Damage modelling

[roblex]

I have just bought 'Fighter Squadron : Screaming Demons Over Europe' and I am wondering whether HiTech will have as good a damage model.  I normally play WarBirds where the damage model is simplified but in FS:SDOE the damage has been accurately modelled and it is lovely.  If you shoot someones tail bits will fly off leaving him with a partial tail. If you touch his wingtip with your prop  he will lose his wingtip and the flight model will alter to match,  you will bend one or more props and your engine will shake itself to a stop at which point you can see the bent prop and a trickle of smoke from the engine damage. Even the pilot is modelled so that if the windshield is broken he will be blown around by the wind    Missing wings flutter down according to the real aerodynamics. They are even writing code to simulate decreasing crew functionality due to non-fatal wounds.
All this in an online game. AH promises a lot more in other areas and FS:SDOE only has to handle 16 players online but it would certainly be nice if AH matches this level of damage modelling.

Rob

[-towd_]

how much was it and where did you get it?

[Chappie]

Hello,
I have been flying SDOE for about a month now and all I can say is WOW.  The flight model and damage models are terrific.  HOwever, be warned!! there are approx. 3-4 patches necessary to achieve the current FM and online requirements.  They are all small Downloads and really do make a difference.  Also,  Just make sure u have a powerful system.  I am running an K6-2 350 over clocked to 400, 96 megs of ram, and a voodoo3 and I average upper 20's to 60's as far as framerate.  Sometimes I drop to the teens when bombers are in sight!!  I know the k6-2 is not as good as the Celeron or PII's or PIII"s-just some warning!!!  It is a great game-even offline.  I suggest everyone check it out.  go to www.hawkmodels.com/sdoe  for more info. I have not flown online yet with SDOE yet though-just havent had the opportunity.
S!
Chappie  

[Brick]

Chappie... they corrected some of the FM problems?  If I remember, SDOE was quite nice visually, but really fell short in the flight modeling.

That and the fact that there was all this talk of an aircraft editor which never materialized.  

[phaetn]

 http://www.dogfighter.com/reviews/show.php3?review=933541838
 http://www.dogfighter.com/reviews/show.php3?review=933545027

A couple of links to Dogfighter.com where I did a review of SDOE.

Bear it mind it is a boxed sim, so you are likely to get details that massively multi-player on-line sims won't have because of bandwidth issues during play and also since the software is distributed mainly by free downloads.

Cheers,
phaetn

[Chappie]

S!
hi guys,
to answer your question Brick-YES, things have been patched concerning just about all aspects of SDOE.  Apparently one of the programmers at Parsoft-Michael Harris I belive__has been releasing new patches for the game every 2 weeks or so-tweaking different aspects of the sim.  I read the review at combatsim and things have changed dramatically since then.  At the time I would guess that was an accurate review.  I dont know for sure because I did not have the have the sim then.  Anyway to check it out for yourself go to the link I posted in my earlier post-www.hawkmodels.com/sdoe
And yes there is something called Openplane that allows people to make new skins for planes and to develop new planes that can be put into the sim so they can be flown.  I have no idea how this works-but the planes and skins that people develop are AWESOME(some of them anyway!! LOL)  I have downloaded many skins and planes and they are all cool.  Goodluck and S!
Chappie

[roblex]

FS:SDOE does allow you to design your own skins, you can also design new planes, tanks, airfields, shore forts, terrains etc.

It allows you to build a mission involving up to 16 aircraft and then go online and let other players take over any of the aircraft with the computer controlling the others. For example you can tell  4 Lancasters to take off from Kent and fly to France and drop their bombs on an airfield via selected waypoints and tell 2 P51s to escort them while 4 Spitfires sweep over France. Meanwhile 6 FW190s are ordered to take off and patrol over the field and mobile ack and shore forts wait to shoot at any allied aircraft.  As I said you may have 16 players taking all positions or one or two of you could just fly the P51s and let the computer handle the rest.  If you enable it you could also leap from plane to plane as the fancy takes you though this can be disabled for competetive play.  Last night I flew a mission  involving a US army convoy broken down on a bridge. Two of us took FW190s with rockets to attack while two P51s took off from a nearby field to defend and MTBs sailed up the river to provide AA. Great fun!

As I said , you are only allowed 16 players at one time but Warbirds only allows 32 in any one part of the arena and has nowhere near the graphic detail. Aces High does not seem to be quite as detailed in terms of scenery either but the trade-off with FS:SDOE is that the terrains cover quite a small area eg Kent & NW France which is a little too small to put together an atmoshperic one hour mission like you can do in Warbirds and presumably will do in Aces High.

A good site for FS:SDOE is www.fshangar.com

Rob