Fjordmonkey

It would be extremely cool to have the north sea/northern Norway-area to fly in in Lock On, that's for sure. Lots of low-level flying-terrain here :pilotfly: How accurate is the GIS-data?

Back during the 80's, this was if not a daily occurence, then at least a weekly one. I was serving my mandatory year in the Norwegian air-force back in 2000 as an F16 Groundcrew for 331/334sqd at Bodø Main Air Station, and was on RS15-duty when the Kursk sank. Hectic times, where the two RS15-aircraft was launched six times in two days. Fun to experience, but not for such tragic reasons. All in all it's pretty routine that this happens. And with the increased activity in the Russian airforce in the north, it'll continue to increase in frequency. But then again, it's good training for both groundcrew and pilots here in Norway, and for the crew of the Russian aircraft as well.

I would rather say that they would, by not saying anything, try to NOT end up at the end of a firestorm when or if they had to pospone the launch. I think they learned THAT thing before the launch of FC. As much as I would like to lollygag all over the battlefield before getting the bejesus stomped out of me while flying the KA50 just as much as everyone else: Patience is a virtue. And the fact that we're paying customers doesn't actually mean scheit in the big picture. We're not in a position to DEMAND info about BS just because we bought LO/LO:FC. If there had been a pre-order it would have been differently. There isn't, and that's that. *puts some patience-lotion in the basket, then passes it around* ;)

I'd take a slightly annoyed cod, if you please.

This would, in my opinion, turn Lock On into X Plane with combat. While that isn't bad in itself, I do not think that Lock On would get better with opening it up for editing. I'd say that the exact opposite would be true. You would have people editing the values to match the supposed speeds, turning-radius, handling etc of their favorite plane/missile/weapon, or editing the values to what they THINK is the correct values. Unless people have access to the exact data, which for many of the weapons and weaponsystems in Lock On is still classified, it won't get better. Quite the contrary, if you ask me. The "fully open"-concept works in X-plane because most if not all the aircraft-data used there either isn't classified, or is readily available on the 'net, and because X Plane models aircraft behaviour in relation to speed, altitude, weather and a metric heapton of other details. Lock On isn't perfect, but it's better than most other products in this genre of flightsims out there. Maybe it lacks the depth that Falcon 4 has, but here you don't have to read a complete TCTO just to be able to start up and fly.

That sites go down is commonplace. That a site goes down because of a hardware-failure for two weeks is a reason to fire someone. That being said, I do not know the exact problem with ED's ISP. Working in the IT-business myself, I know that being knocked out for two weeks due to something as common as a disk-failure is, to be blunt, utterly idiotic. Single point of Failure-cases, like loosing a coreswitch or one server, is not something that contributes to a good reputation, which again translates into customers. Of course, Murphy's Law is about as big a bitch as Lady Luck is, and problems has a tendency to come in swarms (like the Quad-23mm problem I usually get shot down by in the game (aka Shilka)). I think the only thing we can do is to whip out the tubes of patience and start rubbing it onto our skin. ED will hopefully have things back up and running soon. Complaining that we as customers deserve better doesn't exactly help much, as I'm sure that they're doing things as fast as they can :smilewink: But irritating? Yup.

What you also can do is head over to http://www.memtest86.com/ and yank down the ISO-image, burn it onto a CD and boot your comp with it. Good to check if it's the mems that has bellyflopped or not. Might be a good thing to check before you start RMA'ing, since it can save you a lot of hassle and bother :)

Absolutely stunning pics, as usual :D Keep'em coming!

hehel. Same company that own that IP as well :D

Hostname: 72.8a.5646.static.theplanet.com ISP: THEPLANET.COM INTERNET SERVICES IP address: 70.86.138.114 IP country: United States IP address state: Texas IP address city: Dallas Not sure if this helps anyone :smilewink:

Nifty pics! Definately looks like the engine let go in that last one, yep. Looks like the groundcrew is scrambling to get in with the extinguisher :D

I'd rather see Black Shark delayed another 6 months that to see it released as a bug-infested mess :thumbup: Take your time, ED. Make it as good as we know and hope it'll be :joystick:

While I don't doubt it at all, Allochtoon, I still don't see why Lock On should be turned into another MSFS-type of game in terms of addons. :) While I'm all for making the game as realistic as possible in terms of visuals (Walmis' excellent F15-model, for example) and general playability (tweaks), I can't say that I see why ED should release the sourcecode for the game (which was the orignial thread-starters request). By all means, add tools that can add/replace objects already in the game, but new flyables and major upgrades/overhauls/changes to the sim should be left to the developer or at least be up to ED if they will implement the new content. :)

I've read the entire 6 pages, and I've yet to understand why ED should release the sourcecode.

The Falcon4-code was leaked about 3 months after the original design team at Microprose was laid off by Habro. The licence and the code itself was at that time owned by Hasbro, and as such, the leaking and subsequent spreading of the code amounts to stealing in the eyes of the law (copyright-violation). Just who released the code to the public is something that probably will never get revealed, just because I'm pretty sure there's a small horde of lawyers standing by to drag their butts to court. Which the leakers know.

Excellent as always, Torwak! Keep'em coming!

You're sure that your disk doesn't have errors? I've had disks that were accessed pretty much constantly without any apparent reason until I ran a diag-tool from the producers (Seagate's SeaTOOL).

Mindblowing, Valery =) Very nice work indeed.

As much as I like the Eagle, I usually fly either the Vanilla-Frog or the Tee-Frog But then again, I like it low down and dirty :P Besides, the Vanilla-Frog is hard to fly and fight in, but it's rewarding when you're able to do it well =)

As always, Torwak, excellent pics =) Rep inbound =)

I for one cannot see why ED should ever give up the sourcecode for the Lock On-series. Yes, it would be nice to mod Lock On with new flyables, Flight-models, cockpits and whatnots. But until, and unless, ED chooses to release either the sourcecode for the game or the tools to actually change the code, OR someone manages to reverse-engineer the code: Too bad, their choice, you're up Crap Creek in a leaky canoo without a paddle. And, I might add, without a say in the matter. Deal with it. Besides, I would be as bold as to say that since the Lock On-engine is used in other products, as for example the USAF A10 Desktop-simulator package (might be wrong on this one) which delayed Black Shark, releasing the sourcecode for Lock On and thus missing out on a good amount of money in terms of sales, support and upgrades is...well..plainly put: about as smart as wearing clown-shoes in a minefield. Cutting off the main channel of income is about as smart as that, and that's what releasing the sourcecode for Lock On would be.

The good thing about a set of USB Headphones is that you can direct the voicecomms from the apps to it because it has it's own built-in audio-processor. Which frees up your main speaker system to handle game-sounds :) I've got a set of cheap-ass Trust-headphones that run on USB that I use when playing, and they work pretty much flawlessly. They do what they're supposed to do, and that's it.

Yes and no. Yes, in the case that a single-threaded application won't fully load-balance itself over multiple cores, but no, in the case that the overall system performance won't take such a massive hit if more CPU-hungry tasks (Lock On, System Processes, drivers and other services/applications etc) gets spread over multiple cores. In this regard you have a system that, in theory, will be able to somewhat load-balance itself without bottoming out available resources. Note that I say in theory, as overall system performance is due to more than just free CPU-cycles :) But is a multi/Quad-core CPU worth the price that those CPU's currently fly at? That's open for debate. I'd say that if you want the maximum amount of overall system performace (not to be confused by maximum performance in one specific game/application) at any given time, then yes, the price of a multi/quad-core CPU is worth it. The tech behind multicore CPU's on the desktop is still somewhat young, though, which is probably why so few games/apps truly utilize both/all cores on a multicore CPU. When it comes to system performance, there is a HUGE jump from my old P-IV to my E6300, even though each core run on a lower frequency than the old CPU. Going to Vista as well gained me a little more performance, but not a whole lot when compared to XP. But then again, every little bit counts.

Newest drivers for the 8800's: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_158.24.html

Which flavor of the X-Fi do you have? I might just have a solution for you, as the drivers you download from Creative only gives you the most rudimentary of support (2-channel audio only, none of the Creative-apps working), which you've no doubtedly already found out. If you have the X-Fi ExtremeAudio like I do, what you want to do is to whip out the CD that came with the card and install those drivers. They actually work, even though they're for XP, and you also get access to all the different modes (XMSS, 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel sound etc). But whatever you do, do NOT run Creative's Autoupdate after this, as that will put you back to square 1 (2ch sound only). For some utterly and completely idiotic reason, Creative has decided to NOT give out any complete drivers for the X-Fi ExtremeAudio-card (which, I might add, isn't a full-on X-Fi, but rather a slightly souped up Audigy4 LS-card). If this procedure works for the other cards in the X-Fi-series is unknown at this point. I know that there are 3rd-party drivers/apps for the ExtremeGamer and above cards out that can possibly help, but just how good those are is something that I don't know as of yet.