Flight Model/Weapons

This isn't Tiger Heli

Some have worried that Gunship! won't feature very realistic settings or flight models. At least from this combat sim novice's perspective, those worries should be put to rest. Gunship! is no arcade game (although the settings can be tweaked so it seems like an arcadish game). Taking the plunge, I played with all the flight model settings cranked up as realistic as they would go. As a result, I quickly learned that flying a helicopter is not an easy task! It took me a good deal of time just to figure out simple maneuvers like steady, level flight, and gracefully slowing to a halt. Adjusting lift with the collective controls was a constant balancing act. Response to controls felt like it should in a real helicopter - slightly muddled and delayed. It took a lot of practice and discipline for me to not oversteer or over-control the craft. It's not like playing Quake, that's for sure!

Look how far the horizon goes

Incoming armor!

Our manual claims that Gunship! can model some rather sophisticated flight characteristics and environmental effects. These include: the ground cushion effect (extra lift at low altitude and low speed), translational lift (extra lift at speeds between 30 and 90 knots), and roll and lift (rolling causes helicopters to lose lift). I also found the following on CombatSim.com's forums, written by one of the lead developers:

Times of day and weather are both modeled. These affect both visible range, and the effectiveness of thermal, FLIR and NV systems appropriately (including Thermal crossover and blanketing

I definitely felt the roll and lift, but I'm probably not a sophisticated enough sim player to discern the rest. We'll leave it up to our more experienced combat sim player, Riley, to talk more about Gunship! from a hardcore player's perspective in a future article. If you're not as interested in flying as you are in shooting, then playing from the gunner's seat is an option as well. Flight instructions can be relayed to the pilot as you light up and fire on targets.

Up close and personal

Gunning them from point blank

Variety in choppers/weapons

Gunship! includes a good variety of the world's most deadly helicopters. The game features four playable ones - the American AH-64D Apache Longbow, the British Westland Apache variant (WAH-64D), the German/Eurocopter Tiger, and the Russian Mil-28 Havoc. Other helicopters like the Mil-24 Hind, are in the game but not playable by the user. Every helicopter's cockpit is modeled after the real one in terms of visibility and instrument layout. What's neat is that you can adjust the view so that the cockpit becomes translucent or disappears entirely to present only the battlefield on screen (with the HUD). Less hardcore players may also enjoy playing the game with a view outside the helicopter.

This one's about ready to blow

There it goes

There also are plenty of weapons to keep you occupied. The alpha only had American/NATO weaponry available, but even just that meant a ton of different choices. Anti Tank missiles included laser and radar guided Hellfires (L and K variants), and the HOT3 optically tracked missile. Among the unguided rockets (FFARs) were regular high explosive, rockets with cluster bomblets (very cool effect), anti infantry flachette rockets, and incendiary willy pete (white phosphorus)! Stinger and Sidewinder antiair missiles were also available along with the standard cannon. The full version will allow many more weapons (85 in total), including those that are specific to the various countries represented.