F-15 Strike Eagle III

F-15 Strike Eagle III
Developer: MicroProse Publisher: MicroProse Platform: DOS Released internationally: December 8, 1992 This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a notes page

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article? Notes: There's lots of externally-linked info (e.g. revisional differences) that needs to be imported here.

F-15 Strike Eagle III is a detailed combat flight simulator for DOS.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Notes

Unused AI Aircraft

The game contains a table of information about non-player-controlled aircraft, which, to quote that page, includes:

• “F-14” and “F-117”, which do not appear in the game; and
• US and enemy helicopters which do not appear in the game and for which models are not specified or available except in the playable demo version of the game.

The F-14 and F-117 models are still present in the game file PLANE1.3DX. The images below show renderings generated with as-yet-unreleased software, which also show the model numbers in that file:

The following table shows details of the AI aircraft in version 4108.01 of the game (this is probably unchanged in version .03) that have no associated models and hence are clearly unused. Note that their names indicate that they are all helicopters:

Idx Name     Speed Angle Radar type  Model Radar weap  IR weapon
--- -------- ----- ----- ----------- ----- ----------- -----------
 34 HIND       180     5 none        0:-1      None x0     AA-8 x4
 35 HIP        150     5 none        0:-1      None x0     None x0
 36 SA315      120     5 none        0:-1      None x0    MAGIC x2
 37 S-70       180     5 none        0:-1      None x0    MAGIC x2
 48 UH-60      180     5 none        0:-1      None x0     None x0
 49 HUEY       140     5 none        0:-1      None x0     None x0

Unused AI Aircraft Weapons

The game contains a table of information about weapons that can be used by non-player-controlled aircraft. This table includes air-to-ground weapons, which the AI does not actually employ. This suggests that at some point there may have been a plan to include friendly AI that would attack ground targets. This feature was included in the next flight simulator from MicroProse using an evolution of this game engine, F-14 Fleet Defender.

Other Unused Enemies

The game includes support for enemy SA-3 SAM sites, but none are included in the released versions of the game. It is not known how SA-3 sites differ from other types of SAM site other than that the game identifies the missile using the text "SA-3"; all missiles are visually identical. It is not known if there are any models for SA-3 SAM sites.

(Source: Strike Eagle Eye)

Other Unused Graphics

The game's 3-D model format supports conditional rendering of selected parts of the model. A number of models including guns, such as artillery, include what appears to be a muzzle flash that is only to be rendered conditionally by the game. However, the game appears to never actually render these muzzle flashes, even for example when an AAA gun fires at the player.

Of course, if you can see the muzzle flash from your enemy's guns, you're doing something wrong.

The following images show the "Battleship" model from DSMOB.3DX (Desert Storm theater) from game version 4108.03 with and without the muzzle flash (condition number 26) part of the model - simple orange lines - enabled. Note that the "BB Top" model includes the remainder of the ship's superstructure.

Without muzzle flash enabled, as seen in-game	With muzzle flash enabled, not used

Revisional Differences

See:

• F-15 Strike Eagle III Versions
• Game hangs “when flying near to the carrier group or the battleship group”: covers a bug fixed in the 4108.03 patch.

Regional Differences

• Copy protection: On startup, the UK release of the game asks if your manual is in "English", "Francais" or "Deutches" and then asks for a word from the manual. The US release of the game does not include any such copy protection.