Starlight

they all require an internet connection yes, where are they available? U.S. and UK? I call a number to another country, and that's gonna cost me 10 more euros. NO THANKS! Activation sucks! It's a user-unfriendly procedure which can be suited to well spreaded software, but not to a limited distribution software. Again, ED is killing itself in this way. There are already many people who play LockOn that don't see much benefits in buying this game (because it's mainly a patch and 35 USD for a patch are not really a deal). This feature will not increase the number of 1.1 users.

There was just one thing that people asked not to be present in LO 1.1 that was product activation. They managed to put it in! The problems are twofold. 1. It makes your pc less secure 2. It makes the game unusable after 3 hardware changes. IMHO, should these reasons be confirmed when it's realeased, they are more than enough for me for not buying this game. I'll briefly explain my point of view. 1. If this software contains backdoors or is not so secure, there is the risk that it's used like a trojan. Very simple, go to HL server, contact all the IPs you see playing Lo:FC online, and you're sure that those are good targets. Then even if this wasn't the case I don't want any spyware or product I don't know in my pc. that's all. 2. I changed my hardware config at least fiive to ten times last year. I changed my graphic card, my motherboard, two or three times the CPU and I also upgraded the ram quantity. Not to count how many times I removed my internal TV-Tuner card to use it on other PCs. And while my main pc had the PSU ko, I installed lomac on my other pc, which oblviously had another config. I'm not buying this game if I'm not sure I cannot use it where I want and for all the time I want. BTW if you're thinking about WinXp activation, this is a game, NOT an OS! an OS is essential to run a PC, LO:FC is not (and also since it hasn't a really large user base it should not lose players in this silly way) The copy protection is something that is needed to guarantee the software producer, but it should not clash with the user needs. If LO:FC doesn't meet my requirements I won't buy it. I'll still play Lomac, LO:FC Demo, and the other tons of sims that there are in the free market :)

The definitive title: LOMAC 2 - THE SDK "What you always dreamt of but you were afraid to ask" Add everything you want from the Western multiroles to the least known 3rd World prop trainer. Build your home-made Dynamic Campaign Engine and a devilshly good AI!!!!

# Lag On: a massive multiplayer simulation # Joe & LoMac 2: Modern air combat for cavemen ninjas (former amiga players should know this one!) # LowMac2: LOMAC rewritten for compatibilty with older Macinstosh systems # LOMAC 2: YAPTDGFTTPP Translated: Yet Another Plane That Didn't Go Further Than The Prototype Phase

I just remembered that I had the bug without the joystick being mapped. I had no profile loaded, so I was flying with the basic stick and throttle and six buttons.... I got the bug also today, in a less evident way but still it's present. Zooming in/out seem to cause the commands to "hang". I manage to hit ESC a number of times so the game halts and then I restore it with no more problems. Also the invisible cockpit bug, I never had in 1.1 demo, but I had it in the 1.0 demo. maybe it's located in some part of the code that's used for the demos.

EDIT I must add these new things seen on the demo: - an improved A-10 damage model! whoa, I lost a rudder, and the box of my right engine :) looks like ED looked at that SAM-damaged A-10 during ops over Bosnia. - the dirt dust made when performing low passes (like Falcon 4) - engine fire, with heavy smoke trail - new HIRES skins for A-10 - new sidewinder growl these features rock!

last night due to 1.1 demo I was 45 min late to meet with my girlfriend. It's common to lose the perception of time when playing Lomac :)

I agree with you. If I was ED I'd choose this way to distribute the game. That is, download an installer and then register it. So that the installer can be downloaded from p2p networks and/or a list of mirrors and then registered (please NO HW-bound ACTIVATION!!!) I know that the game could be cracked, but is there anything that is not cracked today? Honestly I'm not really eager to download about 1 GB @ 5 KB/s (or less) after I paid for it. ;)

I use the Saitek X36 NT driver (freeware). I never had problems with LockOn. I had some troubles with the update to drivers version 3.0 so I just switched back to 1.x. But if it was the joystick I don't think it would have been OK without restarting the OS. Since it was sufficient to restart FC, I think it were the FC commands which jammed. not sure 100% BTW, it was just my impression.

Hi, I just played a little bit the 1.1 Demo. it's quite good, I've only flown the A-10 mission. Well the game seems quite the same for most details. These are the things I've noticed a little bit changed: - Flight Dynamics of the A-10 seem a bit different. Just for example it seems to gain speed a bit faster but it also bleeds speed faster. - the aircraft shakes when the Avenger is firing - The radio comms seem a bit different (at least the voice has changed) - The explosions are a bit different, especially those of the helicopters - Also the CBU effects seem a little bit better. The Rockeye seem to have a higher PK. on the other side my wingman was shot down by SAMs after his first pass over the target, so it seems that hasn't been changed very much. Maybe if I flew the Su-25 I'd have noticed many more changes, but I don't like it very much, yet. If I had to say my opinion about the demo is that it's mainly intended for new LockOn players. People who already play LockOn will hardly find a real reason to spend some more money just playing with this demo. Given that ED can't release a demo for newbies and one for "veterans" , I suggest to put up a movie which best represents some game aspects (new terrain, etc etc). Sure here many people will buy the addon because they want the SU-25T or just because are Lomac fans. But I think it would be cool to convince people that it's worth to buy this game. I'm mainly thinking about people who usually fly American aircraft in LockOn. that's just imho anyway the game seems good. I bought LockOn after playing with 1.0 demo, and I would have bought it with this demo too. Is there any official price out for 1.1?

Yeah, I also noticed that after a while the commands get "stuck". (zoom keeps zooming in/out, aircraft is hardly under control and even game commands (such as "ESC" are really delayed) I thought it was my joystick software (I was having some troubles with it) but after I closed down LO:FC and restarted it I recognised it was a possible game bug.

MUCH improved AI and Dynamic Campaign... way to go! (and the only things that would make me buy 1.2)

depends what you're simualting... a truck is simple, an APC and a tank are another matter... if you wanna make them accurate you need to model stabilization systems, you must model the wind/weather effect on anti-armor ammo, thermal sights, laser ranging. Anyway you probably have to reskin most of the terrain because it will look uglier from "flightlevel 0". And you will probably have to add infantry to the sim... LockOn has not reached a very large community yet. Maybe with the support of ground units it could reach a larger "audience", but it may also not be the case. There are a lot of armor/helo sim which didn't make it. Take "Gunship!" for example. A wonderful sim imho, just with a poor wingmen AI, but it hasn't sold a lot. It shared the basic engine with M1TankPlatoon 2 (AFAIK) but they both weren't "best sellers" I may be happy for that 1.2 sequel, but given the time it took to make 1.1, I'm afraid we'd have to wait more than one year just to see if those rumors were true. The point of my first reply is that IMHO ED should have focussed since the beginning to "complete" LockOn with a better AI and and a DC. I really don't care about adding new A/C if the sim engine has some flaws/lacks that limit gameplay. When I had a stable sim platform I would have begun to add new aircraft and/or to explore ground/naval simulation. I've heard that people won't buy sims just beacuse they have better AI. Well, I don't think this is really true, because the sim community is different from the "racing" or "shooting" communities. We do care a lot about details and we usually want it real! If there was a sim on the market with the graphics of LockOn and the engine of Falcon4, I would buy it immediately.

I have always been curious about IR systems on Soviet aircraft. I agree with the data told by JJ Alfa; my sources say that AA-8 is a rear aspect IR homer entered in service about in 1975 while the AA-8(M) was an all-aspect which entered service about in 1984. (but wasn't really confirmed until the late eighties, there was probably some confusion with the AA-11 Archer) I'd like to know more about that BVR IR missiles, because since their earliest ones, for each missile the Soviets did a IR version and a radar version (also for AA-3 Anab, AA-5 Ash, AA-6 Acrid, AA-7 Apex). I'm curious on how could work a BVR-IR missile built in the 60s for interceptors like the Tu-128 and the Mig-25. And I was also interested to know something more about the IR seeker of the Mig-23 for example. There were sources that gave its range at about 80-100 km (in the last MLD/P versions). I understand that IR performance may significantly change with weather, but that seems quite ludicrous. Ludicrous because the IRST on the Mig-29 has a far shorter range, while being much more modern. And ludicrous because in the seventies much of the military research in the USSR was not done by scientists, but by KGB, if you know what I mean (by admission of some KGB officers, it's not my personal opinion). And in the seventies the IRST was dropped from NATO aircraft because it was felt useless and it didn't work so well (F-4 and F-14 had their IRST deleted from their earlier versions) could anyone tell me something about that?

I'm not upset, but the current situation around this game is a bit strange. LockOn was released with many months of delay, and without some of its intended features (mainly the dynamic campaign). If you also own Flanker 2.0 it won't be hard to notice that LockOn in certain parts has been made with cut-and-paste objects from that other sim (3D models, scenario, textures and so on). The game itself is a good game, with many bugs, but also with some unique features (the graphics imho are still astonishing). The first two patches addressed to minor issues, and solved some of the bugs. The AI, which is one of the weak points of the game, is quite untouched. The dynamic campaign is not even mentioned. After patch 1.02 Ubisoft dropped ED, because the game was felt to be ok. ED says now it's out of funds and resources to build new large addons. They plan an addon which will add a brand new aircraft, the Su-25T, with its full array of weapons and avionics. With thousands of aircraft available in the world they go for an aircraft that has been built in a dozen units, it has never seen real action, and most of the people don't even know that it exists. The addon will be only in CIS stores, and for the western market can be downloaded from the Internet. To the polling about the distribution there have been only 178 votes. I hope they will sell more than this in the western market. I'm no marketing expert but I'd bet that a more banal F-16 (or any western multirole) addon would have had at least 10 times that votes, but that's just imho; maybe it would have sold less on the CIS soil... who knows... Then the next patch is announced that will feature a helicopter, the KA-50, which again, is beautiful, but it went just a little further than the prototype phase (actually some of the prototypes were sent in Chechnya). Again, no word of AI improvements, dynamic campaigns, or new aircraft (at least the AI ones, which are not so difficult to implement) Then comes out that one of the next ideas can be that of building a ground sim, while the original LockOn is still fitted with an ugly AI, some 3D models and textures of the Flanker era and is still without a dynamic campaign. This is why I'm a bit disappointed.... I don't think I'm crazy :lol:

I don't want to make yet another thread Lomac Vs F4. One of the post said that "Figuring out every possible thing that can happen in a real war does not help you get a good computer entertainment product." IMHO it's wrong, because F4 has gone in the opposite direction and now has a large community, 7 years after its publication. I don't remind any other sim played seriously all this time. The factor that you can add things as you like is important but imho the fact that it's not limited to single missions is important too. And remember that no one has forbidden ED to add a dynamic campaign to LockOn or to distribute an SDK to create small add-ons, or to make a sim editable like Strike Fighters or FS2004.

leave that to FPS/kids games. I don't see an application for that except as an Easter egg :) lockon is a flight sim and should stay so. it's still not complete (if you look at the original aims of the project, for example lacks the dynamic campaign, which in fact is still indicated as present in some ubisoft descriptions). so I would first complete it. There have been various projects to build an all-in-one sim for air-sea-land, but they all failed due to their complexity. People at ED already failed to build a sim like it was scheduled to be, I don't see the reason why they should try a project which would be ten times harder (given that they are always talking about lack of funds so that they cannot even add a couple of AI aircraft). BTW, a step closer to the "ace combat" degree of realism and I will bury the game into my garden.

We've already agreed on that... but the point is that to make a mission with 4 aircraft and 4 tanks you don't need a dynamic campaign ;) it's not worth the effort! Falcon 4's campaign is still the best out there, it was programmed 8 years ago. Also other sims (maybe Combat Pilot for the Amiga) had dynamic campaigns going on during the game. I think that asking less for a modern simulation will make the attribute modern not appropriate. That's your definition! Your kind of DC is already being explored by the folks @ lockoncampaign. My kind of DC is that where the campaign is dynamic even when I'm flying... I don't wanna have to issue orders to all the units, both allied and enemy, it's up to the AI to acknowledge the objectives and try to achieve them. :) :) :) :) :) Falcon 4 is alive and kicking after 7 years from its release! And its graphics sometimes are far from being photorealistic as in lockon. The reason why some people still prefer Falcon4 (and Falcon4 has a community that is several times that of Lomac)? A dynamic campaign where you feel involved like in a real(simulated) war, and the ability to fly in each and every aircraft that's been around in the last 40 years! Lockon has great graphics that make you feel you're flying the real thing, but as soon as you have something to do with your wingmen or other AI units you're called back to reality and you see you're flying in a game. I don't agree... I LOVE in Falcon 4 when you take off and see other aircraft returning home from their mission, pylons empty and maybe with some battle damage. It gives a sense of immersion which is astonishing.... The number of things that can happen in such a dynamic campaign is incredible... that's why many people enjoy it! And tell me, what gives most strategic view than other aircraft doing other jobs that interact with yours... single missions put together, if they are not dynamic, are still still single missions, not a DC. Ok you can have the AI remember that a bridge was blown up, but that's all... Do you think that in wartime you can decide where and when to face the enemy? Even in Desert Storm, when Coalition Forces dominated the Iraqi skies, there were times when bomber pilots were threatened by Iraqi fighters. In every conflict THERE IS chaos and frustration. That is why there are civilian casualties, that is why some cheap and old weapon systems often defeat newer and more advanced ones. That is what makes war different from training. Well, a ground attack may last for more than 2 hours, and may require continuos CAS. What would you do after 2 hours? You radio the enemy and tell them "Ok folks, let's have a break! Let's take a cup of tea, it's nearly 5 p.m.!"? Well to decide a scramble you must have something that thinks and that thinks strategically. "I don't want them to achieve air superiority, so I have to scramble my interceptors". And when you scramble, which aircraft are you gonna send? Armed with which weapons? (one of the fact that most people ignore is that after a few days/weeks of fighting you often don't have much stocks of modern weapons left) BTW, if you only require that enemy interceptors scamble and SAMs fire at you, in a simple action-reaction dynamic, you can play F-15 Strike Eagle II from Microprose (1990). It seems to implement your kind of dynamic scenario.... ;) But that's the beauty and the might of a real DC! you can cut supplies, you can destroy depots, you can cut routes.... wars are not only fought taking out each and every piece of armor and aircraft! If you have "missions with memory" you'll just fly them as they are now. AI will just remember that a bridge is gone, or that a company of APC has lost 2-3 vehicles. but you would still fly dumb missions.... My idea of DC is very close to that of Falcon 4, and from a sim that is 7-8 years older than that I would expect to see it improved, not scaled down. I would pay $ 100, even $ 200 for a LockOn with a Falcon4 (or better) dynamic campaign. I'm not sure I would spend even $ 20 for a LockOn with just a bunch of "missions with memory".

Re: Forget the Dynamic Campaign Maybe it's not a complete definition. In a dynamic campaign it would be nice not only to carry forward the results of a single mission, but also to have the AI decide on the battlefield, reacting to events. This is my definition of dynamic. Your kind of dynamic campaign is already being developed by a team in their own addon for LockOn. Yes, sure. A dynamic campaign could also be applied to smaller scenarios, but it will lose something, IMHO. A dynamic campaign is cool if you can see at strategic level the effects of what you're doing. Example: If you fail to perform some CAS missions, enemy tanks overrun your airfield; if you cut the enemy supply lines, you halt their advance and so on... IMHO a dynamic campaing should give a deeper insight into the battlefield. The smaller the scenario, the smaller is the randomization level of the simulation, imho...

Maybe... but keep in mind that a dynamic campaign must also "think" at both strategic and tactical level. The AI must decide whether or not to launch a mission, which kind of mission, when and where. And it should also keep track of all data such ammo, spares, fuel and so on. I remember Falcon 4 was very slow on my early machine (a K6-200 with 64 MB of RAM and a 3DFX card) but it scored about 10-15 FPS while on a dynamic campaign. This time I got FPS ranging from 0 to 2, without the AI thinking at strategic level, just at tactical level. And, another thing... a couple of hundred vehicles are not that much, in a modern campaign. Anyway I'd be happy even if LockOn could manage a dynamic campaign in a small-scale conflict simulation.

At its present status LockOn phisically can't afford a Dynamic Campaign, intended as a dynamic war going on (as it was in Falcon 4). This evening I started to build a mission, a Day One CAP in a Central European style scenario, then I began to add things.... so at the end I came up with these units: Most flights had 4 aircraft, some had just 2. The ground units had about 10-20 vehicles each. So there were about 100 aircraft and 200 vehicles. (but not all aircraft were scheduled to appear in the first minutes of the mission) Each unit had its route and its targets defined. While still in the mission planning phase the FPS began to drop down (less than 70 FPS, instead of more than one hundred, usually, maybe even more) As soon as the mission was loaded I felt the FPS were close to zero. I could notice really little difference between the paused and the non-paused status of the game. Even switching to the theatre map view (F10) the situation was still very sad, with at most 9-10 FPS, but usually down to about 5. The graphics were set about to medium, and my PC config is: XP-3200+, Nforce2, 1 GB RAM @ Cl2.5, Radeon 9800Pro@XT. As you can see my pc is not the state of the art, but it's a good machine. And while I was in the cockpit I had 0 (zero) FPS in this crowded scenario, without any dynamic campaign going on (just units following planned orders). The fact that FPS were so low even in the "map view" tells that it's not just a matter of graphics, it's the game engine which can't stand this number of fighting units. And this without all the "AI umbrella" which is above each dynamic campaign.... Given these performance, I'd say that a dynamic campaign in LockOn today would be impossible to implement, unless the dev rebuild the game engine from scratch.

Can someone answer my other question? that is, is there a way to zoom further in to the aircraft, for example to place the camera under a wing pylon?

yeah, the camera will go underground, because it has no limits :) the cool thing is that below the ground, there is the sea... did you know it? :) I hope the sea below the ground is not normally rendered... if this was the case maybe we could have found a place where a few FPS get lost! ;)

Anyway, the wingmen issue (and also the CAS link!) has already been pointed out in this fourm. I think folks at ED know that it's a issue that must be improved. http://forum.lockon.ru/viewtopic.php?t=2230 http://forum.lockon.ru/viewtopic.php?p=35750#35750 http://forum.lockon.ru/viewtopic.php?p=31672#31672 The point is that wingmen abilities must be improved, like it should be improved overall AI in LockOn. And for the wingmen, it's not just a matter of CAS. Also air combat can have it's own tactics/commands, and also the takeoff/landing/flying/formation procedures can have better commands (and better wingmen) All we can have now is a "significantly improved AI" in Flaming Cliffs, that's what's they say.... Let's hope that 1.2 will bring a new dimension to LockOn since putting the KA-50 (which shares most of the avionics with su-25t) shouldn't be the hardest effort! (and I don't know how many people in the jet sim community would buy an add-on which features just a new flyable copter!)

I agree that LockOn, like most sims, needs an AI improvement. And one of the parts where AI is worst, is the "artificial" wingman. I also agree that LockOn lacks many useful commands, but I think the problem has many more sides which must be explored. First, LockOn lacks not only commands to execute tactics, but also lacks tactics. Wingmen are able to track and shoot targets and to fly on your wing, or onto a specified path. That's all. They do not apply any tactic, instead they attack in a chaotic way, sometimes in a dumb way (just think at the bomb-runs, performed at slow speed, with brakes deployed). So the point is that ok, it will be good to have new wingman commands, but first you must implement the tactics they have to follow ;) Second point. There are some tactics that are simple, and are common knowledge for all pilots. Others are a bit trickier and require something else. This "something else" usually comes in two ways: pre-mission planning and training. Tactics planning in the briefing allow to setup attack routes, IP for attack runs, attack profiles and other things like that. Training instead makes pilots act as a team, and allow the creation of new and particular tactics, often tailored to the particular scenario/situation one is gonna face. And under these points of view LockOn, like most of the other sims, doesn't offer anything. The training phase is a chimera, because would require a tough AI, but accurate mission planning is doable with the technology available today, and so it would be nice to see it added in some future. So, my point of view is that a few new wingman commands in LockOn would be good, but the uselessness of AI wingmen in LockOn will not be solved just adding commands, but improving AI, implementing some tactics, and allowing a more accurate mission planning, which keeps track of every aircraft in a flight/section. (I think this could be possible because LockOn is a simulation in a "tactical" scale, i.e. with small numbers of aircraft fighting in a limited scenario. In a dynamic scenario with dozens of aircraft in the air this would be tougher)