I am seriously interested in adding dogfighting capability to FG.
I've been reading through the source for the past couple of days. (I've only just stumbled upon FG.)
As I see it, the following changes would need to be implemented to have a rudamentary dogfight.
1- add missles to submodels
2- have submodels added to the multiplayer protocol so that players can see other AI entities.
3- add collision detection (airplane to airplane and airplane to AI)
Missles -
The approach I planned involves creating a new submodel called "missle." I have two options on how to proceed.
a- create a missle object based on the AIballistic submodel but with an added "thrust" parameter.
b- create a missle object based on the AIAircraft model.
I think the AIAircraft model will be more useful as a base, so that future expansion can be added more easily (i.e. seeking methods etc)
Multiplayer -
I still have alot of reading to do in this area. Any suggestions for allowing submodel information to be sent to the server and other players are greatly appreciated.
Collision Detection -
For a first run, I planned on using the same "_crashed" variable in the YASim model. Just calling a setCrashed when a player comes within contact distance of another player or AI model.
I haven't read through all of the source code yet, so any critiques or suggestions are welcome.