MigBuster

anything with more detail than those tiny pics would be useful - have had a look on the net but not much about - have you not taken any digital pics on base at an open day?

Well for starters notice the weapons stations are trying to use USAF attachment types - Last time I checked if you made Turkey an enemy they can only use WP or TURKEY specific weapons - yes this means you need to change the stations to the right type - and create weapons for Turkey if you need to.

Probably something TW would need to change - assume this is SF2V Mar 2010. Not noticed it because on Esort missions I take off, x16 time accel towards the rendevous point (WP3 normally) - when Im close I ask where they are and they are usually near - so I Escort them in (keeping them in sight) and all the way back if I dont get caught up with a MiG.

might be able to - but cant guarantee they will actually go on the nacelles. got any better pics?

Thats an interesting point there on numbers - half the battle has been trying to get countries to actually commit more troops! Im not looking on either as defeats though - Iraq will stabilise eventually - just takes a long time without the man power.

Some really great work there guys

Explains everything

Nice one - about time too - bottles of whisky just have no effect anymore haha

I dont see this behaviour at all in a virtually stock SF2 (Feb 2010)- they spend about 95% of the time banking tightly and tighter in the horizontal. Even the Il-28s try to follow me these days - and in a large engagement you really have be careful in the stock A-4 or F-100D where its not always easy to keep speed up - and a MiG-19 on your tail is not much fun. Out of the past 4 campaigns I can conclude that they only go a bit straighter when they are landing, tailing a wingman or running away. When they hit bingo fuel they get out of there as fast as possible - have had MiG-17s low on fuel that break when I get a certain distance at very low level at any speed and make pretty hard targets - tried approaching it much slower and it came round at me head on firing. That being said the A-4 campaign was still fairly straight forward if you check your 6 a lot - the AI still needs to be a lot more lethal than it is. I used to rack up scores like the above all the time many years ago!

Yes first thing i press after takeoff if the jet allows - double your ammo time - and it often needs to be doubled in an F-100

Well yeah - I would hope there is a slight improvement in IRST tech over a 50 year period - but even so detecting a MiG-29 at 100KM? maybe flying away in burner perhaps?

Nice

No but Ive gone through the YAP versions and that certainly does make you sweat all the way - have even borrowed some of the guns and stuck them in the stock game to make it better. The SA-2F was an unavoidable death ray out of the box which it certainly wasn't judging by the way pilots account on how they avoided SAMs in 70 - 72- its probably gone too far the other way now where it doesnt track sometimes even in level flight - still must be a nightmare for TK getting these little things tested - or to please everyone. Does he implement it like the real SA-2 - in which case does he then make it worse again to create the effect from all the jamming going on by EW flights not modelled in the game. In 1972 these things seem to have been mostly launched ballistically! - so does he nullify them totally then or make the single jamming pods really effective?

Yes Wagsled has put up a few posts and has put some figures down that better represents his experience which are very useful. http://forum.combatace.com/topic/27934-phantom-tactics-some-thoughts/ http://forum.combatace.com/topic/27931-phantom-tactics/ See C5s reply regarding the F-8 SA-2Fs used to be the main issue for me(but are better now) - rarely get hit at low level by AAA with the stock game. You will lose a lot wingies - especially now with later patches they disobey orders to return to formation and do their own thing. Limit the amount you take - I do recces alone, and rarely take more then 1 wingy on a bomb run - the rest of you flight wont bomb - and if you send them off fighting you generally lose them. Falcon 4: Allied force has been around since 2005 - its standalone and the most stable for online multiplay and you can buy it still from most places online - but its F-16s only to get the best from it. You could try FF or OF as you already have the original F4.0 - FF has some truly stunning pits for other jets in the game. Not sure how stable FF/OF currently are - and beware Falcon has a pretty steep learning curve.

Its a mod that has been posted here in downloads somewhere - there are some old threads on it here and at 3rd wires site - trying to work out why the FPS just went through the roof. Needs multicore/Win Vista or 7 / DX9 (which WOE is) to work I believe.

Nice info thanks - have seen little about them. So it claims the PIRATE can detect targets at 100km - sounds like wishful thinking to me - but who knows

They handle differently depending on the game settings but TK does seem to model these things from the energy charts and manuals he has - he uses examples whenever its queried on his forums. There are a few old posts on here from ex F-4 pilots that give there opinion on it. I don't think the F-8 was as agile as the 17/19 - another energy fighter from what I gather. There is no Thirdwire F-5 of any version- but it was the only US jet fighter of that period that could turn with the 17 - well according to the have drill/doughnut papers. There have been AI versions of jets in the long distance past - there was an uber AI mod to help the AI a bit also - but its not really relevant for the later better AI - and bottom line needs someone with the skills to do it. Its not too bad - dont fly slow and level at low level - the AI comes in level at 350kts so will be hit every time. The real thing was very lethal so I would expect YAP to be near the mark - well from a vet F-4 pilots point of view since since he tested it all. Don't know - I am running the games as 4 separate installs at the mo. Just like the real F-4 pilots did then I guess! I have the official 2005 F4:Allied Force version which is very limited in mods to pits, skins and terrain which are either exes, but the skins are not as easy to put in. All the modding is done in the unofficial versions which I dont have "Free Falcon 4/5" and "Open Falcon" which work over the Original Falcon 4.0

Sad to hear about yet another crash!

Its basically the decals you need isnt it because both the skins are in WOE already

Okay youve hit the nail on the head - I mention the Enemy is good in a turning fight - it is against the freindly AI or if you are in a stock jet ( F-100, F-4, Mirage) and try to follow them. However in an A-4 or the SF2 F-11A that I redid you will beat them in a turning fight - might be another reason the F-5 hasnt made a TW debut yet. One measure and why I agree the AI needs to be better here - is that Ive flown the A-4 against the MiG-17 Frescos A and F online in WOI 2008 - and A-4 is in practise dead every time against an experienced human pilot. Your Foxhound story reminds me of the time I tried a few MiG-25PDS missions in WOI armed with AA-6s - came up against a flight of F-4s at med/low level - and the slaughter was enevitable - ended up running for it but couldnt get high enough quick enough so they ran me down! I still maintain that the enemy AI in SF2V seems a lot less potent on average than SF2/SF2I in my experience - but the AAA was always lethal. Now the SAMs have been toned down abit the combo of poor Migs + lethal AAA is about right - but again if you ever used YAP the AAA was a lot more lethal in that Going missiles only in an F-4B - now thats what I'm talking about All my modern combat is done in Falcon 4 btw another reason I like the earlier periods.

Nations.ini

Yes most patches make a difference because the AI gets tweaked in nearly every patch over the years I would say. I commend TK for the amount of effort he has put into the AI over the past 8 years - you need to remember that unlike IL2 (ww2) and LOMAC(Modern) TK has to cover a vast time period in SF2 of changing airframes, tactics and weapons so he has done pretty well by himself considering. And it sound like you are using the game post 1984/5 which is out of the games time period - the best Soviet missiles are the extremely pants AA-7C/D and AA-8 in the stock game - which TK no doubt has the MiGs trying to employ these within certain parameters. Your AI experience will differ depending on what year you are flying (and settings) - I think that the friendly and enemy AI exhibit different behaviour and might be separate entities - buts that's logical - if we know TK the enemy is following the Soviet doctrine of GCI controlled fighting tactics - which kinda goes with the most advanced MiG being the MiG-23 with pants missiles - Although as you say there could be improvements in how the 23 fights- Once you beat its BVR Apex shot its got to get on your tail or go for slashing gun attacks which I cant imagine is that easy against F-16s anyway tbh. I have noticed that the friendly AI is ok if it has good missiles - aka the AIM-9L, but take away the missiles it tries to get into a turning fight and gets slaughtered - take out a flight of F-100, F-4, F-8 (and even the F-15A in 1976 ) and they will get taken apart by MiG-17Fs or MiG-19S's with guns. So the enemy AI is strong at turning fights(in the right frame), and head to head guns, - you may also notice that unlike years back the MiG-23 and 21 often keep high energy states, so gunning them down like ducks at a shooting range in an A-1/A-4 is thankfully less likely. Also last time I went BVR the enemy AI can render BVR SAHM shots totally useless by breaking radar locks sending the AIM-7 ballistic - this was a welcome improvement. Both sets of AI are poor under ultra low level - apart from when escaping missile shots or running for it. Tactically you will notice (when only poor missiles are about) that the AI will play the carrot and stick - you go chasing one MiG - but another is creeping up on your tail - I turn off the enemy jet map icons btw and they are very effective at creeping up on your tail under most situations if you dont check 6. Now you mention evading - unlike in IL2 the MiG in the 70s has to consider missile shots from afar and might get a radar lock on it from another jet miles away - in which case needs to try to avoid that also - so this is another reason they might not seem to want to get you - I base this on how the AI reacts when you are in an F-100D in 1960 when they definitely do go out of their way to kill you.

Unpatched series 1 games will use a lot less resources - espcecially if you have the originals - see my sig for the dates - but with the latest patches you get a vastly improved and stable game. Shadows were one of the biggest killers in series 1 with the 2008 versions. Did you try the HDR mod - you could probably max out with that.

If they are working on it its a part time project for the team from what you can gather from recent posts - so I wont be expecting much anytime soon. But yes agree that the next sim would have to reuse a lot of the code (which I think was C++ from old posts years back) so hopefully it should be possible to put changes to this together with a new/reworked graphics engine - and voila! I would have a wish list of 1 new terrain to be added, another flyable to go with the F-16s (F-18E/Fs maybe), with clickable single 3D pits, and the new range of weapons, works on multicore, Win 7, DX9/10

The pilots have a skill level that goes up over time if they survive missions - you will see this on a campaign roster and the skill level does seem to make a difference I have found. This must be true of the enemy because some are pants - some are better - and some are aces. If you are playing single missions the pilot skill is probably random - even though you have settings stuck on hard - You may just be coming up against better trained AI pilots - they follow you up in the vertical and generally do annoying things like trail you back to base. Whether TK has got the AI learning based on what the Human pilot does - well only he would know. Certainly the AI started getting a lot better when First Eagles came about - and has improved a lot since then.Of course any AI tactical improvements would only be relevant to the series time period.