New LAC Review NOT published by Linux Links

[bbosen]

A couple of months ago I wrote a "Review" of Linux Air Combat for the "Linux Links" website after I noticed they had articles about other Linux flight sims but nothing for LAC yet. They responded quickly and told me that they never use pre-written reviews, but that they would be publishing their own, independent review in the future. I hope they do so, but so far I've seen nothing.

HERE is the text of the review I sent them. (It's a bit self-promoting [blush] but people involved in the "Press Release" and "Review" industries will recognize that this is the way these things are frequently done....) It contains some LAC history and culture that you won't find anywhere else:

============ BEGIN UNPUBLISHED REVIEW & SUMMARY =============

Linux Air Combat

If you are seeking quick thrills in a flight-oriented video game, Linux Air Combat is NOT what you're looking for!

Linux Air Combat, or "LAC", is an online, multi-player, combat flight simulator that strives for realism. Unlike a typical console game that can reward new players with easy victories in a matter of minutes, very few new LAC players experience an online air combat victory during their first several hours unless they can draw on prior skills flying a real airplane or with other, realistic combat flight simulators.

On the other hand, if you enjoy aviation history, crave a smooth, realistic feeling of flight, have an active imagination willing to be whisked back to the violent days of World War II, and are willing to spend time learning the ins and outs of LAC's virtual world and evolving community, you can look forward to a series of amazing new online experiences far beyond those you might expect from ordinary open-source software.

This is not a typical open-source product. An Internet search for "Linux Air Combat" will yield dozens of web sites with hundreds of pages of instructive material and hundreds of instructive video clips. LAC is probably the best documented combat flight simulator ever published online. The software is free, the source code is freely available, and a precompiled binary executable version, packaged according to the well-known "AppImage" conventions, is ready to be downloaded and executed immediately on all of the most popular desktop Linux distros with no need to compile or to download any prerequisites.

LAC's hardware demands are modest. Any personal computer built to run any version of Microsoft Windows since about 2007 has enough power to run LAC. It will even run nicely on a Raspberry Pi model "4b" or model "400".

Control all of LAC’s 54 aircraft with a joystick, a USB console Game Controller, or just with keyboard and mouse.

FEATURES:

• Free, open-source sofware compiles without modification on all of the most popular desktop LINUX distros.

• Precompiled "AppImage" binary executable available for immediate download, ready to run on all popular “X86" desktop LINUX systems. No need to download prerequisite libraries or compile!

• Clean, simple graphics and sound effects yield smooth flight and high frame rates, even on modest, inexpensive computer hardware (runs nicely on Raspberry Pi).

• Supports USB Joystick, USB Console Game Controller, or Mouse and Keyboard for flight controls.

• 54 flyable aircraft from World War II, each with distinct characteristics for flight, durability, and lethality, all modeled from available historic records.

• Real-world flight controls: Elevator, Aileron, Rudder, Flaps, Throttle, Undercarriage, Weapons, and (where appropriate) Dive/Speed Brakes.

• Real-world flight physics with load inertia, stalls, torque rolls, compressibility, blackouts, redouts, altitude fade, low-speed control fade, control surface drag, maneuver drag, etc.

• Real-world weapons of World War II: machine guns, cannons, bombs, and rockets.

• Battle damage degrades engine power, maneuverability, roll rate, RADAR, target identification, etc.

• Standardized, modern-style digital cockpit looks the same for all aircraft (to help new pilots learn faster).

• Four narrated tutorial missions.

• High resolution mission terrains in mountain, desert, and ocean settings.

• Five types of online, server-based, multi-player Internet missions.

• Free Internet server.

• Two-player, online "Head-to-Head" mission does NOT require a server.

• Interplayer text messaging with real Morse Code sound effects.

• Interplayer voice messaging through a built-in cockpit interface to the well-known "Mumble" VOIP app.

• Mission selection menus list names of active online players.

• Fighters can escort friendly bombers, attack enemy bombers, combat other fighters, or strafe airfields, ships, and buildings.

• Bombers can damage or destroy enemy airfields, but they must fight their way into enemy territory and back home again.

• Bombers are equipped with "autogunners" to defend themselves from fighters.

• Damaged airfields are gradually repaired by surviving ground personnel. Repairs are accelerated when nearby airspace is dominated by friendly aircraft, but repairs stop when hostile aircraft dominate.

• Server replays recordings of prior online activity to serve as targets when no other online players are available.

LAC’s primary author is Robert Bosen. That name may be familiar to Personal Computer old-timers, because he helped thousands to adopt the PC hobby between 1975 and 1980 as he published a series of pioneering articles in the industry-founding print magazines of the day, like “Byte Magazine”, “Kilobaud”, and “80 Microcomputing”. In fact, he wrote the very first popular 3d space combat game for the Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80, known as “80 Space Raiders”, back in 1980!

Robert began collecting consumer-oriented, commercial combat flight simulators back in 1984, and he honed his online piloting skills on all of the most popular titles of the industry’s classic period, like “Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat”, “Air Warrior”, “Fighter Duel”, “Jane’s Fighters Anthology”, “Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator”, “Warbirds”, “ysflight”, and “Aces High”. As time passed, Robert switched from Microsoft Windows to Linux, but he was dismayed to find that very few of his favorite combat flight simulators ran well on the desktop Linux systems of the time, even with the best available emulation.

After retiring as an Internet security software development executive in 2008, Robert founded the well-known “AskMisterWizard.com” web site, where he publishes hundreds of articles and video clips about computer security, networking, digital media, and flight simulation.

Eventually he discovered an arcade-style flight game for LINUX, named “gl-117”, with free, published “C++” source code based entirely on popular, free, universally supported software libraries. Robert was delighted to find that he could successfully compile gl-117 on a wide variety of LINUX distros of the day, and that it was written in a clean, lightweight style, delivering smooth, natural motion and high frame rates. He decided to use gl-117 as the foundation for his own new flight simulator for LINUX.

After spending about six months stripping gl-117 down to it’s bare bones and eliminating all of the arcade-oriented features, only the foundational menu structure, main timing loop, and graphic core remained. All of the arcade-oriented aircraft and scenarios were eliminated, and he began replacing them with primitive models of World War II warbirds and more realistic-looking terrains. The first simulated airplane was the Lockheed P38 “Lightning”, because it had long been Robert’s favorite.

Over the next seven years, LAC gradually became more sophisticated. The ‘Air Warrior” viewsystem was adopted so pilots could look left, right, forward, back, up, and down by holding down arrow keys of the numeric keypad according to the prevailing norms of the industry. Real-world physics were brought into the increasingly sophisticated flight model. 53 additional World War II aircraft were simulated. Peer-to-peer networking allowed two players to see and shoot at one another. Additional programmers and artists lent a hand. Client-server networking was added and a free server began to operate. Interplayer communication based on exchange of text messages was supplemented with a powerful interface to the well-known “Mumble” Voice over Internet Protocol (“VOIP”) application, and a free mumble server was activated. A series of comprehensive web pages was published along with Frequently Asked Questions, a lively forum, and the source code.

Fast forward to 2022. Linux Air Combat is now the leading free, open-source combat flight simulator for Linux. Whether you just want to fly all alone in one of LAC’s empty “Realms” versus bots or replay blokes, or whether you’re ready for real, live players in the LAC online community, you’ll find far more than an ordinary arcade game here, and we think you’re going to love it!

Links to all of LAC’s best online documentation and video clips can be found through THIS well-organized web page:

https://askmisterwizard.com/2019/LinuxAirCombat/LacOnlineDocs.htm

=========== END UNPUBLISHED REVIEW AND SUMMARY ============