Hey, I'm Rhino, my real name is Edmund and I'm a long serving developer of the Project Reality mod living the SW of England
1: Rhino you have done a lot of work for PR:BF2 over the years, can you give us a few different examples?
Well I'm quite an all rounded developer, being able to model, UV, export, map, code etc but I'm mainly a mapper and static modeller for the mod. Over the past few years I've made a few maps, modelled a few statics, helped push many items into the game and lots of other odd jobs. To give a few "recent examples" I worked on modelling the Z-9 and Panther helicopter series which we will hopefully see in-game sometime in the future, devised the concept for and got the Close Support Bridges into the mod, made some new statics such as a new range of Fences, Tents and also a totally new Airbase system which eliminates all of the problems of the old airbases and should soon be seeing some appearances in the mod. More recently I've been working on a brand new set of Afghan Statics and of course, my most recent Project, PR:Falklands.
2: What is Project Reality: Falklands? Tell us when did this project start, where did you get the idea for it and how did you presented this idea to the rest of the PR team?
PR:BF2: Falklands is currently a small mini-mod for Project Reality: BF2, that aims to bring the 1982 Falklands War between Britain and Argentina into Project Reality, in much the same way PR: Vietnam brings the Vietnam war to PR:BF2 today. The biggest thing about PR:F thou is there are quite a few dramatic differences between it and normal Project Reality, in both terms of scale and gameplay. About the biggest feature has to be the map size is 16km squared, although the minimap size is only 8km squared, which in itself is four times the size of Kashan, Argentina is 9kms off outside of the minimap, and even the British carrier, HMS Invincible is 3kms outside of the minimap. Then there are other quite big differences such as the importance and amount of jets on this map and many other small little neat features which I wouldn't want to give away too many of them.
I founded the project a few months back in late February of this year, to try and give myself a "small break" from working on the new series of Afghan Statics which was starting to drive me insane, but this small project to give me a small break turned into a much bigger project than I had first envisaged which I've now been working on for the past 7 months... The idea itself of doing a Falklands version of Project Reality isn't new. I can remember talking it over with the other PR Developers back in 2007 at the first Dev meet-up at Bovington Camp, when back then it was the 25th Anniversary of the Falklands War. The idea was quickly dismissed however due to all of the challengers and us not having even some of the most basic of elements such as the correct rifles or anything. This year however being the 30th Anniversary of the war I wanted to do something special and realizing we now had a lot of the stuff we didn't have five years ago, and many of the technical channels I had an idea of getting over but hadn't had the opportunity of giving them ago before. This I thought was not only an excellent chance to mark the 30th anniversary of this war with, but also a good way of trying out a few of these new ideas that had been floating around for some time. I was planning to release this mini-mod on the 30th anniversary of the end of the Falklands War, but due the original concept I had drawn up had grown quite considerably from its first plan and also I got sick around that time, the deadline as such wasn't possible. Although we did very nearly make it, we felt it was better to extend the release and include a few extra assets which where not far off. As for how I presented it to the rest of the team, I started this project in secret to start off with, mainly to see if I could get this "mesh terrain" concept to work at all but once I had gotten the mesh terrain sorted and mostly working well, I then showed the rest of the team what I had and what I was thinking. Although at first it was a very simple plan with hardly any new assets in it, which as already mention very quickly changed hehe. As the project grew so did the amount of help I've gotten from the rest of the team and even many of the community helping out on many items and whom I'll credit in the main release post but I couldn't have done this without them and they have been a tremendous help!
3: Can you explain where you get your information for this project from? Are you in contact with any veterans of the war?
Most of the information I get is from Wikipedia to be honest, although there are many other sites out there covering the history of the Falklands war too that I do use, Wikipedia for the most part is pretty accurate but I have cross-checked all my main info with any other sources I can find. I can't say I'm in contact with any veterans of the Falklands War no, but many of our main Military Advisors can help out on main weapon characteristics and some do know quite a bit about the war. I've also received some help from the Argentinian PR community, mainly with translating but also some other information they have found here and there but for the most part, I'm relying largely on internet sources for information.
4: Can you tell us what aircraft you have in PR:F?
If you count both fixed and rotary wing aircraft, we've technically got nine different types of aircraft in PR:F. This includes 5 Jets, 1 Turboprop and 3 Helicopters. This however doesn't include all the different load-out types for each jet, but this dose include the pretty much same aircraft, with different names, like the Mirage IIIEA and IAI Dagger (Israeli made Mirage 5) or the Sea Harrier FRS1 and the Harrier GR3 (which are both currently using the Harrier GR9 models with different paint jobs as a place holder for proper models of these aircraft). Below are all the aircraft in the first release of PR:F, although in the future we hope to bring in a few more aircraft such as the Super Etendard which currently a version of the Mirage IIIEA with an Exocet missile is being used as its place holder (although the Mirage IIIEA will still feature in the mod even if we get a Super Etendard in, but just as a Fighter).
5: Rhino, everyone is waiting eagerly for the v1.0 release. Can you tell us if this one is gong to be so magic like the last big release?
PR:BF2 v1.0 is shaping up really well and from the way things are going its looking to be the best PR release by far, with not just adding lots of new content but also fixing many current gameplay issues with the mod and bring back some of the old fun which some of us feel has been lacking in the last couple of releases.
6: Do you have any other projects planned for the future?
There is so much I want to do but right now I'm trying to focusing on finishing what I've started and trying to resist all temptation of starting another new project which is very easy to find yourself doing, like PR:F when I should be working on new Afghan Statics hehe.
Thanks [R-DEV]Rhino, I hope that our readers will be pleased to read this interview as I am.
