CSIM: Lets talk a bit about the campaign. What connects the missions?

Matt: We have levels. As you progress through the campaign, in each level, there are four to six missions. Depending on factors of randomness and success or failure will determine which missions you get when you advance to the next level.

For example, if you do very poorly in an offensive mission your next mission might be defensive. If you do well there your rating will improve and your crews overall ability will increase. Part of this is random also.

Now there is resource management here too. You're hitting the enemy and they are hitting you. Resources are lost somewhere, so if you destroy your primaries and some secondaries, the enemy will have less ability to a. field good pilots, b. field aircraft. The enemy is also advancing in their aircraft, and they have limited numbers of aircraft. If you are kicking ass all over the place missions will actuall y get easier for you. UNLESS.. the enemy rallies and throws everything they have at you to try to take you out...

CSIM: So there is an overall strategic AI happening too...

Matt. Yes. Its not incredibly apparent to you, as it wouldn't be to an average squadron leader. You don't control the whole war. Things happen, you 're told what to do, and you don't know exactly how tough the resistance will be today.

CSIM: I assume we are taking out hard targets, aircraft on the ground etc

Matt: thats part of your mission. Primary objective might be a strike to take out bunkers, secondary could be an airfield. If you can take out planes on the ground you may encounter less resistance next time. Or take out the AAA batteries..

CSIM: What about the naval aspect, how is that integrated?

Matt: We have ships, and aircraft carriers, and you will be tasked to engage them. They will also be defending themselves.

CSIM: And are they a resource factor?

Matt: Definitely. You may find, coming to base after an offensive mission, that your base is under attack from carrier based aircraft. If you had taken that ship out in the last mission your base wouldn't be under attack.

CSIM: Tell us about wind, turbulence, ground effect?

Matt: Yes, we have ground effect, and of course its different for different aircraft. We had to add the secondary landing flaps on the Me163 Komet because the plane has an incredible amount of ground effect. Turbulence is slated, its pretty simple to put in. We model altitude, compressibility so the ingredients are there. On a hot day these factors change.

CSIM: What about clouds?

Matt: We have fog, and we're working on ground patch fogging. We intend to have clouds, and we want to do them really nice. One of the problems is that we've really bumped up the graphics level of the program. We want them to match.

Click to continue . . .

CSIM: Have you considered a mission builder? Might we see it later?

Matt: We considered it, but don't have enough time. So yes, you might see it in a later add-on along with some additional aircraft. Its not entirely up to us, our publisher will have some input.

CSIM: What about sound? Will we hear the difference between a P51 and a Messerschmidt?

Matt: We do have a lot of sounds sampled already and we'll try to get more. We do have 3d positional sound. Of course in a real war when you have these huge engines its pretty unlikely that you would hear the enemy go by you, but there is some of that, including doppler shift. In fact we have two settings available to you for 3d sound: you can select speakers or headphones, which require two different algorithms. Stereo separation for headphones is hard to beat!

CSIM: What are we looking at for a minimum spec machine?

Matt: We are still on this balance beam of how many features we can include. Generally the biggest hit after rendering is the polygon matrix. We're looking at this point at a 166 MMX and for best performance you will want a 3d board with it. Of course if you run this at 1600x1200 you'll need a lot more than a 166 MMX. We allow whatever resolution your machine will do.

CSIM: WOW... what does this look like under SLI mode with Voodoo2?

Matt: The new version of our rendering engine has very, very good improvements under Voodoo2. SLI mode is great, and the most striking change is how this runs under NT with dual processors. On this platform the Voodoo2 board is fed fully and reaches its full potential. Even NT with a single processor gives a good performance gain since 2.0 is fully threaded.

CSIM: What multiplayer options will be in place and how many players can we expect to see online with TCP/IP?

Matt: There are a number of issues here. First is that to ensure that all the missions would work online would take us years of testing. So the first set of missions that will release for multiplayer will be the duel missions. These will also work over a LAN. The other issue is whose machine will host this? We're not trying to create WARBIRDS here with server machines hosting the work. SO we're planning to allow eight or nine people to play, cooperatively or whatever won't matter. Special combat missions will be available, whether from the main list or not, that are multiplayer certified. Will we allow people to try the other missions even though they aren't certified? Maybe, or we can make other missions available via small patches.

CSIM: When will 2.0 hit beta?

Matt: It won't be June. As we've headed into the mission work we've found we have a lot to do so we are aiming at the end of the year.

CSIM: Thanks Matt, all the best with this and I look forward to seeing the latest at E3.