Rodent

Or we could go the super ridiculous humor approach on the space shuttle and make it a combat plane with the booster rockets turned into huge missiles and the fuel tank a 900 gigaton bomb.

Orbiter is awesome space flight simulator. It is completely free too so whenever you feel like taking up a shuttle I recommend trying that out. It has a lot of regular airplanes modeled for it too that you can fly around with, including military combat jets, but there is no combat and weapons are not really functional. For military aviation Strike Fighters is where I get my fix, and for my space flight fix I go to Orbiter. Back to the idea of the space shuttle in thirdwire series sims though. It is an interesting thought but I think it would be difficult to implement, There are no true orbital mechanics in tw sims as far as I know so even if you got it up there it would just fall out of the sky again, but somewhere far outside the map most likely. So if we had the space shuttle here too, what would it be doing? I imagine a landing scenario for it would work, and could work quite well too. What else?

What caliber guns does this thing carry? and what is their range?

Depends on what I am doing. The 3 views seem to remember their zoom and position if you don't repeat the keypress when you are in it, so sometimes I set F1 to be the standard view, I normally zoom back a little bit on the F1 view, and then I set the F2 and F3 differently depending on what I want to do. I like to have a zoomed in view of the radar in BVR engagements so I have a more detailed view on what target I lock up and fire at. If I fly an AC 130 I might have one view set to look left, unless I just use the F4 key to lock view to the target, but that doesn't always work when there are a billion targets to cycle through.

Dynamic missions would be pretty cool too. Chances of getting a new additional objective while already on a mission could make things interesting. Would have to be intelligent enough to get you something you carry ordnance to take care of, and enough fuel for the extra distance. Say you are on your way to bomb a target and friendly ground troops request air support and you are the only thing close enough that has the capability to kill some tanks.

I imagine a big problem is getting a cockpit view that both shows all the instruments you need to see without blocking the view too much is that you only have the flat monitor to look at. Moving your head generally does not move your point of view, also there is the lack of depth perception and of course the scale. Most monitors are too small to show everyting at the size you would see it in real life without narrowing your field of view down so much its like wearing blinders. I do love a great cockpit but I understand wanting the non cockpit view too. The monitor is just big enough to act as a forward window, and really you would need the space beneath the monitor to show the instruments. All that said about how bad the monitor is for showing a pit I still find myself using the pit all the time. I love the look of a good pit and I find myself missing the instruments if they aren't there.

Looks like the missile hit and penetrated the hull and got stuck there but didn't go off lol. Gonna be interesting to land with that thing sticking out there.

I have only played the demo on the PC but it looks a bit like you have a similar problem with a dead zone several miles wide. At least when you cross the dead zone border you can still turn slow. My problem is when I finally pull the stick far enough to make the plane change direction it does so far too quick. It is like having 20 degree increments, so if I want to fly level but am in a 10 degree climb I have a very hard time not ending up in a 10 degree dive instead. At least I can configure all keys any way I want them though.

Distributing MiG parts

Sure there is! Release a self inflating balloon shaped like your aircraft. Distracts gunners guaranteed!

Man you guys post some good looking shots. I am almost embarassed to show mine. Anyways, pigs can kill migs too. Those winders are there for a reason.

The Su-27 gives me a problem if it is on my tail already. I like flying the Gripen and it stalls easier, turns slower, and is underpowered compared to the Flanker. I don't usually have much of a problem if I have missiles, but if in a gunfight and it gets on my tail first I have a hard time shaking it. It's always the guns that kill me.

Actually speeds don't go below 1000 kmh even if you go straight up with full airbrakes, at least in assistance ON mode. Also when you stall the plane it just drops out of the sky. It seems to loose all forward momentum as it instantly goes straight downwards. you can even see the 90 degree angle edge of the vapor trails. Rolling the plane to the side does not affect the direction it travels either but it keeps going in a perfectly straight line, not loosing altitude and not turning. I guess the wings aren't really neccecary to produce lift afterall but they are just there to mount missiles on. It is a ridiculous arcade shooter with airplanes, and if you expect nothing more than that it can be pretty amusing. But really, it is ridiculous.

One of theese bullets has to hit something.

I downloaded and played the demo today. Pretty fun game although the controls kind of suck. I mean I could not find anywhere to adjust the dead zone for the joystick and you have to move it way too far for any input to be recognized so you can't do any precision steering at all. I mean minimum input to get the plane to steer at all has almost the same effect at moving the stick all the way out so I barely have the sense of analog controls at all. Anyone found a place to adjust this? Amusing game otherwise. It does not have a lot in common with reality though. Love that you can carry 150 sidewinders that are good against any aircraft, tank, or ship.. no actually I don't love that it is rather silly. If you go into this game expecting a simulator you will be very disappointed, but looking at it like a shoot em up with airplanes I find this quite entertaining. If only I could adjust the sensetivity and dead zone somewhere...

Well here is my view on arcade vs simulator. Arcade disregards such things as physics and realism to focus on accessibility and ease of use. Simulator focus on realism in areas that arcade games ignore. In my eyes a simulator does not neccecarily need to simulate the system down to each and every button, but if it simulates physics and flight or control characteristics, then it is a simulator to me. Outrun is not a simulator and does not try to be. it does not simulate any aspect of driving a car. I would say the Gran Turismo series is a lot closer to racing simulation because it pays a lot more attention to the physics part, even if I am not required to turn the key to start the engine in each car before every race. I don't say it is a complete simulator either. It does not simulate damage to your car for example, but it does to some extent simulate the car's behavior on tarmac. Orbiter does not really have collision detection and you can't even crash on the ground with most spacecraft but you just bounce off. I still call it a simulator though because lets face it, in simulated space flight hit detection is of very little consequence. Realistic orbital mechanics is of priority instead. Btw there are addon spacecraft that simulate taking damage too so it is not entirely missing from Orbiter. In the end I think what makes a simulator depends on what it tries to simulate and how successfully it manages to do it. H.A.W.X as far as I can tell does not attempt to simulate anything on any level, but the physics of flight in that game are completely made up and detached from reality. Arcade mechanics as someone said. This does not mean I am bashing the game because it is not realistic. The makers of the game did not think realism was the best fit for it and made their own model to be what they thought was most fun for their intended audience.

- Hey! stop playing with that laser pointer! - Oh come on it's just a harmless dot. What could happen?

Like I posted in the screenshot thread a while ago, 5m above the ground and 1302 kmh above the speed limit.

The following did not happen in one day, but it all happened in the same week. About a year and a half ago I was a bit low on money because first off I did lend my dad some money for car repairs. Then my washing machine exploded so I bought a new one. Well actually the drum came loose during centrifuge drying so there was no real combustion of anything but I imagine its the closest thing to exploding that a washing machine may do. I also had to pull 4 teeth and have jaw surgery. My PC monitor died, and warranty had just run out so I borrwed another from a friend. Then the video card died and I replaced that with an older one. My wireless router stopped working. I called the tech support for that router, had to wait about 30 minutes in line, and when a techie finally got to me we spoke for about 15-20 seconds before the phone died too. Somewhere among all this the hinge to my Nintendo DS Lite broke off. Not trying to get anyone to feel sorry for me, but I think there is possibly some humor in there.

I scored several hits with it, but none on my intended targets. I don't think I should be using this when there are friendlies on the ground just yet. FORE!

So when the phoenix gets close it opens up and releases the smaller nimbler missiles it was carrying! Woot multi stage air to air missiles.

I think a lot of movie makers do not take games plots seriously, and when tasked with making a movie adaptation of a game they care very little about the original plot. They probably think they know better because they do movies. They probably see games as inferior. Ignoring the plot and making up their own thing, only visually resembling the original in some way. I especially think of Doom. Original story is that a gate to hell is created through wich the creatures of hell come to invade our dimension. In the movie it is about genetic experiments. If comic book to movie adaptations would get the same treatment, then superman would be a flying robot spacecowboy that wrangles asteroids, and be from Earth, not Krypton. This robot cowboy would dress like the superman we know so there would be some visual resemblence. Max Payne at least stuck to the original background story, but why do movies always seem to butcher the plots from games so bad?

Ejection seats? Does SF2 do that? I mean, has it been programmed to support that but it has not been implemented in any aircraft yet or something?

Are eels better or worse drivers than lazercats?

Call of Duty 4 is awsome in an action movie sort of way. It is a shooter on rails, but very cinematic and very intense. Realism is not of a great concern since nobody is calling it a simulator. It's an action game all way through. I do not mind a game not being very realistic but I don't like people throwing the word sim on anything that involves airplanes regardless of realism levels.