I'm so pissed off with this game.

It's gorgeous. It's fantastic to fly. It's immersive beyond belief.

BUT IT'S BLOODY HARD!

I've never got past mission 1 of a campaign. I have lost count of the number of times I've fired this game up and started a campaign only to drop it after an hour of flying with a full weapon loadout.

I've just flown for over an hour on a SEAD strike...avoided combat and bogies all over the place...dipped in and out of active enemy radar only to be shot down...by my target...an SA-6!!

Have you tried looking for a virtual squadron that can maybe help you hone your skills? I find having a friend along for the ride enhances my situational awareness and overall enjoyment.

Lower the campaign difficulty setting. Don't start your first Falcon campaign on "Ace" settings. Start with easier settings and build up your situational awareness. The step from training missions and simple TEs to a full-blown campaign is difficult indeed, mainly because so much is happening all around you.

I played my first F4:AF campaign on the rookie setting, then moved on to veteran, and I'm doing fine. With my current pilot I've flown 55 campaign missions without dying.

I heard that it was better to start out with the settings high, or else...well, I don't exactly know what.

No, I wouldn't really recommed any newbie to start a Falcon campaign on Ace settings. Chances are high the new guy will shelve the game after a couple of missions where he gets the crap kicked outta him, not really knowing what happened to him. Mind you, I'm talking about the campaign settings, not the avionics or flight model settings.

F4 already has quite a steep learning curve simply flying and operating your F-16. No need to further complicate the first few hours by starting a campaign on the highest difficutly level.

BillRiley, after spenind close to two years trying to learn myself a few years back, I joined a virtual squadron that had a great lesson plan and teaching available to learn this great sim. I learned more in 2 months with them than I did no my own in 2 years.

Join a virtual squadron and have fun. Might I suggest the Freebirdswing.org ( Freebirds ).

People who say that are usually talking about avionics settings. It is much easier to learn the realistic radar and etc from the start instead of getting used to the easy settings, then trying to transition.

Definetly, definetly, definetly do your first campaign on the easiest difficulty settings. If you're really having trouble, try letting the combat autopilot fly the mission - try to see the things that it's doing at the point that you normally get killed.

Hi,

Talk us through how you got there - we might be able to help. I've overflown an active site before now and not got shot at - I went guns on the RADAR out of desperation.

--TangoShadow

Yeah, I suppose it was the avionics that they were talking about. That makes sense. I think I'll have to try the campaign settings on easy when I finally get enough gut to try...boy I have a lot of work to do!

Join an online squadron -- they are incredible to further push immersion, enjoyment and education. And with 1.0.7 you might start getting into real close up formation flying

^^^

Boner!

C3PO you're such a tease, lol.
Is it soup, yet?

v/R
CapnBly "Warlock"
Team ShadowVipers

Not gonna lie, my friend. I put the older version (Falcon:4.0) away in its box on the shelf at LEAST five or six times in two years, usually out of either frustration, anger, or a blend of the two...

I got the new Allied Forces, gave myself a measly 2-3 weeks, and came online. I KNEW I had to be the absolute clumsiest, thick-headed, most unteachable noobie, when I came online, and was just WAITING to be "messed with". I braced myself for a bit of abuse, and started asking my best dumbest questions.

That was less than four months ago. I'm still a clumsy, ham-handed danger to myself, some days, lol... but damn if I didn't accomplish three things by flying with someone else online, at least part of the time.

A) I learned, and began to learn FAST~!
One month regular flying online with a couple of guys I met in these Forums brought my skills up more than 2 years alone with myself did. Sometimes it took two or three different gents explaining things until it clicked, but the advise always made sense, even when I disagreed with it, lol.
B) I had more FUN. I was sick of sitting there at 2am trying to figure out why I was the only idiot who couldn't hit a simple runway.... or land the dang jet, lol. Someone else to jaw with, learn from, accept a little suggestion now and then, and yes, laugh at me a bit... but someone who's gone through it. Made ALL the difference, at least for me. Its a lot more fun to laugh about it with someone who's been there, then sit there chewing on the corner of the monitor, pissed and hopeless.
C) I started surviving missions. Not a lot, at first. Not always because I had done the right thing. But I started surviving ( or at least UNDERSTANDING why I died ). I'm miles from the good, yet.... but I bring the jet home and land it well over half the time. That says something.

If you'd like, toss me a PM with times you're usually around to fly... I'd be happy to help you along with things.

In the meantime, I learned quick in the Forums...
"The sillier you think the question is, the more guys who had to go through it". Lots of good help in the Forums, and as I said, drop me a line.

v/R
CapnBly "Warlock"
Team ShadowVipers

Heh, I ask my share of dumb questions.

new pilots seem to have a huge problem with missions due to lack of SA ( situational awareness )... you only build SA with practice... falcon is not like a console game where you can just plug it in and go, it really does take some time...

the first time i went up i got knocked out of the sky... and the second, third and forth

the best advice above it to join a squadron or find a mentor that can show you how to build SA... once you understand how to use all the little cool gadgets on your f16 and how they work together to show a picture of the action around you... you get a much better understanding of what is/is not dangerous and how best to cope with the dangerous stuff... sometimes it is best just to bug out and go back to homeplate without firing a weapon... many times i've RTB'd a flight that had become too dangerous... good luck and keep at it

Hag

Sure, many things are "bloody hard" when not sure what you are doing!

Winning a real war is a skill that in turn is made up of many smaller skills and so on. Ergo, winning at Falcon 4 is a skill that in turn is made up of many smaller skills and so on. The virtual reality depicted in F4 guarentees a LONG but not necessarily steep learning curve in all aspects of air combat AND campaign warfare skills. THE IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER IS THAT THE CLIMB OF THE LEARNING CURVE ITSELF IS A MAJOR PORTION OF THE ENJOYMENT FACTOR OF FALCON 4. Winning a campaign is also part of the learning curve and is not just the capstone of your Falcon experience. So, it's all right to get blown out of the sky numerous times. But you must also persist and refly that mission over and over again until you get it (or figure out what you may be doing wrong elsewhere).

There are two major catagories of skills to learn in F4. The first skill, the most obvious one and also the biggest one, pertains to everthing in and around the jet itself...avionics, weapons deployment, ATC procedures, knowing enemy equipment and capbilities, etc, etc. This catagory of skills is also the easiest to learn...what you don't know, you look up in the manual, ask at a forum, etc. The second major skill is learning how to WIN in a very complex environment. This involves learning tactics at the sortie level and knowing warfare strategy at the campaign level. It also means knowing oneself in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Just like in the real world, the F4 virtual worlds will certainly expose your [psychological] weaknesses and it will be up to you to either be restrained by your limitations or instead find a way to overcome them.

The quality of your skills are also very important. For example, it's not enough to just read about avionics procedure, try a few practice flights to sort of get it, then attempt to implement it perhaps for the first time "live" in a campaign sortie. No, you must have your procs down pat and implement them precisely and without hesitation either. When the bullets are flying, you don't have time to scratch your head (or nuts!) while you are trying to remember how to employ a system or deploy a weapon.

My own F4AF experience has been one of refamiliarization. My last campaign sortie was almost two years ago in a mod version of the original game. Fortunately, many short Falcon "fixes" just flying around and blowing things up in Dogfight arena allowed me to keep many of my first catagory skills honed. However, I knew the AF campaign experience would be a new one compared to my prior version campaigns (eg, usa1.08, RP, etc). I flew about 30 different types of missions in my first AF Balkans campaign with the mindset that I was going to push things to the limit and get shot down a lot so I could determine what those limits are...and that I was going to trash that test campaign and start a new one when I knew I was "ready". Hint: you learn more when you LOSE and new features in F4-AF campaign mean learning new skills that have little to do with flying in the 3D world.

More things you could do...don't just read the game manual. There are many articles written by other enthusiasts that can be found on the forums. Fly LOTS of practice sorties in all sorts of environments against many different enemy units, etc. Most important, remember that "it's a journey, not just a destination" and certianly HAVE FUN as you climb the learning curve. In the end, you will become what many of us have already become: Falcon Geeks!

AIM120

I feel the sameway when it comes to turn based strategy games like Civ4 and GalCiv2. I think it's a sign I shouldn't venture away from flightsims :}

Wow...loads of advice. I was expecting a couple of "Keep in there and good luck" posts...nothing like this.

As for online squadrons, I'm in the UK which makes flying with anyone from over the pond very difficult.

I'll go through the training missions again...and again, until I get IT. I'm not flying and instinctively knowing what I'm doing...last night I tried to let of an AMRAAM at a Mig-21 which encroached and kept wondering why my missile wasn't on it's way...then I looked to the left and saw the Master Arm button!!

As for the SA-6...I had encroached it's airspace before I even had AG weapons selected....big problem. I could've luanched those slammers from much further out...for some reason, which escapes me now, I was tyring to get to my INGRES waypoint before I started my run...why? I don't know. I do know I could have locked onto the SA-6 further out.

Anyway, thanks for the tips. I think I'll go and complete ALL the training missions and not just the ones that sound like fun.

Thx alot.

Final tip: learn in the Training missions; practice mostly in Instant Action, Dogfight, and Campaign. What you practice in Campaign is less flying and more strategic level warfare. Also recommend practice with God Mode, unlimited fuel and countermeasures, no collisions settings ON...for fewer interruptions during practice.

I still remember my first year with Falcon 4.0. Although I was Falcon 3 experienced at that time, Falcon 4.0 campaigns were so frustrating that I played almost exclusively the training missions for most of a year. Padlock operation is IMHO very important for dogfighting and dodging SA Missiles - and it trains situation awareness.