Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3: Battle for Europe

On September 18th 2002 I interviewed producer Scott Lee in Sydney, Australia and checked out the beta.

Scott Lee: This is in-game graphics. This is the menu system but it's using the in-game graphic engine.

Scott Lee: This version of Combat Flight Sim is focussed around low flying combat, ground attack, from 1943 to the war's end in Europe. Bridge busting, find the bomber missions... you can actually fly the bombers, you can man the bomb bay, jump into the gun turrets. There are 34 different aircraft across the 3 countries.

(NOTE : Britain, USA, Germany)

Scott Lee: The British have the B-25, Mosquito, Spitfire, the Vampire... jets... this is when the first jets started appearing. For a lot (some?) of the different aircraft, even though they didn't actually fly in the war we decided to include them in the game because the aircraft were one of a kind.

MiGMan: ... and they almost flew in combat...

Scott Lee: Yeah they were on the drawing board...

MiGMan: Did you know we had Vampires in Australia?

Scott Lee: Oh really?

MiGMan: Yeah.

Scott Lee: I didn't know that. I'm not really up to speed on the World War 2 history (compared to other team members).

MiGMan: Nor am I!

menu_missions

Scott Lee: So here's the Luftwaffe aircraft...

MiGMan: Me-262 ?

Scott Lee: Yep... look, there are 3 variations of those.

ac_ger

(As SL selected the aircraft from the menu screen the they appeared in 3-D behind the pilot).

MiGMan: Cool. Can you rotate that view?

Scott Lee: No - not on this menu screen. Locations - you can go to Germany, France, Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands. We're in France now.

Weather effects - heavy rain.... we'll start on the runway. I've got my player set to "invincible" so... with my skills... he he he he... it might otherwise be a short flight.

Now I'll just load it up.

MiGMan: Are you still using any of the cartoon style menus as in Microsoft Combat Flight Sim 2?

Scott Lee: No we're not doing cartoons this time - more realistic graphics and the ingame graphics as you saw.

MiGMan: Why did you use the cartoons anyway?

Scott Lee: It was just that they wanted to try something different. The idea was that in the time period (1939 - 1945) comic books were popular and a lot of the guys who went to battle were 17 and 18 year olds and this was the type of popular culture they were familiar with.

MiGMan: Ah, it's interesting to hear the reason for it. Personally I found the interface style really annoying.

Scott Lee: Yeah that was the reason for it. They wanted to take the approach where.... this was a popular way of presenting things at that time and we wanted to represent that. Those cartoon animations, that was a popular style at the time.

Now in this version you see this guy... getting read to to go to battle...

MiGMan: So when you select different pilots the 'skins' change ...

Scott Lee: Yeah - the way that works is if I go into campaign, and choose a new campaign. Then I choose my nationality... let's base this pilot on a real life pilot... now that will change the look of and the attributes of your pilot. There's a point system for the attributes.

Let's say I choose a 'John Doe' and pick my age at 20 years it loads all that data into the engine.

Then we see the map...

MiGMan: It looks like a 2-D war game map.

Scott Lee: Yeah - like the planning map we saw in the intro video where the generals said "We're going to go in here and take out this bridge". You're actually choosing which part of the war you want to advance. You see the line here is different colours... where it's white means there might be an opportunity for you to actually go in there and push the line back.

So if I was flying for the RAF I could choose that sector then go to the briefing where it would generate a mission such as " you need to go and take out these bogies over the English Channel " or " you need to go take out this bridge", and if I can complete the mission successfuly it might advance that part of the front line.

MiGMan: So it's dynamic in that sense?

Scott Lee: Exactly. The missions would change every time too. One time it might be "take out the bridge", another time "take out the tankers"...

MiGMan: Would you get a choice?

Scott Lee: Umm... I don't know... let's have a look... ah yes, OK. So that's the sector and there are several choices of mission here.

MiGMan: So if there were a particular type of mission you prefer you could specialise in that?

Scott Lee: Yeah - here's an intercept mission, here's an escort mission, here's Combat Air Patrol, here's reconnaisance, there's a bridge to blow up...

MiGMan: That's great. So you could actually pick one plane and one type of mission then more or less specialise in that?

Scott Lee: For that part of the campaign yes. If I want to play through the entire campaign then I'd have to eventually fly different mission types.

MiGMan: What about choosing to fly one aircraft type?

Scott Lee: As you go through the different missions you have access to the (appropriate) squadron aircraft. In the beginning I don't have a personal aircraft. For me to obtain new aircraft I have to gain 'prestige points' through kills or whatever.

Once I gain enough points I can go in and buy whatever aircraft are available given the time frame. Obviously I couldn't buy a Luftwaffe aircraft while I'm flying with the RAF!

Then there's my squadron. This menu shows all the guys in my squadron and what aircraft are available to us.

MiGMan: So you'd have a reasonable amount of control over your career path?

Scott Lee: Yep - that's the beauty of the role playing part.

MiGMan: That aspect is something I think people will really like because the "canned campaign" approach which forces you to change aircraft a lot makes the flying really difficult in my experience.

Prestige points are in the right column.

Scott Lee: That's a great example of how over time a franchise like Microsoft Combat Flight Sim 2 can borrow from other genres in the gaming community like RPG's (Role Playing Games) and introduce some of those elements into it. Those are elements that I think everyone who is a simulator enthusiast wants.

You know "I wanna feel like a pilot!", and in this case "I wanna feel like a World War 2 pilot".

MiGMan: Also I think you want to feel that your actions have some consequence... and that if the guy dies... it's a bummer!

Scott Lee: Right.

Scott Lee: So let's jump into a P-47. So this is the default cockpit view.

default_cp P-47 cockpit - the default view

MiGMan: And where are we now?

Scott Lee: In France, just outside of Paris.

MiGMan: So the virtual cockpit is the default?

Scott Lee: Yep. There is a fly by camera and several outside cameras.

MiGMan: Have they toned down the force feedback on the take off roll - it was a bit violent? (in CFS2)

(Laughter) Scott Lee: Yea - I don't see anything untoward there...

(takes off)

MiGMan: Do they use auto-gen for any of the ground details?

Scott Lee: Yeah - ground detail is auto-gen objects - trees and buildings. The resolution (between terrain elevation points) is 120 metres.

So when we get down low you can see how detailed that landscape is. We bought a bunch of data for the European theatre - Germany, France, all those locations.

I'm running at 1024 x 768 here but you can go up the max which is over 1600 x 1200. But you can see the gorgeous detail and the relections...

Lighting effects (fires tracers)... particle effects... ... especially on a GeForce 3 or Geforce 4 graphics card.

MiGMan: .. and the metallic skin...

Scott Lee: Oh yeah.....

MiGMan: Nice reflections.

Scott Lee: You can use auto-mixture or you can control the mixture yourself.... but I find that a little bit much to do...

MiGMan: So do I!

Scott Lee: .... in the middle of a dogfight!!!!!!!!

(Laughter)

... oh you know I gotta go lean the mixture... ! You can see the time of day.. the sun's gonna set soon. You can do night raids.

Scott Lee: Now I'll go find some aircraft I'm supposed to be in a dogfight here.

MiGMan: So what colour will they show up as? (On the tactical display)

Scott Lee: They're the red ones. The one I've selected, he's the triangle. That's my wingman here.

Computer voices : "Split the formation"... "Attack"... "On your target!"

Scott Lee: Now he's gonna go get my target.

MiGMan: Are there more wingman commands in this version?

Scott Lee: I just use the 2 at the moment so I don't know...

Ok so they've taken my boy out. There's the Eiffel Tower. You wanna fly this?

MiGMan: No you keep going, I'll watch. I like that cone... that's one of the best targetting devioces I'v seen (Note - it was introduced in Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator (1998))

Scott Lee: Now I haven't quite worked out the targetting myself, all these new targets are buildings and I'm not on a bombing mission...here we go...

(NOTE : It turned out that "T" selected modes - Air, vehicle, aerodrome, ship etc)

Like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 ... but faster.

MiGMan: The ground detail looks pretty much like FS2002

Scott Lee: There are a lot of similarities but we're now able to push all the triangles and graphics faster. The engine has been optimised for low level flight.

Scott Lee: Ahh.... I don't want to take out a basilica!

(Laughter)

MiGMan: He he - why not... I don't mind!.... it's all in the... ahh.. name of art!

(Laughter)

Scott Lee: Here are some bridges...

MiGMan: No rockets on this?

Scott Lee: (Checks weapons)... no I didn't load them...

MiGMan: Can you go under these bridges?

Scott Lee: Ah... this one is too low, but some of them, yeah.

Tracers start flying past the cockpit with accompanying sounds.

Scott Lee: Ooohh, let's look at this.

Goes to external view.

Wow... showering bullets!

MiGMan: How come... oh yeah, you're flying in 'invulnerable' mode!

SL : He he... I can fire mine too guys!

Sounds of cannon fire and tracers

Now I'm gonna crash... watch the explosion....

Arrgh... I bounced ... 'invulnerable' mode! Darn it!

Scott Lee: Here you try it.

MiGMan: OK. Where's padlock view?

Scott Lee: That's the "Tab" key. (It was the "Tilde" key)

MiGMan: Not working ... must be too far away. Not to worry...

Scott Lee: As you can see... the detail... there are thousands of buildings...

MiGMan: ... and lot's of trees...

Flying lower I brushed the tree-tops then pulled up slightly for a barrel roll over the Parisian apartment blocks.

Scott Lee: He he - he's done this before!

Spectator : Yes there seems to be some level of skill there.

MiGMan: Zoom view in and out?

Scott Lee: Bracket keys.

I zoomed in a notch and headed up the river towards a series of bridges.

MiGMan: This one's a bit low I think.

Ack ack ack .....

MiGMan: ... another low one....

ack ack ack .....

MiGMan: ...you can practice strafing on them anyway.

MiGMan: Looks like an airfield over there... (pointing to what looks like airfield landing lights)...

Scott Lee: Yeah I think so.

MiGMan: There's the Eiffel Tower... gotta have a look at that...

.. see if we can get under it eh? Check it out....

... Geeez those bloody buildings are close to it!

I think I'll make it.... yeah....

Spectator : Oh my god...he flew under it! I can't believe I just saw that!

(Laughter)

Scott Lee: Congratulations!

(Laughter)

MiGMan: Those buildings made it a tight fit!

Scott Lee: Yeah you just fly between them... it's that easy!

(Laughter)

Scott Lee: Any more questions?

MiGMan: Let me look at my list, we've already covered most of them.

System specs... you've got the usual extremely optimistic Microsoft specs quoted.

Scott Lee: Minimum Pentium 400, 16 meg video card, 128 MEG RAM... To play it well you really want at least a Geforce 2. To run it like that (what we were using on the day) you really want a Geforce 3 or 4, 256 MEG RAM and a 1 GHz processor.

MiGMan: As you said it's an optimised verision of the FS2002 graphics engine.

Scott Lee: Well the engine's actually completely different.

MiGMan: That's right because it's not compatible.

Scott Lee: Right - it's not backward compatible.

MiGMan: I can hear screams from all round the world.

Scott Lee: Yea I know I know, we get it every time we do that. But the reason...

MiGMan: Yea this is what I want to know...

Scott Lee: Tell them that it's a trade-off right. In order to get the low level combat, the beautiful graphics, the high frame rates... you just saw the thousands of buildings at over 30 frames per second... the team had to rewrite the graphics engine.

There are some borrowings from FS2002, the weather effects, autogen...

The aircraft are all new...

MiGMan: Gmax models?

Scott Lee: Yep - there'll be a G-Max tool and and SDK so you can start tweaking the aircraft straight away.

MiGMan: So it's just one of the prices of progress?

(Laughter)

Scott Lee: Yep but it is progress... let's not forget that!

MiGMan: Cross platforming? Any plans for an X-box release?

With the ATI and the Geforce cards.... the lighting effects, particle effects, they just make the game sparkle. Also we're running at 1600 x 1200 resolution... compare that to a television!

MiGMan: What about the difficulty settings for newcomers? We've already seen the 'invulnerable' setting.

Scott Lee: You can change the realism settings, set 'black-outs' or 'no black-outs', give yourself unlimited weapons...

MiGMan: I always do that!

Scott Lee: Yep sometimes you're in the mood where... noone can conquer you.

Truck_convoy_01

MiGMan: 3 rockets is never enough!

Scott Lee: Well we don't even have radar in these!

MiGMan: We need all the help we can get!

That leads to another question...

MiGMan: The Jet Age. Can you explain to the lay reader what the difficulty is in incorporating say the ballistics of guided missiles and radar operation?

Scott Lee: I'm probably not qualified to answer that (in the technical aspects). In terms of the future of the franchise, it's a Combat Flight Sim so the door's open and who knows where the visionaries of the franchise will take it?

World War 2 was something that we really wanted to focus on...

MiGMan: ... you could spend the rest of your life on it!

Scott Lee: Well yeah... there's multiple iterations, different theatres... but it's an interesting question and I can see the potential for different jet aircraft, the Korean War...

MiGMan: That's my favourite period... the Korean War onwards. One reason is that you've got the power compared to WW2 aircraft. The freedom to make mistakes and get away with it.

Scott Lee: Yeah I think you'll start to see that a little bit with the jet aircraft in CFS3.

MiGMan: Like the Me-262?

Scott Lee: Put one of those up against the piston aircraft and you see the difference. Interesting prospect though (later jet a/c)... I'll get some more feedback from the team.

MiGMan: So it's obviously not a programming issue though?

Scott Lee: It's "what kind of franchise are we in"... have we done everything we could in the WW2 area... There have been jet simulators in the past, some of them have done well, some haven't, they're fun to play.

But what I think is appealing about the WW2 concept is the skill involved, because it's less forgiving. You can't just yank back on the stick and pull 6 or 7 G's up to 10,000 feet.

You have to be smart and you have to be skilled when you play the sim at the highest levels.

MiGMan: Thanks Scott.