olaleier

I finally remembered to clear all joystick buttons mapped in the game, seemed to take care of my probs...but only tried for a few mins, have to go out now.

I do too, it reset when you change something (anything) in the options. Same as 1.02, just have to live with it. Chizh, since we can't record tracks with the demo, is there some other way we could document the stuck view key bug to you?

Definately. A 290 meg file, I have a max upload of about 55K and in two and a half hours, 60 people had it.

A backbone is not one unit but a piece of infrastructure (be it 1, 10 or 100 servers) connecting one region to another, like across the Atlantic. ED just needs more bandwidth. :)

It all depends on the features present instead of a new flyable...that being said, I am a complete fanboy and will buy anything ED releases. It costs about 1/2 the money I spend on a night out, so I recoup my expenses four times the first weekend I have it. :mrgreen:

They also do not get paid...?! :? They sell the kitten fur. Makes very soft and comfortable kitten-mittens. (ok I'll stop now)

Every time someone makes a thread with "1.1" in the title, they postpone the release one week. It's now been pushed all the way to late April. :cry: (they also kill a kitten)

Don't get me wrong, I'd would love to see a complex dynamic campaign. But why not focus the ideas around a reasonable project? Sure it's fun to dream about the biggest, baddest campaign ever, but it's still about a company that has to make a product, sell it and pay their employees.

A dynamic campaign has nothing to do with the numbers of units in each mission, nor what they do within the mission. That's AI routine. Falcon 4's campaign is the ultimate one, sure it would be nice to have something like that for Lock On, but it's just one of many many variants in several kinds of simulations. Here is a definition of a dynamic campaign: "A campaign system where new missions are generated based on set factors and/or results from previous missions." Full stop. You can do 70% of the gameplay value in the interface. You don't have to account for single ground units at all. Figuring out every possible thing that can happen in a real war does not help you get a good computer entertainment product. Some simple points: - The strategic overview between missions tells the player about the war. Not the group of fighter bombers attacking a column of trucks 250km away from you. - Distance between events builds tension. A crowded map builds frustration. - There is no action, event or response that needs to span more than 2 hours. If you stay airborne for more than 2 hours, the map dies out. Realistic? No. Reasonable compromise? Yes. - Apart from more nuanced AI routines and a simple scramble task, nothing more needs to be added to Lock On's in-mission features to facilitate a dynamic campaign. It does its job between missions, not in them. - If you are calculating supplies/reinforcements with more than two modifyers, it's too big. I could go on. It's not about modelling every sock and spoon of two battling armies. It's about maximum gameplay for minimum bloat.

Auxillary power unit? Gearbox (to hydraulic pump)?

You could say that it compares to Far Cry in that it is DirectX, but other than that the comparisons are worthless.

I am fighting a constant battle against this perception that Lomac (or IL2) is CPU limited. IT IS NOT, at least when we are talking about fairly new CPUs, Intel 2.6GHz and upwards. Yes, the CPU takes a much bigger hit than in a shooter game but the video card still takes the heaviest load. I have an AMD 64 3000+ and upgraded my 9800 Pro for a 6800GT. Doubled my framerate under the same settings. I first played Lock On on a P4 2.4 with 512 megs of RAM. Switched between a Ti4200 and a 9800 Pro and the increase was very small. Here we see a CPU limit, but the software itself is not CPU-limited across the board. Nobody needs 2GB of RAM. Some tests you can do is simply lower one graphic setting. Does the fps increase? Then it is limited by the graphics card. Another simple test is making a mission where you sit on the runway and have a large formation of F/A-18 Hornets fly low over you. If it was CPU limited, the hit would be the same all the time but most likely you will see the fps drop as they fly over you, then go back up when they are out of sight. Of course, a gigantic mission will skew this idea but the average mission in the canned campaigns still puts the limit on the graphics card on my rig, both with the 9800 Pro and the 6800GT on the respective settings I set.

Everytime you ask, they delay one week. :cry:

AMEN!

This discussion has been done a few times (not saying it doesn't deserve doing again of course) and my conclusion is: Profits for the developer is what counts. They need to get paid. But "appealing to the hardcore" should NOT also mean "scaring potential newcomers away". If $35 pr copy can keep ED going, that's fine. I'm sure they didn't pull that pricetag out of thin air.

While you are waiting for 1.1, copy/pase a piece of English text into the translator. Then run it through as many languages as you bother, translate back to English and have a giggle. :)

I think the best addition to gameplay is changing how the ground AI responds to airplanes and not other ground units. A column of tanks driving merrily down the road, a bomb takes out one of them, the rest carry on as if nothing happened. The most simple way you can change this: If the group loses a unit from an airborne attacker, they halt and go to a defensive spread. Implementing cover-seeking routines might be asking much, the next best thing is defensive manouvering. The tanks disperse and drive around in circles/curves, making them hard to hit with dumb bombs. The collision avoidance routine for buildings and stuff is already there. Another goodie: smokescreen. (fps hit though) If no unit is lost for five minutes or some other set time, carry on to next waypoint. Simple (perhaps) and adds very much to CAS/interdiction, which as of 1.0.2 is shooting ducks in a barrel.

Ok, I don't know that much about coding and the limitations of the Lock On engine, so I will put my terrain expectations at a level where I will not be disappointed. :wink: If ED needs performance data on various types of yarn, I can provide! :D

The PB-250 is perhaps a good Snakeeye equivalent, although it uses a ballute/parachute thingie, not a mechanical drag surface. The BetABs also have a retardation system, but I don't think either are very useful as of 1.0.2 (can't remember trying) since fragmentation damage from bombs is either non-existant or very undermodelled. Doing M1.0 at 30 metres and letting two KMGU-2s rip over a column of tanks is a nice day of doing the iron business. 8)

Don't mean to second-guess here, but is it confirmed that the Ka-50 will be an addon similar in concept to 1.1? (That is, installed over 1.1 and adding content to the current engine) Was hoping for some upgraded terrain modelling...trees suddenly become a major part of your envelope when you are doing the rotary-thing...higher poly terrain mesh is another thing, but I guess FM related stuff like finer feel of ground effect can be added like the AFM of the -25T.

I'll gladly go for the download, either VISA or PayPal, but I think it's very nice with a CD shipping option for the many without broadband. Q for Wags: Will the buyer get some sort of auth-code so we can redownload/reunlock if the dog should eat my CD-R or something?

Hope it's not sand, or the engine mechanics will be angry. :lol: It's the sunrays making a little rainbow in the condensation, one in a million pic. Saved!

Yeah, that makes more sense I guess. Since it remains at a constant angle to the horizon (rotates on the HUD as the plane rolls), there has to be some relation to attitude. It seems to be flashing between 16 and 18 in the later moments. Also, the number on the lower right (0.2 -> 0.6) seems like a nav distance figure. Is it?

Yes, that's why I thought the steering dot would indicate best loft angle, while the line indicates minimum loft angle for the current range.

That's the line I'm talking about! :) The angle-off is in the ASE circle on top of the arrow that points to the designator box. The dashed line disappears a few seconds after the shot, suggesting to me it is a missile cue, not a target cue.