The Flight-Sim Follies

Animositisomina. I am a hard-core, old-school, omnivorous simmer. When the flight-sim bug bites me, I indiscriminately gobble down whatever simulation catches my fancy regardless of subgenre. WW2, helicopters, modern day…it doesn't matter. While they all have their relative strengths and weaknesses, I like them all. Naturally, I have the very human tendency to bash simulations that I think are crap, but I'm not one to state that One True Simulation rules them all. These days, it seems that my attitude is in the minority in the sim community. More than ever, the community has fragmented into disparate fanboy groups, much like the Quake vs. Unreal wags. This wasn't always the case. As recently as a couple of years ago, most simmers were like myself - they played and enjoyed everything. The only "camps" we had back then were the on-line yots vs. the off-line weenies. This, of course, led to no end of Follies hijixes and hilarious commentary.

The biggest base of fanboys out there nowadays are the IL-2 "enthusiasts". Yes, yes, we know that IL-2 may just be the best combat flight-sim every created. That's fine. What is not fine is that the IL-2 weenies may be the most obnoxious flight-sim fanboys evar. Imagine an entire fanbase populated by the likes of the Ordbot and Kurt Plummer (i.e. manic obsessive-compulsives over the tiniest details in a sim). To wit, take the following example:

Cruising around the boards - as is my wont - I came across screenshots of an absolutely gorgeous B-25 created for FS2002. (I'm sorry I don't have exact details about where it can be found, who made it, etc. I just saw the shots on SimHQ, and dammit, it's not part of the TEH FUNNY, anyway!) So there were just the wonderful, stunning shots of this intricately modeled warbird - enough to make a sim-geek's heart go pitter-patter in his chest. Here's a shot, ignomiously ganked from the board:

When I Think About You, I Touch Myself. But does it snap roll?

So, we had all of the requisite oohs and aahs. Then, swooping down like a hungry owl, we start getting posts like this:

"When the program uses very few ressources on the Flight model because it is ridiculously simplified then, yes, there's room for eye candy like this. (Check out my Il-2 web site!)" - Freycinet

"I have to say it looks stunning, but just to put things in perspective:
- In that B-25 the shadows are not dynamic. They are painted into the texture and they'll look wrong when the plane flies upside down or the guns move.
- The highlights are just painted in the texture. No dynamic lighting like in IL2. It looks nice in a screenshot, but not in movement.
- No damage models. I'll say it again: No damage models. That's a HUGE part of the IL2 planes.
- Very high polycount and no optimised LODs. Try to put 10 of those B-25s on screen...
- The cockpit is amazing, but most of the other inside views are 2D, unlike FB's He-111.
- And finally, as Oleg says, no complex flight dynamics or bullet calculations under the bonnet.
As I said it's nice, but with the current hardware it'll be pretty much useless in a complex combat game like IL2.
Maddox artists have made an INCREDIBLE work within the constrains of IL2. They deserve all my respect!!" -- Capitaine Haddock

This got me to thinking. I whipped up a quick Poser figure, just like the one below, and posted it on a popular Il-2 board. No title, no credits, no nothing. Then I sat back.

This picture has no title.

"What you obviously can't see in this picture - and I believe that its deliberate - is the buttock modeling. Forgotten Battles will have FAR SUPERIER BUTTOCK MODDELLING than whatever sim this comes from. I think CFS3." - Nichevo Dude

"Sure, it's a picture of a pretty woman and all, but it cannot compare to the full-length X-rated movie (involving me and Oleg) that runs behind my eyelids when I sleep at night." - Fanboi Volga

"I'd like to see the 'per-poly' collision on this one, ha, ha, ha. Ah. Whew. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Il-2 RULES. Everything else SuCKS! Ha ha lol lol lol!" - Il-2 Creep

As usual, somebody far more intelligent than I can state the whole IL-2 mess up succinctly:

"The sad thing is the crap those IL-2 dweebs want is SO inconsequential. If they ever flew even laser combat in a Marchetti, they'd realize the systems minutia they're obsessing over is irrelevant. And that even the best sim is as much like flying in combat as watching a videotape about a rollercoaster is like riding one." - Denny Atkin

In recap: sex is still better than IL-2, boys; although (based on the evidence) many IL-2'ers may never find this out.

Salt in Wounds Dept. Welp, good ol' Combat$im is now just…CombatSim. After some time as a "pay to enter" site (the exact amount of time, I don't recall, exactly), CS has become an open forum site only. Doug has hung up his spurs on the content business for real life reasons (I guess - check out the explanation at the site). It's too bad that Doug didn't take me up on his offer to provide polygonal porn for his site - after all, everyone knows that the only thing people pay for on the web is porn (either voluntarily or not.) Then again, the reason why Mr. Helmer didn't take me up on the offer is that I never made it. Damn me. Damn me to hell for not supporting the sim community in its desperate time of need. Now, where did I leave those pork rinds…?

End of Line. The last couple of months were busy ones. We've seen the release of a CFS3 patch, a superb community-created Battle of Britain patch (BDG V.95, if you're interested), the release of the Commanche-Havoc source code(!), the impending (3-4 weeks….) release of Falcon 4 RP932, and finally the release of IL-2: Forgotten Battles. This being said, there should be lots to talk about here next time. Oh yeah: flight-sim on USElessNET is still flooded with political idiots on their soapboxes. Don't bother.

--scharmers
--3/11/2003
--the light pours out of me