squid

Terrain is more or less the same let's get clear on that, I have FC2 and yes it's nice polished LockOn but that's it, however the terrain and overall graphics are unreasonably demanding, my terrain benchmark to this day is il2 with amazing details, solid complexity and runs smooth as butter even on ancient machines. LOMAC never had that you always needed top notch state of the art computer to run that game.

So basically it's the same old flyables on a same old terrain, sure nice, polished and updated but content-wise it offers nothing new unless you are an on-line type of player and on top of that modding is almost discouraged instead encouraged.

 

Mind you I'm not saying LOMAC is a bad product, quite the contrary but I find all this praise waay to much

 

 

Maybe they are but like I said they are also much more demanding, I would even say unreasonably demanding so they ask for way more $ than what's on the pricetag...

As for Nevada it's a training terrain, for 20$ I think that's too much but I understand the fan-base wanting it no matter what...

FC2 / BS2 terrain Indeed its polished FC1, but still, improved. (eg, gong back to FC1/lockon i could feel the difference and wanted to go back to the FC2 eyecandy) The demanding is even maybe an understatement ... But there are workarounds for that making it possible to achieve a golden medium between looks and performance - just like the terrain detail / horizon distance in NA) The moding situation is eventually changing and from what i heard its planned to change significantly.

Me too, i am not saying SF2 is a bad product. I am not even saying ED is the best. FAR from it. ED pages are full of my remarks on things their product is weak and wrong. And the perfomance issues is indeed of its worst and most important flaws.

You have also a point indeed in the aspect of if you don't own a higher spec rig at least you have the TW option, saving you the huge bucks eaten by hardware. But as i said still there are workarounds for ED performance, while if you are new buyer you need 60 usd to not be stuck with two flyables, and you cant escape an outdated environment. Thank god though ofcourse theres the modding community which raises SF to a gorgeous level. SF and ED stuff are different things , i used the ED example only to state that more or less TW exists in a specific market that has some competition. I am not saying i regret buying it. But saying that contemplating if i will keep on buying (unless he changes smth in his policy) . That if he keeps on like that, maybe there would be financially not much TW left to produce titles / DLC / updates ... That i am sometimes frustrated , seeing this huge potential unexploited and kind of lets say self-sabotaged. Because it does exist either he or we want it or not, in the middle of a market that extends beyond us here, and it has competition issues / pricing in that market. At least in the way i see it ... (And if it wasn't for the wonderful choices provided by the modders i think it would have long lost most of the market merit i has.) And because i absolutely dont want TW to go out of business is another one of the reasons i have been a customer so far.

would you (and only you!) pay me 20 bucks for otherwise free Green Hell 3 HD?

 

 

no..?

 

see, some things should be free, FC2 as much as "nice" it is should have other terrain than Georgia from start

 

I'd pay for your terrain mods !! :D They are worth it . Especially if you released a NEW theatre. I dont know now how much i would be willing to pay for that, and again i have to see what Nevada is about actually first and then decide and yes more than indeed Lockon should had come with other active terrain options looong time ago .....

As much as I understood it's pretty much the same terrain and same aircrafts as FC2 and FC1, you only get online compatibility with DCS players.

If you ask me that's free patch material.

 

LOL I've just read they will charge 20$ for a Nevada terrain, now that's silly...

FC2 is better terrain and graphics than FC1 , apart from other changes - improvements. FC3 is DCS graphics - terrain , (better than FC2) amongst other numerous game improvements again, and allows you to join a multiplayer theatre of awesome graphics with KA-50, or A-10C, or as ground forces controller or as one of the FC3 flyables - including the reds (which TW has not too)

The terrains of ED standards i believe are worth paying as separates. Now if Nevada is worth 20 usd, will have to see more videos and screens and what actually comes with when its out, to judge.

This is not a radar screen, it's a tactical display showing contacts gathered by all the flights and the Hawkeye. At least it says so in the manual :)

 

plus own radar contacts i think

Aside from the immersion-killing Hawkeye-voiceovers

Yeap ... that sounds quite amateurishly made ... like the homescreens which look like there has been effort put intentionally to make them as cheap and uggly as possible .... Whats with that? no radio transmission fx plugins available around for TW sound editing software ? ..... I am not saying NA is not worth. (Not 30 usd though) Ofcourse it is. Adds on one side a new potential base with major changes - improvements in various parts of the games core. But they are not yet visible or porjected / promoted as they should. Still keeping the ugly wrapping and something so easy to improve to proper standards : clouds etc : That is all WRONG marketing . It looks more like a big update / patch + throwing in a flyable tomcat and phoenix. For 30 USD i will get later this year Flaming Cliffs 3 which is HEAPS away from NA. - Think that: If you get just NA, for 30 dollars, you only get a flyable tomcat and a corsair and a dull outdated visually terrain . Thats all. Smth like buying Seven-G for 30 USD ...

Paying 30usd for Flaming Cliffs 3 (or even Flaming Cliffs 2) you get galactically more product. You may need to spend maybe 10 usd more to acquire a copy of original Lockon if you don't have one already, then again you need another 30 usd to buy another SF2 title -so to get some decent number of flyables more- and if its Europe you get a joke of a terrain ....

TK has correctly moved to a more effective profit wise strategy some time ago, but i think he is overdoing it maybe now .... i am having serious thoughts the past few days about buying from TW again ......

Just being honest

major bug with Isafjordur Airport (forgive me lack of specific fonts) -every wingman crasches into basalt after take off -I know it might be not that big issue as I think in campaign no one starts from there, but just happened to me in single mission:

 

If you manage to land and take off on there i'll give you a cookie

you can eject in SF2 ? LOL

I hereby declare this the Combat Ace Post Of The Year

Grumman F-14A-GR-75 Tomcat = $38,000,000USD.

 

CVN-68 Nimitz Class aircraft carrier = $4,500,000,000USD.

 

9K33 Osa(SA-N-9 Gecko)Surface-to-Air Missile system = ~735,380,000RUB.

 

...Gettin' SAMed on while going to Tension on Catapult 1.....

 

... = Pretty f*ckin s***ty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SidDogg

What other would be cool to be added : head inertia , like they have this option in Eagle Dynamics (Lockon, DCS) . Accidentaly i just had an experience like that by hiting the map borders and it suddenly add A WHOLE NEW FEEL (more real) to the sim ... seriously ... even the static screen looks cool, although it could be just from a TRACK-IR. Not everybody has Track-IR though ....

i actually feel like i have paid $30 for beta testing lol thats ok though

Martin Baker GRU-7A ? ....

Its here . Cursor and crosshair area on the map. Some elevation confusion. The engine cant decide if it should be land or water. Like Lockon , i think water is rendered under the land. (I swear i think i saw the logo of AMD somewhere between those islands )

Guys your coastlines have the issue i refer to, no transitions at all. Now concerning the screen i post i bet its like that in yours too, i just have to find again that area again and visit the specific area.

:( can you send or post some coastline screen ?

RGR that! I love the new "true" coastline no longer being out-of-this-world (Xen?) simple artistic's repeatable rendition, also the sea man the sea!

i dont believe you refer to this as coastline huh ?

.

Outside Pearl Harbor ...

OK people everybody that has performance issues gather up!

 

I just tried it at low, it still has 1 300 000 polys but ofcourse runs much, much smoother, you can set it to low without concerning about how will it look as with 10x the detail of old SF2 terrains it still looks great...

 

I got 10 fps more btw...

i confirm. works even with middle. Combined with very far distance i got improved eye candy with old performance

so far any clues maybe what controls the color of the sea ?

first impressions :

- new water graphics is not automatically ported to the other titles of the merged install (will it be portable to the other titles somehow?)

- higher graphics options added to almost all graphics settings dropdowns. if choosen, becomes indeed heavier on the framerates

- iceland is a huge empty desert

- no coastline water transition

- small islands more like geometric splinter camo

- pit is nice but something i cant put my finger on exactly feels like kind of a notch less that the quality feel of other recent TK pits

- smth wrong with map being black in my installation

- I can't roll the Tomcat when at 09+ mach. Once at around 400kts suddenly rolls normaly

- A-7Es labeled as F-14A

- Are F-14 ejection seats correct ?

- New theme song

- Pardon, Cruiseish pilot voice ? ...

- i really would like to alter the color of the sea

- I am now sure DanW made the home screen at least (if not the whole GUI or all titles)

- Blast shields not raised on launching on saved mission ?

- Missiles not droped on Control-J ? (nessage stores dropped appears though)

(TK, you need to change those clouds already)

There is an S released not too long ago.

 

http://combatace.com...-4s-phantom-ii/

 

There are new Hornets with new pits on the way.

 

Check screen shot thread.

Garrr! The century-old alpha-channel bug is still there:

 

 

not nice

pffff designers

those name-calling again!

 

Iceland=not ice, mostly, lots of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock, known as the perfect habitat zone for plant life...

 

 

Greenland=Ice,ice,ice, no plants after all

pfff architects

 

Back on track though, since the terrain was built in max, could you add max made trees to it?

the 375 million dollar question

 

 

TK has not mentioned anything about them. We already have a J-model, the N would require a new external model, and the S would require the same, plus a new' pit.

 

The A-6 would be interesting, though the devil's in the details. Namely, would Third Wire invest the resources in simulating its weapons delivery/avionics systems? Probably not.

 

Again, no. I would tend to believe that the Bug is outside the time frame of any of the TW sims released to date. The A-model wasn't officially accepted into service until March of 1983, and none deployed off the Nimitz, (for example) until the C-model, in 1991.

Bummer i say . But i'd be (as everybody) uber-busy for too long with NA and all the moding involved :D :P

At least we have the J :)

- The manual hasn't been updated yet

- is it only me who sees the sea color too saturated ?

I installed Exp1 after Exp2 and it works just fine. (Nov 2011 patch level)

- Is your install a merge one ?

- Is your SF2 installation based on prior to May 2011 installer or later ?

- There was no F-4 squadron aboard Nimitz in 79 ?

- Do we see F-4J, N, S and A-6s later DLC releases ?

- Has there been maybe any hint / info i missed about later F/A-18A plans ?

I don't think I've ever mentioned this to anyone except BLTDAN...

 

Back when TK worked with Destineer to make WoE, I and several others here were on the official beta test team. This was more formal than TKs normal beta tests were, in that we used a web based bug-tracking tool. Anyway, one of the producers at Destineer saw my old website and contacted me via email, which resulted in us talking on the phone a couple of times. He was really fired up that the games had such a following, and was impressed with the work that the modders had done to the point where he wanted to either include some community work in the game, or possibly have a selection of official community mods available on their website. This never went beyond a couple of conversations, and I was clear with him that we in the community didn't want to step on TKs toes or get in his way. It makes me wonder what would have happened if TK had taken a different approach back then when he had an actual publisher and his games were in stores.

WoE was the last release in an enjoyable package, both box and game GUI .... was really excited back then, combined with all the cool new planes it brought. I never stop wishing he would release with that wrapping / garnish level again. (Cant help it, after all i am a graphic designer, we are often known OCD cases)

The United Game Industries Federation will shut him down and all copies of SF will be declared illegal, 17 market policy and laws violations and copyright theft, and we will all be interrogated by Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ms, EA, and ubisoft agents, if he accepts community contribution. Seriously, apart from the hobby level sometimes the business side of things is more bizare than we usually know. You just never know. I personally somehow understand why a developer like that perefers to keep total control of the thing, as much as it makes sense to work together with the community talents in any kind of reward or not scheme. Can't really blame the choice despite my preference for him utilizing the community potential.