Military Ops

[MCDesigns]

"I own an island, leased it from the government, spared no expense........."(in the words of John Hammond(Jurassic Park), LOL)

I really enjoy military flying, even if it is a civilian flightsim. I also enjoy designing scenery, especially military ones. One of the main issues with designing scenery is there are too many variables around your scenery that take the fun out of developing, different meshes, different textures, compatibility with other addons, etc and it just gets worse daily. So I found an island and started a fictional scenery where I don't have to worry about compatibility and can focus on design.

(BACK STORY)The island is leased from the country of Yemen and falls under United Nations jurisdiction. A covert segment of the U.N has a special forces base and an all nations training facility on the island with it's primary function focused on dealing with the piracy threat from Somalia.

FEATURES so far - the whole island is done in .50 cm per pixel photoreal with autogen, water masking and night textures. FSGenesis mesh brings out the mountains, but I have asked someone to see if they can do a higher def mesh, so we shall see.

The airfield is all custom ground poly with hires textures, including a runway for smaller jets, cargo aircraft. There is a heli area with eight landing pads. I have a quality static C-130 and Harrier II with the possibility of a Hind or Apache, haven't decided. I am also working on a drone or two with the possibility of having them be AI, but that would mean adding an AFCAD and I suck at those, LOL.

Quite a few custom objects, including several Humvees, watch tower, hangers, cargo, palm trees, camo netting, an APC, an MTVR truck, tents and various people, some animated. With all the detailed objects having LODS.

There are also 2 different landable destroyers around the island, static for now, but want to make them work in AICarriers.

I also have a drivable Bradley APC and a working armed zodiac for water patrols.

Thinking about a civilian area at the other end of the island for non military simmers and a place for R and R , we'll see.

Still lots to do, but wanted to put this out there to see if anyone was interested. I am open to any suggestions, but can't guarantee anything. Here are a few images to get an idea.

[DaveWG]

Looks great to me Michael, nice work

[roger-wilco-66]

WOW!!!

[Firekitten]

Whilst scenery development is certainly a fine art, that is just creativity at its best... Great work

[Dino Cattaneo]

Very interesting indeed.

If you are into the military side of FSX, I suggest you have a look at VRS Tacpack.
Current public release only works with the VRS Hornet, but this will change in the near future.

I have been given access to the SDK and I am integrating my F-14D and the F-35 to support it.
It is a wonderful implementation, and it is much more realistic than what most people believe.
Other devs are integrating their projects too... only jet fighters at the moment, afaik, but there is no reason why the SDK it cannot be applied (at least partially) to helicopters or other vehicles.

[Dino Cattaneo]

...I just realized I forgot saying that I totally envision this scenery to be a multiplayer arena for Tacpack multiplayer matches!

[MCDesigns]

Thanks all, appreciate the replies!!

...I just realized I forgot saying that I totally envision this scenery to be a multiplayer arena for Tacpack multiplayer matches!

Hi Dino, good to know about the TacPack, been interested in it myself. Would LOVE for it to work with helis and other objects. With the location of the Island I can envision this also. I had a few MP flights with a friend and we did just that, few times in the F-35, LOL

[Dino Cattaneo]

At the moment I am writing, the F-35 can already fire the cannon and launch/drop sidewinders, slammers and dumb bombs (Mk82,83 & 84). GBU-10; -12 -32, AGM-154 and AGM65 (although no guidance yet...) and they are already working and can damage SimObjects (too bad this works only in the developer's version!!!)

Tacpack is great IMHO - once the "non-Superbug only" version is out, given the quantity and quality of aicrafts available in FSX it will be a big thing (if a little too late).
If anything is, obviously, a little USN oriented... European or Russian weapons are not supported, as of today, but I am sure this will change soon.

[Roger]

Looks absolutely fantastic Michael!

Is it likely to be Dx10 compatible?

[dhazelgrove]

European or Russian weapons are not supported.....

I was just wondering if US weapons go bang in a different way from others - perhaps with a Southern accent?

Sorry.

Dave

[Dino Cattaneo]

What I meant is that the Tacpack weapons list can be expanded only by the VRS team, which in turn grants a quite realistic and balanced behavior (much more realistic than what people may think).
But at the moment, only USN weapons are supported - but this is because the Tacpack is originally designed fro the Superbug. So, for example, no proper weapons for a Su-27 - for the moment.

[ST0RM]

Nice scenery. Very crisp and laid out well. Just needs a Reaper/Predator UAV tucked away under a shelter or two.

-Jeff

[stovall]

Wonderful stuff Michael, please keep us posted as to progress. It will definitely be a sticky when finished. I would love to see your Africa scenery also. Thanks for what you do.

[flaviossa]

Very nice work!
Suggestion: how about placing a weapon test range with targets for shot practice with air/ground weapons?

[letourn]

looks great will be fun to fly

[HvyEng]

Awesome! This looks like a perfect tactical "playground," Thanks!

[TheGrunt]

Looks amazing! Just one suggestion would be some sort of town/city in "Mogadishu style" on the coast with harbor, a place where some helo flying would fit nicely.

[MCDesigns]

Looks amazing! Just one suggestion would be some sort of town/city in "Mogadishu style" on the coast with harbor, a place where some helo flying would fit nicely.

Sorry, no cities exist on the island in real life so it would look odd to add any on top of the photoreal, but I want to create some FOBs around areas of conflict in that area and Somalia is right next door.. I picked this island because it has lots of different landscapes for both rotary and fixed wing. There is one area where you can come in low from the water, thru a tropical valley with mountains towering right in front of you, pretty cool.

Mark just sent me the mesh he did and WOW, it is amazing, check it out.

[Sundog]

That looks great! I always thought if I was to do something similar, it would be to create one of those floating airfields the military has been talking about made from the base sections of oil rigs linked together. Then, I could just position them anywhere where the water isn't too deep. Edit: Something I just happened to think of that you could add to the island. A Target/Bombing Range. Obviously placed as far from the airfield on the island that you can get it, but they're going to need to train. You might also consider adding a port for the Navy. You know, in all of your spare time.

[Mithrin]

Very cool. I really enjoyed your scenery (libraries) for fs9. This ought to be fun!

[strikehawk]

I can see pilots from the FSX Miramar Flight Club forward deployed here, especially if the annoy the Gunner. And I see it could share Diego Garcia's motto, "There's A Woman Behind Every Tree".

[JimmyRFR]

This looks really nice, will be a lot of fun to fly from. The one suggestion I'd have in place of a city would be a small 'fake' training town. Seacans with a few buildings tossed in - would have the advantage of having such scenery on top of photo-real looking sort of artificial to start with. Be great for practicing heli drops.

Regardless of what you do with it though, it does look seriously great.

[MCDesigns]

Looks absolutely fantastic Michael!

Is it likely to be Dx10 compatible?

Roger, I am like you, I fly in DX10 mode always, so if there are any issues, I will see them during designing. Usually the old FS2002 ground polys have issues, but so far they are displaying fine.

[MCDesigns]

This looks really nice, will be a lot of fun to fly from. The one suggestion I'd have in place of a city would be a small 'fake' training town. Seacans with a few buildings tossed in - would have the advantage of having such scenery on top of photo-real looking sort of artificial to start with. Be great for practicing heli drops.

Regardless of what you do with it though, it does look seriously great.

That is a good idea, will look into it. The more I think of scenarios, the more I wish TacPack was ready for helis, LOL. I have several mobile missile launcher objects, and would love to find a way to control a firing from one, even better to a target. I already have a scene ready with a stopped tanker and two boats of Somali pirates circling it, perfect for a missile strike, heli weapons, or long range ordinance

[MCDesigns]

Just a little update for anyone interested. Progress is going great, got lots done including redefining the coastlines down to the pixel almost in photoshop (my wrist is killing me), cleaned up the photoreal a bit and added autogen, got over half the objects done, started work on animated ones, have possible locations for FOBs in Yemen and Somalia (I believe if you are going to make a scenery you also need to include a point B place to fly to, plus with the objects done, they won't take long) I am also working on some AI aircraft and ships (See the Mil-8).

Anyhoo, had the day off today, worked hard on it this morning so I played a little after and took some pics (sorry for the compression/quality), enjoy.

getting ready for a tactical training flight around the island



Pretty coastlines and even autogen, LOL
Notice the ship beyond the reef?



The U.N Mil-8 is getting ready to fly some free rice out to Somalia, see the animated forklift guy working hard, LOL.



I couldn't decide on a Hind or Apache static object, so I did both.