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#4299566 - 09/27/16 08:51 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Schwalbe Offline
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One more post about the dreamy UI.. this time on the ESC key.

The ESC key can be used to close any windows, any time in the UI, without fail. It saves a lot of "mouse dances" that leads to sore "mouse hands" (anyone has a TM Warthog that's familiar with the "warthog elbow".. it's like the same thing biggrin ) in that you no longer need to maneuver the mouse to reach over the small "x" there to shut down a window. And in a busy campaign, there are lots of windows to be opened, and closed.

It can be used to close the unit status window, allowing rapid recon of multiple units on the map in just a few seconds.


Also after messing around in the ATO.. another simple ESC to close it.


Or briefings and debriefings... ESC. Gone.


Last but not least. When nothing is open and I'm just on the campaign screen. ESC exits the campaign.


Wait! Forgot to adjust the loadout of that last flight. I need to go back. Well..ESC again! It also closes the exit window!!..


Microsoft games level UI. Not even exaggerating...


That's it for today and back tomorrow.

Last edited by Schwalbe; 09/27/16 08:53 PM.
Inline advert (2nd and 3rd post)

#4299628 - 09/28/16 03:21 AM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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schnidrman Offline
Jason Schneider
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Jason Schneider
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Kansas City, Missouri
Good to see the old girl getting some attention. Looks like you have been pretty busy!

I'm learning to use the Delilah in the F16I-52+-CFT SUFA.



Kinda cool watchin' your missile fly away, as you bank away. Range in BMS 80 nm. due to limitations in the sim.


I wish I had time for 2 sims, or maybe 3, still haven't tried DCS anything yet. Maybe in 20 or so years! salute


[Linked Image]
#4299895 - 09/30/16 06:52 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Phoenix54C Offline
I am just a cowboy
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I am just a cowboy
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Emerald Isle
Good Post bump

#4299906 - 09/30/16 07:54 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Phoenix54C]  
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Schwalbe Offline
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Originally Posted By: Phoenix54C
Good Post bump

lol yeh.. a few vanished since shq went down. it's up and down a bit of late it seems.

hey at least it's not DDoSed!..








i'm still trying for a usable pair of cockpit wings for the f-15. Apparently the node structure has a stricter set of rules. If I can't solve it by the next few dayz it's back to flying - the eagle has a function in campaign due bvr prowess but it's afterall Falcon.
also interestingly the AF campaigns have a higher F-16 squadron density.. there are lots of them. F-15C squad remains the usual kadena 67th but just the one.

#4299975 - 10/01/16 03:30 AM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: tirta]  
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alexlau Offline
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hong kong
Originally Posted By: tirta
thanks Schwalbe for ODSAF link.
I am going to try it.

also, I find this AF mod by skunkworks:
http://www.moddb.com/downloads/skunkworks-mod

is this a good mod?


Speaking of Skunkworks I found Ver.2 on my old harddisk but I haven't tried it on Win 7
Uploaded here should anyone be interested:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Au5VHq3mWK60ayPrqeGcVB6EIi0

#4300011 - 10/01/16 10:48 AM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Phoenix54C Offline
I am just a cowboy
Phoenix54C  Offline
I am just a cowboy
Member

Joined: Sep 2016
Posts: 585
Emerald Isle
http://www.checksix-fr.com/

Israel,
odsaf,
panama.

#4300057 - 10/01/16 04:00 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Phoenix54C]  
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tirta Offline
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Originally Posted By: Phoenix54C
http://www.checksix-fr.com/

Israel,
odsaf,
panama.


it seems that all that I can find are dead links.
can you give me the working link for panama and israel?

#4300071 - 10/01/16 04:36 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Phoenix54C Offline
I am just a cowboy
Phoenix54C  Offline
I am just a cowboy
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Posts: 585
Emerald Isle
Works fine here...

look under falconAF maps and click the disk icons.

#4300117 - 10/01/16 08:47 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Schwalbe Offline
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It seems I'd screwed up my 3DDB.. took sometime trying to fix it to no avail so I had to restore a backup.
Luckily most of the 2DDB edits can be carried over so all's not lost.

Stuff like this in modding would always happen, so there are 3 cardinal rules to follow:
1. Always backup.
2. Always backup!!
3. Follow the cycle of mod - playtest - mod. Instead of mod all in one go. This would guarantee stability.

Followed 1 and 2 but failed 3... eh. I should go do that.




The reds sent another wave of Migs to the FLOT. Time to hop into the seat. Picked an on-station FAC viper with a 4-0-2 load. The AI will never use those unless it's taken over by player.

As it's on FAC duty the altitude isn't great. Good way to negate that in bvr using WEZ-denial. Keeping the target bugged near radar gimbals while climbing striving for co-altitude with the target. Ofc, I know they're Mig-29As because I've bombed the runways of the -SMs. Otherwise, at 20nm he would've already shot an adder this way!:X


The characteristic chirp of the 29 RWR blip always makes one go uneasy but it is an uneven fight. With the help of at least 2 other pairs of AA flights (well they could originally be AG flights but with "set g_bUseAggresiveIncompleteA2G 1" mud movers will shoot AA) the fulcrums are quickly dispatched.
The FAC ride is skosh so I exit back to campaign UI and sent him home.

Apparently reinforcement 44th Squad F-15C arrived at Pyongtaek AB sometime and they've been sending out Barcaps. This is new.. taking one of those. Loadout.. 4 - 2 - 2. Interesting.
Falcon AF has very excellent sparrow FMs. And taking out a bad guy with a sparrow is extremely satisfying. And so there were no screenies in my excitement:X... I shot them at 2 of a 4 ship fishbed flight. The 1st one was hit by a slammer, and i handed off the 2nd one to my wingman. His fox3 call came promptly.

Fishbed hits and going down





After this awacs Q-Q-1 came up empty so we went turkey hunting. I am 0-0-2 skosh so wingmen did most of the shooting. First victims are a flight of su-25s, next were some an-24 transports. Finally remembered to ss one of his sparrows streaking towards an Antonov.


Right.. I remember the AIM-54 FM is even more awesome. But, what do i know... except that it does look very like one of the Fighter Fling episodes where a 4 ship cats shoot 'em in sequence. Hopefully the carrier group arrives soon.

---


Came back to campaign UI again. The eagle barcap still has some missiles left so kept them on station - unlikely to hop into 3D with them again tho.

The periodic surge of red flights coming to the FLOT needs to be stopped as I'd previously planned and what just happened makes it more necessary. I don't usually have a preference for a2a or a2g but it does seem a2a gets one's adrenaline pumping hence better enjoyment. That said the ultimate purpose here is campaign victory, and so the less AA, the easier it goes.

The problem is importance vs urgency. While shutting down DPRK airbases are of utmost importance, what's happening on the FLOT on the ground is the more urgent matter atm... I've already had some helo squadrons relocate to the back due to their base being overrun. And with ground pounding taking up most sorties/airframes I still don't wanna change the pak/priority settings - CAS/Interdiction to the max. And indeed the AG flights have been pounding dprk ground forces none stop, as indicated on the 2D minimap. And ground vs ground fighting has been more sporadic of late, again indicated by the 2d minimap, which is good as I don't really want to stick the relatively feeble bluefor grunts into the meat grinder too much.

Main AG heavy hitters against opfor troops are 3 types in any Falcon4 campaign:
1. F-15E mudhens
2. A-10s
3. Helos

They each have their pros and cons, I find. The mudhens are really multirole, if things come to shove they can combat jett and go AA. They carry a heavy AG load and can deal some pretty heavy damage. Very good all-around. The hogs are the most lethal, but they require the area to be sanitized beforehand of Migs and any sort of anti-air stuff. Their cannons can whittle down a full strength battalion from full strength all the way to zero, but they require a very long on station time to work the target, increasing their vulnerability. Hence the hogs are extremely powerful late game.. ahem, campaign, but early on they are easy targets for the opfor. The helos are stealthy as they don't get easily detected by fighters, but they're very easily shot down and limited by range - their use are more limited but they can survive the "wall of Migs" onslaught even when the mudhens have a tough time. And so early game I manually frag helos to increase their sortie rate, late game manual frag hogs to increase theirs.

But atm I need to manually frag mudhens.. 333rd from Yechon. Nothing is better at taking out airbases than them at this time. Luckily with ToF pushed back 2hrs I got 2 free airframes. Rummaging thru the rest of the viper squadrons I got another 2 F-16s free. Targets: Hyon-Ni and Hwangju airbase. Nothing fancy, just because they are close and undefended by SAMs (or at least it appears, you never know if existing ones are resupplied with FCR or new reinforcements arrive..). There actually is another R-77 carrying squadron... Mig-21-93s. Yes, I had already been shot down by those once. THIS NEVER GETS OLD DOES IT. "oh mig21s.. hmmm taking it easy." "Chirp..<M>..chirp." "WTF?!...." hit! ctrl-e, Ctrl-EEE!!!......... However them bastards are all the way back at Sunch'on. Currently there isn't enough resources to reach that far yet. YET. grrr.


Next up, probing SEAD flights. 3 of them sent to the west, center and east. Just slowly expanding the zone of elimination of enemy SAMs. I'd like to send more, but no more airframes are available. Plus it can be hard to monitor the situation when many flights are sent north and I need to hop into 3D. This will have to do.



Suffice to say I'm again properly hooked. It is a bit slow to get into as this thing doesn't really look any good - altho better than the 1990s games for sure, but the smooth and enriched gameplay has been very nice... back for more later.

Last edited by Schwalbe; 10/01/16 08:52 PM.
#4300158 - 10/02/16 01:29 AM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Schwalbe Offline
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HART sites bombing

Taking advantage of the gap between red air surges I decide to hop into a few AG flights instead of the usual UI observing - the campaign engine can calculate 2D damage on ground units fairly well but there are some occasions when controlled by player the AG flight can be more effective. Bombing HART site is one example as the vehicles are grouped together making them juicy targets, but such things certainly isn't taken into consideration when only 2D damage is done.

However forget them high class toys, all we have at the mo are mk82 dumb bombs. MK82SEs which are retarded..... dumb bombs. But surely, to a B-29 bombardier that CCIP pipper should be a god send.


4 hogs are working a nearby battalion in the open, but they are really low in the weeds to be really distinguishable. Their bomb blasts are though. Action camera shows a cobra firing an agm-114. There are also rifle calls in the back. Busy FLOT!

I'd intended to take a precision stpt but there's no need for it as stpt 3 is directly over the target. Most important thing in all of this is to dump flares. I have program 3 set just for this kind of bombing run.. them SAM shooters even Manpads are very trigger happy in Falcon AF and unless you pre-empt it with flares it can very often find the mark. And so rolling in flares blazing...


3 pickles in single, 1 HART site wrecked. It fought back tho with that plume of rocket smoke mostly likely an SA7


Flew eastward along the FLOT and found the next close by victim.

NEVER stop dumping flares.

After a while a BAI flight loaded with AGM-65Bs came so this became easier.



When lead's Nevada and I hopped in no.3's seat the weather turned for worse, there's a thick cloud layer between 8k - 12k ft. The maverick seeker can't see thru clouds and I shifted targets to a nearby HQ battalion. Their SA13s are deadly, think I'll always remember this. With a precision stpt this time, ripple fired all 8 mavs at the HQ batt. In AF you can uncage the 3 mavs loaded on LAU-88 in one go - meaning all 8 mavs can be uncaged together - so ripple firing 8 is rather easy.

That's 3 SA13s and 3 ZSU23s down plus 2 trucks.

Good day's work so far..


P.S. carrier group has arrived. Only bug squads, no cats. BAH.

Last edited by Schwalbe; 10/02/16 01:35 AM.
#4300293 - 10/02/16 06:03 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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- Ice Offline
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- Ice  Offline
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Philippines / North East UK
Nice shots!! When I play, unfortunately, I get so immersed I forget that I can pause and take screenshots. frown


- Ice
#4300425 - 10/03/16 05:34 AM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Stratos Offline
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Amposta, Spain
will you play with Tomcats too? Please keep the posts and pics coming!


-Sir in case of retreat, were we have to retreat??
-To the Graveyard!!

sandbagger.uk.com/stratos.html
#4300514 - 10/03/16 04:00 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Schwalbe Offline
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ice/stratos: good to see ya still like the pics of a 10 yr old.
i think a good way to grab pics is just fraps the whole thing:D (and one can take ss from the raw video as well)

unfortunately for me AF slogs down to 15fps with fraps running.. zero idea why:X


apparently there's no tomcat squads in me current campaign. but i found some cat launching phoenix ss from archive. The missile slowly drops down away from the ac, then goes into a steep loft climb again very slowly.



I'm not sure the pics demo it well tho hmm...
btw they're from the Israel theater and i think before the AF terrain shader fix was found - back then the earth was dark lol.






+ 1hr search yields Fighter Fling 1997. @2:30 the definitive (for me) phoenix shots on vid.
https://vimeo.com/18849132

(Fighter Fling 1997 muted on youtube due copyleft. Whole thing has become a money grabbing ad platform... pffft)

various other phoenix shots in FF like 1996 https://youtu.be/RXxbjtqIbKg?t=9m59s there's definitive pitch up after launch to go into loft trajectory

#4300576 - 10/03/16 07:53 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Stratos Offline
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Pics are ok, is possible to clearly see the AIM-54 lofting, and man what a beauty the Tomcat is!!


-Sir in case of retreat, were we have to retreat??
-To the Graveyard!!

sandbagger.uk.com/stratos.html
#4301437 - 10/07/16 05:18 AM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: - Ice]  
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theOden Offline
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Originally Posted By: - Ice
Nice shots!! When I play, unfortunately, I get so immersed I forget that I can pause and take screenshots. frown

I find this a very common Falcon Problem smile

Schwalbe, thanks for that vimeo link, great shots (but a tad bit too much 007 smile ) - I would hope more people started to use vimeo over, as you said, the money grabbing ad mayhem of youtube.

#4301495 - 10/07/16 01:04 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: theOden]  
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Schwalbe Offline
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yeah it is harder to find video gems now. There are lots of vids to begin with and everyone of them very bland. The good ones seem to be made in the 2000s or before.








am stuck with an anime visual novel for the time being for entertainment. Will be back later for more flying... Long as computer gaming it'll be F4af.

Last edited by Schwalbe; 10/07/16 01:05 PM.
#4321821 - 12/20/16 07:23 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Ed_1 Offline
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Hey Schwalbe

Great write up, didn't read every post but will reread.

Glad it still runs good.

#4321835 - 12/20/16 07:38 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Unfortunately those shots still show so much of the old Falcon graphics engine, especially that old terrain. In the new BMS mod it's barely recognizable. The same way that the WOFF team completely changed the look of CFS3.


"From our orbital vantage point, we observe an earth without borders, full of peace, beauty and magnificence, and we pray that humanity as a whole can imagine a borderless world as we see it, and strive to live as one in peace."
Astronaut William C. McCool RIP, January 29, 2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia

#4321839 - 12/20/16 07:52 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Schwalbe]  
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Pooch Offline
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https://c7.staticflickr.com/1/755/31271742950_a99c75de06_o.jpg

I think this screenshot from over at the BMS forum is amazing. Gotta look twice to make sure its not a photo.


"From our orbital vantage point, we observe an earth without borders, full of peace, beauty and magnificence, and we pray that humanity as a whole can imagine a borderless world as we see it, and strive to live as one in peace."
Astronaut William C. McCool RIP, January 29, 2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia

#4322043 - 12/21/16 12:27 PM Re: Back to the beginning.. Flying and modding Falcon AF [Re: Pooch]  
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Schwalbe Offline
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Originally Posted By: Ed_1
Hey Schwalbe

Great write up, didn't read every post but will reread.

Glad it still runs good.


thanks Ed!.. good to see ya still around:)

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