Do335

Stary, yes CFS and IL2 does much better as ww2 dedicated sims with much larger budgets, but my point is with proper marketing the campaign engine can differentiate SF enough to get a slice. In fact with source code and resource available I suppose one can enhance the lacking areas enough to a proper sim (or at least one that'll look good in feature list and poster screenshots) to any era like TK supposedly wished the things he'd done but never did, and it'd be hard not to make a good game due to the underlying campaign engine and gameplay features, just technically guestimating that probably it'd be easiest with Korea, while missile and ww2 era more complicated. Otoh every game has its intricacies... it's 99% away from the full blown matrix after all but with enough exposure ppl would know it. Exactly why TW games never got enough of that I'm not clear and guess you guys have a better idea of it. I just know atm that these games are hugely undersold, and one reason I suspect is due to the fact that gamers are generally unwilling to, pay, for a good AI, missions and campaign engines. LOL that's also the reason I'm sometimes tempted to buying to use it as reference material. ... Which cockpit?!!!...

Oh a WW2 title made out of SF/FE can differentiate itself I think so. WW2 is a large cake like modern and the other ww2 titles has shortcomings. Il2 is a bit old, lacks dynamic campaign and I fear right now with SAS making most content is the issue of stability, as in every other open source-ish projects. The lack of campaign functions in IL2BoS is apparently criticized as well. IL2Clod is almost multiplayer/virtual squadrons only. War thunder focuses entirely on casual gamers and online types. However! The problem is are the ppl favoring campaigns just a few individuals congregating on SimHQ or is there a larger demand potential. Korea YES. I'm trying to mod but certainly if I can buy it and spend my free time flying then superb so personally wanna see it more. The problem much like Mig Alley and the later BDG group that never gained much popularity with MA is that how many ppl will care about the forgotten war on the western side or if they're willing to expand to the treacherous Russian/Chinese market... DCS is comfortable with it due to, I reckon strong DRM and geopolitics.

Steam and Iron @Eole2 FreeFalcon What happened after they moved source code to github?....

Streakeagle I'm still having a hard time justifying forking out money for the vintage birds in DCS without the assorted theater and aircrafts in their time, let alone non-scripted missions and campaigns. Someone said it best perhaps that DCS is an airplane simulation and not battlefield simulation thus it suits certain kind of playstyles and not others so each to his own I guess. Its business model is really great for sure IMO, a friend of mine knew Wags and said he's genius buiz wise... What I miss as a player/simmer from DCS is what any other successful commercial venture at its peak builds which is a dedicated user base. But then when checking Belsimtek's F-86/Mig-15 forums it's about 1 new post per day so I digress.

And hey Stary what's happening to these... WIP? (assume Starfire and Tigercat cockpits, and assume it doesn't hurt to ask ) img00258.jpg img00569.jpg

Nan, come to think of it you guys have learnt all you need via dealings with TK but I'm still topping up here, like game mechanisms and what ini callouts means what, it's just there're so many.

Team Super Hornet worked mostly without source and just exe hex editing (or at least that's what they say to the public). Improvements are for sure relatively minimal and community following rather small, but the patches were sufficient to keep it alive due to the original awesomeness of Jane's F18... I really feel WW2, Korea and other pre-60 combat is the way forward for SF if there is any. If one look at the missile era, DCS, Falcon and other sims have SF beat hands down. SF can live within the "alternate" casual community but the line gets really blurred between it and other flight or non-flight games. Otoh TK has done a tremendous job supporting guns only combat. The damage modelling and AI is excellent, surpassing even the sims, which is very important for guns only. The flight modelling if not hardcore is not bad at all. The lack of avionics (and some other features for modern like air refueling) in SF instantly vaporizes for this era since there is none. The dynamic campaign blows War thunder, IL2 and whatnot other ww2 game/sims right out. The graphics while not AAA quality still is much better than BoB2, Mig Alley, CFS3 and other vintage but quality ww2 sims. Sim-game, sim-lite or gamulation or whatever the concept didn't work that well but it becomes less relevant or, more of an advantage for this era. But of course, it all doesn't matter, I agree with Baffmeister that this needs some entrepreneurial individual(s) to be realized perhaps in private, if there is any. As for an organized community group it's I guess like others said unlikely, apparently SF does not have a dedicated user base to begin with due to the lack of Multiplayer and marketing.

Hi Stary, I have bumped them up exactly for infantry vs tanks combat. Apparently in korea the US inf Divisions all have organic tank battalions but the NK/Chinese have very little. (At beginning of war the NK 105th armor bde had some 120 T-34s but later expended them all on the Pusan perimeter and later the Chinese 1/2/3rd armor divs distributed all among inf units for support.) I have contemplated using all armor ground units like TK's stock campaigns, but it would appear a bit funny I reckon if the red side gets hordes of Tanks. Plus.. Korea has lots of hills, means even fewer tanks. So to give infantry a chance they now have relatively quick move speed and very small hitbox, thus it becomes quite hard for tanks or aircraft to hit them. For example strafing aircraft do not lead, if the squad is moving there's good chance to avoid the strafe. The weapon system etc is ofc revamped so they actually shoot their guns unlike before. The result is they're still mostly hapless when attacking but can give tanks a run for money when defending. On the campaign level this is largely irrelevant ofc as the strategic node joust mainly depends on player mission score, but tank units will have fewer objects than Infantry divisions so the latter can afford more losses just to compensate. (In turn the small hitbox of inf squad irrevocably required precision of strafing CAS aircraft, especially those with wing mounted guns that simply have to score hits at gun convergence point. So I've spent some time testing and adjusting strafingAI and rocketattackAI values which works now.) The catch is how such a prolonged large volumn of bullet trajectory calculations will affect FPS in campaign mode, like we've experienced with bomber formations and maybe to a lesser extent anti-air machinguns. It'll have to be tested after I finish saving TK's posts on the TW forums...

Mark page 250. (just a note to self)

eh.. thanks for the sticky, Dave.

Thanks Brain32. I confirm the proggy works, used it to capture a small forum just to test. But apparently TW bbs disabled these kind of saving. "Warning: Note: due to bbs.thirdwire.com remote robots.txt rules, links beginning with these path will be forbidden: / (see in the options to disable this)" so only the TW forum index page was saved.

OK a search of posts by "thirdwire" turns up 681 pages. Gone through the first 100 pages so hopefully get this done in a week. (TK if you're reading this hang tight a bit!:))

Yeah, suppose I'll save as much as I can. Hopefully there'll be others besides me and I'll see if I can make a thread to collect/sort the saved pages when the time comes. Really come to think of it it's more like a knowledge base there.

eh.... oh well. Commencing manual saving it is.

Ran outta likes today, so THANK YOU mue.

I don't believe it will happen to SF either.... But I think it is good spirit anyway. Personally I've stopped playing games that can't be modded....

Video for today... infantry combat

hmmm.. You guys probably have long dealings and frustrations with TK but I'm not that sure, because there're plethora of game devs who don't care much about customer input. They have a point since the customers don't always know what they want. I think the thing with SF is the concept of "Lite" doesn't really register. You have games and you have sims but what exactly is sim-Lite. The planes needs cockpits (sim) but no HUD culling (game). There're plenty of AG munition types (sim) but little avionics support (game). AA missiles need switchology and launch parameters (sim) but there're no DLZ launch cues (game). You can run out of fuel (sim) but there's no air refueling (game). There's this awesome dynamic campaign engine (sim) but it's mostly hidden in the background (game). The FMs are mostly solid (sim) but you lack trimming support and realistic sounds to present an immersive in-flight feel (game). etc etc. Dedicated players have long been wanting sim features apparently. TK however seems just intent on sort of the in-between position. Maybe he has a vision and insisted on sticking with it ever since but then SF could be flawed from the start. For myself it's taken me this long to realize what's great about SF and take hold of it but I'm not even your typical western middle-class gamer who's already flooded to other supported games long before. Perhaps TK has finally thought it out and going for the "game" route with the mobile games which is good (for his business). woh I thought it's lost for sure. The infos are back!!!

Yeah me 3. Mostly for the S-99/Bf-109, can't believe I missed it.

And.. still $27 after all these years. Diverted to AI plane pack instead and gonna save up a bit!

Speaking of... should I grab First Eagles while it's still available in light of future WW2 builds? hmmm...

OK thanks KJakker, it's good that it still moves and shoots, usable for some Brit carrier's AA guns that lack a separate pitch node (and hey infantry squads).

What happens if one assigns the yaw and pitch node to the same one?.....

Baffmeister yea it could be a lotta work, but definitely sign me up if you get around to it as I know it'll be fun fly with good FMs. Did a brief stint with A-Team's euro pack but its data is so simplified and amount of ac huge that it becomes an insurmountable task to update it.

oh man, a BoB build is really tempting....