Lock On Platinum - Australia

Great to know, but I have to say Im pretty happy with my download version

excellent :thumbup:

Ta for the heads-up was going to try and order this via the US, much better when this is in country

Lock On Platinum (Lock On + Flaming Cliffs 2 ) will be released ... 26th August 2010 into Australia

What happened here, I can only find it listed as coming on October 2nd! :(

Thanks for checking; it has been on Mindscape's site for a while, it still just says "coming soon" with no firm date. They want $62 to send me a copy - $49.95 + $12 postage.

If I ordered it from somewhere like NWS in the US I would pay less than $35 - $25.90 + $7.55 postage...

Not only are games extremely overpriced with lengthy release delays here, the interstate postage charges are outrageous as well! :D

Thats australia for ya,all we do is get ripped off ripped off ripped off ripped off ripped off...

I own a 2005 F250 and i dont buy a single thing for it here in aussie,everything i order from the states half the price including freight.

Plus we live in the nanny country,you cant do this and you cant do that.

 

Not only are games extremely overpriced with lengthy release delays here, the interstate postage charges are outrageous as well! :D

When I ordered the BS manual from Mindscape, it came almost overnight- I'd happily pay a premium for that.

LOP - EB games $40

Will have a look at the Platinum version soon ... it's been a loooong time since I flew LockOn ... very good to see ED kept developing and ironing out the wrinkles though.

Edit: holycrap! ... the original sig and soundpack link still came up!

Theres a name I havent seen in a looooooong looooooooooooooong time...

You're right hitman. Long time no see....

zzzspace Soundpack, one of the best mods created.

Hello gents, I remember you both.

Yes, a LOOONNG time. I did check in occasionally to see what ED was doing. I just bushed the dust off the CH stick. Still calibrates but my CH pedals are snafu. Installed LockOn 1.02 on the weekend and modded it and took for a spin ... a noob ... no stick setup ... it worked ... I didn't ... the old TIR2 has given up the ghost. I'll order a copy of FC2 this week. I'm glad Ed finally got it back in the shops.

Anyone that has a handy link to a list of 'must have' mods would be appreciated. I'll be around.

Looking forward to see what the SIM can do these days, especially mission planer, and if the AI behaves quasi-rationally.

There's packs you can download like the one compiled by Viper:

A10-F15C-Su27 Extended Version 2.1 Release

it includes the following modman mods: (approx 500meg)

SIM-MOD A-10A Warthog + A-10 cockpit fix by UWBuRn

SIM-MOD A-10 Weathered Skinpack by Ruggbutt

"Live To Fly, Fly To Kill" A-10 skins by Deadman

F-15C Eagle by Gys and Valery

F-15C Cockpit textures by Aeroscout, DoctorK, and Mustang

F-15C 141st Wolves Turkish Air Force Skins

F-15C Inner burner textures by Postal2

JASDF F-15J textures by Yakuza2

3GO Su-27 Flanker

Sorbcija Model by Albacore

6DOF Cockpit Mod by GOZR

Ricardo's HD Cockpits

Walmis Weapons (only AIM-7 and R-77

Teka Teka's Coastline Mod

Teka Teka's Realistic Moon

Small Waves fix by Mario80

Concrete FARP by Mario80

B-8V20A, B-20, UB-32M1, UB-13 models by Beczi

DeeperBlueSky v1.1 mod by Blaze & SilentEagle

CloudMod v1.0 by Mitch Janssen

Russian Blue Afterburners by Majesco

Hardened Aircraft Shelter Textures v4.0 by Mustang

Replacement Structure Texturepack v7.0 by Mustang

Naval Vessels Metal Framework Texture Fix by Mustang

Black Road Textures (Full Markings) v2 by Mustang

for more info head over to http://www.lockonfiles.com/

(registration is required)

There's packs you can download like the one compiled by Viper:

for more info head over to http://www.lockonfiles.com/

(registration is required)

Thanks a bunch G3, good to see you, will dothat, I still have a lockonfiles account but can't work out what the password was, and the email addy is old-as. Few more tries ... will be good to have FC looking sharp from first install.

Just wanted you to know my CH peddals snuffed it in the service of GTR and RBR ... lots and lots of laps around Mt Panorama hanging it loose and light over the top ... they copped a floggin.

Your welcome zzz

Getting well off topic but we just ran our annual bathurst 1 hour race tonight and I won :) woohoo

May I also suggest,

you check out the profile I put together for FC2

with helios and leavu called "eagle pit" over at scsimulations.

Now fully lan-able.

woohoo indeed, well done, that's gotta feel good.

Will check all that out, thanks again.

Thought I might have a bit of a look. Esp at this price....

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/380369901678?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Thought I might have a bit of a look. Esp at this price....

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/380369901678?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

A10C, Blackshark and FC2 Plat for $189.85 AUD, plus $12 delivery, from Mindscape Sydney.

I'm sort of happy to pay though, I'm just glad ED got its SIMs in boxes and back on sale in the stores. I hope that continues.

Installed Platinum a week ago, FC v2.1 But barely had time to use it.

Early impression; I notice is it feels a bit more 'epic'. Mission-planning, AI defence and aggression 'discipline' to roles and mission objectives see a bit more cohesive and persistent. AI seems not so prone to stupidly wandering off to do its own thing and GBAD air defences feel like they operate in a more-human-like 'fog-of-war' for potential errors, rather than with an all-seeing-eye, that always aimed straight-'n-true, in all conditions. Lockon 1.02 felt stark and clinical because of that, as you could always predict the radial distance at which air defence system 'x' would fling a missile at you. Real-world GBAD and sensors are going to be more inconsistent.

So far; it feels like you could develop tactics to minimise losses and maintain air and ground control. Multirole and dedicated strikes as planned 'packages', seem to potentially work-out and function. This matters a lot to me, as I couldn't do that (acceptably) in Lockon 1.02 or 1.1, for that matter, as the AI was too wilful and routinely got distracted from or ignored the assigned primary role or task, or behaved suicidally and flew stupidly, and was very wasteful of fuel.

I noticed the AI in FC2.1 still wastes way too much fuel on afterburners for routine navigation and prosaic flight command changes. A human pilot would almost always strictly conserve fuel when not in combat. The AI is still inclined to burn as much fuel as it can, and also wildly alters thrust and uses air-brake for no apparently beneficial reason. That behaviour should be GONE - years ago. Some aircraft with lots of fuel (for such a small region) seemingly are almost permanently using afterburners, until the fuel is so low, they can't any more, then they disengage and just limp away (slowly) to the nearest friendly strip. What pilot would fly like that? You'd fly sensibly so that you almost always RTB, at the base your mission planning said you should return to.

An old flight sim that had this completely nailed-down to perfection, and properly implemented about 18 years ago, was a ground-attack sim called "TORNADO".

http://www.listal.com/game/tornado-

http://i2.listal.com/image/721825/600full-tornado-cover.jpg

Here's and excerpt of how another simmer has described it: Tornado (Digital Integration/Spectrum Holobyte, 1993)

"... Rather, it is notable simply because it is so incredibly solid. More than any other flight sim that I can remember playing, Tornado seems, to my mind, to be undeserving of the title "game". It is not a program you can get into quickly. It is not the kind of flight sim where you can just start blowing all kinds of stuff up. And it has an unusual number of controls and avionics to learn, even by flight sim standards. ... I would venture to say that in terms of flight avionics, Tornado is the most solid flight sim of the mid-90s. ... The most sophisticated mission planning system ever implemented on a home computer, including:

precision flight planning system, including

calculation of speeds

time of arrival at each waypoint

fuel consumption

turn radius

autopilot setup (terrain following, target attack,

airfield approach, etc)

assisted weapon selection

flight profile analysis

radar coverage analysis"

http://lateblt.tripod.com/tornspec.txt

--

TORNADO did not need a patch, it was conceptually ideal, stable and virtually bug-free. They had carefully considered and developed a logically 'ideal' planning and command architecture, from the beginning. It was hard to get it wrong with that, and it did it require ad-hoc change or a major upgrade. When version 2.0 of Tornado was released it was simply a more elaborate Desert-Storm map extension of version 1.0, with some additions of platforms. It didn't need a major revision of its command oriented mission-planning paradigm.

Tornado resolved the whole problem of inefficiency of AI behaviour from the mission planner, via assigning a precise flight altitude, speed and precise scheduled time for each waypoint. Lockon 1.0 tried to achieve this, but the wayward AI almost always failed to follow the planning. Tornado also used a very impressive and precise terrain contour map that was way ahead of any other sim at that era, and the plan had the priority, and the AI did not vary the plan. The AI would fly though air defences, but it would always try to runaway from a fighter (and often didn't make it), but if you planned a TFR route at 200 feet, they almost never got detected. But there was no AEW involved. But AEW just means you then have to protect your attackers with your own fighters covering them, or none of them will survive.

So AEW illumination still should not be a valid reason for your attack aircraft to not follow the flight plan, because then it is up to the mission planner to try to protect them sufficiently. and if they encountered air defences they should fly right through them, with ECM and counter-measures and DEAD support. Again, it's no reason to not follow the flight's attack plan, because the mission planner has the insider 'intel' of where these are and what they can see, so can plan an attack appropriately.

Aappropriately disciplined AI behaviour in Tornado provided a very precise TIME-ON-TARGET, exactly as was set within the mission planner. Every aircraft in the mission did this, exactly as planned, unless they were intercepted, or damaged, or had an avionics system fail, or the primary had already been destroyed, etc. Your squadron flew EXACTLY what you asked of them (as they would try to in real life) and every waypoint had a precise time for the AI's TFR autopilot to reach it, if they could, if they had survived to that waypoint and were undamaged.

And if you planned this out right, tactically, in the planner, you usually did make it though to a target, and killed it in one pass, and then did successfully RTB. It all worked, just as a real elite strike package would execute such a mission.

Once this was all setup via preflight mission planning the AI just did what it was assigned to do, and always did it on time WITH TERRIFIC EFFICIENCY - no stupid flying. They did not go faster or slower than required in order to achieve the assigned time at waypoint, and the expected time-on-target (down to the +/- seconds level).

And thus the autopilot almost NEVER had to use afterburners to get back to where they should be to get to the next waypoint on time.

In planning Tornado always suggested an ideal efficient cruise speed (around 400 to 420 knots) to avoid wasting fuel and to ensure viable RTB plus a fuel-buffer allowance to run supersonically from a fighter. Precision and efficiency were everything, and if you got it right in planning, it all worked out in the cockpit when you engaged the autopilot. You only flew manually for take offs and landings, and some weapon delivery modes required you to fly manually for short while, or else to avoid some Shilka fire. The rest of the time you just managed the sensors, avionics and weapons and let the autopilot fly the planned mission.

Boring? Not in the least, it was awesome. The mission planner's fine-control of events made it feel very compelling. Mostly you were hoping that each part of your plan would work and you would have zero losses. As that's what a modern digital navigation system and sensor/autopilot are designed to ideally achieve in practice. And they can achieve exacting levels of speed, location and timing precision and control. There's an excellent example of this sort of time-on-target capability at the end of the 2000 Olympics closing when within a second or so of a song ending, as the Olympic flame goes out, an F-111 flew overhead doing a dump-'n-burn, arriving on 'target', literally within a second of it's assigned time. The music, the flame's extinguishing, the F-111 flyover, and the digital fireworks that followed were all time sync-ed down to the second.

In the second clip you can actually hear the pilot counting-down to the avionics planned Time-on-Target. The Broadcasters were fed this time-on-target so they'd know when to cue cameras. As you can see, it arrived on target precisely at the allotted time.

That planning and time-on-target precision of autopilot and AI flight discipline should be present in any modern air combat sim. That's what attack/strike aircraft are designed for, +/- a couple of seconds. That's what we should be able to plan and execute at the mission editor level, and also within the actual flying. The AI should do this, and almost without exception.

What this ability did in Tornado is it allowed precise and very elaborate coordinated attacks that simply overwhelmed the target's defences from multiple directions, with as little warning as possible, in about a 30 to 40 second window, and maximised survivability and probability of the Primary targets destruction. Just like Tornados, F-111s and F-117A were trained to do, and did for real during Desert Storm.

In Tornado the AI always flew the assigned route to and from primary, and maybe to a secondary target, and maybe then on to a target of opportunity. And they ALWAYS tried to make it back to the planned landing airstrip, unless they were losing fuel from damage, or the assigned airstrip had been decommissioned by an enemy attack. The AI never wasted and ran out of fuel, or ran low on fuel without good reasons, and never wasted it stupidly, and never just suicided by deviating from the plan, nor had to abort for no reason, nor did they thus need to take a less-safe transit route, to RTB, at a different speed, alt and time, than that planned.

It all worked! ... 18 years ago. It wass irresistible when done properly and devastatingly effective and efficient. Tornado was beyond-cool in that respect. It felt like you were actually in command of the mission, and of every aircraft in the squadron. They obeyed your order, and the mission's success was entirely down to your skill and fore-thought as a tactician, and not just for flying some sloppy misbehaving squadron there and back, haphazardly, with no real discipline or precision, nor a tactical plan that's viably executable.

I've was spoilt by a far more primitive sim that could do this. Air attrition was unacceptable in Tornado, as in real life. You won by striking and surviving and doing it as EFFICIENTLY as possible.

Inefficiency = mission fail

Poor discipline = high attrition

Lack of flight precision = much lower survivability

Imprecise execution of tactical plan = you got wiped out

Even the loss of just one aircraft was effectively a mission failure within Tornado and you'd pay a price for that. But in Lockon you can lose aircraft at a phenomenal rate due to these above factors, and there is no incentive to not do so. Nor was it even possible. It shouldn't have been the case, the planner should always be able to OVERRIDE the AI and force it to behave itself, and follow the plan. If you didn't plan to maximise flight survival, and optimise Time on Target weapon delivery then you often got wiped-out and the primary still needed to be re-attacked. So precision-planning and discipline, plus efficient flying meant vastly improved survival and outcomes.

That's what real Interdiction-Strike air warfare is. Making coordinated packages that attack exactly according to plan. The more orderly, precise and time coordinated, the better.

You might retort that a real human is not a robot and can't get it right like that in actual combat, or be as precise as that. But they are constantly trained to approximate this (alt, speed, nav, timing, co-ordination). A modern autopilot is in fact basically an elaborate programmable robot and it should fly like one, if programmed to, within the mission planning.

There should be an option in the mission planner to FORCE any flight of strike-role aircraft to strictly follow the assigned attack plan, without any regard to ANYTHING else that happens along the way. That was my conclusion from the very first time I used Lockon v1.0's mission planner.

I'm hoping FC2.1 can finally do that one thing. That an "Elite AI" flight will actually do what an elite force do ... get the job done ... no matter what.

In Lockon 1.0 and 1.02 precision flight planning and precision flying were almost non-existent, it was undisciplined, imprecise, chaotic digital madness, a suicide-fest. The 'Elite AI' was hopeless. Nobody would fly like that in real life. This was for me the very weakest part of Lockon v1.0, and the part that needed the most work, in any serious mission-planner upgrade. I put Lockon aside mostly because of that. I felt it had to be re-jigged so it could function properly.

So I'm hoping there's been major advancements in these areas.