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v3.64 9 August 1998
v3.63 21 June 1998
v3.62 2 April 1998
v3.61 31 March 1998
To have any hope of getting near these, for the speed record set both air pressure and temperature to their respective allowed minimums in the Met section. For altitude, set pressure to minimum and temperature to maximum. Empty the cannon's magazine, dump all chaff and flares.
Altitude: Y. Bibikov, 32960m
Speed: Y. Bibikov, John Kawamura and Al Bergen, Mach 2.68
Well … that's not strictly true anymore. There is a rarely encountered bug in the flight model which can put you into a flat gravity defying spin at speeds in excess of Mach 6.5, reaching heights only NASA can dream of.
The latest version is v1.5 available somewhere near you, either as an add-on CDROM or an all-in-one Commander's Edition.
A single patch file to bring Win95 v1.0, 1.1 or 1.2 up to 1.2a standard is to be found at ftp://ftp.ssionline.com/pub/updates/su27/su27v12a.exe.
This is not completely crazy. Some people prefer the Kali / Kahn networking of v1.1 to that of v1.2, stutter or no stutter. It is easy to choose to run either v1.1 or v1.2. The two files in question are su27.exe and fsim.lbb.
Make yourself copies of the above files - new and old e.g. su27exe.v11 and su27exe.v12, fsim.v11 and fsim.v12, then you need two .BAT files:
SU27V11.BAT
copy su27exe.v11 su27.exe
copy fsim.v11 fsim.lbb
su27.exe
and
SU27V12.BAT
copy su27exe.v12 su27.exe
copy fsim.v12 fsim.lbb
su27.exe
Now create two Windows shortcuts to the batch files.
Remember you can set the icon using Properties->Program->Change Icon->Browse and find the Su27.exe file. You get a choice. Oh - and tick the "Close on Exit" box as you whiz past the Program page.
Although some members of Eagle/SSI have moved to Microsoft to work on their new combat sim, do not fear for the future of Flanker as the Eagle Dynamics team is now three times its previous size. Developments continue apace.
OpenGL is a 3D graphics API, an alternative to Microsoft's Direct3D. It is older than Direct3D, apparently easier to program for and may be faster. ID Software chose to use OpenGL rather than Direct3D for Quake because of perceived deficiencies in Direct3D. OpenGL is well supported on high-end professional 3D cards but as yet not so well on cheaper home/games 3D cards.
No matter what 3D accelerator card you have, whether it has OpenGL now or in the future, it isn't going to accelerate the in-cockpit graphics in v1.5. These are always old-style Flanker graphics, whether you select the new smoothed graphics or not. The new smoothed graphics are only for external views. Bummer!
Installing DirectX v5.0 will make absolutely no difference to Flanker, because Flanker doesn't use DirectX.
A further alpha of Flanker v2.0 was shown at E3 in June 98. You can read a little about it at http://www.combatsim.com/e3_98-4.htm
For some screenshots see www.su27-flanker.com. Also hunt out Flanker 2 at www.combatsim.com, www.pcme.com and even the under construction official www.flanker2.com. And you couldn't fail to visit Papa Doc's Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill: http://home.earthlink.net/~plegrand/PINKFLAMINGO.htm.
It has also been confirmed that v2.0 will feature the Kusnetsov and carrier operations.
No way. No chance. Too late.
Of course, if you make endless informed and intelligent posts in the mailing list, who knows, you may have a chance for v3.0?
Well here are a few - not a comprehensive list.
New!
This is now officially called "the stutter". For a long time SSI were unclear what users were complaining about - at first Win95 took the flak and then the myth arose that it was unique to Pentiums. Neither of these is true. It took a visit to my house by Jim Mackonochie and Steve Whittle to realise what was going on - once identified, they realised the problem had been present on their machines all along. The stutter is subtle on 486s, and as the game was developed and optimised for such machines by the Moscow programmers, it was overlooked. It is due to an interaction between the graphics and flight maths routines. It is more noticeable/intrusive the faster the machine, and some players seem psychologically unbothered by it. It was identified too late to be fixed for v1.1 but SSI have fixed it for v1.2.
The Flanker stutter needs to be clearly distinguished from a Win95 "freeze" that occurs on a far more intermittent basis - a pause lasting 0.25-0.5 seconds but occurring just once in a while. This freeze is also seen in other Win95 games such as Warbirds, Indycar 2 etc. The problem seems to stem from the Transport Handlers built into the W95 networking API.
The freeze only affects the Win95 version and only if:
In this situation Win95 periodically tries to find a valid DHCP server, freezing all other activity as it does so.
If you understand Win95 networking then I should have told you enough to allow you to get rid of the problem. Note that the IP number for the card is quite different from any static or dynamic IP number attached to Dial-Up Networking.
If you don't understand Win95 networking and want to try to get rid of this AT YOUR OWN RISK, and if you have no more than a stand-alone PC with a modem, or a PC+modem on a Windows Network, do the following:
Go Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Network
Delete the protocol TCP/IP -> [your network card].
You probable didn't need TCP/IP over your Network card. If you did, you are going to have to reinstall it. I warned you!
Don't do this on your work PC or you may end yourself up in a whole load of trouble. If you're not sure you know what you are doing, ask a guru to help.
A different solution is to set up alternative Win95 boot-up configurations, one with a Network card and one without.
No.
Well, yes.
I mean, no, not really.
Let me explain….
No. The ECM light was broken in v1.0, now fixed.
Sorbitsya ECM pods are automatic and switch themselves on and off. This means you have 4 levels of ECM:
Not even the last combination is going to save you 15km away from an S300 site. The above was determined by careful testing in controlled conditions against 3 SAM types.
Some example ranges of engagement:
TARGET: inbound Su-27 at 2000m altitude, 1120km/h.
| Range of engagement
(SAM launch) | |
|---|---|
| No ECM / No Sorbtsiya | 69.0km |
| Sorbtsiya but no ECM | 54.1km |
| ECM / No Sorbtsiya | 62.1km |
| ECM and Sorbtsiya | 45.5km |
| Range of engagement
(SAM launch) | |
|---|---|
| No ECM / No Sorbtsiya | 24.4km |
| Sorbtsiya but no ECM | 17.9km |
| ECM / No Sorbtsiya | 20.0km |
| ECM and Sorbtsiya | 14.7km |
We are told that this is because the real Su27 has no 6 o'clock view - it is possible to see out of the back of the canopy, but in flight the pilot is strapped in too tightly to allow the necessary movement. Fair enough, although this is disputed! v1.04 onwards extended the view angles 30 degrees further aft, but only if you are pulling less than 6g.
The specs in the manual are the manufacturers' maximum performance figures. A sales pitch. No missile ever performs up to these levels in actual combat. The maximum ranges in the sim are probably reasonably realistic, perhaps a bit pessimistic. The ranges were upped slightly in the v1.1 patch.
Yup - fixed in v1.1. E is active jamming. A is autopilot. Ctrl-E is eject. S cancels accelerated time. And Ctrl-H does something weird to the palette.
Radar is modeled moderately well in this sim. Low flying incoming small bogies are especially hard to lock up. But up to v1.2 there was a bug concerning scan zone movement. This bug was fixed in v1.5. Friendly AWACS and EWR obviously help as their information is uploaded to your Su27 by datalink.
Bogies suffer an unfair advantage over you. They detect you by extra-sensory perception, not by using their radars or EOS. They also have an unfair advantage in that they can "beam" your radar but you cannot beam theirs.
Left shift plus a view key will cycle only through enemy aircraft / objects. Right shift plus a view key cycles only through friendlies. Ctrl-shift-Fkey is an allowed combination, to cycle backwards.
Right Ctrl key accelerates object panning / rotating with keyboard arrow keys twofold.
Select a plane with F2 or F5, then the F9 key will switch to dogfighting view - cycles through a view from the original plane towards other planes within visual range (6km?). You can use Rshift and Lshift F9 as described above to choose friends and foes.
Tilde ~ key now allows you to switch visual padlock between multiple planes in your current field of view, so long as you have not locked them up and you are in a close air combat mode.
* key allows you to visually padlock ground target. Whilst in ground attack mode, put the circular target designator in the HUD onto the target and lock using *. This is the CCIP marker with appropriate munitions, otherwise it is the centre circle. The effect lasts about 2 minutes.
Keypad 0 allows you to quickly glance at instruments no matter where you are looking. Works only as long as key depressed. Absolutely invaluable for dogfighting.
The backspace key now duplicates the Caps Lock key - weapon selection.
Papa Doc became father to a baby girl late in the beta-testing phase of v1.5. The pink plane is for her and her only, but sometimes she lets her daddy fly it for her. He is not allowed to dent it, though.
Visit http://home.earthlink.net/~plegrand/PINKFLAMINGO.htm
You have to hold it down, sometimes for up to a second. This is deliberate, realistic modeling of the performance of the WCS, not a bug.
They seem to "stick to the rails" sometimes, don't they? This is because they take a couple of seconds to arm when selected - that realism thing again. Wait, or hold down the fire button a bit longer.
You can't. That realism thing again. The preferences option only affects measurements in map mode. The HUD and instruments always show meters and km/h. Note that the HUD shows true airspeed (TAS), the dial shows indicated airspeed (IAS).
Kh29s do NOT lock onto a radar image. They are optical. Use the radar mode 4 (zemlya) to find the target, then turn the radar OFF and move the round circle with the dot on it, which represents your missile seeker's line- of-sight, to the target either by maneuvering the aircraft or with the direction keys. The MFD shows you what the missile is looking at. When you see the target in the centre of the MFD, lock on with Tab, and away you go.
We are told that contrary to what is says on the manual, the Kh31 can only lock onto a fire-control radar, i.e. they DO lock on but only to a radar that has already locked you up (and therefore expect a SAM already on the way). From a sufficient distance they are therefore useful. Close to, you will probably die. Suitable strategy is to fly into range of SAM. Have your radar off. As soon as you are locked up, lock onto the SAM and fire. Then immediately go fully defensive - chuck chaff / flares, break turn, get low, split-S, get lower still, and repeat as necessary (actually the real trick is to get the SAM behind your 3-9 line and throw countermeasures)
You cannot lock onto EWR or search radars. This is said to be realistic, but has been disputed.
Have you watched the ships in action as your missiles approach? They undertake active defence with SAM and AAA. You have to swamp or surprise the defences.
This missile's own radar only goes active 15km from the target. Until it is that close (you have to guesstimate this yourself) it requires guidance from your radar i.e. you have to keep the target locked up until then.
Assuming the target doesn't maneuver, you can guesstimate using the following formula:
TTL = Time to missile lock-on (count seconds until this period has expired before switching to a second target)
TOF = Total missile time of flight (you must memorize the time of flight number shown at launch time on the HUD)
DT = Total distance the missile will travel. This is tricky to estimate since the target is moving. If it's coming toward you, a very conservative estimate is the range to target at launch time.
TTL = TOF * (DT - 15)/DT
Pretty tough to calculate on the fly, eh? :^) When launching at maximum range at a target that is not running from you (if it was, you probably wouldn't be in a hurry to get two missiles in the air anyway), the rule of thumb I use is to count down half the time of flight I see when I launch (remember this number is no longer valid after you launch). It works for me.
The infra-red guided R27te is supposed to be a medium-to-long range fire and forget missile (and thus extremely useful). However you may have noticed the following: you lock up an inbound bogie with a R27te, you keep him locked up as he flies within the max range marker (at around 40km) on the HUD, and yet you get no NP shoot cue. Only when he flies to within 10km does NP appear. The R27te thus seems no better than the R73. But wait! If instead once the bogie is within range you break the lock and reacquire - now the NP cue appears, you can launch and then bug out. Curiously, the shorter-legged R27t behaves itself properly and does not need this kludge. This must be a program bug and not a "feature" of the real Flanker.
The launch cue will only appear if you are within weapons parameters. If you look in the manual you will see that there are both altitude and velocity limits for each bomb. Particularly if you are too fast you will not get a launch cue.
(i) You have to save it first before you can start it.
(ii) To fly yourself in the mission make sure that you have one Flanker designated as "Me". You can only do this on a flight leader of "your" side.
(iii) If you have assigned a start time after the default to "Me" you will have to watch the "prequel" unfold before you automatically jump into your plane at the designated time. See also below.
You will have noticed that just changing your flight's take off time to e.g. 1800 doesn't quite work. The sim starts at 1200 and you have to wait 6 hours before your flight is ready to go. The correct solution is to go through the menus Flight -> Briefing -> Start Time.
You need to go through the menus Flight -> Briefing- > Change Sides
Yes. Put yourself on a runway, first waypoint as take-off, mission type GAI. The mission will start without you. As soon as EWR picks up bogies or they approach within 10km of your airfield (visual pick-up) you leap into your plane on the runway.
Classify the mission as type "Training" using Flankers with Sortie type "Nothing".
Put more than one target waypoint onto the target in the flight plan. This still is insufficient to get a simultaneous multiple launch e.g. at a ship, where it is most needed to break through anti-air defences. The plane will fire, pause, reorientate, fire again etc.
I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
However declassified versions of the original missions on the CD are to be found here
You may well have obtained the OEM Special version of Su27 Flanker.
The master gets to create the bulk of the mission - he adds himself, friendly and bogie flights, friendly and enemy SAMs etc. He creates the world but he does not create any human flights other than his own. He can then start without waiting for the slave(s). All the slaves have to do is to place their own flight onto an empty map and then join the master. Any other flights / SAMs etc that the slaves add will not be added to the mission. If flying cooperative missions with formation takeoffs, the master may roll a few feet forward on the runway and then signal the slave to join via mIRC chat or whatever.
Just scroll down the list of available planes - at the bottom you will start to see Su27 N2, N3 etc.
The basic unshaded polygon-only sim only runs at 640x480x256 mode.
If you are running at higher resolutions make sure that you have
ticked
File -> Program Setup -> Preferences -> Other -> Autoswitch
For some display cards this will only work if you are running in 256 colors, for others it works from any color depths. If it doesn't work for you, you will have to switch resolution yourself before starting Flanker. This can be made pretty painless by downloading the QuickRes add-in, to be found in the Win95 Powertoys on www.microsoft.com
If you have managed to get Su27 running full screen but it doesn't seem centred, you need to adjust the vertical and horizontal controls on your monitor. Your video card may have software that can do this for you.
New!
From v1.5, autoswitch never changes the color depth. The sim does run faster in 256 colors - use Quickres to change to e.g. 800x600x256 before starting Flanker.
This is because the smooth shading option needs a 64k colour screen mode. It is unavailable if you are running in a 256 colour screen mode. Use Quickres, as in the previous question. Expect a slight framerate hit even in the cockpit.
Can't be done. (well ....)
However, when networking using Win95, you don't need a copy of the CD in both computers. Just share the CDROM drive that contains the game across the network, and connect that drive to the other machine on which you wish to run Su27.
Go to the joystick calibration screen in Su27. Close your throttle to minimum. Push it to full maximum. Now notch it forward a bit, so that the blue ribbon is visible below the min RPM line. Now push the min RPM button. Push to a bit short of maximum and push to max RPM button. Repeat as necessary. You should now be able to throttle down to true ground idle. Note that by 'idle' I mean a setting of approximately 64%, not zero! Zero is 'off' not 'idle'.
Those max and min RPM buttons apparently come into their own if you have a Thrustmaster throttle with palpable detents to mark afterburner settings.
Don't ask me! I use Suncom.
However, try the following. If you know better, tell me.
There are two options available.
MS Game Profiler
Jason Shannon created a little patch that will enable the sound in SU27 Flanker on NT 4. It's available from:
http://www.larch.demon.co.uk/su27nt4sndpatch.htm
You have to be in NAV mode NOC or BO3B. Then look at the runway and push * as usual.
The L key dumps fuel whilst you are in the air, and refuels you whilst you are on the ground. But it is realistic - it does so in real-time, i.e. slowly. It takes about five minutes to refuel to 90% from empty. Ctrl-A will accelerate this process.
If you have made a deadstick landing having run out of fuel, you may have worried that you cannot restart your engines. Do not worry - refill up to 3 to 4 tons and they will restart themselves. Having your throttle at idle at this point will help prevent any nasty surprises.
EXPOSED AS SCUMMY CAPITALIST DISINFORMATION AND LIES: "There is a third way to refuel - fly really close behind one of the heavy iron (AWACS, Tu-95, IL-76) for 40 seconds and your fuel level will jump up again."
You are going too fast. Try flying level at 450km/h, then push K. See? A prize for anyone successfully using this in combat, as in "I'll pop the brakes and he'll fly right by". (Hint: you are in the wrong sim. Probably the wrong universe. Please close the door as you leave.)
International keyboards vary. They key you need is at the top left, next to the 1 key. Or maybe not. Hunt around!
If he sees you making anything less than a picture perfect take-off he aborts. It's too dangerous up there to follow a flight leader who doesn't know his stuff! Also, he doesn't want to slam into your tail. Pull back steadily on the stick, don't hesitate, don't let the nose drop. Don't pull too high an AoA before take-off velocity. Finally, if you are heavy with 100% fuel on board, you will need to light those burners.
It was broken. Although the alt and az of the radar can be changed, the radar never detected a target which was more than 6000m vertical separation from your Su27. To find bogies at higher or lower altitudes you had to fly the plane to a new altitude.
Fixed in v1.5
There are a few idiosyncrasies in how the radar works, that I believe to be reasonably realistic.
Firstly, in scan mode or when receiving downlinked data from AWACS or EWR, the position of the bogies is only updated every few seconds. This is surely how the real thing works.
In track mode (locked up target) the position and velocity of the target is continuously updated.
When a target achieves a radar lock on you, the "emitter" symbol on the radar display may not correspond with the position of the bogie. I think this is also realistic, the display is showing but not combining data from two separate pieces of equipment, the radar and the radar warning receiver. The RWR can only determine bearing and strength of signal - the distance is only estimated according to signal strength and so the emitter may be calculated to be somewhere other than the radar return. It would not always be correct to assume that you are being painted by the same bogie that you are painting!
You may sometimes lose lock on bogies, especially after firing a missile. This happens for two reasons - firstly the bogie may maneuver and put himself into your Doppler notch. The Doppler notch is a blind spot that your radar has for targets traveling perpendicular to your direction of flight, plus or minus a few tens of kph. The notch exists because your radar is designed to filter out returns from objects which have zero groundspeed relative to your direction of flight, it is done by looking at the Doppler shift of the returned signal. The purpose of it is to get rid of vast amounts of ground clutter (this is why hills, buildings, vehicles etc do not show up on your A2A radar) but it does give the bogie somewhere to hide. You can use the notch defensively yourself to defeat human opponents in H2H, but sadly the AI seems able to see you even if you are in their notch.
The second reason you may lose lock is when the bogie releases chaff - indeed you may see false returns on your radar and even lock onto the chaff for a few seconds.
The EDSU (elektro-distancionnaya sistema upravlenia or electronic remote control system), also referred to as the ACS (automatic control system) or fly-by-wire bit, includes alpha and G-limiters that prevent the average pilot from bending both themselves and the airframe. Now this can be made to fail by choosing Options -> Failures -> ACS in the Mission Planner, but did you know that you can also disable and re-enable it in-flight? Just use the A (autopilot) key in any mode other than NAV. The autopilot light comes on but what actually happens is that the ACS/EDSU is disabled. The Flanker will turn much faster, but also bleed speed accordingly, and is much more challenging to fly.
That little mini-HUD that you see in padlock mode is always orientated so that it is at the side of the screen closest to the nose of your plane. Basically, you need to roll so that it is at the bottom of the screen and then pull up on your joystick.
Many of us think that the padlock implementation is one of Su27's best features - but probably none more strongly than Papa Doc.
Mostly thanks to Al Bergen:
Some more notes:
The position of the wingmen responses on the top of the screen indicate which wingman is responding. if the response is in the left side of the screen it is coming from your #2 man, center from #3 man, left from #4 man (assuming you've got a flight of 4). When they break from formation this still applies.
When you give a command to the wingies it goes first to the farthest wingman (#4, if he has already been given a task or is unable to comply the command is received by the next wingie in line the #3 man, then #2 etc. (The human player is the #1 man or lead)
If your wingman or any aircraft reach their last waypoint and if that waypoint is not a landing waypoint, the aircraft will disappear.
Even more notes, thanks to Mark "Stinger" Shepheard
Here's what I have found in regards to wingman control:
If you are following the waypoints on your Nav display, and say, you are inbound waypoint 3 but find a target on radar, switch to BVR mode, and then go after them. After you kill the bandit, you notice you have passed waypoint three and four, so you just continue on to waypoint 5. Now, If you "dispatch wingman on mission" he will fly BACK to head for waypoint 3 because that was the highlighted waypoint on your Nav. So, what you have to do before you send them, is go back to your Nav display and update your inbound waypoint. What I usually do is highlight the target/intercept waypoint and then dispatch them. This is a must for getting wingmen to hit ground targets. - If you have your wingman sent to attack a ground target, and you get the "missile away" message from him followed by a "rejoining" message, and there are still targets left to destroy. Toggle, "send wingman on mission and rejoin" again, and continue this process untill your wingman has either fired all his air to ground missiles, or all targets are destroyed. Works very well, but you have to KEEP resending him after you get the "rejoining" message, and again, make sure the target waypoint is highlighted. I have had my wingmen kill airborne targets, ground/naval targets, and a number of times get a bandit off my six while I was heading home in a crippled ship. Just be very repetitive with wingman commands. Oh ya, one other note, if you are crippled, say, with only one engine, and a wingman is on your wing, make sure that before you land, send him away. I have had him crash into me on short final cause I was trying to get a wounded bird down in a strong crosswind.
Okay, here are a few things that might help someone to master the art of guns kill in Flanker: (You may already be aware of a few things listed below, but I'm just gonna state them anyway)
So you've been flying this high tech fighter all this time H2H without missiles, eh? Wimp! It's time to stop that foolishness, no one in their right mind would take a real Flanker into a war zone without missiles so why in the most realistic flight sim for H2H are you not carrying missiles? Because you're scared, because it's hard, because it's not fun. Get over being scared, you're right it is hard but if we wanted easy we would be flying something else not Flanker, and no it's a lot of fun but you have to know how - or someone like Wags, Talon or myself will come along and ventilate your plane from afar. Repeat after me...BVR is fun BVR is fun....practice practice practice....BVR is fun <VBG>.
What follows are some general guidelines, that will be subject for revision as we get better at flying them. In essence when fighting the same type of aircraft i.e. Su27 vs. Su27 armed with the same loadout--as would be standard in H2H Match play, the person who gets to the launch parameters quickest at the highest speed then stops his ingress into the range of the bandits missile envelope the quickest will win. This article discusses the use of the R-27re, R-27r, R-27t,(R-27te, and) R-73. Keep in mind that you must keep lock on the bandit, you are playing a game of chicken and the first one who blinks is at a distinct disadvantage. In the first launch of SARH missiles the lock must be held through the flight till impact.
The following are the steps involved in a typical BVR fight. The setup is 2000m alt, 55km separation head on aspect.
[words by PAPA, punctuation amended by Redshift - but, hey, look at the raw material I had to work with!]
I will try and be brief. But keep in mind that much of this is gonna be a bunch of bull....WHY..? Well because situations in H2H are fluid....you shouldn't EVER be predictable.....What was brilliant last time may not be so brilliant the next time in seemingly the same circumstances...this is CRUCIAL DO NOT FORGET IT.....I cannot tell you the amount of flights I've won because the other pilot was going the same way each and every time....WHA..????? That's right he died the last time and instead of modifying his tactics....he COMES at me the SAME way....WHA...????
Then also consider that if you won the last match doing a particular maneuver that if you're flying someone competent he may counter that particular move this flight.....DON'T BE PREDICTABLE...which kinda makes advice useless. But hey you need to start somewhere. So here are a couple of examples and my thoughts on why they are useful.
To the more technically inclined I apologize, I don't use the LINGO...because the people who know the lingo don't need to read my advice...the people who are asking don't know the lingo..so I tend to put all my advice in hopefully simple terms.
Coming into a merge (when you pass each other nose to nose) it's wise to know the bad guy's speed - this will tell you a lot of where to go. To those who ask about what to do after the first merge and you are approaching nose to nose the second time...treat it like the first merge except that if the ROE [Rules of Engagement] called for a clean pass first merge you can now shoot, or lead turn (more on that later). Also make sure to be flying with Mirrors.
Your speed is gonna be dependent on your style of fighting the Flanker...there are two major styles of fighting ...
One is called the energy fighter. He keeps his speed very high, around 1200km/h into the merge and tries to force his opponent to bleed his speed by taking a slow angles fighter vertical. An impatient angles fighter will be continually trying to pull his nose into lead (pointing his nose ahead of the energy fighter's flight path) to get a shot and the energy fighter is always just a nick ahead of the bullets....then all of a sudden the angles fighter will notice that he is no longer flying a sleek killing machine, but instead he is flying a large paperweight and he no longer has control. Then the angles fighter discovers that he has deftly placed the energy fighter into his deep six (behind him).
The other is the angles fighter....this is the predominant type on the net because it's the most natural. Most people want to pull hard on the stick. And this is the main reason that anyone flying Flanker should for the first month or so fly with the ACS off....that will force sane treatment of the Angle of Attack as pulling hard on the stick is an extremely bad habit that causes death and destruction. The angles fighter is trying to use his reduced speed to turn inside of you and get a shot.
The angles fighter comes into the merge anywhere between 750 to 950. If he is at 950 watch his airbrake at the merge and act accordingly, in other words if you are flying a known angles fighter and he comes into the merge hot, WATCH his airbrake to see if he is a cat that has changed his spots or if he is actually trying to sucker you into a bad move.
It helps to develop a knowledge of who fights like what.....because as much as we all try to be unpredictable we all still pretty much stick to a style.....nonetheless avoid being pinned down if possible.
Ok here are some very rough ideas on things to try at the merge.
Ok this is enough of this speculative stuff. The basics are...........
Brought to you by the one and only …
PAPA DOC Infamous Flanker Pilot.
The one your mother warned you about.
Flying the Pink Flamingo... Damage, Inc.
Still getting smoked in Beyond Visual Range (BVR) combat? Well, sit back and I'll fill you in on some of the BVR knowledge I've acquired through many hours of BVR Flanker play and my professional experiences.
First off, remember that the type of missiles being used will dictate how the battle is fought. To illustrate this, I'll take each category of missile (based on seeker type) and investigate the do's and don'ts. I'll intersperse other tid-bits regarding missile avoidance, baiting, and warning indicators. I don't pretend to be the know-it-all of BVR, and I welcome comments and further discussion. I sincerely hope that the following will be of help and interest to those of you still struggling with intricacies of BVR combat.
The SARH missiles (a missile that requires you to illuminate the target aircraft the entire time of missile flight) for your use in Flanker include the R-27R (AA-10A ALAMO) and R-27RE (AA-10C ALAMO). The only difference between the two is that the RE has a larger motor, thus giving it a longer reach (i.e. provides you with a larger F-pole if used properly, we'll get to this shortly). Except for the R-33 (AA-9 AMOS), the R-27RE and the R-27TE have the longest reach in Flanker. It is this long reach that can be exploiting for deadly affect if used properly.
The primary drawback to the R-27R/RE is that, like all SARH missiles, they require you to keep your target locked the entire time of missile flight. So how do you go about taking advantage of the "long stick" R-27RE? The best way to illustrate this is to diagram a target engagement. During the course of this diagram, I will also be illustrating the use of off-angle targeting and speed differentials to increase your F-pole--the distance between your aircraft and the target aircraft at missile time-out. Contrary to was what written in Aunt Mary's, there is NO advantage to coming into the engagement at a higher speed than your adversary.
Regardless of your air speed versus your opponents, both aircraft will reach RMAX (the maximum distance at which the selected missile can be fired and reach the target given the targets current heading and speed) at the same moment. So what's the advantage into going into the fight faster than your adversary? None. That being said, it's best to go into the fight at a speed with sufficient closure to ensure a large RMAX (the higher the closure rate, the larger your RMAX) yet not significantly faster than your opponent because it will give him an advantage in getting slower faster (I'll elaborate on that in a bit).
As a rule of thumb, I generally come into the fight at approximately 800 KPH. Going slower may not be a wise option if you choose to go into a bait maneuver (to be discussed later).
Upon reaching RMAX with R-27R/RE, it's best to fox (generic term for an AAM shot) twice due to one AAM not necessarily killing the bandit every time. Also, if the bandit defeats the first missile he may assume there is not a second in trail and will attempt to crank (a high G turn) back into you to go sensor nose on (bringing the aircraft sensors - radar, IRST, missile seekers - to an azimuth capable to detecting/tracking target.) Sorry for all the work jargon. After foxing, your primary goal is to maximize your F-pole. We do this by two means: off-angle closure and speed kill. Once done foxing, put the brake out, put the flaps down and cut throttle to idle. At the same time crank hard into a nose-high (20 degree works well) bank. During the course of the crank it is imperative to retain lock of the target.
Remember, that if you lose lock, any missile you have in the air will go dumb and explode harmlessly. Keep an eye on your MFD and bring the locked bandit to approximately 60 degrees right/left of center and then roll level, yet nose high. Now that we have the bandit still locked up at the gimbal limit of our radar, we are nose high with brake and flaps out, and we will be bleeding speed like a stuck pig. The reason to keep the bandit at your gimbal limit is to increase the distance any AAMs your adversary fired will have to fly. By flying with the bandit locked at gimbal limit, you are forcing the enemy AAM to fly a curved flight path, and as we all know: the shortest path from A to B is a straight line, not a curved line. By concurrently cutting our speed, we are decreasing the closure rate between our aircraft and the incoming missile. What this all amounts to is that assuming the bandit continues to fly a pursuit/high speed intercept, our missiles will arrive on him before his can reach us. (Note: There are two ways to tell if you killed the bandit, 1-fast decrease in alt, 2-sometimes you will be given an audio impact sound.) What this forces the bandit to do is either take the hits, and likely die, or go defensive to avoid your missiles and thus lose lock and have his missiles "go dumb". Again, we are assuming the bandit fired the same missile as us - either an R-27R or R-27RE.
So lets say you enter a BVR fight in which both you and your adversary are equipped with R-27R/RE, and despite your best attempts to win the F-pole fight you hear that dreaded missile proximity warning klaxon. How do you avoid that incoming missile? (Note: Just because you hear the proximity warning indicator, does not necessarily mean that the missile coming towards you is in fact guiding on you. There have been many instances where I have destroyed the bandit after he fired an SARH missile, but I still get the warning despite the AAM not guiding on me.)
The first thing to do is put the enemy aircraft that launched the missile on your three or nine o'clock line. This is termed flying the notch. Pulse Doppler (PD) radars rely on a velocity change difference between background and the target in the main-beam lobe to detect the target. By flying perpendicular to the PD emission vector, you provide no discernible velocity change from the background to be locked by a radar in a high PRF mode. Depending upon the sophistication of the PD radar, it will vary in the size of its "gate" (the positive or negative rate-change velocity if not flying truly perpendicular) in regards to background by as much as 200 KPH.
Once you are flying perpendicular to the enemy's radar emissions, you will want dispense chaff/flare at maximum interval-rate and assume a 15 degree nose high aspect. Then, slew your view toward the direction of the incoming missile and attempt to attain a visual tally of the incoming AAM. Initially, the missile will be visible from its motor smoke (if within visual range). The missile itself will start out as a small dot, then grow to a small "plus, + " sign, then turn into a rapidly closing white sparkle. At the moment you see the missile turn from the small plus sign to a white sparkle, initiate nose high 4 G bank into the missile. I have yet to have a missile achieve even a proximity hit on me with this method. I'm sure there are other methods, perhaps better, but this one works well for me. Additionally, as long you continue to fly the notch, or put the bandit at your six o'clock, he will be unable to attain radar lock in H2H. This is a means of achieving closure without fear of an incoming AAM. However, this puts one in a defensive role and this is not advisable against a skilled BVR player.
There are three primary warning indicators to let the player know of incoming AAMs. As mentioned above, the smoke of motor burn is a sure give-away of an AAM coming your way, if your within visual range. The second warning indicator is your Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) gear. The primary aspect of the RWR gear we're interesting in regarding BVR is the lock on tone. When this tone is active, we must assume an AAM is inbound if we believe the bandit is within its Weapon Employment Zone (WEZ). The third is the Infrared Launch Detector (ILD). How the ILD works in Flanker is more as a missile proximity warning indicator, not realistic. When this indicator sounds, a missile will impact on your aircraft within 1 to 8 seconds--depending on range at which the missile was fired. If you still in a BVR situation, begin evasion maneuvers as stated above.
Rather than enter into an F-pole fight, one can attempt to lure one's opponent into wasting his AAMs on low PK shots. In turn, once your adversary has depleted a certain category of AAM, the player can then turn the tables and use such AAMs without worry of the bandit replying with equivalent AAMs. One example of a bait would be as follows:
Upon reaching RMAX in a situation where both players are equipped with R-27RE, R-27T, and R-73, it would be presumable that the opponent will fire off one or two R-27RE. Rather than respond in kind and enter an F-pole fight, you could immediately enter the notch after RMAX. By entering the notch, we will break the adversaries lock and thus his incoming R-27REs will go dumb and detonate. With this accomplished, one can crank back into sensor nose on and fox R-27RE knowing that he will not be able to respond in kind until reaching RMAX for R-27T. Another option would be to put the bandit on your six o'clock. There is a bug in Flanker that prevents AAMs from successfully engaging targets using chaff/flare from their six. Not until one is VERY close is it possible for a six o'clock AAM shot. With this in mind, it is possible to keep the bandit at bay on your six and have them deplete their AAM load on unsuccessful shots. Once the bandit is depleted of AAMs, the player is free to engage the bandit with a distinct advantage.
A final form of baiting is the use of E-pole. E-pole is defined as the distance one can turn away from a bandit while still staying out of its WEZ. Such a scenario would involve flying into the outer WEZ of the bandit, assume he has foxed, and then turn tail 180 degrees and extend. The fired AAM by the bandit will then be unable to cover the "new" distance given to it and detonate harmlessly when it runs out of steam.
The one ARH missile (an AAM which carries on board its own radar illuminator) for our use in Flanker is the R-77 (AA-12 ADDER). Like the AIM-120 and active radar MICA, the R-77 gives us the option break radar lock with the target before missile time-out. The key here is to retain radar lock until the missile's seeker has gone active. One may want to maximize the distance between one's aircraft and the target aircraft when R-77 goes active by using an F-pole maneuver as illustrated above. The distance between one's aircraft and the target when the an ARH goes active is termed A-pole. The time this takes to happen will obviously depend upon the distance between our aircraft and the target and time of missile launch, the shorter the distance the shorter the time to go active. If launched at RMAX, we can use as a general rule of thumb that an ARH will go active approximately at one half the time of indicated missile time of flight indicated on the HUD. At fox, divide this number by two, and count to this number. At that point, one can generally assume that the missile has gone active, and it is safe to break lock if need be. The R-77 can be particularly effective in a situation where one needs to fire at long range (the R-77 has the third longest range next to R-27RE and TE), but also may need to go into the notch to defeat an incoming AAM once the R-77 has gone active.
The BVR heaters we have at our disposal in Flanker include the R-27T (AA-10B ALAMO) and R-27TE (AA-10D ALAMO). Unlike SARH and ARH AAMs, heaters only rely upon the infrared energy dissipated from the target aircraft once the missile has been fired. The great advantage of heaters is that they are truly fire-and-forget weapons. Unlike the R-77 where one must retain radar lock for at least a portion of missile flight - if fired from BVR ranges - the R-27T/TE allow one to cease illuminating the target as soon as the missile leaves the rail. The combination of this fire-and-forget capability and its long range (equal to the R-27RE) makes the R-27TE the most lethal BVR missile available to us. Two advantages the R-27T/TE gives us is the ability to hit the notch without concern of continuing missile guidance and the ability to engage multiple targets at once. By locking, firing, unlocking and then repeating on follow-on targets, the R-27T/TE gives us true multi-target engagement capability.
Now that we have an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these various AAMs, it's time to put all the pieces together. Lets say we have a loadout made up of R-27RE, R-77, R-27T, and R-73 and we are facing a equally armed bandit at 60km nose-on-nose. First off, do we decide to fire our big stick (i.e. R-27RE) at RMAX and pull an F-pole maximization maneuver? Or do we assume the other guy will do just that and thus we attempt a bait maneuver? Once we have fired off our R-27Res, be it after an F-pole maneuver or after a bait, we likely would have closed the range and have the option for either R-77 or R-27T shot. Do we choose to use the active radar homing capabilities of the R-77, or if we're in range, do we cook off a couple of R-27Ts? What happens if we're faced with a proximity warning before reaching RMAX for our next biggest "big stick"? Do we take the chance with a proximity hit and continue lock for a shot, or do we hit the notch? What I'm getting at here is that there is no proven successful pattern with any particular weapons loadout. It's a dynamic series of decisions based upon an understanding of weapon capabilities, good situational awareness, sound understand of the "poles", and a little dumb luck.
In Part 1 we delved into the strengths and weaknesses of of our BVR missile selection, F-pole tactics when using SARH AAMs, AAM avoidance, and "baiting" tactics. In this part I would like to concentrate on BVR combat in relation to successful head-to-head play in 1.5.
For starters, the R-77 (AA-12 ADDER) is king. This is for several reasons:
My loadout of choice in BVR combat is the 6 R-77 and 4 R-73 option under "CAP". With such a loadout though, one will be at a Rmax1 disadvantage against an opponent with R-27REs under the wings--in other words, he'll have first shot. To nullify this first shot disadvantage one must deny your opponent the shot or defeat his R-27RE shot well before it reaches its end-game. This can be accomplished in two ways:
The above examples should put you on equal footing with an R-27RE armed opponent. Once your within the the WEZ of the R-77 (and you'll have more of them) you should be able to dictate the fight.
If you believe you might have an R-77 inbound, you have a tougher customer to deal with. Bear in mind that in head-to-head play, the R-77 is MUCH more difficult to spoof than against the AI (One can spoof the R-77 as one spoofs a SARH AAM when playing against the AI). Also bear in mind that the R-77 will not fall for the same defensive tactics that work against SARH shots as I described above. Three methods of spoofing the R-77--to varying degrees of effectiveness--are as follows:
As I alluded to earlier, two of the great strengths of the R-77 are its long range and its active seeker. The key to successful use of the R-77 is to pay close attention to the 15 km rule. Once the missile is within 15 km of target the active seeker takes over and there is no need for continued radar illumination of the target by the launch aircraft. Thus, if the target is within 15 km of you, the R-77 is a 100% fire-and-forget missile. If the range to target is over 15 at time of fox, one must estimate the time needed for the missile to reach the point at which its active seeker takes over--termed A-pole. That being said, if one launches when the target is at a range of 17 km at time of fox, one must only wait a few seconds until lock can be broken. However, if the target is at longer ranges, say 23 km, take that distance, divide by two, and count to that number. By the time you reach that count, A-pole should have been achieved.
Once the seeker has gone active, one can initiate defensive maneuvers to defeat incoming AAM shots (see above).
One of the bugs fixed in the 1.5 expansion CD was the dreaded 6 k bug. This bug prevented the radar from acquiring targets with more than a 6 k altitude difference. Because this has been fixed we have a new trick we can use.
When in a BVR fight and the bandit is forced to go defensive--and break his radar SA--one has an opening to not be where the enemy expects you to be when he cranks back in after defeating your shot. To achieve this, one must simply initiate a radical altitude change while the enemy has no radar SA. If your at low altitude, grab sky quick and conversely, if your at high altitude hit the deck. If at medium...well you can probably figure that out. Because you are aware of relative altitude positions prior to altitude change, you know where to slew your elevation scan to acquire the bandit. Because he'll be coming back in "blind", he'll be unaware you've changed altitude bands and thus will be searching in vane for you--until he catches on and starts changing his elevation scan patter, which can take awhile. If done correctly, you can have your opponent stumbling around and completely on the defensive.
Also, if in closer ranges (0 to 10 km) one may want to disable the radar and search by EOS. EOS seems to have a much better scan capability in regards to elevation than the radar. There have been countless times when I've been in a fight where I knew the bandit was in my forward quarter, within 15 km, but I couldn't find him on radar. By shutting down the radar and only using EOS, I've frequently found the target. Another advantage to EOS is that it will not trip the other guy's RWR. Considering that the R-77 works quite will in conjunction with EOS, it is a wise choice to shut off the radar when range constraints permit.
On a final note, one must be wise with their use of AAMs and expendables against a skilled opponent capable of consistently defeating your AAM shots. If you double, or even triple fox, you may quickly run out of missiles. Against a good opponent, one may quite realistically expect the fight to move into the within visual range (WVR) arena. Once in WVR, AAMs are much more deadly due the time restrictions placed upon you to set up an appropriate defensive maneuver. Thus, be careful not to expend all your AAMs to early and get stuck short gunned later in the fight. Also, if your trading multiple BVR shots with an opponent, be conscious of your chaff/flare count. Granted it is quite possible to defeat AAM shoots without chaff/flares, but considering the decreased Pk when chaff/flares are present, I would highly recommend to be stingy when playing a capable opponent.
If there are additional areas of BVR combat in relation to the Su-27 Flanker please email me at mwagner@bellatlantic.net, and I'll try to address them in Part III.
The merge can be the most important moment of any dogfight. A well planned and executed merge has a habit of deciding victories - in the two merge examples, as you can see, they decide it rather quickly. At the merge, there are basically 3 ways to break: right, left or vertical. From here on, however, we will not refer to breaking right or left, but will instead refer to break turns in relation to the break direction of your opponent (which is how you should think of them.) These are referred to as one-circle and two-circle merges. The vertical merge will always turn out to be either a one or a two-circle merge, but with a slightly modified (egg shaped) turn caused by the effect of gravity on turn performance.
Do you want to read more? See the ten accompanying TRK files? Discover about one- and two-circle fights, angles fighting, lead and lag pursuit, the corner and the elbow, the high and low yo-yos, reversals, extensions and scissors?
Auger has put this all together into one fantastic package. Just download http://www.stncroft.demon.co.uk/primer.zip (size about 640k) and away you go.
OK, time for my two cents here. I'll just list a few things that have helped make me able to take down 5 Su-27 excellent AI (I loove pointless bragging:^)):
Have a good one
Tony "If you want blood, you got it!" Volk
avolk@chat.carleton.ca
Well, if you really want to know, visit the Ironhand WWW
site. A superb guide to SAM avoidance.
http://www.turbont.net/richards/ironhand/intro.html
[Thanks to yoss@aracnet.com for this one]
Okay, here's a crash course on some of the SAM/AAA batteries in the sim, and the effective way to neutralize the threat. Whatever I explain below applies to a 1:1 type engagement (You against one S2A threat.) You figure out the rest :-)
Long-Range:
S-300. Absolutely lethal. Best tactic is to avoid being detected. Requires at least two Kh-31p ARMs fired back-to-back to neutralize the radar site. You should be prepared well in advance for the shot, since you have a very small window to fire and run away. Align yourself for the kill, while being masked from the radar, hold _down_ on both the lock key (TAB) and the trigger, pop up, wait for the radar lock, and watch the ARMs scream towards the site. Most probably, there's already a missile on its way to greet you, so turn around, dive to the deck, and run like hell, while pumping C&F generously.
Medium-Range:
Kub/Buk/Tor. Lethal, if you don't know what you are doing. But, a lot easier to evade, than the S-300. Has no minimum range that I know of. But, has a ceiling limit of 6000m. Fly higher, and you won't be harmed.
Requires one Kh-31p to take the radar. Use the same tactics as in S-300 for the kill. But, the missile can be evaded just by beaming the radar site, and diving to the deck.
Short-Range:
Shilka/Tunguska. Shilka is a deadly AAA battery. If you find yourself being shot at, reach for the ejection handle, 'cuz you can't do much. Best way to avoid is to fly above 2000m.
Cannot be killed using Kh-31p. Best way to achieve a kill is by using the Kh-29 TV-guided missile. You could also use rockets.
NOTES:
General missile avoidance technique
Put the missile into your rear hemisphere and pump some chaff. This rarely fails. The missile seeker logic locks on the the closest target - so chaff and flares work for missiles coming from behind but not from in front.
Join the flanker e-mail list.
Get the Bible: Fighter Combat by Robert L. Shaw
Naval Institute Press
ISBN 0-87021-059-9, from http://www.books.com.
A serious book for a serious sim.
If you are trying to connect a Win 95 and DOS machine H2H the Win 95 machine must always be master.
The following is taken directly from the O-Club page at the Unofficial Flanker WWW Site:
Setting Up as the Host Machine
In order to install the Dial-up Server software, you must have the Plus Pack. If you do not install the Dial-Up Server software, you will still be able to play via dialup IPX but you must be the caller and your oponent must have the dial up server software running.
Dial Up Server from the Plus Pack
Configuring the Server
Setting Up IPX/SPX Compatible Protocol
Setting Up as the Client Machine
If you do not have the Windows 95 CD Rom of the Plus Pack, you will not be able to install the Dial Up Server software. To play Flanker via direct modem, you must setup a new dial up connection and use it to call someone who is running the Dial Up Server. You must also install the IPX/SPX protocol. The following steps will guide you through the entire process.
Creating a New Dial Up Connection
Install the IPX/SPX Compatible Protocol
You are now ready to dial up to your opponents computer. Simply double click on the new connection you made. (NOTE: Instead of making multiple connections for each person you end up calling, you can simply change the phone number at this stage when the Dial Up Networking window pops up) Once connected, run Flanker and select either Master or Slave and the correct channel number (whichever you and your opponent decided on in advance)
Trying to get TCP/IP working between 2 machines over dial-up connections to the Internet using v1.1 and v1.2 is a pretty hopeless task - anything but the fastest ping times lead to dropped connections. Using TCP/IP over v1.5 however is a breeze. I think it is pretty self-explanatory, so that's enough FAQqing from me.
You can fly Flanker head-to-head over the Internet with the help of neat little utilities called Kahn and Kali. They allow the IPX protocol to run over a dial-up Internet link. I will give details for the Win95 versions of Kahn and Su27. Although Kali is used more widely for gaming than Kahn, the creator of Kahn95 spent time optimising his utility for Flanker before Kali95, and Kahn is therefore currently more popular with Flanker pilots.
Synopsis
Detailed Instructions
Kali
Kali works as well as Kahn, and has a superior chat interface. Instructions are similar. The latest Win95 version is v1.1M beta, get it from http://www.kali.net
Thanks to Michael Barnes for this.
OK - your first issue will be getting the network to function. Don't bother with Su-27; just use Windows95 first up, and get that working.
Configure all of the systems the same way; viz: a. Ensure each one has a "network neighborhood" icon. If they don't, then they don't have a recognised LAN adapter installed. You would need to get Win95 to recognise the LAN adapter; ie 'Add Hardware' etc. Needless to say you will need a Win95 CD available on the day!
Once they all have a 'network neighborhood', you need to ensure that they all have the same Properties set up:
Configuration:
Installed Components:
(client) Client for Microsoft Networks
(adapter) (Their LAN adapter)
(protocol) IPX/SPX-compatible protocol -> (Their LAN
adapter)
(service) File & Printer shaping for Microsoft networks
If they have an Internet connection they may also have
(adapter) Dial-up adapter (protocol) TCP/IP -> Dial-up adapter
All other clients, protocols and services should be removed from the 'Installed Components' list. If any of the top four above are missing, pick "Add", then the type (client, protocol etc). From the dialog that then pops up, pick "Microsoft" in the Manufacturer column and you will get a list containing the appropriate component.
Also on the Configuration properties page, you will have:
Primary Network Logon: Windows Logon
File & Print Sharing: tick both boxes in the pop-up dialog.
Set the other properties tabs, too:
Identification: Computer Name: (enter a one-word name)
Workgroup: WORKGROUP Description: (anything). The important
bit here is that the Workgroup is "WORKGROUP". Everyone
should be in the same workgroup.
Access Control: Pick "share-level access control".
Now back to the Configuration tab and set the properties of each of the installed components:
(client) Client for Microsoft Networks Select "quick
logon" and leave everything else empty and unticked.
(adapter) (Their LAN adapter) Under Bindings ensure IPX/SPX
-> Lan adapter is ticked and nothing else. You shouldn't need
to touch anything else.
(protocol) IPX/SPX-compatible protocol -> (Their LAN
adapter)
Bindings: Client for Microsoft Networks ticked and File
& Print sharing ticked.
Advanced: Force Even Length Packets = No. Frame Type =
Auto Source Routing = 16 Entry Cache Leave everything else alone.
(You might also choose to set the Frame Type=802.3 for everyone)
NetBIOS: Not ticked.
(service) File & Printer sharing for Microsoft networks
Browse Master: Automatic LM Announce: No
If they have TCP/IP installed, pull up the properties of the TCP/IP protocol, go to Bindings, and UNTICK Client for Microsoft Network and File & Print Sharing. When you click OK you will get a warning message. Just click on NO and it will go away.
With this all done, Click on OK. You may need the Windows95 CD to load any drivers needed.
With all the systems configured as above, it should be just a case of connecting them to the LAN. To test, you should:
They should:
You should now be able to fly Flanker, using IPX protocol on the LAN.
Start with just a big free-for-all dogfight. Verify that everyone can join in, and that no-one has bad warping. If you can stop them shooting each other, get them to fly in formation and ensure no-one experiences warping or displacement. If they do, then look for a hardware problem - cabling or bad LAN card.
At the 62nd Fighting Falcons web site (http://www.onthenet.com.au/~kennw/62home.htm) you will find a large collection of mission plans we have used so far in our campaign. Some include briefing documents. With others you are going to just have to work it out! Some of the missions were never flown, and only the ones along the campaign path we are following have been developed.
These missions were developed using a branching tree structure, like the Flanker Campaign Shell concept. We are now changing that slightly. We found that using a branching tree campaign meant that you had to prepare 7 missions in order to fly 3 on a day. (the others being down the 'unused' branches of the campaign tree). To reduce this, we decided that the campaign would only advance every four missions (about what we could fit into a 1 day meeting after training etc). Thus we plan four missions set in the same basic situation, then assess where the campaign progresses to, set the new situation, and plan another 4 missions for the next meeting.
Apart from flying campaign missions, each meeting day we also hold a 1-2 hour training session. This normally involves a training mission. These are deliberately kept simple, and designed to focus on a single aspect being taught.
Some training missions have included: Bombing bridges using a 'cab rank' arrangement. Fighting A2A in wingman pairs against easy threats. Formation take-offs and landings. Fox & Hounds game.
Another good exercise for training is to record LAN campaign missions and then have someone go through the replays and write up a commentary. This helps people understand what was going on, and gives an opportunity to offer helpful suggestions.
We have found that ISA bus LAN cards can be a bottleneck. I would strongly advise using only PCI bus LAN cards. We use a lot of Accton cards and have found them to be very good.
[Subsequent discussions...]
Jeroen
Most of us have a netconnection and have more then just TCP-IP
protocol installed.. I for instance have TCP-IP, netBui, and IPX/SPX
installed. After the very easy installation of the card I found
that all protocols were binded to that card as well... I approached
the matter by letting the dail-up adapter continue being binded
to all three protocols, and just deleted the bindings of the TCP-IP
and NetBui protocol to the card.. (NEtbUI can't do any harm I
thought?, is needed for that network chat thingy.. under IPX I
thought, winchat)
Michael
I haven't yet encountered anything that needed the NetBUI
protocol. There might be applications that need it, in the same
way that Su27 only supports IPX and TCP/IP, but I haven't found
them yet. I like to keep things as simple as possible, to avoid
unexpected interactions and to reduce system overheads. Thus I
prefer to delete everything but the essential protocols.
Second, I had ( I have no idea why ) also the client for Netware networks installed, I just deleted that one too.. ( except i don't know why..)
Yes, it likes to add that one too - you are quite right to delete it, as it does nothing for you.
Reading thru the rest of chapter 1 I found I could understand and execute all the required settings, up to sharing a drive and finding it in my case. The identification when looking for other drives is a bit weird though, I entered the name of my computer, and it found it after a sec or two, but do you have to enter the name of the PC you are working on, or the one you want to enter, ie the one next to you for example.. Best would be if you got a list of all computers connected to the network right?
The trouble is, the Network Neighborhood is unreliable. Frequently at meetings we will find only some of the PCs listed there - not all. However, you can always find them with Find Computer... if they have a working LAN connection. That is why I didn't suggest using the browser - it can't be trusted. I meant to mention that in my document, but forgot.
I mean other wise we need to place cards on top of each puter with name of the damn thing..;-)
We tend to name ours after each person's callsign - makes it easy to remember then (once you know everyone's callsign)
Oh, and now that I'm on a roll, Does it HAVE to be WORKGROUP? or may we change it into Flanker..
Anything you like. Strictly speaking it doesn't even have to be all the same, but that just makes the browser more clumsy - you can't see everyone at once (assuming you can see them at all :-), and it seems to make it even more likely for people to not turn up in the browser at all.
BTW, one of the guys interested said he only had a p75, and he experienced a slow down with 1.5.... I have not heard of that before, neither has HC, but i want to reassure him, have you had experiences with some slower pc's on a LAN?, will they slow the thing down, or what can we expect?
I'm trying to remember what the slowest PC in the club is now. It used to be quite slow; a P60 or something; but I think everyone is up to P100+'s now. Make sure he is in 256 colour mode, and maybe get him to wind down his detail level, clouds and mirrors etc. I am not aware of any network problems caused by slow machines - just don't make him the master! ;-)
Is there a way to browse thru the other computers besides using explorer?,
Not that I know of.
I for instance love the use of Wincommander, a kind of norton commander in a W95 jacket. Would that program be able to copy stuff from other pc's as well?
If it supports UNC's you can. A UNC is a file path like: \\computer\share\directory\file.ext eg. \\Deep_Thought\62ndFF\missions\training\h2h1.mis where "Deep_Thought" is the computer name and "62ndFF" is the name of a shared directory. Also, if you drag a shared directory from another computer, you can drop a shortcut on your desktop. if you drop it onto your "My Computer" icon it gives you the option to "Map Network Drive", which makes that shared directory look like another hard-drive to your PC. This latter is the only way you can directly read a mission file into Su-27, since Su-27 doesn't seem to understand UNC's and doesn't use the new-style file-open dialog box.
And if I decide to copy some files from someone elses puter, what download rates could I expect?, If we all had a 10mbps card, would that be >10MB per second? I doubt my HD can handle that....
It would be less, due to other bottlenecks, but it will be only a little slower than copying them from hard-disk to hard-disk.
[Michael Barnes, 62nd Fighting Falcons Air Combat Simulations Club, Brisbane, Australia]
[http://www.onthenet.com.au/~kennw/62home.htm]
It is strongly recommended that you join the flanker e-mail list.
There are about 20-30 posts a day dealing with tactics, flight
experiences, new patches, and interaction with the programmers
themselves. To join, simply send an e-mail containing the text-line
subscribe flanker to majordomo@wlv.ac.uk
Majordomo is an automated mailing list server, not a human. You will receive full instructions as to how to post to and unsubscribe from the list. Save them somewhere safe! Please note that once you have subscribed you will immediately start to receive e-mails which at first glance seem to be written to you personally from complete strangers. These are of course the postings to the list, and they can be distinguished by the Header "To: flanker@wlv.ac.uk".
If you want to help make third-party support utilities for Flanker,
you can join the su27tech mailing list: send an e-mail containing
the text-line
subscribe su27tech to majordomo@wlv.ac.uk
For live on-line chat there is IRC. The Flanker community now has its own standalone IRC server. Full instructions are to be found at http://www.su27-flanker.com/Oclub/o-club.html, but briefly, if you know what you are doing, point your IRC program at the server at 137.222.40.219 port 6667 and join channel #flanker-o-club. (The O-Club is the Officers' Club).
NEW! For those who can't be bothered with messing about with IRC clients you can leap into the O-Club directly with your browser (so long as you haven't disabled Java). Jump to http://137.222.40.219:8080/ and log-in from there.
Ok - so you've downloaded some TRK files from a WWW site, written by master pilots, purporting to show how to win 1v6 dogfights, and yet all you see when you play them back is the Su27 ploughing into the ground. No, it's not a joke, or a bad download, it's progress! Files recorded with v1.0x are incompatible with v1.1. Files recorded with v1.1 and incompatible with v1.2.
SSI disclaim thus:
Old TRK files (those created in versions 1.0 through 1.05) are not supposed to perform identically on v1.1, since there were substantial changes in the AI, weapons systems and flight modelling (spin). However, some old TRKs MAY behave the same way on all versions of the Su-27 Flanker, if they do not touch the areas where the changes has been made.
On the other hand files recorded v1.2 should be compatible with v1.5. But there are persistent user reports of occasional TRK files that don't play back right, especially with Net play but also standalone. Sometimes recording a TRK file causes Flanker to crash, too.
Michael Barnes and Scott Goad have produced a superb mission
merging utility that will combine 2 missions together to produce
a third. The main purpose of this is to make e-mail campaigns
easier, but it also clearly has considerable potential e.g. in
adding set defenses to a designed mission.
You can find it at http://www.OntheNet.com.au/~kennw/62merging.html.
Sadly it only runs under Windows.
Michael Barnes has also written a Pilot's Log Manager: http://www.OntheNet.com.au/~michaelb/pilotlog.zip, a remote wingman-adding utility: http://www.OntheNet.com.au/~michaelb/wingman.zip, and an ordnance reporter for Net play: http://www.onthenet.com.au/~michaelb/ordchk.zip.
Mark Hermonat has produced a DOS utility
(Random Mission Generator) that generates random missions. This
is utter mayhem - great fun! V1.5 was on the Flanker v1.5 CDROM.
Hideo Fukumori is working on a Campaign Shell add-on for
flanker - his latest version now with several campaigns to try,
is available at http://www.info.waseda.ac.jp/muraoka/members/fukumori/fshell.html
Another useful utility allows you to map any standard joystick
button to any key: http://www.sukhoi.ru/archives/patches/joy2key.zip
Run, don't walk, and get yourself a copy of the freeware utility
WarRoom v3.0, which adds a dynamic campaign (including AI) to
Flanker.
Addresses are:
ftp://loonie.net/pub/ross/warroom/
http://loonie.net/~ross/warroom.html
There is also a copy of the windows version of WarRoom at: http://members.xoom.com/Obelovic/Playground.html
Ross has also made a map-object editing utility, Xedit. With this
he has even been able to place clouds on the ground and create
a heavy fog effect at the runway. Instrument landing guys might
get a kick out of this! You can get the mission and utility at:
ftp://loonie.net/pub/ross/utils/xedit.zip
Fighter Combat
Sukhoi Su-27: Design and Development of Russia's Super Interceptor
Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker: Sukhoi Superfighter
Su-27 Flanker
OKB Sukhoi: A history of the Design Bureau and its aircraft
Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker
Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker: The most complete guide to Russia's Superfighter
Since V2.0 is rumored to have a Mig-29 simulation as well as Su-27,
here are the books I have which cover Mig. The next two books
were available from Zenith, but I can't find them in the latest
catalog.
Mig: Fifty years of secret aircraft design
OKB Mig: A history of the design Bureau and its aircraft
Fulcrum: A Top Gun Pilot's Escape from the Soviet Empire
MiG-29 Fulcrum
The FAQ is compiled in good faith. It is admired but not endorsed
by Mindscape. I take no responsibility for any injuries sustained
or regional conflicts ignited by following any of the suggestions
therein.
Redshift
Please send all comments, corrections, additions to: redshift@stncroft.demon.co.uk
WarRoom and Xedit.
Books relevant to Flanker, list mostly thanks to phil@cs.weber.edu:
Robert L. Shaw
Naval Institute Press
ISBN 0-87021-059-9, from http://www.books.com.
A serious book for a serious sim.
Hans Halberstadt
ISBN: 0-87938-655-X
This book does not appear in the latest Zenith catalog, so I don't
know if you can get it anymore. This book is the only book I know
which covers the operation of the Su-27 to any degree. All other
books in this list mostly talk about the design and construction
of the aircraft.
Jon Lake
ISBN: 1 85532 152 1
This book also does not appear in the latest Zenith catalog.
Sergey Skrynnikov
ISBN: 962-361-710-0
Vladimir Antonov, Yefim Gordon, Nikolai Gordyukov, Vladimir
Yakovlev, and Vyacheslav Zenkin with Lenox Carruth and Jay Miller
ISBN: 1 85780 0125
Dennis R. Jenkins and Jay Miller
ISBN: 0-942548-51-5
Standard history and technical info with one of the best photo
documentation sections on the external of the Su-27. It also has
plots of the obstruction of pilot view and the IR nose sensor.
Jon Lake
ISBN (Aerospace): 1 874023 53 0
ISBN (AIRtime): 1-880588-12-9
R. A. Belyokov and J. Mamain
ISBN: 1-55750-566-7
This book has the best coverage of nearly all Mig-29s and its
variants including the Mig-29M.
Piotr Butowski with Jay Miller
ISBN: 0 904597 80 6
This book is kind of weak when discussing either Mig-23/27 or
Mig-29. Lots and lots of coverage of Mig-21. There's practically
no info on the Mig-31.
Alexander Zuyev with Malcolm McConnell
ISBN: 0-446-36498-3
Account of how Zuyev defected with a Mig-29. Fascinating account
of Soviet pilots life with sections describing flying of Mig-29.
Jay Miller
ISBN: 0-942548-50-7
Standard history and technical info with one of the best photo
documentation sections on the external of the MiG-29. Contains
a supposed image of the computer analysis model.
Disclaimer