Integrating HLA into the Spearhead Game

To promote the commercial use of HLA outisde the DoD, non-military applications must be fielded which clearly demonstrate the benefits of HLA over and above other network architectures. MaK Technologies is the world's leading supplier of DIS software, and is the first company toproduce a commercial product based on HLA (VR-Link++). MaK will integrate VR-Link++ with MaK's completed, state-of-the-art, M1 Abrams tank combat game, called Spearhead. This will produce amil-spec, HLA compliant, commercial video game. This game will unequivocally demonstrate that HLA is capable of running in a commercial application, since the Spearhead game will be selling commercially in the marketplace before the completion of this Phase I effort. MaK will also extend their general purpose application called a Lobby Server. The Lobby Server acts as a meeting place/battle manager on the Internet for players who want to use Spearhead online. Some additional functionality will be built into the Lobby Server during Phase I, demonstrating capabilities which RTI V1.0 makes possible, but which would have been too difficult or costly to implement without it. MaK will also create and document appropriate FOMs and SOMs and an initial design of a game-specific RTI. Phase I will result in an HLA variant of the commercial game which will be suitable for use by the DoD for tank simulation and training. Phase II will result in a sequel to Spearhead which will be sold commercially, and fielded on the Internet with the new HLA-enabled, general purpose Lobby Server. At the end of Phase I, a Real-Time RTI desing document will exist, enabling developers to immediately proceed to a lightweight real-time RTI implementation during Phase II.