SDirickson

Aggie, one way to be absolutely sure that you're radar is locked on, that you have a working Sparrow, and that you are definately withing the minimum range requirement is if you see a gigantic X in the radar screen.

I don't know, I've been able to score some excellent kills against even MiG 21s. You just have to turn slowly, and keep up your speed. Try performing shallow high yo's, and never performing a break turn. Against a MiG-17, you will rarely be able to get onto it's tail unless you manage to bleed all the speed from your enemy. Expect rather to be running in it some high closure rate snap-shots.

Hahaha, thats pretty good. I've always thought trying of sumthin really cheap. Remember how in Jane's F-15, you respawned on the runway? We'll, if your dogfightin, just sit and idle till your opponent goes dry on fuel, then pick him off. Eh, I thought it'd be cool.

Man, that would be nice. Imagine, start the war froma WWII carrier, work up to a Korean War era carrier, and finish up with a modern nuke. Talk about complimenting the F-8 and A-5 coming out!

Well, doesn't it say in the manual that the AIM-9 must be launched at or under 2 G's?

500 knots, huh? At what AGL are you rolling in at? Thats a pretty high speed, at least for the current A-4. But, it may be that I use the wrong tactics in A2G. To much time in Il-2, I guess.

Haha, good point Dagger, and a good lesson. But, one thing I have found to be even more important? Know your enemy, and what HE can do. Then, you can do what he cannot. Or at very least, run away.

Well, when you say the AIM-9 is un-manueverable, thats not exactly true. If I remember correctly, it is much more agile than an aircraft, and can pull much greater than 10 G's. Therefore, as long as you don't fire it from an angle that would require it to pull more than 10 G's in order to keep the target in it's seeker, its pretty darn agile indeed. I heard someone mention somewhere how the 600 pg Falcon 4.0 manual was a bit excessive, yet I have to say it explained Sidewinder launch profiles very well. Graphs and diagrams and such.

Serious, Dark Knight? I'm gonna have to try that little trick out. What speed were you diving at, and how did you know what angle you were diving at?

Hahaha, thanks for the compliment, pc! I woudln't get too frightened though, I am still trying to unlearn some habits from Il-2. I gotta keep telling myself, "Keep your energy up!"

How steep was the dive, and were you pushing negative G's? Basically, if you're pushing -G's, then when you pickle your ordinance the bombs will continue on their trajectory while the plane continues to push below them. This, obviously, cause the bombs to pass through the plane. Pilots never pickle their bombs while flying inverted, right? Then it stands to reason they won't when they're flying 'gravitationally' inverted. So, make sure your G meter reads 1 or greater, before you hit that big red button.

I have a short (5 sec) wave file that features the growl of an AIM-9, that I would be more than happy to email to anybody proficient in sound editing. Its part of a 7 minute radio recording of two F-14 pilots shooting down two MiGs, so you can be sure of it's authenticity.

One little tip I'm gonna be working on is redoing the sound of a locked-on AIM-9 or AIM-4. If you've ever played F-15 or F/A-18 you'll remember the sound is quite a bit louder than that of SF. I'm gonna be looking for a better sound to replace the original. I don't know about you, but when you're running at full AB, its pretty hard to distinguish between locked on or not.

Maybe you're not hitting the runway in the right spot with the right bombs? I remember in IAF you had to hit the center, or the intersection of two runways with at least a Mk.83 to destroy it.

If I find any more little tricks, I'll definately post 'em.

I can't wait to create my own A2G missions, and maybe some A2A as well. I want to fly some CAS against more than a coupla of tanks, and maybe do a strike against an inhabited airfield. An mod to change the loudouts of aicraft would be nice too. Image, flying an O-1E with two mini-gun pods!

About the Sparrows: If you are at the maximum launch distance for the AIM-7, and you know that there are two or more enemies in front of you, you can pickle off mulitiple missiles. It really only depends on your ability to select a new, and different, radar target quickly enough for the second (And third, if you're good) missile to re-acquire. SO, if it takes you five seconds to acquire a new radar target (Keeping in mind the time it takes for the radar itself to acquire the target), then launch a second Sparrow six seconds after the first. When you see your first missile hit, or hear a confirmation, quickly deselect the current target, and lock up another one. The second sparrow will now lock on and take out a second target, in much less time than it would take to launch a second missile from scratch. A normally get about a 75% hit ratio with the second missile. It really only depends on how much time you wait from the first missile. The more time, the greater the chance of the missile to hit.

I use a Radeon 8500 128mb, and I had terrible frame rates too. I downloaded the latest official drivers from ATI, and I ran the rage3d.com tweaker to turn off HT&L, and now I get 35+ fps at almost full detail.

Try FRAPS. http://www.fraps.com/

Theres a program out now that will allow you to connect through TCP-IP, hopefully somebody can supply you the link, I kinda forgot it. The damage modelling I think is pretty good, though I'll agree that the ground collision modelling can be a bit spotty. I have hit pretty hard sometimes only to see the plane ricochet around, and back up into the air at a crazy angle. Then again, most of the time the modelling is great. If I do a belly landing, I expect the plane to not explode immediately, and I have had numerous occasions of doing a bit too low of a rocket run, only to pull out with half a horizontal stablizer missing, along with a coupla rocket pods. I'll certainly agree that the explosion effects are sub par for most ground effects, like bombs or when you auger in. And as for the missiles, I haven't experienced any problems with it. Real missiles normally don't cause the plane to explode, but merely punch a couple of holes through it with shrapnel. Only hitting a fuel line or live ordinance causes the entire plane to explode.

Exactly right, pc. As long as they don't drop the ball, SF:P1 has the potential to rival even Jane's F-15 and F/A-18, which I consider the absolute finest simulations out there, along with Longbow 2 of course.

In the manul it says the A2G gunsight is manually depressable to 245 mil. Does that mean we should be able to control the pipper ourselves? I'd like to be able to align it a bit more with the guns. The Key Command Pamphlet does not list the correct default keys for the weapon's view. It says it is f10, and it actually is f9. The salvo command does not work for rockets. No matter what I set ripple to, no matter how long I hold the trigger for, it will not fire more than a single rocket. The debriefing incorrectly display rocket accuracy. For example, when firing rockets at ships, it will give you a kill, but say the rocket missed. Red Crown does not give you vectors to nearest threats when performing an intercept. You have to ask for vectors to your primary target. Any way to get Red Crown to merely provide vectors to all enemy aircraft in the vacinity? Is there any difference at the moment between Mk.20's and normal bombs? It seems there is no cluster bomb effect, and you just have to put the Rockeye exactly on target. Hitting r in multiplay gives me a CTD 100% of the time. I occasionally get a CTD hitting f6, especially if all the player aircraft haven't respawned. My System: 1.4 ghz Athlon 256 PC-2100 DDR-RAM Radeon 8500 with latest official drivers and HWT&L off Soundblaster X-Gamer 5.1 Saitek X-45 Windows 98 SE

I always look for the smoke from the FAC, or I hit 'e' and 'r' till I padlock the right target. But like pcpilot said, flying along at 350 may be a bit fast. I know Thud pilots used to do there run in's at 540+ knots, and that really cuts down on your time to distinguish your target, but they were normally bombing larger, more easibly definable objects.

Well, lets hope that ThirdWire learns from Project 1 and can make their subsequent Projects excellent enough to rival the best flight sims out there. Don't take this as critisism of Strike Fighters, because it is not. I truly enjoy SF, and as soon as it gets a little broken in (and hopefully patched) I am sure it'll give most other sims out there a run for their money. It is already twice as good as Mig Alley and IAF. All I am saying is that if ThirdWire can improve upon P1, then their next game will be incredable.

Hey cool, I didn't know about the bay doors. I wonder what other buttons there are...