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OBD Software Interview With Mark "Polovski" Rogers and Mark "Winding Man" Andrews Conducted by Dominic Smith Hi Mark, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us. As many readers will no doubt know, OBD Software is responsible for two of the most atmospheric combat sims available for the PC, Wings Over Flanders Fields (WOFF) and more recently, Wings Over the Reich (WOTR). So with that said, could I begin by asking you how the idea of creating WOFF came about? Mark Andrews (MA): We both came from enjoying Flying Corps Gold and Red Baron and wanted to experience a fully dynamic and immersive Single Player campaign in a more modern game engine - at the time there were basically no current up to date WW1 combat flight sims available... We wanted to create this immersive dynamic single player campaign using excellent AI in a large environment. What area of development did you find the most challenging? MA: Encouraging people to actually produce what they promised...given our diverse locations around the globe this has been the only real challenge. The rest has been taken care of with lots of passion! Is there a particular area of WOFF that you are especially proud of? MA: Yes, the realistic AI and the immersive single player Dymanic Campaign systems both set benchmarks for immersion and believability even today as they have been improved over time and are still we believe the best out there. How does this differ from campaign modes in other combat simulators? Mark Rogers (MR): In one word, hugely. Every generated mission will be completely different. In WOFF for example we have many hundreds of historical squadrons to choose to populate the world with. Squadrons selected by WOFF Manager to fly at the time the player flies his mission that day will be sent on their own real missions, or perhaps waiting on a field to take off to intercept other flights. In other words they are not necessarily player focused. They will do missions based on their historical location and role. Depending on settings there could be hundreds of aircraft up on real missions, no magical spawning in front (or behind!) the player. Together with the incredible AI it forms a realistic, immersive air war experience. There are complex behind the scenes rules and calculations to make sure it's as authentic as possible. We prefer the single player approach to the missions and campaign. Great AI is vital for this immersion and we have that in spades. It also avoids the various issues that can occur in some multiplayer environments - annoyances such as the effort in organising a serious team play session, avoiding team killers or those that ignore the mission or do silly things in the game to spoil it, totally ruining the immersive experience. WOFF includes a huge amount of period liveries and one cannot help but be impressed by this fact! Knowing that many photographs of the time were black and white, how did you go about obtaining all the relevant information? MA: Surprisingly there has been extensive research done in this regard by many world experts - but it is mostly in books and text...so of course no color photos no. MR: Experts have been able to work out tones to colors using known surviving aircraft, known documented info and from pieces of captured aircraft canvas and materials. Moving on to your latest release, Wings Over the Reich, what would you say are the biggest changes, apart from the aircraft and location? MA: We made a lot of changes to the AI to handle the aircraft in WW2 in ways that better reflect the way the aircraft were actually used, as well as improving the dynamic campaign to better represent the changes in the way the attacks were co-ordinated over a larger area than in WW1. MR: There's extensive changes to allow co-ordinated "timing" of flights and raids to join up at the target or on the way and so on. There are of course many other detailed changes we have added since release, for example much better AI collision avoidance, better landing routines, allowing aircraft to break when already concentrating on landing to defend themselves better and so on. The level of detailing displayed in the cockpits is incredibly authentic, so could you give us an idea of how much work is involved in modelling these, and do you have a favorite? MR: The Hurricane and the Bf109 took several months overall to make each. Each was the first WW2 craft we had made for its side (German / British). So for example as no dials, or parts, and no textures already existed each single part had to be designed, texture made and applied. The Spitfire was a little quicker as some instruments where therefore already available and compatible. A tedious process but we wanted the cockpits to be excellent even compared to many other sims and I think we have achieved that. There are quite a number of World War 2 combat sims available for the PC, so were you at all worried that you were stepping into an already crowded playing field? MA: No we believe WOTR presents the player with the best AI and single player Dynamic Campaign systems...this is why we wanted to press on and develop WOTR despite the extensive market coverage - but we have never been about marketing, etc. - it's always been about passion. Does that passion come from playing past simulators, or is it more historically placed? MR: For me a bit of both I think. Apart from the usual recreating battles with friends as a boy with Airfix models, and reading the 'war comics' of the day my interest in air combat came from seeing the films like the Battle of Britain movie and around the same time getting hold of a Battle of Britain pack that contained copies of real maps, pilot kill claims and all sorts of info and kit dealing with BoB. Eventually games like 'Wings' on the Commodore Amiga, then Red Baron on PC got me hooked. I believe we both started on the early PC sims like other old fogies out there. MA: Yeah I think Pol has summed it up quite well - it is certainly the historical aspect together with not really feeling satisfied with combat flight simulators at the time - they generally did not have a feeling of 'being there' so we strove to improve on that. You read up on these early aeroplanes and think what was it really like to fly them in war conditions. These dangerous early aircraft flying up high in the cold thin air in an open cockpit, hoping your engine doesn't cut out, whilst scanning for enemies through oil smeared goggles, and maybe heading out over the lines with the bombardments going off below you, the feeling of awe. Basically the fear for your own survival, and being a small cog in a large machine. We strove to achieve a taste of those feelings of fear in WOFF and WOTR - within the limits of a PC simulation of course. Both WOFF and WOTR feature highly detailed damage modelling. Could you tell us a bit about how this works, and is it implemented differently from other combat sims? MR: We wanted to add higher detailed damage and systems, not only because it would be cool, but also to allow more detailed WW2 systems to be affected - such as showing gun bays when panels blow off and so on. In the Hurricane MKI for example you can now have an aileron slightly damaged and see that component partly broken but still working (with less effectiveness too), then perhaps get more damage to it later in which case it may stop working altogether. This also required much more detailed damage boxes so we can tell exactly where the bullets hit, and more code to allow extra unused systems to be reused in other places. We have now several parts that can be damaged or various panels can be blown off, much more granular wing damage and so on. Also for WW2 much more important is to implement things like prop strikes - not only from belly landing which usually bends the props, but again at different levels so clipping the prop on a tree, to total damage when colliding with something at high speed - so the prop can bend or break in more than one way. A lot of new code and modelling was needed to cope with the new requirements, and even belly landing needed to cope with both on land and sea contact - so a lot more complex work was needed to create all these WW2 situations. Looking at both WOFF and WOTR, is there anything in the pipeline that you could tease us with? MA: Yes we are currently busy with a major WOFF upgrade to bring it in line with the advances in WOTR as well as add some really great new features...and before you ask - yes we expect to release it before year end. Currently we have around 40 areas of improvement some of them are quite dramatically better. MR: We also have some nice surprises coming for fighter aircraft models - hopefully most of them will be done (a large task as always as we now have around 82 flyables, and yes I have lost count!). Many thanks to you both for speaking to FlightSim.Com, and the team and I wish you all the best with WOFF and WOTR. MR: Thanks very much to you too Dom, and to Nels for a great job on FlightSim.Com. Links www.wingsoverthereich.com www.overflandersfields.com