To date we've taken a peek at comms and wingman control,
talked a bit about the cockpit, rehearsed the feeling of
flight, and reviewed a scramble mission. We've also hit at
the damage model and physics and talked about HOTAS issues,
and reviewed some info on the TEWS and radar Auto
Acquisition modes. This time around I want to look at the
padlock and views, and give you an overview of the mission
and campaign structure.
Mission Structure: From Training to Campaigns
As you would expect from Janes, its all here: training
missions, configurable instant action, single missions,
campaigns, and Janes online.
The screen at left shows the instant action setup. If you
bring up the larger image you will see that the parameters
you are selecting offer a great deal of variety. So if you
want to just jump in and fly, you can go for it! Want to
try me against the world? Its there. Want to set up a
ground attack mission with a single wingman at night,
against the toughest defense the enemy can muster? No
problem. Well, it might be a problem, but you can fly it if
you want to!
Meantime, the single mission choices are substantial. What
surprised me was the variety of ATO that has been designed
by Janes. You can choose from the typical ground strikes or
air to air engagements, a combination style mission, and
even some rather unusual ones like stopping hijacked
aircraft or defending yourself and your mates from your old
friends after having gone rogue!
Training missions range from getting the feel of your
aircraft from takeoff to landing, learning to operate its
systems, to actual combat. You won't find the instructor
supervised missions of Longbow, but you will have ample
opportunity to learn systems in environments ranging from
non-threat to high challenge.
As we already knew, there are two possible campaigns: the
UN war with Iraq (Desert Storm), and a hypothetical action
against Iran in 2002. Once you have chosen a campaign you
will get a video introduction and text summary of the
situation. Then the briefing screen will come up and you
can view the mission map, adjusting and filtering various
components according to your personal preference and also
accessing intel data.
There are three rows of buttons to the upper right of the
map interface that control the information displayed on the
map. You can toggle friendly, neutral and enemy aircraft,
ground defense and radar sites, weapon ranges, airbases,
and labels. Then you may also add, move or delete
waypoints. And, of course, you can zoom in and out or even
click on REVERT to restore the original setup.
Having done this, its time to choose an airframe. Initially
your choices won't mean much, but in later missions an
airframe that is shot up MAY have to be flown if you are
low on aircraft. And wingmen will grow in skill, so losing
members of your flight later on will be costly. Going into
battle with seasoned vets has its advantages!
Following this selection you go to arming and assign
loadouts. There are about fifteen pre-determined loadouts,
but the genius of this station is the ability to create and
save CUSTOM loadouts. Of course, that doesn't mean your
preferred load will always be available. Choose AMRAAMs for
your first ten missions and you may not have any available
for the next five or six, depending on how you set up the
realism options in your campaign.
An interesting addition to this section is a Weapon Advisor
function. Clicking on the Advisor button brings up a brief
tutorial that matches weapon types to targets. The match
can be made either way: choosing a weapon brings up a list
of appropriate targets, and vice versa.
After this you move to the Targetting screen. The primary
use of this screen is to get a look at the target area so
you recognize when it you get there. A more advanced use,
however, is that whenever a mission has a ground target you
have the option of undesignating targets or choosing
alternate ones. One target is assigned per waypoint per
pilot and you can adjust assigments to your liking.
As for the feeling in the campaign, if you've read
Smallwoods' book on the Eagle in Desert Storm, you will
know what to expect! CJ Martin commented on the newsgroup
recently: "The Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign is based
solidly in fact. The ground defenses are pretty numerous,
and the full up KARI air warning network is in place at the
beginning of the war...to be taken down piece by piece
during the opening days (and nights). The Iraqi Air Force
did make some feeble attempts at interception (and now with
post war analysis, it seems likely that they got a single
kill against a USN F/A-18). Will there be 'waves of MiGs'?
NO! However, the AI level you set for the enemy aircraft
could have a dramatic difference on how well the bad guys
fight (obviously). And yes, later in the conflict, the
Iraqi's will attempt to flee to Iran... "
Room with a View
Views in F15 are similar in layout to those in Janes
Longbow. Cardinal views are supported, and also a virtual
cockpit with a pan function. The vc has roughly 60 degrees
field of view and a padlock function very similar to that
in Longbow.
Thats good, because it means the learning curve for using
the cockpit in F15 will be a bit shorter for those familiar
with Janes Longbow. Hit F4 once to get to the virtual
cockpit, and F4 the second time as a padlock function. F1
brings you back to the fixed view, and F2 brings you the
look down full instrument view.
Padlock is implemented in such a way that in high realism
modes you will NOT be able to crane your neck beyond
standard human limitations. If an object moves beyond this
physical limit for more than a few seconds you will lose
your padlock and have to manouver to reacquire.
However, there is an unusual function supported in F15 that
would have been great in Longbow, but perhaps is even more
necessary in a fixed wing sim where you can't hover to look
over your instruments. F15 gives us the ability to pull up
a quick MFD view while in VC mode. The MFDs that appear
when you invoke this function pop up in the center of your
screen in one block and will be the ones you currently have
active in your three forward MPD displays, most likely
radar, TEWS and TSD, though in some situations it will be a
LANTIRN display or Frozen ground map.
As you can see from the shot above right, Longbow doesn't
hold a lot over F15. Dynamic lighting, glare and smoke
effects are very nicely done and explosions are coming
along nicely also.
As noted in a previous article, there are TWO separate
manuals designed for F15: a casual mode, 4o page manual,
and the expert mode, 350 page manual. Here is a summary of
the main sections in the Expert manual:
1. Interface. General instructions, Main Menu, Training,
Campaigns, Instant Action, SIngle Missions and Reference.
3. Flight. 20 pages on dynamics including physics,
g-forces, flight characteristics and flight disruptions,
another fifteen on takeoff and landing, navigating and
refuelling.
4. Combat. Loadouts, A2A Engagement, A2G Engagement,
Getting out alive.
5. Mission Builder. Main Screen, Designing a Mission, Intro
to Mission Builder, Mission Features.
