[HN Gopher] Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source ...
___________________________________________________________________
Linux Air Combat: free, lightweight and open-source combat flight
simulator
Author : nateb2022
Score : 163 points
Date : 2023-07-30 17:57 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (askmisterwizard.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (askmisterwizard.com)
| anthk wrote:
| Amazing changes to GL117 =)
|
| Now if they did the same to ACM...
|
| Call me odd, but these games were insta-fun. Run, load the levels
| in seconds, instant fun.
|
| The same with Search and Rescue 2. Or the Marathon series. Simple
| graphics, but engaging gameplay.
| dargscisyhp wrote:
| Folks here are harsh this looks like a lot of fun.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Looks as if OpenGL support was added to Temple OS.
| slicktux wrote:
| Must have been a pain porting it to machine code...lol
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Surely it would use Holy C.
| samstave wrote:
| To The CPU, The GPU and the Magic Smoke, we prey for n00bs.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Amazing how low the bar is for FOSS games on Linux.
| nativeit wrote:
| It sounds like an excellent platform for artists who might
| not have a lot of coding skills to contribute graphics
| toward. Kind of the point, in my mind.
| anonymfus wrote:
| I believe it looks and feels like this because of
| limitations of SDL 1.2, and not because of the lack of art
| contributions.
| anthk wrote:
| SDL 1.2 could call GL just fine. And it does. No, the
| game was done like that on purpose, on being light and
| playable.
|
| Any serious libre gamer with a big graphics card to test
| would just launch Flightgear at 4K with the ALS effects
| on, real time weather and a crazy draw distance over 30
| kms with all the shading FX' on. And lots of tweaks that
| made clouds looks like clouds and not fancy textures or
| barely recreated shaders.
| dmonitor wrote:
| open source doesn't really mesh well with artists, so most
| open source games just have terrible graphical assets
| anthk wrote:
| Yes, like Flare, sure.
|
| Saying that it's like saying every AAA game it's like an
| unoptimized Ubisoft crap.
| anthk wrote:
| One of the most sold games ever has blocky graphics not much
| better than a boosted SNES on 3D.
|
| Do you realize this graphics settings are done on retro
| purposes?
|
| Go check Flightgear videos with ALS settings and graphics to
| the max. It might not be MSFS, but for something that _also_
| runs under an HD3000 iGPU /UHD600, the graphics are
| astounding for a community based project.
|
| Also, MSFS gets rendered assets and maps from Bing maps,
| something Flightgear did with Google Maps with a custom
| build... 10 years ago.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Right now one of the most hyped Battlefield alternatives is
| Battlebit which looks not very modern but apparently plays so
| much better than whatever EA put out in recent years that
| people happily play it.
|
| Amazing how low the bar is for AAA games in terms of gameplay
| and fun.
| jkim1258 wrote:
| Great point & example, but I'm curious how well that
| translates to simulation games, where immersion is a large
| part of the selling point, as opposed to fun & tight game
| mechanics full of balanced flow & fiero.
| anthk wrote:
| I watched my younger cousing playing the new Rainbow Six.
| Compared to the fist one, they are completely
| "arcadized". Just a narrow step down from Urban Terror on
| "cinematic gameplay". "Realist", but not so much.
|
| Graphics, yes. But the actual gameplay... a joke compared
| to the first Rainbow Six and tactical matches on SWAT3.
| Nition wrote:
| Battlebit and Minecraft (which was mentioned in another
| reply here) won't ever actually be mistaken for a game from
| the 1990s, there's way too much detail into the far
| distance, the lighting is too good, and the UI looks
| relatively modern (especially in Battlebit).
|
| Linux Air Combat on the other hand really does look the way
| games looked 30 years ago, and the UI looks worse.
|
| It's fine, we don't need good graphics in everything. But
| it _will_ hurt its popularity in a way that Battlebit is
| not hurt, because people can tell the difference between
| intentionally making a game with a retro look vs. just not
| having the art resources for good graphics.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Interesting that they decided to stick with Sourceforge after the
| malware debacle.
| paulcarroty wrote:
| Sourceforge has new owners AFAIR.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| And by "new" we mean since 2016 - the current owners own
| Sourceforge for almost double the time the previous owners
| that bundled malware did :-P
| joecool1029 wrote:
| SF has been through like 2 or 3 owners since then, ancient
| history at this point.
| samstave wrote:
| Maybe, but after that - I havent used them in a very very
| long time - so their credibility is lost to me, for good.
| chucksmash wrote:
| As is SF itself.
|
| Is there anything to recommend it now, aside from inertia of
| already being on SF?
| badsectoracula wrote:
| It was only sold once after the debacle, the new owners just
| changed names at some point.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think "lightweight" is very honest when the game
| looks like this.
| elmomle wrote:
| Sure it is. Nothing in the word "lightweight" implies stellar
| graphics. If anything, it implies that heavy and nonessential
| things (like cutting-edge graphics) are totally out of scope.
| CptTightpants wrote:
| [dead]
| dharmab wrote:
| y copy of DCS World (a popular combat flight sim) is around is
| 426GB. This is positively featherweight for the genre.
| nocoiner wrote:
| Oh come on, surely that's an overstate...
|
| > Size: 458 GB
|
| Damn.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| You're comparing something that literally looks like a movie
| to a game that nobody would even dare giving away for free in
| cereal packs.
| anthk wrote:
| Untill you play it. I said the same in ~2003 with the first
| Deus Ex. Dull graphics, not the best usage of the first
| Unreal engine, cliche conspiacies almost straight from the
| X-Files series and common urban legens.
|
| Yet the emergent gameplay and the semi free-roaming
| playability made it better than most FPS crapware being
| shold from 2002 to 2009 save for Half Life 2 and Crysis.
|
| This might not be the best game on the flying combat genre,
| but don't forget that these games are built for fun and if
| they work on multiplayer, for quick matches quickly
| forgetting the rest.
|
| Heck, a lot of pro FPS players put the texture settings at
| the core mininum and with a 1920x1080 resolution at best so
| they can spot the rest of the players at a quick glance...
| badsectoracula wrote:
| For a 56MB AppImage binary it looks very good.
| wiseowise wrote:
| > New: LAC is now available in a special, precompiled, optimized
| version for Valve Corporation's fabulous "Steam Deck" portable
| gaming PC. All of the controls are configured by default for best
| use, and it's easy to fly in LAC's online, multi-player, server-
| based missions without ever needing a keyboard. Even voice comms
| among players are supported!
|
| Perfect.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Is there anything like a source port of Chuck Yeager's Air
| Combat?
|
| I suppose this is not it.
| tmtvl wrote:
| The first entry of the Ace Combat flight arcade (as opposed to
| flight sim) series was released under the title of Air Combat, so
| I hope Namco ain't gonna bop them for trademark infringement.
| nateb2022 wrote:
| According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namco),
| Namco went defunct on 31 March 2006
| jkim1258 wrote:
| I think it'd be safe to assume that Bandai Namco holds the IP
| of the former Namco
| wtallis wrote:
| It _merged_ in 2006, with Bandai. The combined company is
| anything but defunct, and their IP is not abandoned or up for
| grabs.
| sufficer wrote:
| Aces High 3 is a really fun similar fighting ww2 based combat sim
| almostnormal wrote:
| It's probably the best of its kind (mmo), but the number of
| players is constantly (slowly) decreasing. Mostly from players
| getting too old or dieing. Alternatives: Warbirds has even
| lower numbers. I'm not sure about the current state of the war
| in the air in WW2-Online.
|
| Can an open source game of this kind find players? Probably not
| many, but possibly dedicated ones. The problem with that target
| group is that someone will reference the charts from the POH or
| from published test flight data and complain that the
| simulation does not match the numbers.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-07-30 23:00 UTC)