Q: Thanks for taking the time! Fighter Ace II builds on the original and is attempting to push the boundaries in a number of areas. Can you summarize how you are moving beyond the original?

PC: We are introducing hardware acceleration, which was not available in FA 1.X: We will continue to support our software only pilots, and indeed improve the software rendered quality, but under D3d or Glide, users will see dramatic enhancements to the current offering. We will look awesome!

We are adding the concept of Territorial Combat, offering a fully dynamic war environment using tanks for capture of ground targets and train and road units for logistical supply. The actions you take in the air as a pilot determine the success of both attack and defense of your country on the ground. Providing the ability to take and lose runways allows us to run events with specific victory conditions and also enables us to accurately recreate actual historical battles.

FA II will provide a much more realistic flight model. Our new physics engine enables us to model many more of the intricacies of realistic flight, as well as offer a complete range of flight difficulty levels and game types. This means that ANY player, from the just-hatched newbie to the hardened grognard can find a flight difficulty level and game to match their level of play.

The foundation of Fighter Ace is our community, so our concerted effort in FA II was targeted at developing tools to enable creation of more robust tournaments and events.

Some of the things we've made possible with Fighter Ace II include: Historical scenarios with accurate maps and terrain characteristics; Scriptable AI units which can simulate enemy ground or air forces; Even larger arenas to support the typically large numbers of players we get for events:

Victory conditions that can be specified and enforced by the server; Ghosting for players after death in combat that will allow continued spectator mode creating a virtual stadium for any events.

User Definable arenas will also allow users to create and host private games with many of the settings available on our servers. Essentially giving them the power to create their own customized events!

FA2 Prefs

Like all other combat flight sims, FA 1.X suffered from the traditional problems of getting people used to this new environment and aware of what to do and how to maneuver in a virtual plane. Computer games cannot model the "seat of the pants" forces that provide real pilots with feedback about what is going on in their environment. Thus, all games introduce user feedback methods that may not be familiar to new players and impose a substantial learning curve.

With FAII we will guide our users through this unfamiliar territory with a series of focused offline missions. Players will learn about instrumentation and terminology in a safe offline environment, giving them the time to learn essential combat skills before being plunged into the online arenas.

Users will have the opportunity to learn combat techniques: situational awareness, and bombing and ground attack techniques. The ability to do all this offline, without the pressure of a hundred hungry bogies in the same sky, is essential to a good first time user experience.

Typhoon in Trouble

As with our User Defined games, this whole offline section for FAII is a complete departure from the Fighter Ace 1.X model. Our players are empowered to choose nearly every aspect of the experience, not just setting flight difficulty, but also all of the elements within each flight type so that they can focus on whatever aspect, at whatever level of flight combat they want to.

Q: This past year we've seen incredible advances in virtually every area of modeling on the PC. Fighter Squadron was ground breaking in it's simulating real-world physics, even in such esoterica as landing-gear and belly landing physics. How will these developments be reflected in Fighter Ace II?

Physics and FM

PC: With Fighter Ace II we went back to the drawing board for the flight modeling, and the results from VR-1 are stunning!

The beauty of FA II flight modeling is in its incredible flexibility. Fighter Ace's strength has always been ease of entry and we have improved on that for Fighter Ace II. Fighter Ace II creates an entry path for players to start in an arcade environment that is quite forgiving but challenging, and as they progress they can ratchet up the flight difficulty in arenas that will offer all the realistic flight modeling they can stand.

The good news for players is that this is all preset for each arena so that all online users will be flying by the same rules, but in the offline environment users can practice with whatever settings they desire.

Our new physics engine is a state of the art, force based model, and creates much more realistic modeling of the aircraft we put in our game. We will be modeling many more force moments in FA II than in Fighter Ace 1.X. Forces we're modeling include:

the recoil of your machine guns and cannon, compressibility, wind, force moments from hits and damage to your airframe, multi-engine modeling with independent control, engine torque effects, payload and ordnance moments, unequal flap deployment due to damage, over-speeding in flight, belly landings, and a new improved spin model. (Can you tell I'm excited?)

The total list of features is significant and we feel very confident of the caliber of game we are delivering. One overriding goal of the entire Fighter Ace II team has been to insure that even with all this advanced modeling Fighter Ace II will still be the most fun you can have in the air on the Net.

The Big Difference is that our Fighter Ace players will be able to grow in the sim, learning more skills as pilots, and progressing to fly against more advanced pilots as they improve, making this a much more fulfilling game environment.

Q: When I first saw FAII at E3 this past May it was obvious that a new graphics engine was in the works. Tell us about this new engine and the artwork we'll see.

As I mentioned above, FA II is introducing 3D hardware acceleration. We will support both D3d and Glide. However this is not at the expense our Software only folks, they will be receiving the many improvements that effect both SW and HW modes.

Typhoon on Tanks

New Graphics Engine

One aspect of the graphics that is really exciting is our terrain. With Fighter Ace II we have really improved our terrain modeling. Our partners at VR-1 have done a great job in creating varied and interesting terrain. We now have snow capped peaks up to 21,000 feet!, sheer cliffs, narrow canyons, high passes and lowland terrain with rivers, lakes and shoreline.

Terrain modeling now utilizes full floating point processing, giving us huge improvements in the overall ground look, reducing the effects of crawl etc. The use of dynamic lighting and haze creates a more complete sky effect AND faster performance for the user.

Frame Rate

A key focus for FAII is to insure the player maximum performance in terms of frame rate and polygon count while introducing far superior visual terrain textures and the addition of many more object types.

Russian Tanks

The models for our aircraft have been reworked completely and for 3D card users, the cockpit art and views have also been improved dramatically. We are going to knock people's socks off with the articulation in the plane models and the overall graphic quality.

Q: The graphics boards now being released make good use of AGP. Will players with AGP hardware see a difference in FA II?

PC: Absolutely! AGP support is built into FAII. Players running an AGP bus will receive the benefits they should in video performance.

Q: Microsoft Combat Simulator has some of the most detailed explosions and damage effects out there. How will FA II compare?

PC: Basically, the two games have different areas of focus, and the focus of FA II is primarily on massively multiplayer game-play issues.

We will be putting over 300 players into a single arena. Graphics are not our major area of focus due to our download constraints. However, we are EXTREMELY happy with our effects and eye candy!

Sound and Voice

Q: I've been flying European Air War this past weekend. Guns and engine sounds and voice are fantastic. What are some of the highlights we can expect in the sound effects department for FA II? Will each aircraft type have its own engine sounds? What about voice?

PC: Fighter Ace II delivers plenty of engaging audio effects to keep our users well immersed in the ongoing battle! We created all new sounds, including new sounds depending on whether you are firing machine guns, cannon, or rockets, etc.

The sounds when a user is on the receiving end of a beating are now very impressive, replacing the tinny hollywood ping with much more realistic and terrifying thuds and thwacks from enemy fire. You'll have to excuse my attempts to define a sound in a word, when you hear it you'll understand, but then again that would mean you were getting pasted…sorry. ;0)

FAII has also advanced on engine sounds, offering more tones for different engine states such as idling, sputtering, etc., as well as giving users this range of sound for both inline and radial engines. Of course by using Direct Sound, Fighter Ace II provides stereo sound modeling and terrific surround effects for explosions, and passing trains and tanks, etc.

In multiplayer air combat, static voice commands are nearly useless compared to stand alone games, and we are confident the range of audio we are providing will bring on the requisite adrenaline rush.

Damage Resolution

Q: Damage modeling has been another growth area lately. Can you give us a feel for how damage effects and damage resolution will work in FA II?

PC: There are plenty of new damage effects in FA II, so have your parachute ready!!!

In both self-induced and enemy induced damage modeling, FAII has come a long way. There are now a plethora of damage components, linking either directly, or through a parental dispersion system to the physics engine that controls the flight of the planes. Basically we have broken the aircraft down into subcomponents such as the outer wing, inner wing, engine, etc., and sub-sub components below those levels. Damage to sub-sub components affects the parent systems and vice versa.

PE8 in Trouble

User induced damage may be a result of exceeding airframe stress limits, which can cause damage to subsystems like flaps, gear or interior fuselage and wing damage. Damage to such components can be reflected in things as simple as the flaps or landing gear stuck in place, or more catastrophically they can be torn off which simulates the most frequent conditions of such actions.

Believe me, you are going to be an unhappy camper when you try to deploy flaps for landing, only to find that just ONE of them was damaged by gunfire J. You'll be amazed at how fast you can be turned upside down traveling at 150 mph over the pavement. It's very hard on canopies.

Over stress of airframe loading is modeled for each plane, and inappropriate actions by the pilot may result in partial or total wing loss. As every pilot knows, you need those things, so beware of that tempting shot that requires you to pull out just a bit harder!! In addition users can also cause damage to other plane components, overheating guns, over speeding on engines etc

Damage from enemy fire can effect the main damageable components for each plane: L/R wings, aircraft cabin(s), engine(s), fuselage, stabilizers etc.. In addition this new damage modeling also transfers damage information like the type and speed of the damaging object (i.e. armor piercing, or explosive bullets, etc.) and it's power to the child objects of these components. Thus, realistic effects in fuel tank damage or oxygen equipment damage can be sustained and added to the overall damage condition of the plane.

In total, this leads to a much more interesting flight, and often death, of your virtual pilot and his opponents. A key point is that depending on the flight model or arena the user is flying under, all or only some of these damage conditions may be set.

Again, we offer the maximum flexibility in game-play to insure that our players have the maximum amount of fun in the places THEY want to play.

Q: Team Apache introduced weather in a big way in 1998. What will we see in FA II in the way of turbulence, wind and weather effects?

Wind, Aircraft Models

PC: Wind is a modeled component in FAII, but for the most part we are staying clear of that level of granularity. FAII is an online action game emphasizing real pilot vs. real pilot combat, this level of detail is not where we feel our users want us to concentrate. You don't want to wonder if you lost the last fight due to weather or other game conditions. We feel there is more than enough to worry about with hundreds of real pilots in the sky without wondering if the weatherman was correct.

Q: What aircraft will we fly in FA II and why were these chosen?

PC: Hmmm, well the simple answer is, "lots!" You will fly a wide variety of different aircraft. In Fighter Ace II we are putting out over 30 aircraft. We have added an entire set of Japanese planes and we have added flyable bombers for all countries.

At this time, the exact set of aircraft is not totally set, but in the beta our users will see the main groups that we are shipping. We are definitely adding favorites such as:

• Chance Vought Corsair F4U
• Hawker Typhoon Ib
• Mitsubishi Zero A6M5.

Some of the early war planes we have added are:

• Polikarpov I16
• BF109 E
• KI61 Hien (Tony)

Right now, I can tell you unequivocally that it is an interesting, varied and very competitive set. We have aircraft from the early war period right through to late war battle machines.

The new physics model also enables users to customize the load-out of their plane. Pilots can vary the amount of fuel, set the convergence points for their machine guns & cannon, as well as choosing to carry a variety of rockets and bombs (depending on what the actual air frame can support).

Users will find it easy to quickly learn the types of planes they want to use most for the type of play they are going to engage in. We created a game where users will want and need to use a variety of aircraft for different purposes: ground attack, bomber escort, level bombing, dive-bombing, high ALT dog fighting. We have offered the perfect choice of weapon for your choice of battle.

We have taken pains to avoid the uber plane scenario, that of an all-powerful death star that ruins gameplay and we look forward in beta to our users feedback on the plane choices and modeling.

Lancaster

The plane set was also chosen to allow large-scale events and historical community battles to be waged with the planes that would have been in use. When you look at World War II itself, most of the really interesting battles where one side or the other could have won, were waged in the early war years, before the ultimate planes were developed by each country. Our plane set will keep early and late war aficionados happy, allowing for fantastically fun re-enactment of war in North Africa, the Spanish Civil War, Battle of Kursk, and the early air war in China etc…

With control from the server for what planes are available in an arena and the performance values of those planes, our next generation of Fighter Ace events will be even more balanced and awesome! Picture droves of Hurricane IIC's descending on masses of German armor in the deserts of North Africa! Epic scenarios like this are what make massively multiplayer distinct from stand-alone sims. Once you've experienced REAL combat against REAL people it's hard to play anything else!

Player Art, Profiles

Q: Will the player be able to add his own paint schemes or his own markings?

PC: Player art was one of those features that we just couldn't fit into the schedule. We toyed with it, but something else would have suffered, so it didn't make the cut this time. It will be great to add this later, especially for squadron play, but it didn't make it into FA II.

Rapier

We do however offer far more in FAII to those hoards of squadrons out there! Using the Zone dossier and profile system, users can create, petition and administer teams automatically. In addition, the system will handle squad URL listings and member lists etc. In game, users will have the choice to fly under their own individual ID, or with any of the squads they are affiliated with. We will also be tracking scoring on the FAII database for squadrons and squadrons can select their own specific in-game communications channels!

Q: FAII is primarily an online multiplayer game. What difference does this make for the developer, compared to a game designed primarily for single player fun?

PC: As we have hit on above, online game development has many technical issues that single player games just don't have to address. Multiplayer gaming across the internet introduces complex issues, including latency of connection, data loss and client performance - all are paramount in the online world. There is nothing worse than closing on somebody to find in the next instant that they have jumped 100 yards and are now on YOUR six.

In addition there is the element of real people playing against each other. This introduces the human element, undocumented and totally unpredictable! Complexities ranging from hack prevention, to ease of inter-player communication, to dispute resolution are major challenges for online developers that are simply not as significant for the developers of stand alone games.

In the case of FAII, we also added the "massive" to multiplayer. The community IS the game!! Pleasing people in a massively multiplayer world is a lot more challenging. In massively multiplayer games, more people equates to a greater the challenge, and for the player - a great deal more fun!!

The Mission Set

Q: What kind of missions will the offline player have to choose from?

PC: The missions will introduce people at a gentle pace to the world of combat flight. We will teach people basic flight techniques, air combat maneuvers and also gunnery, basic ground attack and situational awareness. We have a scripting language that allows us to respond with messaging to the actions a user takes. This way, we can guide and teach in a hands-on fashion. Because the user can choose offline the flight difficulty and effects they want to model, the training becomes as hard or easy as they want it to be.

The new physics model has also enabled us to produce drone planes. These computer controlled enemy and friendly planes combined with the training missions can simulate real online battle and teach the skills needed to survive in the online world. With scripting for these planes we can have users attempt to down bombers, dogfight with multiple bogies etc, all from the relative security of offline mode.

F4U on Runway

Q: Is there a mission builder? Will player created missions be available for online play?

PC: Rather than have users create missions, we've chosen to improve the ability for users to host private games. Users can choose what planes are available, determine what physics model to use, choose limited or unlimited fuel & ammo, select their own victory conditions, and most importantly - they can password protect the arena so they can control who they fly with.

Q: How do you prevent players from cheating by flying a light model when others are flying in high realism?

PC: We control key variables like the physics model from the server side. The arena definitions are published for each arena type, so players will know what to expect. We will be able to control the plane and country available and flight model difficulty. Everybody in a particular arena will be playing by the same rules.

Q: Will FA II support dynamic entry?

PC: Fighter Ace has always supported dynamic entry. All games, even private games are hosted here on the zone, so the performance of the server is guaranteed and users can jump in and out as they please.

Q: Will there be real time voice interaction in the sim?

PC: More and more users are utilizing some form of voice connection when playing online. It can really add to the game quality, particularly in squadron play. FAII will not integrate support for any real time voice software into the game client, but FA already works with voice technologies such as BattleCom and Roger Wilco.

More on Multiplayer

Q: How many players will be able to fly in the same game, and at what required connection speed?

PC: We will host games of over 300 people. That's 300+ people in the same massive war environment. Talk about your target rich environment! The scenario may be a historical event or tournament, but either way it's bound to be enormous fun.

We will provide rooms from the rank beginners all the way through to totally experienced pilots "bulls-eyeing" Tiger tanks in our Total War rooms. If you've never tried it, I strongly recommend flying in one of our historical scenarios. The feelings you have while going through briefing, lining up with your squadron on the runway, and then flying in formation across to a known battlefront are heart pounding.

Ki-61 at Mountain

The adrenaline rush you get when bogies are first called out has to be experienced to be believed. FAII will thrill users to bits with events that will reproduce the full spectrum of air combat scenarios for our players. All this will be provided at a level that will still support those people with good old 28.8 modems!

Q: Will force-feedback controls be supported?

Full force feedback integration is being supported. Users will have the subtle feelings of gear retractions along with the more definite feeling of a stall shake or a 30-mm cannon hit to your armor plate. It all adds to the incredible realism of Fighter Ace II air combat.

Q: Thanks, and best of luck with a very promising sim!