[LEXX]

Feuerfalke (regarding Falcon sim)::

While they were outside the players visibility, they were merely calculated by chance and a simplified strategy system.

Interesting. I would hope its a bit more than beyond the player's visibility -- 10km or 20km is not very far, especially for jets. Oleg did say more recently that external camera view may be restricted to aircraft close to the player, or some sort of restriction that implied an AI Bubble. Its possible that the distant aircraft will be simulated abstractly, which might be workable for a very large strategic level air warfare simulation. But to be honest, I really think that AI BOMBERS can be simulated directly, with very simple flight models, since their primary function is to fly in formation as their primary offensive and defensive combat tactic, unlike fighters using energy and manuever for offensive and defensive combat tactics.

For example, I'm trying to build a map for the StrikeFighters where the USSR can be surrounded by SAC airbases, with the map extending from Pakistan to Japan and north to Norway and Alaska. Any sim that tried to cover that might benefit from having aircraft and combat simulation beyond say, 1000km from the Player Plane made more abstract. Although environmental effects like aurora should be visible to several thousand kilometers, and some combat effects can be seen from thousands of kilometers, depending on yield...

Trinity site, CHAPTER II: Descriptions of Nuclear Explosions ~> http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/n...t/enw77b1.html

In several of the nuclear tests made in the atmosphere at low altitude at the Nevada Test Site, in all of which the energy yields were less than 100 kilotons, the glare in the sky, in the early hours of the dawn, was visible 400 (or more) miles away. This was not the result of direct (line-of-sight) transmission, but rather of scattering and diffraction, i.e., bending, of the light rays by particles of dust and possibly by moisture in the atmosphere.