v0.1.3: Bug Bash, Overspeed, World Edge and Loaded Takeoffs

v0.1.3: Bug Bash, Overspeed, World Edge and Loaded Takeoffs

Released: 2026-09-29 · Channel: Pre-release · Tag: v0.1.3

The third update to the v0.1.1 pre-release, and the result of the
first overnight bug battery: over 5,000 automated scenarios covering the menus,
every aircraft from ground start to landing, AI fights in all 16 theaters, and
mission recording. It fixes the bugs that battery found, including stores that
came back after you took them off, a crash with flares in the air, and AI pilots
flying into hills. Aircraft now need more speed to fly when they are heavy, can
be torn apart by overspeed, and are lost if they leave the theater. Load up a
Hornet with full fuel and feel the longer takeoff run.

Highlights

Heavier aircraft need more speed

• Stall and liftoff speeds now rise with weight. Fuel, stores and ordnance
  all count. Liftoff speeds go up by 17% to 40%: an F/A-18D with its default
  loadout now lifts off at about 147 knots, up from 112. Takeoff runs are longer
  to match.
• Combat turning is unchanged. At fighting speeds every aircraft pulls the same
  G as before, and weight only costs G below about twice the stall speed.
• The stall warning, autopilot, flight envelope window and crew callouts all use
  the new speeds.
• This is a T.O.R.E choice, not something shown in the original, made because
  real fighters need markedly more speed when loaded. Start the game with
  --retail-stall-speeds to fly the original's speeds.

Overspeed, the world edge and belly landings

• Overspeed. From 95% of your top speed at the current altitude the cockpit
  shakes, growing to a clear shake at 100%, where "OVERSPEED" repeats every 4
  seconds. At 1.5 times the top speed the airframe fails. The debrief shows the
  cause. The Invulnerable cheat spares you the failure but not the shake.
• World edge. Once you are 100 nmi outside the map you see "You have left
  the theater: turn back now", repeated every 10 seconds. At 105 nmi you are lost.
  Invulnerable does not save you here. AI aircraft that stray past 105 nmi are
  removed, and nobody is credited with the kill.
• Gear up on the ground. Raising the gear on the runway below stall speed
  drops the aircraft onto its belly: "Gear up on the ground: belly scraping". It
  brakes hard and wears the airframe, and a long slide can destroy it. Raising
  the gear at rotation speed or in the air works as before.
• Aircraft can no longer climb far above their ceiling. Lift thins with the air,
  so a zoom climb carries you at most about 23% past it before you sink back.
• A loaded aircraft at full afterburner near its top speed no longer sinks in
  level flight.

Smarter, safer AI pilots

• Terrain look-ahead. AI pilots now look about 6 seconds ahead for rising
  ground, so fast jets like the F-22 and X-31 stop flying into hills.
• Leader succession. When an AI wing loses its leader, the next wingman
  takes over and the others form up on it.
• Traffic avoidance. AI aircraft flying on their own turn away from
  predicted near misses. Mid-air collisions in the test fights fell from 15 to 2.
• Return to base. Once a side has shot down every enemy aircraft, its AI
  wings fly home and land, one approach at a time.
• Same glide path as you. AI landings fly the player's 3 degree ILS path to
  the touchdown zone, and cross the threshold about 50 to 75 ft up.
• A wingman still on the ground answers "unable" to a land order, takes off in
  turn and rejoins its leader instead of taking off only to land again.
• Airborne mission aircraft always start at least 5,000 ft above sea level and
  1,000 ft above the ground, so no enemy group starts inside a mountain.

Improvements

Landing

• The ILS now guides your wheels to the touchdown zone, 1,000 ft past the
  threshold, as the manual describes. Before, a centred glide bar put the wheels
  a few feet under the runway and short of it. The path now crosses the
  threshold 52 ft up at every airport. The glide angle stays at 3 degrees.

HUD and cockpit

• The HUD shows BAY when the weapons bay is open, and the time compression
  rate (2X, 4X, 8X, 1/2X) beside the clock, as the manual describes.
• Comma now raises the radar and RWR range and Period lowers it, as the
  manual says. They were the wrong way round.
• A station that runs dry in flight stays in the WEAPONS window as a dim 0 row
  but can no longer be selected. The selection moves on to the next loaded
  station, or NAV.
• The redout and blackout veils are now drawn on the graphics card, which
  removes a stutter of about 14 ms a frame while they showed.
• Airport and place names with accented letters, such as Berezovka in the Kurile
  Islands, now show every letter everywhere they appear.

Menus and settings

• The Quick Mission location list now offers the 16 base theaters only. The 59
  map variants were mostly incomplete, with one or two airports.
• Every menu now reads Exit to Desktop, including the flight menu's shortcut
  help.
• Alt+F4 now quits from the first-run locate screen, and from the controls,
  graphics and sound screens during a flight.
• A damaged controls file no longer stops the game. It starts on the default
  controls and notes the problem in the session log. A damaged graphics file is
  also noted in the log now.
• Import errors now name the damaged or missing file and say what to do.

Replays

• A flight started straight from the command line now records, like one started
  from the menu.
• Name labels of aircraft flying close together stack instead of printing over
  each other.
• The F-22N and F/A-XX are named correctly in recordings and Tacview files.
• The mission summary counts fuel used from external tanks as well, and counts
  airborne time only while off the ground.
• Older recordings still play.

Fixes

• Stores taken off on the Load Ordnance page no longer appear in flight or get
  selected at start-up. An aircraft with nothing loaded starts on NAV.
• Releasing chaff or flares while an AI missile was in flight could crash the
  game. Fixed.
• A mission could end with an error when an AI aircraft dropped flares or chaff
  against some imported missiles. Fixed.
• Shooting down an enemy group that its own side had to protect failed your
  mission. Only your side's protect goals count now.
• AI wingmen no longer follow a destroyed leader in to land, or turn into each
  other when breaking out of formation together.
• AI aircraft no longer fly into rising ground while turning toward a target.
• AI wingmen under missile attack no longer flip between defending and flying
  formation many times a second, and AI fighters no longer dither between gun
  and missile attacks.
• Damaged AI aircraft returning to base no longer sink short of the runway.
• The activity line no longer keeps showing an aircraft as defending after it
  was destroyed.
• The RCS window's "no exposure data" message no longer runs over its bearing
  labels.
• With the Guns only cheat and an empty gun, start-up no longer selects a
  missile.
• The ground start hint now names key 5 for full throttle.

Known limitations

• Some aircraft cannot take off from the shortest strips. On the 1,074 ft
  strips at Santa Fe, San Carlos, Goose Green and Santiago, the F/A-18D, Rafale,
  A-4E, MiG-23 and F/A-XX now need more runway than there is. AI wingmen are
  still placed there.
• Loaded stall speeds are a rule, not measured data. The F-22 family, Su-25,
  MiG-21 and MiG-23 still fly slower than their real counterparts, because their
  imported data is low.
• Two AI aircraft can still collide while both defend against missiles.
  Traffic avoidance never overrides missile defense.
• AI aircraft with no route still fly off the map while enemies remain, and
  are lost at the world edge.
• The HUD is hard to read over fog and cloud. A fix is being considered.
• This release was tested on Linux only, and by scripted pilots rather than
  by hand. The world edge warning has not been seen in a real window yet.
• Everything listed under v0.1.2 known limitations
  still applies.

What's next

Milestone 2 is multiplayer, followed by missions and campaigns. The
roadmap lists everything that is planned.

Feedback

Please report bugs and differences from the original in an
issue or a
discussion. A
mission recording from the Replays screen makes a bug much easier to trace.

v0.1.2: Explosions, Sound Prefs, Smarter AI and Flight Views

v0.1.2: Explosions, Sound Prefs, Smarter AI and Flight Views

Released: 2026-09-28 · Channel: Pre-release · Tag: v0.1.2

The second update to the v0.1.1 pre-release. Hits, kills and crashes
now use the original explosions, and crashed aircraft leave burning wrecks
behind. The original Sound/Music Prefs dialog is in, AI pilots see and shoot
better and protect their damaged aircraft, and the flight views have been
reworked from your bug reports. Fly a mission, shoot something down, and go
look at the crater.

Your game files are imported again on the first start. This release needs
more of the original's sounds and artwork, so the first launch refreshes your
import on its own. The install steps from v0.1.0
have not changed.

Highlights

Original explosions, craters and crash sites

• Every hit, kill and ground strike uses the explosion the original gave that
  weapon or aircraft, with its own size, length and sound.
• Weapon craters stay for the rest of the mission.
• An aircraft that crashes on land leaves a crater, a fire and a smoke column
  for 15 minutes. The column rises at 20 knots and fades out between 1,300 and
  1,500 ft.
• Smoke, contrails and flare smoke now drift with the mission wind.
• Sound depends on where you are. From inside a cockpit, outside sound plays at
  40% without treble. Outside, you hear your own engine from the aircraft, and
  other engines and crash fires loop from where they are, with Doppler pitch.
• Replays record explosions, craters, fires and smoke, and play them back.
  Recordings made by older builds still play.

Sound/Music Prefs

• Pref > Sound... in the main menu and the paused flight menu opens the
  original SOUND/MUSIC PREFS dialog, with its knobs, levers and switch sound.
• Sliders set Overall, Engine, Weapon Lock, RWR, Stall Warn and Radio Msg
  volume, plus In-Flight and Other music, and you can swap the channels. OK
  saves your choices. Other music is heard while you drag its knob.
• The old placeholder Music and Effects rows and the M key are gone. Earlier
  settings carry over once.
• The RWR now plays the original warning tones: one for a missile in flight at
  you, and others while an enemy aircraft holds a radar or infrared lock on you.

Smarter AI pilots

• Better lookout. AI pilots notice contacts they are allowed to engage and
  react to gunfire and hits even when they have no target.
• Sustained gunfire. AI guns fire in bursts with recovery pauses, lead the
  target from its observed motion, and shoot along the real barrel with
  ammunition counted round by round.
• Realistic damage for every AI aircraft. Whatever your Damage cheat, other
  aircraft take the Realistic damage model: engine, fuel, hydraulic, control and
  structural faults, lost radar, decoys and weapon stations. An AI aircraft whose
  flight ends now falls as a wreck, and the debrief credits its last attacker.
• Damage recovery. Damaged AI pilots stop attacking, fly home and land. They
  ease off failing engines, try to restart a flameout, limit their turns and
  speed to what the airframe can take, and eject from an uncontained fire.
• The replay debug panels explain these decisions in plain words.

Improvements

Flight views

Several of these came from player reports in issue #1.

• F2 and F3 turn about the aircraft's own axes, so the rear view moves
  the right way when you pitch or roll, and the up view no longer flips in a
  loop.
• F2 looks from the pilot's eye and shows the airframe's spine and tails.
• Pressing F6 again cycles through your wingmen and names each one.
• F4, F7 and F8 keep a target your sensors dropped while you can
  still see it, within 10 nmi. Without Easy targeting, it is lost for good once
  out of sight. The HUD selection and weapons still drop at once.
• F7 draws a bearing compass at the top of the screen while it has a target.
• The fly-by view picks a new point once the subject is 3 nmi from it.
• The NAV bank scale now turns with the horizon and settles like a gyro.
• Exterior aircraft no longer shimmer.

Weapons

• The F-22's main bays stay shut until you fire. A bay shot waits for the doors,
  fires, and the doors close a second later. O still opens them by hand.
• Missiles now drop about 124 ft before their motor lights, as the original's
  AIM-54, AA-9, AIM-7 and PL-10 do. AIM-54, AAM-L and PL-10 climb to 5,120 ft
  above the target and dive in from 3.3 nmi. The lob is fitted, not measured.
• Flares and chaff drift with the wind once they slow down.

Menus and controls

• Pref > Graphics... in the paused flight menu now opens the Graphics
  screen.
• The controls screen has a Find row. Search by action name to find commands
  to bind, or by key or pressed input to see what it is already bound to. Ctrl+F
  jumps to it and Esc clears it.

Replays

• Esc opens the flight pause menu in the replay viewer, with End Replay,
  Exit to Desktop, Graphics, Sound, Control, time, and switches for name labels,
  the mission timer, trails and the Comms panel.
• The replay views now match flight, including the wingman, target, missile,
  compass and zoom keys.
• A replay-only object view looks from any aircraft, ground object or weapon
  to any other, at any range. Press O or Shift+O, or use View from
  here and Look at this on the right-click menu.
• Replays remember what the player's target views were following.

Import

• The import can now hold up to 32,768 resources and 1 GiB, up from 4,096 and
  256 MiB, which a full import had nearly reached. Existing imports still load.

Linux

• Linux builds now target glibc 2.35, so the AppImage runs on older
  distributions that crashed before.
• The AppImage is now named T.O.R.E-Fighters-<version>-x86_64.AppImage.

Known limitations

• Missile lobs and drops are fitted. The numbers match the original's flags
  and what we could measure, not a recording of the original.
• AI pilots repair nothing. A damaged aircraft flies home and lands, and
  wounded pilots are treated after landing, but no system is fixed.
• The new Linux build has not been run on an older distribution by hand. It
  is built on the release runners.
• Everything listed under v0.1.1 known limitations
  still applies.

What's next

Milestone 2 is multiplayer, followed by missions and campaigns. The
roadmap lists everything that is planned.

Feedback

Please report bugs and differences from the original in an
issue or a
discussion. A
mission recording from the Replays screen makes a bug much easier to trace.

v0.1.1: Replays, Flares, Chaff and Quality of Life

Released: 2026-09-26 · Channel: Pre-release · Tag: v0.1.1

The first update to the v0.1.0 pre-release. The biggest addition is
a flight recorder: every flight now records itself, and you can watch it back
from any aircraft. Chaff and flares are in, with their original keys and sounds,
and the default keyboard now follows the original game's layout. There is also a
32-bit Windows installer.

Still an early pre-release, and the builds are still unsigned. The install
steps from v0.1.0 have not changed.

Highlights

Mission replays

A T.O.R.E addition: the original's Replay Last Mission flew the mission again,
while this records what happened so you can watch it.

• Every flight records itself. Press Ctrl+B in flight to bookmark a
  moment ("Bookmark N saved") when something odd happens.
• Replays on the main menu lists your recordings newest first, with details,
  Watch, Keep and Delete. Old recordings are cleaned up for you: by
  default the last 20 are kept, plus any you mark Keep.
• The viewer plays forwards or backwards from 1/8x to 16x. Watch from every
  flight view on any aircraft or a free drone camera, with trails, labels, a
  timer, the Comms list, subtitles, a hide-UI mode and PNG screenshots. Sound
  plays at normal speed.
• Recorded chaff, flares and afterburner light play back as they happened.
• Debug panels show the AI's reasoning, flight-model telemetry, missile guidance
  and every radio call, with why each one happened. Right-click opens them in
  the viewer, and in live flight when Pref > Debug panels? is on.
• Recordings export to a Tacview file, a plain-English mission summary and a
  detailed debug log. These help trace AI behaviour, flight model quirks and
  radio bugs.

See mission replays for the full guide.

Chaff and flares

• Insert releases one chaff cartridge and Delete one flare, as in the
  original. Keypad 0 and keypad "." do the same. On a gamepad, hold View and
  press D-pad left or right.
• You get the original messages, such as "Chaff launched, 3 left" and "Out of
  chaff". Unlimited ammo keeps the count full.
• A release can decoy a missile aimed at you, using the same odds the AI already
  uses.
• Each release plays the original chaff or flare sound. You hear other aircraft's
  releases at full volume within 100 ft, fading to silence at 4,000 ft.
• Flares leave in pairs and burn for 30 seconds. They light nearby aircraft,
  terrain, water and clouds, out to 1,500 ft and brighter at night. Chaff is a
  cloud of tumbling foil strips that drifts down over 20 seconds and flashes in
  the sun.

Improvements

Retail keyboard layout

The default keys now match the original game. The
controls list has every default binding.

• 1 to 5 set throttle from idle to 100%, 6 is afterburner, and 7
  and 8 step 5%. Pressing 8 past 100% lights the burner, as in the original.
• End and Page Down are rudder, O opens the bay doors, Shift+K
  jettisons, ; clears the target, N is NAV mode, and W and
  Shift+W step through waypoints.
• Keypad 5 centers the view, and Shift+C is slow motion again.
• Wing orders: Alt+1 fly straight, Alt+2 to Alt+5 break, Alt+6
  to Alt+9 approach, Alt+R engage from formation, Alt+B bug out,
  Alt+T next formation, Alt+H spacing and Alt+V stacking. Talking to
  one wingman moved to Alt+Shift+1 to Alt+Shift+4.
• T.O.R.E-only controls moved to keys the original leaves free. The tower's
  next-airport key is now Shift+N, and repeat and cancel are
  Ctrl+Shift+R and Ctrl+Shift+C.
• Original keys for features that are not built yet, such as IFF and air-to-ground
  radar, now say "not implemented yet".

The keyboard map
has a new Replay sheet.

Flight and presentation

• In-flight messages now appear at the bottom of the screen, like the original.
• Afterburner flames light up the scene around them, and keep their bright
  daylight colors at night.

First-run import

• "Starting import..." appears the moment you click, with the current step in
  plain words underneath.
• The progress bar moves while the game files are still being identified, so the
  screen never looks stuck before the real progress count begins.

Windows 32-bit installer

• A new 32-bit MSI sits beside the 64-bit one on the
  release page.
  It installs under Program Files (x86).
• It needs no Visual C++ Redistributable.
• Installing either MSI replaces the other.
• The download page
  links to it when a release carries one.

Known limitations

• The Tacview export has not been checked in Tacview yet. It was built to
  Tacview's published file format.
• The 32-bit MSI has not been tested by hand. It is built on the release
  runners, and every crate lints and tests clean for 32-bit Windows in CI. It
  needs Windows 10 or later: the Rust toolchain does not support Windows 7, XP or
  older.
• Everything listed under v0.1.0 known limitations
  still applies.

Feedback

Please report bugs and differences from the original in an
issue or a
discussion. A
mission recording from the Replays screen makes a bug much easier to trace.

v0.1.0: Quick Mission Creator

Released: 2026-09-24 · Channel: Pre-release · Tag: v0.1.0

The first public build of T.O.R.E-Fighters, a ground-up Rust rebuild of
Jane's Fighters Anthology. This release wraps up most of Milestone 1: Faithful
Quick Fight. You can go from the original Choose Activity menu through Quick
Mission setup, fly and fight against AI wings over the original theaters, and
land at the debrief.

T.O.R.E stands for Tasteful Opinionated Reverse Engineered. We are rebuilding
what you experienced as a player, not the original program's code. Bring your
own retail copy. This release contains no retail game data, and the original
executable is never run.

This is an early pre-release, and the builds are unsigned. Expect rough
edges, and please report what you find.

Getting started

1. Download the package for your platform from the
   release page.
2. Launch it and point it at your Fighters Anthology: an installed game folder or
   a mounted disc 1. You can drag the folder onto the window, pick a detected
   source, or type a path.
3. The game imports your media once, then opens at the main menu. No terminal
   needed.

Platform	Package
Windows (x86_64)	.msi installer. SmartScreen will warn you: choose More info, then Run anyway.
macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel)	.dmg. On first launch, right-click the app and choose Open. If macOS still refuses, use System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway.
Linux (x86_64)	.AppImage, or .tar.gz

You can re-import your media at any time from Pref > Re-import media.

Highlights

Menus and presentation

• The original Choose Activity menu, Quick Mission creator, Load
  Ordnance screen and mission debrief, all drawn with your own copy's
  artwork, fonts, animated rockers and sounds.
• The original recorded menu and briefing music. No MIDI synthesis.
• A graphics options screen with MSAA and render scale, plus a sharp rim that
  helps you spot distant aircraft.

Aircraft and theaters

• 13 flyable aircraft: F/A-18D, F-14D, A-4E, X-31 EFM, Rafale C, MiG-29,
  Su-27, MiG-21, Su-25, MiG-23, Su-35, F-22A and F-22N.
• All 16 base theaters and 59 retail map variants, with the original terrain
  heights, artwork, scenery, weather and day and night palettes.
• Airports on every base theater, with runway surfaces, individually
  targetable hangars and towers, tower radio and ILS guidance.

Flight

• A fixed 120 Hz simulation, independent of your frame rate.
• Cockpits and HUDs that adapt to your window's aspect ratio, instrument windows,
  and the retail view suite with function-key controls.
• Working gear, flaps, airbrakes, hook, afterburner, stalls and spins, and runway
  wind.
• Heading, altitude and waypoint autopilot.
• Ground starts for your whole wing: taxi, take off, land and roll out.
• Ejection and pilot survival.

Combat

• Guns with visible tracers, and 25 flight-ready weapons with four missile
  guidance types, pitbull activation, seeker search and HUD and tone feedback.
• A shared radar and infrared sensor model for all 13 aircraft: TWS and RWS,
  RWR, directional jamming and a radar cross-section page.
• Separate visual (Enter) and radar (T) targeting, a target camera, damage,
  smoke, debris and explosions.
• Blackout, redout and high-G screen shake.

AI

• Up to six wings and 29 AI aircraft in one Quick Mission. Each aircraft has
  its own sensors, stores, fuel and flight model.
• Four skill levels, Novice to Ace, which change tactical choices, reaction
  time and countermeasure use.
• Visual search and memory, missile defense (jink, notch, dive), and escort and
  protect roles.
• Wing orders, delta formations, Bug Out, and Land at the selected airport.
• AI takeoff and landing queues that give you landing priority, and fuel-aware
  return to base.

Sound

• Radio chatter and wingman replies from the original recordings, with Alt+S for
  radio silence.
• A cockpit crew voice. Two-seat aircraft get a RIO or co-pilot who coaches you
  through the fight.
• In-flight music chosen by the original's situation rules. Combat, launch,
  eject, success and almost-home scores all play at the right moments.
• Engine, actuator and environment audio, with spatial positioning.

Cheats

• All of the in-flight Cheat menu except Damage Realistic: unlimited fuel and
  ammo, invulnerability, easy aiming and targeting, no spins, no crashes, no
  blackout, Enemy AI skill, guns only and more. Every cheat can be toggled
  mid-flight and survives Restart.
• The loadout screen's Cheat button.

Controls

• A single, shared controls screen for remapping the keyboard, gamepads,
  sticks, throttles, pedals and button boxes, plus rumble.
• Head tracking through opentrack or TrackIR on UDP port 4242.
• An interactive keyboard map
  that you can export as a PNG or PDF.

Under the hood

• Startup logs and crash reports on every platform. On Windows, startup errors
  also appear in Event Viewer.
• Linux, Windows and macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) are built and checked in CI
  on every change.

Known limitations

• Surface AI is not in yet. SAM sites, AAA, vehicles and ships are not active
  opponents, and non-fighter aircraft families are not supported.
• Only weapons that work in flight are listed. The wider imported catalog
  comes in later weapon passes.
• There are no campaigns, missions or multiplayer yet. Quick Mission is the
  game mode in this release.
• Some behaviour is fitted. Where the original's exact behaviour has not been
  recovered yet, we use documented approximations labelled fitted. The
  feature matrix lists what is complete and what is partial.
• Windows and macOS have had less hands-on testing than Linux. The packages
  build and pass their checks in CI, but real-world install reports are very
  welcome.
• Carrier operations and waypoint routes are not implemented yet.

What's next

Milestone 2 is multiplayer, followed by missions and campaigns. The
roadmap lists everything that is planned.

Feedback

Found a bug, or remember the original doing something differently? Please open
an issue or start a
discussion. If
you played the original, we would love to hear whether it feels right. That is
the bar we are aiming for.

Check six.