I have had no problems with starforce... yet.

*crosses fingers*

There are a lot of "realism" problems with the F-15.

I don't fly the Russian planes yet and know nothing of their capabilities. But the AMRAAM does not have any way to fire the missle like a real one, or at least like the ones in Falcon.

I love LOMAC for gun only dogfights, except for the uber zoom. I fly them both if I have time. Falcon only if I don't.

LOMAC vs. F4 topic, AGAIN?!

IBL

Who said it was "vs"?

I'd go for this explanation when it comes to comparing LOMAC and F4:AF:

F4:AF is about realism and lengthy campaigns. It's centered around one aircraft, the F-16 as we all know, and over the years different people has improved it so it closely resembles the real thing. This is all good... except that you feel that you do rats ass in the campaigns. You're just one dude in an F-16 flying around blowing things up and your actions don't have that much of an influence to the rest of the campaign. Which is ofcourse also more true to the real world where the outcome of the joint forces different missions in the end result in either victory or defeat.
Graphically it's somewhat behind of what could be done with todays graphicscards but thats fully understandable. It's still pretty in my eyes and does it's job well. It does feel like flying on rails most of the time though, the airframe doesn't shake the way i'd want it to when pushing the aircraft to it's limits but then again, I've never flown a jet so that could just be me.

LOMAC on the other hand, not so much realism but also not only "arcade". It's not centered to just one aircraft, instead we get to fly a whole slew of neat aircrafts, mostly russian ofcourse but it's fun to fly for the "wrong" side after years of only USAF sims. And here is the deal with LOMAC: it's not about big, lengthy campaigns, it's about skirmishes. Yes, small battles or operations. ...atleast most of the time. If you'd want a fullscale war then yes, you have to create a string of missions to simulate it, but still.. it wasn't created to play that kind of game. So once you acknowledged that it's about small battles in a small part of the world everything else makes sense, and thus LOMAC shouldn't be judged against F4 because of the lack of a real campaign. ...and boy, is this sim pretty? Taking off in the faint light of dawn, seeing the sun rising and see the sunlight reflect nicely on the clouds from behind.. and the blue sky.. ah.. and the terrain. There's no doubt about it, this sim does push the "feeling like I'm there!" feeling to the top. The flightmodel in LOMAC is also quite nice (the SU-25T mostly, because it got the advanced thingymabob-modeling) and the effects of airspeed, damage and other things reflects well in how the aircraft behaves and feel. For instance, go really fast and your whole view starts to shake etc, as beachAV8R mentioned on one of his articles. The things that dissapoint in LOMAC though, are that the US weaponry feels dumbed down. I can live with that though.

Both sims get a lot better when used with a Track-IR and having both sims, I must say that LOMAC feels much more alive than F4 with it.

Now, don't get me wrong here after reading this. I LOOOOVE F4:AF. It's great! Been playing it for years, but now when I finally got the time to delve into LOMAC I find myself playing that more and more. It's not as bad as people say it is (except starforce, which I myself have no problem with whatsoever..) but it isn't a "falcon-killer" either. It's just another really cool flightsim, but with a different approach to missions and campaigns.

I say, enjoy both. The combined weaknesses and strenghts between both sims makes each one worthy a place in the simshelf of every player.

Funny how there's always someone who misunderstands you!

I don't care which one is "better" or more "realistic" or "pretty" or anything like that. I just want to know how they compare and what each is "good at".

Thanks for the comments so far. Can anyone comment on LOMAC's Radar and weapon avionics. How well are they handled?

Oh! I forgot one other thing!

Does LOMAC have a quick battle option? F4AF has both a dog fight and instant action option that both accomplish the same thing: quick fights against opponent without committing to a mission or campaign. One of the most frustrating things about Flanker 2.5 was the inflexible instant action option. Going 1 vs. 5 in a plane that can barely find and track one plane all by itself was NOT fun. You basically had to set up your own practices in the mission editor. I'm hoping LOMAC improved this.

LOMAC has the Fast Battle Planner.You can quickly set up any type of combat and it has plenty of options.

The avionics are vastly different from plane to plane. The Su-25T in FC has the most accurate, followed by the Su-25 (although its avionics are just one step above WWII plane's!). The other planes are all on a par with each other. The Su-27/33/MiG-29 all share the same systems, and if you've flown Flanker 2.5 you know exactly how they work. They're little changed for LOMAC, although there were some improvements to the RHAWS and some other detail changes. The A-10 is solid but not complex...everything but the Mavericks are just point and shoot. The Mavericks are a lot easier to work than in F4. I think a little too easy in LOMAC vs a little too hard in F4, it should be in the middle.
The F-15C is the point of much contention. There's realism vs play balance, and I think the F-15 as modeled is restricted for play balancing purposes to be too similar to the Su-27's abilities. In real life you can shoot an AMRAAM at high altitude against a head-on target at ranges greater than 20nm, but LOMAC won't let you. Of course, that's because the missile will fall out of the sky before it gets there, it's not a radar/missile mismatch.
Many people disagree with the AMRAAM modeling in LOMAC, it seems more true to life in F4:AF. The R-77 beats the AMRAAM most of the time in LOMAC.



The Jedi Master

It's overmodelled in F4:AF, IIRC (Maybe not in AF .. it was in some other F4 versions)

Overmodelled according to what?

In LOMAC the slammers are without their ECCM capabilities, so aren't really slammers at all.

Oh, Bard is here

Wow Eldritch. I think your post is the most logical and concise one I've read concerning the Falcon 4AF/Lock On comparion issue. It was a great read.

Yep.

*taps fingers*

*yawns*

..and?

Overmodelled accoring to USAF pilot (in particular in range) ... like I said, I don't recall which version of F4 we were looking at at that time, but the idea was that the truth was 'somewhere in the middle' ... and after that I found something that confirmed such. No, let's not discuss it - no need to believe me, but I don't want to go further into this.

In any case, the F4 120 /currently/ isn't as overmodeled as LO's AMRAAM is /under/ modeled. And I'm not talking just ECCM, though this is a huge huuuuuuuge part of it ... this particular issue is slated to be fixed in 1.2, and so far it's been working nicely.
Small change, big difference.
I'd say F4's ECCM is also a *little* too good. A little. Just gut instinct. But again ... this forces realistic tactics as opposed to the alternative, which we have in LO: Not trusting your missiles at all.

I like them both. What's good about them being different is that I can fly the one that suits my mood at the time.

..and the viper driver I spoke to said range was under-modelled, but much closer than the legs of LOMAC's slammer (not a dig at LOMAC, just the ones in LOMAC don't go as far) but still too short. That's the problem with opinions - they vary.

Do you have any data sources that says the range is overmodelled?

I've watched the missiles in LOMAC and it seems the problem is excessive drag. The top speeds are sometimes way too low, of course, but once the motor burns out they slow down REAL fast without any turning at all.



The Jedi Master

Kilgore and Jedi:

Thanks for the info, thats all I needed to know!

Thats the tricky thing with Slammers though, there are different versions which get better and better at hitting targets. I think LOs 120s are probably the earlier version. The other important aspect is the SARH missiles are too good to real life I think. They perform better in game than they should as there are more aspects that influence the missiles ability to hit the target. Also theres features such as the F-15Cs ability to launch multiple 120s at multiple targets. Hopefully future F-15 sims might have these features.

Jane's F-15 had it, although granted that was the 15E not the 15C.



The Jedi Master