December 2nd - WIP Day

"Cracking the WIP! - Planes Trains and Automobiles Episode 1 "

Ok so no trains, few automobiles but lots of WIPs. Not something fetish...well I don't know what your tastes run to but hey, whatever floats your boat. We get a lot requests for all sorts of things, and we really try to oblige but some things just aren’t possible under the current engine. Others require some development to get the feature set we want.

Today’s update is all about Work In Progress updates.

"VIFF this! - Harrier GR7/9"

I'm rather fond of this model for various reasons. But a large part of that is the fascination that stems back 30 years! (God I feel old). Harriers are just so damned impressive. Aged 6 I went to an air show with a family friend and was in awe of this Harrier GR3 just hovering over the flight line. The noise was horrendous but the image of this plane hovering 100m in front of me still remains one of my most vivid memories.

Back in OFP days UNN wrote a fantastic scripted VTOL system that simulated all aspects of the Harrier's operational and limits. You had control over the nozzles vector; you could side step, rotate change height all in a hover. STOL and VTOL were fully supported; it even reproduced the water cooling system and engine temperature issues while in a hover. The scripts really made the addon something special to fly. Perhaps a little too special though. I confess i spent as much time flying around the islands having fun as actually making the model. But the complexity of the addon was ultimately the reason it didn’t see a public release.

When BIS released ArmA the possibilities sky rocketed as well as the skill level required to make decent addons. ArmA's engine has allowed us to do so much more than OFP. But again, as with OFP complexity has been the cause of the delay. The newer engine has meant that the VTOL system written for OFP is obsolete. And while ArmA has VTOL (of sorts) hard coded into the engine we wanted something more accurate. So the VTOL system is in the queue to be re-written.

Once we have the time and the resources to finish the model it will be released, trust me I love my Harriers!

The original plan for the Tornado was as a true MP bomber with both the Pilot and the WSO (Weapon System Operator) cooperating to find engage and destroy targets but several things conspired against us. The key 3 problems are:

• Lack of Turret support on "Plane" classes
• Locality issues for scripts
• Terrain Streaming related prolems with drawn distances on low spec PC's

And to be honest the relatively small size of Sahrani compared to the speed ofthe aircraft made the Tornado a bit overkill. And in the hands of the AI the Tornado was just as lethal to players as it was to OPFOR. The Ai just loved to drop not just the bombs but the entire aircraft onto the enemy positions. Very effective in wiping them out but a bit costly in airplanes!

"The last truly British Fighter ..." - Sea Harrier FA2

If you're going to make one harrier you've got to make them all. At least that’s what my mate keeps telling me. But he is rather biased since he’s working in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm.

March 29th 2006, the last RN Sea harrier squadron was decommissioned and it aircraft either donated to museums, scrapped or sold off to India. Pretty much ever since I've been getting an earful - on a fairly regular basis - from my mate to make him Sea Harrier FRS1 and FA2. What I hadn’t told him was that I had already made a start on one some time ago. With some renewed interest in the VTOL scripts and the GR9 Harriers the SHAR (SeaHARrier) has been dusted off too. Perversely its actually easier to model the SHAR than the GR7/9 shown above.

As with the GR7/9 you can expect an improved flight model, VTOL, accurate and hopefully practical Cockpits together with accurate load-outs. And some period skins, the pre-Falkland era high vis for the FRS1 and the later Sea Grey will be included together with the current Indian Navy colours.

As my friend is always pointing out - please read "moaning" about - the FRS1 and FA2 were the only aircraft in the British Inventory at the time, that were truly "swing role". At any time the FRS1 and FA2 could carry out both Air to Air and Air to Ground tasking just by swapping out its weapons load. And to fulfil a Reconnaissance roll the SHAR has a camera permanently mounted in the left side behind the nose. Admittedly it’s aimed by drawing a cross on the windscreen in the right place with a grease pencil; hardly high tech but if it works what the hell. Its cheap.

I should point out that since this isn’t currently serving with the RN its not really a high priority project for me. It ones of those jobs i pick up when I’m really p’d off with writing configs.

"Seriously you can sail a boat right up it’s..." - LPD(R) Albion Class"

I don't often venture into naval vehicles but I wanted to test out some shipboard armament and the group I was playing with at the time were all about amphibious assault. An LPD seemed like a really good idea at the time. I didn’t realise how much work it would be. Just making one ship has made me appreciate just how much work CBFASI did to make all the Falklands Mod ships for OFP.

This particular model is unfinished but it meant to represent the HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark vessels. Obviously parts of the superstructure aren't complete but the basic functionality is all there. Although there are some issues with roadways when using the lower decks.

The model itself is over 175 metres long, and made up from 4 sections assembled in game by another of UNN's fantastic scripted solutions. The scripts allow any large object to be made up from multiple blocks with perfect precision. The resulting composite object isn't affected by the waves and can even move assuming there are no other objects or aircraft sat on its decks.

As for the the Goalkeeper CWIS its pretty damn lethal up to about 2500m. The only way to approach it is very fast either from very high altitude to at sea level at high speed. If the system is anything like this in the real world I can see why the actual Albion class ships carry little else in the way of armament.

So I guess the question that's mostly likely to pop up will be, "When can we have it?" it’s just going to be the same old reply. "When it’s done". Seriously all these WIP project may look like they are nearly complete but you wouldn’t believe how much work there really is to finish even a simple addon off to a good standard.

Check back tomorrow to see what's next.