streakeagle

Another satisfied customer! The people that are unhappy with this game expect too much out of it. Given a chance, the whole SFP1/WOV/WOE line is really impressive and always improving.

Go here for my keyboard command layout (it is for SFP1 but the two are identical except for one key: to break radar lock in SFP1, it is <SHIFT><DELETE>, for WOV it is <DELETE>): http://web.tampabay.rr.com/sflores1/StrikeFighters.html You have two options, a smaller one page printout or a larger 2-page printout. I have an X-45 profile, but I have never bothered to post it. It is very much specialized to suit my needs and is largely based on the same profile I use for most jet sims. I can post it if you want.

It is quite a bit of overcompensation. He obviously never served on a US nuke sub and doesn't have the first clue about how they really operate. I served on SSN-687 and also served on our only remaining diesel, AGSS-555. While the rocket torpedo isn't an overwhelming threat, the fact is that subs were not detecting each other at 30 miles. While I was serving (from 1989 to 1997), the subs on both sides were so quiet that the threat of collision was the biggest threat while attempting to detect and track enemy subs. Detection ranges had gotten very short, even when using towed arrays. At close range, the rocket torpedo could be fired in a spread that no sub could escape given that it was going slow enough to be quiet. Sonar would easily detect and announce the threat... then the officer would have to give orders to evade, then the helmsman would have to respond to those orders. At short ranges and low speeds, the sub would have trouble accelerating and turning quick enough. Let us assume that both subs are doing 5 kts and that the detection range is 2000 yards (approx. 1 nm). If a single rocket torpedo is immediately fired down the bearing of the detection without any target motion analysis, it will travel 1 nm at 200 kts in 1/200 hours = 18 seconds. The sonar operator will barely have time to tell his supervisor "Torpedo in the Water!". The submarine will have moved at most 1/200 * 5 * 2000 = 50 yards in that time (150 feet) assuming that it is moving across the line of sight rather than toward it (an unrealistic assumption since the two subs had to be pointing at each other to some degree to get within detection range). Our subs are over 300 feet long. You could fire two rocket torpedos and easily cover the 150 feet the sub will have moved and have a fair chance of hitting in the horizontal plane. It is the vertical plane that is the problem. Unless the sound conditions are ideal or the subs are very close, depth is always a best guess and the hull diameter is ony between 30 and 40 feet. Unless fighting in extremely shallow water or in a narrow sound channel, you have a very slim chance of getting the depth close enough to score even a proximity hit. Is 2000 yards close enough to assume direct path and/or allow for the curvature of the sound propagation per an environmental measurement that may be over 24 hours old? I really don't want to find out the hard way. It should be quite apparent from the above calculations that a sub has NO time to respond to a rocket torpedo. If the attacker had sufficient time to get a solid solution before firing, he will get a solid hit if he can estimate the depth accurately enough. A MK 48 can be decoyed or even outrun. A 200-knot rocket torpedo fired close aboard gives you no time to react and is impervious to decoys/countermeasures. Contrary to what this guy is saying, US subs were very concerned about this threat while I was serving. Since the time I have left, my friends tell me that we have regained the acoustic advantage we once enjoyed in the 60s and 70s. If that is the case, then the rocket torpedo becomes useless since the platform carrying it will be detected and killed long before he is close enough to employ it accurately As for his assertions about how subs work as a team with other assets... Subs work best alone. When attached to a battlegroup, they have to move too fast to keep up with the fleet and the fleet makes too much noise to maintain an effective search. You also have to spend a lot of time at PD to be able to communicate with the battlegroup, which is not a good thing to do if you want to remain undetected and at an optimum depth for searching. Sub operations may have changed since I left, but I doubt it. US subs prefer to hunt alone deep in enemy waters... that way classification is a lot faster and easier: if you hear something it must be the enemy since you are the only friendly around ;) I left the Navy as an E-6 up for E-7 and stood Sonar Supervisor watches for 4 of my 6 1/2 years of sea duty. I can assure you that gives me some insight that Tom Clancy wannabe's will never have. Unfortunately, congress frequently listens to armchair admirals more than they do the real admirals when deciding on the Navy's budget :p

You need to extract the F-104G decals from SFP1 and copy them to the Objects folder of WOV... look at your screenshots, the skins are missing some markings ;)

They all work when installed correctly. Some of the F-104s are completely new models... but they may still need cockpits. If you try to fly an aircraft that is missing files, it won't work. Carefully follow the readme files to make sure you have EVERYTHING you need to fly. If you simply buy Strike Fighters Project 1 (available in the US for $5 at Circuit City) or Strike Fighters Gold (which is available in Europe), you will get the stock F-104G and all of its associated files (decals and cockpit). The stock F-104G can be imported in to WOV or at the very least will provide some decals and a cockpit for some of the other addons.

Trying to type a chat message in the middle of a dogfight or a ground attack run can be very difficult. The solution is for everyone to use the same voice chat program. Modern internet service and PCs have plenty of bandwidth and CPU cycles to spare for good voice comms. Many free downloads are available: the old reliable RogerWilco, Teamspeak, and Ventrilo to name a few. Even IM and netphone programs like MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and Skype will work with some sacrifice of bandwidth and CPU power. It helps if there are free servers available to everyone to support the comms. I have used all of the above programs at one time or another. Presently, my I suggest Teamspeak for several reasons: It is easy to install and configure (almost anyone can get it talking within a minute or two of downloading it), it is very tunable to work on different levels of PCs and internet connections (i.e. there are plenty of advanced options to meet anyone's needs), and best of all there is a free server at CombatAce.com open to any and all flight simmers! To get Teamspeak, go here: http://www.goteamspeak.com/index.php?page=downloads If you go to the homepage of http://CombatAce.com, there is a link to the free public Teamspeak server. After you click on the link, you are on the Teamspeak page. Click on the server IP to open the login dialog box and type in your nickname. Click on the submit button and then click on the "click here to log in" text. This will automatically open teamspeak on the lobby channel so you don't have to figure out how to connect! You can now adjust the settings as necessary to permit voice activated or button activated mic and try to talk/listen to other people that are there. There is even a test mode in case you are alone. You haven't achieved the full immersion of multiplayer until you have experienced live voice while flying coop or dogfight.... 10x the fun!

It is quite annoying that PSP 8, 9, and 10 can't do tga files correctly! I like the newer interface though. So I work in PSP 10 and use PSP 7 to save the final tga :)

From the notes: The Catalyst® software suite is designed to support the following ATI desktop products: Radeon® X1900 series Radeon® X1800 series Radeon® X1600 series Radeon® X1300 series Radeon® X850 series Radeon® X800 series Radeon® X700 series Radeon® X600 series Radeon® X550 series Radeon® X300 series Radeon® 9X00 series Radeon® 8500 series Radeon® 7X00 series Your 9200 is a 9X00 series, so it is supported. New drivers are always a gamble. I had to install Cat 6.3 on every PC I have with various Radeon cards just to support a new game I am playing. I am trying Cat 6.4 since it is supposed to make a modest improvement in performance for my new x1800xt. A lot of the time, an older driver is better with older cards. For the longest time, Cat 4.12 was the best one to use with my Radeon 9800 Pro cards and Cat 3.7 was the best for my 8500/9100 cards. But somewhere along the way, the newer drivers actually worked better than the old ones, so I upgraded to Cat 5.x series from 5.3 on. Now all of my cards are on 6.3 (until today) which has worked great on for all of my applications with all of my cards. Try out some of your games, note the frame rates and any other issues. Uninstall the old drivers. Install the new ones. Run the same games again and compare. If it works equal or better, leave in the new driver. If it causes problems or is slower, uninstall it and go back to your original driver ;)

Thanks for the heads up ;)

I use Saitek X-36, Saitek X-45, and MS Sidewinder Pro. With all of these sticks, the POV hat has the same effect as using the snap view keys on the numpad. I don't know anything about CH sticks, but I assume that they would just work too. Alternatively, you can go into the control key assignment and manually assign your pov positions to the snap views or any other commands you want the POV to perform.

You can't upload it with TK's A-6 cockpit... but you can provide directions on how to install TK's cockpit in the readme ;)

If you go to the homepage of http://CombatAce.com, there is a free public Teamspeak server. Teamspeak is a really good voice chat program optimized for online gaming. It can be tuned to support your application needs and has decent quality sound with voice activated or button activated mic. The tuning on the voice activation is so good that I don't use button activated. To get Teamspeak, go here: http://www.goteamspeak.com/index.php?page=downloads You haven't achieved the full immersion of multiplayer until you have experienced live voice while flying coop or dogfight.... 10x the fun!

Using radar and radar homing missiles like the AIM-7 Sparrow on Hard settings seems too hard for many people. With a little review of the way radar works and what the display indications mean, it really isn't that difficult. A basic summary: 1. Use Search Mode to detect a target on your display (vary the range scale using the <PAGE DOWN> key if necessary). 2. Use the <HOME> key to move the cursor to the target. 3. Use the <INSERT> key to lock on. 4. Center the steering dot in the ASE circle. 5. Launch when "IN RANGE". 6. Maintain target lock on until missile hits, or missile will miss. Note: Once you have locked on, you can use <CTRL><R> to visually acquire the target, which also identifies the type of aircraft (an unrealistically accurate form of IFF). Then use either <F4> to padlock the target from within the cockpit, <SHIFT><F8> to padlock the target from an external player-to-target view, or <F8> to see the target up close. Alternatively, steps 1 through 3 can be bypassed when engaging targets held visually: Select Boresight Mode and hold your gunsight exactly on the target until a lock on occurs. Then continue with step 4. The idea behind radar in the 1960s was that radio energy could be used to search for contacts by rapidly sweeping an antenna from side to side while transmitting radio energy pulses and receiving "echoes" from targets hit by those pulses. The antenna has a "beam", which is the pattern or shape of the radio transmission. Ideally, this beam is very narrow since it determines the elevation and azimuth resolution. The radar display graphs the azimuth (bearing) of the antenna versus the time (range) of the echoes. In the case of the F-4 radar as portrayed in SFP1 and WOV, the elevation of the antenna alternates between a look up and a look down angle. Each elevation angle is referred to as a bar. The F-4 radar's search pattern in SFP1 and WOV is a 2-bar scan. The F-4 has radar azimuth limits of +/- 60 degrees, which means it can see targets in a 120 degree cone centered on its nose. Illustration of horizontal aziumth sweep pattern: The 120 degree horizontal search cone is quite large, but not every target will be covered by it. There are four ways to get a target into your seach sweep: 1. Arbitrarily change course by +/- 120 degrees to cover a full 360 degrees. In reality, you should know what is behind you, so check turns of +/- 60 degrees is probably adequate. 2. Point your nose at RWR contacts. 3. Steer to the targets in the verbal reports from the ground controller. 4. Use the <M> key to bring up the map to see where to turn your nose to acquire targets known to ground control. The F-4 has radar elevation limits of +/- 60 degrees, but does not scan over that entire range. It merely permits the radar to continue a full horizontal sweep when banked 90 degrees. The vertical search is constrained to two elevation bars at +/- 1.875 degrees. The radar beam is 6.7 degrees wide and the two elevation bars overlap providing about 10 degrees of vertical coverage. Illustration of 2-bar vertical sweep pattern: While this was outstanding for its day, it is easy to see that targets might be above or below the 10 degrees of vertical search. The F-4 must periodically pitch its nose up or down to get more vertical coverage. Of course, the F-4 does not have look-down radar. If the nose is pointed down too much, the radar will be cluttered heavily with ground returns. In reality, the F-4 had major problems trying to use the radar and Sparrow missiles at low altitudes or against targets flying at much lower altitudes. The game is not quite so picky, but a target can try flying very low and using ground clutter to break lock ons and/or decoy Sparrows. Here is a typical search display from an F-4 radar in SFP1 with two targets: Once you have found a target on your search display, you have the option to acquire/track/lock on to the target. This means the radar stops sweeping rapidly and instead tries to keep the antenna pointed at the target at all times. This provides very accurate information on a single target, which is needed to launch and guide radar guided missiles such as the AIM-7 Sparrow. Tracking a single target does not permit searching for more targets. The F-4 radar has a cursor that allows you to choose which target you want to acqire. Press the <HOME> key to move the cursor. If the cursor is not on the desired target, then continue pressing the <HOME> key until the cursor is on the desired target. Here is what happens if you push the <HOME> key while a target is displayed (the cursor moves to the target): Once the cursor is in the desired position, simply press the <INSERT> key to track/acquire/lock on to the target. The sweeping strobe stops on the bearing of the contact, all other targets disappear from the display, and a range gate sweep moves up the strobe until it finds the target's range. At that point, lock on has been achieved. Here is what happens if you push the <INSERT> key while the cursor is on a target (the radar enters acquisition mode): If you successfully lock on, the radar displays additional information: closure rate using a rotating ring, allowable steering error, steering dot, and the min and max ranges of the selected weapon. There is even an IN RANGE light to let you know when the target is within firing range parameters. The notch in the range rate circle rotates to indicate closure rate. If the notch is at 12 o'clock (top of the circle), then there is no closure. As the notch moves clockwise from 12 to 3 to 6 to 9, it indicates an increase in the closure speed. As the notch moves counter-clockwise from 12 to 9, it indicates that the target is opening rather than closing. In other words, the target is moving away from the radar. Here is what the display looks like while locked on: Sparrows have two primary launch requirements: 1. Locked on to the target. 2. Target between Min and Max range limits. But just because you are able to launch a Sparrow, doesn't mean it has a chance of hitting. Other launch requirements that should be considered include: 1. Launching aircraft should not be maneuvering violently. 2. Steering dot should be within the ASE circle. 3. ASE circule changes size with range. In general, the larger the circle, the better the chance to hit. Try to hold fire until the circle is close to its maximum size. 4. Aspect of the target can render Sparrow shots impossible. The AIM-7 likes direct head-on shots form long distances and rear quarter shots from short distances. Crossing shots at the targets front quarter and beam may prove difficult, if not impossible to hit. 8. Launching aircraft should have as high a speed as practical since the missile can maneuver better, fly longer range, and impact sooner if it has more energy at the moment of launch. Here is what the F-4 radar display looks like when close to optimum firing conditions (the ASE circle is very larget and the steering dot is almost centered in the circle): If you get too close to fire an AIM-7 Sparrow, the radar displays a big "X" (the phrase "too close for missiles, switching to guns" should come to mind):

To keep CPU workload down, the A.I. does not fly by the same rules as players. They get a slightly simplified model. When a player selects autopilot, his aircraft is actually flying under the AI model. This can be observed using debug mode where you will see that an aircraft's weight is constant when flying on autopilot. Even with its slightly dumbed down FM, the A.I. cannot handle realistic FMs. They pull too high of AoA, enter deep stalls, won't use enough power, and won't try to recover when they stall/depart. I only recommend using hyper-realistic FMs for multiplayer dogfight mode where there is no AI, or just for personal enjoyment of flying since the AI otherwise ruins the single player experience with difficult FMs. Reducing the FM from Hard to Normal removes some aspects of the FM engine. It makes planes fly better by removing or overriding some of the laws of physics. We are all playing this sim to have fun. If putting the FM on Normal makes you happier, please do so. Personally, I want every aircraft in the game to fly as realistically as possible and refuse to fly with anything less than Hard for all of my settings. Most aircraft fly just fine on Hard settings. Some of the FM makers have joined me on the dark side in trying to produce very high-fidelity flight models. While I love this, the flight engine and AI limitations make it a pain-in-the-butt for the average player. In the future, I intend to produce pairs of realistic FMs: one made as realistic as possible, the other cleaned up to make it AI flyable. Of course, I intended to finish and release a much improved version of AIDE along with a complete set of revised F-4 FMs as well... but real life takes priority over modding sims, so you never know what I will be able to do or when I will be able to do it.

I originally made a single high-resolution jpg file that is rather small when printed to a single 8.5x11 piece of paper. I still offer that file for those who don't mind the small print in favor of the single page. But for those that would like a much larger rendition, I broke the image into two halves in such a way that the Windows Photo Printer Wizard will do a nice job of making a two page layout. I also made a dedicated web page with directions on how to quickly print these files out with good results using standard WindowsXP tools. Go here: Streak Eagle's SFP1 Keyboard Layout

Nice pics! It is a shame US defense industry forced cancellation of the Lavi. It would have been a good aircraft. I am sure IAI could ultimately design and produce better fighters at a lower cost than the US military-industrial complex... squashing Lavi development ensured that would never happen.

It wasn't as low as I thought... but still very low ;)

I have much experience running SFP1/WOV with Radeon 8500, 9000, Mobility 9000, and 9100 series cards. Your low end 9600 card should be close in performance. If you have shadows and mirrors turned off, the only thing left that could be killing your performance is FSAA and texture sizes. Since you are encountering the problem on air-to ground missions, it is more than likely releated to ground object detail and terrain textures. The in-game settings allow you to control texture sizes. If you have your card set to default settings, the application is allowed to determine FSAA and I believe it automatically chooses FSAAx4. My old Radeons could not run it at that level. Force Performance FSAAx2 and AFx16 (in my experience AFx16 has little or no affect on FPS). With a P3 1.2GHz, a Radeon 8500 128MB, FSAAx2, AFx16, and 1600x1200x32, mirrors and shadows off, terrain detail and textures to low, I typically saw frame rates in the 20 - 30 FPS region. However, if SAM and flak is intensive, this may cause a dramatic drop in FPS and there are no settings you can really use to fix this other than decreasing the difficulty level for ground defenses. My work laptop has a 2.0GHz P4 and a mobility 9000: much less capable hardware than yours. I can run 1600x1200 with no FSAA or 1280x1024x32 with FSAAx2 with the rest of the settings as above. Do not use 16 bit color. The way these GPUs were designed, it doesn't buy you any performance and it seriously degrades your image quality.

At high AoA, the F-4 requires use of rudder to roll. This is correct behaviour. In reality, any attempt to use ailerons to roll at high AoA would result in a departure, frequently unrecoverable. If you think the stock FM is hard, then you will find my FM almost impossible. The stock FM is much more forgiving and permits considerably better turn performance. The key to flying on "Hard" settings with stock FMs is to listen for the wind noise and watch for vibration that indicates the onset of a stall. If you keep your AoA (angle of attack) at or below this stall point, you will maneuver just fine. At higher AoA, your wing doesn't produce any more lift, but becomes a speedbrake, then as the speed bleeds, so does your lift. With my F-4B FM, the stall starts at much lower AoA and you must go deep into the buffet to get max performance per documented F-4 performance. But once you cross a certain angle, it behaves just like the stock FM: no more lift and huge speedbrake. With my flight model, you can tell you have reached the max performance AoA by looking at the AoA indicator. If the needle is in the white area you are doing fine. If the needle goes much past that area, you are probably approaching departure/speedbrake limits. Good luck with learning the F-4. If you think it is difficult to fly in a dogfight, try the F-104 or F-105 ;)

I have to wait until I get home to see if I still have the screenshot to post... while I was making inverted passes under the Dragon's Jaw in WOV, my F-4 became a submarine with only the belly and undersides of the wings visible on the surface. I will let the public decide whether it is a tie or not ;)

Single player definitely has its place, espeically considering how few play this sim online. But USAFMTL, you should really consider flying MP sometime, presumably a coop mission since you seem to have a preference for ground pounding. Any fun you have in single player is amplified by the presence of other people, especially if you use a voice comms application to talk while flying rather than typing. If after a trial run with a clean install, you decided that you like it, I am sure we could put together a good online package that inlcudes the F-111

Hyperlobby is where most of the MP crowd hangs out, though there appear to be a few squads that use MSN Messenger to gather, so there is no way for newbies to find them. There are only a few of people playing SFP1/WOV online regularly (maybe 20 or 30). They all check in at different times, though the most common time seems to be around 8 pm to 10 pm EST. A lot of them have both SFP1 and WOV. Most prefer to play WOV. To catch people there, you basically have to hang out in Hyperlobby for quite some time. If you just pop in and out, no one will know you were even there. If I see you, I'll fly with you. It seems most of the active community modders/skinners don't care for multiplayer. I don't understand why the likes of USAFMTL and Column5 don't play online, just some people only like playing by themselves... it is a great game offline, but even more fun when you are flying with other people. Dissimilar air combat between human pilots is just way more interesting than anyting the AI can dish up. Hope to see you around Hyperlobby.

Hyperlobby is where most of the MP crowd hangs out, though there appear to be a few squads that use MSN Messenger to gather, so there is no way for newbies to find them. There are only a few of people playing SFP1/WOV online regularly (maybe 20 or 30). They all check in at different times, though the most common time seems to be around 8 pm to 10 pm EST. A lot of them have both SFP1 and WOV. Most prefer to play WOV. To catch people there, you basically have to hang out in Hyperlobby for quite some time. If you just pop in and out, no one will know you were even there. If I see you, I'll fly with you. It seems most of the active community modders/skinners don't care for multiplayer. I don't understand why the likes of USAFMTL and Column5 don't play online, just some people only like playing by themselves... it is a great game offline, but even more fun when you are flying with other people. Dissimilar air combat between human pilots is just way more interesting than anyting the AI can dish up. Hope to see you around Hyperlobby.

Try reducing your in-game setting for sound to 8 channels (it can be set at 8, 16 default, or 32), try reducing the hardware acceleration for sound (via the windows control panel), and/or getting a new sound driver. Video is not the only source of crashes, and the sound in SFP1/WOV can get pretty busy with multiple aircraft and/or SAMS and AAA.

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. I leave a server up in Hyperlobby, sometimes it is SFP1, but most of the time it is WOV. I can typically be found on Hyperlobby between 8 pm and 10 pm EST on weeknights and at other random times. If I see you there, I'll fly with you.