The CH-47D is a great machine better suited to the environment in which it will operate in Combat-Helo. The Chinook (prn: shin-uk) is a surprisingly nimble and small helicopter, not the large lumbering giant as is often perceived. What you may find surprising (I did anyway) was that it's about the same size as the Apache. See the comparison image below.
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| Apache / Chinook size comparison |
The AI CH47 will be included in Combat-Helo. If we hit our sales target we hope to release a flyable CH-47D with detailed cockpit and systems as an addon (or stand-alone version - to be decided), as Combat-Helo Operation Pegasus. This will add the CH47 as an option to fly on medevac, armed escorts, insertions, extractions, transport, search and rescue missions as well as a new variant of the counter insurgency campaign.
We feel that this is the better choice, it lets us explore the portalised aircraft technology we started with the Apache which will enable a level of interaction between crew that hasn't been seen in any other PC simulation title to date.
Richard, the question here is (and I think I know the answer, but still).
ReplyDeleteIf you release it as a stand-alone game, will it be able to connect and play with Apache-version owners?
IMHO you guys should release it as an addon. Maybe even in packages. One with the helicopter and one with the campaign, for example.
Spac3Rat, very definately it will be playable with the Apache and I think that is what he is saying in the last paragraph.
ReplyDeleteIt would therefore probably have to be an add-on to allow compatibility. Unless its a seperate title with upgrades (e.g graphics, theatre ground maps etc) requiring the Apache to be patched to be compatible. Either way works for me.
See where you are going with this Flex and its a great model to strive towards and obviously shows your confidence in the initial Apache release.
Addons and expansions typically sell 1/3rd as many copies as the original game/sim, and usually at half the price. If we spend 6 months (or more) developing a highly-detailed, flyable Chinook, and release it as a payware addon then we'll probably find ourselves out-of-pocket.
ReplyDeleteThe CH-47, with it's range of new missions and crew-served weapons, will require some serious code support. Therefore it's unlikely we'll be able to release it as a pure addon anyway. A series of inter-operable/merge-able iterations appears to be the most productive solution. ED cottoned onto this sometime ago. Hence with every new DCS aircraft they build, the re-release the same simulator/assets/engine as the previous iteration, albeit with some new features and bug fixes.
Cheers
Although you could argue that there is possibly less development required. The ground Maps, ground units and most of the Art assets are only in place. The code for the flight modelling requires modification but shouldnt be as time consuming as starting from scratch.
ReplyDeleteED have expanded the area, improved the graphics engine, improved some of the AI units, heavily modified AI behaviour, Mssn Editor etc etc.
Therefore the argument becomes, are there sufficient differences between the initial release and subsequent releases to warrant it being a seperate package as opposed to an add-on?
I think it also partly depends on the success of the initial release. Its largely superfluous of course as to what its called, it just becomes a PR exercise in not P****ing off the community. e.g. TM HOG HOTAS, cant buy the throttle seperately.
p.s. I could be wrong but I'd hazard a guess that 2/3rds more people would buy CH_Apache than CH_Chinook if it was seperate. A slightly more expensive Add-on would get my vote.
An addon in the typical flight sim sense is a single art asset (sometimes a pair of assets) that is configured through either an in-built API/SDK or a simple .dat system. They conform to the sim they're being added to and they rely upon pre-existing code to support their features.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of CH, implementing the art asset itself is not done via an API/DAT as in other sims, rather every aspect is written directly in code. Even if we had that library of code setup and waiting to be tapped into, it's unlikely it would contain every feature an addon would need. Therefore however we decide to sell the Chinook and further expansions, new code will always be a part of the process which makes selling it as an addon somewhat complicated.
Furthermore, what we are looking at with the CH-47 is an entirely new simulation of a very different kind of aircraft. A great-deal of new code will need to be written to support crew manning, pintle-mounted weapons, slings, cargo loading, new instrumentation, avionics, navigation systems, radio comms, engine management, and importantly, manual control over systems that are automagically configured and controlled in the high-tech Longbow. Various new mission roles will need to be coded-in aswell as the supporting voice recordings. New quests will have to be created to reflect the nature of the Chinook's job.
By the time the Chinook is ready for release it's quite likely we will have migrated to LE 3.0 which will provide us with a tray of new features such as terrain streaming, anti-aliasing, new shaders, AI scripting etc. We'll also have some new ground assets which will support the implementation of the Chinook and will be bundled in the package. We also talked about the possibility of including an additional AI aircraft as a teaser of the next product iteration. It's easy to see how a simple addon will become a high value sequel.
Cheers
My technical goal is to eventually add an API to use the classes we built for our helicopters and speed up content delivery.
ReplyDeleteThere's a danger we might cause some confusion with semantics, "add-on" to one person might mean something different to another. Originally I wanted the ability to add new aircraft/vehicles as DLC and we'll work towards that in the longer term.
If it ends up being a 1GB add-on to a 1GB game then expect a price point accordingly. We'll keep the networking interoperable to ensure the best player experience we can manage (i.e. as transparent as possible). But it's too early to say, I've got no idea how well Combat-Helo will be received except that it will need more content to keep from getting stale but at least we're already working on that.
We should take this discussion to email as it is a complex debate and a very important one. Not counting time spent, this project is costing me $340 per month and slowly rising, I'm still technically unemployed and doing this in my free time between seemingly futile attempts to get replies to CVs and mailings.
Understood, look forward to it. I guess intergrating it with the Apache and updating that also will mean possibly even more work.
ReplyDelete