AndyHill

What kind of errors are you getting? I seem to be having problems with many of the functions, LoGetIndicatedAirSpeed() for example doesn't work while LoGetTrueAirSpeed() does. Many other functions don't seem to return results either.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but AFAIK Whirlwind over Vietnam used SpeedTree and it was neither smooth nor good looking. When ED get their new engine running it's going to be interesting to see what they can come up with, they're going to have a lot of extra computing power available in the form of multi-CPU support. If you want examples of collision detection and trees I think FSX would be a better candidate for comparison than ArmA, it has trees and objects in comparable quantity and quality. By adjusting the number of visible objects it's possible to sort of determine how much of a performance hit they have (use low resolutions so that the video card isn't the bottleneck). I'm too lazy to run the comparison myself, but if someone goes through the trouble it would be interesting to see the results. ____________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brakes on an axis AND a dynamic campaign engine AND proper radio traffic

I think we will just have to agree to disagree. It's been a while since I flew Falcon or Strike Fighters, but at least Il-2 has a similiar system in place and it just works. I wouldn't be surprised if Falcon modeled the actual radio systems, but whatever it does seems to work pretty ok. In Il-2 the planes even broadcast navigational commands but still instead of radio clutter the problem is still more in the lack of communication - for example wingmen don't radio you when they see bandits, they just quietly slip away. It is likely that all the aforementioned games have some sort of radio traffic optimizations in place, but they all have more traffic than an average Lock on -mission I play and they all just work. I'm all for intelligent radio traffic algorithms, realism and functionality, but as I'd like to have a chance of seeing improvement in Lock on as well, it would have to be a very simple solution. I would also love to hear intelligent AI chatter on the air, but I've never seen AI that was nearly smart enough to make complex tactical assessments and communicate it to the player, so it may be preferrable to make them just tell you what they're doing and let the player decide what he should do. Creating an intelligent AI comms system would be fantastic, but it might take a while and it might be nice to have a version 1.0 to play with in the mean time. __________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brakes on an axis AND a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer capability AND radio traffic from other flights

Having different frequencies could be interesting and without actually thinking things through I'd say that's probably the way to go in the long run. The proposed quick and dirty hack was a desperate half-measure on purpose, I really want to see the feature in Lock on 1.13 (if there ever will be one) as well as DCS and I'm pretty sure no-one is going to put a lot of effort into Lo anymore. It's going to be several years before we get to fly fast movers in DCS and although flying a chopper can be a lot of fun... One thing I very much disagree about is is the proposed feature's effectiveness, however. Il-2, Falcon, Strike Fighters series have demonstrated to me beyond any doubt that exactly such a feature (even without the quieter, less intrusive other flights' voices) gives a tremenduous boost to the overall atmosphere and situational awareness. If you see a dot launch a missile at another dot and hear a fox-call simultaneously you can determine which dot is the enemy - you may be wrong, though, but as long as we're not shooting at real people it just makes things more interesting. Actually I don't remember exactly how Strike Fighters and Falcon have the radio system setup, but I know that they DO have radio traffic between flights and it DOES improve immersion vastly. Having a teamspeak full of real people is, of course, the best option, but it just doesn't happen all the time and even then having AI chatter would give some boost to immersion. And the idea of having a separate (preferrably adjustable) volume for the non-player flights means that the everyone gets to choose exactly how much radio chatter they want to hear. Having a completely realistic radio traffic system sounds like a great idea in principle, but there are some things that have to be considered. The AI pilots, for example, are nowhere near as smart and capable of communicating their actions as real people, so constantly flooding the player with as much information as he can take could very well be the best option. For me modeling air combat on a computer is about unavoidable compromises: because there are there are many things that simply cannot be modeled properly, it may be preferrable to make other compromises to for example get the situational awareness to a realistic level. As far as the comms system goes - I just don't know, because I haven't tested it. What I do know is that there's a relatively simple way to get Lock on / DCS to the same playing field with other air combat simulators. __________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brakes on an axis AND a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer capability AND radio traffic from other flights

I've been doing a bit of Lock on flying lately and there's one pretty simple thing I find a bit annoying. Many of the missions are truly spectacular shows that leave Hollywood script writers in the dust - when viewed in the TacView after the mission is over. While flying I'm almost in a vacuum with only a number of radar contacts for company (unless there's an AWACS in the air). There are battles raging all over the map, but no-one seems to care enough to say a word on the radio. The solution is pretty simple: have all the friendly aircraft in the air radio the same messages you and your wingmen do when in battle. Fox-calls, requests for assistance and all the stuff that's already in the game. If doable, their voices can be altered a bit, maybe slightly different pitch and so on to make them sound more personal. It would be important, however, to differentiate them from your flight simply by giving their voices less volume when you hear them over the radio. That way the constant babbling wouldn't be intrusive and you would always know when it's your wingman calling for help. This is a feature that could be used in DCS AND Lock on. It would increase the player's situational awareness a little and give a tremendeous boost to the feeling of being there. Best of all this might be pretty simple to implement, all the voice recordings are already there (unless you want to create more, which I wouldn't object to) and they already work with the player's wingmen. It would be an incredible to for example hear your fighter sweep engage enemy CAPpers when your' flying escort for a low & fast strike behind enemy lines. Easily worth a little time from a couple of programmers. ________________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have toe-brakes on an axis AND a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer capability AND radio traffic from other flights

A 3rd party dynamic campaign generator is in the works, at the moment there's no info on possible or impossible BS-compatibility, however. ________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign and toe-brakes on an axis

leafer, the best thing to do right now is to download the TouchBuddy software from the site (it's free) and test it. You don't need to have a touchscreen to do that. Of course you can't touch your buddy without the screen, but you'll see first hand what the profiles look like and what options it has to offer. ____________________________________________________________________________ DCS MUST have a dynamic campaign system and toe-brakes on an axis

The forum is active, the last posts are from last week. ____________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign with multiplayer capability AND toe-brakes on an axis

I've enjoyed it a lot. Note that I'm a big fan of dynamic campaigns and Storm is still very much in developement. Many of the features are still missing, but things seem to be progressing all the time. __________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign with multiplayer capability AND toe-brakes on an axis

Well there's some hope. http://lockoncampaign.com:8811/ _____________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign with multiplayer capability AND toe-brakes on an axis

PoleCat, what's the iVibe unit like to sit on? I have an Akers Barnes pit myself and I've thought of buying one if they ever get their software support going. Do you need extra cushion under the seat or behind the back (like you seem to have)? ___________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer support AND toe-brakes on an axis

Absolutely. A-10 pilots deserve a real punishment and this is the way to deliver. Come on, let those buggers have it and properly! ______________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign generator with multiplayer capability AND toe-brakes on an axis

Is it possible to create 3rd party cockpits? That would be great, one cockpit is worth four dozen high-poly tanks. ______________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer support AND toe-brakes on an axis

...or get TouchBuddy and program the buttons to a BS profile. __________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer capability AND toe-brakes on an axis

NNNNNOOOOOOOOO star planning ASAP. You have four minutes. ________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign engine with multiplayer capability AND toe-brakes on an axis

It's a good thing the manual is almost finished, hopefully a printed version will be available at the time BS is released. In fact it might not be such a bad idea to release the manual a bit early so that people have some idea of what they're getting into when they finally start the chopper. ____________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer support AND toe-brakes on an axis.

I've been following dynamic campaign developement efforts very, very closely and when SwingKid started radio silence I kind of guessed what was going on. Any details on the actual campaign system and integration level would be welcome, since it's by far the most important feature on the list as far as I'm concerned. _______________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer support AND toe-brakes on an axis.

I kind of guessed one of the new features. AI improvements will be really important and an improved terrain mesh was a really nice surprise. I hope what SwingKid has been cooking will turn out to be as entertaining as Ross's Storm. _________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer capability AND toe-brakes on an axis. Hey, that update didn't have anything on toe-brakes, NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

The Su-27 is supposed to have a lever on the stick to control the brakes and AFAIK it sort of automatically works differentially when you push the pedals. Lock on already has pretty fantastic control options, I can't begin to understand why something so simple as toe-brakes on an axis was left out. __________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer capability AND differential toe-brakes on an axis

Naturalpoint were expecting 6DOF, but the developers didn't deliver. This is looking pretty bad, two recently released helicopter sims will turn into very good advertisement for Black Shark if ED actually manage to create a proper helo sim. __________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer support AND toe-brakes on an axis!

Ramstein, you've got two sims mixed up. Wings over Vietnam is a good game, Whirlwind over Vietnam is the really crappy one. _________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a multiplayer capable dynamic campaign and toe-brakes on an axis!

Here's the link to the Vietnam Medevac demo, I think: http://www.tucows.com/preview/291888 You might need ppjoy or whatever it was called to get your controllers setup properly. ____________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a multiplayer capable dynamic campaign and toe-brakes on an axis!

If you wish to practise for BS may I suggest a much better game called Vietnam MedEvac. It's an older title, doesn't look like much and you're probably going to have difficulties getting your joystick working, but as far as flying the chopper goes, it's one of the best around. There's a good demo you can try if you're interested. _____________________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a multiplayer capable dynamic campaign and toe-brakes on an axis!

I've thought about this shaking stuff for a while and I think there might be sort of an issue. Just today I had to sit in a car that had horribly unbalanced tires due to hard packed snow and dirt. The shaking was pretty bad, I could feel it in my body and all the loose objects in the car rattled horribly. I could clearly see the car structure vibrate and if I tried to speak my voice was stuttering. Unlike Lock on (and Sturmovik), the rattling did pretty much nothing to my view outside. I've never been in an aircraft going past its highest recommended aerodynamic speed or deploying airbrakes, but I tend to think that in reality the human body and vision system would act as pretty efficient shock absorbers and keep the view apparently steady. Every time I get the shaking effect I really think the plane should fall apart any moment. Even my G-meter (not the one in-game but the one in my home pit) shows pretty wild readings during the shake and stir stuff. It doesn't have much built-in inertia so it shows any changes really quickly unlike real gauges, I suppose. I'm not even a real pilot so I don't really know anything, but I'd like it if you reconsidered these two issues: 1) Is the turbulence / aerodynamic shaking effect overdone in the first place? 2) Is the visual representation of the effects too severe compared to how a pilot sitting in a real plane would see it and if it would be more appropriate to have the plane do most of the shaking while the player's view remains mostly steady (this is how for example strike fighters does it). I'm all for realism, but the shaking is a very annoying feature and if there's any doubt at all as far as its present implementation goes I think you should consider softening it as much as you can. ________________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer capability AND dirrefential toe-brakes on an axis

Here's the original Speed: http://www.virtual-jabog32.de/index.php?section=downloads&subcat=28&file=484 ______________________________________________________________ Lock on MUST have a dynamic campaign system with multiplayer capability AND proper toe-brakes.