The online racing simulator
Quote from speed1 :I'm confused; is it out, and what would i need to run it?

Which one do you mean?

LOMAC (Lock On: Modern Air Combat) is about 5 years old.
Falcon 4 has been out about 10 years, but an expansion, 'Allied Force', was released in 2005 which updated lots of things.

Any PC made in the last 4 years should run both no problem.

The new game, 'Digital Combat Simulations: Black Shark' is out in about a month. It uses a tweaked version of the LOMAC engine, so hopefully shouldn't be too hard on your system.

Oops, wasnt paying attention. I re-read the original post and found that it comes out oct 17, but I was wondering what game I need to play it. Do I need LOMAC? I have that somewhere. . .
Quote :Wikipedia
The add-on "Black Shark", as of October, 2007, has become a full-fledged game, the first in a new series titled Digital Combat Simulator (or DCS for short). DCS: Black Shark is a simulation of the Russian Ka-50 attack helicopter and will be the flagship title of the new DCS series

.
that means no, its a full version game and no add-on
Ouch this one looks impressive!
Just noticed this is the FAQ on the DCS forum:

Quote :Q: Your press release indicates that Black Shark is the first in a series of DCS modules, with more aircraft/helicopters to follow. How soon will these new aircraft become available?
A: We are already developing the A-10A “Warthog" and AH-64A “Apache” (with planned front-seat / back-seat multiplayer)

Oh. My. Gods.
Sorry for posting without looking into the linked content, I can't watch video from my workplace, but X-Plane is considered LFS of flight sims. Or to be fair, LFS is X-Plane of car sims.
Black Shark is the X-plane of which is the... It doesn't rally matter does it?

The point is is that it's a simulation made by a small team which strives to simulate the system in question with as much realism as is possible with the current technology, despite the fact that it may lead to less sales within the 'casual' gaming community.
i'm so looking forward to this, i used to play flight sims till i found lfs

ironically i just downloaded fighter ace onto new pc yesterday to try it again but my joysticks screwed up so it's going to be a trip to the shop.


i've still got a soft spot for air attack though, it'll be 10 years next sept since i started on there and it's still going, for " pick up " dog fights it's still brilliant, no fancy graphics (optimised for a p90 and 33k dial up ! ) but great play and a fantastic community, i should really re install it again
Quote from Fabri91 :Trust me, you might want to try the FreeFalcon mod, or for that matter Open Falcon or Allied Force: the last one is sold as a complete package, while the other two are to be installed over an original Falcon 4.0 install. All are VASTLY improved over the original and are stable, especially FF and AF.
If you have a spare F4 CD, try it.

Installed F4:AF over the weekend, although time was limited to a quick-start dogfight in which I managed to find my way home, land, but didn't work out the wheel-brake command before I hit the fence at the end of the runway

Hopefully I'll get a bit of time to read the manual and download the keycharts etc.

Anyone know if there are any free addons/mods etc for AF? I've found the latest patch, and I've found a payware scenary texture update (don't want to pay )...

The flight model is lovely though
Now this is where things start getting a bit muddy.

Unfortunately the modding community havn't really taken to AF with much gusto. Many preferred to keep working on the original, which by all accounts is much easier to work with than AF. So other than new skins and a few campaigns there ain't much out there, and as for freeware, don't hold yer breath.

Having said that, have a look at the forums on Frugal's World http://www.frugalsworld.com/modules/news/ (although i had to uninstall my copy about a year ago to fit FSX and Arma on me HDD's so i'm outta touch with the Falcon 4 scene these days) But if you do find anything fancy, let us know.

Now onto other matters. I've been having a look at X-Plane 9.2, i've not tried it since 7.something, and this newest one sure does look nice. They've even got some nice swanky FSX 3D cockpits, and it's only $40 sure is tempting... but that 70gb file size sure will make one hell of a big hit on my system. Anyone got a 100+ HD going spare ? i'll give you a fiver for it


[edit] You managing to land ok Tristan ? It must have taken me about 732 attempts and many many hours of practice before i got comfortable with it. But even then, after a long hard mission i'd still get that "oh bollocks i have to land" feeling and a sharp intake of breath everytime the runway came into view...damn good stuff if you ask me
When there is no pressure I can land just find in most sims (exceptions being Jumbo size aircraft, when I still think I'm at 1000ft as the wheels slam into the ground at max sink rate!!). I taught myself to land in the original Falcon, by flying above the runway at 40,000ft agl, diving vertically downwards, pulling out of the dive and landing in one move

However, when the pressure is on - after a mission that's been successful, or if I've got some avionics system failure etc, I go totally to pieces and can't land for shit!

Oh, and I wouldn't claim to follow a realistic landing procedure. My landing starts about 0.5 miles out rather than 10 (ish), and I don't do things in the 'correct' order. Maybe that's why I'm rubbish in a pressure situation
Quote from tristancliffe :I taught myself to land in the original Falcon, by flying above the runway at 40,000ft agl, diving vertically downwards, pulling out of the dive and landing in one move

Oh, and I wouldn't claim to follow a realistic landing procedure. My landing starts about 0.5 miles out rather than 10 (ish), and I don't do things in the 'correct' order. Maybe that's why I'm rubbish in a pressure situation

Yeh reality fanboyz FTW

I've completely forgotten the different settings in the game, but me thinks you tain't got them on the hardest level The biggest problem i always had was bringing the nose wheel down too quickly after landing which would instantly crumple and make lots of nasty scraping noises and sparks and stuff. Although it's a great way to stop quickly if needs be. Bit of a bugger trying to taxi back to the apron though.

Falcon 4 is at it's best when set to the hardest levels, you should try it. There's nothing quite like starting a full length mission and spending the first hour and a half pressing every single button in the god damn plane just trying to get the bleedin engine started
I think I have it set on the hardest-1 level. A couple of simplifcations (not to flight model, weapon effectiveness and something else though), and a couple of things to make life easier - possibly infinite fuel and, err, I forget without looking. I certainly don't have it on easy by any means!

But I only installed it on the weekend, and only did a quick start mission, so I wasn't really trying to stick to reality all that much!!! I'm gonna work through some training missions, read some of the manual, learn most of the keyboard commands, and then get down to killing some baddies
so what sticks are you guys using? i'm a bit rusty on the merits of the various makes these days ?
I only have this - Saitek Cyborg Evo. It's nothing special, and not even FFB (I don't like FFB sticks, but maybe I've not used a good one. Do many planes have FFB on the fly-by-wire sticks?), but it's got some buttons, a throttle and is quite accurate. Plus you can make it 'fit' your hand
Same here, but I've got the Evo Force (although the only flight sim I play atm is FS9, and don't really 'play' it - I just make scenery for it, so I don't really notice the FFB). I'm thinking of getting a set of Saitek rudder pedals, which are £100 new, but only 60-odd on Ebay.
Quote from tristancliffe :I only have this - Saitek Cyborg Evo. It's nothing special, and not even FFB (I don't like FFB sticks, but maybe I've not used a good one. Do many planes have FFB on the fly-by-wire sticks?), but it's got some buttons, a throttle and is quite accurate. Plus you can make it 'fit' your hand

agreed on the force feed back, to be honest when FFB first came out i thought that someone would have used it to load up the stick on ww2 sims as the control forces got higher with speed but that never seemed to happen, the only use i can think of that would be realistic apart from that is a stick shaker function before a stall
I use around five years old Logitech Wingman, it's horrible.
But I can manage, primarily I use it as handbrake on driving sims, but this thread made to get LOMAC and I'm currently trying to learn it.
All those million different functions on how to lock to enemy etc. they make me very confused.
Has anybody played this yet?
Are you kidding me? 70GIGS for one game? I'll pass straight away, thankyou.
70GB? O_o
Almost have to test it, tho I don't want to know the installation time
lol! 70GB, how are you supposed to buy/download that? 15 DVD's?

E: someone said it doesn't work on 64-bit Vista/XP, so im now even going to try it...
Where the hell did 70GB come from? About 4GB iirc.
Quote from RossUK :Where the hell did 70GB come from? About 4GB iirc.

Unfortunately it's true...If you want the whole worlds scenery though...

The 'LFS of flight sims' has a release date
(159 posts, started )
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG