Anthropoid

LOL, fucking dumbass islamofascists

Any you guys play the Nitro Games? That was the best Age of Sail tactical battle model I had seen as of 5 or 10 years ago. Curious how this compares?

Thanks Nyghtfall and Migbuster. Answers my questions.

What I mean is, do I need to install SF2 Israel in any particular location (inside or at the same level as SF2 Vietnam?) I'm guessing based on your response that it is a pretty flexible procedure, and to be honest I'm not even what it amounts to nor the benefits of doing it; "doing a fully merged install" I mean. I've just seen a few people comment on doing this once you own all the separate packages so I assume I'll want to do it once I own them all. Going back to the F-100 upgrade issue . . . my squadron is the Panthers ( selected on that was closer to minimize in flight time mainly).

One more question 5. How will I know my X52 gear is "worn out?" Seems like it is getting a bit unresponsive. I've got the sensitivity in game set to maximum and I still have to depress the stick to maximum to get any response. I guess when I was first learning to fly sims I probably wrenched on it far too hard much of the time. I've probably used it for something between 500 and 1000 hours of play by now.

I've flown the F-100 up to summer 1966 and managed not to get killed (well, there was that _one_ time I was a bit intoxicated (in RL) and went for that 3rd MiG with no missiles and low ammo and wound up a pancake somewhere southeast of Hanoi . . . but it was actually my Dachsund sitting in my lap which was the cause of it, so a justifiable refly!). Couple questions: 1. I'm still not getting any option to upgrade to a more modern plane and there are now Fishbeds in the air (why "fish beds" would take the air I'm not sure but it is concerning given they seem be able to go very fast and are difficult to hit with cannon fire, not to mention that Sidewinders seem to be pretty close to useless) If I started a campaign with the F-100 does it ever give me an option to fly another plane!? 2. I saw a Youtube video of a modded FSX with a B-52. Is the MS FSX forum the best place to tap into that stuff or what? (figures MS site is borked and my attempt to create an account seems to have stuck midway through). 3. Which SF2 title should I buy as my 2nd? 4. Any precautions I should take so as to be able to eventually make a fully 'merged' install, whatever that means?

Is there a minimum score to be admitted to the Cool Combat Ace Club? Can I study first? Is it timed? Are crib notes okay?

Thanks SupGen. That looks to be the motherlode of good orientation material.

I'm a noob to flight sim games, so I have a hard time discriminating what is my own lack of experience and knowledge and what is 'not good game.' That said, I find IL-2 1946 (purchased off Good Old Games) in basic vanilla form to be quite . . . erm, annoying for lack of a better word. Trim and the UI controls for looking around being my main issue. To me, Strike Fighters 2 does a great job of striking a happy balance between detail, realism, and playability for a relatively inexperienced flight simmer. I was within 10 or 15 hours able to do missions competently in SF2 Vietnam, but in IL2 I don't think I've ever got the hang of it. Maybe I just need a different profile for my controllers, I dunno. If I thought I could get the game to perform as smoothly on my rig and with my controllers as SF2 Vietnam did pretty much immediately 'out of the box,' I'd be all over every expansion and download availalble and happy to make paypal donations to the modder/designers responsible. But with so many games I've never played that are shiny new out of the box (ROF, all the various SF titles, etc.) I'd have to say that IL-2 is not on the top of my list. But I'd definitely be interested to hear if anyone has any suggestions to change my mind :)

Thanks guys. I'm sure I'll have more questions soon, but I'll stock up for a while.

So far I've only flown the F-100 in 1965. Before finding this thread at SimHQ, Techniques for Weapons Delivery in SFP1 I found it impossible to hit anything on the ground. After skimming through it once, my eyes had a donut-glaze and it seemed far too technical for mere Earthbound mortals such as me to comprehend. Coming back to it a day later and reading it more carefully, it all clicked. My take home from this was: 1. Without CCIP, your reticule is only useful as a 'reference' to where your weapons will strike. 2. Range and speed (and probably angle of attack, though if speed is accounted for, I think that adequately covers the variance across most ranges of angle of attack that are safe and viable) are the two other factors that must be considered. 3. The "system" that they experimented their way into (which a high school physic student knowledgeable in aerodynamics might well be able to arrive at mathematically) was as follows; A. Approach at 10,000ft ASL at 475 knots B. At 3 nm, turn throttle to zero, pitch down and put reticule (in ground attack mode) on target (achieving a ~27-degree Angle of attack). C. At 1.1 nm, you should be around 535KIAS of speed and 4000ft altitude; At that speed, and position relative to the target with the reticule directly on target (at least with the plane they used with I believe was an F4), bombs dropped will achieve a direct hit. I found that their 10,000ASL/475KIAs/dive at 3nm/reticule directly on target/drop at 1.1 wasn't _exactly_ right for the F-100 in SF 2, but it was definitely in the ball park. Rather than hitting 1.1 nm to target at 4,000 ft I've generally found I get their at a lower altitude. Generally, relative to their system, I have found that I need to overshoot, so instead of reticule directly on and drop at 1.1, reticule slightly past and drop at 1.0 or even 0.9 seems to work better for me. It may be that I'm not actually going fast enough a lot of times, or it may be the physics calculations in SFP1 are a bit different than SF2, or it may be specific to the planes. Guns and rockets are certainly going to be different but I've found the same 'algorithm' useful to get in the ballpark and with practice have a reasonable intuition for these weapon systems too. With that system in mind, and with a good deal of practice, I've achieved a certain level of 'instinct' for improvising ground attack runs and can generally take out most targets that are vulnerable to cannon fire, with about 80% success per pass, and approaching from a variety of altitudes and angles. I'm a bit less accurate with bombs, but with a stick of 3 or 4 with ripple of 1 and manually dropping each one with repeated clicks (simply because I don't have a clue about how different the available intervals [60, 100, and 140ms], nor how to use them effectively) . . . I can take out most targets now. I figure if I drop 4 250lb bombs I can achieve about a 90% success rate for one pass (though a 4-times less efficiency rate!) and with 1 bomb maybe 40 or 50%, though getting better and better. So that is how I have so far taught myself to be 'competent,' though not expert with ground attacking using dumb guidance in SF2 Vietnam. It is a testament to the marvel of human perception and cognition that people are able to pull off this stuff in real life. I do hope that our pilots are allowed to get some experience with dumb bombing as it seems clear that; (a) with a bit of instruction, and practice, anyone can do it with some degree of success and with not terrible risk; (b) technology is great, right up to the point that it breaks and then when you have to use pencil and paper instead of smartphone, you'll regret having never learned how to write else being so rusty you cannot do it well.

Cool, good to know. I thought it might have been AI confusion as I did not do a "by the book" take off and kept my ascent rather shallow and my turn toward my first waypoint rather hard. That tells me that I probably do not want to do that if I don't want my computerized flight mates crashing and burning!

Sure thing! I'm a novice, but that might a good thing to have at least one tester. Other constraint is, so far I only own SF2 Vietnam . . . however, a good excuse to buy one or two of the other one's wouldn't be a bad thing :)

Ah, thanks NeverEnough and WhiteBoySamurai! I will definitely take up both of those suggestions :) I actually did start to download the ROF free demo last night, but for whatever reason it was moving glacially (which is atypical for my point on the network and my machine). So I had a look at what Steam has and also compared it to what they have on the ROF site. Actually now I'm a bit curious and confused. Question El Numero Nueve (9): Are the sum total of all the modules and packages available from Steam and ROF site exactly the same? Or are there some things that are included in one but not in the other? 10. I get that, you cannot have part of your ROF install Steam and part ROF-store. But does that mean you cannot do Multiplayer except with players with the same package origin? Normally I wouldn't think that was the case but my observations of the total package compositions is making me wonder if these are actually two slightly different licenses for slightly different versions of the same games. When I tallied up all the packages Steam seems to sell (all of which had ROF: Channel Battles at the beginning of the title) it came to about $260. When I put everything on the ROF store site into a cart, it came to about $218 and that was with a supposed 50% discount. I totally get that a developer wouldn't want Steam to be the only channel for distributing, and also would assume that Valve would negotiate a deal in which they distribute a slightly different and incompatible version. But I'd just like to know exactly what is up with these two games so that I can decide which one I want to take the plunge with. I'd lean the store bought if it is the one that has more content and is best option for compatibility in the broadest set of multiplayer servers. But if the sum total of contents are identical, and compatibility in MP is not an issue, then I think I'd actually lean Steam. I used to be a bit of one of those tin-foils who was anti-Steam but I've grown to become quite a Steam groupie and really like having a lot of my games in one cloud. Ah, one other question: 11. So far, 95% of my play in SF Vietnam has been in the F-100 Super Saber, which I enjoy. I read from wiki that this plane was fairly problematic and suffered a non-trivial rate of operational failures. I've noticed that, on at least three maybe as many as five times, when I was taking off for a mission as part of a campaign, one or two of my flight mates just seemed to crash shortly after take off! The first time it happened I was like "Huh!? What was that crash!? Are the Viet Cong setting up AAA near Da Nang!?" When I looked in the log after the battle one pilot had crashed after take off but evidently had bailed out. A second time it happened both of them were killed. Is this modeling operational losses?

Ah thanks for the replies dudes. Now that you mention Gary Powers, oh yeah, I had forgotten about that. I may give Rise of Flight free demo whirl. If it rolls my socks up (which based on the Youtubes and the reviews, I'm guessing it will) then even at that price it would be worth it. War in the Pacific Admirals Edition, published by Matrix; an excruciatingly detailed one-day per turn strategic sim of the entire Pacific theatre from Dec 7 1941 till war end, in which virtually every ship (down toe minelayers and coast guard cutters), every airplane (hard to believe I know, but it is true), every airman, and at some level of abstraction every soldier and sailor . . . the gaming community from whence I could be said to hail . . . just on the principle of supporting the guys who made it (and it was definitely an Indie type thing) I pre-ordered it for some insane price, I forget if it was $125 or maybe more. I think I had it installed on a machine at one point and actually played it for a few hours! I'm sure I will eventually install it and relearn it and play it devotedly, but just not yet. So I totally get that there are games that are so good, you are happy to pay full price and even if it is a somewhat inflated price. Would you guys say Rise of Flight fits that bill? I've seen four of five points of information that suggest to me that it really is that good, but it is always good to get multiple perspectives on these things. One of my favorite planes from MS FSX is the piper cub, so I tend to think I'd really enjoy chugging around in a little tub machine-gunning the bad guys.