D-Scythe

To an extent. You don't need to know the general principles of how the air conditioning works, or how much thrust the rocket in your ejection seat produces.

Um, you're wrong. A pilot gifted with situational awareness and good "hands" (or the ability to "drive" the "damn thing" as you put it) would have much higher survivablity than one who knows the technical ins and outs of his own jet (i.e. this is how you access the ADI page on your MFD; the MFD is blah blah blah and is linked to blah blah blah). I agree with the A-10 pilot in the article to a certain extent. The cry for realism lately seems to be centred around how many buttons you can push/MFD pages you can access, when in reality a game (yes, it is a game) like LOMAC or Falcon 4 should focus more on the application of realistic tactics/maneuvers in a (hypothetical) engagement against either other fighters or ground forces. To illustrate, IMO, I think fixing BVR missiles so that higher = more range and chaff = less effective against doppler missiles is much more important than a clickable cockpit. I'd rather lose the pit than see an AMRAAM I launched in its no-escape zone be trashed by a barely evading target. Being able to dance in another's NEZ envelope is not representative of realistic tactics.

Boneski, relax. Dunno why you're having such a fit - nobody's telling you to change your opinion. What? Just because there's real life data that proves the AMRAAM is better than Sparrow, you say the real life data is wrong? "You know only what you know"? Haha, you're something else, I'd give you that :p Unless you start producing facts, instead of "you know only what you know" attitude that nobody really cares about, I don't think anyone is going to take you seriously. At least I hope not. So far, you're opinion of what is realistic seems to have no foundation. When pointed to real world data that contradicts your opinion, you get all "I know something you don't know"-ish. Again, no one is trying to change your opinion of things, but that's not gonna keep us from talking about why we think you're wrong ;)

No idea. In the Desert Fox article in World Air Power Journal, it described the engagement as "long-range," that's about it. According to the Washington Post (quoting Pentagon officials), the missiles were launched at 25 or more miles away. It has been further speculated that the 6 missiles fired (3 AMRAAM, 1 Sparrow, 2 Phoenix) may have been launched to "suggest" the Iraqi fighters to beat it, because the ranges were so extreme. The furthest AMRAAM shot that I know of was about 48 km (30 miles) in the first night of Allied Force. That missile missed. The target was destroyed subsequently by two follow up AMRAAM shots.

Well, information like that is hard to come by. For example, it's never indicated what sorta evasive maneuvers the target performed, nor the precise geometry of the launching aircraft and the target at the moment of AMRAAM release. Usually, only range information is given, maybe time of missile flight and altitude. The last two SSKs were the double Fulcrum kills by an F-15C in TWS mode, range 16 miles. Eagles were diving in from 30 000+ ft, MiGs were substantially lower. That's usually as detailed as it gets. Only one engagement where AMRAAMs were fired and no kills were scored, during Operation Desert Fox. Three AMRAAMs were launched at a flight of Foxbats violating the No-Fly zone at long-range. The Foxbats turned tail and ran. On the same day, Navy F-14s similarily engaged another flight of MIG-25s with 2 AIM-54Cs. The Foxbats ran again and both missiles missed. EDIT: SSKP should be SSK, for Single-Shot Kill. SSKP is the probability of an SSK. Sorry, mixed those up.

Well, Rhen is about right. Statistically (IIRC), in its 10 kills, the AIM-120 achieved 8 SSKPs, including its first 3. This kind of success is unparalleled in the history of air-to-air missile combat. To be fair, most people aren't that stupid. In fact, I gaurantee that 90% of the people who complain do not have this mindset. If the missiles miss from long-range, I doubt people would get frustrated and stuff. It's when the missiles miss in the NEZ that frustrates most people, I think.

The fact that the AIM-120 has twice the PK (over 60%) than the AIM-7M (about 30%) must be beyond you then :p

Lol, no worries. You can keep your opinions and I'll keep mine. Though for the record, the AIM-120 has a much higher combat PK than any missile ever produced, so how you can say that the real world facts support the notion that the AIM-7 is better is beyond me.

Yeah...it's called DOPPLER ;) Look it up. Considering that the AMRAAM is designed to be superior to the AIM-7 in every single way possible, I fail to see how this is the case. LOL, AIM-7 is far better...as it should be. You crack me up :D

The problem is, though, that it's either the notching or the chaff that is defeating the AMRAAM in LOMAC. IRL, the only way to defeat an AMRAAM is notching and chaff combined. In fact, this is an issue with all doppler radar missiles. It's a major issue that should be fixed, as it affects gameplay adversely. And it doesn't seem to me to be a particularly hard fix either. I don't know why ED doesn't do anything about it.

Cause new stuff sells more.

Can anyone say FAEs or fire bombs?

Rockets aren't supposed to have a lot of splash damage are they? I can't imagine something going that fast would create much damage except for a direct hit or near-miss. In any case, isn't splash damage in general a bit undermodelled in LOMAC? i.e. the Mk-84?

It's inefficient, but no, you would not necessarily have an exponenetial growth of a tree. Just take a look at Jane's F/A-18's campaigns - there are probably only 12-18 missions for 6. In comparison, if a true branching campaign was implemented, that number would be at least 60 for a 6 mission long campaign. Such a system obviously isn't useless either if it was such a huge success with Jane's F/A-18. Although to be fair, that is the best such system to date.

You can't - I tried. But the burning time is being looked at.

Yeah. As I understand it though, Jane's F/A-18's campaign system was still that of a branching campaign (even though it was "semi-dynamic"), albeit there are a lot more factors and triggers available to determine which mission is played next.

Can you explain why you agree? I already explained my POV, and I'd like to know why it would be a waste of time.

Sorry to bring this up again, but in such a branching campaign, can the campaign creator simply not just string along missions together that allows missions of the previous "level" to be played? Like: Mission A: Success, go to Mission B. Failure, go to Mission C. Mission B: Success, go to Mission C (i.e. loop back up to the "Failure" mission of Mission A). Failure, go to Mission D. And so on. The result of the campaign, success, failure or neutral, can be determined what "path" that missions take, which could simply be determined by the result of key missions. For example, if the player keeps failing, then it would result in a large, probably impossibly difficult mission whose result would determine if the campaign was an utter failure, a stalemate or even if the campaign is to be continued. The same mission could also be used in a "success" path as well, except that even though chances of succeeding are still the same, the mission itself wouldn't have that much weight on it on the campaign outcome. In this manner, a lot more missions can be used and played, no? And not as many would have to be built. I actually think a branching campaign is *much* better than a linear campaign. It just depends on how it's structured. Replay value can also be increased if the result of one mission leads to a random selection of the next mission from a "group" of missions linked with the result. Like, a successful Mission A would lead to a random selection of Missions C, D or E, while failure in Mission A lead to a choice between Mission B or F. And then the results of those missions can be looped back up to play missions that were not chosen in the random selection. Sure, some missions would still not be played unless the player deliberately chooses to fail (or something), but I don't think a DC is necessary.

Even a MiG-21 would hold its own against an F-15 if flown properly. True, there are parts of the F-14's flight envelope that exceeded those of the Eagle (but then again, every aircraft has its strengths) but to call the F-14 "very agile" is wishful thinking. I don't know for sure, but it probably had pretty good low speed handling characteristics. But low speed dogfighting doesn't really happen anymore. Um, no. When it comes to air dominance, there is no better solution than the F-22A Raptor.

Well, theoretically you could insert the new Flanker skins into the CDDS file of the new 25T skin and then hex edit the Flanker object files to use it. Then in the graphics.cfg add the extra lines that came with the Frogfeet.

What timeframe? ;) In a galaxy far far away remember?

Flyable? AH-64D or Mirage 2000-5/9. AI jets I'd like to be added would be: F-15E, EA-6B, F-111F, F/A-18D, Jaguar, MiG-21, Su-17, AV-8B II+, and the Tornado ADV. It seems all the contemporary Russian jets are already in LOMAC, might as well add their counter-parts to keep them company.

Okay, it's not like they wanted to be rude. Honestly, some people have a life, and some pretty major things have happened in the near past. So yeah, priorities get shuffled around. T-bone and others have to deal with it. Anyway, DR, sorry about this whole mess. If it's any consolation, we feel really bad about it. I know, too little, too late, but take it up with T-bone :icon_toil Some skins and FPS saving mods that the team has been working on may very well be released sometime in the near future though. Just need to package it all.

True, but it just seems (illusion or not) that LOMAC is designed more for the multiplay because several key elements crucial for an enjoyable single-player experience are missing/incomplete. For example, you have to communicate verbally with other players on-line to provide your own sense of radio communication which is otherwise very incomplete in the game - there is nothing of the sort offline. And of all the features/improvements made to the game, most of them are most prominent/appreciated in multiplayer. The FAC stuff, missile improvements (AI is going to react the same way during missile evasion, so the story's the same since V1.01), advanced AWACs, tweaked FM, etc. In fact, IMO it's safe to say that LOMAC offline is more like training for LOMAC online. There just isn't enough substance in single player mode to benefit in any meaningful way from these improvements. People speak of LOMAC being "a different game" with every patch, but in reality, the offline experience has been much the same as it was since V1.01, and can be summed up in three words: Pretty, but sterile.

I get the feeling that LOMAC is mostly geared towards on-line play, which is fine but it doesn't really take full advantage of everything LOMAC can offer. None of the new features since the V1.01 patch was geared specifically toward single player action, IMO. It seems that the only immersion one can get from LOMAC is in multiplay - single player is still basically as sterile as it was before. Personally, I'd easily pay twice as much money for an add-on that improves on stuff like the AI, wingman management or the ME/campaign builder versus an expansion that adds AFM or another flyable. Of course, none of these SP features are enough to justify the creation of such an add-on, but LOMAC can be like being with someone hot but with an absolutely boring personality. A nice body and pretty face are major selling points for sure, and crucial to making others envious. Yet, the underlying problem is still there, but she keeps getting these cosmetic updates, rather gaining some type of personality. Sure, it's fun when you two are alone the first few times, and when she brings friends along for some multiplay it can be downright fantastic, but the novelty will eventually wear off and it's not something you expect to last. So yeah, in short, I'd rather pay for something that increases the longetivity of LOMAC rather than these constant cosmetic improvements that are fine right now but would be outdated 6 months from now. And whichever way you look at it, AFM is simply a cosmetic update, albeit a big one. LOMAC is a combat sim first and foremost - if I wanted to simply fly around and not shoot things, I'd have bought MSFS instead.