Leaderboard

My intent of this post is to provoke discussion in the area of multiplayer gaming. If you feel the need for personal insults then PM me privately rather than a public posting here. I believe the LO community needs a positive discussion of the multiplayer, not a continued whining fest over every little setting in the game. I’ve always held an interest in game and level design. When the Orange Box came out I took advantage of the developer commentaries they bundled into the game. I explored the reasons of why Valve built a level and the game the way they did. To this day whenever I play Team Fortress 2 I try notice some of the little things they pointed out. Curiosity got the best of me, and now I tend to look at different games and gamemodes and try to rationalize WHY one is better than another and WHY is that level made that way? In many different games out on the market this question can be easily solved. Lock-on is a different story. So I pose the question, WHY has the Multiplayer in Lock-on turned into a mostly Air-Quake atmosphere? To be honest I can’t completely rationalize this one. LO as we know is a Flight Simulator. The flight sim fans out there are a diverse bunch. We have people who build their own cockpits fashioned after their favorite aircraft and at the other end we have people using cheap joysticks and a simple computer. We have pages of heated debates over aircraft and missile performance, whether a trained pilot could pull x amount of G’s, and we argue over the accuracy of almost every little detail imaginable. Yet when we actually play the game online we get blood thirsty and demand action. We forgo the ideals of realism we scream about for hours in the forums for instant gratification of a splash. WHY do people join server A over server B? This one is easy, simply put, bodies. The more people in a given server the more likely more people will join in. This is a proven fact. If you get people in a server more will join. It just works that way. But, joining is one thing. Staying is another. What other factors influence a player to keep playing online? Flight Times (Directly proportional to love of autopilot) Terrain (Flat/ Water/ Mountainous) Weather (Part system related, part feeling towards) Time of Day (Day [includes dawn/dusk as long as not to dark], Night) Aircraft Selection (Because you really love that Flanker-D) Ground Attack (You either love or hate) The Actual Mission (Air Quake Vs Everything else) X- Factors (How much time to play, who is in the server) Did I miss anything? That list sums it up pretty well. Sure there might be one or two more minor factors, but those are the main ones. Some of these factors, while not tested fully, do affect us online pilots. For instance I know some members of 3sqn opinions on each of those factors. I’m sure you can look at that list and know your opinion on each of them. If you can’t, have you really explored what this game has to offer? Recently I came to the realization that a lack of real achievable objective is pushing us toward air quake. What does this mean? Go in any server in Hyper-lobby, what DO you DO. You shoot each other down, that’s what. WHY, because you are RED and he is BLUE. Its tough luck welcome to the world of hard-knocks. Everyone knows Reds and Blues were put on the planet to do one thing, and that’s to kill each other. There is nothing wrong with Team Deathmatch style games, it is the purest measure of a skill set. It has the “I have more kills than you therefore I am better” attitude with it. My problem with that is we lose most of what separates a combat sim from an arcade combat sim. Why? Neither side has a real drive and mission to push themselves into action other than fly until you get shot at and then shoot back (or first). How do we fix this? Well we could blame the mission editor and its lack of built in variety, or we could just do what we should and find a creative solution ourselves. Make missions around an objective other than just shooting each other down. A2A combat should be “the means to an end”, not purely “the end.” In other words, it’s a by-product of the goal. Throw a curve-ball into the mission. Some of the more enjoyable sorties I’ve had online had been a response to protect an immediate threat to the awacs, or a couple squad mates are bored and we try to take out a specific target. There has been a growing trend in shorter flight times and focus on pure-air to air combat. I’ll use the 169th and 104th servers as an example, they have earned this right through their popularity to be used as an example. Both are a lot of fun and have people in it at all hours of the day. Both servers have opposing fighters spawn at Maykop and Sochi, a mere 138 km away from each other. Fighters also spawn from close bases such as Gudata, Krasnodar and the mobile Admiral Kuz. They both fight in the more popular mountain area of the map. The problem is the idea in both servers is to fly directly north or south to meet your enemy face on. They both have units scattered around half of the useable game map, but when playing online only a very small portion is ever used. In either server, has 10% of that ever been destroyed? How about 5%? I understand people play there for the A2A battles, that’s what the missions excel at, but why add all the extra fluff to it if it isn’t going to be used…. Ever. The only times Anyone EVER diverts 20 km outside of the strait line from Sochi to Maykop is Overflow. When all fighters from Maykop and Sochi are full, and players are forced to fly longer flights to get to the battle area. The fight spreads out quite a lot actually when this happens. Flanking Maneuver. Someone thinking outside the box for a change. Personal Objective. Usually to kill the AWACS. This is almost always a suicide mission. Again I have nothing against the 169th and the 104th, if members of those squads feel offended by my opinion PM me. I’ve had many great times in both servers and I’m not trying to offend you. The point of this post is to start the discussion of how we the community can improve Lockon multiplayer ourselves. Organized events like Red Flag, Black Sea Showdown, Cooperative Archer, and the Crimean Incident are all excellent events because they promote teamwork. However I’m talking on an everyday basis of multiplayer gaming. These events aren’t a daily occurrence, and that’s what makes them special, they are different and require cooperation between all the participants. I think they are the complete opposite I do think it is possible within Lock-on to have objective oriented multiplayer missions where teamwork and goals can be accomplished without requiring voice comms with teammates. Let the discussion begin.

Spring in Scotland.........Taken this Morning - I Kid you Not :D

Haha, yeah what the hell is wrong with this country? Snowing in Spring! :P

That’s not always the case as seen in LOCERF, but it’s a function of the quality of planning and the ability to make changes to the plan based on the threat. I don’t think mission planning is actually the problem, it’s only a symptom. If you were to break the community in to two groups, you would have those that belong to squads and those who don’t. I would say that a majority of those that fly in squads are open to organized flying and actually coordinating an effort. Often times the energy and time that this takes is saved for squad training events and community events such as LOCERF, BSS, etc. Many of those who don’t fly in squads are not interested in the extra time it takes to plan, learn comms and coordinate with those they are flying with. There are a few 'lonewolfs' that are an exception to this but the point I'm trying to make is, myself included, sometimes I just want to hop into a server a shoot $hit. It’s not all bad, because there can be a lot to learn in an “air-quake” environment. I think that we need to appreciate those that spend the amazing amount of time and money on dedicated servers. I do a subpar job of hosting the 159th server and its plenty of work. I can’t imagine the work that goes into hosting well administrated dedis like 3Sqn, 51st 169th 104th, etc. In order to change the type of environment of the server you’re flying in you have to be an example of change. If you show up with a well organized squad or group of players all on comms, in order for the other side to compete they must do the same. I've seen it happen several times. Even if its typing over chat the other team must become more organized in order to play on the same level. There are plenty of avenues for an organized experience. Participate in community events as previously described, organize your team as I illustrated above, or invite other squads to matches either privately or on HL. That’s my 2cents...

I don't speak for anyone but myself, and atleast then and now I am still serious about it. I would not say that I am "fussing" over it though, and if some think that I am, I am not trying to be. It is just the one thing that I think really adds to the atmosphere is lighting, and I beleive that these specific shadows play a big part in that. I know that we do not have an engine that can realistically compete with a game like Crysis graphically, but that doesn't mean we cannot shoot for what is possible.

Probably something for the mighty Torwak :notworthy: Modman gave me an error but manuall install went great untill i asked the tower for permission to taxi and AWACS the nearest bandit,pilots voice aswell as text and vocal answer of tower and AWACS left the building :cry:. Asfar as the sounds are..........................THEY ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Couldn't stop laughing after ejection although the engine sound in the cockpit is a little loud,the other stuff is awesome. As soon as i can install it correctly its going back in.

ps when I get time the 3sqn/51st site will also have a Top Gun page, where the top 5 pilots for a given aircraft with 5 kills or more will be listed with no1 spots going to the highest ratio.

Ok, my impressions from the event: I arrived Ahaus on saturday morning. The hall was full of PC systems and home build cockpits. The first ones from DCS team were Jim and his wife. A little bit later followed by Groove and Urze. After welcome each other I could do what I was come for. Groove recommended to start BS with immortality on. It was a great experience. The FM feels extremely right. (I have only experience as a glider pilot in RL) I had no doubt about because the SU25 in FC thought. For me it is what I was looking for and I`m very happy. From this aspect alone every flight will be different. Groove told me that a German helicopter pilot from the Bundeswehr tried BS on friday. Unfortunately I didn`t tried the reactions from the KA-50 internal systems with making mistakes while start up nor in flight. Groove showed me the DM. You can see that in the video. This is just a picture from the end of this KA-50: The triggers you can set in the ME can play sound files for example. This adds a lot of immersion in a mission. You can easily imagine what great, dynamic missions will be possible with that. Jim at his laptop: A great attraction was the monitor setup from Urze in combination with the xfighterseat. This is a little vid I made with a photo camera. It shows the damage model, rotor hub detail, some in flight scenes. (The resolution is only 320x240. Sorry for that guys. Thank you for not hating me. Maybe another one have better recordings...) http://rapidshare.com/files/105679190/LLTM08_Impressions_from_DCS_KA-50.wmv.html It`s now also available on YouTube: At the end of the my day at the LLTM08 Urze was asking me from where I come from. I told him that I came from Ratekau which is 400 km away from Ahaus. He was so impressed that I coming from so far away for playing BS that he gave me a cap and a shirt with the Flying Legends logo from Jim`s crate. I`m very proud of these 2 gifts Jim! Thank you guys for this great saturday.:pilotfly: Something I forgot to mention: - you can walk around if you don`t die after ejecting - you can save a track AFTER flying, like in IL2 series

Today is the 67th anniversary of Nazi Germany attacking Yugoslavia. Without declaration of war, approximately 354 Nazi bombers and fighters attacked Belgrade. Yugoslavian 6th fighter squadron responded, took off and managed to kill 42 Nazi airplanes (some bombers and some fighters). Yugoslavian wing commander Miloš Žunjić, jumped out of his damaged airplane and was killed by Nazi fighters while hanging in his parachute … 11 Yugoslavian pilots died in defending Belgrade: 1 .Miloš Žunić, poginuo 6.aprila kod Pančeva 2. Miho Klavora, poginuo 7.aprila kod manastira Krušedol 3. Vladimir Gorup, poginuo 7 aprila 4. Karlo Štrbenk, poginuo 6. aprila kod Glogonjskog rita 5. Dobrica Novaković, poginuo 6.aprila kod Beograda 6. Branislav Todorović, poginuo 7 .aprila 7. Jovan Kapešić, poginuo 7.aprila kod Beške 8 . Milivoje Bošković, poginuo 7.aprila kod Kovilja 9. Dušan Borčić, poginuo 6. aprila -pao u Sarajevsku ulicu 10. Milutin Petrov, poginuo 7.aprila kod ušca Tise u Dunav 11. Živica Mitrović, poginuo 6.aprila kod Šida

:) Flanking Maneuver. Someone thinking outside the box for a change. Personal Objective. Usually to kill the AWACS. This is almost always a suicide mission. Ya life gets boring, I need more of a chalenge rather than spitting 120s at the Red guy. It would be nice to see some of the "Ace" pilots taking more of a risk and actualy land the Jet back to base after Killing A-50s. Truly the same hit and run fire fights are good and all but thats old news. I like to show up at the bad guy base and destroy S-300 sites with my cannons. Its a fun time also when you drag bandits one way then pull the old switch on them and kill the A-50. :pilotfly:

However- if you are in an english speaking TS channel, and you understand English better than you speak it, is this not better than being completely cut off from what's going on? Same goes for people with hardware issues- although I must say- a pretty nice headset/ mic is between $15 and $50 here in the US. If you are truly unable to speak- you can at least listen in and improve your situation dramatically.

I agree with language barrier. I am also rather shy, and when I think what is correct form for sentences in English, what time use to this form maybe Past Simple or Past Continous or Past perfect Simple or which good time from 3 Future times oO to don't make any mistake. This is big barrier :|

Very good point It's not only language barrier though, but there are those who simply don't have a mic, or have a crappy one like me and have TS problems. And, there are also people (once again like me) who are quite shy and get very uncomfortable speaking to people directly. This obviously leads to solo flights. One thing I've noticed is that these solo flights lead to the air quake. I don't know, but maybe a mission could be organized so that a group of 4 planes have one flight plan while another 4 planes have a different one in a different location. That way you don't have 60 thousand planes all firing missiles at one another in the same place. You could also match Fighter's flight plans with ground pounders' flight plans, encouraging cooperative play. Any thing that will help prevent solo flights

Я думаю, что предыдущее видео тебя очень впечатлило :D

And in Poland on Easter (at least on North).

The song is sabotage by the beastie boys. They totally doubled the film speed though! The footage is cool though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7331740.stm

I was there on friday for approx. half an hour. I would've spent more time but life got in the way... I sat at the controls for about 5 minutes so I couldn't give you an honest review of the game. I was impressed by the UI. Mission planner looked really nice and clean. As a Flanker (1.0) fanatic I always liked the minimalist windows interface but I guess that doesn't fly anymore in this day and age. Loading a simple mission didn't seem to take up a lot of time which was a pleasant surprise. I'd expect that to be improved upon in the final product as there's still a lot of debugging code. I played on Jim's laptop (easy settings). Don't remember the specs but lets be honest... you want to play this simulation on a well-spec'd desktop. It seemed to run fairly smooth but with a lot of "stuff" going on it did choke a few times. Graphics are awesome. Saw soldiers running in the field and it looked very convincing. Jim made a comment about them not being as good as the ArmA soldiers but he was really nitpicking here. This isn't a first person shooter, is it? There were some issues with TrackIR so I actually did very little flying. I briefly hovered and cleared a treeline only to find myself crashing on the other side... Excellent! I would've loved to have a go on Urze's machine but he was busy patching and trying to get things working again. By the time he got the Ka50 on the runway and ready for takeoff it was time for me to RTB. Sorry there's not a whole lot more I can tell you. I didn't even scratch the surface but I liked what I saw. Heck, I would've paid to fool around with the beta. Jim, thanks for letting me catch a glimpse of things to come... I was impressed.

Насколько я понимаю, в маркетинговых целях в последнее время демку всегда выпускают после релиза основного продукта, чтобы пользователь, ознакомившись с частью продукта, сразу и шёл покупать целый продукт, если он ему понравился, а не ждал пару месяцев, пока за него можно отдать кровные деньги. Компания-издатель не должна заставлять покупателя, который готов совершить покупку, делать дополнительные действия и/или заставлять покупателя ждать - она должна предоставлять всё, чтобы покупатель мог быстро обменять деньги на предоставляемое удовольствие. В этом плане демка "DCS" или должна быть позже релиза, или вообще её не должно быть. Ввиду специфичности типа продукта (авиасимулятор) выпуск демки можно сразу спускать в унитаз. То, что ЮбиСофт в своё время настояла на выпуске демки "Lock On"-а, было (на мой взгляд, конечно же - скорее всего, маркетологи ЮбиСофта считают по-другому) некоторой ошибкой : в отличие от остальных продуктов, издававшихся ЮбиСофтом, "Lock On" был на порядок сложнее, и выход демки (опять же - по моему мнению) не сильно повлиял на число продаж. "DCS" же - ещё более сложный продукт, так что для её рекламы надо искать другие пути. А "Акулу" всё равно куплю - и с демкой, и без демки.

So, what are you listening to...?

thereminqblank, you bring a good point to. Language barrier, I think that is a big problem in lock on community. Not a bad thing but I have played with people form China, Poland, Ukraine, US, UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, ect all at the same time. If we all got in a TS I know I would confuse most people, after all this years in the US, I still got a bad accent and horrible pronunciations in English and now in Spanish ( thank God for spell check) Hell I have learn the Cyrillic alphabet because of this game, but the only think I have learn in Cyrillic is:"Ya nie gavaru pa-rusky". and God knows I can pronouns it. That could be one of the reason for people playing the way they do.

You can not eject missiles like the AIM-9, the rails do not have the capability. I think is a ACMI pod like Pilotaso said I think they put chock on because the A-10 weels (AFAIK) can still rotate while landing gear is retracted so if the aircraft has to land like this one did, it is easier on the airframe. Maybe if the wind where to pick up the aircraft could move? I wander if the damage happen before or after landing? Looks like the Pave Penny pod on the nose did not get damage.

Id love to see this happen :thumbup:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=87319&postcount=2

Поясни пожалуйста, что такое "использовать триммера". Я нашел только "триммер - элемент управления рулями самолёта для компенсации усилия на них" В руководстве пилота (которое у меня есть) этой темы нет.

And as a second vital point how they are 'moderated'.

LOME alpha public version This is the first public version of LOME (LockOn Mission Editor). This is not the definitive version, and I am open to any suggestion. Be careful, the import/export is not complete, some data are not currently available. You can normally import any mission file without any risk BUT export will generate a mission with missing information. Take care to not export it on a current mission you want to keep!!! What is working Basic import/export from LockOn game (if available on the system) Create a new mission from scratch Load/save in LOME format Add/del/modify waypoint Define task on waypoint (land/take off does not work when export due to LockOn bug) Add ship/plane/vehicule/helicopter Set plane payload/fuel Set meteo Set mission/coalition/group name Duplicate group/subgroup/unitWhat is not working/known bug waypoint tasks: land, takeoff Helicopter payload fuel tank does not change total fuel quantity load/use/save predefined payload view filter player optionsYou have a crash/a bug? Please send me the lome.exe.log in the LOME directory if there is one. Send it to lome (at) dartsite (dot-no-spam) org with description. If a mission cause crash/problem, could you send me too? LOME 0.2 alpha: http://server.3rd-wing.net/public/DArt/lome/lome-0.2.zip

I can speak for Falcon here, a little at least, and add to what mvsgas shared. I've never played Falcon MP but I have seen plenty of discussion about it. I've seen some people who play MP like you find in Lock On -- head to head. IIRC there's some on-going thing out there that people participate in that involves 4 on 4 air to air combat. The big challenge is to properly sort bandits and execute an organized attack. The other and more common thing I hear about is people flying the campaign co-op vs the AI. I think the study-sim aspect of Falcon lends its self much better to co-op than it does head to head. The environment of the campaign also lends itself to very organized and well-planned play. People taking several hours for one mission, from the briefing to landing back at the airbase, is not unheard of. Some squadrons take it to the nth degree and use proper brevity code, overhead breaks, formation landing, etc. The AI in Falcon is still ultimately AI, but the missions you fly can be very, very difficult. There's absolutely nothing easy about flying an OCA mission on the harder difficulties in a "2010" campaign. It can be near suicidal, in fact. My two cents on MP is that what Grimes described is one of the many reasons I don't play flight sims multiplayer. Understand, I don't really play anything multiplayer anymore (I play a MMORPG, but I primarily play that solo or with my wife), but if I did it wouldn't be a flight sim. If I wanted head to head MP kicks, a flight sim would be the last place I would look. First of all, Its simply not what I'm looking to get out of it. I don't want to associate that hobby with ANYTHING stressful or competitive. Second of all, as Grimes described with TF2, there are so many games that are designed from the ground up as MP games. I'd rather play something like TF or even an actual Quake game for MP over a flight simulator!

:thumbup:

There are no aircraft in this SIM capable of realisticaly face a complex SAM defense network. The A-10 has no standoff capability and the Frog has a big bullseye in the but saying "kick me", not to mention both are desperatly slow to get anywhere. Naturaly players swich to AA, when their AG counterparts cannot keep up. The solution to this would be to have multirole aircraft. LOMAC is not a study SIM. Furthermore since it lacks the heavy avionics component of F4 it also atracted people more single minded about action. The flaws of the game with the missiles made it worse. This is why you dont see thorough planning and execution. This is an audience that was not tailored for that. At least most of us arent. Those that are, are much likely to be heavily outnumbered and dragged into everybody elses type of gaming. Any plan for any given MP event usualy falls apart 1 hour into the mission. After that everybody turns into their own bravado again. :) I think we just have to live with it.

Can the main problem on "air quake" be spontaneous joining to servers? All pre-planned missions has "sold out" to the date.. But you can not put any kind of mission to an 7/24 server and expect cooperative flight action on planning level. A server with lots of horsepower and wide bandwidth is not cheap nor common. The squadrons and/or individuals that have this kind of equipment needs to be more on to planned operations than serving 7/24 HL.. Dont get me wrong.. we need that too..But more planned operations will bring the need of flying and fighting in a more strategic and pre-planned way like we wanted to.. What do we have.. L.O.C.E.R.F which is an absolute success.. C.A. Which was delayed for technical problems as far as i know. And BSS..Which is lots of fun but another airquake. The main reason of BSS being an airquake is the scoring system IMHO. Its based on hits, crashes and tk's. Personal scoring system provokes airquake. If the scoring was related to accomplished goals or failed objectives, the BS would be much more fun i think. That would remove the "me" and insert the "team and objective" to an already fun event. What i am saying is.. PPL with servers.. Make more pre-planned well designed events with team and goal based scoring system..Everybody will help you..And we can fly more like squadrons and less like quake. All this said I would like to salute Fudd, Ice and Torwak and everyone involved for making these events and keeping the standarts high.. Cheers Yeniceri

well i had some exam so i had no time for the bird, but i am getting closer to finish the basic of the fuselage probably next week or this weekend i will get beack to the model, just want to finish soem animations of the blackbird first

Summer or autumn are the best ( only because currently those are the only seasons that work correctly with Grandsurf's runway texture mod :P ) i'd like to see some weather too, blues skies and fluffy clouds get a bit samey.....

А ТВ есть?

Сажал максимум 3 звена по 4. Припоркавались все никто ни исчез. 4 звена не пробывал но и они думается вполне уместились бы (не исчезая). Маленький оффтопик на тему Кузнецова: Как то с ведомым ботом возращались из задания, решил посадить су-25 не на аэродром, а на плывущий неподалеку авианосец тобишь Кузю. Посадил с первого раза (благо ветер был встречный), но и бот не отстал, зашел на второй круг да и сел, зацепившись за тормозной трос. Хотя ни какого гака он не выпускал. Мистика и полное читерство подумал я и выключил компьютер.

ПЭЁД... ПЭЁРЛЭ... мНдаааааа :lol:

Today HPO paid us a visit, and he brought his Flanker stick with him. When he showed it to Jim, he took it outside to take some pictures of it. "SMILE :D" Here's a picture of all V-pilots taking part in this year's LLTM: Click the picture for a large version.

Я только-что наблюдал, когда парой Су-25Т заходил на колонну с ЗРК в составе.Передал сообщение "Выполняю оборонительный манёвр" и оп-ля, ведомы "голенький": только РЭБ и УРВВ остались.:pilotfly:

ф десятке, всё равно этот бред никто не читает

Where's the; I want em' all! :) Anyway, 51st Dedicated is currently running 7 missions with mission rotator. ALL seasons are represented ;) I must admit though, there are more summer/spring...:P

In other words they cant give the reputation yet, cos they are the forum noob and they know **** about reputation :smartass: I have three (3) grey/purple inbounds, and they have no points, OH NOOOO! :sad_2:

Oh no! What's going on lately, dark ages for USAF!

I don't listen hip-hop:shifty:

Wonderful job!

Man... that looks like a good looking chick :D J/k ;) I am so sold in this stick... you have done a pro job in this HPO... you really should be proud of your work!

What does it mean when someone has given you a grey rep box (not green) ?

LOL you posted right before me :lol: didn't see you post that, my typing is a little slow :music_whistling:

I got error too - with JPEG so I put this JPEG to trash and install without picture in Modman and worked. Yes sounds are good but IMO flare sound is rather strange, too silent I think.

I wasnt trying to make the correlation that the cadet squadron is a bunch of n00bs. You said that, I didnt. Anyway, whats I was saying is that Avengers and Tors are like Apples and Oranges. And by the way, AI doesnt get pissed off like a rattlesnake. If it did get pissed off, it would be because it was placed under a bridge with a Buk launcher that has a radar thats 500km away. That would sure piss me off, if I was that Avenger!