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I want to have a serious discussion about the direction ED is going with LOMAC.

 

How much time have they spent on Black Shark while at the same time leaving important gameplay features broken?

 

I am sure some of us would have liked to see some improvements to missiles, radar, EW, AFM for more planes, possibly a dynamic campaign, hell, even a new skin for the SU-27/33. The F-15 gets more porked with each patch

 

None of that was done, instead they decided to put all their efforts towards the development of this helicopter, that to my knowledge, no one wanted.

 

 

LOMAC is eye candy, and eye candy only. There is no exciting gameplay, and when you try to create a semi-realistic mission, the FPS sucks balls.

 

I dont know about the rest of you, but I will take gameplay OVER eye candy anyday, and is one reason I prefer to play IL2 and F4AF over lomac.

 

I think LOMAC is a great START, but it is only a start. It needs to grow, but not in teh direction taken by the developers. It is time ED began listening to us, the customers that actually buy their products.

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I don't see the logic in what ED is doing. They are spending too much time on useless stuff such adding more flyables (we have enough) and new 3d models when there are serious issues that need to be worked out regarded the gameplay. I totally agree.

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Asus G72GX | CPU: Core 2 Duo Overclocked @ 2.9Ghz | Memory 6GB DDR2 | Graphics Card: nVidia GTX 260m 1GB | OS: Windows 7 Home Premium | Monitor: Samsung 32" LCD

LOMAC 1.0 to FC 1.12 System RIP (2003-2010) | AMD Athlon 64 3000+ overclocked to 2565MHz | NVidia Geforce 7800 GS AGP 256 MB | 1GB Kingston PC2700 DDR DRAM | Windows 2000 with SP4

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A first

 

Yes I have to TOTALY agree with you guys, ED should be spending more time on lockon problems and getting the sim to fly with out a Space age tech computer. I don't think even the new ones can run it full out. Surely they can approach that issue. When you buy a "flight sim" game IMO you expect it to work with all the eye candy and everything. Isn't that the point of the purchase so you can enjoy all the features it has to offer. FC I could see in a way but Black Shark I don't know. Has anyone ever asked ED to build a Helicopter flight sim using lockon? Maybe there was, you can't always keep up on all the threads. I enjoy lockon v1.02 , Starforce at the present got me scared away from FC for now. I would like to see bugs fixed for v1.02 as well, it is the original surely some graphics fixes and textures and yes FPS could be improved on. Yes I know FC has a slightly better FPS but why not v1.02 also. I have F4Af and enjoy it but lockon for some reason seems more fun to fly. I fly the F15C only. Viper and F15c enough to remember on joystick buttons and hat swithes etc. That's me as I am sure a lot of you fly more than one A/C in lockon or maybe not does'nt matter, lockon what ever you fly is a challenge(bugs) plus game play features that are strange at times. Also the whole MP thing as well. Lots to fix before adding new A/C or Heliocopters to the sim. ED hope you are listening as this thread will surely grow, at least I hope it will. Cheers

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ED made it VERY CLEAR from the start that BS is focused on the Ka-50. Thus anything that does not have to do with the helo itself or its environment is pretty low priority, so, no, I don't think they will give AFM to other aircrafts before their time. Ground attack aircraft are slated for upgrades in Tank Killers, and perhaps the existing fighters will also get a bump up in the Fighter project, but not in BS.

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I used to play flight sims like you, but then I took a slammer to the knee - Yoda

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No question...

Anyway i would like to point out this sim has some issues that should have been hotfixed a long ago. Yes, because that aren't things like trimming the ability of a 2S6 shooting at an incoming Maverick or tuning the warhead of some stupid weapon carriable only by AI planes... there are things like the HSI (or the russian equivalent) not working outside the NAV mode causing you hard times if you want to know where you are while engaging someone, to say one. I can add the dumb missiles, the IFF on the 15, etc...

Thoose thing have, in my opinion, a great impact on the simulation, expecially if you want to SIMULATE and not only PLAY. That's not asking to have something similar to F4AF in LOMAC, it's just asking to fix the major bugs.

From the user point of view (and more precisely form the one of the user that use NATO planes) the ED table of priorities is quite hard to understand. At some time they stopped the developement of FC and put all the efforts in the KA-50. Stopping the developement it's ok after some time (after all two patches were released, and i'm not saying thoose were useless, in fact many things were corrected), but leaving that sort of crap (some of them since 1.0) in my opinion NO. Also this behaviour could be acceptable if BS was released soon after the 1.12 but now it's taking ages, so in the meantime we have to live with the crap.

 

I'm gonna buy BS surely not for the KA-50 but just to get (or at least i'm hoping to) some fixes for the things i've listed.

 

Sorry for complaining, that's just my toughts...

 

Bye!

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Anyone said Mid-Air Refueling in MP?

 

But personally I am happy to see a detailed, complex and realistic helicopter-sim on the horizon.

 

And lets see whats comming up next (post-BS) from ED....

or any other team?!

 

Sadly the sim-market looks grim, and not just since last year :(

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I want to have a serious discussion about the direction ED is going with LOMAC.

 

How much time have they spent on Black Shark while at the same time leaving important gameplay features broken?

 

I am sure some of us would have liked to see some improvements to missiles, radar, EW, AFM for more planes, possibly a dynamic campaign, hell, even a new skin for the SU-27/33. The F-15 gets more porked with each patch

 

None of that was done, instead they decided to put all their efforts towards the development of this helicopter, that to my knowledge, no one wanted.

 

 

LOMAC is eye candy, and eye candy only. There is no exciting gameplay, and when you try to create a semi-realistic mission, the FPS sucks balls.

 

I dont know about the rest of you, but I will take gameplay OVER eye candy anyday, and is one reason I prefer to play IL2 and F4AF over lomac.

 

I think LOMAC is a great START, but it is only a start. It needs to grow, but not in teh direction taken by the developers. It is time ED began listening to us, the customers that actually buy their products.

 

Lomac is - well - dead. We will get Black Shark, Tank Killers and maybe an

F-16 sim. We have to live with this and what ED is doing or find something

that "meet our claims". If you don't like it, don't buy the sequel, fly IL2

and F4:AF. I don't see the AFM for the planes we fly and there will be no

dynamic campaign (Ruggbutt, hop in to tell about LMR :) )

 

ED has it's own idea of a sim, immersion and gameplay - and it doesn't seem

to fit to what's out there (F/A-18, IL2, Falcon). Take it, or leave it.

I've almost lost hope for this product and what bothers me the most is

this "Oh, wait for bla bla bla sim/version/patch/sequel/next year/whatever".

I'm sick of it and i live with it since Flanker 2.51 and it's famous

"internal error". They can't do it and they won't till they proove otherwise.

But the graphics are great.

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ED got paid by a russian publisher to produce a Ka-50 simulation. The Ka-50 is quite popular in Russia.

 

. . . . . and that's about it.

 

 

Regardless of what we'd all like, we have to pay attention to commercial realities. Whatever your personal wishlist is, ED have to follow the course of action which will keep them in business.

 

 

Black Shark is going to be a spectacularly accurate simulation of the Ka50 - it's going to be the best helicopter simulation I've ever heard of by some margin.

 

Regardless of how much of a fighter buff you are, it is going to be WELL worth a look - should be less of a step for the mudmovers and very well received on that front, I'll be amazed if the 504th don't accept the Ka50 with open arms . . . . .

 

 

Yes, there are things that should be improved for Lomac on the fast-jet air combat front. No, it isn't perfect. Yes, a dynamic campaign would make things better.

 

Two points here:

 

1. Someone's got to PAY for all this, up-front, before development begins.

 

2. You're all here, so presumably it's not bad enough to drive you away entirely ;)

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at least here I shouldn't be hijacking anything.... otherwise FBI would put me in their "most wanted" list :)

 

well, the problem is quite clear. there are some serious flaws that go on from Lomac 1.0 through 1.02 and till FC 1.12b... BS is said not to solve any of them, so the gameplay is still heavily affected.

The problem is, IMHO, that most of the lomac community hasn't ever played with Falcon series sims... The best they do is a 4 vs 4 AA mission recording their track to show it to their friends, or they take out a bunch of shilkas with a flight of mav-laden hogs. well that's not realistic.

 

I did set up a lot of single player missions, and every time I try to build something a bit more realistic, something goes astray... Sometimes only 50% of the aircraft get airborne, the other half get stuck on the ground because AI pilots sometimes just CAN'T taxi. No simulated malfunction (if it was we should need a simulated spare flight too), simply put AI pilots are not always able to takeoff from parking.

Sometimes, while enroute to the battle area, aircraft collide without flying tight formations and in super-VFR weather.

Most of the times my AI teammates hit bingo fuel half an hour before me because they constantly keep adjusting their formation with A/B.

SEAD flights don't work either. They should pop up and get the attention of the AD to shoot them down the throat, instead, as soon as they're locked up they jettison their precious SEAD load. The next step is to try to strafe with guns SAM sites. good idea. when sams are dummy. Air defenses, just to keep everything realistic, shoot at incoming missiles.

 

Finally you set up a bomb run against a runway.... what happens? that instead of doing a single fast&low pass, the attackers perform many passes at low speed and medium altitude, depending on the number of buildings assigned from the ATO. High losses are a constant.

 

Ok guys, these are serious flaws. I don't think any military is going to buy your sim in this shape. If they do, well it was true what Dave Mustaine once said "Military intelligence, two words combined that can't make sense"

 

possibly I've seen too much, hangar18, I know too much ;)

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Yes, there are things that should be improved for Lomac on the fast-jet air combat front. No, it isn't perfect.

 

IMHO it should have been better from the beginning. It has it's roots

in the Flanker series so one could expect more (remember the hype?).

I'm flying Lomac online sice 1.00 and it was a REAL MESS, awful, lousy

and more or less not worth my money. And with each patch (and addon)

they've fixed/fiddled this and that: the missiles, flight models, radar

and always said it was about "realism". Look and the sim today and

tell me that the planes are simulated accurately - i just can't believe it.

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A post that is entirely accurate and 100% true . . . .

 

. . . . but which failed to show understanding of the commercial realities.

 

The vision of the perfect flightsim is something a lot of us share, and it isn't Lomac - but you have to realise that "The Perfect Flightsim" isn't something that is necessarily the goal of everyone.

 

 

Falcon 4 is damn good, certainly - but remember that IT BANKRUPTED the people who made it, and release it just didn't work.

 

Losing your livelihood in search of the ultimate is a daft way to do things.

 

 

Feel free to disagree with me when I say that ED want to create the perfect sim as much as we want to see it, but I do believe that - the difference is that whereas we can just describe a feature we want to see, they have to spend the time to figure out how to do it, program it, test it, fix it, and most important of all, PAY for all the time that this takes.

 

I've seen the estimated figure for the cost of adding a new aircraft to a detailed level - search hard enough and you can find it as well.

It'll put the cost of development into perspective.

 

 

Lomac's far from perfect. You can either complain, leave, or maintain hope and put up the funds for continued development while enjoying what you can.

 

Because after all . . . . who else is there at the moment?

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IMHO it should have been better from the beginning. It has it's roots

in the Flanker series so one could expect more (remember the hype?).

I'm flying Lomac online sice 1.00 and it was a REAL MESS, awful, lousy

and more or less not worth my money. And with each patch (and addon)

they've fixed/fiddled this and that: the missiles, flight models, radar

and always said it was about "realism". Look and the sim today and

tell me that the planes are simulated accurately - i just can't believe it.

 

Accuracy will always be a relative term in a flight sim - for reasons that should be obvious.

 

 

Should it have been better . . . . . hmmn.

I guess that depends on how you define "better". May seem like splitting hairs, but it seems to me that Lomac was in very nearly every respect a step forward from Flanker.

 

Some may argue they concentrated in the wrong places - this is going to be the graphics/simulation argument All Over Again . . . . .

 

Some may argue they should have spent more time and money developing key features - something that wasn't up to ED.

 

Yeah, I would have liked more. I don't think there's anyone here that wouldn't. The possibility of getting more revolves around ED's competency and how well they're supported financially in getting there.

 

Shrug.

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LOMAC will be dead with BS, though in name only.

 

I agree that things should have been improved in many areas after Flanker, and I honestly don't know what happened with LO and why it did happen ...

 

To be clear, the Ka-50 project is doing more than giving you a helo: The underlying code which allows the functions that you have seen demonstrated in the videos - the startup, the ABRIS, etc - this is a /basis/ and it is taking this long because this is all being developped from /scratch/.

 

All of this code will be used for future aircraft - the reason why they are not tweaking the existing flyables is that they do not want to spend time on all code. It is my impression that ED would prefer to eventually just port everything to the new system they have developed.

 

And since it is still being worked on, there isn't even -time- to tweak existing aircraft a whole lot.

 

I wish they did, really! I'd LOVE to see an IFF cue on my F-15C, I'd LOVE to see the notch tightened and the TWS to follow a bugged target properly, I'd LOVE to see the MPCD display all twenty-some pages, and I'd sure love to see my 120 have an extended NEZ.

 

And so on and so forth - yes, I'm an F-15 guy, so I'll talk about F_15's, but I'll happily extend my comments to the other aircrafts.

 

As it stands, this isn't going to happen - not right now. But this stuff /is/ scheduled to be worked on. There will be higher fidelity still, moreso than BS, with Tank Killers in terms of ground-pounding.

 

There will be much more fidelity for AA in the Fighter's project, meaning a rewriting of the radar systems, ECM, and who-knows-what-else.

 

Now, in light of the mess that LO 1.0 was (and who can deny that it was?) I can understand the pessimism - I really can ...

 

However ... I would ask for people to look a bit 'below the hood' where BS is concerned, and please, wait and see - you will see that ED is working hard on a lot of improvements.

 

And hey, at worst, I'll turn out to be a liar ... which will suck, but such is life.

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Reminder: SAM = Speed Bump :D

I used to play flight sims like you, but then I took a slammer to the knee - Yoda

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LOMAC 1.00 fell short of what Flanker 2.51 achieved in most areas except graphics. The patches and upgrades have moved a long way to rectify that but things like AI, mission editor etc (flanker editor is still better) remain broken or at least far short of the initial expectations of LOMAC being a realistic combat flight SIM. Problem in the community is that we keep getting news flashes showing the latest and greatest cutting edge addons and graphics but nothing that shows any intention to fix the basic flaws. to quote an old Scots saying LOMAC's a bit "fur coat and nae knickers" ED really needs to belly up and say their comitted to supporting these fixes or we just progress with a dwindling user base flying a well modeled helo in a sterile environment.

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LOMAC will be dead with BS, though in name only.

 

I agree that things should have been improved in many areas after Flanker, and I honestly don't know what happened with LO and why it did happen ...

 

To be clear, the Ka-50 project is doing more than giving you a helo: The underlying code which allows the functions that you have seen demonstrated in the videos - the startup, the ABRIS, etc - this is a /basis/ and it is taking this long because this is all being developped from /scratch/.

 

All of this code will be used for future aircraft - the reason why they are not tweaking the existing flyables is that they do not want to spend time on all code. It is my impression that ED would prefer to eventually just port everything to the new system they have developed.

 

And since it is still being worked on, there isn't even -time- to tweak existing aircraft a whole lot.

 

I wish they did, really! I'd LOVE to see an IFF cue on my F-15C, I'd LOVE to see the notch tightened and the TWS to follow a bugged target properly, I'd LOVE to see the MPCD display all twenty-some pages, and I'd sure love to see my 120 have an extended NEZ.

 

And so on and so forth - yes, I'm an F-15 guy, so I'll talk about F_15's, but I'll happily extend my comments to the other aircrafts.

 

As it stands, this isn't going to happen - not right now. But this stuff /is/ scheduled to be worked on. There will be higher fidelity still, moreso than BS, with Tank Killers in terms of ground-pounding.

 

There will be much more fidelity for AA in the Fighter's project, meaning a rewriting of the radar systems, ECM, and who-knows-what-else.

 

Now, in light of the mess that LO 1.0 was (and who can deny that it was?) I can understand the pessimism - I really can ...

 

However ... I would ask for people to look a bit 'below the hood' where BS is concerned, and please, wait and see - you will see that ED is working hard on a lot of improvements.

 

And hey, at worst, I'll turn out to be a liar ... which will suck, but such is life.

 

Good mail GG and a good summary of where we are. Would be better if ED could give out some info on their future roadmap. I suspect that like most of us here I've had probably just as much fun applying community fixes to get LOMAC running as well as it does but with LOMAC's limitations we're pretty much hitting a brick wall since we can't affect AI, mission editor behaviour. Just want to have some feedback that ED can work these areas at least in the next SIM if not BS.

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LOMAC will be dead with BS, though in name only.

 

I agree that things should have been improved in many areas after Flanker, and I honestly don't know what happened with LO and why it did happen ...

 

To be clear, the Ka-50 project is doing more than giving you a helo: The underlying code which allows the functions that you have seen demonstrated in the videos - the startup, the ABRIS, etc - this is a /basis/ and it is taking this long because this is all being developped from /scratch/.

 

All of this code will be used for future aircraft - the reason why they are not tweaking the existing flyables is that they do not want to spend time on all code. It is my impression that ED would prefer to eventually just port everything to the new system they have developed.

 

And since it is still being worked on, there isn't even -time- to tweak existing aircraft a whole lot.

 

I wish they did, really! I'd LOVE to see an IFF cue on my F-15C, I'd LOVE to see the notch tightened and the TWS to follow a bugged target properly, I'd LOVE to see the MPCD display all twenty-some pages, and I'd sure love to see my 120 have an extended NEZ.

 

And so on and so forth - yes, I'm an F-15 guy, so I'll talk about F_15's, but I'll happily extend my comments to the other aircrafts.

 

As it stands, this isn't going to happen - not right now. But this stuff /is/ scheduled to be worked on. There will be higher fidelity still, moreso than BS, with Tank Killers in terms of ground-pounding.

 

There will be much more fidelity for AA in the Fighter's project, meaning a rewriting of the radar systems, ECM, and who-knows-what-else.

 

Now, in light of the mess that LO 1.0 was (and who can deny that it was?) I can understand the pessimism - I really can ...

 

However ... I would ask for people to look a bit 'below the hood' where BS is concerned, and please, wait and see - you will see that ED is working hard on a lot of improvements.

 

And hey, at worst, I'll turn out to be a liar ... which will suck, but such is life.

 

If you need so many words to "defend" this sim it speeks for itself.

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ok, in essence we're enjoying a testbed sim. The one that is still being developed with eye-candy and AFM for specific aircraft first..

AI... mission editor and such, maybe in the coming years....

 

That's how i understand it..

 

 

IMO ED prioritizes the russian audience more, like you said, Ka-50 is popular in Russia..

 

logical since it was a russian company to begin with.

 

i'll just watch and wait what's in for the flight sim industry next year.. :)

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My favorite aspect of Lock On is the sensation of flight that all the aircraft, even the regular FMs, produce. I've played F4:AF, but I simply did not feel as though I was flying a real aircraft. Lock On produces that feeling like no other game, and certainly the Su-25 and Su-25T are unrivaled in sense of realistic flight.

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KA-50 is not just popular, its single-seated too!

Mi-28, Mi-24 and Ka-52 are all two-seated - so no go with the current engine :(

 

Editor is nice n fine ... if some scripting (OFP-style :thumbup:) and more detailed win/loose-conditions were to be added. That way some more complex mission could be done :music_whistling:

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My favorite aspect of Lock On is the sensation of flight that all the aircraft, even the regular FMs, produce. I've played F4:AF, but I simply did not feel as though I was flying a real aircraft. Lock On produces that feeling like no other game, and certainly the Su-25 and Su-25T are unrivaled in sense of realistic flight.

 

Have you been so enthused that you missed the radio calls from

your wingmen? I fly single player if i want to relax and be on my own,

but not if i want to push adrenalin.

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