zzzspace

On a practical note; if that were made so in the sim then Lock On A-A would become a bit pointless (and boring), we could just assume the Eagle + AIM-120 will win, and go play in the mud, minus any fighters in our missions. But as always, it's the skilled operator, and not so much the tool they use which makes all the difference. Personally, I like what I'm seeing in 1.1 (with modded demo), except it's a little too easy to energy kill all missiles with a few sapping manoeuvres, and the countermeasures seem perhaps a little too effective, but I can live with this as it is still a challenge to win and stay alive, and all the goal posts have been moved in 1.1, so it remains interesting for developing tactics. If I knew my BVR missile was going to kill >95% of the time, I’d not enjoy that a whole lot.

Looking at the results of the vote, there are a lot of people who have no desire for a further aircraft as the pre-requisite to buying 1.2. Robustness of the sim is what these people really want (including me) and I suspect that almost ALL of the 54% who state a strong preference for a new aircraft as vital to 1.2 sales, would STILL buy v1.2 even if it had no new aircraft (let’s be honest here, you bloody well would you feckin fibbers! ;) ), of whatever type, as long as the sim was vastly improved upon, particularly net code, server capability and serious work on AI, finally allowing an actual self-consistent DC. If such 1.2 work can them be migrated/ported to the next big new thing from ED, then I can wait 3 years … plus. BUT! If we get the ‘next thing’ from ED, and the AI still blows chunks and there is no DC … then I really may not buy that. (Note to self: never say never you fool!)

Your only referring to the forthcoming patch for 1.1, not to features in 1.2

Use flaps and mil thrust but no afterburner and you can out-turn anything. Practice for a few hours on slow aircraft like A-10s, F-117s and then a few Su-19s etc., and you'll find that you can knife-fight seemingly FOREVER without running out of fuel. You can force the other guy to continually over-shoot or to get into predictable energy deficits. After a bit you will find that you can turn inside the other aircraft at will, and lose anyone after you. You just swap from trail to lead intercept vectors as energy and relative angles allow or suggest. Go slow and get used to riding the edge of the stall, not all of the time, just at the right moments when you need to. It's mostly a horizontal fight and works best down low, where you can force the other guy to stay mostly horizontal with you. Even if he does put on the power and goes high, don't chase him down, just build up your speed a bit (not too much though, you don’t ever want to exceed 370 knots) with 100% dry thrust, plus wide trailing pursuit arcs to stay in his rear hemisphere as much as possible, until ready to suddenly close-up and latch on to his six again. It’s a lot of fun one against many doing this. Rule number one, take your time! You have LOTS of time, but the guys with the burners on have very little time and won't get to grips with you. If they try to match you with their burners lit they’ll lose every time, because below corner speed the burner makes your turn radius wider than it needs to be. You believe you are turning as fast as you can but you are only sliding the tail, not actually turning much. It’s a bit like spinning the wheels of a car through a corner (i.e. speed increases G of the whole aircraft and thus the centrifugal force on the aircraft, which throws your aircraft wider, like a weight on a string, and it means you have fly even further to turn the same corner, actually resulting in an even slower turn). So, back-off the gas and you will turn faster when below corner speed. Rule number two, make sure you've dumped your tanks and weapons first if your in an Eagle or MiG. BTW, this works EXTREMELY well in the F-15C ... ;)

I’ve always used linear response with 1.02 anyway, as it was the only setting that seemed ‘right’ for guns and knife-fighting. The AFM stall recovery is easy as pie and the “OMG! I'm on fire” ... then mid-air explosion of jet is cool. :D

Had some fps slow-down and video glitching at first, plus the Su-25 sound dropped out when in external views while watching the AI fly. If you changed to weapon or ground vehicle views then switched back to F2 or F3, the Su-25 sound disappeared (didn’t seem to affect the A-10), but you could still hear the Su launch its weapons. The sound only restored again if you jumped into the pit, then jumped out again. I fixed this problem by converting 100% of the sound files that come with the demo from their original .ogg formats to .wav format, and now the demo runs much smoother and the Su sound-dropout problem went away entirely. One other problem which persists though is an fps slow-down which occurs when using the cannon against armour. In this demo the tanks have virtual suspension physics, and thus they respond to bumps in the roadway, however, this physics effect seems to cause a significant fps slow-down as you are lining-up a tank for a cannon run-in. The more tanks in a moving column, the greater the slow down. The problem exhibits as a noticeable drop in fps, which translates to less pitch and roll aim-point precision in practice as you're getting closer to a firing distance. This does not occur in 1.02. Is anyone else finding this happening to them? Other than this it all seems to work, I had no problems whatsoever in setting up the CH HOTAS or the options with 1.1, and have had no control issues other than the sticky external view issue.

The Ka-50 would rock but if given the choice, what he said.

Re: New A-10 Mission - Alushta Heights Been playing your missions each night Zoomboy and they are well organised and a lot of fun, thanks for them. :wink:

I'd very much like the option to directly command and control the network of SAMs in real time, in order to defeat SEAD, DEAD and A-G interdiction aircraft, use their mobility, drive to tactical locations, and switch between active-passive at any node in the network in-real time, as well as the ability to actually engage SEAD and DEAD weapons.

It's not the video I'm after but this RealPlayer video shows a pronounced dog-leg maneuver - shows a PAC-3 kill vehicle intercepting a patriot 2 missile which is acting as a the PAC-3's target: http://www.redstone.army.mil/pub_affairs/PAC-3DT-8video.ram Here's an LM promo video of it, but the terminal dog-leg maneuver and interception is less clearly displayed as other videos I've seen: http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/2187.mpeg Note the forward thruster for rapidly re-orienting the missile's main engine thrust and vector. It seems this is how the dog-leg is accomplished for PAC-3. PAC-3 Head to head contact KE kill:

Its called a dog-leg manoeuvre SK. It may be range inefficient, perhaps, but the aim is maximising POK for the BM RV’s warhead, and that takes priority over secondary range-efficiency considerations. As far as I know, this dog-leg is used on in-coming RVs. It is unclear if it’s also used against aircraft, but of the manned aircraft which have been hit (IFF error) by PAC3, all crew were killed, possibly suggesting a head-to-head kinetic energy impact. I have a video of a PAC3 dog-leg intercept, but I’m still looking to see if there is one online. “ …The PAC-3 interceptor itself, 17.1 feet long and 10 inches in diameter, is an upgraded version of the PAC-2. The main difference lies in the kill mechanism: while the PAC-2 uses an exploding warhead to eliminate its targets, the PAC-3 is a hit-to-kill system and destroys its targets by the kinetic energy released in a head-on collision. Another difference is that the PAC-3 interceptors, enhanced by the advanced radar and command center, are capable of protecting an area approximately seven times greater than the original Patriot system …” http://www.missilethreat.com/systems/pac3.html?PAGE_PRINT=yes

Great thread, and top work MBot and Caretaker.

Re: SwingKid, THis might be of interest to you. I’m not sure this horizontal profile has anything to do with range optimisation SK. If you watch a Patriot PAC3 test, the hit to kill vehicle does not fly a PN lead intercept, what the system does is; 1. it projects the 3-D trajectory and flight track of the target 2. then it launches and attempts to race the interceptor to a location well ahead of the targets projected flight path 3. then the kill vehicle is oriented head-to-head with the target 4. Then it kills the target via head-on collision (no warhead required). This aligning in front of the target manoeuvre is performed in order to minimise the lateral movement of the target vector with respect to the kill vehicle's path, and thus allows simplified terminal manoeuvring to a direct head-on contact energy kill which no warhead or aircraft can survive. This same head-to-head logic, allowing simplified terminal intercept, will likewise apply to an older long-range and comparatively low terminal manoeuvrability heavy air defence missile, such as Nike. In other words, a vertical launch with high arcing trajectory, but the dive and horizontal flight phase is not a cruise flight phase, instead, it's associated with the initiation of a terminal manoeuvre, which against a bomber will indeed be a horizontal head to head terminus for Nike Hercules. (an aircraft or missile designer wishing to defeat a hit to kill SAM like PAC3 had better ensure frontal IR and RCS signature are minimal and the ability for instantaneous high-G side-stepping manoeuvres is very high, plus decoy spoofs are effective)

The thing to realise about TrackIR is that it requires a strong IR reflection for smoothest tracking. I use a TrackIR GX in enhanced mode with v3.13 software where smoothing = 120 and preferred object size = 200. However, if I use only a SINGLE IR DOT the TrackIR tracks poorly and is not very smooth, so I now use 4 IR dots in a close packed diamond shape with the above setting. I didn’t realise this effect was occurring until I got some spectacles late last year for use on the PC. They have coated lenses to reduce internal lens glare from the monitor. The IR reflection off of the lenses interfered with the IR tracking signal from the IR dot. i.e. the glasses had increased the IR noise level and interference the tracker had to compete with. By using four IR reflection dots in a close diamond shape, this solved the induced IR signal to noise ratio problem, so that there’s now much more reflected tracking signal for the IR tracker to sense, and proportionally less extraneous IR noise to confuse the tracker, resulting in much smother more accurate tracking. BTW, there's no tracking delay even with an old TrackIR1 GX in Lock On, looks like you have some other problem with that delay occurring.

ah, terrific, thanks for all the hard work. :)

Excellent stuff SkyPat; one question, can LoMan be made capable of supporting more than one version of the same file name within the same LoMan zip, when these same file names have different destination path names, or is there no way to achieve this?

Hell yeah, or better still, a P3C. ;) I've read a lot about LOS, but can't claim to be great at fitting the dots.

heh I love them both GGT, I've been playing Sub Command 1.0 SCU SCXII for months to get ready for DW, but I'm nowhere near mastering it yet. Used to be able to own in patched-up Janes 688i though. The AI in SCX is LETHAL. If I can't get the full naval 'fix' in Lock On, I can still get that bit in Dangerous Waters ... and then some. :)

Life really blows when ED's LOMAC: Flaming Cliffs v1.1, and Sonalysts's Dangerous Waters v1.0 go gold at the same time. How am I supposed to work and sleep now?! :)

Thanks for that.

It may take a little while, depending on how much 1.1 differs from 1.02, and how long it takes to get 1.1 setup on the hard drive and properly tested.

Well that's good news, at least they will basically work, and therefore may be edited and updated to 1.1 standard. Could you perhaps volunteer some observations of how missions and/or tracks can differ when played-out in 1.1 Caretaker?

Ditto, I would like both and would opt to use both.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing; PLAN Marines in hovercraft landing on Taiwanese Islands in the strait, big amphib force, naval and air battles, then A-10s arrive to pound the invasion force to bits at the beach head, ASuW attacks to take out logistics, SAMs from hell, SEAD across the strait, cruise missiles everywhere and massive BVR high above ... all the gear needed for a truly epic campaign.

I watched Ironhand’s RWR A-10 training track last week, I've had it installed for ages and never watched it, but when I saw it I was amazed how brilliantly produced and slick it is. There is a heck of a lot of great tips and info that can be transmitted quickly through such tracks, that can not easily be written, read or absorbed via any manual, nor via forum discussions. Please don't do away with tracks (there would be very few, and much lower quality videos with out them as well).