Falcon 4 Allied Forces problems

[grandkodiak]

It's been a long while since I've played F4AF but I'm getting back into it... problem is that the Mavericks are NOT cooperating with me!

 

No matter how many times I press U, the screen never comes up on the MFD for the display! The weapons selected, proper mode, unit is powered on, master arm is good, press U, no picture. It still set how it defaults in the setup controls screen, so I must be doing something wrong. I can even slew the TD box on the hud and lock a target, fire and kill it, but I never get picture so unless im in REAL visual range, I can't aim the damn thing!

 

:'(

 

I miss the simple world of LOMAC learning videos and walk through training missions.

[grandkodiak]

ha got it, wasnt on the wpn page completly forgot about it deerrrrrrr.

[SuperKungFu]

You should really try Free Falcon or Open Falcon, IMHO it was a lot better than Allied Force.

[grandkodiak]

how so? really the only thing i dont like about it is the old terrain graphics, but what can you expect from such an old sim :) mission editor could be alittle easier to use, LOMAC has just spoiled me to much i guess haha. that and i keep forgetting that i can loiter around like an a10, i have a bad habbit of running out of fuel taking out sams to have a trouble free run on bombing targets!

Edited September 3, 2008 by grandkodiak

[SuperKungFu]

graphics wise, FF and OF was a lot better than AF. You really have to do a lot of research over at frugals, that's the main place to talk about falcon.

[mvsgas]

I prefer O.F. for single player but AF because it is easier to connect to servers but I believe O.F. 4.5 is so much better. Avionics are better, graphics are so much better, Campaign is better, the 3d pit is 10 time better in O.F. I also can not stand the magical BB in Allied Force. I can not remember how many time I got shot down by AAA with the first bullet they shoot at me in Allied Force, mean while in O.F. I have a chance by releasing Chaff ( is I have a RWR contact) and jinking but that has never help me in in Allied Force.

[RedTiger]

I prefer O.F. for single player but AF because it is easier to connect to servers but I believe O.F. 4.5 is so much better. Avionics are better, graphics are so much better, Campaign is better, the 3d pit is 10 time better in O.F. I also can not stand the magical BB in Allied Force. I can not remember how many time I got shot down by AAA with the first bullet they shoot at me in Allied Force, mean while in O.F. I have a chance by releasing Chaff ( is I have a RWR contact) and jinking but that has never help me in in Allied Force.

 

Referring to the bolded part - how so? I am genuinaly interested and I'm hoping some of my difficulties have been addressed. I specifically ask since what finally put the last nail in the F4AF coffin for me was the campaign.

 

There was a thread at Frugals where someone supposedly discovered that campaign success was dictated more by pilot rating and mission success than anything you do on the 2D map. Their argument was that this was detrimental since it meant that you were more likely to win by just doing a bunch of easy milk runs than actually taking on the harder missions you would think had more impact.

 

This in of itself didn't make me want to play any less or more, but it did prompt me do start really experimenting and researching the campaign.

 

This is the sequence that killed it for me:

 

1. I let the computer fight itself (flew no missions) and let it control everything only to find that it was inept at it. By day 10 the DPRK had taken over half of South Korea from the AI defenders.

 

2. The next step was to fly missions myself and let the AI dictate the ATO and all the mission priorities. I found myself chasing OSA missile boats guarded by walls of MiGs and SAMs more than doing anything useful like...knocking out those SAMs and MiGs

 

3. The next step was to go back to letting the AI do the fighting, except now I reduced all sliders to zero but the ones concerning fighters and OCA. I set all the PAKS around Pyongyang and the initial FLOT to highest priority. The DPRK ground forces had a field day but by day 4 or so...surprise surprise...no more enemy air activity. I then switced the priorities at that point (and indeed, this made me search for more information on how to run the campaing -- more on that in a moment) but I specifically wanted to see what would happen. Within less than a day, the red air traffic started picking back up and not long after it was business as usual.

 

At this point, I thought back to what I had read about the Gulf War and the time frames for neutralizing the fighting will and capability of Saddam's airforce and pretty much called shenannigans at this point. However I was already aware of the "hyper-realism" of Falcon and knew that this was intentional. So I started to seek out a good guide on how to run the campaign.

 

I had to look no further than Lead-Pursuits own website. I found a very detailed campaign guide and was amazed by what I read. To make a long story short, I don't want to play CINC. I want to be Mr. Viper pilot. Micromanaging the ATO because the stupid AI puts in suicide missions is not my idea of fun. Niether is skipping around to different squadrons and manually ordering around units in the ground war (both of which this guide advocated). If I wanted to do all this, I'd play a war game, not a flight sim. Even if what that guy at Frugals said was true, I found that those milk runs were impossible if I let the AI control everything and just flew what it gave me.

 

If O.F. is in anyway different to this, let me know. I'd like to give it a try in that case. :)

Edited September 4, 2008 by RedTiger

[mvsgas]

Well, RedTiger, I think the AI in OF is a bit better in the Campaign ( not by much mind you) For example, I like to play the Balkans campaign, and the AI tend (not always, I get mix results) to normally destroy the enemy air,then airfields and then it would move to ground troops. In AF (in my experience) it just wants to do BARCAP after BARCAP. Occasionally in OF, it become stupid and tries to destroy useless factories 500 mile behind enemy lines, even when there is targets 10 mile from the float. Also AI aircraft are pretty crafty some time. The will lock me with MIG-21 and try to drag me to SA-6 or SA-3 site that remain off until I fly right over them.

I play with the PAKs, so that might be the difference.If you leave it as set by HQ to many things are red, if you tell the game that every thing is red then it does not know where to send aircraft and it end up not sending anything. I think one of the many problems with falcon is that it has way to many options. I think it is a Obsessive-compulsive nightmare/ dream. Well, this is my experience anyway, maybe some had a different one. I also don't micromanage the ATO or the ground troops. I just have fun with it. I loose some campaigns and win some. I try to stay with a specific squadron until they have no more supplies or stop generating flight because maybe their airbase got destroyed, then I move, but I like to stick with particular squadron. Every time I have play the campaign I had different results. Some time ground troops move quickly to take over towns, other time they sit there getting pounded by aircraft and they don't do anything about it.

 

Have you tested that the campaign will win by having high mission success rate? Can you do BARCAP after BARCAP and win? I have never seen that so I'm just wandering.

[RedTiger]

Hey mvsgas!

 

Thats sounds bit more encouraging. Maybe I'll give it a try. I have not personally tried to see how the campaign will go if you fly BARCAP after BARCAP, I've only heard this from someone at Frugals. Never had much luck with BARCAPs anyway. Seems I always "leave the CAP area" or some other rubbish because the sim decided I didn't fly back and forth between the points well enough. Nevermind the fact that I actually sanitized a 30 nm bubble around those STPs and actually stayed there until I was cleared to leave. :ermm: The thing that gets me is naval strikes. The AI will frag a mission about 2 hours into the war that takes you through swarms of MiGs, SAMs, and AAA just to sink a little Osa boat...

 

I'd love to hear someone else's experiences with how they manage the campaign. I've never even finished one. You can read a lot of discussion and talk about how single missions went, but people tend to gloss over how they actually win the campaign, at least the threads I've read. I've seen a guy who won the Korean 2010 campaign in literally one day. :shocking: No matter how I set the PAKs and slider's I can only fly for so long before I have to start aborting missions because I get attacked and have to drop stores to defend myself. I used to just think that I sucked and would get better at it, but now I just think I must be missing something very big that everyone else just "gets".

[grandkodiak]

ha this is making me want to get into falcon 4 less and less lol... lomac campaigns were fun... these sound like headaches.

[mvsgas]

Hey mvsgas!

 

Thats sounds bit more encouraging. Maybe I'll give it a try. I have not personally tried to see how the campaign will go if you fly BARCAP after BARCAP, I've only heard this from someone at Frugals. Never had much luck with BARCAPs anyway. Seems I always "leave the CAP area" or some other rubbish because the sim decided I didn't fly back and forth between the points well enough. Nevermind the fact that I actually sanitized a 30 nm bubble around those STPs and actually stayed there until I was cleared to leave. :ermm: The thing that gets me is naval strikes. The AI will frag a mission about 2 hours into the war that takes you through swarms of MiGs, SAMs, and AAA just to sink a little Osa boat...

 

I'd love to hear someone else's experiences with how they manage the campaign. I've never even finished one. You can read a lot of discussion and talk about how single missions went, but people tend to gloss over how they actually win the campaign, at least the threads I've read. I've seen a guy who won the Korean 2010 campaign in literally one day. :shocking: No matter how I set the PAKs and slider's I can only fly for so long before I have to start aborting missions because I get attacked and have to drop stores to defend myself. I used to just think that I sucked and would get better at it, but now I just think I must be missing something very big that everyone else just "gets".

 

RedTiger you should really talk to some of the guys that play AF online, you may have a whole different experience with the game. The same goes with OF. I have never used OF online because my fire wall always block "Repace launcher" but I hear it is also really good. You should try to finish a campaign one day. It takes a while but it is rewarding the first time you beat a campaign (at least for me because it took me a while playing one hour here and there)

[mvsgas]

ha this is making me want to get into falcon 4 less and less lol... lomac campaigns were fun... these sound like headaches.

 

Well LOMAC was not really a campaign, more like at assortment of single missions, but they where and are fun.

[SUBS17]

 

I'd love to hear someone else's experiences with how they manage the campaign. I've never even finished one. You can read a lot of discussion and talk about how single missions went, but people tend to gloss over how they actually win the campaign, at least the threads I've read. I've seen a guy who won the Korean 2010 campaign in literally one day. :shocking: No matter how I set the PAKs and slider's I can only fly for so long before I have to start aborting missions because I get attacked and have to drop stores to defend myself. I used to just think that I sucked and would get better at it, but now I just think I must be missing something very big that everyone else just "gets".

 

The F4AF campaigns are actually quite easy, they always start off quite intense for the 1st day and then if you have succeeded in a few missions the rest of the campaign is quite easy. As for Barcaps just ignore the bad rep what ever it says the main thing is to stop the incoming flights of bad guys as some of them might be on their way to destroy your own base. Best thing to do is 1st setup the settings as per the advice given for the F4AF campaign on the LP website. Then pick the right mission such as Barcap or a OCA/CAS mission that does not go too far North an OCA strike might allow a quick surprise attack to destroy an enemy air base. Just keep doing missions and if possible assist the ground forces by doing some CAS missions and direct the ground Forces to enemy bases or units. If you save the game between flights you can go back in cases where the enemy does succeed in destroying a valuable asset.:thumbup:

[SUBS17]

RedTiger you should really talk to some of the guys that play AF online, you may have a whole different experience with the game. The same goes with OF. I have never used OF online because my fire wall always block "Repace launcher" but I hear it is also really good. You should try to finish a campaign one day. It takes a while but it is rewarding the first time you beat a campaign (at least for me because it took me a while playing one hour here and there)

 

OF was quite good online as you could use the IVC(Ingame Voice Coms) as well as the data link to send tgts to other players or other aircraft in other packages. The flights were similar to AFs in the campaign although sometimes you had to change tactics for some of the more powerful SAM sites. It certainly is alot better than AF with its features but unfortunately it can be a problem online which is why I only use AF online now. I think it'll be great when Black Shark is released as it has a similar setup with a datalink which can be cool for MP. Wait until DCS gets a flyable Viper:worthy:

[Blacknemisis]

Man I tried OF and its just to hard to get into. I dont have a printer so reading all that info and starting up the game and trying to remember it all is so hard lol. I wish they had a site like Flankertraining where they give you great video tutorials because OF from what I played beats the dog crap out of LOMAC hands down.

[GTengineer]

... because OF from what I played beats the dog crap out of LOMAC hands down.

 

 

Depends what you are looking for in a sim....

[mvsgas]

Man I tried OF and its just to hard to get into. I dont have a printer so reading all that info and starting up the game and trying to remember it all is so hard lol.

I think we are all going to experience that with Black Shark as well.

[grandkodiak]

i love the indepth detail that falcon gets with the f16, but the learning curve for everything else is huge... its like not the systems and fighting itself, its using the map and shit that there is almost no info on! makes it a real challenge to do. i googled alot of videos on it so far ha... and ill have to agree flankertraining is one of the best websites someone can find to get into lomac fast. ive been playin since the day it came out... but the training videos in flaming cliffs helped me ALOT, and then double that for flankertraining.... if something like that existed for falcon... wow i could have alot of fun real fast! the few google videos out there for falcon are good but they cover reallllly simply stuff like instrument landings and avoiding aaa fire.

[SUBS17]

Man I tried OF and its just to hard to get into. I dont have a printer so reading all that info and starting up the game and trying to remember it all is so hard lol. I wish they had a site like Flankertraining where they give you great video tutorials because OF from what I played beats the dog crap out of LOMAC hands down.

 

There are some voice over tutorials in OF from what I recall which can be handy.

[grandkodiak]

yea ive seen his page before... some good info in there but i was very dissapointed that alot of the nuance stuff he goes over he jsut says " then i did this then this" but doesnt tell you HOW he did physically in the sim, and then sometimes is like "i used this guage or marker to do this" but doesnt show where the thing is or how to read it heh