Trident

Great post! I agree that more reliable TOT figures would cut down on mission testing a lot.

Agree, inspite of my change in attitude towards dynamic campaigns I'm not having any illusions about that (unlike many others who support DCs, especially from the F4 camp). While EECH is even worse as far as realism goes, as far as I can tell, I still love playing it. The most "realistic" option would be scripted missions that are designed to replicate real sorties, like the Desert Storm scenarios in JF-15 I believe. Such missions are great as a single mission challenge to satisfy historically interested players, but when they are used to create a campaign the usual disadvantages apply. Besides, like Floyd said, there's no need for ED to emulate Falcon's campaign in every respect. Infact, from what I can gather the system is unnecessarily complex in some ways. I don't think it needs to be that intricate to be realistic. A simplified implementation would likely reduce the number of AI issues, increase performance and be more transparent to the player. That last point is also something I like about EECH, it's rather easy to understand how the system works, so it is very obvious what the best course of action is most of the time. One thing I think is a must is real-time campaign progress though. It's the "smoke & mirrors" thing again, I can imagine all kinds of consistency issues with a turn based system if the player does not stick to the timing schedule calculated by the campaign engine ;)

I've tended to view campaign systems in general as a very secondary consideration in the past, but my position has changed. I've started flying EECH again, with all those mods that remove the most serious issues of the original sim, and it has shown me the gameplay value of a dynamic campaign. One of the most important things about it is immersion. The fact that other units are operating independantly from you and that the situation is never predictable are factors that are mentioned very often in this regard. IMHO however, while these things certainly contribute to suspension of disbelief, they are not the primary reason for dynamic campaigns being superiour to other systems (afterall, well designed single-missions and randomization features can provide the same effect, see BSO and JF/A-18). The desicive feature for me is the almost complete absence of what I like to call "smoke & mirrors". As an example, consider what happens if you stray from your intended path in a strictly linear mission, you may be able to out-flank your enemies by flying around the battle-field planned by the mission designer or encounter airdefenses which were very obviously placed there for a single purpose: to keep you confined to the route envisioned by the designer. Immersion comes crashing down when that happens and it also places an unrealistic limit on your freedom to make your own tactical desicions. I think a good comparison is SFM vs. AFM - the difference in regular flight is negligible, but simmers have an uncanny knack for pushing anything to its limits and they will quickly notice (and *love*) the almost total lack of any "smoke & mirrors" with the AFM :) There is another advantage with dynamic campaigns that I would rate far higher than those busy-skies-and-replayability arguments I mentioned initially (and which are usually touted by proponents of dynamic campaings): compared to linear campaigns you are far less likely to get stuck or end up frustrated. For instance I absolutely suck at flying helos, yet my EECH sessions (while they are less frequent) last a lot longer on average than my LOMAC flights. The reason is simple, if I fail a mission (usually by CFIT ;) ) it is no big deal - I can just move on and fly another mission instead of having to replay the same one all over again. This is particularly important for newbies (such as me when it comes to helos) who can build skills and experience gradually without any tedious repetition. It also eases the frustration of crashing on the way home from what was, up to that point, a fairly successful mission (or failing it due to outside factors such as stupid AI) as the results are not lost.

Good points about the dynamic campaign engine, although that is a bit OT in this thread ;) I sincerely hope FO will be a success, but it will need more than a dynamic campaign to drag me away from LOMAC (or a future ED sim that might be available then). Also, I can't help the feeling that FO might be a tad over-ambitious, their feature descriptions seem to be based on the principle of categorically one-upping any and every other sim more than anything else (such as a modest but coherent design). Sure, they have qualified these sweeping claims by stating that these features represent the ultimate goal that will be achieved step by step in incremental updates, but OTOH this fact makes them no different to any other sim-developer, including ED, right?

Well, the mesh has obviously not been carefully hand-edited to smooth out such spikes like ED's, it seems they are using raw satellite data. For a terrain that spans practically the entire world it is of exceptional quality though and like M$FS it also shows that textures can be 'tiled' without looking tiled (the fact that they are blurry up close is a function of their resolution, nothing prevents the use of better material). However it is clear that the achilles heel of LOMAC's terrain graphics is the the elevation model, people are going to start comparing it to M$FS add-ons like this one (yes, the textures are not up to ED's standard when viewed from low altitude, but I'm talking only about the mesh here): http://www.georender.org/AKFiles/ACV1_Screens/Ak20.jpg http://www.georender.org/AKFiles/ACV1_Screens/Ak17.jpg http://www.georender.org/S10Screens/ch3452.jpg Better terrain geometry (possibly with 3D trees), preferrably a new theatre altogether, is clearly needed for the project after Black Shark. Dual core support is a given IMHO, all games will need to make that move sooner or later as it is the way forward in the CPU industry.

All LOMAC needs to beat those graphics is a higher resolution terrain mesh. Textures, objects etc. are already superiour.

True, I was using 100kN instead of 106 for the F100, my bad :) They're pretty damn close anyhow. I've seen only one source actually give a number and it was 30% IIRC. FWIW, on the F-22 it accounts for about 36%.

Hehe, if there's anything wrong with the Flanker designs it is that they tend to be a bit on the heavy side. The F-15C is about 3 tons lighter empty (but the Su-27 has 44kN more thrust, so there :D )! As an aside, the F-22 in its series configuration appears to weigh a good bit upwards of 15 tons empty now, pretty hefty aswell ;)

Yep, the Sue is constructed with a significant fraction of titanium in the airframe, probably more than any other tactical aircraft until the F-22 came along.

Yes, I realize that, what I meant is that they may be showing different versions of the radar. Nothing about the first pic or its context on the website it is found on suggest that the image shows N019M, while the second one is clearly labeled to be that variant on the (other) webpage. Alfa is right about the protective covers, and a prototype (like SK suggests) or incomplete showroom unit are certainly possible aswell.

Could those images be showing the difference between N019 and N019M (the second image is referred to as such by the website and is called TOPAZM)? The article talking about 8 R-77 might be getting MiG-versions mixed up, the MiG-29M and K had 4 pylons on each wing for a maximum of 8 Adders.

My guess is that, being the inventors of crazy low-altitude flight, the British pilots have already gotten a roasting from top-brass for doing it in public. With the result that they're still at it, just not for everyone to see ;)

Same here with the language. I think it can also display AWACS/EWR data, although it may be limited to showing only the target assigned to the fighter by the controller. That would seem like a bit of a waste of the system however.

Yep, if anything the Su-27SK would be downgraded in typical Soviet/Russian practise where such sensitive equipment as datalinks is concerned.

Thanks all the same. They don't seem to show more than the Su-27SK manual but a video would have been pretty interesting of course. I think the desicion if the F-15C is to get a datalink should be dependant on the timeframe ED wishes their future products to have (and they ought to have atleast a loose historical context IMHO). If it is earlier then about 2000 there should be none, because JTIDS was only ever installed on an insignificant number of airframes (18 out of a total of almost 400 IIRC) while MIDS-FDL is a pretty recent addition to the Eagle fleet (2001 and beyond). The "average F-15C" in service at the time would not have had a datalink and that's how it should be in the sim.

ForceFeedback, I'd be interested where you got those pictures too, is there more where that came from (video, article, more images)? :)

The raison d'être for the EOS system is likely to be ECCM, i.e. the 2S6 was probably designed with the expectation that it would not be able to use it's radar effectively in a large percentage of engagements. I do not claim to know this for fact though, but ECCM is touted as one of the major advantages of the Tunguska's EOS. Nevertheless, it IS a curious question (it would help a lot against missiles and a small A/G missile won't be jamming).

Way to go, bug2! Very nice detail :)

Ah, memories :)

So do I. Maybe I didn't express myself clearly enough, what I'd like to see is the explosions from the 2 pictures before that one combined with a shock wave and the debris as seen on this last screenshot :) Forgot to add that I think the current mushroom-cloud type effect is actually fine for FAE weapons like the ODAB-500, for example. It's just the CBUs and conventional blast/fragmentation warheads that I'd like to see changed back to (modified versions) of the earlier effects shown above (yes, incase anyone didn't notice those were actually LOMAC screenshots, showing pre-release versions of the sim!). Any idea why they were dropped? Framerate problems (that would be a sound reason, I guess)?

Was about to post this in that locked video thread, but I was too slow ;) I think this is something ED might want to consider though. "I do agree that the CBU- and other explosions in LOMAC could be more realistic. Don't get me wrong, they look great, but their style is too hollywoodish. I sure miss these: http://www.lockon.ru/img/technology/pic1_67.jpg ftp://ftp.ubisoft.com/games/lomac/media/lockon_movie20.zip With slightly more and smaller sparks (like in the current cannon ground impact effect: http://www.lockon.ru/img/products/large/426.jpg) it would look absolutely perfect. Also these http://x-plane.org/home/Trident/Explosions1.jpg http://x-plane.org/home/Trident/Explosions2.jpg would look much better than the current HE explosions, if given a shock wave and arcing debris (http://www.lockon.ru/img/hotrocks/ScreenShot_004.jpg) like we have with the current ones."

It totally second that :) About 6DOF with the existing cockpits, it can't hurt to have the option IMHO. If people don't like how it looks they don't need to use it, afterall.

IF (intentionally big IF ;) ) RSK MiG really gets around to giving ED all relevant information about the newer MiG-29 versions (as alluded to by one of those Russian Black Shark interviews) this might change... :)

Yes, but 90% of the naval power in the region would be fielded by coalition forces and only a minuscule number of engagements would be among vessels. Most of the action would be aircraft vs. ships or ships vs. land targets. Not a single one of the regional powers has a true blue water navy that could hope to make a lasting impression on the USN which could deny them the opportunity to engage at all simply by keeping a certain distance to the enemy shores. Several CVBGs taking on a handful of corvettes and 3 (yes, all of 3!) Kilos does not make for a particularly interesting or balanced battle ;)

MBot: Ah, I was waiting to see what you'd come up with ;) Very nice, and certainly an exciting scenario to consider. If ED ever decide to do a Middle East theatre I sure hope it's Iran, atleast that country is pretty mountainous, unlike the billard table that is Iraq :) Both these possiblities have the (IMHO) disadvantage of being limited in their naval scope