Hi Chris, Please send me some copies. Perhaps once my USA Games work load lightens I can make it in to an awesome World War II flight sim game for all of us. In any case I would like to try out this Excel flight game since I love flight sim games anyway. Please, send stuff to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Christopher Bartlett wrote: > I have recently been learning how to fly a Microsoft Excel-based > flight simulator that an air combat gamer by the name of Dean Essig > wrote to facilitate the playing of air-to-air engagements in the > World War I and II eras, with a few extensions to the Korean War. I > was initially excited to hear about such a creature because I thought > it might provide some accessibility in an otherwise grim part of the > gaming world. > > After two weeks of evaluation I can report that if one is willing to > invest a little time, and one is at least a moderately good Excel > user, this simulator is completely accessible. The other requirement > is a well-developed sense of spacial relations as you need to > translate heading, pitch and roll expressed in degrees to a > representation of the aircraft's attitude. > > The simulation consists of a core flight engine, the worksheet that > does all the calculations for the control inputs you provide and > several files that contain specific flight characteristic and > armament data for over 200 aircraft ranging from the biplane fighters > of WWI to most of the active service fighters and several bombers of > WWII, plus a few early jets. You provide four control inputs, two > for stick position in an x-y plane which in turn translates to roll > and pitch controls, throttle setting and rudder position. You have > limits on where these can be set, based on the aircraft's speed and > the G-loading you have put on the wings and the pilot. > > To date, I have flown a duel between a Spitfire and a BF-109, a > bounce of three A6M type 21 Zeros by two Brewster Buffaloes as might > have been part of the morning of June 4, 1942 over Midway Island, a > four-on-four melee of Wildcats vs zeros that took place in the China > Theater in late 1941, an attack by 2 FW-190A4s against a wounded > B17-f escorted by two p-47s and a 2v2 f-86 sabers against 2 > MiG--15s. In each case, the simulation correctly showed up the > differences in aircraft performance, firepower and toughness, the 109 > couldn't turn with the spit, the zeros can outturn anything in the > early war American arsenal, the thunderbolt is deadly if it gets a > clean shot in, and I have ripped the wings off a saber by pulling an > 11-G maneuver. > > Now, before one gets excited, the simulation provides good > information about each individual plane's flight path. Using it to > play an actual engagement without using some sort of map board is a > far more difficult exercise that requires the ability to construct a > moderately complex simulation in Excel or some other such tool. I > have cobbled together things that work for me but aren't ready for > prime time yet. My next project is to fly a squadron of 12 > lightnings in a free-for-all with 12 FW-190s, and to create for it an > engine to handle the mechanics of actually tracking 24 aircraft, > computing the shot possibilities and giving info about relative pitch > and bearings for one aircraft to another to allow for intelligent > flying. This is no small project, but should end up with a game of > high complexity but manageable data loading that others might be > interested in playing. > > If I do it correctly, it should be scalable to combats of an > arbitrary size, though the sheer weight of data will become > overwhelming long before the theoretical limit of several thousand > aircraft would be reached. I don't envision flying more than > squadron vs squadron engagements myself. > > Sadly, the files aren't available on the web, or at least the web > site that I was originally directed to didn't have them available. I > am willing to email them to other interested parties who may have > other ideas on how to turn the excellent modeling of aircraft flight > into a usable game engine. Dean flew his aircraft on a hex grid, but > provided the facility to track aircraft in Cartesian coordinates. I > have fixed a few small bugs in these calculations and they now > function correctly. > > I have asked Dean, and he enthusiastically gave me his permission to > spread this simulator among my fellow blind gamers. He was extremely > helpful in my learning how to fly the thing. As a pay-it-forward, > and since I may now actually know it better than he does (it's an old > project for him) I will provide support on an as-I-can basis for > anyone who is interested. It is my hope that if I or someone else > develops a useful way of taking the output data of the simulator into > a tracking worksheet, we will be able to play engagements over email, > and possibly even run actual missions with several players each > controlling one or a small group of aircraft. As I said, the > learning curve is fairly steep and a good knowledge of trigonometry > would be a useful asset for any fellow designers, but once the combat > simulation portion is done, I think it would highly reward many > people who would like to take the role of Ken Taylor and George > Welch, or the other four Wildcat pilots who managed to take off on > the morning of December 7, 1941, or that of the German pilots > engaging the massed bomber formations in 1943. > > So, who's with me? > > Christopher Bartlett > > > > _______________________________________________ > Gamers mailing list .. 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