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In lieu of a *drool* emoticon:

Very nice.

Vympel, you know good and well that the A-10 is my baby, and you post up a pic like that without telling me how to get it!!!

Vewwy nice! Kinda looks like a Redeemer missile...

It's a Maverick, the primary weapon of the A-10.

Cool picture. Long live the A-10 !!!

That looks a lot better than the old A-10 Tank Killer game I used to play on my 386...

Mmmm... what game?

Looks a lot like Lock-On


http://www.lo-mac.com/[/url]

Yeah, it's LOMAC. Demo due 25th Oct, game due "winter 2003". Made by the same company that brought you Flanker 2.0 and 2.5 . Published by Ubi Soft.

For more information, click on the above link. For funny flamewars of various bands of "hardcore flightsimmers" ripping each others' eyeballs out over whether or not this sim will have enough buttons to push, go to http://www.frugalsworld.com , click on "forums", then click on the "Lock-On: Modern Air Combat forum".

Nathan F wrote:Vympel, you know good and well that the A-10 is my baby, and you post up a pic like that without telling me how to get it!!!

It's actually extracted from a 28MB video you can get from the Lock On URL already provided

Wow, tempers run high in the flight sim community. I didn't know it could get this bad...

Warspite wrote:Wow, tempers run high in the flight sim community. I didn't know it could get this bad...

It's all the anal retentive realism whores, debating over whoose dick is bigger, figuratively speaking:

"Falcon 4.0 is better than Lock On!"

"No it isn't!"

"Yes it is!"

"No it isn't!"

It's quite pathetic. Everyone knows Lock On will kick the shit out of that old ugly looking piece of shit.

Vympel wrote:

Warspite wrote:Wow, tempers run high in the flight sim community. I didn't know it could get this bad...

It's all the anal retentive realism whores, debating over whoose dick is bigger, figuratively speaking:

"Falcon 4.0 is better than Lock On!"

"No it isn't!"

"Yes it is!"

"No it isn't!"

It's quite pathetic. Everyone knows Lock On will kick the shit out of that old ugly looking piece of shit.

No it won't!

Frankly, I think flight-sims have reached a point were they are too realistic for the casual flyer (like myself). I still remember the times when one could pick up a sim and be flying and shooting in five minutes, with a godd enough sim engine. Now, hours, if not days are necessary to get the hang of the planes, or even to do some basic combat... They need too much commitment to reap any enjoyment.

Warspite wrote: No it won't!

Frankly, I think flight-sims have reached a point were they are too realistic for the casual flyer (like myself). I still remember the times when one could pick up a sim and be flying and shooting in five minutes, with a godd enough sim engine. Now, hours, if not days are necessary to get the hang of the planes, or even to do some basic combat... They need too much commitment to reap any enjoyment.

That's the problem that we hardcore simmers have. We want as close to 100% realism and fidelity as is humanly possible, but this means that the casual simmer tends to be turned away from a complex sim.

But there are more casual simmers than hardcore simmers, so the companies only naturally prefer to design something that appeals to the majority of the market, i.e. the casual simmers.

What I like in a sim (say FS2004 with special add-ons that increase realism and complexity) is a sim that requires you to things like:
-file an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plan
-fuel up and add payload, then calculate resultant center of gravity (cg)
-receive current weather report
-climb into the flight deck
-do the pre-start up checklist
-program the Flight Management Computer (FMC) for the flight route, aircraft variables, weather parameters, and any specific procedures required by the current route being flown
-do the start-up checklist
-after engines are on and stabilized, do the post-start up checklist
-contact the airport's Clearance Center to receive and IFR clearance and activate our IFR flight plan
-receive taxi clearance from Ground Control
-pushback
-set flaps to take-off setting (lets say 10 degrees)
-taxi to active runway
-set the autopilot for initial climb after takeoff
-receive clearance for takeoff from Tower
-arm the Autothrottle system and Flight Director
-engage Take-Off/Go-Around mode on the autothrottles (TO/GA)
-have the First Officer (F/O) call out 80 knots, then V1 (maximum speed for an aborted takeoff), and when they call "Rotate!" at Vr speed, pull back on the yoke (or stick for you Airbuss people)
-gear up at 50 feet on the radio altimiter
-flaps up one "notch" to 5 degrees at 400 ft. AGL (above ground level)
-engage Autopilot A, and LNAV (lateral navigation) at 1000ft. AGL
-engage VNAV (vertical navigation) at 3000ft. AGL
-acknowledge instructions from Tower to contact the local Departure Center at a given frequency
-contact said Departure Center
-monitor airspeed, reduce flaps by a notch when reaching the appropriate airspeed as indicated by the FMC
-turn off landing lights at 10,000 ft.
-at FL180 (18,000 ft.) set altimiter to the standard 29.92 in. Hg. pressure regardless of the attual external pressure levels
-monitor Air Traffic Control, instruments, aircraft, as you approach, reach, and continue at cruise level (say, FL350 or 35,000 ft.).

Congratulations! You just made it to your cruising altitude!

I admit it, I drool whenever I see such procedures listed, and I am addicted to doing this day after day, every day on my computer, flying as realistically and "by the book" as possible.

How many hours do you spend on this?

Lol! Now that I think about it....

Lets see, time spent flight simming...at least one flight in a "heavy" per day...give that 2-3 hours. Then add some C172 time...another hour per day at least. And my excuse is that my major is Aviation, Professional Pilot emphasis, which makes all of this simming as a great aid for flight training. So it's all useful for me here. And since I am a fanatic, I enjoy the simming for every last little second that passes.

Specifically, with a bit of practice, in FS2004 going from a cold, dark (completely unpowered and shut off) flight deck with an unprogrammed FMC to taking off the runway takes me some 35 minutes or so on average, and this is doing the work of both Captain and First Officer, a doubled workload, if you will.

You see the problem is that there are two camps in the flight sim world.

The "super-reals" who want to have to flick every switch and button in the correct order.

And the "casuals" who just want to get airborne and romp about.

Depending on my mood I can fall into either category, but from what I've seen LO:MAC is being aimed firmly at the casual market.

weemadando wrote:
Depending on my mood I can fall into either category, but from what I've seen LO:MAC is being aimed firmly at the casual market.

Certainly not- it's predecessor, Flanker 2.0, is simply the most hardcore Soviet aircraft sim ever made- and when you talk hard-core in modern flight sims, it's all avionics, radars and missiles. Lock On is going to be even better in the that's-hard department- the developers have concentrated on the F-15C, A-10 and Su-25 avionics more than the already-modelled MiG-29/Su-27 avionics- saying they'll only go back to revise those ones if they have time, because while they could be even more anal, they're adequate enough to put on the back burner until the F-15C etc is done. It's part of the reason why Lock On only has five planes, to be honest- three MiG-29 variants with minimal differences (one Luftwaffe, two Soviet), the Su-27S and the Su-33 that are almost exactly the same, and the F-15C, A-10 and Su-25.

You don't have to tell me how Hardcore Flanker2.0 was, but I get the feeling that the game is going to have a dumbed down option that is probably the only one thats going to get played. And lets face it, its a survey, not a specialist game.