"Realism vs. Balance" - which MiG-29 for future project?

[192nd_Erdem]

Ok.It's good to hear.

 

ED,please :)

[Force_Feedback]

Can you direct me to the "announce"?

 

Turkish "Attack Helicopter" contract should be opened again in February.Ka is still an option,so it may not be "not very realistic" when the sim is out :)

 

Last time I checked they opted for a Ka-52 derriviate, similar to that of Korea , with lots of imaging spheres (or is Erdogan still an option? The Ka-50-2)

 

It would be nice to have two sides with a chopper, otherwise we'll get veryy looong F-15C avionics wishlist threads ;)

[Dudikoff]

You mean that entire map, from initial release?

Hmm, maybe you weren't here earlier for the discussion:

It was pointed out that map development is by far the slowest process at ED, so the less terrain at a time, the better, IMHO.

 

Yeah, missed that part. But, I didn't had large patches of land in mind. Give me a small part of Syria, Israel, Egypt and Turkey so I can have more freedom in making convincing plots for the campaigns. I only need one or two airports per country so they can at least participate in conflicts.

 

Cyprus is too small for any longitivity. I don't see enough material here for a good campaign when there are probably one or two airports per side on Cyprus and it takes only 15-20 minutes from one opposing airbase to the other. By the time i reach the airstrip from my spawning hangar, I'd be inclined to test the manufacturer's 0-0 claim for my ejection seat.

 

The only way out is that one side is pushing the other and the other is being held alive by flights from the mainland and/or carrier support from some other nation. If one side has the advantage in airplanes, the other can't land anything without it being blown to bits 15 mins later. Only way to stop it is to "SAMerise" the area but bringing a Patriot/S300P/V batteries into such small area would only bring frustration to the air campaign.

 

If they could, why didn't they? Do you think the current Lock On map is well-arranged? We need to find something smaller than that, then we know it can be done.

 

I have to admit that, personally, I despise the current map :) It has vast amounts of sea but no island to be centered around. The only interesting area is the Crimea and it's not focused in the middle (for obvious reasons, but, still). We have no airports on the Turkish or Western side or the carrier ops from the NATO side. And, sorry, but conflicts between Russia and Georgia are as interesting for a flight sim as much as the Gobi desert, IMHO, so I would vote no on further populating the map in that direction. I vote for less precise maps (make correct outlines and generally correct mountains and place the existing airports and some main roads).

 

Or, if they are so keen on the precision, maybe they could hire/allow some external team to make the theatre? When they explain the basics, I'm sure it's no nuclear physics, but mainly time-consuming process. I volunteer to participate in such a project :)

[SwingKid]

Yeah, missed that part. But, I didn't had large patches of land in mind. Give me a small part of Syria, Israel, Egypt and Turkey so I can have more freedom in making convincing plots for the campaigns. I only need one or two airports per country so they can at least participate in conflicts.

 

Ah yes, the Lock On plan of quality terrain development:

 

 

-SK

[Force_Feedback]

Ah yes, the Lock On plan of quality terrain development:

 

 

-SK

 

Lol, I knew ED partied way too much, this confirms it :p You remember my post around new year, saying ED would have a new years eve after party, and after parties for the weeks following it. It's true, lol, can't believe I was right, but I did expect it.

[Pilotasso]

"Work on harrier" LOL...

[Harven]

I'll take a Harrier.

[Dudikoff]

Ah yes, the Lock On plan of quality terrain development:

 

LOL. But, as I said, the map sized as the current in LockOn would have large parts of Turkey, Syria, Israel, Egypt. So, for the first phase he details Cyprus *AND* puts one or two coastal airports and some bits around in several countries. During the next phase, he details the whole country of choice, etc.

 

Although, if it's so time consuming, I don't see why hiring external team isn't a possibility. Or maybe they could grant a community team a grant to make one theatre under their supervision (if it is possible to integrate another terrain or replace the current one).

[MBot]

SwingKid, I realy applaude your idea of having only a single flyable plane and a small theater in the initial release. To limit the scope of the sim in order to provide a more complete and coherent product with a limited development budged is in my opinion very important. You even go so far to limit a planes capabilitys/mission profile ( F-16 with LANTIRN but no HTS ) in the initial release, wich I find realy a great idea. This means more resources on mission specific AI routines, procedures, comms and other mission specific features to give a mission profile justice and make it complete, before add another one. This is IMO one of the biggest problems of Lock On, there are so many planes with so many different missions that none of them is done right ( no FAC or team A-G tactics for A-10, no GCI for MiG-29/Su-27, no 'mutual support' doctrine for F-15C, almost no Su-25 specific targets etc. ). Lock On tried to be so much and in the end failed to be superior pretty much everywhere except graphics and FM. So the right way for the future can only be to narrow down the scope of the initial sim to the fewest possible, use the resources to make a coherent product and start to expand the scope with follow up products.

 

 

But I don't think that Cyprus would be a wise starting point for a sim. For this the theater is simply too small. There are about 130 km between the two most distant airbases. I don't see how an airwar with SAMs could be fought on such a small space. The only way I could imagine Cyprus alone as a theater would be if one side would operate completly from the outside of the map ( wouldn't Greece do that anyway ? ). But one side without airbases is very bad for gameplay, as our current Black Sea map shows quite well.

 

It seems SwingKid has selected Cyprus also for the fact that both sides have F-16s in their inventory. Personaly I don't know why both sides must have a flyable plane at all. As a single player you can only fly for one side a time anyway, and while it would be nice to play a campaign from differert sides, I don't see a real need to have that feature. Pretty much every study sim in the past featured a single flyable plane from a single side and that worked fine everytime. The need to have both sides flyable seems to come manly from the online-dogfight fraction, wich is so small that it shouldn't have much weight in the selection of the scope of the next sim. The vast majority are single players and for those only one flyable side should be suffisent ( also for the coop MP folks ).

[SwingKid]

2 ijozic,

 

I understand and actually rather agree, I was only kidding around. In fact we might agree about everything except Georgia. After all the history with Abkhazia, Chechnya, Caspian Sea oil, etc.. I thought this was the most obvious location in the world for a story about conflict between US and Russian interests. In my mind, Crimea is already occupied by Russian ships, SAMs, aircraft and troops, and thus unsuitable for basing NATO forces. Svaki svojemu. ;)

 

2 MBot,

 

As soon as I'm ruling the world, you can be second in command.

 

I really think you wrote that better than I could have myself! What a resonance, to be so well understood... :)

 

As a campaign-maker, I'm concerned about airbases being too close together too, but I think this may not be so bad as it seems. The 130 km between the military bases at Paphos and Lefkoniko compares well IMO to the 120 km of coastline separating the civil airports we have now at Sochi and Sukhumi, that are still fairly popular with mission designers (e.g. "Black Sea Operations" is set in this part of the theater).

I was surprised that when I tried starting users off from Lock On airbases that were farther apart in my "SkyWars" dynamic campaign project, I received user complaints that the player's flight times were too long. It may be that unless there's some aerial refueling to do enroute, 5-10 minutes from the action is where users would like to start. The main question, I think, is to be able to land and take-off outside of the enemy's missile threat radius, and I think this is addressed pretty well in Cyprus.

Mount Olympus's position between the enemy bases provides better radar masking than in Lock On, where the airports are on the same side of the Caucasus range, and the long range S-300 wasn't deployed on the island.

That's not to say the size of Cyprus is ideal, but if the island terrain were finished and developer resources are left over for a larger theater before release, then it's possible to correct over-conservative planning by expanding north to include a Turkish mainland base, or way out west over the sea to include a Greek one on Crete, and nothing else in the game design (e.g. OOB, 3D unit models, storyline, etc.) needs to suffer.

On the contrary, if a larger theater is planned for from the beginning, but it turns out to be too much work so that time and money run out, then we'd be in a worse position. When Lock On's map was finally released in its (IMHO) non-ideal state, many missions and campaigns had to be discarded and done over as a rush job at the last minute before release, because targets and features that the mission builders were expecting on the map never made it.

Better a smaller theater that's over-completed than a larger one that's under-done... The former can be solved by future add-ons, the latter might retain its deficiencies for as long as Lock On's map has retained its own.

 

Anyway it really is just my opinion, don't fear from my "tester team" tag that it represents ED's. But with others (and often myself) often pulling for more avionics, more flyables, more terrain, etc. I feel there's a place for an organized "less, but better" lobby in the other direction, for the precise reasons you've insightfully pointed out, and the Cyprus theater crystallizes that philosophy for me in many ways.

I began this poll to see if there was room for a compromise with those who would add a flyable helicopter, to solve a jet sim's problems - "ok, let's consider a flyable MiG too, but can it at least be a really easy one to develop?" but judging from the poll, that seems to have flown about as far as a dead hippo. So, two can play at that game, I'm taking an equal and opposite stand - with a theater and game concept of NO compromise, no MiG at all!

Cyprus: less is more.

 

-SK

[Dudikoff]

I understand and actually rather agree, I was only kidding around.

 

I know. "LOL" was there to indicate it was a good joke.

 

In fact we might agree about everything except Georgia. After all the history with Abkhazia, Chechnya, Caspian Sea oil, etc.. I thought this was the most obvious location in the world for a story about conflict between US and Russian interests. In my mind, Crimea is already occupied by Russian ships, SAMs, aircraft and troops, and thus unsuitable for basing NATO forces. Svaki svojemu. ;)

 

Ok, I was just referring to the Russia-Georgia conflict because only those parts are detailed. I didn't see the big picture with NATO stepping in, sorry. Ok, I agree that it has enough potential, but then the map would have to be detailed in the E/SE/S parts (like you already said ;) ). Then even naval forces could get involved, perhaps (although, in reality it's almost like a suicide mission for NATO ships in such enclosed space; russian subs could eat them alive).

 

BTW, since you were experimenting with the airport relocation, you are more acquinted with the way it works. How difficult would it be to integrate another terrain into LockOn? Is it modular enough in that aspect or is it integrated into engine in some way?

[Prophet_169th]

(although, in reality it's almost like a suicide mission for NATO ships in such enclosed space; russian subs could eat them alive)

 

That is why we have hunter subs =). I dont think the NATO force would have much of a problem in that situation. Though I am sure both fleets would suffer severe losses.

[Prophet_169th]

The need to have both sides flyable seems to come manly from the online-dogfight fraction, wich is so small that it shouldn't have much weight in the selection of the scope of the next sim.

 

I disagree. I believe most people dont play online, because its not as simple as clicking to start as SP is, and most other MP games are.

 

I think you would see much more people playing online, if it wasnt all the hassle. If you could open the game, go to a MP server list, find the server running the mission you think is best, and join. I think many more people would be playing it.

 

For Lockon, if you havent heard of HyperLobby, then you probably dont know much about the MP experience, which is most of the community. If there was a server list, then the dude who just wants to check out MP, goes to the list and sees how many people are play, may have a larger interest.

 

And with high-speed becoming more and more available, more people are willing to try also.