First sight of Lock On 1.2: Black Shark !

[192nd_Erdem]

So anyway all you brave Ka-50 pilots to be ... I'll missile you, gun you and bomb you all to death ;)

 

 

Oh yeah,like you said you would with 1.1.

 

What's this "I'll pwn you to death!11" thing with some players.Then,when you got vikhr in the face,you complained vikhr is bla bla bla :D

[SUBS17]

So anyway all you brave Ka-50 pilots to be ... I'll missile you, gun you and bomb you all to death ;)

 

We'll see, buildings are my friend

[wasserfall]

Sorry it was a alpha version

 

At Maks 2005 i was together with Joe Kurr and we were at the 1C stand and had our hands on the stick of the KA 50, Black Shark 1.2 Beta version!!!!!!:)

Very nice modeling and smooth game play!

The cockpit is very nice done, but there was no Track IR attached so we could't checkout the 6pdof.

The damage model wasn't finished yet, but overall the sim looked and felt very good:)

 

Cheers!

 

Wasserfall

[Groove]

Great news. But please no steril world !

 

And a realistic scenario. Not again the crimean penisula. How about chechnya ? Maybe the first chechnya campaign with some armor on the enemy side.

 

But looks very promising for me.

[Trident]

I hope you're not disappointed, but there will be no fundamentally new campaign features and there will be no new map in v1.2. Both would take far too long to develop for an add-on. Unfortunately, only a minority would by the game with 'only' a new theatre or a better campaign system and no further additions. For most people a new aircraft is the main selling point.

[EvilBivol-1]

Actually, my (often faulty) understanding is that there will be a new "patch", or "swath" of terrain extending into Georgia.

 

Remember though, "I COULD be wrong!"

[ALDEGA]

A balkans theatre would be interesting and realistic for that era...

 

It's my understanding that the map generation is partially automated with tools. Not a complete manual operation.

[GGTharos]

Yes. The other part of your understanding is that every building and tree has to placed practically individually, and a lot of the textures need to be adjusted, etcetc. Think on that one ;)

[ALDEGA]

Yes. The other part of your understanding is that every building and tree has to placed practically individually, and a lot of the textures need to be adjusted, etcetc. Think on that one ;)

Who told you that all buildings and trees are manually placed?

[GGTharos]

A bird. A little bird. Very small one.

[ALDEGA]

A bird. A little bird. Very small one.

The bird's story does not appear to comply with what one of the devs once stated in these forums.

[GGTharos]

I suggest you ask the devs then. It took them some ten years to bring the current map up to what it is today.

[SUBS17]

With current technology it maybe much easier to create extra terrain automatically off sattelite images.

[Dmut]

With current technology it maybe much easier to create extra terrain automatically off sattelite images.

...and you will end up with huge "texture" files, land will be flat, without trees and buildings...

building a good map for computer simulator is enormous work, takes many men-month to complete.

[Trident]

Agree, and in LOMAC's case the effort definately shows. I much prefer a relatively small but highly detailed theatre to one that contains entire continents but looks bad below 3000 metres. OTOH, it should be possible to create a somewhat larger theatre for the LOMAC sequel without sacrificing too much detail IMHO. There certainly have been technological advances in the meantime that should make this viable.

 

Just how much larger this theatre could be and where it should be located is debatable, and on this forum atleast it's actually an old debate ;)

[Chayton]

Allthought that Helicopter is sure nice and that Eagle is more a russian company, so sure has more inside into russian aircrafts for a add on i would finally wish that you get the ability to fly more aircrafts of those that are already in the game. Lock On gives you so many free things in what you can do, yet it limits you very much on what aircrafts you can fly.

 

While i worked on a map i wished so many times that i could go and fly that Tornado i added, or that F-14, or that F-16, or that F-5, or even that Hercules :), etc. Thats the thing i really miss in Lock On, that you have to replace flyable aircrafts if you just tired for a while of those that you can fly.

I would prefer that over any helicopter addition, but i guess that will stay a wish.

 

Btw nice that you havent abandon the game like Ubisoft did, this game is awesome, wish more flight sims would be that detail fanatic.

[DarkStar]

Seeing more than one or two playable planes in a SIM is seldom, wich is why I think its better to work on the engine, bugs, features etc. the Black Shark is a welcomed addition though :)

[Doug97]

Anyone know how easy this will be to fly?

 

Everyone knows that flying a helicopter is a b*tch compared to modern jets (stick-wise).

 

(Don't know about you but I hope it's hard! Give my rudder pedals a workout ...)

"Lock On gives you so many free things in what you can do, yet it limits you very much on what aircrafts you can fly."

 

 

Huh? How many other flight sims allow you fly this many modern combat aircrafts? Eagle has done a fine job with aircraft selection and 1.2's inclusion of a rotor craft makes them lightyears ahead of their competitors.

[arraamis]

"Lock On gives you so many free things in what you can do, yet it limits you very much on what aircrafts you can fly."

 

 

Huh? How many other flight sims allow you fly this many modern combat aircrafts? Eagle has done a fine job with aircraft selection and 1.2's inclusion of a rotor craft makes them lightyears ahead of their competitors.

 

 

Very Well Said.

[Chayton]

Thats true.

 

But doesnt change the fact that Lock On limits you on what aircrafts you can fly, compared to those that there are in the game. Only because the others limit you even more doesnt it mean that Lock On doesnt. Mostly the balancing of the fighters i would like them to fix. Sure if you have worked your way into russian technoligy you have 4 Aircrafts to fly, while if your more into american techoligy just 2. With FC and the new add on that goes up to 6 against 2.

 

And i just said what i would wish, cant image that some of you would not want to fly a diffrent aircraft thats already in the game for once.

"But doesnt change the fact that Lock On limits you on what aircrafts you can fly, compared to those that there are in the game"

 

I don't mean to sound sarcastic but it's going to. Here it goes. It looks like you might be new to flight simulators. Modeling 7 modern combat jets with all it's avionics and weapon systems in a single flight sim is a first I've seen in 15 years of flight "simming". Name one other sim that does this. Even Janes or Microprose hasn't done this. You can't compare LOMAC with the likes of PF because WWII crafts are much simpler to simulate than these modern complex machines. Be grateful we have ED. We're even going to get a helicopter to play with! :)

[Doug97]

I agree. In simming days gone by, the norm was to model one, and only one, aircraft, with the intention being that you got as much fidelity as possible. To complain about the number of planes in LOMAC (especially since you get new ones with every expansion pack) is, in my opinion, rather short-sighted. I think there are some people who will never be happy no matter how many planes are made flyable ... just look at the IL2 and Pacific Fighters franchise; there's about 100 flyable planes available now, but there are still people on the forums whining about how this or that plane isn't flyable. I have an inkling that it is these same people who are happy to install the 'fly any plane' mod in Falcon 4 - the cockpit is that of a Falcon, as is the avionics and flight model, yet they're happy to believe they're flying something different simply because the 3D model and skin is of an A10 or something.

 

Personally, I think it is dangerous to put so much emphasis on making so many planes flyable, as you run the risk of reducing the fidelity of them all, and in addition, you take away valuable programming time that could be spent fixing bugs, improving graphics, or even (dare I say it), improving the campaign engine. I'm happy that 1.2 is introducing only one new flyable aircraft (although I'm especially happy it's a helicopter; just how long has it been since the last decent helicopter sim?).

[enigma6584]

"But doesnt change the fact that Lock On limits you on what aircrafts you can fly, compared to those that there are in the game"

 

I don't mean to sound sarcastic but it's going to. Here it goes. It looks like you might be new to flight simulators. Modeling 7 modern combat jets with all it's avionics and weapon systems in a single flight sim is a first I've seen in 15 years of flight "simming". Name one other sim that does this. Even Janes or Microprose hasn't done this. You can't compare LOMAC with the likes of PF because WWII crafts are much simpler to simulate than these modern complex machines. Be grateful we have ED. We're even going to get a helicopter to play with! :)

 

Spot on! ED is just getting warmed up. LOCKON is their experimental program.

[BlackEagle]

Ahead of ourselves

 

I'm sure it'll be a fun platform to fly, but I would rather have seen ED do a number of things before adding a new plane, like fixing the wretched sound engine and improving the training missions. As for the possibility of a clickable cockpit, the idea of trying to frantically click one of 600 buttons with a mouse while ground units are firing at me doesn't exactly sound fun. Great for civil aviation sims, bad for combat sims.

 

Moreover, the game already has two A2G platforms. Adding another doesn't really add a new tactical dimension to the game. Also, adding an army aviation platform places a strong emphasis on ground tactics. Attack helicopters are typically elements of combined arms infantry units. Their job is to provide supporting fires against hard targets during ground missions. I don't see how you can effectively and realistically integrate infantry tactics into the game as it's currently designed. Are there going to be little sims running around with shoulder fired stinger missiles? And no way an attack helo survives more than 10 minutes unless air superiority is first established. All a fighter has to do is lock and fire from several kilometers away, and you're toast. If you're going to add a helicopter, I think it would be a better idea to add a multirole helicopter like the Ka-27 Helix, and expand the naval aviation element by adding anti-submarine warfare.