column5

This is a purely hypothetical discussion. Though I mention ThirdWire, they are not involved in any way. I was daydreaming a little bit tonight, and had this thought. I don't know if is even remotely feasible, but here it is. Suppose that a group of trusted people in the Strike Fighters community got together and incorporated a business with the intention of producing a flight simulator. Suppose also that this group intended to hire ThridWire to create this sim using their Strike Fighters engine. Let's also say that it was the intention of this company to have ThirdWire create a "study" sim of the F-4 Phantom, one of the most popular and recognizable aircraft of the 20th century. Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that the sim will be more complex than current SF games, but less complex than Falcon. Finally, let's assume that the production company did not intend to make a profit, only to cover expenses, and that any profit realized would go to charities for veterans or some other worthy cause. If the game was pre-sold a price of $50, it would require 5000 pre-orders to raise $250,000 to pay ThirdWire. Do you think there are 5000 people who would pre-order on faith alone?

In fact, it might be a good idea to quit while we are ahead. This has been a really interesting discussion, and it has been great to read everyone's ideas. Please keep in mind that this was a hypothetical question and that, as TK said, ThirdWire is not associated with this in any way. We still have our polls open regarding the content of a community produced game, so let's focus on this as a question of what CA members would like to see in a flight sim, or what kind of game would emerge if the CA community built their own game. We'll leave ThirdWire out of it so as not to create confusion. Thanks for the great discussion guys!

I'm suggesting that the fun versus realism continuum doesn't preclude adding more detail. Its a matter of what risks the developer can take and how much it costs. This was an idea to promote debate and discussion and to that end, it has been a great success. Let's not get carried away by believing something like this could ever happen. This thread proves that everyone has a different idea of what the perfect flight sim would be, so any kind group development project on this scale would die squealing under its own weight.

Here we go. And the winnar iz.... No surprise, the Phantom came out on top, with the movie star Tomcat close behind. The MiG-21 is the higest ranked opposition plane, though it lags behind the top two vote getters. Some interesting this about the results in my opinion: 1. The A-10 did not get a single vote. 2. We had some votes for unarmed recon planes and strategic bombers. 3. The F-111 was a surprise vote getter

OK guys I am compiling the results now. Couple of mintues and I will post them. I have eliminated all aircraft that don't meet the criteria (entered service after 1980) and weighted the responses. Your #1 choice got 3 votes, your #2 got 2 votes, and your 3rd place choice got 1 vote.

All options are allways open, its just a matter of what is practical and reasonable. :)

Yeah and we can't ask any developer to make such an investment on speculation, given what we know about the flight sim market. That's where the idea of funding it ourselves came from.

I hope I did not give that impression. I proposed the idea of hiring TW because your are our favorite game studio and it made the discussion more interesting than just talking about hiring developer X. Let's not poke into TK's business matters. Better for everyone that way. :yes:

Well, the odds are stacked against it, but who knows, the poll resutls might be influential despite the small sample and unscientific method. If nothing else, its fun to talk about it, share ideas and daydream about the "perfect" sim.

Russ, we want our Buckarrooo and we want it now! I'm with you piloto, the Buccaneer is at the top of my most-wanted list.

Possibly a poor choice of wording on my part. I really wasn't thinking of any other games when I wrote the descriptions. The idea was that MP dogfight would be much easier to implement than MP coop.

http://www.militarytimes.com/multimedia/vi...ocoptergunship/

Check Best Buy if you have one nearby. They have DDR2 dimms super cheap: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1166840340953 If your machine takes DDR then $100 would probably be resonable for a 1 GB stick.

$100 sounds high for a 1 GB module these days. What type of memory does your system use? Just speaking in general, going from 512 to 1 GB should give you a nice all-around performance improvement, not just in the TW games, unless some other component such as the CPU or video card is particularly old (ie, a weak link).

Great! I was thinking you might have changed it to F-4X.

Look in your main INI file for your F-4X mod and find the "LoadoutImage=" line. What does it say?

Two times.

I would start with the NATO Fighters packs which you can download at column5.us in the Campaigns section. They will let you quickly add a lot of mods to your WOE install with a few clicks. After that, you'll want to start perusing the Knowledge Base here at CA. There is a wealth of information in those articles, and most of the basics are covered.

Yeah. ;) The problem would be getting high-def models of some of these planes. It would be a long-term project.

Off topic, but a Wings Over Canada mod with these planes and others would be a great project if any modders were so inclined.

Soooo... Should I count your votes this way: 1. F-4 2. F-18 3. F-14

Allah willing, more terrorists will die.

There would of course be other planes in the sim. The idea was that one, and it has been suggested two, would be more detailed than the others.

Just a reminder that when you vote, please choose the MINIMUM level of MP support that would be required for you to invest money up front. Not your preferred level of support. :)

The CAT extractor is pretty easy to use. I'll give a quick rundown and if you need more info let me know and I'll post more tomorrow. Just think of the CAT files as ZIP files and the extractor is the tool you use to unzip them. You launch the extractor and browse to the CAT file you want to open. Aircraft, ships and vehicles are in objectdata.cat. Terrain related files are in the CAT file for the terrain. You open the CAT file in the extractor and it will list all of the files inside. You select one you want to extract and hit the button, and it will extract it to the same folder the CAT file is located. You can then move it to wherever it needs to be. Its really simple and after you have done it once you will be an expert. ;)