Hey guys,

Glad to see some interest here, but sadly I feel that Lock On's days have passed. The only thing lock on is good for is for a formation flying team (that I have been part of over at www.freebirdswing.org). I'm thinking of starting here again at TG with that but it's at the thinking stage so far.

OK so why is lock on only good for formation flying as opposed to combat? Well it's all because of the lack of missions. Missions are hard to come by (for anything good), and making them is a pain in the ass. Been there and done it and very bored of it because of the staleness of the Lock On theatre. As a westerner I prefer to fly the F15 / A10, but there is really no realistic way that NATO forces would be operating there (that'd be like russian forces operating out of Cuba). Because of the location, and also the sterile environment, lock-on has a limited life span as a combat flight sim. There are also problems with the mission editor. If you want a big land battle going on, and lots of stuff happening, you can but at a massive hit to your frame rates. The ME is time consuming to use as well adding to the whole bad picture.

The solution: I've been playing falcon quite a lot using the freebirds installation which is extremely stable. However, the install (or 'dance') is rather lengthy and puts people off. www.lead-pursuit.com is re-releasing falcon and it will be one simple installation. It is basically falcon with better graphics and had a lot of the issues worked out.

To me, this is amuch better option for anyone here interested in combat flight sims. Falcon still reigns supreme today and is what I've been looking for in a combat flight sim. I would prefer to see an interest in the combat flight sim take this route because there are no mission to make (although you can using the mission builder), instead you run a campaign and it has all the mission you need. Falcon can also be installed on to a server here at TG and then a campaign can be started and left to run on its own accord. Left to its own devices, the campaign will play out with no human interference. All pilots have to do is join the server and if necessary, advance the clock to the time of their flight.

Failing this, over at freebirds most people host up their own games (they don't run any servers). With a typical 256 upload speed, you will be able to have 6 people connect to you comfortably. Campaigns can be saved at any time (except in flight). Campaign lengths vary but anywhere from 8 - 30 days.

Everything about falcon is so much more detailed that Lock On pails in comparison (as does any other flight sim). This is the sim we should be looking at for combat flights, Lock on is the baby for display flying (or just flying in general). Unless you can find someone to continually make missions, I don't really think lock-on has much of a future. Falcon: Allied Force is due for release at the end of this month. AS soon as I have a copy, I'll play it and then put a review up here at TG and hopefully we can stir up some interest.

This is the SWAT 3/ OFP of flight sims. If this gets going, we'll be offering more than just campaigns to fly in. As the learning curve is quite steep, we'll also need to lay done some learning time for any new pilots. Over at freebirdswing, I'm about to apply to become an IP (Instructor Pilot), the benefit here is that they have a lot of course material to refer to and a lot of experienced pilots. Obviously their course material stays over there and if we do anything, it'll be homegrown.

This post is unfortunately taking up considerable space, but I could easily triple it's length to tell you every facet of why falcon over lock on. Suffice to say I've been simming for quite sometime and falcon is the bees knees. Now Lock on on the other hand is available for a formation flight team - however, this has already been tried here at TG and didn't get very far. If this is to be resurrected, it requires committment (the one thing that let it down). When I say committment, I mean regular practices of at least 2 hours a week flying time. I've been doing this over at freebirds, I have quite a bit of experience in what needs to be done and can say that with practice (and determination), you will be able to hold a position 2 feet of leads wing. Minumum pilots for the team are 4. If there's enough interest AND committment, it would be great to get this going again. But remember, this will take at least 6 months before we get anywhere just so you know. End result is a video'd disply that we make available to the community, and of course lots of chicks because we're ace pilots

Finally I have to say that there doesn't seem to be much interest here for flight sims at TG, the forums really need to be changed to just 'Flight Sims' rather than having individual forums. If interest once again is generated, we can then look at individual forums but for now, they're just taking up space. Amalgamating the two at the moment would probably be a good idea.

Oh and Mateo, welcome to the team