Combat support in FlightGear

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FlightGear from the start has always stated that it's focus is on civilian aviation. That is where the core effort is concentrated. The project has never tried to block or hinder efforts to add combat features. Perhaps some may debate this, but in general 3rd party efforts like bombable are perfectly fine. Curtis Olson says that he played with a few combat sims and first person shooters over the years, but 'it's not my thing, but they can be fun.' Despite the worries of some, it's just that the core development is focused on civilian aviation. (And that could include military aircraft; the main focus of FlightGear isn't just trying to shoot each other out of the sky)

Military Aircraft

Cquote1.png Flying high performance military aircraft is an entirely different experience than that found in a Cessna or an Airbus.
— Alan Teeder (Dec 15th, 2015). [Flightgear-devel] Flightgear.
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Cquote1.png in the past developers have expressed they prefer not to have guns and bombs built in from the core. High speed military aircraft where acceptable but preferably without ammunition and (hit detection).
— Erik Hofman (Dec 15th, 2015). Re: [Flightgear-devel] Flightgear.
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Cquote1.png Military aircraft are an important part of aviation and have their place in FlightGear. However, we want to focus on the aviation part. Modelling weapons and it's effects w.r.t. weight, C/G, drag etc. is fine. We do not focus on the disruptive effects of weapons and if those effects are modeled, those MUST be on opt-in for other users. Look at our project page at SourceForge: I have linked Richard's video about his F15 as a representation of FlightGears capabilities. A great video, a fantastic aircraft and no need for cheap effects.
— Torsten Dreyer (Dec 15th, 2015). Re: [Flightgear-devel] Flightgear.
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Cquote1.png Regarding military simulation, I think it's worth differentiating between being able fly high-performance military aircraft, and a combat simulator. My own view is that I enjoy the former, but am personally not interested in FG becoming the latter. Simulation of weapons systems is a bit of a gray area, as I've aimed to simulate the full aircraft systems.
— Stuart Buchanan (Dec 15th, 2015). Re: [Flightgear-devel] Flightgear.
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Bombable

Multiplayer

According to Curtis Olson, combat-oriented multiplayer servers would be best setup as a second alternate network completely disconnected from the primary civilian-focused multiplayer network, especially as nobody likes to fly around for a good hour on the MP server just to get shot down by someone who thinks it's funny to shoot random aircraft. As Erik Hofman says, the question is more about where to concentrate the most effort.