To: falcon3 (Falcon3 Mailing list) Reply-To: falcon3 (Falcon3 Mailing list) Errors-To: postmaster@onion.rain.com Precedence: bulk Bcc: falcon3-outgoing Subject: Falcon3 Digest V3 : I100 Falcon3 Digest Volume 3 : Issue 100 Mon Aug 2 06:31:26 PDT 1993 Compilation copyright (C) 1993 Jeff Beadles Send submissions to "falcon3@onion.rain.com" Send add/drop requests to "majordomo@onion.rain.com" Archives are available via ftp from onion.rain.com [147.28.0.161] Today's Topics: 3.02 and Falcons, padlocking.... jjsterre@acs.ucalgary.ca Various "Paolo Baiardi (019) 801852" [ Wow, the last issue of Volume 3 already. How time flies... :-) --Jeff ] ------------------------------------------------------------ From: jjsterre@acs.ucalgary.ca Subject: 3.02 and Falcons, padlocking.... Two topics here. Scott mentioned that: I installed F3.02 sans Mig 29 and went a flying. I noticed that the Hi fi model "seemed" more touchy that I remebered it. I did not do a direct comparison but the roll rate "seems" increased. Also, the take off runs are longer with more care needed to get airborn. Speed bleeds more quickly and more thrust is needed to keep a given speed. Has anyone else noticed this or is it just me? I (in the short bit of time I tested 3.02, also sans MiG-29 8( ) thought that my Falcon was a bit _less_ responsive; I popped back to the War Room to double-check that I had HiFi model on (I did...) My calibration may be at fault; it took a while to set up a calibration that didn't send me into hard rolls. I also produced numerous lawn darts testing the "realistic" G-setting (quotes indicate not disbelief but just to offset the text) - but I'm glad it's right now. I haven't flown F3 asmuch as I might because I went off to the Red Deer airshow; a friend and I tried, standing there, to keep all 9 Snowbirds "in sight" (that is, know all positions at all times) during their flight. A few observations: 1 plane is often quite hard to spot - 2 are much easier (when in close formation), and the ease of spotting continues to rise dramatically with each additional plane. -More groups of planes = more and more trouble; we could usually track 3 without too much effort, 4-5with some trouble, and 6+ caused the loss of one or more planes. From this, we figured that one of the major advantages of "loose deuce" tactics isthat by breaking up the two aircraft, it becomes much harder for the enemy to maintain SA. In addition, green AAA crews (us)easily become fixated on an obvious target group - which lead several times to our losing another group long enough for them to fly over us (wecounted this as a kill for them 8). I thought these observations might prove interesting... And I suggest that you try tracking all of the aircraft in a demoteam sometime - especially after a starburst. James Sterrett jjsterre@acs.ucalgary.ca ------------------------------- From: "Paolo Baiardi (019) 801852" Subject: Various Just some questions ( well, perhaps too many :-) : a) In Italy ( I suppose Europe too ) Falcon3 is distribuited by Micro- prose. In the envelope I found a light blue customer registration card will must be posted to the U.K. Microprose, this mean that upgrades, introductory offers and so on will come through that company ? b) Reviewing missions with ACMI, the aircraft is driven to ground by some evil forces when selecting FF ( Fast Forward ), then restarts in flight as nothing as happened, bug in 3.0d ? c) Tried loadhigh falcon3.exe, objects <-> sobjects, no difference in viewing ( not bad anyway ) am I missing something ( emm386 setting to 3 Megabytes, DOS 6.0 ) ? d) According to the f****d manual, the AGM-65 auto-locks on targets, ( personally I like the old way of Falcon, center the REO crosshair on target and pickle it... ), simply "... place the crosshair near the selected target, the weapon will lock-on automatically ...", but seems to me that the computer locks on everything except what I need, any hint ? Again on those AGM missiles, the manual states that they are fire-and- forget, is it really true ( at least for the TV/Optics version, the lock-on should be mantained during the missile flight ) ? e) the Ground Map feature works ? I noticed that it shows the terrain ahead the jet, not below ( yes I have tried to zoom in/out and choosing another `square` among the nine available )... I did not notice a speed increment toggling routes off, as suggested by the manual. f) since the F16 model simulated is the C one ( at least I think so, since the A is not AMRAAM capable ), why the LANTIRN pod is not availa- ble ( the IR Maverick should require it, otherwise in night operations it will be able to lock-on only on very near/hot targets ) ? Note: never done night missions so far... g) What about fuel consumpion vs altitude/power setting, max-G vs load out, runaway required for takeoff/landing and other useful infos ? h) Last ( finally! ): the LAU rockets can be used in AA combats ? Even if the question may appear silly, I remember that in FotI the manual said the rockets can be used against other aircraft... Happy dogfighting to everyone, Paolo - -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Paolo Baiardi PhD Student - Genova University - Italy | | | | "I work for the county out on 95 | | All day I hold a red flag and watch the traffic pass me by | | In my head a keep a picture of a pretty little miss | | Someday Mister I'm gonna lead a better life than this" | | [ Working on a highway - Bruce Springsteen ] | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------- From: primus@netcom.com (Robert keng) Subject: Re: Joystick cal and other probs... From: Kris Ong Subject: EMS & ACMI > > After an hour with my Microsoft Techinical Support CD-ROM, that I use for > work I found the culprit to be Smartrv, now I get all the EMS I ask for. > > As with ACMI, everything looks fine with me, the other guy blew up and I > landed. > > rob, upload your .vcm file and let us take a look at it. > THe major problem was, I had replaced the sobjects file with objects to get better geometric modeling of the planes... That's what caused the problem, I think, cause majority of the ACMI problems went away after I copied the back up over the original. I still crash for no reason in ACMI and then a sec later, I recovered. Hehe, now that I got my VLB caching controller, I can finally junk smartdrive and probably be able to use the objects file without having to copy it over the sobjects file.. I've noticed another bug, this one a bit severe. For some strange reason, when I disengage autopilot while it's in pursuit of a bandit/boguy, the speed rapidly increases. I noticed that before I disengaged, the indicated airspeed was ~700KTS. After I disengage autopilot, it zoomed to over ~1000KTS. It happened to me about 3-4 times already, and once it had send me into a flat spin cause I had banked to the right and pulled the stick back just a little (just a little is alot at ~1000KTS. Must of wrecked havoc on the frame..). Hmm.. maybe I ought of just re-install the whole thing.. The joystick calibration is not really a bug: you are supposed to hold the stick down a little while before you push the button (not 5-10 mins, just a second or two). I haven't gotten any problem after I had started doing that.. I got 3 gun kills with the MiG-29 today (3 worthy gun kills: 1 F-14, 1 FSX, and a Tornado: I didn't count the BUFFs and the C-130s I killed with guns..)!! Oh yeah, the BGM-109 is now counted as an air threat: it counts as an air kill if you shoot it down. In the briefing it says you've hit a cruise missile :-) Is it my imagination, or is the BGM-109 more steady now? Don't you guys love the wingman messages in MiG-29? "There's one more dead playboy", or "Is that my foot in your butt?", or "Have I closed your flight plan?". My favorite: "Go back to playing computer games comrade!" :-) -Rob primus@netcom.com - -- ------------------------------- From: cisko@d0tokensun.fnal.gov (Greg Cisko) Subject: Re: Falcon3.02 bugs???? Since my last post, I've had about 2hrs of instant action flying time. First off the joystick bug. I haven't had one... The ONLY thing that might qualify, was that the 2nd time I ran Falcon 3.02 the CONFIG thought I used the KEYBOARD. I have a CH Flightstick. I reactivated the joystick & the problem has not returned. I re-ran falcon many times just to make sure. Other than that here is what I found: G-Force loading: I will admit that I am reconsidering my previous statements. I purposely kept one eye on the G-force indicator. I rarely pulled 9+ g's. To me it seemed that with version 3.01.1 that 9+ g's was always happening. If I really understand the Fly By Wire arrangement, I would think 9+ g's wouldn't be so easy. As I heard the computer controlled planes prevented excess g's. This is the one bad thing about FBW. What if you wanted to risk 12 g's?? The computers on the plane wouldn't allow it. OKay, back to falcon... It did seem to me that I was able to do 9+gs at speeds less than 450 kts, with 3.01.1. Not exactly true with 3.02 as I was rerely above 300 kts (using AB5). Maybe I'm imagining it, but this does seem different to me. AND I LIKE IT!!! No more Super MIG19's out turning me (that I saw anyway). I was able to out turn everyone! Finially the advice given in the owners manual (for defensive BFM) seems reasonable. That is get as close to 450 kts as possible & put MAX G's on the jet. YOU WILL OUT TURN THEM! At least it works on my computer. New & Improved Padlock: I really like the improvements here. The AB & Brake indicators are very usefully. The best part though seems to be the new range indicator. 1.0 NM is alot different from 1.9 NM in a gun battle. Even though the owners manual says gun kills are possible at 1 mile, I still wait for less than that. Isn't the cannon only good to 0.5 miles in real life? For me the new range indicator really helped dodge missles. I was in Instant action for about 45 minutes straight. Then a "magic" got me. I wasn't too pissed. I had dodged so many other missles (All types of missles. SAMS were set to REGULAR which is one lower than ELite) that I lost count. The main objective was to make sure the routines to evade missles were still working at least as good as before. It seems better now! Oh yes, PADLOCK is where I kept my one eye on the G loading. I like this feature too. There was one thing removed from padlock. The CLIMB reading. This gave you the same info as the pitch ladder on the HUD. I did use it alot. I don't seem to miss it all that much. Greg Cisko `puter-> 386/16 with 80387 DOS-> 6.0 with DBLSPACE installed RAM-> 4 Megs Falcon 3.02 Flight model-> HiFi Sound-> Soundblaster 1.5 Stick-> CH Flightstick Gameport-> Soundblaster 1.5 ------------------------------- From: eggenste@cantor.informatik.uni-dortmund.de Subject: Re: Falcon 4.0 (James Sterrett) James suggested for F4.0: >-European theaters - including a "WWIII NATO vs WP" campaign. (So >I'm old-fashioned. What do you expect from a historian? 8) For completeness, >that last would probably have to include nuclear strike as a mission - the >B-43 nuke can be dropped by an F-16 Wow, what an excellent idea, especially for european customers! I'd like to see my simulated home town being reduced to nuclear waste! What about other weapons of mass destruction: strategic thermonuclear munition, toxic gas or germ warfare (little polygone people changing color on the ground)? Come on, James, the Cold War *is* over, accept it as a fact. Even the best things do not last forever. No mission disk can bring back this great period of history or the 'evil empire'. Other suggestions for Falcon 4.0: 'more' wheather :wind, rain (?),snow, fog, different temperatures etc., but not as eye candy! It should influence radar(?), IR-seekers, engine performance, grip on runways etc. I think some real fighters (MiG-29: yes (?), F-16: no (?)) have mirrors *inside* the cockpit to help check six, is that right? But there may be some problems implementing this in a sim: -tunnel vision: mirrors may be outside field of view -probably quite complex to calculate -low resolution >From photos of MiG-29s I guess your rear view is pretty obstructed. What's it like in the sim? (haven't seen MiG-29 in Germany, yet, but will check today). Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein ------------------------------- From: Jason_Burrell@fcircus.sat.tx.us (Jason Burrell) Subject: Super Mig-19's/Redout-Blackout I simply turn off the redout-blackout... The way I see it, the only way I can possibly have a chance, even if I was an ace, against those super-19's (They always hose me!) is to turn it off. Oh well...I love realism but still.. - -- Jason_Burrell@fcircus.sat.tx.us Device Driver Stacker.sys not found. Hit (P) to panic! -- PGP public key available upon request. ------------------------------- From: John Asa Price Subject: pressure feedback on joystick I wonder if any joystick manufacturers have considered developing a joystick which would give pressure feedback. I went through the exercise of designing such an animal over the weekend, and it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to do. I figured a few pulleys, 2 stepper motors and a good resillient spring would do the trick... Course, the cost would go up, but in something like MiG, it would certainly be helpful to get a feel for wind on your craft... - -- John Price PC Host Group x 6976 ------------------------------- [[ End of digest Volume 3 : Issue 100 ]]