Seawolf

keep your eye on the prize man, no matter what. Good Luck

Personally I dont like all this talk about leaks, etc as all that does is hurt the Developers and us, not UbiSoft. People just need either start a petition (like they have) and relax. Its only a game.

Unfortunantly thats probably not even a full salary for the janitor. We get 10,000 sigs and we might be in business.

Raptor, its not quite like that.lol The Navy and Marine Corps are a lot closer than to the other branches. We used to kid about the air force, but they do get some neat toys to play with. It's actually funny because Naval Aviators say that Flairing on landing is like squating to pee.LOL Stalker, Great pic dude but what the pic doesnt show is the fact that the room with all the chics is actually a USAF barraks.LMAO j/k I know it gets rough in the air force, every now and then the moca machine breaks down.

LOL Nice work

ah man am I going to catch hell for this, but what is a zoomie? LOL btw- what is your background as a pilot? there isnt much in your bio and I think someone mentioned wild weasel at some point, but it would be kool to know a little more if you could.

I think its more that the majority of people who frequent here are mature adults and thre isnt much need for Jeff to be a D**k. Heres to hoping it stays that way. SimHQ is getting just as bad so Biohaz seems to be a safe house for me personally, I can relax and just talk shop here without hearing all the bitching and moaning from the kiddies. btw- the petition is up to 444 when I signed it.

Airquake? hardly. Furball (free for all) is airquake. The types of missions I am referring to pit teams against each other where coordination, skill, teamwork, communication all play a part in winning. I like Dogfighting online and consider it much more challenging than dropping a bomb on a building. so dont insult me by calling it airquake.

Yeah UbiSoft and EA are two companies with little difference between each other. Both put the customer second. We should go back to how it was when the first PC games were being made when developers just put thier disks into ziplock bags and sold them that way without any publishers so basically no middleman and all the money goes where it needs to.

Damn Mudd I thought you were prior Air Force my Friend I had no Idea you were USMC. My Apologies sir and feel free to keel haul me as you see fit.lol. <S> sir

Is it me or is the Lomac forum at SimHQ getting really wierd. Ever since Carl posted about a demo possibly this week or next people are going nutz and in some cases turning against Lomac like they are trying to eat thier young. I dont see problems here or at the UbiSoft forums, maybe its just me. People need to relax.

Well if you want to say "Told ya so" now would be a good time. LOL I feel bad for people like Carl who are trying to do the right thing but powerless against the decisions made by ubisoft. He does the best he can to not lead people on, but people only see what they want to and nothing he says will make a difference in how people act. I must say this forum has really shown its maturity level so far and kudos to everyone for maintaining and even straight.

Dice, Dude, Screw um! Go fly the A10 and forget about these boards. The same people who are raising a stink right now will be first in line buying a copy when its released. It's all a bunch of kids with nothing better to do than bitch and moan. Go do your thing and forget about these morons.

Hey Sledge, I hear ya. I have gotten used to it over time and the good news is I just found out about a new evenstrain mod called the Evenstrain Lite which will be around $150-$200 , perfect for my price range. This should be a popular mod for the simmers on a budget our there and the biggest problem will be availability since this mod is made by one guy by hand so it will take a lot of time to outfit several cougars. One thing about this cougar that I do like is it just keeps on working. I dont get any lockups, cutouts, freezes, software issues, nothing. It just site there until I need it then it just works. so I cant complain all that much. As soon as I get rid of the dead spots around the axis and loosen up the feel just a tad I will be a happy camper.

In all fairness to Carl Nightstalker, I remember the thread in question and he was very carefull not to give a specific deadline with this demo. He said this week or next depending on issues that might come up. What happens is people take an answer like this week or next and turn it into "Carl said this week, I heard him, he said it" and then you get all of this they lied again garbage. I guess what ticks me off is how ungratefull people seem to be. I have bitched and moaned about the lack of communication from the SF dev team (TK) until I finally just gave up checking for any updates, but with Lomac I couldnt ask for more communication from a dev team. These guys have been everywhere answering questions, putting out screenshots, movies, etc and up until a couple of months ago there was no demo, but now in a few days we probably will have one. Truth is UbiSoft or ED doesnt owe any of us this demo especially when the release date is now Winter 2003 so the fact that we are getting a demo is really icing on the cake, but still people bitch. Maybe I need to take my own advice and chill out, but it ticks me off when I see people act like spoiled kids.

Not bad Mudd. The A10 is almost ugly enough to be a Naval aircraft we might have to grandfather you into the club.lol

The FA18C addon is strickly a "what if" scenerio at this point and if Carl were here I'm sure he would say "No Promises" lol Good news is I believe the dev team or portions of the team have already started doing some work on the FA18C to use as a addon after release. The visual model is pretty close to finished it looks like, but as confirmed by Carl they will have to add A/G radar and precision strike (laser and GPS guided) weapons for the Hornet as well not to mention the American carrier ops, etc. Lets keep our fingers crossed for a good turnout on release day because any addon depends strongly on how well Lomac does at the register. IMO the Hornet could bring Lomac full circle and give us the most out of this sim at this time. Of course the possibilities are endless as long as the money is there, but who knows maybe we will see a Harrier added or a Mirage, Tornado, even Apaches and Havocs who knows whats down the road, but it's sure to be fun.

Yeah, it sounds real good. I think the possibilities will be endless when it's all said and done with Lomac. At least I hope

Well 4v4 is pretty much a group thing and especially when it turns into a squad match where its last man standing wins it for his squadron things can get pretty intense. Also for the first time Squadrons can actually do real aggressor training using MIG29s and other aircraft. Im sure free for all will be there somewhere, but keep in mind free for alls arent very popular with Jet sims like in Prop sims. The speeds are so much higher and tactics change. I forget who told me this but someone explained the difference between a Prop dogfight and a Jet dogfight as being the same as the difference between playing checkers and chess. Same fundementals, but a lot more going on. Problem with free for alls is lack of any real wingman tactics and if your smart you wont go into any fight without your wingman. Yes it sounds "Top Gun" ish, but it is true. 1v1 engagements were always boring to me and the only reason I did them was for the ladder points. 2v2 and 4v4 is where its at. You will find out real quick that furballs arent much fun and you spend a lot of time in a chute unless you have a good wingman to watch your tail and you both communicate well. Man we would go up against some of these squadrons 4v4 and it was thier best 4 vs our best 4 and in those flights we probably had the best 8 pilots flying against each other out of the whole community. It literally came down to who had the most fuel left as to who won the engagement because we just ran circles around each other. I would actually be sweating when it was over, thats how much fun it was. Trust me Snapple, you dont want IL2 style furballs. Those are fun for about 30 seconds, but the most fun you will have is communicating with a wingman and working as a team. Many online pilots only care about the kills and will leave thier buddies to go Glory hunting for kills, but they usually end up alone and killed themselves. If your job is as a wingman and you are supposed to stay back and cover your partners tail then dont get right up on his butt trying to get in a pot shot, stay back and maintain a position you can react to any threat that gets in the way. It's going to take some practice so be prepared.lol

Good thing thats a Russian Carrier, because if you had desicrated an American carrier with that flemsy Air Force glider Chief and I would put a hurtin on ya. lol

Well Snapple, I consider myself an old dog when it comes to online air combat. I started with Fighters Anthology and a 28.8 modem and progressed through Hornet Korea, Falcon4, and recently Janes F18 where I held the #2 slot on the official JF18 1v1 ladder so I think I have a good idea about what makes a good online experience in a combat sim. (was that too much ego? oh well) Let's break it down into two groups: Group 1- (A/A) These are your typical head to head dogfighters. This group likes custom missions designed to keep both sides at an even vantage point until the merge and then its pilot skill and how well he knows his aircraft that determines the outcome, but this is the dogfight group and they are out for blood. Group 2- (A/G) These are your COOP ground pounders. These guys like big complex missions with about 12-16 other pilots in the same flight. They like about an hour brief before the flight and have everything planned to the T. This group is in for the combat experince and keeping it as true to life as possible. Tedious, maticulous, and some might say Anal, but make no mistake these guys perform missions such as STRIKE, SEAD, etc from start to finish as if they were really there. Now with these two groups keep in mind that both are hardcore to thier specific area of expertise. Group 1 loves the thrill of dogfighting and uses every real world tactic to achieve thier goal, which is to kill the bad guy deader than hell. Group 2 is just as hardcore, but for them emphasis is placed on planning, coordination, execution,etc and recreating a mission from start to finish just like the real deals do it. I consider myself in group 1 with a little group 2 thrown in for flavor. Now as far as Lomac goes I think the head to head dogfighters out there will be very pleased because when dogfighting in Janes F18 you didnt get a choice of aircraft. Everyone online flew F18s , even the oposition, so although it made things even as far as aircraft go it got pretty boring since you could not learn your own aircraft or use certain advantages on a apponant. Lomac gives us the opportunity to actually fly against different aircraft which adds a whole other factor to the dogfight. Each pilot has the ability to learn his or her aircraft and use its strengths in a fight as well as get caught with its weaknesses. A F15c against a SU27 makes for a very interesting engagement if both pilots "know" thier aircraft. Or a MIG29k against a SU27. Makes dogfighting more dynamic like in real life. As far as the ground pounders go they will be making good use out of that mission builder and comming up with some really nice missions for that A10. You will be able to split up between two flights and even 4 flights with soviet vs nato in a mission as if you were fighting a real war. Imagine if you will you have a flight of 2 A10s and 2 F15s in a SEAD mission with the Eagles providing cover for the Hogs. On the other side you have 2 SU25s and 2 SU27s (or even 4 SU27s as intercept). The two sides can fly against each other in the same mission. It wont take long before someone comes up with thier own campaign built with missions like this just for coop play online. This is why when people start to cry about the dynamic campaign It doesnt really matter, having a good mission builder is way better than any dynamic campaign (IMO). Now that being said if its a DC like what you see in EECH where its force on force and you can fly against each other in real time like a real war then that would be great, but the next best thing is a good missions builder. As far as the standard for online flying it will come down to what the different squads come up with after a little time online with Lomac. You can expect full realism settings unless something is hosed up like in Janes F15 with the realistic flight model (highly unlikely with lomac, just an example) or anything else. External views I dont see as a big deal AS LONG AS the Blackout works in external view as well. If blackouts dont occur in externals then they may have to be disabled during competitions. I think JF18 didnt have blackouts in external either and we still used external view so it shouldnt be a biggie. Whatever happens I dont want to see this community get so anal about settings like the IL2 bunch did that it kills the fun online with Lomac. For Head to Head engagements (4v4 or 2v2 etc) you will probably see a setup where you have a custom mission approved by both squads or teams which has some good terrain for terrain masking, starting distance will be around 30nm to the merge for both sides, weapons loadouts will probably be Heaters and guns only with sparrows being used is agreed by both sides (AIM120s take a lot of the skill out of the dogfight and arent used in 4v4 engagements much online, sparrows need a constant lock or HOJ to work so more skill involved). A/G coops will be totally up to the host and what he has planned out so should be no problem there, but get ready for some intense competition from a lot of squadrons online. Since Lomac will most likely be at Hyperlobby I'm sure all the old timers will be back who have been hybernating for a couple of years and its gonna be one hell of a ride people. BTW- We can be friends all you want in these forums, but once we are wheels up if your not on my team then your a drone. lol

I know what you mean about F18, but from the videos the landings look pretty good in Lomac. Maybe Jeff or MrMudd can comment

I want a new Dodge Pickup, extended cab.

Well at least 1 thing good came from all this. My gut instincts are still working.

Nice stuff! Thanks you guys for taking the time to compile all these screenshots and reading material for us. <S> :)