FastCargo

Dave, you may not want to spin up too much on the campaign mechanics until the first big patch for NA. It may resolve some of the issues that you're seeing. Might be better to just to otherwise line up the OOB. FC

Yea, I've seen the concept drawings...even uglier with a 'Snoopy' nose. Would much rather have the H model in the stable. FC

I've seen that phenomenon before...I forget what was needed to solve the problem. FC

Yep, KC-135R by the look of it. FC

Shining his ass and it came back to bite him. FC

Ya know, I could have lived with that McNamara decision... FC

Damn it Dave! You just gave birth to Skynet...sheesh, now we're all toast! FC

Awww yeah!

I'm with ya on this one streakeagle...I respected Jason when he was with GoGamer. He always struck me as very responsive...he tended to be the 'go to' guy when anyone had issues with GoGamer, and he almost always was able to help folks in a prompt and respectful manner. Also, I dealt with him personally when he was selling some of his stuff...got it for a very reasonable price and in great condition, just like he said. He struck me as 'one of us' in the flight simulation world. It's a shame things have degraded...however, I don't know the whole story. Sometimes dealing with people can raise frustrations that can be vented, but inappropriately... FC

steve1070, A lot of the aircraft are meant to be historically accurate where possible. That means that things like certain aircraft not carrying certain missiles, or lacking certain ECM features are not a bug, but in fact reflect reality. Another example was someone posting that the big gun on the A-10 doesn't sound right because it sounds like a loud fart when firing. What the person didn't know was that the GAU-8 cannon on the Hawg (and most other 'Vulcan' cannons of a similar design) sounds exactly like that because of the high rate of fire. One final example is folks assuming you should be able to do a VTOL taxioff in a Harrier...with a full weapons load. Doesn't happen...a fully outfitted Harrier can only (with very few exceptions) do a STOL takeoff. VTOL ops are typically meant for recovery. If you're ever unsure as to what an aircraft should or should not be able to do, usually a quick Google search and/or a search on this website will enlighten you. It'll help save you time and frustration, and will guide you on what questions to ask and when to ask them. FC

It's not just the shadowing, it's the shading...the bumps of clouds do not look anywhere close to realistic. Much easier to post emitters instead. FC PS Here's an example of what I did using 'round' emitters in a stack...6 on the bottom, 3 in the middle, and 1 on top. Made the 'clouds' look 3 dimensional, with 'fuzzy' borders. Change the size and position of the various emitters and you can make thunderstorms. Even can fly through them with decent realism.

I've done 3d clouds in the engine before...the in game shadowing/shading makes them look really bad. And I seriously doubt bump mapping will give better results. I have had much better looking results using airborne emitters from balloon objects. FC

That means there is no CarrierParkAnimation. FC

Guys, come on, really? Break out your rulers somewhere else...this thread is not the place to be comparing virtual penises. Now, discussions on how SF2:NA runs on a particular rig configuration are legitimate in that folks do need comparisons. Obviously, there are going to be variances depending on specific optimizations...but those need to be noted. Also, it should be obvious that if your rig is right at or below minimum specs, SF2:NA will not run without a lot of adjustments. In addition, I think a comparison between available freeware and payware is legitimate. People do need to have an idea on what the payware will get you in comparison to what is already available. I thought PFunk's review was fairly accurate. I think the tone of the review was harsher than it needed to be, but I think it summed up the good and bad pretty well. I might have gone into some detail of what exactly about the freeware F-14 is more compelling than the payware F-14...that seemed a bit glossed over to me. FC

Actually, if I remember, the F-14 uses spoilers and differential stabilizers to roll...but the spoilers are deactivated when the wing sweep exceeds 57 degrees... FC

I pretty much do it like that as well, then use xNormal instead of a plugin. Basically...anything less than 128/128/128 will show as a 'dimple' and anything brighter than 128/128/128 will show as a 'bump'. The farther away from 128/128/128 it is, the more pronounced the effect is. FC

IL2 1946 is why. BoB II is why. WOP is why. TK's profit model is to NOT do what others are doing. Everyone is doing WWII...only TK is doing the 60s to the early 80s. FC

Alrighty then... The question is always value...are the benefits of the purchase enough to offset the detriments? Modern combat aircraft simulations, especially those with electronic warfare included, are very complex programs...which is why most software companies have gone bankrupt or have abandoned the serious air combat simulation market. You can count on one hand (and have several fingers left over) the number of companies that still exist that put out air combat simulations that include electronic warfare. One company is large, putting out simulations that focus in detail on one aircraft, have closed systems, cost tons of money and lots of people to develop, and benefit from work done for the government. One company is very small, putting out simulations that are more survey sims, has an open system for 3rd party modifications, and has very little budget. One thing no one has mentioned really is that payware has a budget. Every day that product is not released is another day money is being spent with no return. That tends to put increasing pressure on a developer to get the product out...regardless of what potential customers want. It is always a tradeoff between how long a feature will take to make and how much money it will make...all superimposed on the relentless pace of technology. Freeware has no such constraints...because there is no monetary pressure (ie cost) to get it done, an infinite amount of time can be taken to release the product. All things considered, what TK has done is quite remarkable, making a simulation that in many ways is very detailed in terms of what it has to model (AI, electronic warfare, aerodynamics, ballistics, graphics, etc), yet still trying to keep it backwards compatible and open. Is that an excuse for a crappy product? Of course not...the market can be unforgiving for a non-functional product. SF2:NA is certainly functional, with a lot of little bugs, and a few large ones (Fringe ships, co-mixing fleets, A-7E campaign start crash). For any product, the idea of 'release now, fix later' can hurt long term sales. However, the developer may feel boxed into a corner...no money to spend on beta testers (or bad past experiences with extensive beta testing), but no money left to continue development of the current title, especially if that title has implemented several new core features (new terrain engine, new avionics, new dlls, etc). The pressure to release may become overwhelming...if the product gets out there now, revenue will be available to spend on fixing post-release bugs. I am not saying that's what happened here. I will say, there is nothing out there on the market that is like the TW sims...period. I challenge anyone to find sims that cover the time period, aircraft, gameplay and remain available to freely modify. FC

1) Correct...and specifically only for the 32-bit version of MAX 2009. 2) As far as I know, MAX will not let you save to earlier versions of the program...and earlier versions cannot read later versions of MAX files. FC

Don't know if that's going to happen...I don't think we were ever able to recover the latest F-14 model before most of Oli's work was lost. FC

It seems to be aa A-7E campaign issue...single missions start out just fine on the carrier. FC Roll I can understand...but ain't no way your head is going to be that far to the edge when strapped in unless you push it there yourself. FC

Also, head inertia you can adjust yourself in one of the inis... FC

It's not a bug then. The LHA is not being used by any stock TW title (yes, even merged) as a carrier. As such, it does not require a deck. Now, once a stock SF2 install uses the LHA as a carrier, then it not having a deck is a bug! Having said that, once we can get a look at the new carrier ini, we should be able to add the appropriate entries into the LHA to make it a functional carrier. FC

Well, until the Tawara is being used by SF2:NAs game engine with stock TW Harriers, I'd take a bug report of a spawn issue with a grain of salt because you're still using 3rd party objects. FC

Aren't the Harriers and Tawara third party? We probably shouldn't include errors with non-TW stuff as 'bugs'. FC