The Red Baron Flight Model
We’ve had a few questions about the flight model, and its level of fidelity.
The flight model will manifest all the primary forces of aerodynamics: thrust, drag, lift, gravity; and the player will be able to manipulate the pitch and rotation of the aircraft with the ailerons, the rudder, and the elevators; and as pilots know, the throttle will also affect pitch and bank (due to torque). Of course, high angles of attack will result in stalls, and should one wing stall before the other, spins. We’ll also have some of the more nuanced effects such as gyroscopic precession caused by propeller and engine rotation (in the case of airplanes with rotary engines like the triplane and the camel), carburetor freezing, and icing when flying in visible moisture. Additionally, there’s a human component to flight. We will include blackouts from positive and negative Gs, and blackouts when flying at high altitudes for too long.
Closely related to the flight model are the controls. As a real pilot, I’ve learned to apply right rudder to counteract torque, use the rudder to maintain a nice coordinated turn, and apply back pressure in a turn to keep the nose above the horizon so that I don’t inadvertently lose altitude. However, these things take practice before they become automatic reflexes. I’ve spent a lot of time watching novice gamer-pilots try flying in a flight game, and what I’ve seen is that often flight games can be very difficult to learn. Even a simpler maneuver like a banked turn will often send a novice player into a spiral, loss of altitude, and a total loss of orientation. If we want to help those new players along so that they can learn to love the genre as we do, I think we can do a much better job. I think it’s the responsibility of the game developer to do a good job bringing new players on-board.
We have developed a nice system that will assist novice pilots by automatically applying the necessary rudder to coordinate turns, apply back pressure when banked, and use the rudder to counteract torque. The important thing here is that this is NOT a dumbed down flight model-- the flight model is the same. It's just a layer on top that handles the more finesseful parts of flying for novice pilots. The pilot can override these inputs at any time. Expert pilots can turn off this feature permanently so they are in full control of the aircraft at all times. This will remove ALL the training-wheels.
Finally, we are going to include a Realism Panel. We've found a realism panel is a great solution so that every player can customize their experience to their own liking. In the single player campaign, players will be able to turn off any or all of the more advanced and challenging features at any time (we will not limit this in anyway; players will have access to the realism panel form the moment they first launch the game). Of course, in multiplayer, it's not fair to have some pilots turning off all the more challenging realities, so players realism settings will be set to that of the dedicated server or host. Each host will have the opportunity to change realism settings before the game is launched.
Red Baron's Realism Panel
In the coming days and weeks, we'll continue to answer any questions and welcome any feedback about Red Baron's flight and damage models.
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Red Baron on Steam Greenlight
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