homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation EECH / EEAH Apache avionics modernization program [work in progress]

Amazing stuff!

For a sim so old and it's still being modded today tells of things lacking in the flight sim community (same with Falcon 4). This kind of work makes me wish I knew how to code - I'd love to work on the DC and tidy it up. Arneh and crew this is great work - perhaps you guys should look at making your own apache sim lol.

Seeing what you've done so far, I wonder how much more moddable the game is - will you guys finish off by turning this into a completely different product one day?

Great work and looking forward to the results, though no rush

Hi Jex,

Unfortunately the 3D engine is very old. The devs can do (and did) an amazing job in updating models, avionics, and many other features, but there's only so much they can do graphics-wise. There's no way to put EECH on par with DCS in graphics apart from completely rewriting the game using another 3D engine.

As for tweaking the DC, I briefly dived into it a while ago but sadly I had a spike in work demand so I had to completely drop that. I never changed one single line of code, only looked at it.

Well first of all we're all bound by the Empire source license, so simply reselling this is out of the question, and we can't redistribute the original datafiles (models, textures, etc) so making a true "free" release would be a major undertaking.

Then there's the fact that the code is old and ugly in every aspect. It's plain C with source files that are thousands of lines long. Thanks to it having directX bolted to everything cross platform support is never going to happen (there was an openGL branch but it's dead Jim, AFAIK), upgrades to later versions of DirectX are a big undertaking too.

I'd say what EECH really needs at this point is a rewrite using open standards/APIs and a high-level language (C++ or even Java).

Hi arneh,

I too am interested in this wonderful work, especially as I like Apache the most from the EECH chopper selection.

Any hints to the further progress so far?

Hey, Arneh, what documents are you using to do your upgrade? Most documents on things like the longbow radar are considered classified. Is your update going to be like combat helo or more realistic. thanks.

Whoa, those posts were from long ago, probably going to have to PM the man himself to get anything out of him.

A. This looks gorgeous. Thank goodness we have talents like Arneh working on this game!
B. I'm more interested in realistic performing sensors & weapons (i.e. not perfect ones!!) than I am in realistic MFD's & buttons, but I think I made that clear already. Arneh, maybe you can take those on next...

-Olds

I don't know why they keep this sticky...

I think this project is dead.

Wait... let me check...




Yup.... dead.

... that horse isn't dead! It's just sleeping...
... oh dear, maybe not. Hm, I'll just cut off the head here and ride it around a little

Oh...don't do THAT!

Here...


have a pony...

Sent a pm his way, so will wait for a reply, then will get his e-mail.

Unfortunately, despite all the hard work done by Arneh and the EECH developers community in general, I think there's no reason for existence for EECH anymore since we will have Combat Helo soon. The majority of EECH players only flies in the Apache anyway.

There's no logic in your affirmation JayPee... the new sim (once released) will not kill EECH. Have DCS killed falcon4???

JayPee,

That's a massive assumption you're making there.

I only fly the comanche and have actually based my pit on it. I know that GrizzlyT has also done this.

Many of the guys on here fly the red side aircraft.

Andy

I have yet to see a recent sim as broad, ambitious, and extensible as the likes of Falcon 4 and EECH. Combat Helo may be the exception to the new sim rule, but I'm not holding my breath. New sims have been consistently pretty-to-look-at but weak on replayability. Combat Helo has a very small team and there's only time to do so much...

IMO, PC games that don't find a way to open up to some form of user content will have short lives on your computer.

Time will tell, but I wouldn't bury EECH just yet.

From the beginning I look at Combat Helo,And in my humble opinion if EEch is dead,It also CH dead.
IN MY OPINION full campaign will be released in Ch fastest for the year,but rather, more later.(And frankly we do not have confidence or ever will be released) Sad but true.
If you want to fly for over a year and shoot to several stationary targets - good luck.
yet for a long time will have no EECH competition.
Now we have a true professional and an artist on board-Olds
And for some time we see new Dust and Explosions similar to the Apache Air Assault.

I PM'ed Arneh and the project is shelved. He's doing things other than EECH, and would like to finish the project, but can't. If anyone wants his source code however, he would be happy to give it to anyone who wants to finish what he started.

As I've mentioned I'm too occupied with other things nowadays to work on this project. I hope to someday resurrect it, but it won't be anytime soon.

But if someone else wants to pick up the work, what was done is available in the source code repository for someone with skill and interest to work on. My primary source for the upgrade was a US Army training manual which explained in quite detailed steps how to do various procedure, including things like all the steps for tasks like "Perform Target Acquisition and Designation Sight Sensor Operation", "Perform Fire Control Radar Operations", "Engage Target With Point Target Weapons System" etc. It's a public domain document available at e.g. http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/docs/tc-1-251-cover.htm

Arneh,

Sorry to see you leave the fold (even temporarily!).

Please accept a big thank you for all the work you have done (and hopefully will do...) to make EECH what it is today.

All the best,

Andy

+1!

EECH+EEAH was one of the best ways I ever spent 12 bucks. Even though I don't play it now (too much time taken by my PhD, also the reason why my supposed tweaking of the AI never got off the ground), it's definitely the sim I like to play the most. Falcon 4 is second.

I agree with everyone that mentioned that EECH will not die that easily. What keeps me going back to it every now and then is the replayability and the sensation that I'm a small cog in a big war machine -- unlike DCS for example where you are the center of attention and little to no info is carried from one mission to the next.

Falcon 4 has the same type of immersion, but I like helos more than jets.

EDIT: For what it's worth, I'm 99% sure that the guys behind DCS have plans to include a Dynamic Campaign (DC) in it sooner or later. They haven't answered it openly, but if you read between the lines you get the feeling that they do not want to take the risk of making a Dynamic Campaign from the get-go but want to progress to it over the course of a few modules of DCS. But there's no clue on how soon that will be...