"yikes" ,but I found it. back at v8.50, 6/17/2006
Here's what's done for 8.50 so far (I expect beta in about a week or
two)
Huge New Features:
This one is HUGE: ALL the aircraft in the X-Plane world now use the
EXACT SAME FLIGHT-MODEL CODE, and your plane, and others, can have
weapons systems with proper guidance and countermeasures!
This is more amazing than you might think: It USED to be that the
OTHER craft in the X-Plane world tooled along simple, straight lines,
obviously following a very simplified model... you could tell the
other planes were really fake. When you would fly formation with
them, they always went perfectly straight, never moving with the air,
and never maneuvering realistically. This was pretty weak.
Now, all that is changed: The VERY SAME FLIGHT MODEL CODE that drives
YOUR airplane now drives ALL the planes... and you can have up to
TWENTY planes in the sky with you now. This means the other planes
fly as realistically as yours, right down to rocking and rolling in
turbulence, turning and climbing and descending realistically, and
moving with the wind. Formation flight with them is now accurate,
right down to getting in their wake turbulence. (As well, they can
get in yours, and you can watch them roll and buffet as they fly
through your turbulence). To see this in action, go to the "Other
Aircraft and Situations" windows in the "Settings" menu... crank in
maybe 10 planes, and set them all as BLUE team, and set YOUR plane
(the very top-left check boxes) as RED team. (If you want to live, do
NOT let any of the other 10 planes be FIGHTERS! You can guess why.
Select other planes with the little gray box beside the airplane
name, same as always.) Now, select each of the OTHER 10 or so planes
to be of similar performance to YOUR airplane. Are you in an
airliner? Then select airliners or other hi-subsonic planes as the
other planes. Are you flying a General Aviation plane? Then select
slower other planes. Once you have done that, close that window and
get your plane in flight at some medium speed and altitude on
autopilot. Let it fly for 15 minutes or so. Go get a drink maybe.
Come back after maybe 15 minutes and switch to the external circling
view ('|' key) and use the shift-arrows to circle around... see
anything interesting? Since you have selected a team for those planes
that is different than your team, they want to chase you down. If you
had chosen any of them as being fighters... well... try that if you
like. Now hit the '/' key to show flight model. Now turn on some
turbulence in the Set Weather window. Now you will begin to
understand the amount of math that is going on here. Now, go back to
the "Other Aircraft and Situations" window and UN-CHECK the TEAM
check boxes for all the other planes. Since they are not on a team
opposing you, they will no longer chase you down. Close the window
and try to fly behind them... can you get in their wake turbulence?
Get in the F-22 and find an airliner at 35,000 feet.. Can you
intercept him? Fly in his wake? Can you get in a helicopter and
intercept a slow-moving Cessna? Can you see how his wake interacts
with your rotor? (Not as much as with the wings on a plane, thanks to
the high blade loading and hi speed of a helo rotor, but the effect
is still there!)
OK, now that you are in a fighter, and can see how to make OTHER
planes fighters, and see how to put different planes on different
teams, you can guess where this is going, yes? Grab the "Japanese
Anime" in the "Science Fiction" folder for your plane and set about 5
or 6 other planes in the "Other Aircraft and Situations" window and
set them all to be fighters (F-4, F-22, Japanese Anime... whatever).
Set them all to be on a different team than you. (Remember, if you
have NO team selected for a plane, then it will wander aimlessly.
Select a team to make it aggressive, chasing down anyone NOT on it's
team!) Now that you have the OTHER planes on the red team, and YOU on
the blue team, close the window and go flying, and good luck. If you
are a girly-man, then set half the other planes to be on YOUR team,
so the artificially-intelligent planes will fight EACH OTHER... you
can fly around and watch them fight!
Now, to add to the fun, we have a handful of new weapons-systems
switches that you can put on the panel (all in the 'weapons' folder
as accessed by the Panel-Editor in Plane-Maker). As well, you can add
the 'console' instrument in the 'Weapons' folder to your instrument
panel... all weapons on your plane will show up there, and you can
click on weapons to select them. As well, the HUD will show a
rectangle to indicate your target when air to air guns or missiles
are armed, and a circular projected-path indicator will show up on
your HUD when bombs are armed. Arm missiles or guns and use the { }
keys to cycle through targets... selected targets will turn red on
your moving map, and guide the target rectangle on your HUD.
Ok so that is how you shoot others.. but how do you defend against
others shooting you? Chaff and flares! Grab the chaff and flare
buttons in the panel-editor from the 'weapons' folder so you can
mouse-click to deploy them, or just assign joystick buttons to deploy
them. Select the amount of chaff and flares you have to deploy in the
"Systems" window in Plane-Maker. Flares confuse heat-guided missiles,
chaff confuses radar-guided. You can open weapons up in the 'Edit
Weapons' window in Plane-Maker to see if missiles are heat or radar-
guided, and open the 'Default Weapons' window in Plane-Maker to see
what weapons various planes have. (The fighters and Japanese Anime
are the armed airplanes). Based on the type of weapon the that is
being fired at you, you should decide whether to deploy chaff or
flares. (Note: A rapid beeping indicates that someone has a radar-
lock on you: a good time to deploy chaff... though someone (either AI
plane or multiplayer opponent) could easily keep a radar lock on you
for hours at a time if they are just following you around, and seeing
as how chaff disperses and becomes useless in a few moments, being
too quick to deploy chaff could negate any advantage it may have
given you). The Japanese Anime fighter in the 'Science Fiction'
folder has all this stuff... assign a joystick button to 'Flares' and
switch to an external view while you pop them.. looks kind of cool.
Turn on other planes and set them to other teams than you to fight
against artificially-intelligent airplanes. Use multiplayer to play
against friends, using all of these systems. Design your OWN fighters
with these systems... no need to be content with what's out there now.
Another weapons type: LASER weapons.: Throw a laser on your plane and
shoot down you friends in a multiplayer game... or any other plane in
the sky! My "Japanese Anime" has a laser now... arm it by turning on
the GUN switch.. and fire with the space bar or joystick button. This
simulates mock aerial combat where you can chase each other around
with lasers to simulate guns.
NOTE: X-PLANE DOES NOT SIMULATE DEATH OR DESTRUCTION, SO X-PLANE IS
NOT REALLY A COMBAT SIMULATOR. TO AVOID THE VIOLENCE OF A COMBAT
SIMULATOR, BOMBS HAVE NO EFFECT ON ANYTHING ON THE GROUND AT ALL...
THEY DETONATE AND SMOKE SO YOU CAN SEE WHERE THEY HIT, BUT THEY DO
NOT ACTUALLY DAMAGE ANYTHING ON THE GROUND. AS WELL, AIRPLANES ARE
NOT DESTROYED BY BEING HIT. IF YOU ARE HIT WITH A MISSILE, GUN, OR
LASER OF ANOTHER PLANE, YOU WILL PUFF-SMOKE AS IF YOU WERE IN A
TRAINING EXERCISE, AND YOUR ENGINES WILL BE SHUT DOWN TO LET YOU KNOW
YOU ARE HIT. THIS OCCURS BOTH WHEN PLAYING AGAINST THE ARTIFICIALLY-
INTELLIGENT PLANES, AND YOUR FRIENDS IN MULTIPLAY MATCHES. YOU AND
YOUR FRIENDS CAN NOW ENGAGE IN MULTIPLAYER COMBAT IN X-PLANE IN ANY
AIRCRAFT YOU CAN DESIGN, WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT HITS AGAINST
YOUR FRIEND WILL SHUT HIS ENGINE DOWN AND CAUSE HIM TO PUFF SMOKE,
MUCH LIKE A 'RED-FLAG' STYLE TRAINING EXERCISE WHERE FRIENDS COMPETE
IN AERIAL COMBAT, BUT ACTUAL DESTRUCTION OR DEATH DOES NOT OCCUR. WE
WANT TO SIMULATE THE COMPETITIVE ASPECTS OF AERIAL COMBAT, MUCH LIKE
IN A RED-FLAG EXERCISE, WITHOUT SIMULATING THE DESTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS.
