RedTiger

Fixed it for you. We like our trolls fat and over-fed around here.

For the love of all that is holy and sacred in this world, DON'T FEED THE TROLL!!! A simple "Cool story, bro" or "lol wut" is acceptable, however.

I believe those colorful schemes are part of their aggressor squadron.

You don't detect them, that's a good sized part of what makes them so deadly/useful. The only way to "detect" them is to see them launched. You'll see a whisp of smoke coming from an aircraft or from the ground if its a MANPAD. Air to air ones are harder to see and you probably won't notice them until its too late unless you are watching for them. Ones on the ground are easier because the smoke shows up better against the darker ground. The way you deal with IR missiles is to know when you are in their launch zone and proactively use countermeasures shortly before and all the while your in that zone. You can evade them if you see them, but its the ones you don't see that will kill you unless you use flares. I realize you're flying the F-15, so you won't be near the ground much, but its still worth mentioning the MANPAD ones.

The HDD CRT screen in the Flanker and Fulcrum almost always mirror the HUD symbology in almost every video I have ever seen. In fact, the NATO MiG-29G manual states that the screen displays "essentially the same picture as the HUD". I would mention that this publically available manual doesn't touch anything having to do with actual combat, just routine operation of the aircraft. I've speculated that the HDD in both the Flanker and Fulcrum must display the HUD when not being in a BVR mode. This is what you see in most videos, Russian fighters either just being flown or live-fire with heaters.

The framerate in Lock On has high peaks and low valleys. The framerate in Black Shark has a more even framerate, but probably a lower one on average. In LO typically a player will see some extremes in either direction depending on where you're flying and your altitude. This has been my experience, anyway.

Man did you ever open a can of worms. This is the wrong place to make unverified claims. ;)

How's the AI? That's a biggie with me in WWII sims. WWII = large scale = need AI for potentially 100+ of planes. I also don't play multiplayer. Can you at least bounce the AI properly? Does it seem to always have perfect situational awareness? How about performance? Is it always perfect with trimming and keeping its energy? BTW, watched TimA's La-7 vs. BF-109...fan-freaking-taskic. Canon rounds hitting a fighter actually do some good damage. You must have hit him right at convergence of all 2 or 3 of them. Nice! :thumbsup:

I like to think of it in terms of a sports sim. A sim can simulate the pre-game talk from the coach, the breaks sitting on the side drinking gatorade, and the interview with the reporters after the game when you win. It can simulate the correct way to tie your shoes and exactly where you should place your fingers on the ball when you throw it. The sim can even simulate a dynamic career for your in-game avatar player/coach that changes based on your and your team's performance. However, what matters is how the actual sport-playing is simulated. Can you use real-life plays with your team vs. the the other team using real-life restraints? Will using these produce a realistic, reasonable outcome? I will go one step further and say that I'd argue that everything but the sport-playing is indeed dressing and is, in fact, more intended for entertainment value than anything "hardcore". Hey, don't get me wrong, entertainment is why I'm here, it's pretty much the reason I get up in the morning. :D However, everything but the sport-playing is there to provide an experience for the player, for immersion's sake. I just don't like to confuse immersion like this too much with realism because, contrary to popular belief, they are NOT the same. I can find my own way to immersion on my own, thank you very much. Just give me a simulation where all the tools are there to create it. Make sure the ball flies far when I hit it the correct way with the bat and I'll do the rest. ;)

Damn, see? I was afraid of it getting bad reviews, especially from Russian reviewers. Is it impossible to design a good game on a shoe string budget or are we all just spoiled?

My surprise is at the thought that the F-15 doesn't have more types of air to air gunsights. The F-16 has several, one of which -- EEGS -- that is fairly complex an information-heavy compared to the F-15. Never understood why all that information was necessary, though.

Strangely, for being an air to air-only top dog, it seems like there's not much HUD footage lying around. You can trip and hurt yourself on the F-16 stuff, but no F-15! Does the F-15 have anything besides whatever it is we have in LOMAC? I would say LCOS, but it doesn't seem to work how LCOS is supposed to. It looks more like what the Su/Mig have, just a different "skin".

Binary solo! 0000000000100000000001000000000000010000000000010000000010000000001000000000010000000000100000000000100000000010000000001000000000001000000000010000000000100000000100000000001000000000000100000000001! :punk:

Has anyone seen this? http://store.steampowered.com/app/12480/ Action/RTS games from independent developers can sometimes be hit or miss, but I thought it was noteworthy just for the subject matter:

Hear, hear! AWACS calls, as you all have said, can get way out of hand. In busy missions, its a constant stream of verbal diarrhea. Even if you're not relying on it, it's just nuts. My absolute FAVORITE is when you get a "Merged" call about 10 seconds after you've already shot down the bandit because she was busy droning on about the An-124 that took off 300 km away. I'm busy jinking around, looking all over like a mad man, flares spewing all over the place until she finishes here stupid shpiel about the An-124 before I can finally ask again and get a call that its all clear. :furious: :chair:

Right so, in other words, there isn't any such absolute. So if a sim deveoper says "here's the way our simulation handle's ECM" we should all just nod and smile since for all we know, they could be right..or completely wrong...but most won't know for sure and the ones that do aren't talking.

Unrelated to blinking but about "burn-through": This sounds like you'll cut through the jamming earlier than you used to and be able to lock-up a solid return sooner than you could before, based on aircraft type. Isn't this backwards from reality? I could have sworn that I read a discussion here where someone did the math using an equation from a well-known radar technician's text book showing that generally any "burn-through" by a fighter's radar on another fighter using ECM would be so close as to be almost negligible, something like 400 meters. I know this is VERY general (what radar? what fighter? what ECM? etc.), but I remember it just being used to debunk the idea of burn-through. I'm not a big Falcon fan, but I used to think this was an area where Falcon excelled. ECM effectively jammed your radar until you were VERY close, well into Rmax. It was/is impossible to lock up a jamming strobe from 250km away and launch HOJ when you get the range from AWACS or you use something gamey like the Beryoza to estimate the distance. In Falcon, you have to be crafty to survive and even then, you have to be willing to buy the merge and duke it out WVR.

Nice, thanks for sharing EB!

Yep. ;) Intelligence is the only valid answer. In theory, you can buy or hire everything else. You want your intelligence to be proprietary, IMO. And I'd want my intelligence OFFENSIVE, as in I go out and get it, not just passive. :D

I think what he's saying is that LO will now have the advantage of the optimization you see in BS. I don't know about you, I get MUCH better framerates in Black Shark when flying over large cities. I mean, there's no comparison. I can get extreme frame rates in LO but as soon as I get in the vicinity of a large city....sub 20 FPS. Krasnodar will get as low as 9 FPS! I can fly in this area in BS down at roof-top levels and get a steady 20 to 30. LO should still benefit from higher framerate because you fly higher, but also benefit when you fly lower too.

Thanks Wags! :clap: I appreciate the effort to approach Ubisoft for this one. A one-click install or DVD with the whole package would be wonderful Excellent. Good to hear for the slammer. I have a question though. Burn-through ranges have been moved significatly out...meaning that ECM will not be able to jam radar as close in as it did before? You will burn-through sooner? Just curious if this range varies between different aircraft.

So...the game *literally* is not balanced for lean? From what you said it sounds like it plays more like Quake. Don't get me wrong, I actually think the pinnacle of multiplayer FPS for pure twich skill was Quake III. But I wouldn't want that in a game like MW.

Topol is on the right track. It was a comment from the developer. IIRC, the original MW, like a lot of shooters, had the ability to lean around corners. An interviewer noticed that MW2 didn't have this functionality and ask the developer why. They responded saying, for all practical purposes, that the game was not balanced for allowing you to lean around corners and shoot. The REAL reason that people suspect is that lean was not included because the lack of this ability on the console. There aren't enough buttons on the controller to cover all functions, so they just removed the entire function from the game. The suspicion is that they did this so that the PC version could just be a port of the console. So "balanced for lean" = "console port" BTW, can PC players fight people playing on Xbox Live? If so, that's a whole 'nuther level of suck right there. PC guys don't get lean because the console guys don't either. :clown_2:

Very cool. That's sort of like what I hope DCS will have someday for player controlled GCI and AWACS.

Clouds have *always* cast shadows on the ground, that's nothing new. :music_whistling: Since 2003/2004, when FSX was just a twinkle in some developer's eye. :lol: