Future of Lock-On and other sims

[jctrnacty]

As J.Carmack said , the future of my development is in writing basic code and then updating and slow evolution. I personaly hope that this is what we will see with Lock-On.Progressing and evolution of the base code and incorporation of new Fm and flyable aircrafts , AI, optimalization of engine and Dynamic

campaign.

 

These days , building the game from ground up is very expensive and long term thing so this is the only way to survive with this genre.So I hope that we will see the same thing that happened to Falcon4 , now after 6 years this game is almost perfect thanks to support of fans and all people helping to improve this sim. The only disadvantage is that F4 code is not available for improving and here I can see the advantage for Lock On.ED owns their code and can slowly update this sim and sometimes it will stand next to falcon or even higher.

 

Next thing is to help other poeple play the sims and to help them understand what to do during mission and learn them basics of flight combat and all the tricks and hints.Here I can see big potencial for us to write all the PDFs and mission reports like BeachAV8R in F4 on SimHQ.

 

http://www.simhq.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=124;t=000010

 

I hope that people from ED will confirm my thoughts and will continue to improve LockOn in all possible areas.This is my small wish.This sim has so much potential.

 

And maybe if not , they could release the source code for free and let other people to do it instead of them.

 

Sorry for my english.

[britgliderpilot]

Re: Future of Lock-On and other sims

 

My 2 cents - I think ED can do a better job of adding improvements and developing them than the community can.

 

F4's code only came out when the company went bust . . . . which I should stress is NOT a desirable point :wink:

 

 

And maybe if not , they could release the source code for free and let other people to do it instead of them.

 

Sorry for my english.

 

Releasing the source code is commercial suicide.

 

How are ED supposed to continue in the market unless they write a new engine?

Either way, they will be competing against a very similar product from the community, the majority of whom will be doing work in their spare time . . . . and hence will not *need* to be paid for their work.

 

 

Your English is fine :wink:

 

 

 

But yes . . . . if ED's new method of doing business works well (dedicated publisher in 1C, more profit to them from the west via internet sales), then it looks likely that we'll get a lot of upgrades and improvements to this engine - looking forward to it.

 

The downside is that as long as the primary funding comes from a Russian publishing firm, the focus of Lomac is likely to stay towards the Russian side - which people flying the US jets aren't going to like.

 

Even if ED does make a profit when they release an addon, they have to have something to live on while they're working - which comes from the Russians right now.

[Daniel D.]

I made my thoughts about the engine of LockOn. It seems, that it depends very much on the CPU. Latest benchmarks I saw: With an actual CPU on 1024 up to 1600 the game reaches only 18 to 24 frames! I don't know the detail preferences, but I'm asking myself if the devs can't improve the engine to get better performance?

 

So "what's wrong" with the engine? There were many topics about the shader capability/usability (don't know how to describe it) of LockOn and how much it uses shaders or other helpful effects. I read that the water is rendered all over the map - but it's better instead of partial rendering. :confused: I don't know much about those things or the differences between different ways of programming things. I'm just a normal user that wants to know in which way optimizations can be made to improve the fun of the game?! :icon_roll

 

It's an awesome game, but it lacks of performance even on my system (ok, not a high-end with this CPU: XP 3000+, X800 XT, 1 GB RAM DDR333). Perhaps someone can explain it to me. :(

 

How will future updates/add-ons effect the game itself or improve the performance of LockOn? Optimizing the future products is not helpful for the players of the "old game". Again my question: How'll the process of development cover those "problems" with the engine? I'm also a player who wants to have fun during the gameplay without looking at the graphics all the time, but in todays times it can be made to look better than usual. Are the other units taking all of the CPU power?

 

Questions all over this topic and in my head - hope someone can help me answering them :)...

[SUBS17]

ED already operates to evolve its programming. Lockon FC is evidence of this, by creating a helicopter Sim for lockon they are expanding their customers.

[Revvin]

You really want to see Lock On go through the same troubled histroy as Falcon did? your view on Falcon 4 seems a little revisionist. As britgliderpilot says the source code only became available when Microprose/Hasbro went bust and it was'nt simply released which makes it sound as if it was done in a controlled manner it was leaked. Move on a year or two and then we had half a dozen different groups all hacking the source code to pieces to improve it, and they did but then Falcon 4 was horribly unstable and buggy anyway so they could only really improve on it. Various 'factions' grew around each mod group because generally speaking each mod was incompatible with the others so the community became splintered and in fighting began over whose mod was the best way forward to Falcon.

 

Eagle Dynamics are still around and still developing their code just as well as Mr Carmack and that is evident if you've played the Falnker series from the beginnign to what we have now. Each new sim has been an evolution over the last. Let Eagle Dynamics control their own product, I don't want to see someone's hack job.

[britgliderpilot]

Ten month old thread alert!

 

 

Anyway, the thread topic now seems to have shifted to "Why is my performance so bad?"

 

Lomac is a graphically intensive game, and causes even fast computers to slow down.

 

Errr . . . . . so does Half-Life 2. So does Doom 3. I can't really get SWAT 4 to play smoothly and look really good on my system, and Lomac I can. For some reason, nobody seems to be attacking these . . . . when I don't think there's much doubt that Lomac does more in the way of physics calculations, radar calculations, probably polygons in sight, and a number of other things I can't immediately bring to mind . . . . .

 

 

The devs do offer a system to improve frame rates. You, err, turn the graphics down. It's a well-established way to get new games to play on hardware that isn't bleeding-edge.

[SUBS17]

We just need faster computers, same story each time.