Moa

Yes! trainers are wonderful. Fingers crossed makes it in.

HI rabbitick. The software is a couple of weeks away from running on the 104th server. Pilotasso is correct, we'll give it to all squadrons once we've had a chance to make it run nicely (basically, I would like to release a tried and tested version - including the source code - so I have less maintenance effort to help everyone run it).

LOL!

Because they were sick of us whinging about wasn't right (although was probably near the limit of capabilities of machines when FC1 came out half a decade ago). They thought that some things could be improved in a reasonable amount of effort and reasonable timescale. They even went so far as it make it work with the BlackShark. Oh, if only it were that easy to change software. Think of it this way, you can't easily change foundations on an already-built house and rebuilding a new house from scratch takes time. At the moment ED are concentrating on adding a second wing to the new house rather than fixing up the old house for the third time. It may turn out the old building can be renovated rather than condemned, but the building inspectors are on-site at the new house at the moment so they won't make able to make the call for a while. Now, the same applies to software - particularly complex systems such as flight simulators.

Simply sublime ED and team. You've outdone yourselves.

Yes, even venerable aircraft could do what the MiG-25 did, yet the press was in a lather about the Foxbat (which also suited the Pentagon's agenda to get more stuff) and it wasn't until Viktor Belenko defected that the reality was made clear. Same deal with the Flanker ...

Nothing special, in the 70's the the Canberra was doing the same thing (despite its first flight 1949).

I'm not sure. They were originally Ukrainian, so wouldn't be the latest and greatest (but it is not like the CIS air forces have brand new kit either, and even when they have new stuff it is in the quantities that only somewhere like New Zealand would be proud of, eg. the handful of Ka-50). If I was a betting man (I'm not) I'd put money on the US having a very good idea of the characteristics of the Flanker radar - they do seem to make the effort (and spend the money) to acquire such information (when such reports leak out).

@Riptide. Nice find. Now, how many Su-27 still operating and combat worthy? @Teknetinium: There was the same breathless reporting of the MiG-25 in the past if you are old enough to remember. Turned out in reality wasn't so great. I saw the same fear of the Su-27 back in the day. The USAF has had Su-27 and has flown, tested, maintained and eveulated them to death. They even put the ones they had up for auction recently (got a spare $2 mil?). Just because some turkey wrote an article and got some retired admiral to check the basic facts doesn't mean squat. Clearly the US Air Force and Navy prefer their own gear, for technical and strategic reasons.

A Gnomonic projection is used (not spherical). There is example code in Scripts\Export\Export.lua or search the ED forums for the word "gnomonic". I've implemented the transform and inverse transform in Java in those threads. nb. watch the debrief log to see pilot ejections etc.

The 104th mission designers are very receptive to improvements. Please PM Crunch or MoGas on these forums if you have a request you'd like considered. In fact, if you have suggestions for any server out there I would suggest (politely!) sending a PM to the appropriate squadron members on this forum. Like one of Grimes' wonderful 3Sqn missions but have an idea you think he might like? then PM him. It takes a huge amount of work and play-testing to make the good multiplayer missions out there - I'm sure the authors would like to hear your appreciation and be interested in any suggestion you may have (although that doesn't necessarily mean they'll action it, but they would probably be interested in hearing your suggestion).

A quick look at wikipedia (yes, I know there are flaws in this): Numbers built: F-15 A/B/C/D/J/DJ: 1198 F-15E/I/SG : 334+ Total: 1532+ (nb. the USAF has nearly all of these) Su-27 : 680 Su-30 : ~300 Su-33 : ~24 Total: ~1000 (nb. CIS has the biggest share of these, but Indian and China has sizeable fractions) So, strictly speaking the ratio of built aircraft is 1.5. The ratio of flying aircraft will be higher in the F-15s favour (they last longer). Then there is a 'bias' effect where the USAF has a greater share of total F-15 compared to Russia's share of total Su-27. This makes it more likely that the US F-15 will outnumber Russian Su-27 in battles today (and was even more so in the 1980s and 1990s era). If anyone else has more accurate figures then it'd be good to publish them please.

If you eject at Mach 1 you are very unlikely to survive. Martin-Baker have 6 successful ejections above 700 knots (like most corporates they don't say how many were unsuccessful). The compressed air shockwave is harder than steel at that speed (in fact, this principle is employed to cut metals). The seat would decelerate rapidly, but probably not down to 45 kmh. This is likely to be scripted (possibly for dramatic effect, what's the use of rendering the seat if you never seat it crash near you). Given the other scripting in the sim, and the limit to a single core for everything except sound, I would say scripting the seat's rapid decelaration is not an unreasonable thing to do.

The export documentation says that, but I'm used to documentation not always matching the code. Perhaps I just haven't got the right technique yet to get that data (the documentation leaves a lot to the imagination).

The Indians have good pilots and use the Su-30 to good effect. They are also not allowed to use all the reserved 'wartime' radar modes while at Redflag (part of their contractual agreements with their Russian suppliers). The Indians fought USAF F-15s in several engagements and the Eagles were considered to have 'lost' a few matches. The Indian and general media made much of this. What takes a bit more research is that the F-15s were always outnumbered by at least two to one and that the 'loss' involved the F-15s killing or warding off the enemy Su-30 but not intercepting the separate force of Jaguars in time. The USAF pilots are so good they like to train as if they had to fight continually outnumbered. In real life there are more than twice as many F-15s operational than Flanker variants. So such a situation is unlikely to happen in practice, and the USAF is well trained for this if it does ever eventuate on the tactical scale. It is similar to how the F-22 was considered to have lost against Chinese Su-27s and Su-30s (the shock loss was published by a group trying to get the US Congress to buy more F-22s, as always the military-industrial complex was working hard to get more US tax money). The 'loss' involved 6 F-22s fighting 3 regiments (72 aircraft) of Flankers and the F-22s killing 20 for no loss before running out of missiles. The 'loss' came about because the Flankers managed to get the F-22's (unescorted) tanker. One one hand would be a loss but looking at the exchange rate 20-0 when outnumbered 12:1 it is a staggering victory. I mention these because your assetion that the F-15s would 'cry' against the Su-30 seems to be based on the mainstream media reports (eg. the Indian success at RedFlag) but is not really that valid. If you dig deeper you can see that the situation is a lot more complicated than and depends on the particulars of the training scenario or strategic set-up. So if you examine the facts carefully you might be more rational in your opinion (let the numerical facts speak for themselves, not the opinions of pundits, or nationalists, or industrial interests). Each aircraft has its own merits.

Hi GG, Logs can be watched in real-time. I've modified the server log scripts to place in a lot of information (required for my pilots stats software that will be released within weeks to the 104th server, and once the kinks are worked out, to all squadrons). Unfortunately the current logs don't include aircraft location. I've tried to modify the scripts by taking the calls available in the export scripts but haven't got it to work (either I'm not doing it right or maybe it is simply not possible from the network scripts). Once you know the location of an aircraft on takeoff you can easily determine whether it was over a runway or not. You would then modify point scores appropriately to discourage behaviour so it wasn't done routinely - although in the 'scramble' situation you're not so worried about points. The other solution is to use triggers to periodically re-populate base defences if there are none. The Su-25T can still have their fun, but if the base defences get re-populated the base won't be left undefended for the remainder of the mission after a SEAD visit. No excuse for taxiway takeoffs then.

Yeah, thanks GoodBivol-1 for releasing those. Now, off to Google Translate ...

Great idea Grimes!

The F-15 from 2001 has datalink and other improvements (well, not without LEAVU2). It doesn't even have nav mode working properly, nor any of its targetting pods, nor JHMCS .... Yes, it is a shame that the Su-27 has not been upgraded in the game (or, the more advanced variants modelled), but it is not like that is the only thing that's not included. There is no conspiracy to disable the Russian aircraft vis a vis the US stuff in the game. In fact, the AMRAAM etc are still undermodelled so the F-15 afficianados could argue the opposite. The fact is the developers have limited time and budget, and they have to work within the constraints of the existing system since no-one can afford the time and effort to re-write *everything* from scratch (DCS being a valiant attempt, but even that still carries some trade-offs). Plus, they're working with crufty old code in C++ and Lua, hardly the most productive development tools these days (plus, to extend it to multithreading is herculean/suicidal depending on your point-of-view). If you would like to give the developers several million dollars and five years (a realistic budget and timescale for software, although a pittance compared to StarCraft II's budget and timescale) then you might get the Su-27 you want. Until then, keep reminding yourself, "I can kill Eagles!" :)

Yes they do, and they use it (I've talked with someone who does at least). ps. HoJ is the easiest thing in the world to do from a sensor perspective. Lock and follow the specified broadcasting signal. Unfortunately the pure pursuit course that results is inefficient and gives poor range. You could try and boost the efficiency/range by using AoJ to get target slew-rate (estimate approx range and heading from an assumed target speed). With todays embedded microprocessor and DSP power this kind of thing is straightforward (but wouldn't have been back in the day). The complicated bit comes when the jammer goes off (which is the unknown bit).

Please see this thread for details of the VNAO and their mod for FC2: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=56102 The VNAO do use CVN-70 Carl Vinson but I have not seen that exact carrier. I think that may be Tomcatz carrier (somewhere on LockOnFiles, but possibly only for FC1). The VNAO mod has player flyable F/A-18F and F-14D. The F/A-18 can do air-to-air and air-to-ground (JDAM, Mk-8x series slicks, Maverick K, rockets etc) within the limitations of LockOn (HARM and Harpoon carried but, sadly, not usable). One of the greatest assets VNAO has is US Navy Commander (retired) Ron "Pop" Folse who commanded the Navy's VT-2 undergraduate pilot training squadron and is carrier qualified. He shows (and grades, as the Navy does) VNAO in doing US-style carrier landings as they do in the real world. You can find more about VNAO from their page at: http://www.virtualnavairops.com/

Also found this thread. Wags makes a comment about the change but doesn't mention SHORAD specifically. (I've updated an earlier post of mine to include this link). http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=53750 GG: If you could provide more information it would be appreciated.

No need to get irritated. It may have been my mistake. It was my understanding that DCS:A-10C may introduce changes that are incompatible with the current FC2+BS. If this occurred the plan was to patch BS so A-1C+BS would work but there were no plans to fix any incompatibilities so FC2 would also inter-operate (no patch for this). I also believed that ED were doing us a favour by creating FC2 in the first place (I believe it nearly didn't) so we were to expect no more patches (although it would be fantastic if there was one). If this is incorrect then I'd be very pleased to have the record set straight.

To summarize, the workarounds suggested are: For the missile seeker slew issue, manifested as the missile seeker slewing in a direction other than that commanded: * use a mouse for AGM-65D seeker slew. Of course, this is completely unrealistic and will break using the mouse to change your view. * don't use zoom. Of course, this is also completely unrealistic. Real Mavericks have no such limitation. For the missile lock bug, manifested as the missile seeker refusing to lock on to air defenses and locking to terrain randomly around the selected target: * There is no work-around. This appears to be done to deliberately to increase the 'challenge' for the A-10A in patch 1.2.1 and disregards the capability of the real Maverick to discriminate and destroy *all* targets at medium range (that is, what they were designed to do). This seeker 'feature' discriminates between air defenses and all other vehicles (which can be locked at longer range). Of course, this is completely unrealistic, and was probably done for the same reason as the AIM-120 is continually hobbled in the game (yes, despite the promises, it is still not as the performance numbers state even after patch 1.2.1) rather than perform as published. I did not mean to bait, it was a result of being incensed by your responses negating the problems users were reporting - which is not what I expect from an ED tester, or any 'professional' tester for that matter. I'm just disappointed that ED just don't come out and say, "yeah we adjusted the AMRAAM and Mavericks to maintain play balance" since that is clearly what was done. Then this argument would be moot and we wouldn't be stuck about arguing whether the observed behaviour was a 'bug' or not. If it is undocumented then it is a bug in my book - document it and it is not a bug. Whether or not it is a 'bug' it is certainly not what is possible with the missile in real life (except perhaps in the most disadvantageous situations imaginable). Thanks at least for pointing out some of the information about the seeker degradation for SHORAD. Without it the situation would be even more confusing. ps. The Mk-20 is also borked in game. I have supplied ED with a Naval Institute Press (Annapolis) publication (linked below) that says the minimum safe release altitude is 250 feet AGL in level flight or 100 feet in a toss delivery (of course release for optimum dispersion pattern is much higher). Unfortunately ED ignored this information (despite asking on the fora) so we get another weapon not simulated correctly. If you release a Mk-20 from below about 1000 feet in-game the canister will not disperse at all - yet the aforementioned document specifies the real-life dispersal pattern at 500 feet. http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=l-DzknmTgDUC&pg=PA265&lpg=PA265&dq=minimum+release+altitude+for+Mk-20&source=bl&ots=2riLD0p9Lj&sig=hnvJKx4pgEcfkUj2fH0SNmFXAH8&hl=en&ei=QaFvTJmhBIjksQOn1Y26Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=minimum%20release%20altitude%20for%20Mk-20&f=false No this is not classified material, but it is clearly a reasonable source given the specific detail it is able to provide (and it is the Naval Institute Press in Annapolis - won't publish classified but if you publish bollox their naval readers will know straight away). If anyone has a publication refuting these figures I'd really like to hear about it. nb. dropping unguided weapons from 10000 feet or 8000 feet (as suggested in this thread: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=53418) is neither what the Hog is designed to do or what the pilots of the 1980s were trained for (at that time the NATO European Central Front meant you operated low or you were dead, whole systems were designed or redesigned to operate low [as I've stated before the B52 was redesigned to be low and it is the principal factor in the B1 design]). This (unverified) source lists 500 feet AGL or 400 feet with pull up: http://electrosphere.info/index.php?showtopic=861 According to this the Mk-20 fuze time (release height) is selectable (pilot can choose release altitude in flight). http://www.ordnance.org/cluster_bombs.htm So the in-game 1000 foot limit seems erroneous.

Hi Sven, next time you are required to do a re-install please make a full-directory copy of the newly installed 'pristine' patched LockOn installation directory and rename it. I call mine "LockOn Flaming Cliffs 2 pristine". Whenever you suffer the same problem you simply delete the problematic 'working' directory and copy over your 'pristine' directory (after renaming it to the original directory name). But never ever mod or use that pristine directory (although you can set up your callsign and key preferences etc when you create that pristine directory). Doing a directory copy and rename from backup is far easier and faster than re-installing and doesn't use activations. Now back to the original problem. I have started the game in server mode and noticed that the server callsign changes from time to time. I believe this could be some kind of 'race condition' where there are multiple overriding config files (eg. for networking) and the value used depends on which order they are loaded in. Such non-deterministic loading could be the cause of your problems, but I think that is unlikely. Have you tried doing a disk-check on the drive you use for LockOn? a SMART drive will mask faults unless you are looking for them - so make sure your drive isn't on the way out. Are you overclocking your system and putting too much strain on your power supply (which could cause problems with RAM, which is then later written to disk). Umm, can't think of anything else at the moment. Sorry I can't help more with a definitive answer. Perhaps other contributors have more and better ideas ...