Stealth_HR

Whap them with an R-73 (or better yet, an SPPU-2).

Could be, I know that in Japan, 42 and 24 can be called unlucky - being pronounced shi-ni and ni-shi - either "till the death" or "two deaths", respectively.

There's also the MiG-29G, which totals it to 9.

Basically, start with the lowered throttle, open brakes, once under 400 km/h open flaps. In a few moments you'll get a very stable, slow drift. The key is engine management as the engine's power output's iffy at best, too powerful at minimum and not powerful enough at maximum.

Why thank you for the assumption. :P I'm not all talk - I've been doing some work myself, the only difference being I haven't found a solution to some of the problems in the game I've been researching. For instance, the FMs are clearly hardcoded, and they could just as well have been external, recodable files, without forcing us to decompile the EXE (something that's illegal, as well). So far, my work included solving the mystery of not having Croatian symbols in the game (which I've linked to the fact a font bitmap's used instead of a regular TTF font), and trying to translate some of MEinit's parts into cyrillic Russian (since the original russian MEinit isn't easy to find for us non-RU speakers). The irony is that it worked under LO 1.02, while it won't work with FC 1.12 (verified by several other translators). Besides, why not the release code? Other developers have done it, despite publishers attempting to pull their strings and lay claim on it. The LOMAC series is trumpeted as ending with LOBS - so why not? Russian way of doing things, I guess. :dunno: Let's see... same Vikhr, same ejection seat mechanism, same GPS map... true, it has datalink capability, but Even that's been simulated with the MiG and Su variants. Did you try it? Don't knock it if you haven't tried it. Doesn't the same apply for the Ka-50 which was, if you're suggesting a 1990s timeframe, which was still in trial? Remember, you said it's the 90s timeframe, and yet we have a Ka-50 AND a Ka-52 in FC as a non-flyable, which shouldn't even be there! For that matter, what's with the Su-34 (-27IB, -32FN... take your pick)? The first pair had been delivered to the VVS a mere few months ago! Partly, you have a point, however, having the ability to add both in-service and out-of-service planes would be a great boost. Although the Yak-38 is a valid option because the Kiev-borne Yak-38 fleet continued ops until the late 90s. All valid points and an acceptable opinion. But if we're in the mid-90s, where are the more modern variants that fit into the timeframe? For that matter, why wouldn't we have Ukraine as a country? Ukraine was always Ukraine, nobody ever called it Russia. USSR, yes, but not Russia. For the missions we've been given as stock ones we've got rebellions on a local basis - they could just as well be depicting pre-dissolution issues. Thank you for putting words my mouth and spray-painting them with your own meanings. :P Seriously, though, it's obvious people have made progress far beyond "regular modding" through LOPE, skinmaking and basic XML editing - why wouldn't people just assemble small TXT files, explain the basic principles, slap on examples and let it out into the wild blue yonder? :smilewink: I've done it before - not for LO, but I've done it. I'm pretty sure you at least have mental notes, and my telepathy's a bit rusty as of late, so I can't probe around. :music_whistling:If it's a great idea to exchange ideas, well, show us how it's done. The end effect is visible to all people. But if you show how it's done, that's what modding's all about. :sly: Unless you're bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement, in which case you could just say so and I'd drop the matter. Or ask Chizh or somebody higher on the food chain where to sign up as a "post-production" modder. Cheers.

I guess that'd be an advantage too

Yes, it is, but in the end, it's going to remain just another pseudo-flyable model with no wing folding, hook and Flanker's FM (yes, it handles like a Flanker, not the least bit as maneuverable as a Fulcrum) - something that would make an otherwise perfect upgrade to the MiGs in LOMAC just another HumanCockpit="yes" plane, which really doesn't do the plane justice. :noexpression: Something that always baffled me - why the hell isn't there something in the plane to prevent that? I remember the first time I sat in the Super Frog and accidentally brushed my fingers across the "G" key - whoops, down you go along with the gear. Seriously, what's with that? :huh: Now that's just mean and nitpicky. :P Not to mention a slight fault on ED's side as a feature that was ripped out from FC - tandem plane piloting. I remember the F-15D and Su-30 mods that existed and worked just fine. So if we're going to get a Ka-50 in the game, why not have the ability to simulate a tandem-flight Ka-50 or any other twinseater? Seriously, it's not like there's THAT many people who wouldn't want to trade the piloting seat to man the electonics - you'd get both co-op and multiplayer at the same time! Think about it. In a sense, a helicopter works similar to thurst vector control - not completely, but in a sense. Translate the behavior of a Ka-50 onto a jet and you might get an effect akin to VTOL - one way or the other you'd get at least part of the behavior of a Harrier or Yak-38. As far as I know, there's about 4 Yak-141s still operational. While they may not be in active service (i.e. being used as testbeds), why would that stop the modding community from adding them? I mean, if we want to go by the way of what's active and what's not, the F-4 should be in the US inventory of LO, yet it isn't - the thing's only been retired from USAF for five years! Come, now, if there were late nineties the models in there could've been more modern. Or at the very least we wouldn't get loads of people yelling at someone online for firing an R-77 off a Su-27. :P Well, if that's the case, can we please get some sort of more solid guidance in the matter? The explanation to some of the CLSIDs in MEinit.xml? A list of what belongs where? I'm pretty sure at least somebody compiled a list of it. As much as I appreciate your work specifically (I've been a Navy Supermod player for a while now), just saying "figure it out yourself" borders on bad manners. Especially in a place that wants to kickstart modding, but without a manual. :noexpression:

Supposedly, it gives an FPS boost of some sort. At least that's how it worked way back in LO 1.0x.

I for one would certainly hope so. As someone who's spent several years modding FreeSpace and X2 - The Threat (both flight games in their own right, one with a friendly and one with an extremely unfriendly modability level), I'm glad to see the tools slowly released to us "common forum denizens here". The general point here is true. For each user let there be a dozen ideas and you've already got too many for a single team to handle. Modders usually come in once the deal is over and done to start adding completely new, unprecedented content - compare with the Hard Light Productions, home to the FreeSpace Source Code Project which has revamped the source code from DirectX5 to DirectX8, enabled a lot of hidden and even instated some new functions in order to keep that 1999 title lasting and still playable. Clearly, a lot could've, and has been done. The same should, in my honest opinion, be true for the Lock On series as well. As we've all seen in Flaming Cliffs, a lot can be changed - the Su-25T differs in so many ways from the previous flyables it's insane. The all-new HUD, the TVM, the Sukhogruz (which, if I'm right, didn't appear on any plane in vanilla LO, flyable or not), the AFM for the Su-25x series - all that was coded in. Naturally, I can't expect ED to release the source code to us, as they have to live off something. However, a couple of things could be made more mod-friendly so we'd have a longer-lasting sim on our hands, and to make it even more playable than before. Here's an example of something that's almost too good to be left alone. Considering how hard it is to change attributes on planes, such as wing folding, wing sweep, carrier takeoff and arresting hook capability, giving the average modder the ability to either create realistic variants of planes or completely fictional ones would be a godsend - how many people would like to, say, try to launch a Tornado off the ship? Or be able to sweep wings on it? Or try what a VTOL Su-25 would feel like? Obviously, the examples here are downright silly, but I believe I speak for a lot of modders when I say a more organized set of configuration files would really help people have more fun with the game. That, or a set of some explanatory manuals. This is something that would be somewhat amended by even more released tools - or whichever game is next series after LO. Yes, there are a lot of gripes with the current set of planes - for one, because we've got a healthy mix of planes and models from the 70s till the 90s, but with some missing links like Harriers, Jaguars, MiG-21s, early Mirage models... One of the things that have been pointed out by our modmakers so far (and verified personally) is that Lock On has a lot of residue material from Flanker 2.5 - and a lot of it is unused. Now, what would make sense to me (and to other modders, I assume) would be to let us know what's garbage and what's usable - and how we can use it to either reactivate what's in there or replace with something. Even having free slots would help since the load times would go down a bit, in all reality. The same would go for weaponry (which is, really, almost fully listed), ground object, ship, skin and other slots. I'm pretty sure the Lock On engine is advanced enough to handle more than just what we got with the game - the Su-25T skins are expandable, so why not anything else? This was just quoted for truth and emphasis. The game's great, otherwise, I probably wouldn't be here. But it'd make life and playing a lot easier if the modability factor was just that bit higher. I'm thankful for the tools released and for the ones to come, if there will be anymore, and I hope the released tools (and possibly the addition of Black Shark) will unlock the world for both modders and end-players. Regards, -- Boris Matesin (p.s. shader editing would be good - if only for the engine smoke) :thumbup:

Ironhand, GGTharos, thank you both, that explains the whole ordeal. Time for me to learn which SAMs to tackle and which ones to avoid. Cheers!

So, basically, once an S-300 or Patriot (am I still in the same category?) is known in the area, a bigger jammer (which I don't think we have in LO) is needed. So basically, if it's a MANPAD or small TELAR in the lines of the Osa, it'll work. But where exactly is the line drawn? The manual, AFAIK, doesn't cover which SAMs it is or isn't effective against. How come it works against a Tor, but doesn't work against a Buk? Because the Tor is short-range and the Buk is medium? :huh: I'm seriously confused here. (edit: found something similar in the manual, so please bear with my train of thought - I'm trying to devise a "rule of the thumb" here) Okay, so the manual states missile lock ranges for the Х-25МЛ and Х-58 ARMs. EWRs are targetable, but not fire-able. Same for the radar-equipped AAAs - ЗСУ-23-4, Gepard. However, since the EWRs are high-power radars, and the Shilka and Gepard, EWRs are only avoided by terrain maneuvering, right? But on the other hand, the MSP-410 would work against AAAs. You mentioned the SA-15 (Тор), SA-8 (Оса) and the Roland as being jammable by an SPJ. Those fall under the category of Low-altitude, short-range SAMs. In the end, does that mean an SPJ is only effective (in terms of getting closer to the target than its launch range with SPJ active) against AAA and any short-range SAM off the manual list? (q.v. page 152/153 of the english manual - no idea how to download the russian one yet)

If that's so, could you explain what the SPS-141 Gvozdika and MSP-410 Omul, found on Su-25(T) are doing in the Lock On inventory? How and what are they best used against?

Get off the weed before I aim that 4x23mm battery at you. :noexpression:

Dibs on the Shilkas! :D

:doh: Tut tut. Back to visual recognition training with you, lad.

And that's the only reason when you should be using ECM anyway, if you're under 500m, going SEAD and you've got a Buk scanning the insides of your air intake. :P

:cry:

Since we're already on topic of modding (and the dev team is milling around answering questions here and there) - is there any way we can add a small but critical piece of realism inside? Say, engine smoke? :P I've seen the Fulcrum live and I know that thing drags a smoke curtain behind its engines! Is there any way that could be implemented? Something like Kato's screenshot with the F-5s, only dark and looking like actual smoke?

Can it be used to add extra entries for any other planes?

It's fishy because the Su-25(T) is the only plane duo with an Advanced Flight Model - I assume every other plane only gets affected by the winds.

If the two-seat mod worked for LO1.02, I'd be glad to see it back in LOBS. I'd be more than glad to let someone else do the driving and let me fiddle with the nav modes, target acquisition etc.

What is a lufberry launch? :huh:

Sweeeeeeet. Really appreciate the effort you're putting into revitalizing that old bird - it still is one of my favorite ones. Can't wait for the final result! :D

Because the internal cockpit layout is transferred from the original Su-25, where the Sukhogruz IR jammer didn't exist, and the only active ECM was the wing-slung SPS-141 - so you only needed a single lamp.

That's only part of the jamming suite on the Su-25T. Obviously, to have active radar jamming available the MPS-410 must be installed on your outermost pylons, and E activates them - as S77-Konkussion said, there's a lamp on the right side of the cockpit labeled "ПОМЕХА" which indicates an active ECM. The second part is the active infrared jamming which acts like a rear-facing blowtorch, effectively flooding IR seekers so they cannot get a good lock. It's activated by pressing Shift-E - the lamp is labeled "ОЭП" (corrected thanks to Фрогфут's screenshot).