Quick and dirty tips for new players of SF1/WOV

[+MK2 12]

These are random tips directed at new players for getting more shoot downs. If anyone is intereste in these files I mention below. E-mail me at mk2(at)bellsouth(dot)net .

 

 

How can you actually score more kills?

It?s all in learning how the weapons work

 

I fly with the following settings:

 

Flight: hard

 

Weapons: hard

 

Ammo Usage: hard

 

Everything else including enemy skill on Normal. So let?s do those settings first.

 

Now I hate the cones, and the crappy radar on the top right and the target info lower right, so I tweaked my own hud data ini. I am including it in the zip file mentioned above, you can place it in your flight folder and try it out, and remove it if you do not like it. The radar is set on normal for this hud data (make sure it is set on normal).

 

Next step:

 

Get familiar with the ?T? key. This targets your next enemy in visual range. It places a rectangular red box over the target (using the above settings). This is great if you have bad eye sight like I do as you will be able to pick up the red box when otherwise you would miss the target against the background or down low in the weeds etc.

 

Now lets move on to weapons selection. Arm the weapon you want, lets talk about the radar guided missiles first. Turn on the Radar. You can set it to search and hit the corresponding key to change range (I find this useless unless I am trying to pop something with an Aim-54 from very far away) usually I set it to bore sight as I am within 10 miles when I run into the enemy. If you are on boresight and you keep your nose pointed at the enemy (hopefully by now you have hit T key and placed a rectangular box around him) a yellow diamond will appear. At this point, if you are in the envelope where you can fire the missile, you do so. If you are turning?.you have to wait for a cleaner shot, one that will allow the weapon to guide. Once you fire , you must keep your nose on the enemy to maintain lock.

 

The IR missiles are a bit different. I found that the growl it makes when it is locked is real weak. I always miss it when wingmen are screaming and the afterburner is on, so I tweaked my own file (back up your original , and place this one in your sound directory, it will be included in the zip). This file really GROWLS loud and there is no mistaking when you have a lock. I find that different weapons require different angles. When I fire an early model Atolls for example, I like to be slightly above or below the plane and I have to fire it almost when I am at his 6 o?clock and he is not moving much, it has a real small launch window. The modern IR missiles require you to lead a bit (to help the missile out) depending which way the target is leaning.

 

So lets recap:

 

Get your settings the way you like them but I find the above to be the best for new players who want realism but flexibility to learn how to play.

 

Familiarize yourself with the ?T? key

 

Familiarize yourself with switching Radar to ?Bore sight ? mode.

 

Familiarize yourself with switching from weapon to weapon.

 

Here is one I did not mention before, familiarize yourself with turning on ECM, also if you are flying a plane that does not have chaff and flares, I include a step by step in the zip to add chaff and flares to any plane you want to add it to (courtesy of Eagle).

 

Ok this is the most important one. When you go to the control section to set all these keys up, find the command that is defaulted to F4 on your keyboard, it is your padlock target. I set it up on my joystick. When I click it my eyes go right to the target and I can keep a visual on him while I am turning and burning. If I need to orientate myself again, I click on it again to look forward. In a dogfight I usually go back and forth, back and forth. This will take your head out of the cockpit and keep it where it belongs, in the fight.

 

Also, when you are a point blank range, switch to guns, make sure the command is on your joystick, so you can get to it quickly.

 

The following was posted by Fritze and was a follow up to the above:

 

- posted SIMHQ December 31, 2004 22:12 Fritze

 

When radar is on hard and in search mode you will also have to sweep your nose up and down to locate a target. If the enemy is at your 12 oclock position but below or above your radar cone he will not show up, you will have to point your nose up or down to locate him, depending on his altitude in relation to your own.

 

Also dont forget to change your radar ranges, he wont show up if he is 15 miles away and your radar is at the 5 mile setting.

 

These early radars also had to be locked onto the target all the way to impact, I believe at least thats the way it was.

 

Not like the current AIM-120 which can activate its own radar and track the target itself.

 

And the heaters in this game on hard settings are rear aspect low g use only.

 

Now maybe I am way off base here but, with a heater if the enemy is pointed up into the sky there is a larger chance of it losing lock, in fact early ones from what I remeber lose lock to the solar radiation of the sun.

 

And sparrows have a hard time differentiating between ground clutter and aircarft, so going nape of the earth (NOE) can cause a sparrow to lose its track, well actually the enemies aircrafts radar.

 

Then theres the old trick of putting any good size piece of real estate between you and the enemy plane/missile, like in the early days of Janes USAF online DF where we would duck in and out of the canyons so our enemies missiles would lose lock.