Flight Sim / Combat Sim Connections

Most readers already know that Microsoft also produces a flight combat simulator. The following discussion describes the nature of the ongoing development processes and the underlying reasons for determining what gets shared and what is unique to each product.

Bruce: The fundamentals [between the two sims] are the same. We have a very high quality simulation engine with the aerodynamics and performance to emulate the way airplanes fly and so forth. We obviously take advantage of that. We want the airplanes in Combat Flight Sim to be realistic. Things like instrument panels, there is no reason to do those differently then we do them in one product or the other. Weather, the basics of the scenery, the terrain and so forth; that’s all stuff that can be shared. Now, obviously there are going to be differences because we don’t develop them simultaneously. One might be able to take advantage of some new technology or something new the smart guys figured out which will then get into the next one.

Scot: One of the things that we have set for ourselves is that ability to create a reciprocating engine between CFS and Flight Sim (so that one will feed new data into the other).

Bruce: They're never going to be completely the same. It's not like Combat Sim will ever be some sort of add-on package to Flight Sim. There is enough unique to Combat Sim because it has to do unique things. You’ve got to have artificial intelligence airplanes chasing you around the sky. You’ve got to have explosions, weapons, and damage models that you don’t have in Flight Sim. There is a lot of stuff in Flight Sim like VOR’s and ILS’s – things that you don’t need in other periods, because they didn’t exist at that time.

It's not just one team that works on each, they swap over and there is some overlap. But the basic goals are essentially the same, produce a really realistic product. Obviously you learn things and tackle problems like Andy was mentioning about the transitions between textures and things. We learned a lot about that with Combat FlightSim – we learned about wrapping terrain and textures together. Whether it is actually the same that is used is irrelevant, you sort of learn from that experience.

As you well know the graphics technology moves at such a rapid pace that a product that comes out a year from now – you may want to do something to take advantage of some of that technology that you couldn’t do previously.