streakeagle

I turned off shadows and got my fps to hover near 40. Now I am playing much better, but aside from eye candy and trackIR support, it doesn't really feel any better than OFP/Resistance.

I can't believe it. F-4 throttle sticks are available on e-bay: http://cgi.ebay.com/F-4-Phantom-THROTTLE-C...1QQcmdZViewItem Wish I had the cash :(

I literally spent years trying to rally people to play SFP1, WOV, and WOE online. For quite sometime I left a dogfight server up at Hyperlobby for SFP1, WOV, and finally a merged WOE/WOV install. Traffic was too low and real life has prevented me from playing very much myself for a couple of years now, so I shut my server down. Multiplayer works and is very rewarding compared to fighting against AI, yet it never caught on with this sim series for various reasons. It doesn't help that TK/Third Wire has low to no interest in refining/improving MP features. I hope this series stays around long enough that TK finally gets around to expanding MP features to attract a multiplayer crowd.

The wing-droop will be controlled per the real aircraft: automatically scheduled based on Mach number. I have yet to determine if they will provide any aerodynamic function. If it is possible, they may be used to increase yaw stability as in the real aircraft.

It should be noted that aircraft which were not designed to be carrier based cannot repeatedly be used for carrier landings regardless of whether they have a tailhook or not. The landing gear (including the tailhook) has to be much stronger (and weigh more) than aircraft designed for normal runway landings. It is easier to convert a carrier based aircraft to a land-based aircraft than the other way around: For example, the F-4 Phantom was designed to be carrier based. The principal change required to make it land based was putting wider tires on the main landing gear to lower the psi exerted on runway surfaces, which in turn required addiing bulges to the wings to accommodate them. Ironically, the Navy's F-4J ended up using the wider USAF tires and wing bulges since its landing weight increased. Compare this to the F-15 Eagle which was not designed to be carrier based. The Navy was asked to consider buying F-15s instead of the much more expensive F-14s: it was lighter, smaller, and had much better overall performance. However, the navalizing the F-15 and arming it with AIM-54 missiles would have increased its weight and cost substantially such that they ended up staying with the F-14. In theory, an unmodified F-15 could land on an aircraft carrier with a minimum of problems (assuming the pilot was trained to do so). However, it would simply be a matter of time before the landing gear and/or airframe failed in some way, perhaps even catastrophically.

I went ahead and ordered from NWS, but it is the 505 Games UK version (the same as the one at GoGamer.com). I think I should have waited until May for the US release. Of course, I will be buying a copy of the US release anyway... I currently have 8 copies of OFP with adequate PCs to run them on. I only have two PCs that would run Armed Assault reasonably well, so I will probably only get 2 copies of Armed Assault over the short term.

McFly hasn't been active in the online community for quite some time. It amazes me how he continues to keep his website open to support Jane's USAF and SFP1. It is still a great source of info and downloads despite being completely inactive for 3 years.

I got the flight manual and the performance annex, which has plenty of useful data for making a decent flight model. However, I also found a public NASA document which had some equally valuable information. Now this is what I am talking about:

I splurged and got the flight manual for the XB-70 as well as a few others from the SFP1 time frame. My stack of flight manual CD's is getting pretty tall. I have only physically printed out a few of them since they take up quite a bit of shelf space.

I have taken on the task of doing the data ini for this project. So far, I have found very limited published data on the flight characteristics of this aircraft. I am going to have to apply a lot of rules of thumb (which won't apply so well to such an unusual aircraft). I also don't have any practice estimating inertia/moment/stability values. My time is also very limited: I can only spend at most 2 to 4 hours a week on this. It is going to take me awhile to get this done. I hope to have a reasonable FM finished in time for the completion of the 3d model that can be further refined as time permits.

Go here for a great comparison chart: http://www.column5.us/sfchart.htm SFP1 definitely has some things WOV does not, first and foremost the F-104G Starfighter and the C-130A Hercules (as well as the semi-fictional desert terrain and associated campaign). Since SFP1 is sold at Circuit City for $5, what have you got to lose by buying it? (2 gallons of gas?) SF Gold is more expensive and was missing the F-104 and C-130, but a later free addon made the F-104G available and the F-4J and A-4F were standard instead of addons. It has a couple of more campaigns. If you don't mind the cost or the loss of the C-130 and really like flying campaigns, it is a good way to go. For me, there is no question. I love this sim series and have tried to support TK / Thirdwire fully as well as simply completing my collection by buying everything available: SFP1 (Wallyworld edition) for $40 from Walmart upgraded for free by Strategy First to the final gold release. SFP1 (ValueSoft edition) for $5 from Circuit City SF Gold (GMX) for about $40 imported from Britain WOV for $30 from Best Buy WOE for $30 from Best Buy and the much less popular, First Flight for $50 from Bihrle I did not need the $5 ValueSoft edition, but it was so cheap and came already patched to SP2a (a long time standard version and a good start for patching prior to the release of the new all-in-one service pack patches.

Aircraft in these sims perform per the aerodynamic co-efficients programmed into them: 1. Given actual lift, drag, and thrust curves for a given fixed wing aircraft, an extremely realistic flight model can be produced very quickly. Sufficient quantities of data this good is almost impossible to come by. 2. Given very detailed performance curves, the lift, drag, and thrust curves can be accurately derived/estimated with less than 1% error in most areas of the flight envelope. Some flight manuals, such as the F-4 Phantom, contain more than enough data to get this accurate. This is a very time consuming/labor intensive process as charted data has to be converted into tables of numbers which are then converted into tables of aerodynamic data which then has to be co-related to solve for the data needed by the flight model. 3. Given just a few specific performance parameters such as max sustained and instantaneous turn rates, max climb performance, max speed at sea level and max speed at altitude, a flight model can be made using basic aerodynamic rules of thumb which will hit those numbers and still have more than 20% over most areas of the flight envelope. 4. Given just the standard data found in most aviation books such as ceiling, max speed, sea level thrust, weight, and dimensions, almost any flight model can be quickly manipulated to hit those numbers and still have more than 50% error over almost the entire flight envelope. If a similar aircraft is used as a baseline, then despite the lack of data and the very little time spent developing the FM, the quality may approach that of the previous group. The stock flight models and some addons tend to fall in group 3 since they were engineered more to be fun and flyable than precise to the decimal point. Of the hundreds of addons released, most fall in group 4 as an existing flight model is hastily modified to reflect the weight, dimensions, and top speed of some less than well documented aircraft. Very few addons fall in group 2. There are only a few people capable of doing this and they can only make so much progress given they have jobs and families. I do not know of any SFP1 aircraft with flight models made from a complete set of aerodynamic co-efficient curves. So group 1 is an unattainable holy grail as far as I know. So, if you find yourself unhappy with the induced drag of some delta-winged addon, feel free to increase it to any amount you like. The trick is knowing what the real aircraft could do and calibrating the flight model to follow that. Of course, you may find that the other aircraft have such low drag that any aircraft with a truly realistic flight model will get stomped in a dogfight. Try temporarily installing my advanced F-4B flight model (an old attempt at a group 2 flight model) and you will see what I mean :) That version doesn't have calibrated level flight acceleration or climb performance, but its angle of attack limitations, speed envelope, and turn performance are extremely accurate (much less than 1% error in the subsonic region and not too bad above Mach 1.2 either). But be forewarned, the F-4B is practically a delta and therefore bleeds speed like a stuck pig at high angles of attack. I suggest keeping your speed above 400 kts or you won't have a chance against aircraft with stock FMs. You can get my F-4B FM here: http://web.tampabay.rr.com/sflores1/files/F-4B.zip

AIM-9Bs can be effective, but you need to be almost directly behind a hot target (preferably after burner engaged) to get a lock and the target must not be making a sharp turn. Typically, AIM-9Bs are most effective against a target that is flying level in a straight line. However, sometimes they will surprise you and lock/track/hit a target that would otherwise appear difficult to hit. Most notably, I have used the AIM-9B to hit aircraft diving for the deck in full afterburner, have hit at point blank inside firing range, and have even scored a few hits from head on. But these are very much exceptions to the rule. Normally, you are in a turn fight and the AIM-9B will never hit a target that is doing anything more than a very gentle turn.

To answer your question more directly: To the best of my knowledge, you cannot toggle the IR seeker into uncaged mode in any of the SF/WOV/WOE sims. In aircraft using the avionics60.dll (i.e. 1960s avionics used by most aircraft in the series) the seeker is always slaved directly ahead (caged). In aircraft using the avionics70.dll (.e. 1970s avionics used by the stock WOE F-15A) the seeker seems to change behavior depending on whether or not you are locked on to a target. Fly a stock F-15 in WOE and watch the behavior of the seeker cue when just cruising around without tracking any bandits on radar, then watch what it does when you are using TWS or STT to lock onto an enemy. Aircraft like the F-4J represent an unusual situation with avionics that were halfway between the 1960s and 1970s technology. As originally delivered, the F-4J was mostly at the 60's level, but by 1972 in Vietnam, the F-4J had a lot of the features that the F-15A avionics had. Personally, I would make uprated versions of the F-4D/E/J that used the avionics70.dll, but it doesn't include ground radar modes so it is best just to stay with the original avionics. Another disadvantage to upgrading to the newer avionics is that the noisy analog radar returns go away, which clearly remained a feature of even the latest USAF/USN F-4 radar displays despite upgrades. Knowing TK's sim-lite strategy in terms of keeping avionics operation simplified, I don't foresee a future patch ever improving this situation. Of course, TK does surprise us all with some of the things he decides to support, so who knows?

It is at avsim: http://library.avsim.net/sendfile.php?Loca...&DLID=58835

My FPS in WOV has never been very high, but my current rig keeps them up high enough. There are several possible factors, but start with horizon distance. Since the newer patches, this seems to have a big effect on fps. Something to do with the new water and other terrain resolution enhancements. Another factor that is often overlooked is sound. In some hardware setups, you can unload your cpu and get better fps by reducing the number of sound channels used and/or reducing hardware acceleration for sound. The air defenses in WOV keep the pc busy in a large number of ways: special effects (SAM smoke and flak bursts) and sound effects (not only gunfire and missile sounds, but all those "SAM launched!" calls as well). If you can't get the results you want by tinkering with those two things, try setting graphics to low, then going to custom and tweaking one thing at a time until you identify which element(s) are dragging you down. I have everything cranked up on my system except for the horizon distance and I typically average 40 to 60 fps, but still dip down into the 20s when a lot of things are going on, typically during a ground strike run with heavy defenses and lots of aircraft/missiles all around.

I found this on another forum and was wondering why it isn't posted here? http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?t=18234 LOMAC Tools for 3DS MAX 7 LOMAC Tools is the tools used in ED for converting 3D models to the internal LOM format for LOMAC. It version worked with 3D MAX 7.0 only. CDDS studio for creating textures CDDS files. LOCKON Viewer for overview *.CMD and *.LOM models and check draw arguments. This is still a long way from being "open source" since I don't see a way to add new cockpits and flight models. But this is a huge step forward in that direction! Perhaps one day, LOMAC will be more like SFP1/WOV/WOE, i.e. able to accurately support a wide variety of flyable aircraft throughout various time frames. For those interested in what's going on, this seems to be the place to go: http://www.lockon-models.com/ As with SFP1/WOV/WOE, the French are making a strong showing already having Mirages imported into LOMAC:

http://hirevsims.com/01prod/prod01.htm A-10, F-15, F-16, and F-18 sticks and throttles. These sticks make Cougars look cheap ;) They even offer some sticks for helos and heavy aircraft. I hate to imagine the prices for these sticks.

one email bounced. one other got a "sorry, we don't sell to individuals" another got no reply at all.

The modders giveth and the modders taketh away. It is a good thing that I archive nearly every aircraft variant ever released for the SFP1/WOV/WOE series :)

3dsMax has to be used to make the final export lod file to be used by the game. Any other software which produces a file format that can be imported into 3dsMax will work, but you will have to give your files from the other software to someone with 3dsMax for the final export. There are no excpetions to this.

For those who may not have noticed, this sim has been released and has a new forum: First Eagles: The Great Air War 1918. The boxed version is available in Europe. Third Wire now has an online store and is selling the download version for USA $30. Go here for more info: http://www.thirdwire.com/ While the programmer, TK, defines this game as a "sim-lite", the aircraft 3d models and textures are first rate and the flight models are far from arcade. The terrain engine is a bit dated, but looks adequate considering that the focus is on air combat. The air combat is intense, especially when using TrackIR w/Vector. This is both a fun and challenging game. Like all Thirdwire sims, the game is open to mods of all types including new 3d models/flight models. The graphics quality can be scaled down to run on all but the oldest/weakest machines. When run at the highest quality, only the terrain looks inferior. The aircraft and clouds are amazing.

File Name: F-4 radar graticules File Submitter: streakeagle File Submitted: 30 Apr 2006 File Category: SF Add-On Cockpits Authentic early F-4E etched glass radar graticule and conversion of stock F-4B, F-4C, and F-4D radar graticule to etched glass. Perfect for use with hi-res F-4 cockpits. Click here to download this file

File Name: WOE A-10A CCIP File Submitter: streakeagle File Submitted: 28 Apr 2006 File Category: Thirdwire Series (SF/WOV/WOE/WWI) Is this what everyone wanted? I am not an air-to-ground type, and look what results I got in a single mission. Click here to download this file

File Name: Wings Over Europe F-15A File Submitter: streakeagle File Submitted: 27 Apr 2006 File Category: Thirdwire Series (SF/WOV/WOE/WWI) A 30MB movie showcasing the Wings Over Europe F-15A in air combat. Click here to download this file