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streakeagle

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Everything posted by streakeagle

  1. The Lightning was released with a more difficult/realistic flight model than any other SF aircraft I can recall. I complained to TK, why does the Lightning get a flight model with such wild stability and stalling problems when the core aircraft, the F-4, gets a more dumbed down easy flight model? My desired response would be to see consistency: preferably to have all the aircraft modeled to the same level as the Lightning. TK chose to level the playing field a bit by going the other way, making the Lighting a little easier to fly. Given that his goal was to make the game fun and had made even the most difficult aircraft somewhat safer and easier to fly and that it was easier to fix one aircraft than upgrade all of the other ones, this was the right response. But the Lightning, especially the earliest variants is still one of the wildest rides in SF2. This makes it more fun and a better simulation. But I still feel cheated that the Century fighters and F-4 don't have nearly as much realism/difficulty baked into their flight models. I don't know if he intentionally made the Lighting this way or just didn't have the time to polish the flight model as much as he did on earlier planes. When you fly AI planes like the MiG-21, their primitive flight models are somewhat comparable to the Lightning. The AI flight models were roughed in to be just good enough for AI to operate rather than be polished for player "feel".
  2. The only hope for multiplayer is SFP1/WoX. WoI with the expansion pack and final patch provides a platform just short of SF2's original release quality. The problem is getting SFP1/WoX to run stable on Windows 10 at normal frame rates. At this point, I believe there is a DirectX dll drop in package that solves the problem. It is extremely unlikely SF2 will ever have multiplayer or have any more patches or expansions. TK is done with "PC flight sims".

  3. The Drop Tank Dilemma

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in CombatACE News

    It never almost never hurts to have the option to use drop tanks. It very much hurts if you need them but can't have them.

  4. Flight Sim World: Closure Announcement

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in General Flight Sim News

    I hope the Hawk and P-40F are delivered in a decent condition very soon given the long wait. But they aren't full time developers and they have demonstrated DCS World level work is beyond their ability in any reasonable amount of time. The Hawk represented the easiest possible release: a subsonic trainer with no radar and relatively simple systems. RAZBAM started down the same path of developing a trainer... but then they must have realized the real workload is in the flight modeling and decided to start with a Mach 2 fighter with a decent radar and associated missiles. The MiG-21bis is another example of a Mach 2 radar equipped fighter being the first release. Both the Mirage and the MiG are far from perfect, but despite their supersonic capability and much more complex systems, they are still the best simulations of those aircraft available to the public. Whereas the Hawk has been and remains so buggy/low quality that people would probably be better off with an FSX or SF2 version than VEAO's Hawk. In the time that VEAO released the Hawk and still hasn't released the P-40F, Razbam released the Mirage 2000 and AV-8B and is nearing the release of the MiG-19. If ED's F/A-18C is completed in the near future and provides a radar function library that can be shared with the F-15E, you can bet Razbam will be heading down that road as fast as they can. Supposedly, Heatblur is going to follow up their excellent Viggen (my biggest complaint is that its mirrors don't work) with the F-14A/B sometime this year. In the meantime, the best VEAO can hope to do is deliver the completely redone Hawk 2.0 and finally release the P-40F that was "two weeks" from release when I pre-ordered it. Will VEAO even attempt to go any further with the Spitfire MkXIV or Eurofighter Typhoon? If they do, how many years before one or the other can be purchased/downloaded? I wish them the best of luck. I would love to see them complete their original planned series of releases. But past performance indicates we will be lucky if the Hawk 2.0 finally provides the product customers were expecting and even luckier if the P-40F is ever delivered at all no matter how many bugs it has.

  5. Flight Sim World: Closure Announcement

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in General Flight Sim News

    There is one aspect of this that makes me chuckle a bit... VEAO didn't do so well with DCS World, still struggling with the Hawk, yet to release the P-40F, and with an unfinished projects list that rivals the number of flyable aircraft in the entire SF series. So a "new" company appeared, "Blue Sky FS", that delivered a P-40F to Flight Sim World and was nearing delivery of the Spitfire MkXIV. The spokesperson for Blue Sky FS, also the spokesperson for VEAO, made sure to proclaim that these were two entirely different companies... it was just the 3d models developed for VEAO were now being ported to FSW by Blue Sky FS. VEAO had already announced that they were slowing to a crawl if not outright abandoning DCS World as a platform for their products and seeking other avenues, so why hide the fact that they created a new company to limit liability. But in a market dominated by FSX with the rise of P3D as the 64-bit update to FSX and the ever present and improving X-Plane, VEAO/Blue Sky chose Flight Sim World. It looked like a good choice. Unlike FSX (and to a lesser extent X-Plane) there was literally no competition in FSW for warbirds. But what they failed to realize is that there was a reason most of the major third party FSX companies chose to ignore FSW: they were trying to grab to big a slice of the FSX addon pie and give a piece to Steam, too... the same way they have done with their Train Simulator series for years. If FSW had been the only game in town, this strategy might have worked, but quite a big slice of the market is still flying FSX and/or Dovetail Games' FSX:Steam Edition. The rest either migrated to Prepar3d or X-Plane. Most of those potential customers weren't interested in a new sim with less features, limited addon support, and little or no backwards compatibility with old FSX addons. VEAO/Blue Sky bet on the wrong horse... again. Which flight sim will the VEAO/Blue Sky roulette wheel land on next? Have they thought about SF2? It is a stable code base with all the features and bugs being fairly well documented. If you don't count the literally thousands of free addons already available or YAP payware, there is virtually no competition. Unlike FSW, SF2 and even SFP1 is still for sale.

  6. Flight Sim World: Closure Announcement

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in General Flight Sim News

    I didn't really see that coming. They have been cruising along like everything was going great. But they were far from feature complete and had no plans to support VR. The battle right now is between P3DV4 and XP11. Flight Sim World was too far from matching either one in features. I have them all and P3DV4 with TacPack is the only one I like at all, and I still fly it rarely compared to DCS World. Sad to see another option go out of business, but how many versions of FSX can make it in what already is known to be a niche market?
  7. As for having ineffective countermeasures due to designing them to decoy your own guidance systems, this has been a problem for a long time. From the loss of Gary Power's U-2 to the SA-2 to the present, countermeasures have sometimes not only been ineffective, but acted like beacons. I can say from personal experience that this extends down to submarines, sonar, and torpedoes. The cure to the problem is to acquire functional examples of the enemies weapons complete with manuals. Thanks to India natively speaking English, we have some great manuals on Soviet hardware properly translated to English.
  8. His manner of speaking is very pleasant. His accent is very mild and his vocabulary and grammar are beyond typical native English speakers. He clearly enjoyed the F-4 despite its age and inferiority.

  9. A brief look at DCS World v2.5

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in Digital Combat Simulator News

    All I can do is wait, see, and hope for the best. But I have been doing that for quite a few years now.

  10. SF2_USN_F-4B_J_MissileStatus_v1

    streakeagle commented on Crusader's file in F-4

    I am a huge fan of the AIM-7 and love the 6 missile loadout. I was disappointed to find that the USAF didn't retain that capability and the Navy notoriously found the AIM-9 to be the better weapon for their situation where the reliability was almost nil after any amount of captive flights given the hard landings.
  11. There are countless mistakes he could have made that would have sent him down into the water. I doubt he was shot down. There is a happier story about a mechanic that stole an A-4 Skyhawk... and flew it just fine, then landed safely.

  12. A brief look at DCS World v2.5

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in Digital Combat Simulator News

    After years of delays, 2.0 became merely a beta with 2.5 becoming the long promised release utilizing DX11 to improve performance AND image quality. The 2.5 public release is a slight disappointment to me. It isn't very stable or fast. The graphics and terrains were improved in many areas, but at the cost of performance and some glitches with the new deferred shading. With all the years of development and recent months of beta testing, I expected more from the final 2.5 public release. It is still good, but my next PC needs at least 32 GB of the fastest RAM I can afford and a gpu that smokes my current 1080 GTX. Overall, I am disappointed with the transition form 1.5 to 2.5. 1.5 looked so much better than Strike Fighters 2, and ran fairly fast and stable. 2.5 is largely a step backwards for the moment other than the fact that it supports all three terrains currently available.
  13. What a horrible story. I could have done without having read that :(

  14. SF2_USN_F-4B_J_MissileStatus_v1

    streakeagle commented on Crusader's file in F-4

    Let me commend you for still working on updating these aircraft so many years after the original release. I don't recall my source(s), but from memory I seem to recall that aside from the original blocks of F-4Bs, no F-4 versions were actually wired to carry AIM-7s on the wing pylons. I am fairly certain the F-4J did not have that capability. I am pretty sure the F-4B lost that ability at some time in its life... maybe by the time it became the F-4N? I think the capability was lost when wiring and other things were changed to support later AIM-9 variants (different seeker cooling) and advanced air-to-ground stores. Photos of F-4s armed with 6 x AIM-7s are pretty rare.
  15. Another interesting aspect of SF logic: increasing the skill of enemy AI also decreased the skill of friendly AI. So if you don't want your friends to be total idiots counting on you to win the war for them, it is best to have the game difficulty/AI level at normal and use pilot skill settings in the missions/campaigns to improve the ratio of skilled pilots on the enemy side without turning all of your friends into novice targets.
  16. The game engine itself is balanced to make the player a 1-man air force. No matter what aircraft I fly, the only limits to my kill ratio are fuel and ammo... even when I am the only aircraft and I am tremendously outnumbered. I only get shot down if I focus on getting a kill rather than avoiding a threat. The game always had AI logic that made the enemy gravitate toward the player: i.e. if you target a plane through a visual padlock or radar lock, the AI will almost immediately engage you if it can, even if he couldn't see your and didn't have a RWR. Later patches after SF2NA was released addressed player complaints about missile reliability and unwinnable missions against naval formations resulted in friendly weapons having boosted reliability/accuracy/lethality while enemy units received the opposite. I never bothered to check the weapon files to see if this was done in the weapon definitions or if it was done through some sort of hard coded cheat for the player aircraft and/or side. In prior patch levels, especially SFP1 era, AIM-7s and AIM-9Bs were almost as ineffective as portrayed in historical data. No fun for a game, but I was in hog heaven watching missiles behave roughly the same as their real world counterparts. So even if you think you have achieved some kind of play balance based on enemy numbers and tech being balanced with friendly numbers and/or tech, the game engine may still give the player and/or the player's side a huge advantage.

  17. The F-4 Phantom and the Gun: Part 2

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in CombatACE News

    There's no kill like a guns kill!

  18. The F-4 Phantom and the Gun: Part 2

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in CombatACE News

    While there were a lot of USAF F-4 pilots sent into the theater with minimal training and ordered to use poor strategy/tactics leading to needless losses, the USAF still had some outstanding pilots that were the equal of any in the Navy and the gun armed F-4E gave history something the gunless USN F-4s could not: a supersonic gun kill, reportedly the highest speeds involved in a guns kill in history with the F-4 at about Mach 1.2 and the MiG-19 at a 90 degree crossing angle at about Mach 0.77. Listen to the audio from that kill here:
  19. This is a sore spot for me. Way back when SFP1 was originally released, you could create a mission with a ramp start. It was buggy, but it was clearly intended to be an option that wasn't finished yet. Of course some other unfinished intended options included drag chutes and an "action view". Instead of debugging and perfecting the "ramp start", TK took it away after some patch revision that escapes my memory... WoV? WoE? I am fairly certain it was there up to Service Pack 2a. TK intended to deliver the perfect survey sim, but found he lacked sales/popularity to fund its completion.

  20. Iron Eagle - have we finally covered everything?

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in The Pub

    I always liked Iron Eagle. I love Lou Gossett jr. and will tolerate almost any movie he is in. Hollywood never game him the leading roles he deserved. It is great that he wasn't so arrogant as to be above clearing a paycheck for the very low quality Iron Eagle series. Even if you take Lou out of the movie, the soundtrack alone, particularly Queen's track, made it worth it for me. This was a popcorn fantasy movie not unlike Independence Day. Kick back, enjoy what humor and excitement you can, and try not to cringe too much at the horrible writing/editing. Of the entire series, I could only really stomach the first one. Though the return of Doug Masters in the last one kind of makes it worth watching. I never saw the original or the first sequel in the theater, but I saw 3 and 4 in the theater. The idea of the 2nd one was probably the best story of all four movies. But I couldn't understand why they killed off Doug Masters in the opening seconds and had a hard time accepting F-4 Phantoms as substitutes for MiGs. These days, it would probably be my favorite if I watched them all again just to see the F-4 in the air. But the first one still has me with the soundtrack and the basic feel good story of saving his dad without losing anyone as well as the common but popular idea that the kids are smarter than the adults.
  21. From your stated preferences, I am guessing SF2 Europe is the one for you. But study the stock plane sets (both player and AI) of all the releases before your decision is final. Most AI aircraft have mods available to make them flyable, many with dedicated cockpits. List the top 10 aircraft you like to fly from the late 40s to the early 80s and the game that has most or all of these will probably be the on that is best for you.
  22. This is a matter of personal taste. The best thing to buy is all of them. That guarantees as much compatibility as possible with all of the SF2 mods. However, I understand the cost is prohibitive for an older game like this, especially for someone on a tight budget. SF2 North Atlantic was the final game release. It is pretty cool, but has a very limited flyable plane set compared to older games. If you love the F-14 and the idea of recreating the Red Storm Rising battle around Keflavik, Iceland, this is the game for you. SF2 Europe is probably the most popular and the most compatible with mods. The plane set is outstanding and with a single large addon, the final revision of NATO Fighters, it is absolutely the biggest and best of all versions. But I am a historical re-creation nut. I don't want to make up new or alternate history like SF2 NA and SF2 E, I like to recreate history as is possible with SF2 Vietnam and SF2 Israel. It is a tossup as to which I prefer more. SF2 Vietnam has all of my favorite aircraft and includes carrier operations. SF 2 Israel has a much better looking stock terrain and includes more modern fighters like the F-15 and F-16 as well as Mirages and even old WW2 aircraft like the P-51D Mustang. Mods can make the SF2 Vietnam terrain look as well or better than SF2 Israel. The original SF2 release that updated the original SFP1 with its fictional terrain and history has its own unique values: a pretty good plane set and a mercenary campaign that provided unique gameplay not possible with any of the other historical/hypothetical games. If I could buy only one game, it would probably be SF2 Vietnam because of my love of all the aircraft used by both sides as well as the history of this war. SF2 Israel would be my 2nd choice. SF2 Europe my 3rd choice. SF2 NA my 4th choice. And finally, for its mercenary campaign system, plain vanilla SF2.

  23. The F-4 Phantom and the Gun: Part 1

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in CombatACE News

    There is an Osprey book on the F-15 in Israeli service. It covers a lot of the fights in detail along with pilot comments. The gun was used a lot more often on the F-15 than is otherwise apparent, especially prior to 1982. They went out of there way to use the AIM-7 since that is the primary weapon of the F-15, but the AIM-7F didn't do much better than the AIM-7E2 (which was actually pretty good as far as AIM-7s go). You can also look at the F-14 engagements with Libya. They use the AIM-7 as much as possible but ultimately end up using AIM-9s. I am a huge AIM-7 fan and the AIM-7M finally achieved a useful PK, but the AIM-7 never achieved the reliability of the AIM-9. More complexity = less reliability. The USAF F-4s assigned to CAP in 1972 did fairly well with the AIM-7, but that was out of necessity due to the ineffectiveness of AIM-4s and AIM-9E/J missiles. Combat Tree helped them attempt BVR shots which were the ideal situation. The AIM-7E2 also performed much better than earlier AIM-7s in a short range dogfight/tail chase situation with shorter minimum range, higher allowed launch g, and more maneuverability. The AIM-7F was supposed to be far superior to the AIM-7E, but apparently its seeker was inferior to the British Skyflash. Rather than buy the British weapons (which had the older inferior AIM-7E platform), the AIM-7M had a seeker comparable to the Skyflash and the engine/performance of the AIM-7F. An AIM-7 with an AMRAAM equivalent seeker would have been great, but with funding going down after the collapse of the USSR, all further AIM-7 development was canceled in favor of the lighter AMRAAM, which could be carried by just about any aircraft that could carry the AIM-9.

  24. The F-4 Phantom and the Gun: Part 1

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in CombatACE News

    As for the value of the gun, just read about Israeli experience with the F-15 in combat. They still used the guns quite a bit despite the advances provided by the AIM-7F and Shafrir missiles. They don't have any good things to say about the AIM-7. They love having the gun when all else has failed. The F-4 was originally designed to have guns (4x20mm in the belly IIRC). It was a mistake to delete them. If you think the chin mount is bad for a gun/radar installation, just look that the F/A-18 Hornet for a worse idea. If an opponent has stealth/ECM comparable to the USA, guns may yet prove to be the key to success in air-to-air combat.

  25. The F-4 Phantom and the Gun: Part 1

    streakeagle replied to MigBuster's topic in CombatACE News

    The AWG-10 evolved into a great radar but it fell far short of the brochure data as released with the F-4J. A slatted F-4S with the AWG-10B was an awesome machine only lacking a gun. But look at where the F-4E was at during the same time frame. The APQ-120 evolved in parallel with the AWG-10... digital improvements increased reliability and capability across the board. But look at what the F-4E gained in its multi-role ground attack capability as well as the frameless front canopy that was deployed in limited numbers. I would have been happy to be a pilot of either one, but I think I would have preferred the F-4E unless I specifically was tasked with fleet defense over water, in which case the F-4S/AWG-10 was just short of the F-14/AWG-9 capability. But the F-4E was better at dogfighting and far better at ground attack.
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