Lonecrow66

Oh and you'll need a lot of room! Lots of desks.. I was there for the original quakecon.. and some other falcon4 based lan parties. A classroom with long tables are always good. Just need lots of power and tables big enough to hold everyone's gear. People will need to bring their own power bars, monitors chairs etc..

If its on a weekend I might be in.. I'm down in Windsor.

I just want Carrier Ops.. that way you can have theatre almost anywhere. Then they don't have to really put too too much work into airfields. Would like to see the middle east and north korea theatre.

Yeah but the higher you are ... the more you are a big juicy easy target for radar and sams. OF course they are always turning them on and off to evade SEAD missions. At least that was the way it was in the old time sims..

Wow last night I actually had a campaign mission last over 30 mins without crashing. It was one of the coolest if not the best flight sim experience I ever had in my life. I turned the labels on and off a little here and there to help me out with the realism of being able to see with the naked eye. Mission was in the second campaign and I had to take out some HQ vehicles. The mission waypoints were making me fly right through the thick of it. So I decided to orbit a bit back and now that I know you can get that extra oomph out of the TGP with CHF short I could actually search out and pick out targets. (thanks for that I dont know how I missed that in the manual) So I was looking for air defense targets along my flight path. I decided to bypass any JTAC assistance because they'll just send me after tanks and I need to get through the air defenses. The F18's were not going to be around for a while by the looks of it. So I was able to a radar and some fixed ZSU's and took a couple out with mavericks. I decided to test the waters and let my Wingman be the bait, and sent him in asking him to use maverick and to attack air defenses. He went in and an SA8 (from hell) decides to make itself finally known. Launching at my wingman. I watch as he gets hit and ejects. I'm on my own now. I decided to look for the SA8 but I couldnt find it. Seemed to be inside a town in the trees. I'd have to be 20k to see it. So I decided to slave all to my HQ WP and see if I could identify the main mission targets and possibly get into range before the SA8 had me. I couldn't see the targets at all because they were hiding behind a small hill. So I had to fly around near the mountains to the north to finally see it but getting very close to the bulk of their forces. I was able to lock onto one truck with the TGP but my RWR was going off like crazy. I used just the jammer for now to try and keep it off me but it didn't last long! Sam Launch! Alarms going off I trigger chaff and finally get into range of the maverick and launch. I break hard left and dive at a 90 degree angle.. the missile is heading right for me but at the last second actually detonates far behind me. No damage (when I watch the track it actually shows it hitting me) They launch again and again and I'm running as fast as I can away. I ended up with at least 6 total launches against me and not one of them hits. This guy kept tracking me for a good 15 mins as I tried to find him in the weeds. I decided I was going to go around. I flew out over the water and decided I'm going to stop playing games and finish the mission. I came in real low, but high enough I could see the trucks behind the hill. I saw one of them flaming from my 3rd maverick. So I managed to lock up one, launched 3 more mavericks at the targets. I knew they'd hit (they never miss) and switched to guns. Heh.. soft targets. I look up and left and realize I've got two bogeys at 10oclock high coming in but I decide to stay low and finish the strafing run. I actually managed to spray enough bullets to take out both of the remaining trucks! Mission accomplished. But I'm still behind enemy lines. I try to stay low and avoid the bogeys and make a bee line straight for safety. I was directly below them so they didnt see me. My RWR seems to go off like crazy again SA8's and I can also see the F18's probing as well as the Awacs. I know I have to stay low and I realize I'm going to have to fly right over some T72's and right in between two ZSU's. At one point I almost hit a power line.. The SA8 is chirping like crazy and I'm almost out of countermeasures. As try to fly through enemy lines I realize I'm lined up for a good gun shot as I'd have to pass over a tank. I figured I should try nad take it out before it gets me. I manage to hit it but realize I'm getting shot at on both sides by AAA!!! So I had to jink left and right and climb as I had no altitude left and left and right would have jinked myself right into the fire. SA8 is screaming at me about to launch. I see tracers flying by me on all sides!! I look down and to the right and I see one of the SA8 (with labels) get hit by a bomb, just dropped by the F18 showing up in the nick of time. WHEW. Now it seems the radar guided big boys are done, I should only be worried about some manpads, so I'll go high. This is going to be a turkey shoot. So I use my 2 cluster bombs to bomb the two ZSU's I saw along with everything else in a 100M square radius.. But hey.. .the world is my oyster now.. so call into JTAC. Let them know I have two JDAMS available for them. They coordinate me to some tanks that were bothering them so I was able to drop those two eggs on those targets and head for home. Did an ILS approach and a very nice landing. Managed to get through this mission with no damage. Not a single round. I'm so used to getting shot up at least usually a couple bullets.. or lawndarting.. I surprised myself. I was nuts .. broke every rule in the book and lived... and DAMN did I have fun doing it!! Screw the simulation part of it.. this was the most fun I've had on a computer period!! I just wish the track file actually worked! It shows me getting hit losing systems and the flight patterns get all out of whack. I watched it right after I landed.. Wasn't as spectacular as it was actually flying but it was fun! No bugs happened and it was the first time I could actually complete a whole mission without a crash or something. There was one bug though.. At point I launched 2 sidewinders at 2 hind I saw hovering close to the ground. I had this bug before. I had tone, launched but nothing happened. There was a sound for a launch but they were still on the rails.

It is pretty badass but I'm hankering for a really good carrier ops addon.. Lots of roles for the F18 as well. Could always do the F35 including the vtol version.. lol if it ever gets done..

Wow those gotta be at least 10k. Wonder if it comes with the projector for the wall too..

Its been over a month for me and I'm still learning rookie things and have a long way to go.. so don't get overwhelmed. Take it one day at a time. Try learning new things every day.

No it was the china hat forward short that I didnt know you could use.. it REALLY helps you zoom in. I can ID targets now.

Read up on JTAC - watch some you tube videos on it. Basically some ground units near the fight usually radio you hit targets and will (when working) uplink a data point to your tads. So you basically set up a SPI at the mark they give you and then use your TGP to search that area.

No you dont have to be in game mode.. I have everything in simulation mode except the labels.. which you can turn on and off with left shift F10

They also hinted at the F22..

Yep it works I apologize and to prove it here you go.. ahhh much better. How to use ILS to land.. by a rookie.. (with my usual into the dirt ejection afterwards...) ils-landing.trk

AARRGH!!!!!!!!!!!! I have the printout from the dude who made them all for blackshark.. no wonder.. UGH. Sorry.. that has to be it.

Here I made a quick track of the second campaign, took off circled and just landed. Other than making a VERY hard landing right at the stall warning .. what else am I doing wrong? (just rewatched heh I was at over 1000ft per second.. I was high so I was trying to compensate somehow.. ) non-ils-landing.trk

The training has always worked thats how I learned, but in campaigns no.. I just ran a mission at batumi right now, took off circled around turned ILS to 110.15 turned ON the knob. Then I hit ILS behind the stick, unstowed the bars... all I got was red flags. Tried turning on and off the ILS to see if it made a difference.. couldn't get it to come up.. so I landed. Am I missing anything?

No it isn't.. not one campaign mission has worked where I tried to land at batumi.. and I do know how to do it. I've done it in beta.. but in the campaign forget it.. just never works. Seems to not work when you have missions that have a runway start.

Yeah it dont work.. I haven't been able to get it to work once yet in the release..

Oh man I've been missing this for the whole time! I didnt know the TGP could zoom that far.. thanks for that tip.. it made a huge difference.

No I can get it zoomed in pretty good with the TGP but its still a messy blur.. not very sharp like in some of the screenshots I've seen. Some screen shots you can see the type of truck etc. Mine are just pixelated. I searched the manual for EXP and there was no mention of it other than exp being in a bunch of words.. I think there is a focus isn't there? Mav's though you can't see at all just the dots.

Yeah I have China Hat FWD mapped on my X52

Pony up.. It is expensive for a game, but not expensive for a SIM.

You mean like how you do with the maverick. If you hit it once short it'll sort of zoom in and then you can zoom further.. I'll have to try it. I still don't see that in the manual though I could be wrong.

/fumbles through the manual EXP mode? I'll have to see that one..

Sweet thanks.. I'll try tonight. I mean labels help because you do get sort of a pre-briefing before a mission to kinda see where things are. But the lack of resolution of the eyeball really works against us. Sort of need the labels. I just want red dots thats all.. no identifying marks.