streakeagle

Had to come to and end sooner or later.

I have always loved SAAB aircraft since the first time I saw a Draken. At this point, I am not sure which I love the most, the Draken or the Viggen. The Gripen comes in third, but all three are among the best looking and best performing fighters of their time. What more could you ask except maybe an engine and avionics/weapons upgrade for the Draken and Viggen?

DCS progress on integrating the old with the new into what will be Version 2.5 has been incredibly slow. I don't do "betas", which means I haven't even experienced the new Nevada map. My refusal to install the 2.x beta is somewhat ironic because even the current official release version 1.5.4. xxx is really a beta with all the bugs that get released despite beta testing. The aircraft that brought me to DCS World, the MiG-21bis actually seems to get worse over time. Leatherneck doesn't take kindly to criticism, yet can't ever live up to even one announcement on fixes and/or dates. Don't even talk to me about VEAO, their Hawk, or the P-40F. But that is all I have to say that is negative. Despite old and new bugs, the Leatherneck MiG-21bis is still one of the most amazing aircraft I have ever flown in any sim. The F-86F and MiG-15bis almost bring tears to my eyes with the level of immersion they bring to flying those aircraft. The DCS P-51D, Bf109K4, and Fw190D9 are the only WW2 aircraft I will fly for any length of time after years of Aces High being my favorite WW2 air combat sim. And when it comes to helos, NOTHING else even comes close to touching the DCS UH-1H and Mi-8. Even the Flaming Cliffs F-15C and Su-27 appear to be modeled better than in any other sim with those aircraft. While I prefer air-to-air combat, the level of immersion in DCS World is such that I am perfectly happy enjoying cold starts, talking to the ground crew and control tower on the radio, taxiing, taking off, following real-world approach procedures, and landing. If DCS World had a global map, like FSX, especially with the option to populate that map with objects based on the current date, it would be THE mother of all flight sims. I am eagerly awaiting the F-5E, F/A-18C, Viggen, and P-40F. The F-5E in Nevada will be especially cool. I would like to be an F-5E/MiG-21bis pilot that takes down online players flying F-15Cs, but I can settle with taking down much easier to kill AI F-15Cs since I will probably never have the skill/luck to kill human players in F-15Cs. DCS World's glaring limitation is that the world is restricted to the Black Sea and or Nevada. With the completion of the WW2 Normandy map and decent Korea, Vietnam, and Israel/Middle East maps with period correct objects, DCS World could be the absolute best combat flight sim ever produced. One can only hope that they reach their goals before going bankrupt.

I have been out of country for two weeks and just now got the chance to try the latest patch. LCOS gunsight works much better now. It didn't move before.

I don't understand the argument at this point. The MiG-21's combat record is far from good. It only performed reasonably well when given very specific environments where the enemy had ROE and/or leadership issues that crippled the opfor's aircraft. Whenever it fought in environments where the enemy had no such restrictions, it was decimated... even by large, smokey F-4s and/or F-15s. Even in the best case, using radar and speed to ambush loaded F-4s with inexperienced pilots, it never did better than 1:2 overall. That fact that it couldn't be spotted head-on at ranges longer than 2nm was extremely annoying, but it was only when it performed precision ground controlled hit and run attacks from the blind 6 at Mach+ speeds where its size wasn't a factor that it excelled. What cannot be denied is that the MiG-21 was the most produced supersonic fighter jet and still serves after all of these years. But despite costing far more, F-4 Phantoms were produced in quite substantial numbers and are still serving, too. If I had to fly one against the other in combat tomorrow, I would easily take the latest Turkish or Greek F-4s over any variant of MiG-21 still serving. Despite its size and smoke, the F-4 had the advantage then and still does.

Like previous Belsimtek releases, their the F-5 beta is better than many other sims' final releases. But look in the last round of patches and look at the bug list on the ED forums. It is still listed as a beta because it still has the rough spots to be expected of a beta.

Try not to go to the doctor so much! Spend more time shopping for Godzilla and playing flight simulator games!

<S> One of the many that gave all. But one of the few whose name will be celebrated for many years to come.

The F-5E is absolutely a treat to fly. The main problem I have with the beta after dogfighting MiG-21s and F-14s is the dysfunctional LCOS sight. I can fight just fine without it, but I love a well-modeled LCOS. Nothing more satisfying than putting the pipper on a specific aiming point like the wing tip, tail, or cockpit canopy and then squeezing off a very small burst and having nearly every round hit with a catastrophic result.

If the MiG-21 is so hard to beat, why did F-4s average 2:1 or better kill ratios against them while being heavy smokers with crappy missiles? In 1972, with better training and missiles, the Navy was getting 6:1 or better kill records with hard wing F-4Js against MiG-17s that turned better and were just as hard to spot as MiG-21s. Why would the Su-27 be built at all if small size were the key to air superiority? I love the MiG-21. In some ways, it was the forerunner of the F-16, at least for WVR dogfight performance. But pilots could not see out of the cockpit. They were very short range and meant to be pure interceptors. When used for dog fighting, they ran out of fuel. The guys at groom lake liked beating teen fighters, but could only win if: 1) they were allowed to fly in a way that allowed them to get WVR undetected. 2) they flew in a way to have enough fuel to fight. 3) the opposition didn't have experience against the type, which affected their ability to spot the MiG-21 and exploit its weaknesses.

I just tried out the new F-5E. It is a little rough as an early beta... but extremely impressive. I can't wait to see how the F-14A, AJS-37, and F/A-18C turn out. I can remember when I used to host SFP1 multiplayer 24/7 and there was a mod that added the F-5 and F-14. I loved the F-5 a lot.

I assure you, I want you to succeed in any and all endeavors to improve SF2. Discovering how to use the SF2NA terrain engine and implement a terrain better than TK did would add a lot to the existing maps... especially if they could be scaled 1:1. TK was such a genius in so many ways. DCS World still hasn't caught up to his level of making the aircraft and decals so modder friendly. But he made some odd compromises. less than 1:1 terrain and a refusal to even provide an arcade/automated in-flight refueling system were big ones. Abandoning ramp starts and drag chutes that were clearly planned in the original SFP1 release were odd choices too. The avionics were right at a sweet spot between fun/playable and realistic. If the terrain engine had been up to the level of the aircraft in shape and texture... it would have beaten the crap out of LOMAC/FC with good marketing. It was always the better game AND sim but lacked some eye candy and multiplayer that many gamers need to see before even considering buying a game. Until the DCS World quality cockpits arrived, TK's were inherently better... and when pro modders like you took over, the engine really shined. It is a shame TK couldn't make the business model work well enough to continue. The tablet games are ok for tablets, but a pale shadow of the fun to be had in the SF2 series. As far as mesh resolutions go: I have the FSX/TacPack F-4B and installed some upgrades to model Vietnam better, both mesh and textures. The Hanoi/Thud Ridge area in this modded FSX is directly equal to Google Earth meshes. It is pretty impressive to see detailed mountains, valleys, etc. But, as low a resolution as the stock SF2 Vietnam mesh is, your textures smoke anything I can find for FSX... much closer to photo real... and seasonal, too. Nice Korea meshes. Reminds me of how much better SF2I terrain looked compared to the original SFP1 map.

Whether you understood or liked the tone of my reply, the answers remain the same: 1) TK already provided a way to do this and somebody needs to look for it, but the odds are low since people have already dissected most of his dll ini keys. 2) The game files need to be hacked/modified with a hex editor. 3) The stream of data going from the physics engine to the display engine needs to be intercepted and altered by an outside program in real time per the shader plugins for DirectX. I have no objections to anyone trying to increase the accuracy/realism/immersion of the SF series. But it has been under the scrutiny of so many modders that I would really be surprised if anyone could find anything new and not have already posted it here. I have only seen three efforts of note to push this sim beyond its current boundaries: the WTR effort, the mysterious and mostly ignored hacker-type, "mlracing" or something like that that appeared to be altering the game files (option 2 above)... and you with your never ending struggle to expand and improve terrains and cockpits. Of those three, only you would answer anyone on these boards. So, if you can't answer this question, I don't have any idea of who else to ask beyond the cockpit guru, moon jumper. I suspect if MJ knew how to make the HUD any more realistic, he already would have done it. No one wants you to pack up your toys because you make them and paint them so nicely and even share them for free. But you have to accept, you are among the last of the serious modders for this sim and this is the last English speaking forum that cares about this sim to that degree. So when the one remaining expert asks for help... you are probably only to get one or two types of answers: total silence or half-humorous/half-sarcastic comments.

It does suffer from the "sterile" effect that IL-2 also had. But DCS World has some events that aren't so sterile. It can be scripted to look and feel a lot like MS FSX in terms of traffic and comms. Lots of work on the mission author's end, but even basic missions are fairly entertaining to me with just a few events taking place outside of my focus... stray traffic, radio comms, etc. But the flight and systems modeling combined with the graphics is so much more immersive for me than SF2... and the combat, however limited the AI are, is by far better than anything you can do in FSX, even with the latest 3rd party addons. So DCS gives you a sim whose graphics, scripting, and systems modeling is comparable, if not superior to FSX and combat functionality that is generally as good as SF2. The area that FSX and SF2 smack down DCS World is the maps... or lack of them and the the objects that need to exist on those maps for significant time frames. I am still waiting for the 2.x engine to prove that it is going to close that gap significantly while I am still young enough to enjoy it. The Normandy 1944 map needs to be done well enough to impress and win over WW2 fans from other WW2 air combat sims. The F/A-18C needs a great carrier and the Middle East map to show off the new engine in the modern era. But ED is missing a huge opportunity if it doesn't provide an awesome Korean War package. The most recent competition is MiG Alley and the SFP1/SF2 KAW mods. Model Korea and the combatants on the ground, in the air, and at sea decently, and you will have an amazing one-of-a-kind sim/game.

If you can play and enjoy SFP1/WoX/SF2 all these years and live with the sight drifting off combiner glass, why would smooth, accurate indications on a HUD bother you? As for fixing it. All of those animations are driven by hard coded dlls. Unless you are very talented at interpreting hex code and manually editing it, the only other way to change it would be a hidden or ignored ini parameter. Given TK's attitude toward the game play superiority of the wild gun sight drifting down into the cockpit, I don't see why he would have made any provision for having slow or glitchy updates to HUD data. But he did have some whimsical features that favored extreme realism in some areas, so who knows? Good luck finding an already coded internal solution. Of course if you could identify a stream of information and intercept it the way some of the DX shader drop ins take over the graphics quality... there is some hope with time and skillz.

However slow and problematic it may be... the best part about DCS World is that it is steadily progressing. The game engine, the core modules, and the third party addons are all steadily getting better. Whereas SF2 is a dead engine. The terrain engine for SFP1 was obsolete from the day it was released and SF2NA's new terrain engine was a failure for me (and apparently the modding community since absolutely no one has been able to release a terrain based on its "improved" tech). The DCS World plane set has significant overlap with the SFP1/SF2 plane set at this point. There is not one aircraft that I can fly in both sims for which I prefer flying SF2 over DCS World. The F-4, the century series, MiG-23, and F2H-2 are the principal aircraft that draw me back to SF2 at all. I hope DCS World eventually covers most of those aircraft before ED goes out of business or I get too old to enjoy them.

X-36 USB was pretty much my favorite. The X-45 was an X-36 made cheaper and with flashy colors/lights. I passed on the X-52 as my X-45 and X-36 both functioned fine. But the X-52 Pro popped up at only $100 on the old GoGamers.com, so I couldn't resist and got the Pro Pedals, too. The X-52 Pro was great in many ways, but I liked the rudder rocker on the X-36/X-45 better than the twisty stick of the X-52/X-52 Pro. My son still used the X-52 Pro when he wants to play Mech Warrior, but the twisty stick pot has gotten dirty/noisy from lack of use. I had cut up the X-45 in my 2nd revision of my real B-8 grip/F-4 Phantom stick, but the X-36 is still fully functional. After getting a Warthog for only $350 a few years back, and also having the final BU0836X derived version of my F-4 stick, I had zero interest in the non-moving X-65 that was exactly the opposite of what I wanted and already had. The X-55 looked interesting, but my son moved on to tablets and/or mouse/keyboard shooter games so I still don't need another stick with the Warthog still performing flawlessly other than "stiction", which I improved with an extension and some lube. The X-56 looks like it is the X-45/X-52 to the X-55... flashier but somewhat of a step backwards. Saitek sticks have always suffered from some ergonomic issues despite efforts to avoid them. But reading Ken's X-56 review and looking at the photos, they don't seem to actually try playing games with a design before finalizing and producing it! While I am most interested in scale reproductions of real aircraft controls, close approximations in color and style of real controls that are very PC game friendly are a good way to go. The looks and arrangement of the X-36 USB and X-52 Pro represent what I would expect and want from Saitek at a fair price. The X-65 looked good to me, but I prefer a conventional stick to an F-16 like pressure transducer. The X-55 looke pretty good, but seeing the X-56 review makes me think the X-55 might have had similar ergonomics problems beyond the quality control issues I read about on various forums. Fortunately for me, my Warthog has had only one problem: the serial board that communicates the stick button positions to the controller base lost the first stage trigger function, so I had to order and install a new board. At about $40 including shipping, that was way cheaper than buying a new HOTAS. With that one repair, every function on the Warthog continues to work as well as brand new. I don't want to see Saitek go out of business. The X-36, X-45, and X-52 Pro gave me years of great flight simming at very affordable prices. But, I won't buy new sticks when my existing stick is still working flawlessly and better than Saitek's best. So, I hope new gamers who can't afford or don't want Warthogs or CH Products will continue to support Saitek. At some point, I will need new rudder pedals. With the years of use/abuse my Saitek Pro Pedals have survived, I wouldn't mind getting another set, but Saitek is having money issues and has allowed many of their high end flight sim products to go out of production and run out of inventory. So, when my Saitek pedals finally die, I may end up buying one of those high-end, low-production, all-metal, high-precision, expensive rudder pedals I always see on all the flight sim forums. The stick I would consider getting if it wasn't out of stock and my Warthog died is the highest end version of the Russian Mamba. It is Warthog grip compatible and appears to be the absolute best in hardware. But they are very low production rate, high-priced, and sell out every time they are offered up for sale. I keep following them with a watchful eye. One day my Warthog will not be cost-effective to repair and may even be out of production... Why isn't Thrustmaster making a range of replica grips for the Cougar/Warthog sticks? I would have a B-8 grip, a P-51 grip, an Su-27 grip... and/or any other major fighter grip if they weren't too expensive. They shouldn't make them out of metal. Not just to keep costs down, but because the real grips weren't metal. My F-4 B-8 is the standard US milspec grip... some sort of resin/plastic that is very sturdy and much more comfortable than cold metal.

Are there any MiG-21 pilots who have ever painted an F-15 kill on their aircraft? Sometimes size gives you things to make up for your ease of being spotted. The F-15's kill record would indicate the trade-off was the right one if you can afford the price tag.

Fantastic history!

This is the display from the backseat, but the glass part is visually identical: This is the front seat with the red filter: Notice the similarity in tech of the RWR indicator: Finally, a screenshot of one of my SFP1/WoX series F-4 cockpit texture upgrades that used a cleaned up version of the backseat display image for the front seat: The SF2 stock cockpits were so accurate that I never bothered to try to make an updated F-4 cockpit texture set... however, I liked to copy over the radar and RWR screen textures, despite their comparatively low quality.

The actual display has the traditional colors of an oscilloscope CRT: light gray-green screen with bright yellow-green display indications. This is covered by and engraved graticule that looks white contrasted against the gray-green screen. But the display is not very bright, so it is recessed a bit into the panel. On the front of the panel is a night filter lens that can be removed. The night filter is a red color to make it match traditional night lighting.

Don't give up. It is worth the effort to get it working!

While their products had flaws, I bought and enjoyed all of the RAZBAM SF aircraft releases. One of the aircraft that keeps me flying SF2 is their F2H-2. When they originally sold their products, IIRC, they did have quite a disclaimer about how long you would be able to download from them and that it was the purchaser's responsibility to store/backup the purchased files. I remember a number of people being ignored who needed new copies later. I don't understand why they aren't more customer friendly? But, I have all of my aircraft backed up on a dvd (among countless other SF files) as well as stored on multiple hard drives. As I don't fly SF2 that much anymore, I don't know that I would be bothered if I lost the files at this point, but if I really missed the F2H-2, I might buy that one again, because it was dramatically better than the "A-Team"'s version. As far as the DCS Mirage 2000C goes, I have done a few take-offs/landings and some WVR air combat with guns. I like what I see, but won't bother getting to know this plane until its feature set/flight model is more stable. Based on how well it works right now, I won't hesitate to buy their DCS Mirage IIICJ when/if it becomes available.

Even the AIM-9B had some sort of prox fusing... it was one of several advantages it held over the AIM-4 (which required a direct hit to detonate). But the "kill radius" is a measure of the warhead's effectiveness, not the range/sensitivity of the fusing. I don't know about the game's logic for prox fusing, but in real life a rear aspect missile like an AIM-9 would want to wait until the missile had reached its closest point of approach before detonating, so most likely, it would either have a fairly close prox range with hardly any delay, or a small delay for a longer prox range to give the missile time to get closer before detonating. A head on aspect missile like the early AIM-7s needed to be fused for high closure rates... longer range proximity with very fast detonation, putting up a wall of fragments in front of the target. This made early AIM-7s less than useful for tail shots. Later versions improved for dogfighting had a more dynamic fusing setup allowing for different aspects.

The key is that it is not a true simulation, it looks and feels like a simulation, but its primary purpose is to be a fun game. I don't like it when a random bomber or sub comes and destroys one of my favorite ships with almost nothing I can do about it, but those are just about the only problems I can't work around. Carriers are oddly implemented... they are easily taken out since they start within gun range, but if you know how to use torpedo and dive bombers correctly, they are even more powerful than submarines with their lethal and and long ranged attacks. My favorite is a straight BB vs BB fight... or other well balanced matchups such as DD vs DD or CA vs CA.