Trident

Agent Orange? I hope not! That said, I take it that this means 3D trees? Sounds great, if they're like the solitary trees in Il2 they will make a world of difference. Great news about the clickable cockpit, it's not so much a gameplay/realism enhancement IMHO but it improves immersion and is just plain interesting - you get to see just what all those buttons do IRL.

IIRC there are plenty of palm trees all over the map, mostly in cities though. This is realistic too, the climate in Crimea is mediterranean. So, probably a false alarm ;)

Anyone else been there this year? I was, for the first time! I've been to some smaller airbase open-house events and the ILA in Berlin before, but le Bourget really is in a class of its own :) A few friends and I managed to get professional visitor's tickets for free via university, so we booked some cheap hotel rooms, got into a car (yep, all 5 of us in one car all the way from Stuttgart to Paris, lol) and were off to have a great time. And boy, did we have a great time, too! Here's an incomplete list of what we saw: - A380! - Boeing 777-200LR - A340-600 - F/A-18F Super Hornet - Dassault Rafale B - Eurofighter Typhoon - and yes, we saw IT. We saw the Su-27SKM in the flesh :D Where to start... well, the first day (thursday, closed to the public but not to us, hehe) left us with mixed feelings. The weather was great but gave each of us heavy sunburn. The displays were very nice aswell (particularly the Mirage2000, which flew pretty much the same breathtaking display from the video that was posted here some time ago), however for some unknown reason you weren't allowed to get close to the runway at all. This made photography even with a decent telephoto-lens very tricky and as if that wasn't enough there was a constant stream of VIP cars that drove by right infront of the crowd - including the odd 2 metre high van :( OTOH, we got to talk with all those representatives from various companies for as long as we wanted to and some of us even got to sit in a few helos (one even in an AH-64D Apache!). The best thing was however that we found out that our tickets, being sponsored by EADS, gave us access to the latter's VIP lounge, including free drinks and (excellent!) meals :D :D This was god-send since the prices for even a simple baguette snack or a coke were mind-boggling (even by the standards that are commonly found at such events). Friday was a public day and the show was consequently crowded. However people were finally allowed closer to the flightline which meant that some of our better photos were shot that day, inspite of a slight overcast. We actually stood no more than about 30 metres from the A380's wing tip when it started its engines, which was awesome to behold! The real highlight of the day was the Su-27 though, which for some reason did not perform on thursday. To cut a long story short, the display was fantastic and included a half-loop right off the ground, lot's of (excruiciatingly) noisy hard turning aswell as both a cobra and tail-slide! Due to the overcast we didn't get to see most of the tail-slide, the Flanker disappeared into the clouds and when its engine noise suddenly subsided the 'insiders' all knew what was happening. A few seconds later it then reappeared, falling backwards out of the cloudlayer :) :) The Cobra was amazing too, especially the reaction of many onlookers who broke into ohh's and aahh's, just wicked :D Another unforgettable moment was when the Su-27, breaking back through the overcast as it descended from the peak of a loop, actually punched a hole into the clouds that remained visible for several minutes! Other than that, I was pretty impressed by the F/A-18F which actually flew its display routine loaded with AMRAAMs and Sidewinders, seemingly without loosing nose-authority at low speeds at all! The Typhoon, Rafale and F-16 were nice too, but as I'd already seen the Typhoon and the Falcon they didn't provide any surprises (the Typhoon and Rafale don't just look similar, they seem to fly very much alike too). To round such a great trip off we spent saturday (the early morning :D and the late afternoon) in Paris itself before driving back home on sunday. Here are some pics (hopefully):

Good points, LOMAC needs: - better afterburner effects (volumetric like the missile exhaust) - better wingtip vortices (thinner and more persistent) - condensation over the wingroots (similar to Flanker2, that one did it just right, nice but subtle) - engine smoke (a less dense, black/brown version of the missile smoke effect would work great) in that order of importance, IMHO.

The trouble is, as soon as you approach those forrests and buildings up close you will find them to be flat. Not to mention that the images for those textures are probably commercial and thus outrageously expensive. I for one still think LOMAC has the best terrain textures in any flightsim to date. It's the terrain mesh that needs to be improved to stay competitive, IMHO.

http://www.yellowjacketsystems.com/jimball/phoenix/ Apart from the photographs already found on the sites that others have posted here this link actually contains high-res drawings of the missile as a whole and even individual parts. Should be no problem to make the external shape bang-on now :)

I'm not sure this would make sense with at least the F-14 and the Tornado. The existing models for those are so old that the modeller would probably have to start from scratch anyway, for all intents and purposes. Even the Eagle is starting to look decidedly blocky compared to the F/A-18 and Su-25T.

I'm not sure if I like the implications of very new weapons like the AIM-9X. I liked the early 90s timeframe alot, if some of the inconsistencies were removed there would be plenty of potential left in it IMHO. Modelling the latest and greatest technology only serves to increase the potential for inconsistent modelling (from a realism/gameplay point of view) due to lack of information on certain systems (but not others), I'd say. Anyway, I hope someone makes atleast the F-14D and the F-15E :) Does the fact that there are relatively few existing models from LOMAC on the list mean that ED is already improving the rest (e.g. the MiG-31)?

It closely resembles the Su-30MKK in terms of systems. As far as the cockpit goes the only difference is the addition of the small display between the large LCD screens, AFAIK.

SK, how about updating the mod with some trees using 666th_birdy's methods? Given the rather low detail scenery there this would add a lot of life to the airbase's surroundings. Is this even possible outside the traditional world boundaries in LOMAC? http://www.forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=8373

Beat ya to it ;)

Good topic! This is one of the few regressions LOMAC has made compared to early Flanker2.0 versions. IIRC it was possible to launch ARMs at ship-borne radars and take them out of action back then. Another neat feature was that individual masts, guns and missile launchers could be hit and destroyed, although the launchers didn't stop working, lol. Ships could also have their propulsion plants damaged partially or completely (I haven't actually checked if this isn't still the case though). Anyway, it would be extremely nice to see the potential that is suggested by the above facts realized, it isn't even adding anything new, just putting back in (and fixing) what was once there already. If ED can then improve the weapons employment routines (more air targets that can be engaged at once, anti-ship and cruise-missiles being fired in volleys and at several targets simultaneously if tactically viable) and add Harpoon capability to the OHP LOMAC will actually have a very respectable naval component indeed, IMHO. BTW, the Granit is solely an anti-ship weapon (Where's JJ? I can't believe he missed that) ;)

What would be more interesting (to me atleast) is what issues are likely to be adressed by the patch. Are you by any chance in a position to comment on this right now? :)

The mesh is likely 19m res which is the maximum supported by FS, not 0.6 (the textures might be). I do agree that this mesh is what makes the difference though, and I'd love to see something similar from ED in future. Infact, the other aspects of ED's terrain graphics are so much better than in other sims that all they'd need to do is slap such a mesh and maybe 3d trees on their current work for it to be competitive for years to come (I don't see terrain geometry getting much better than 19m for lack of any readily available elevation data in higher resolutions). EDIT: as I said in that other thread, a decent FS mesh certainly puts the PS3 terrain demonstration video into perspective, this one definately falls in that category.

Damn, here I am with a nVidia card (ATi's were too expensive back in the day) ;) Anyway, what's perhaps more important than the sheer performance improvement is the fact that ATi places importance on a niche game like LOMAC at all - one that's now over a year old at that! I like the implications of this for sims in general.

The trees may well become an issue in future with v1.2, as ED has stated that they will block LOS. However I agree that an option for the server to allow its clients to use what ever options they want would be nice. Let the host decide whether he wants to force his particular settings on the clients or not.

She looks mighty fine... :)

Actually the IRST performace may be the one thing where the MiG-29 differs most from the Su-27 and its derivatives: the OLS on the Sukhois is cooled while the system on the MiG isn't, IIRC. Except for the thing about TWS detection the points about the RWR seem based on outdated info (I think the article was written in 1997? Anyway, with the flight manual now declassified I'm confident that ED knows where any inaccuracies are) / experience with a downgraded export airframe. IMHO the current SPO-15 in LOMAC is pretty good.

Still, you somehow need to get your hands on the elevation data to feed your renderer first and more importantly find out if it actually exists for the area in question. Anyway, the 19m res meshes for FS2002/2004 are already extremely impressive IMHO and probably much more readily available. From a geometry POV that Switzerland add-on really isn't too far behind the PS3 demo at all, combined with ED's excellent texturing and haze it would really be competitive.

I have no doubt that the PC will catch up with this kind of performance rather quickly. I do have my doubts as to the practical feasibility of game-graphics as displayed in these tech-demos, however. Think about it, if we just take a hypothetical successor to LOMAC as an example there is unfortunately little chance of seeing a large theatre with that kind of detail in the terrain mesh. The reason isn't so much a lack of performance but a lack of development-resources and data - the geometry in that demonstration was derived from LADAR, how much of the earth's surface do you think is covered in that kind of presicion, and how much is the data likely to cost? Not practical for a flight sim, I think, especially given the shoe-string budgets such niche-projects have to make do with today. On a lesser scale the same applies to any other type of game, with the environments becoming potentially so detailed there simply is a time-bottleneck in the creation of all the content that goes in there. Those demos were all very limited in size, so it was of course possible to pull off all those neat tricks. I don't expect to see them (on the same scale atleast) in actual game titles any time soon.

Looks like quite a lot of polys too, his facial features and the soles of his boots are actually in 3D!

Definately. What was most impressive about it was the atmosphere, music in a flightsim is usually a recipe for disaster but the EF2000 score was bang on.

Super EF2000 did that too IIRC, but it actually was gory there *shudder*

Thanks for the info :) No new radar or things like that? Speaking of cool Russian colour schemes: I found these on another forum and thought the camo was great. Note how the shark's gills are painted over the auxiliary air intakes, priceless!

Being Belorussian, they also might be upgraded MiG-29BM's (maybe the one in the pretty grey/green scheme is?). Does anyone know what the upgrade entails? I only know it exists, nothing more. Also, although they may simply be freshly painted most aircraft in those pictures seem in excellent condition!