Apex Assault: Varga Island Conflict

Modern air combat over a contested island — in your browser

Overview

Apex Assault is an Ace Combat–inspired flight combat game built with Three.js, React and TypeScript. Fly strike missions deep into enemy territory or hold the line over your home base, against AI pilots that fly the same physics model you do.

Features

• Realistic island theatre — a 32 × 32 km procedurally generated island (Varga Island) with a coastline, the Greyspine mountain range and its low pass, an arid eastern plateau, forests, towns, two full air bases with runways and hangars, SAM sites, flak batteries and radar stations.
• Two game modes
  • Attack — Operation Hammerfall: breach the Greyspine Pass SAM belt, dismantle Kessel Ridge Air Base (air defenses, hangars that keep scrambling fighters) and destroy the command bunker. Watch out for the Crimson Wolf ace squadron.
  • Defense — Operation Iron Bastion: defend Port Ardent Air Base at dawn against five escalating raids of fighters, escorted bombers and ground-attack jets coming out of the sunrise. Keep the base above 35% integrity and Base Command alive.
• Energy-based flight model — thrust, drag, gravity, G-limited turn rates, corner speed, angle of attack, stalls, induced drag that bleeds speed in hard turns, afterburner, airbrake and a high-G post-stall turn (accelerate + brake + pull). The F-22 and Su-57 have thrust vectoring for the tightest maneuvers.
• Helicopter flight model for the AH-64 — collective, cyclic, pedals, hover and landing.
• Ace Combat style controls — Standard (bank-and-turn assist with auto-level), Expert (full manual roll) and Mouse Aim (point where you want to fly). Gamepad supported.
• Cameras — close chase, far chase, cockpit (with canopy and instrument panel) and HUD-only; free look, look-back and target-lock camera. Optional rear-view mirror.
• Combat — gun with lead pipper and optional aim assist, lock-on missiles with alternating rails, multi-lock special weapons (XLAA, Hellfire), high-agility QAAM, guided bombs, rocket salvos, flares that decoy incoming missiles, missile alerts and lock warnings, terrain masking against SAM radar.
• AI pilots — pursue with lead/lag pursuit, gun bursts, missile locks, break turns and flares against incoming missiles, terrain avoidance, bombers that compute release points, attackers that dive-bomb, escorts, and allied wingmen who fight alongside you.
• HUD — pitch ladder, flight path marker, speed / altitude / heading tapes, G meter, target brackets, lock diamonds, off-screen target arrows, rotating radar, weapon panel, damage readout, tactical map (M).
• Procedural audio — engine, wind, guns, missiles, explosions, lock tone and missile alert, all synthesized with the Web Audio API (no audio files).

Aircraft

Aircraft	Role	Special weapon
F-14D Super Tomcat	Multirole	XLAA — long-range, locks 4 air targets
F-22A Raptor	Air superiority	QAAM — extremely agile dogfight missile
A-10C Thunderbolt II	Attacker	GPB — guided bombs
Spitfire Mk IX (restomod)	Agile fighter	RKT — rocket salvos
AH-64E Apache Guardian	Attack helicopter	AGM-114 Hellfire — locks 4 ground targets

Controls

Action	Keyboard / Mouse	Gamepad
Pitch (nose down / up)	W / S	Left stick ↕
Roll / bank-turn	A / D	Left stick ↔
Yaw (rudder)	Q / E	LB / RB
Accelerate / afterburner	Shift	RT
Brake / airbrake	Space	LT
High-G turn	Shift + Space + pull	RT + LT + pull
Gun	Left mouse / J	X
Fire missile / special	Right mouse / K	A
Switch MSL ⇄ special	R	Y
Switch target	Tab / T	B
Flares	F	D-pad ↓
Look at target (hold)	C	R3
Look back (hold)	X	L3
Free look	Mouse / arrow keys	Right stick
Change camera	V	View
Tactical map	M	—
Pause	Esc / P	Menu

Click the screen once in flight to capture the mouse. Pitch can be inverted in Settings.

Running locally

Prerequisites: Node.js 18+

npm install
npm run dev

Then open the URL Vite prints (default http://localhost:3000).

npm run build      # production build
npm run typecheck  # TypeScript check

Project structure

game/
  Engine.ts            renderer, loop, mission host, post-processing
  PlayerController.ts  input → stick commands, targeting, lock-on
  CameraRig.ts         chase / cockpit / HUD / cinematic cameras
  HUD.ts               canvas HUD
  Audio.ts             synthesized sound
  entities/            Aircraft (flight models, weapons), GroundTarget (SAM, AA, structures)
  ai/                  PilotAI and steering helpers
  systems/             bullets, missiles, flares, particles, effects
  world/               terrain, water, sky, clouds, map layout
  missions/            Attack and Defense missions
  models/              procedural aircraft, buildings and cockpit geometry
components/            React menus and mission overlay

Technologies

• Three.js — rendering, post-processing
• React + Zustand — menus and UI state
• Tailwind CSS — styling
• Vite — build tool

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Made by @FrancisCodex