktop on one occasion. Unfortunately, I've also been kicked to my desktop for no apparent reason in the middle of an otherwise calm flight!

Oddly, there is no map scale, and total flight distance is not reported in the briefings or measurable on the maps. There are notes on fuel requirements, however, so that you know to carry three tanks when the briefing so notes.

While there is a ton of voice interaction with wingmen, AWACS, ATC, JSTARS etc., the voice of your WSO, your wingmen and yourself sound a bit... lame. Mostly voices are great: that canned sound you expect to hear. For some reason this doesn't carry over to the voices in your own aircraft and your wingmen.

Combat jettison allows you to dump your external fuel tanks. However, if you have exhausted your wing tanks but not your center tank, there isn't a way to jettison ONLY your wing tanks. In fact the manual states that the center tank is used first, but this is an error and it doesn't work this way. Even if you select the center tank your wing tanks will be used first. Apparently the real F15 allows only jettisoning ALL tanks at the same time.

There are no pilot stats. This omission is an odd one. While the sim itself endears you to your wingmen like few others before it, there is nothing to help you maintain that feeling of immersion and connection between missions. Too bad.

At times the voice comms lose their intelligence. I've had my WSO call out, "Ouch! That hurt!" six times in succession, maybe more! One needs a virtual gag to apply when he completely loses his mind...

I can't seem to break lock (backspace) when in virtual cockpit mode, though it works once you go back to regular cockpit view. Makes dogfighting difficult when you are trying to lock up another bogey.

Resolution is limited to 640x480. Again, if there is enough demand perhaps a later edition will see this bumped up. Personally I don't mind the limit; the sim looks good enough that its really unimportant. I DO miss an anti-aliasing ability, however, and now that this is resident IN HARDWARE on Voodoo2 I hope we will see it added four external views in a later patch. Frame rate is fine of my AMD233 with 3dfx, but with detail to the max you will notice a drop when things get hairy. I expect that I have seen it go as low as 10 fps even under 3dfx.

While the manuals are great and the expert manual is especially good, we could have used a more detailed command card, or even an additional card documenting the views, both those supported in the default modes as well as those we could program ourselves. The views work differently depending on where one starts and this can be confusing. Flexibility is great, but such a high degree of it then requires more explanation to remain user friendly.

If you still don't have a 3dfx board, the release of the second generation should make PLENTY of used boards available out there; this is the time to upgrade. Be aware, however, that black out and white out effects don't always work properly under 3dfx. If you have lines like this "SET SST_RGAMMA=1.70" in your autoexec file you will have to REM them out. Also, ensure that the screen refresh rate is below 72hz.

If you are ready to make the jump to V2 check out our last Voodoo2 Update. Software only mode is okay but doesn't compare to the look of 3dfx. If you need some Thrustmaster files for your F22 and TQS to start you out click HERE

Originally I was running F15 on my PII 300 system with 3dfx, and I was amazed by the lengthy pauses on a medium install (170 megs). I discoverd that my 24x CD Rom goes into neutral and then has to spin up on demand. Pauses could be as long as four or five seconds! I switched to my AMD 233 system to do some checking on my 12x SCSI, same size install. Pauses were almost unnoticeable on that system. So.. for those with a 24x CD, you will want to find a way to do the complete install.