Andrew_McP

...you look up on your way home from work and think: Mmm, LOMAC cloud. http://www.andrew.mcp.dsl.pipex.com/sky.jpg Andrew McP

I agree that would be a lot of fun for some of us. For a start an unloaded Herc is great to fly as well judging by the airshow routines I've seen... massive power to weight ratio when empty. But I would settle for being able to support such aircraft in missions using the flyable aircraft we already have. It needs to be as part of an improved gameplay engine though. If we could task Hercules' to land and drop off troops & vehicles to take over a target (airbase etc) while ground forces attacked by road, then fly escort missions while the Hercs resupplied & strengthened the base before moving on to the next target, life would get *very* interesting indeed. Throw this into a multiplayer scenario with guys defending the skies over us and... Oh dear, look at me dreaming the next decade away! I could live forever without another flyable aircraft. What I need are good reasons to fly the ones we have already. EECH came close to achieving this style of involving gameplay. I just wish Razorworks would get their act together and stop making money on Xbox titles. Who needs cash anyway? ;-) Andrew McP

This whole thread is silly. We should be flying what we have, not debating what we may or may not have in the future. > Olgerd explained...that they have good information on the F-16C I enjoy Olgerd's contributions. But having good information and high hopes is not the same as delivering working code, especially given the LOMAC engine's A2G limitations. Based on what I see in the evolving LOMAC code I can imagine an F-16 with A2A and dumb iron bomb capability being added any time ED like. But that's not the same as delivering a fully modelled aircraft to compete with F4. That's a few years off. I may well be wrong. But following ED's work since the start has taught me to be cautious and to appreciate what I have on my hard disk. Others may prefer to dream a little. There's no law against that :-) Andrew McP

Remember the F16 comes in many flavours... some of them without A2G capability. That (IMO) is why ED have it on their maybe list. Borrow the A2A modes from the F15, tweak a new flight model, build a new cockpit and there's your extra aircraft. All you get is a variation on the F-15 we already have, adding nothing to the gameplay. Andrew McP

Mine too, or maybe a Viggen ("Thunderbolt"). But one thing that tends to get forgotten in these (very regular :-) discussions is that what matters most is not what we want. If ED are to spend months and years of their lives working on something at the core of a new game engine, it has to be something that *they* are excited by. If ED are motivated and inspired then we all reap the benefits in the code they write, whether they create aircraft we *think* we like or not. I wasn't that impressed by the Tornado as an aircraft (I was a Vulcan fan :-)until I read a review of DI's Tornado sim... and bought a PC to fly it on. I knew little or nothing about the Su-27 until I flew the Flanker 1.0 demo and fell in love immediately. I was only vaguely aware that the AH-64 existed until DI's Apache and Longbow 1 came along and taught me to be excited. The same goes for many other aircraft and their systems which I didn't appreciate until I flew them in software. Sure, I've enjoyed some more than others, but if a developer cares enough to spend time working on an aircraft, the least I can do is hand over a little cash and see what it's like. I try to be broad-minded! Anyway, as long as "LOMAC 2" addresses the longstanding issue afflicting the Flanker2/LOMAC engine -- namely the lack of a dynamic environment we care about enough to keep coming back to -- then it doesn't matter what aircraft they settle on. Well, as long as it's not the Wright Brothers' aircraft. A campaign stretching from one side of a small field to the other might not capture my imagination ;-) Gameplay first this time please, not trying to please as many aircraft fans as possible. That's a game ED will always lose, because we're a fussy bunch even at the best of times :-) Andrew McP

Go design some missions, then you'll understand ;-) Andrew McP

The best feature of 1.1 is the fact that it exists at all. A close second is the AFM, which makes all the other tweaks looks pretty insignificant in comparison. The trouble with the AFM though is that the more you fly the 25/25T, the less you enjoy flying the non-AFM aircraft. And it hurts me to leave my Su-27 on the tarmac to go fly a tank instead. Still, having chute-retarded bombs to hang on the 27 *almost* makes up for the lack of AFM. Hunting ground targets at 50m/mach1 may not be particularly sensible, but it's fun :-) Andrew McP

Feel free to hijack it :-) This thread was never going anywhere anyway... unlike my AI pilots, who go wherever they want, whenever they want ;-) Andrew McP

That's excellent news (if it's not a glitch). 15 is a big enough number that we don't really have to worry about running out. <fx: listens very hard... hears sound of hundreds of people wasting an activation just to test it> Andrew McP

I said it was a diary. If I thought anyone could help I'd have asked for help :-) Of course if anyone has a time machine and can hop twenty years ahead to when ED finally have time to work on the AI, I'd love a copy of LOMAC 1.3 ;-) Andrew McP

Aarrrgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Andrew "Grumpy" McP

Don't hold your breath :-) I have to give my website a rest after using a *lot* of bandwidth in the last month. Besides, I have to work out how to fly the 25T first. That could take years! :-) Andrew McP

That's excellent news. FWIW other viewers might be interested in knowing that (fairly predictable) RCSimulations appear to be one of the Euro outlets for FC. http://www.rcsimulations.co.uk/ , look in the "other flight sims" section. I shall certainly be buying another copy just to be rid of the 5 activations thing. Whether I need 5 for not, I worry about running out given the potential for confusion between me, ED, and StarForce... no matter how simple, in theory, it might be to get another activation or two. Andrew McP

If campaign/mission files aren't classified you'd be able to see and edit everything they contain... which would spoil the fun a little. Try "eagle" to declassify them (it worked for me on the 25t campaign anyway), then reclassify quickly before you're tempted to look at the other missions or remove some AI to make life easier :-) Andrew McP

I'm having trouble getting things to fail with the 25T (even a simple engine failure from the start of a mission). A 27 will break when told to. So will a 25. But the 25T seems to be very tough! I must be doing something wrong. Andrew McP

Think of it as a test of your patience. It's character building! Or so they say; but I know I'd be just as frustrated at the lack of news (rather than lack of progress) if I hadn't bought 1.1 on day one. I'd certainly have had a different ending to my little release movie. Maybe I should work on a sequel? ;-> It would be *very* nice if ED could make a single, daily post with a brief update report. Even a simple "sorry, no progress" would do, because nature hates a vacuum, and gossip will always expand to fill silence... as this thread and countless others prove :-) Andrew McP PS Confuscious, he say: Early bird gets worm :-D <fx:sound of man running away very quickly>

You know what users are like, always trying hard to break code people spend years working on :-) Without a headwind I think it's impossible to land a 25T on the Kuz, so I needed a little run-off area. I also had this idea about trying to touch down briefly on both carriers as they passed each other, but as the Vinson appears to be un-landable-on it looks like I need to find another source of entertainment. Heck, at this rate I may have to try one of the missions! ;-) Andrew McP

The LOMAC demos have been out there in the big wide world a long time. If they haven't sold the game to people, nothing will. (I've bought many games I didn't expect to like after looking at a demo). Ok, some of us also try to do our bit by making LOMAC movies which take a lot of time and effort. They ought to appeal to people who might not look at demos. But we're preaching to the converted. I've shown LOMAC movies to quite a few non-simmers, they all say "great movies!" but none of them want to fly planes. IMO simmers are probably born, not made. It's either in your nature to be fascinated enough by these things to learn dozens of keyboard controls, or it isn't :-) Andrew McP

ED may not be sharing the money, but how many copies of 1.1 do you think they'll sell? Probably nowhere near enough to fund even a tiny fraction of the improvements these wishlists always produce. ED have to stick to what they know they can realistically achieve, and that -- sadly -- has little to do with what we *think* they can achieve. We have to get used to paying more and expecting less... whether we like it or not :-) Andrew McP

My wish for 1.2 is that ED ignore all wishlists ;-) Andrew McP

Priority: *very* low Type: smoke stays in air after crash-landing. Description: If you crash-land gently while trailing smoke (I just lost the undercarriage, nothing else), the smoke stays in the air. No more smoke is generated after you come to a stop, but the trail just stays as it was when you stopped, it doesn't decay. Of course that's the end of the mission, so it doesn't really matter. But I thought I'd mention it anyway. Andrew McP

It is excellent, but the great thing about planes like the Mig & Flanker is the extra power means you can have a lot more fun putting the plane into difficult situations and still have a chance of powering your way out of a crash if necessary. The 25T is a bit of a tank in comparison. Ok, a *lot* of a tank in comparison :-) Still, the AFM on the Flanker will take a *lot* of getting right. Weight distribution and aerodynamic effects are critical for things like the kobra, which I doubt ED will ever manage to get exactly right. Not because they don't have the talent, but because it's so hard to simulate and would require a supercomputer to calculate in real time! Still, I can't help dreaming it might be possible one day! For now though I'll settle for flying the 25T with a very light fuel load. I just wish there was an option for removing the armour plating, the ejection seat, that TV display (I can't get BBC World on it anyway) and the CD changer to save even more weight ;-) Andrew McP

Ok, hard to explain this without revealing I was trying to land on the Kuz, then hop off the ramp onto the Carl Vinson. Why? Why not! You have to remember I still want airbourne obstacles we can fly through/around so I can start a LOMAC racing league, I'm hardly your hardcore combat pilot :-) Anyway, for the record: with the two carriers lined up close together it looks like the code gets confused about which carrier you're trying to land on. 1) If the two ships are several lengths apart, everything seems fine. 2) If the two ships come a little closer together I can land on the Kuz but the code seems not to know the ramp's there. So the aircraft body crashes into the ramp as an obstacle even though the wheels just ignore it. 3) If the ships are almost touching, the 25t's undercarriage doesn't even realise the Kuznetsov deck exists, and a crash occurs when the aircraft body touches the deck. Obviously this isn't a bug, it's a case of someone trying to make the code do something it was never intended to do. I really must stop thinking outside the box! :-) Andrew McP PS Looks like you can't touch down (even briefly) on the Vinson anyway, even when it's on your side. Never mind, it was fun trying :-)

I'm having great difficulty landing on the carrier (yes, I know, no hook, but remember that excellent movie ED released a while back?) Playing back trks of crashes I see my undercarriage sinking into the deck as if there's no collision detection going on. Only when the aircraft body touches the deck does a crash start (rather than a landing). Anyone else had any luck? I swear I managed to make it up the ramp once, but now I'm having great difficulty, and the "gear disappearing into the deck" thing makes me wonder if I imagined it! :-) Andrew McP PS Try touching down on the water *very slowly* in almost level flight. There's a prize for who can float their 25T for longest :-) PPS I've discovered this landing problem is a special case scenario linked to having the two carriers close together, on the same team. I'll go into more detail when I've done some more research. It looks like a special case scenario though that most people will never meet in a million years. My fault for going hunting for movie ideas :->

The AFM is indeed superb. I just wish it was attached to a plane with more thrust so I could have some *real* fun :-) I particularly like the way weight distribution is modelled now. Fire a weapon and feel it change, excellent stuff. Andrew McP