F18 Interceptor: Building my favorite old Amiga game

Thanks for the support. I appreciate feedback. If you have good or bad things to note or ideas for features, feel free to make suggestions (much easier to change something while its in dev :wink: ).
I hope to have a new build up this friday. There have been many additions :slight_smile:

2 Likes

There is one downside: I crash your beautiful planes all the time!:grinning: Apart from this, to me, the game looks perfect.

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The new release is up. I didnt get everything in I wanted this week.
What did make it:

  • Updated cockpit dashboard
  • Title and Menu screen - still needs alot of work
  • First mission implementation - incomplete - weapons and ai behavior to be completed.
  • Meta data exporting from Blender into maps (not visible, but makes dev much easier). Will allow custom maps, possibly user developed.
  • Improved general rendering - tweaked shader normals and so on.

Known Bugs (there are lots):

  • Threats point the wrong way and dont turn properly. - fixed
  • If you set speed to 0 the horizon meter goes white. - fixed
  • Pause doesnt pause threat objects - doh. - fixed
  • Threats not removed from mission if you go to free play. - fixed

These are the bigger ones I hope to address today and release an update. I hope to get weapons on Mission 1 all working today. If not, it will be in next weeks release. Im going to start releasing every Saturday.

Hope people enjoy it. Will be more fun when you can shoot down the threats! :slight_smile: See if you can find them in Mission1 :slight_smile:

9 Likes

A little update. Added a nice “fly in” from the mission view to the cockpit.

Working on weapons and AI atm. Hopefully a mission or two by the end of this week.

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I saw this on Twitter and immediately thought of your game:

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Very nice. I love the dithered graphics - love it :slight_smile:
Has almost a playstation or early PC feel. Nice…

@britzl - so this is really weird. I was talking with a mate on the weekend, and I used to work with a sim group that made a pretty cool engine called TITAN IM. http://titanim.net/
Anyway, my mate works for Calytrix and they bought TITAN IM (Effectively). And… the ex-owner of TITAN IM then bought MICROPROSE - guess who is publishing the game you posted above!! sooo freakin weird.
Tiny Combat Arena | MicroProse
Its a small world… it does look good fun.

3 Likes

Pesky little mig. AI pusuit working well.

Weapons and mission should be ready tomorrow (Assuming life doesnt get in the way :slight_smile: ).
Will put a new release up tomorrow regardless.

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Well. I broke everything. Doh. I refactored the general state management of the system (which was needed) but it means I now have a very broken build. Its probably added a couple of days. The benefit of the refactor is that its very easy to add new game flows and entities (of all types). This is kinda a good thing, because it means:

  • addition mission 2 with the ddg
  • addition of cruise missile mission
  • The nimitz carrier can move around :slight_smile: … it wont initially… but it can! :slight_smile:

It has delayed the weapons testing - I may still get mission 1 in over the next couple of hours, but its unlikely.
Thats coding… Release probably around Wednesday… but I might push it to Friday (I have to build a large shelf in the shed next week… uggh).

3 Likes

Ok. Finally back to some semblance of normality :slight_smile:
New updates (which will be up online tomorrow):

  • Missiles in and firing. Collision to be finalised tomorrow.
  • Weapon control and management.
  • More tweaks to the 3D models, and the Mig and F18 flight dynamics - the Migs still cheat badly :slight_smile:
  • Various debugging facilities (will be removed once some features are complete)

Things not working:

  • Targeting (might be in tomorrow - possibly not)
  • Mig destruction (also may make it)
  • G forces number is not right :slight_smile:
  • Heading horizon can go real wonky.
  • If your frame rate is low, the flight model will have a fit. Im looking at ways to make this much better (a more consistent fixed update mode for the physics)
  • Mission still incomplete.

I have been playing around with bullet3d for collision. I may use it, I need to see the impact on the frame with a full mission running.

Heres a quick vid showing missile firing and missile control. Note - the missiles are set to only 300kts speed (so I can see them :slight_smile: ). They will accel up to mach 4 like the real things.

Uggh. I just noticed the missiles are firing from their opposite positions!! Doh. Another bug to fix.

5 Likes

Still not where I want to be, but many new features added. Im going to have to pause this for a couple weeks while I spend some time on the exporter. I have put up an new release (and executables).

New improvements:

  • Added targeting
  • Arming and firing missiles has been improved
  • Mig29 has been tweaked - they are still too good. To test Mig29 press the ‘b’ key to activate one of them. They will end up on your six, and they are almost impossible to shake.
  • Added improvements to HUD.
  • Added warning lights - stall is working (dont get below about 105 kts)
  • Gforces should be fairly accurate now.
  • Collision with carrier is kinda working - technically you could land on it. But the arrestors do nothing :slight_smile:

Things still to complete:

  • bugs… a few annoying bugs.
  • Collision and tracking for missile - code is in, but need to finish off.
  • Landing strips - need to add airports and landing capability.
  • Mig29 missiles - Im not sure I want to give them some :slight_smile: … they will be really hard to beat :slight_smile:
  • More improvements to f18 model - inertia is still too messy.

Here’s a little vid I made. Hope you enjoy it - please go play it! :slight_smile:

10 Likes