To Lomac or not to LOMAC, that is the question

[Grifter]

Seems like a lot of people in this group are divided on the lomac question. I personally don't care if we fly Lomac or not, especially if its only going to be two or three of us when seven or eight of us are perfectly willing and able to fly another sim. So if we're not going to fly Lomac, fine by me, just let me know. Perhaps we should focus our efforts more on f18 or falcon 4. I'm all for getting better at falcon 4, but you guys usually play during the week when I'm not available really. If anyone would be interested in putting together some flights on the weekends, I'd be there in a heartbeat to fly. It's high time this squadron got itself back up in the air in force! If this of interest, let me know. I'll show up!

[KODIAK]

Well, like I said on the other thread, I'm interested in Falcon 4 more than anything. I'm having problems connecting online, but once I get that squared away, I'll fly whenever I can get the spare time.

[Jedi Master]

Panzer and I haven't flown F4 since 1.08, and Panzer doesn't have his CD anymore. From the time I tried it, learning F4 SP is far harder than LOMAC was.
Neither of us have Janes F/A-18, although he USED to (see a pattern? )

For us, we have CFS3 and Il-2FB:AEP for props and LOMAC for jets and that's it.

[PanzerMeyer]

I have nothing against Falcon 4 but I simply don't have the time to dedicate to two hardcore jet sims. I recently got my fully printed manual for Lock On and I'm reading through it now. As it stands already, I feel like I've barely even scratched the surface with Lock On even though I have played it quite a bit.

[KODIAK]

Well a picture of split choices is appearing here, but that's not to say it shouldn't have been expected. Each to his own at the end of the day. However, as soon as I get my Falcon 4 connection fixed, it will probably be the only sim I fly to be honest.
Thing is, this split is not necessarily the worst thing that could happen to us as a group. So I don't think we should make too much of it. We already have people who do several things but dont take part in one or two others. And it is somewhat natural for people to expand away from the centre.

[Nemisis]

Very Philisophically put Kodiak and my response is "DITO"

Ok here is how i stand on the Flight sim front and you guys gotta remember apart from OFP(great game but hardly played by myself) and GR(might be good but i lack the correct addons to play with you guys OL) i do not have any FPS games (OK OK i got BF1942 really like that for a good fun time but it is basically a MP arcade game).

I have always liked my flight sims from the ZX81(Flight Path 737)>>Commodore 64(F-15 Strike Eagle)>>Amiga500(Falcon! Yes the original Falcon)>>Sega mega Drive???(no flight sims for that one!)>>Playstaion original(again completely crap flight sims)>>Pentium III 500Mhz ATI rage 128 GFX PC (Dish, F/A-18//F-22 Raptor)>>Xp2400, 9800Pro PC (Falcon/IL2/Lomac now were talking).

So as you can see my current PC has quite a few Flight Sims installed and the top 3 i use at the moment are F/A-18, Falcon and Lomac and i try to balance these out as best i can and i am a bit of a jack of all trades and master at none. I know all the basic functions, weapons and so on in all of these sims, but have not completely mastered any of them.

But i like flying them all and at the moment Janes F/A-18 mostly because of my renewed interest in this sim and Lomac since i believe that it has as yet untapped potential and i have still got a lot to learn about it and will not drop it like i did with F/A-18 until i have learned the full Sim.

Falcon 4 is a slight sour note for me at the moment since although it runs great single player i am having MP connex problems wth it, although i do not know if this is just an issue with Kodiak and I or with everyone else since i have been unable to test my MP Falcon 4 connex with anyone from the other side of the Atlantic, but i can say that i have never had any connex problems with Falcon 4 before SP4 or 4.1 came out even when i had dial up and until i test my MP connex with you American types i am unable to know what the problem is.

So in answer to Grifters Question, I have to say that yes i am still up for Flying Lomac but will fly the others as well since unlike some of you i don't have any FPS games to spread myself any thinner and i think i can get a mastery of the three given some time actually RTFM for them as i have done for F/A-18.

[PanzerMeyer]

My deal with flight sims is that if I am going to take the time and money to buy it and install it, I am going to put 100% effort into learning the game so I can be very good and not just "competent". I've never been a dilettante in regards to flight sims so if I buy a flight sim, I will be investing a LOT of time into it.

[Nemisis]

My deal with flight sims is that if I am going to take the time and money to buy it and install it, I am going to put 100% effort into learning the game so I can be very good and not just "competent". I've never been a dilettante in regards to flight sims so if I buy a flight sim, I will be investing a LOT of time into it.

Well i think that is a great attitude but since i have quite a few sims and WOF has a habit of flying these sims only 2 nights a week and the fact i can't spend too much time on my PC without neglecting Tracey i have got into the bad habit of learning the basic of all of them so that i can join in on MP nights with you guys.

Although i am probably most "competent" with Falcon since WOF has supported this Sim and flown it more nights for longer than any other and while A/G in Falcon i have still a lot to learn on the A/A side i can say that i can hold my own and can protect strike packages quite successfully.

But as stated in my previous post i am going to spend more time learning each sim as a whole rather than just concentratng on what i already know and i should then be able to say that i have become a master of each of the three main sims with regards to all A/A and A/G avionics and weapon deployment rather than just a master of A/A in one of them.

I think if i can do that then i will be happy that i have achieved a high level of knowledge of my Flight sims rather than being just a supporter of them if you get my drift.

But this all takes time.

[PanzerMeyer]

Very good points there Nemesis.


In essence though, we all just need to play the Lottery and win a few million so we can quit our jobs and spend more time flight simming. :lol:

[Grifter]

Thanks guys. Seems enough ppl agree with playing all the sims or at least playing all sims. Sounds like Lomac and F4 are the biggies and F18 is making yet again another revival. Do we want to schedule then? That's what we used to do around you know, we had a schedule so that ppl who wanted to play a certain sim knew which night to show up. Now it's my humble opinion we support to many sims in the squad, but hey it makes ppl happy and I do get to play with you guys now and then. Still, I think a schedule might be nice. Especially since there are some East coast folks now that could hook up regularly at a sane hour. What do you guys think? Schedule or no Schedule?

[KODIAK]

My guess is that there is a need for a general schedule at least, given that people don't seem to be communicating on the forums much. So some basic agreement would at least have people pop their heads in a little more frequently I bet.
I have recently received an invite from the guys at 53rd here in UK to a familiarisation flight, they're not trying to poach me. Simply I got talking to one of the lads on the FreeFalcon forums, and discovered he was a ex-member of our wonderful Corps, and they had a few others who also were ex-members. So these guys are on the same wavelength as us; demented sense of humour, enjoy the online MP experience and all that, don't take it too seriously. If I can get something goping we may be able to entice them into a game of "mixed-doubles", eh? Raptor? :lol: :roll: It could be the start of a cross-pond connection. Here is their site:

http://www.53rd-vfs.org/

[Grifter]

A coop or h2h with another squad would be great. I'd love to do that and it would expand our squad activities a bit. Kodiak, you're right, a general schedule is exactly what I was talking about. Nothing in concrete, but a consensus that we play certain sims on certain nights. When we did that, at least from my perspective, it worked really well. We had something going practically every night of the week and most nights we had five, six, or more ppl on. So, if a schedule sounds good to folks, I can make one up and then edit it to try and make everyone happy, which of course is fundamentally impossible, but I can try and make a compromise for all. Then, I can submit the final sched here for CO's and general member approval.

Grifter

[Madrus]

I vote no schedule. I have gotten burned so many times when i was leader of OFP and Jane's F/A-18 and people did not show up. And some of the loudest requests for a schedule were from guys who were the most unreliable about showing up. Sort of like "well, i want to know that if i feel like playing ___, then i could show up at ___ and play it. But if i don't feel like playing it, i just won't show up and what is the big deal?" Well, it may be a big deal to the two guys who do show up and wait for 30-60 minutes for others to show.

One thing i am noticing more and more is the lack of a standard install for a particular game. We got different installs for Falcon 4, IL2/FB, and Jane's F/A-18 going on now. So you gonna schedule one time for IL2/FB and AEP and one for IL2/FB without AEP? If we dont solve this problem the group will continue to disintegrate.

But don't let me stop you from making a schedule. I will show up when I can/want to.

[Grifter]

Ok so that's one "No" vote for a schedule. I still believe it would be better to have one. We don't do much during the week anymore, and I believe part of that is due to people simply not planning anything in advance. If we had a schedule, at least something would be planned for the evening. The schedule can be as tight or as loose as ppl want to make it. If ppl are'nt going to make it and said they were going to show up, then they should post a quick line on the forum or ICQ. At least then, the others could make a decision rather than wait. I know, I'm guilty of not reporting in myself. It's a bad habit that I've been trying to break. It used to be an unwritten rule in WOF. If you're not gonna show, just post and say so. We should get back to that.

Madrus you're absolutely right about standard installs, but that's really another can of worms altogether. We should definitely discuss it in another thread.

Anyone else have an opinion on schedules?

[KODIAK]

Well myself and Nemisis are responsible for the Falcon 4 issue, however, it was always our intention to have a dual install, so as not to cause problems in that way. And the FreeFalcon install was not an operational install, but a test install designed only for that purpose, nothing more. It was done also at a time calculated to have caused as little disruption as possible - we were NOT doing any Falcon 4 and hadn't for the previous month at least.
However, in order to get people running on any of this stuff again, we need to give them something to aim at, I believe the schedule would at least do that. Once the guys are at it more regularly then those specific playing groups can decide themselves what times suit their needs, and make the change accordingly.

[Hammer_other]

It used to be an unwritten rule in WOF.

It's actually a written rule, think it's in the WOF Member Guidelines.

[KODIAK]

Hammer says:

It's actually a written rule, think it's in the WOF Member Guidelines.

Before pulling things like this, you gotta be brushing the crap away from your own doorstep, as the Germans would say.
I turned up last night, albiet a little late for the show. I had prepared too, got hooked-up on RW#5 and grabbed a rest so I could be awake. Others had indicated their intention to be there, not so sure they turned up though. :roll:

. . . . . . oh okay, so you fell asleep just like I did, what can I say to that? :oops:

[PanzerMeyer]

Kodiak, I joined RW at 10:00pm my time last night and I did see your name listed in the server but I heard no response from ya! I just assumed you were enjoying a very nice nap! LOL. Jedi, Madrus, Grifter showed up as well. We did some hostage rescue missions in Athena Sword.