Falcon (flight simulation)
Falcon is a series of flight simulators of the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
History
There were several major versions of Falcon:
-
Falcon (1987)
- Falcon AT (1988)
- - Falcon Mission Disk 1: Operation Counterstrike (1989)
- - Falcon Mission Disk 2: Operation Firefight (1990)
- Falcon 3.0 (1991)
- - Operation Fighting Tiger (1992)
- - Mig-29 (1993)
- - Hornet: Naval Strike Fighter (1993)
- Falcon 4.0 (1998)
- Falcon 4.0: Allied Forces (2005)
Detailed history
the epopee Falcon
Synopsis
The community which developed around Falcon 4 is a phenomenon without precedent in the world of the simulators of vol. Jamais before, and can be never again, so much of talented people worked to correct and improve a play so hard - if one admits that it is a play - by dedicating his contribution to the community in order to improve the virtual experiment of all. Even with the news that Falcon is bought, sold or developed under license, the community continues to develop what Falcon is today, and hopes for what Falcon will be tomorrow. Falcon 4 is a simulator which became a reference, the simulator more succeeded of all times.
MicroProse
Origins
The first version of the saga Falcon , developed by Spectrum Holobyte, was born in 1987. It was available for PC MS-DOS and appeared later one year for Amiga and Atari ST in a version worked over again graphically compared to the original version, Falcon A.T (Falcon 2.0), benefitting from the technology of the processors and the faster graphics cards. The executive producers of the 2 Disquette S 3 ½ constituting the software were Mark Johnson and Gilman Chopstick Louis.
Falcon simulates aerial combat against the Mig-21, but also of the attacks on the ground against launchers of anti-aircraft missiles. The player can carry out 12 different missions and choose among 5 degrees of difficulty, corresponding to 5 different ranks. The play progresses by waves, the difficulty growing with time.
In November 1989 and October 1990 appeared the extensions of the program, respectively Falcon Mission Disk 1: Operation Counterstrike and Falcon Mission Disk 2: Operation Firefight , adding new missions and increasing the degree of difficulty. Like the original program, the extensions were accommodated positively by the press, for its realism and its very good graphics for the time.
Falcon 3.0 left in December 1991. It was a greedy application, pushing back the machines of the users of the time in their last cuttings off, so much F-16A Block 15 was modelled with details. This version introduced for the first time the wingers and a dynamic campaign, as well as an editor of missions, consequently obtaining statute of reference in the field of the simulators of vol. Three extensions transfer the day: Operation Fighting Tiger in July 1992, then Mig-29 and Hornet: Naval Strike Fighter in July and December 1993, introducing other controllable planes.
At the time of the marketing of a version Gold gathering Falcon 3.0 and its various extensions, the new owner of Spectrum Holobyte, MicroProse, announced in September 1994 the beginning of the development of the fourth opus of the saga.
The new reference
Falcon 4 puts in scene F-16C Fighting Falcon Block 50/52 in a fictitious war in Korea. More than four years and enormously of dollars of development were necessary to its design. This time of gestation except standard and multiple carryforwards of exit did of this simulator one of the three or four large arlésiennes of the video game.
At the time of its official exit, in December 1998, the community of the virtual pilots discovered The new benchmark in flight sim technology , as publicity announced it. The users were surprised by the degree of realism that Falcon 4 could emphasize from a personal computer, and in spite of its old age, this simulation of modern aerial combat is certainly still today the best on the market.
An innovative concept
This durability of enormous life compared to the rest of the world of the ludic software of this type is due so that the other simulators never had the vision of its executive producer, Gilman Louis.
Innumerable developers of this period and today still are focused in priority on the creation of a graphic engine which impresses the user and on the reproduction as faithful as possible of the behaviors of the plane, with perhaps a basic code multijouor. This approach often results on a realistic and complex simulation, but with one very short lifespan.
The approach of the Falcon series is different from all simulations having existed before him: to create a realistic zone of war, then then to put a fighter plan inside. It is not only one simulator of F-16, but of all the experiment of a fighter pilot, plunging the player in a war and not only on one aircraft, giving a better comprehension of the true role of a pilot in an engagement to large scales.
When MicroProse created Falcon 4 , they designed a monster - a simulation which will eclipse all the others.
Beginnings
Unfortunately, to transform this vision into lines of code was a true failure. The purchasers found themselves with a chief of work which showed only one facet of what it would really have of the being, being unstable so much so that it was impossible to benefit from it.
Indeed, at the time of its marketing, Falcon 4 suffered from a multitude of defects which made that it was commercially nonviable. The simulator was in fact found with course of budget and MicroProse had had the choice to put on the market a product not finalized and of the patcher thereafter, or to give up the development definitively and to lose all invested money.
Thus, several patchs official left quickly to correct a very great number of bugs, but unfortunately, certain functions available in the previous models were lost, while news was activated.
The abandonment of Hasbro
In December 1999, Hasbro Interactive, holder of the company, taken the fatal decision to just close the offices of MicroProse d' Alameda in the Colorado, whose the team of Falcon 4 formed part, after the exit of the patch 1.08us. For this reason the developers did not have time to Europeanize this version. Fortunately, some impassioned various European Communities left the patchs of conversion for the located versions, which opened the doors of the evolution to all the pilots.
In parallel, the programmers of the development team and their producer, Steve Blankenship, were found urgently for a meeting. They contacted Hasbro and asked whether it were possible to continue the development of this revolutionary flight simulation and to leave new achievable much the more stable during the little remaining days than they had access to the offices. Hasbro accepted, but was clear on the point that the patch 1.08us would be the only version which would be tested and approved by their house of quality assurance, and that they could thus correctly support.
Realism Patch Group
iBeta
Since Hasbro allowed this patch post-official and not having more the resources to test it, it was concludes that iBeta, a holding company of the external quality of software, would continue to work with the programmers and would leave the public version. iBeta and its team of testers public agreed to support this development surprised by in particular maintaining a FAQ on their site. The testers of iBeta thus literally passed from the hundreds of hours to test this new achievable to ensure its quality.
The last update, the version 1.08i2, generated an enormous increase in the performances and stability, in particular for the multijoueurs mode, but it remained however still much of tedious bugs.
Resumption of the support
After the dismissal, in January 2000, of the development team of Falcon 4 of the offices of Microprose, the executive producer, Eric Marlow, imagined the concept of the continuation of the updates with the assistance of iBeta, which then took again the assistance of Falcon 4 after its commercial stop. iBeta crééa then first versions of the known patchs today under the name of Realism Patch .
First modifications
The objective of RPG is to modify the performances of the weapons and the apparatuses in order to approach as much as possible reality while being based on information rising from nonconfidential data. On another face, another group of talented people, the Hex Editors , started to examine the code of Falcon by means of decompilers and hexadecimal editors. With the beginning of the year, Sylvain Gagnon, Marco Formato, Mad max, Poogen and others began with déboguer the achievable file 108i2 and the data files of Falcon. Several new patchs left, with often more than one correction of bug per week.
These patchs corrected indeed certain aspects of the code of Falcon which did not function correctly. Certain characteristics which one believed lost in the patchs official precedents were again activated and some bugs which could cause returns on the desk were corrected by hexadecimal modifications.
The patchs were produced by iBeta to version 3.0 of Realism Patch, when Eric Marlow and the director of iBeta, Glenn Kletzky transfers that the company could not continue any more to ensure the essential resources for future developments.
Realism Patch Group
The work undertaken by the company was thus resumed by a group of people impassioned, of which several of them were the members of the team of Realism Patch of iBeta, as of on August 21st, 2000. The Realism Patch Group increased to include several novel members of the community Falcon 4 who contributed to his growth and his evolution, to become as robust as at the time of the days spent with iBeta. The composition of RPG or not includes pilots in service and manufacturers having worked several years with them by accumulating solids experiments and knowledge in military aviation.
The result of this group rises from a close cooperation between all the members of RPG, dispersed on four continents. RPG achieved thousands of work hours, test, research and development and in addition wrote and answered more than 15000 e-mail during all its activity.
F4Patch
The maze of the patchs
These first patchs were applied to the files of Falcon 4 by means of a hexadecimal editor or thereafter with the means of a utility called Code Fusion. Problems started to emerge because when the achievable file was modified by a patch, it was difficult to know which were the patchs applied, the version of a patch used or if a patch tie-beam in conflict in the same zone of the achievable file with another.
Joel Bierling started to use a method which consisted in re-electing its achievable file so as to reflect the patchs applied. Its files program thus had completely insane names such as Falcon4 \ _i2 \ _bbl \ _bblfly \ _atc \ _cursor \ _barcap \ _reloc.exe (it was about one of the shortest names). Joel quickly realized that this method could not be applied a long time to the rate/rhythm where the patchs left.
The tool reference
In a preoccupation with a cohesion of the improvements and animated by his desire to concentrate his creativity of programmer in a particular field, Joel Bierling created F4Patch . He wrote the first version of his manager of patch in one weekend and it left on May 15th, 2000. Its principal concern was: will This new tool be accepted by the community? the success of F4Patch strongly depended on the acceptance of the community of the authors of patchs. Thus, when Sylvain Gagnon declared that it would use F4Patch for its next patchs, the success of F4Patch was assured.
Today, F4Patch constitutes the standard for any type of patch for Falcon 4 . With this manager, the user can with his liking to install or désinstaller the plethora of patch which are available on the Net. The personalization of the version of Falcon is thus largely facilitated. It is also it should be noted that it is possible to design packages of installation with this program, which is extremely appreciated by the developers and allows a total cohesion with the future versions of Falcon 4.
eTeam
The escape
April 9th, 2000, the source code of the software fuita and was made public illegally by what seems to be one (ex-) employed dissatisfied. This person succeeded in putting on a waiter ftp, for very a short period, the source code to which it had access, namely that of the version 1.07. This episode marked the beginning of the Community developments.
eRazor
Inspired by the possible legal ramification, eRazor, a talented programmer, taken this escape source code favors and started to improve Falcon of way which cannot be made with hexadecimal modifications and data only.
eRazor worked and worked over again the code during several months, while making public several new versions of this achievable 1.07. Fortunately, the owner of the rights of Falcon, Hasbro, did not seem to be interested really so that it made.
By examining the source code, eRazor could write F4DX, which was in fact a DLL proxy of DirectX 6 towards DirectX 7 which translated calls DX6 and redirected them towards their counterparts DX7. By doing that, it corrected some of the returns on the desk which posed problems with so many pilots flying on achievable the 108i2 with DX7. The Falcon community was very impressed by F4DX.
Some time after the creation of F4DX, eRazor appeared in a cat IRC and started to raise questions. Knowing what it had done from the past, mirv did not hesitate to give him the answers until it waited.
Until there, it was yet nothing. It was simply a guy who tried to improve Falcon 4. This search had started with the improvement of the graphs and the Framerate , but almost immediately this became much more than that.
eFalcon, the revolution
This stage, they were only two and they knew that they would need more than assistance. Testers, who were good friends, and good pilots, embarked. Then, gradually, this group called eTeam recovered extremely talented programmers (codec, JJB, Pogo, Marco, Sylvain and
While working directly on the source code of the program, the eTeam, is also able to eliminate certain problems and to create of all new functionalities, a such ultra-realistic avionics, MFD colors, connections multijoueurs easier thanks to JetNet, a better management of the damage, active ships and other impressive additions.
While many people thought that the eTeam was only occupied to return Falcon 4 native of last technologies graphic, it was not absolutely true any more. eFalcon had become a project aiming at transforming the original version of Falcon 4.0 original into a simulation with unequalled realism.
This work parallel with that of RPG raised compatibility issues and induced inevitable competitions between the two teams. Also, the eTeam, like RPG, developed their patchs in a debatable legality, when the license of Falcon 4 was repurchased in May 2001 by G2Interactive, young company rested by the former director of iBeta.
G2i had acquired the rights in order to develop new a opus saga Falcon via Infogrammes
who held Hasbro since very recently. The team of G2i had asked that the modifications on the achievable one of Falcon
4 cease, within sight of its future developments. This involved the exit practically simultaneously on August 6th, 2001
last versions of RPG and eTeam, Realism Patch 5.0 and eFalcon 1.10, compatible to 80% - 90% with RP 5.0.
After the individual developments of eFalcon and Realism Patch which caused so many disorders in the community, a solution was found: all the developers were invited to join their competence in a Community effort to create a patch unified with achievable single, combining a better avionics and a better graphics (eFalcon) with a more realistic behavior IA and campaigns (Realism Patch), so improving the experiment of flight and to facilitate the procedures of installation of the various corrective measures.
The new fusional group, which joined the majority of the members of RPG and the totality of the eTeam - except eRazor which did not wish that the new graphic engine on which he worked is exploited by a business firm - was symbolically called F4 Unified TEAM . It was authorized to design the ultimate version of Falcon 4, in a series of patchs known under the name of SuperPak, by accepting a charter of G2i. This charter authorizes the company to use the work of the new group for its own developments in order to amortize the cost of the license, n the other hand of the possibility of a development Community until a certain deadline and legalized this time with respect to Infogrammes.
The F4UT, with its update of achievable and of the data, wanted to transform Falcon 4 into the simulation most led and most realistic which ever existed, while creating the most stable version ever left.
Thus, on November 13rd, 2001 is a key date marked the history of the evolution of Falcon 4 with the achievable single one becoming reality in SuperPak 1, joining together the functionalities of all the preceding patchs.
With SuperPak 2, left in January 2002, the F4UT still pushed back the limits of Falcon 4. This patch brings of all new functionalities, an artificial intelligence out of the commun run, a new user interface, an engine of countryside re-examined and corrected, an increased stability. More than three years after the initial exit of Falcon 4, that par excellence constituted a paramount stage in the search of the military flight simulator. But it was not finished…
After left the SP2, it was envisaged at the end of March to leave SuperPak 2a refined . The deadline was reached, but the group have the permission of G2i to exceed it to finish its last modifications with the source code. Such an amount of work was accomplished over this period - news optimizations, innumerable corrections of bugs, new functions - which it was decided to call this version left in June 2002 SuperPak 3.
With the SP3 the modifications of achievable of Falcon had thus come to a end, with the sights of the future projects of G2i: Falcon 4 Gold: Operation Infinite Solves , an update of Falcon 4 taking again the functionalities of SuperPak and Falcon V in a few years, the figure V Roman symbolizing a revival in the simulation of aerial combat.
However, this search was not finished: thanks to the design visionary of Falcon and with the adaptations carried out in SuperPak, it still enormously remained of improvements to carry out in the data files.
It was apparent to the coders of the F4UT, from now on without work within the F4UT, which it remained still much of work to achieve on the achievable one. They created the group ViperOps , officially independent of the F4UT but whose members were not other than the coders of this last, plus some other people whose experiment would be advantageous for them.
VO continued the modifications of achievable discreetly, while working in particular on the resolutions of bugs met in the SP3 and a better code network. VO hoped to reveal its existence and its work with the public after the expiry of the license of G2i at January 1st, 2003.
But on a dramatic turn of events, Infogrammes, famous then Atari for prestige, the one year prolonged license, at the end which no other engagement would be granted to G2i if no product were put on the market during its period of validity.
The SP4 would thus not contain the again achievable one and the F4UT concentrated then on the optimization of the data for the exit of this patch, covering inter alia the models of flight, the weapons and systems of weapons, the models 3D, the theaters and the characteristics of each element.
It was a task much larger, more difficult and much more annoying that the unit of the work completed on the achievable ones. Where a coder can improve some lines of the source code or to introduce new functionalities, while recompilant to correct possible bugs, each object in the database must be tested in all the possible circumstances where it can be potentially met, possibilities of bugs being exponentially increased by the fact that the data all are connected between them, without counting the significant effort requested to coordinate all this work in only one patch. With nearly 200 testers working it above, this activity could take months to be carried out completion.
VO thus tried to negotiate a contract with G2i, to enable them to continue their work. G2i accepted in the condition that the company receives the whole of the code to use it in its own developments and that the agreement remains secret, which would make it possible ViperOps to offer its achievable free to the community, a few months after the marketing of the product of G2i.
Unfortunately, of the months, or the years, it was not fast enough for some extra of the TEAM VO, which allotted in any obviousness the time and the stagnation of the SP4, not with the hugeness of the work of débugage, but with the ViperOps project itself which could not provide achievable forthcoming SuperPak before the end of this New Year's Day 2003. One of the members placed then achievable of test illegally at the disposal of the public, in optics to scuttle this eternal waiting. The achievable VO was proscribed in the community and was found quickly on network P2P.
The achievable ones of test following were then locked by VO to prevent that they can be carried out on machines other than the machines of beta testers of the team, in order to respect the agreement with G2i. One of the members of VO, which was also an influential member of another group recently created complained about this decision. This locking was also what it was necessary to feed the rumors not-justified implying that the ViperOps team was stealing the work of the community to launch out in a commercial project.
FreeFalcon was formed by a group of individual in February 2003. Various programmers, skinners and modellers 3D not wishing that their work is included in a commercial product or not supporting more the long delay of the SP4 are gathered under the banner of this group, free of any bargaining with G2i. Let us add-ons FF TEAM are created above all with an aim of continuing the free development of Falcon 4.
Free Falcon is thus a group dedicated to add-ons and made up modellers 3D, artists skins, programmers and right the old full ones with enthusiasm. This group included of the people of all planet, mainly of North America, Europe and Asia. Its members from seventeen to sixty and a few years, formed inter alia as military aviators, programmers, lawyers, students, engineers, specialists qualified or teaching.
With its beginnings, the size of the team was very small and had experience relatively limited in several fields of the design of add-ons for Falcon 4 . The strong points of the FF TEAM are certainly the models 3D and their skins, as well as a fitter making it possible to simply obtain a crowd of new additions for SP3.
FF1, built on the bases on SP3, appeared in May 2003 and was accepted with a certain skepticism. FF1 had some defects and required several patchs to solve several bugs major, which led to passably criticisms. However, the arrival of this group was accommodated with enthusiasm by much in the community.
The FF TEAM worked on the changing with a new determination not to repeat the last errors and to include in the best FF2 what could be made. This stage, the team started to acquire novel members and associated who offered innumerable contributions to FF2. In addition to that, the original team started to become ripe and to develop new capacities which increased the quality of work. At the exit of FF2 in September 2003, it appeared that it was a solid realization and the patch became popular near the community.
One of the weak points of Falcon 4 was undoubtedly the graphic, already old engine several years and well in-on this side current standards. The graphics of SuperPAK 3 evolved/moved very little since the time eFalcon. Since the departure of eRazor, it seems indeed that the coders of the F4UT did not have much experiment in this field of development.
Extremely from this report and in an effort of improvement of Falcon 4, Benchmarksims.com concluded an agreement with G2i in order to modify the source code and to provide achievable free and free of all obligations to the community. September 20th, 2003, when the community did not await it, BMS provided to this one an achievable SP3 modified after more than one year without notable improvement of Falcon 4. This patch, in public beta release, incorporated graphic improvements compatible with the most recent charts and some resolutions of bug that all hoped.
Group BMS, very sensitive to the work completed by the various groups sought to maintain the integrity of all work provided in the past. The whole of the community could thus hope for a single patch. The steps taken by BMS being known since the beginning by the F4UT, the modifications carried out by ViperOps could be found very quickly in new achievable.
It was without counting the intention of G2i to put on the market in October 2003 the version Gold de Falcon 4. Surprised advertisement of Falcon: OIR at the beginning of October made an outcry in the Falcon community. Indeed, G2i thus hopes to leave a software before the end of the year in order to preserve its license and the right to develop Falcon V. the timing being what it is, the company had the intention to sell SP3 and the achievable BMS, decorated house improvements, in particular the capacity to control A-10 Thunderbolt II with its own avionics.
Thus G2i announced that the exit of SP4, then in version pre-finale, would be prohibited, due to competition towards its new baby, and that all the data of SP4, BMS and ViperOps were to be transmitted to the company in the 5 days, under legal sorrows of reprisals. Under the pressure of the community, which threatened of boycott of the new product if SP4, the work of the F4UT, did not arrive in the long term, G2i was folded up strategically not to be isolated from the community and thus from its future customers, target financial essential to its survival and that of Falcon V.
G2i thus pushed back the exit of F4Gold and let group BMS continue its developments. The last version of this patch is the version 1.03, solving some bugs achievable 1.00 left to the whole beginning of the year 2004.
The so much awaited exit of SuperPak 4, complete rehandling of the data files by the F4UT, arrived on February 25th, 2004.
Set up on the foundations left by the patchs SuperPak precedents, SP4 introduces the complements of data of the new functionalities brought by the achievable SP3. In additions, tens of thousands of entries in the various data tables were published, added, worked over again and corrected to give best simulation of combat and an environment of war increasingly more realistic and probably making the largest SP4 and the most complete database of military materials available in a civil flight simulator. After one year of development, the number of changes is enormous and, although not as apparent as the changes occurred with SP3, they increase considerably the factor of immersion in terms of graphs and realistic representation of the environment and its inhabitants.
There were many reasons which caused the delay of the SP4. Among those, one distinguishes that the leadership team of the F4UT and the developers somewhat concentrated on good number of projects after the exit of the SP3, which was essentially a development largely concentrated on the exe. That does not mean that work stopped there but, concerning the SP3, the work undertaken on the data was closely related to the innovations to code and the F4UT was a rigid organization because of this single goal. After the SP3 left, work on the data did not have any more fixed goals or deadlines to be respected what contributed to a certain indecision when at the date of diffusion.
There are also technical reasons touching with certain difficulties of improvement of the theaters and the databases which caused an additional delay several months, personal events implying the life of the members of the team and the political reasons: the more the F4UT approached a decision on the G2i question, the less the programmers seemed to be justified to produce a work which could be yielded thereafter. The exit of FreeFalcon and other Viperops projects moreover discouraged from good number working for what they regarded as an ungrateful public, the community not having acted admirably in terms of waiting and contribution to manage to reach its waitings, each forum accessible to the public seeming to have a ratio of 20 profiteurs for one which takes part, awaiting their next patch FreeFalcon. However, despite everything this delay, it is certain that the developers were not unemployed during one year whole.
For all these reasons, in addition to that of the confidential nature of the Viperops group which had been formed at the time, the direction of the F4UT considered that the group of development was to be dismantled. If the Viperops group had achieved its goals and had debuggué the SP3, it would have resulted the much better produced for the user from Falcon 4. It was a risk which was worth certainly the blow to be taken, but the project of VO finally did not arrive to its completion.
February 29th, 2004, is a few days only after the exit of SP4, G2Interactive announces that its best interest is to stop any development based on the intellectual property of Atari and to launch out in Fighter Ops, a new project very promising . Falcon: OIR is thus given up, from the impossibility of G2i of leaving immediately a product dissociating truly patchs available free and its financial incapacity to renew its license to continue its development.
G2i thus sets out again of zero with a third company which already seems to have a product since the simulator was promised for the end of 2004. Thereafter, G2i implosé following internal dissensions of the group. G2i always exists, seems there, but it created for itself XSI, new business which currently develops Fighter Ops, whose exit was pushed back and for the moment is planned for the end 2006.
May 27th, 2004, group BMS leaves the second version sound patch, after more than one year of work on the achievable original SP3, whereas the community remains in the blur with regard to the future events. Indeed, Atari had not authorized the exit of this patch by requiring that the file be withdrawn from the waiter of BMS as well as mirrors of remote loading. Work on BMS 2.0 was known and authorized by G2i, in spite of the fact that it left except time. The patch is thus regarded as unauthorized file, but the smoothness of the BMS groups allowed that this patch kind so that it is available under the coat for the pilots of the community.
The origin of this refusal is not really the clean act of Atari, but seems to be an internal quarrel of the group. Apparently, a team made up of the programmers forming the basic core of the development of Falcon throughout her history and having developed nearly 90% of the utilities allowing her improvement, seemed to have found an agreement with Atari and worked in the secrecy. While waiting for the revelation of their identity and their project, the community called them TNG - The Next Group .
With the development of the work of BMS, new possibilities emerged in the field of the models 3D as in that of the data. The FF TEAM decided to include the new work of BMS and to build its next patch on these new foundations. Work on FF3 started timidly with the central part of the patch which was the new models of F-15 of Quake, prohibited in the patchs SuperPak by the clause of G2i, which wanted initially to model it in Falcon V, and of all other additions like update FF2.1, left in December 2003 in order to take into account the modifications made by BMS and to correct some bugs minor FF2.
With time the bases started to be set up and FF3 evolved/moved in a new dimension. Indeed, the work of BMS claims the addition of a broad pallet of new data which were unknown before. With these preliminary developments started a snowball effect in the rows of the members of the FF TEAM and little time after the team turned over in a mode of production pushed, by carrying out new models, complementary skins, data and a single fitter. Other members the community contributed their models and of their skins. Novel members were able to help in various fields while the old ones continued to accumulate experience more and more. The result, FreeFalcon 3, arrived mid-July 2004 in a single fitter, avoiding the tiresome task of installation, known in the community under the name of falcon' S dance .
Curiously, this fitter is delivered with achievable slightly different from that of BMS 2, regulating some bugs but by containing others.
After the exit of SP 4.2 and FreeFalcon 3.1 at the end of 2004, patchs minor regulating some bugs data or bringing textures high-resolutions, a surprise of size emerges on the FreeFalcon site at at the beginning of January 2005: New achievable emerges, achievable Cobra 1.0, bringing some innovations to the level of the recurring avionics and regulating some bugs. But especially, this achievable seems to be locked to be usable only with the database of the FreeFalcon branch.
What did it thus really occur in the community from the developers? It would seem that this achievable (and the achievable one of FreeFalcon 3) is the fruit of a single developer, based without permission on promising work underground of BMS and the F4UT since the failure of G2i. It followed an outcry in the community of the developers, showing FF to have stolen work. It is undoubtedly the reason of the internal quarrels of the group BMS which led to the scission of the BMS-F4UT and FreeFalcon, and can be that of the detachment of the members of TNG. Several members of FreeFalcon, working not on the code but on the data or the models 3D, gave up the group. Minor versions of this achievable CobraOne left quickly thereafter, regulating awkward inaccuracies.
During 2005, an unknown group naming to him even Lead Pursuit appeared on the scene, with the imminent advertisement of the exit on June 28th of a new commercial release of Falcon 4, focused above all on stability. It obvious that this new group was only TNG, was composed of the first members having worked on the modifications of achievable with the whole beginning of the history of the simulator.
Falcon 4: Allied Force seems to be a logical extension of the SuperPak series - with the same priority focused on stability and general quality, instead of adding visual additions and finished functionalities to half. In a direction, it is a rationalization of what the community knows, by removing for example the possibility of controlling any type of apparatuses with the avionics of F-16, resulting in a myriad from apparatuses very badly simulated. Also, the team of LP remains very closed on modifications of data or the implementation of new systems by members of the community, unless that come from them, and claims to defend her intellectual property on the modifications and the redistribution of pieces of code (including all the data) of Falcon 4: Allied Forces but also on Falcon 4.
The product of Lead Pursuit is one (large) flashback in certain fields where the work of the community had progressed much, but dissociates itself on other important points, like a code network much more stable and the inclusion of the theater of Balkans.
July 29th, 2004, the OpenFalcon team which evolved/moved for some time in the shade decided to make surface.
A few months rather, after the advertisement of the abandonment of G2i, the developers of BenchMarkSims, the F4UT and the site dedicated to OpenSkin textures had indeed amalgamated in this new group of development, with the intention to take again the support of the SP4 and to continue the development of the SuperPak series of the F4UT, by incorporating the new achievable BMS in a add one of type One Click Install for the simulator of MicroProse. During this process, it was decided to reach an additional stage and to date produce most fabulous add one of Falcon. This add one would have taken the name from OFF 1.0 and was then in silly phase. Because of the exit of Falcon 4: Allied Forces and on the threat of legal continuations, the group decided to respect the license and not to publicly distribute its project to the community. However, work underground of OFF continued.
OpenFalcon was formed in the intention to open the mysterious doors of the development with the provision of tutoriels in their forums, with the provision them current developers to help and to guide whoever would wish to take part in the development. The new developers would have opportunity of climbing the levels in the development team and of management. OpenFalcon strongly believe that the community is Falcon, then why not leave opportunity to each one of contributing. The OpenFalcon site, with its zone of remote loading gathering all the useful utilities and its forums are present for the members of the community who want a knack to start to develop or would like answers to any question having bond with the improvement of Falcon 4.
The work of OpenFalcon Gathering the talent of teams BMS and F4UT, this version would seem to have the advantage to be essential like the version reference. Work on a avionics increasingly more pushed and a code really optimized network are ensured, some vidéos appeared on the Net testifying to good progresses.
August 18th, 2006, after more than two years of work on a patch which seemed extremely promising, appeared on the networks peer-to-peer the leak of the version 4.1 beta of OpenFalcon, dated April 23rd of this same year. This version of development is well beyond all that the community knew in term of realism and avionics, but it is obviously not at the discounted level of stability of a final version.
The escape seems to be due to a virtual esquadron being gotten this version by word of mount, and requiring group the any last version, under penalty of public diffusion. The team not having yielded to the blackmail, the patch found itself at disposal of each and everyone… OpenFalcon, completely disgusted, stopped Net its work in progress and its Internet site definitively closed. The patch in final version will not be born, and no one does not know if work will continue with a team much more discrete and not enticing the community with captures of screen and videos with profusion.
Since the beginnings of Falcon 4, the patchs brought very a large range of additions, improvements and complete rewritings of certain parts of the initial program. For example, we have today new photo-realistic cockpits, a avionics close to the confidential classified elements, new theaters of operation, the possibility of controlling a whole series of other apparatuses in addition to the F-16C, notable improvements of the artificial intelligence and many other things still. The bases are better modelled, with more buildings and are generic, with apparatuses stationed or which taxient. The density of objects knows a considerable improvement for the cities, the entries for the majority having been placed at the hand by an untiring team of developers which do not seem to know the direction of the word trouble. Number of the models of planes underwent an improvement and much are seen declined in several alternatives, the modellers and the originators of skins having provided a great quantity of work. There are improvements of the weapons of all the categories, with a recasting of the characteristics of the final phase of the missiles, values of damage for many ammunition and the objects which could be trying to destroy, with in addition to the adjustments of the variables of engagement of the units on the ground to prevent that whole battalions draw on a single air target. There is also full with other improvements in other fields as for the example the ATO where the changes will be remarkable at the beginning of a campaign.
We have today Falcon which does not have anything any more to see with Falcon 4 of origin, a simulator built on by community during one period of several years.
For the virtual pilot, Falcon 4: Allied Force seems today to be the new reference of the general public, but does not have to become to be the reference as an ultimate version of the simulator for the impassioned pilots.
Side of the Community development, two main roads took shape, FreeFalcon and OpenFalcon being based on databases become incompatible between them with the wire of time. Unfortunately, by the drastic limitation of the right of modification, LP slowed down work made by the community and made illegal the distribution of new versions, condemning the other versions to be developed in underground .
It was practically certain that OpenFalcon would not be distributed publicly, by fear of legal reprisals. The team of OpenFalcon then decided to launch out in the development of a very new simulation in order to free itself from the legal constraints and which will not rest on any part of Falcon 4, the parallel development of OpenFalcon being useful, amongst other things, basic for series of tests of feasibility. But today, the patch OpenFalcon cannot be counted any more in the future of Falcon 4 .
On the other hand, it would seem that the FreeFalcon group is decided to risk the legal combat if necessary vis-a-vis Lead Pursuit, since the fourth grinding of their patch is arranged for the year 2007 and will be probably distributed via the network peer-to-peer. Their work is always in hand and always promises more beautiful models 3D, a work on the data more thorough and of new functionalities via a new version of achievable CobraOne, including one large work on the graphic engine like revealed it the escape of some documents.
The community which developed around Falcon 4 is a phenomenon without precedent in the world of the simulators of vol. Jamais before, and can be never again, so much of talented people worked to correct and improve a play so hard - if one admits that it is a play - by dedicating his contribution to the community in order to improve the virtual experiment of all. Even with the news that Falcon is bought, sold or developed under license, the community continues to develop what Falcon is today, and hopes for what Falcon will be tomorrow.
Falcon 4 is a simulator which became a reference, the simulator more succeeded of all times. However, the borders and limits of the foundations established by its creators, inherent in his great age, cruelly start to be felt. More than one new graphic engine, it is an in-depth rehandling which would be necessary for the levelling to current technologies.
In addition to the product of XSI planned for the end of this year, Fighter Ops, based on the engine of X-Plane, modelling, in addition to the F-16, the A-10 and the F-15 in various versions, Lead Pursuit support on its license on the financial incomes generated by the sale of F4: AF full-time to develop the next shutter of the Falcon series.
A unified work of the various parts seems impossible, so much the points of view and the characters of the developers seem to diverge. The scission of the groups did nothing but be repeated during the history of the development of Falcon 4, but however, failing to have a version or a single simulator, it is indeed the difference, competitiveness and creativity of each group which will end up determining which will be the new reference as regards flight simulation .
A thing is certain: whatever the group of which they form part, of impassioned having worked on Falcon for several years have been able only to allow the military flight simulation to reach a revival and to push back the limits of virtuality.
Falcon History - The sim that just wouldn' T die
End of the developments
F4 Unified TEAM
The agreement
Hoped unicity
ViperOps
Coders of the shade
Work on the data
The proscription
FreeFalcon
For a free development
Let us add-ons
BenchMarkSims
The surprise
Falcon 4 Gold: OIR
The latecomer
Dismantling
G2Interactive throws sponge
Rupture
BMS 2 and TNG
FreeFalcon and other SuperPAK
CobraOne
Lead Pursuit
Falcon 4: Allied Forces
OpenFalcon
Future
Currently
Alternatives
The changing
Sources
External bond
Random links: Dorgali | List publications by editors - Winds of West - NR | Kožlje | Peter Elliott | Pinyin Tibetan | Charles_Duncan,_JR.