169th_DedCat

Thanks ED. Keep us informed please. We presently have a few Panthers eagerly waiting for this to clear up so they may make payments. :)

Whatever version is in the game, it and every other ship in LOMAC are most often sunk by folks flying below 10 m and dropping a pair of FAB-500s on them. That's really silly and has always irritated me.

Not true. While switching to the desktop and back may occasionally resolve your own graphics card issues, the most common cause of frame rate drops online are network traffic issues with the host. The problem is very easy to identify when external views are enabled, because you will see the client causing the problem warping off to nowhere at 100,000+ km/h. The only way to resolve the issue is to kick the client causing the problem. Unless this is done in a timely fashion the frame rates will continue to drop until the host machine crashes.

Sad that some people will take nearly any opportunity to try to start yet another "nyah-nyah, I'm more mature than you" thread... Everyone is anxious, many are frustrated, a little venting is expected and understandable.

Honestly, do you think they have a Webmaster at the ready with a stopwatch and a finger held over the Enter key, ready to post the purchase link the moment the date rolls over? I imagine it will be midday in Moscow tomorrow before FC is available online, if it is going to be available tomorrow at all. I hope the site is able to handle all of this... what with everyone clicking refresh every 30 seconds in order to be the first to make the payment and download. I don't like sites that ask for credit card information and then promptly crash. :icon_evil

Sochi-Adler is probably exclusively meant to be approached from the sea. I think the prevailing winds in the Black Sea region are from the north, so it might make sense. If you set the winds that way in the game, the ILS gives you a nice safe approach from the south. :)

Ya flashing lights on jets, lighthouses, etc. are cool, but they don't actually improve visibility at a distance in the sim. You'll spot the black dot of the aircraft long before you'll spot any strobe lights. I've yet to see a combat sim model this really well.

No doubt. I think the Dog Ear radar is supposed to work that way in LOMAC with the Strela-10 when placed in the same group, but I don't know if it makes any difference on their effectiveness in the game really. Either way, I'd like to see some better AI in the AAA and SAM units. I usually place Shilkas on the down slope of a ridge along an expected enemy approach lane, seeing them use their fire control radar intelligently rather than it broadcasting in a constant 360 degree sphere would make them a whole lot more deadly. It would also be great if you could network them with a Dog Ear, and then have them fire up and orient when an enemy target approaches their gun range.

In LOMAC these little guys broadcast their radar emissions all over the place even though their little radar dish only points in one direction, and are generally plinked off by Kh-25MPs from 25 km away. I've heard in real life Shilkas would search for targets visually, and then only fire up their radar for fire control targeting. Certainly this is too late for 1.1, but I think this would be a great feature in this game, and would make these units a whole lot more deadly. Just a thought.

It depends entirely on the map. The ACL guys and most other people only fly A/G in CO-OPs. So mostly it's a bunch of guys flying on the same team with a collective aim, which generally doesn't extend beyond blowing up all the vehicles on the map. You can, rarely, find someone hosting A/G aircraft in a head to head role. I've recently been working on developing some Red vs. Blue missions with CAS, CAP, Strike, and Intercept goals combined into one big battle scenario. So far people seem to really enjoy them. Loadout hacks like the ones discussed above are more of a problem in these games, as people coming in with ARH missiles on the MiG-29A/Su-27 or using 20 AGM-65Ds plus ARMs on the Hog will suck all the fun out of the game for the people who are trying to complete their objectives the proper way. LOMAC 1.1 will apparently be able to push LUA files to the client, meaning it will be able force them to use the loadouts set out by the host. Though who knows how long it will take for someone to find a way around 1.1, and start breaking the host's rules again. Using hacked loadouts on your own server is your own business, using them on other people's is cheating.

The people on the offensive in this thread don't care about anyone's point ruggbutt. They have one agenda, and it is an entirely personal one: find an angle that they may use to make the other side look bad, however irrelevant it is to what has been said so far, and exploit it as much as possible. I could allow myself to get dragged deeper into this virtual quagmire by trying to defend Sven too (who is too busy getting acquainted with his posting to the 20CU RAAF Hornet Squadron in Williamtown, Newcastle to care about the silliness that happens in here), but what is the point really? In fact there is NO point being argued here at all, just a few teenagers trying to win a flame war for the sake of winning it. You can easily read that from their "I know you are, but what am I?" style retorts. I'll say it for the third time now, what a waste of time. S!

Oh the obscurity... Again, what a waste of time.

From what I understand, no one is currently banned from our server. I'll have to double-check our router config to confirm that, but we haven't been using the old BlackICE system for a long long time. I wouldn't waste your time with this guy Cali. Judging by the entirely antagonistic nature of his posts here, DeathAngel probably had his connection dropped once way back for some obscure reason (I'm guessing it was attitude related), and has held a grudge ever since. His posts here don't have any other point besides provocation. DeathAngel is just trying to force us off onto a very childish tangent, because of some kind of personal dislike for the numbers 169. What a waste of time. If he has something he wants to say, let him bring it to us directly. In here, he's just creating another potential headache for the ED mods.

IMHO the depth of realism to the radar and weapon systems is one of the best parts of the game. The more detailed modeled the better. I miss the old Andy Hollis Jane's sims for this. The way the radar beams/reflections were actually modeled in the virtual theatre just made the instruments feel so much more real than what we have in LOMAC. The radar in LOMAC just feels too simplified, too scripted, and too easy. The high, medium, and interleaved radar pulse frequencies we're getting in 1.1 is a good start though. If the type of radar detail in the radar simulation software mentioned above could be brought to bear in LOMAC and implemented well, I'd be a very happy man. Given how the programming resources are distributed, it is not at all likely to happen though...

You'd be wrong. :wink:

I'm wondering if anyone has done any testing to the accuracy of the speed hold toggle in the game. I never use it, but I was flying with some friends yesterday who were, and there seemed to be a bit of magic to it. I could be mistaken though. We were all flying Flankers with the same weight/fuel load. They were all using speed hold to fix their velocity, while I was using a manual throttle. The guys decided to perform a loop. I kept up with them at first and we all went into full afterburner at the same time as we pitched up, but as we neared the vertical it was clear they were maintaining much better speed than I was. I checked my gauges and my nozzles were wide open. We were following the same path (smoke was on) so I don't think differing G-loads were an issue. Maybe my timing was off, but it seemed like we were all traveling the same speed up until we started to pitch up and the burners came on. Has anybody else encountered anything similar with speed hold?

Sounds good to me ED. Good luck. I've got my credit card waiting for you guys to release it. :wink:

A good key generator will take that into account DayGlow, it GENERATES keys on the fly using the same algorithm as the protection software, so one warez user isn't likely to be using the same key as another, and overly used keys are not an issue. Failing that the group will simply provide a cracked exe with Starforce disabled. It really isn't all that difficult for those who know what they're doing. Software activation, like what's used by MS and Norton, are one of the few ways developers use to try to get around this, and even that has huge and easily exploited loopholes. The claim that causal friend-to-friend piracy is much more common than group/net based piracy is a typical refrain, but judging by how much activity I've seen in group/net warez trading over the years, I highly doubt that claim. The sheer amount of it probably just goes unnoticed by the publishers. There are people in these circles who steal just to perpetuate further theft, and have no interest in actually using the software. In the old days they were called couriers.

The only type of piracy this will prevent is common user to user sharing, i.e. the kind where a kid makes his friend a copy of FC on CD and where his friend isn't wily enough to search the Web for the crack that will no doubt be out less than a month after FC's release. Net based piracy, the kind that takes place on IRC, Usenet, and P2P are perpetuated by skilled groups who have crack teams responsible and dedicated to removing software like Starforce from their releases before they get anywhere near the public. Quality groups won't just release the game with a few working keys they've stolen, they'll release it with a key generator utility based on the Starforce algorithm and they'll include a crack to remove the anti-theft/spy-software as well. Oh well. ED's move to use Starforce may stop a portion of potential piracy, but it will never stop the bulk of it. I understand their efforts, as flight-sim developers are always skating on thin ice with their budget, but I think this particular move is more likely to piss off honest customers than it is to prevent theft. The good news is you can pretty well count on there being a crack for this not long after FC's release. I'll buy the game, but I won't hesitate to crack it too.

That could be done fairly easily, but the flight model would still be that of the Su-25's, which is not remotely like the Su-17's.

Just adding my voice... I'd much rather the Fitter than the Hokum, it's definately a cool little jet. That said, if I had to decide between it and other overall improvements, I'd still rather ED invest their enegies in improving the current game than adding another aircraft.

The subject title pretty well says it all. The HSI still does not correctly update direction and distance while in any mode other than NAV in the 1.1 demo (and no doubt 1.1 full as well). This is disappointing. It baffles me that the programmers are unable to work around the current code to fix this. :(

Some ECM pods, such as the wingtip ones on the Flanker, have directional antennas. As such they should probably operate more like a blinding spotlight than a general smoke screen. I'm sure there are a number of other factors involved I'm not considering.

I rarely see it myself, but when you encounter an expert who knows how to pull it off, it is pretty impressive. Someone gave an apt description earlier in this thread, it really does look like the Flanker is balancing on the head of a pin. :)