{OT} Flight Simulator

At least ten years ago, I had a game called 'F-15III' by Microprose.
Probably rubbish compared to the games nowadays, but I quite fancy getting
my hands on a copy.

Anyone here have it/want to sell me it ? With manual, preferably.

 

Jeez, but that's an oldie! And, as I recall, it was more game than sim.

I no longer have mine -- it went in The Great Software Purge of two years
ago[1] when I (under supervision) had to "get ruthless with all your[my]
crap".

I do still have a full copy of Jane's F15 Strike Eagle 2, mind.

<anorak>
In fact [checks software shelf] I kept pretty much all my flightsim
software; notable classics include:
Digital Integration's "Tornado" and "Desert Storm" add-on; Microprose's
"Fleet Defender"; Spectrum Holobyte's "Falcon 3.0"[2]; Jane's "Longbow2"
and three copies (don't ask) of Microprose's (pre-Hasbro fiasco)
Falcon4.0.

Without a doubt, Falcon4.0 is the most /awesome/ military flight sim for
the PC, ever, without exception and has a thriving user community who
continue to develop it and support it five years after its initial
release.

It's fair to say that Falcon4.0 is really only now reaching its full
potential as back in 1998, the "recommended" spec of rig to run it was a
PII-266 or better and, frankly, "better" wasn't available.

If one "turned everything on" in the preferences/setup pages, the whole
shebang would run like an asthmatic slug and you'd be lucky if the term
"slideshow" applied.

Now, with processors past the 3GHz mark and cheap, fast RAM, Falcon4.0
absolutely /rips/ along. Plus, those clever code-monkeys who dreamt it
up, whilst criticised at the time for writing a program that overloaded
even the best systems of the time, wrote it to be expandable and
extendable and that's meant the wiz-kids in the community writing new
theaters, aircraft, weapons systems, the whole nine yards for it, tweaking
and refining the basic game-engine along the way.

Oops, I think I've just come.
;-)

</a>
[1] Along with what would amount to about £3.5k worth of other, mainly
games, software.
[2] and the add-ons, Hornet and MiG-29 and the official strat-guide.

 

Le Sat, 13 Sep 2003 14:38:17 +0100, Wik <> a écrit :

{ snip }

Is it still sold ?

{ snip }

 

Was that the one on the Amiga that included a mission to shoot down the
President or something? I used to get stoned and just fly around aimlessly
for hours. Well, it seemed like hours.

 

I used to believe I could fly when I was stoned, too.

 

Nah, it was the one you got to play over a network (one of the first,
IIRC). A mate's stepfather had a P-100, and we put my P-66 in a network
with it, and took turns doing pilot and 'navigator'. Managed to get loads
of promotions, too, and because we played the fucker so often, we developed
a sort of 'shorthand', where a single command 'barked' by either pilot or
navigator, was enough. <sad anorak mode ON>Our moment of glory was in
'Korea', 300 miles off the coast, with all instruments knocked out except
compass, one engine shut down, hydraulics hit by AA fire, and almost
running on fumes. With just a map (the one at the back of the instruction
manual), I managed to navigate us back to our base, and we both got
medals.<sad anorak mode OFF>

****, I'm going to regret posting the above ...

Techno Parade going through Bastille as I write. Off to ogle young, fit
things ...

 

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 14:15:11 +0000, Desmond Coughlan yammered:

[Falcon4.0]

Nope. Disappeared almost as soon as Hasbro got their hands on Microprose
despite many assurances from Hasbro that they'd continue M'prose's fine
tradition of military sims. Hasbro effectively asset-stripped M'prose and
then flogged what was left off to InfoGrames. Not sure what happened
after that as InfoGrames has "become" Atari...

Like I said, I've got three full copies sitting on my shelf, the last one
I bought on Ebay for £25 about two years ago.

I just had a squint there and found:
http://tinyurl.com/n8o7

So still in demand...

£25 to you, plus P&P or try your luck on Ebay.

Be warned, though, it's /very/ heavy going -- you'll not be able to dive
in and fight no matter how good a virtual (or real!) pilot you might be.
If you're more interested in something more akin to your original request,
I'd suggest any of the "Janes" series (USAF, USNF)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos...75982/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/202-6262344-6356617

Or, more up to date, "Strike Fighters" by Strategy First:

http://www.strategyfirst.com/games/GameInfo.asp?sLanguageCode=EN&iGameID=36&sSection=Overview

http://www.pcgamereview.com/PRD_155017_1457crx.aspx

New kid on the block at the moment is "Lock-on -- Modern Air Combat"
http://www.lo-mac.com/

Which is eye-wateringly gorgeous, but needs a ninja PC to run...


Assuming your still reading this and haven't nodded off, back to
Falcon4.0...

Because of the aforementioned disaster at M'prose, it was a tad buggy when
initially released. There were a couple of official patches before Hasbro
did the dirty deed and probably a half dozen "unofficial" ones since.

Without going into the /entire/ history since 2000, the previously
mentioned continuation of the original work has resulted in a number of
communities who were all working on similar enhancements (but
independantly) coming together to form the Falcon 4 Unified Team or F4UT
for short.

Their website is hosted by Frugalsword (www.frugalsworld.com), a well
known and respected British mil-sim site.

http://f4ut.frugalsworld.com/

Check them both out.

This is the home to the SuperPak series, currently at V3 (stable) and with
V4 now in beta.

V3 is a 78MB download...

The big thing with Falcon, apart from the realism in terms of avionics,
weaponry, flight models is the multi-player aspect -- it's an absolute
hoot!

Anyway, I've babbled on enough, I'll shut up now.

 

Heh, funnily enough, I just posted about Lo-mac in my (rambling) response.

It is /utterly/ gorgeous, but how realistic will it be, I wonder?

 

£25 ? Hmm ... 38 EUR ?

<fx: thinks>

Yeah, OK.

Is that e-mail address <fx: points to top of putty session with index
finger> real, and do you read it ?

Virtual only, I'm afraid (tried to join the RAF as aircrew at age 21, but
they knocked me back on the basis that I was too tall [1]).

{ snip }

Checked out the site, and there are some patches available there.

{ snip loads }


[1] something about, if having to eject, having my kneecaps ripped off by
the canopy rail as I left the cockpit

 

Don't suppose there's any 'open source' sims out there that I could
persuade to run on my Mac, are there?

 

So was this, then ..?

<insert previous .sig ...>

 

Is that the one using the UNIX-type OS ?

There's one that runs under Linux, so if you've got compatibility with
Linux binaries ... Can't recall its name. Try googling. Or you could try
to install Wine, and use a cheapo Windows sim ...

 

Okey doke...

Yep, assuming that's the non-munged version (it's fairly obvious mungage,
mind...)

Heh, me too, mate, me too. I'd hazard a guess you're a tad younger than
me, but whatever, when I was applying, the Lightning was still in service,
as was the Canberra.

Both these aircraft had the rep of losing ejecting pilots' lower legs.
=8-o

Plus, at the time, my eyesight was an issue, also.

Hey ho.

 

That's the one. OSX.

Hmmmm. Would have to be something relatively easy to compile, rather
than a binary download.

Windows emulation doesn't work well on Macs as they lack the x86
architecture required for reasonable speed.

I could always just nip upstairs and play on the PC, though.

 

Heh. Indeed it was.

 

Le Sat, 13 Sep 2003 19:21:37 +0100, Wik <> a écrit :

{ snip }

E-mail sent in a few minutes, then ...

My 'era' (had they accepted me) was the Lightning and the Phantom. My dad
(rest 'is soul) and some friends used to drive us up to RAF Leuchars for
the airshow. That was before all this namby-pamby, safety poofter type
shit, when they could still fly over the crowd. One day, we're walking up
towards the hot dog stall, and from behind us, at no more than say (IMHO)
100 ft, comes a Lightning. I don't think he was going supersonic as there
was no 'boom', but he wasn't far off it, as we didn't hear him until he was
past us. And then we heard him. Jesus, the fucking ground shook, the very
air _crackled_. Fucking _glorious_ !!!

*cough*
Still, not that I'm favour of all those instruments of war, and all that.

{ snip }

Yeah, well they'd probably have told me to **** off for that, too. I
started wearing specs soon after.

 

Le 13 Sep 2003 18:28:33 GMT, Desmond Coughlan <> a écrit :

{ snip }

Bad form and all that, but ... 'should have mentioned that the old man was
in the RAF near the tail end of WWII. Flew Tiger Moths and Air Speed
Oxfords, and was getting 'streamed' into Transport (which suited him as his
one aim was to fly, and not to kill anyone), when the War ended. He left
the RAF and joined plod.

Here endeth the biography.

 

Le Sat, 13 Sep 2003 19:22:45 +0100, SteveH <> a écrit :

{ snip }

Don't know much about Wine, as just glanced at it to find out if I could
play Age of Empires on my UNIX box ... but I think that it'll run most
32-bit Windows shit.

Well, that is an option ...

 

Oh, yuss!!

 

Note the use of 'open source' - as in freebie.

There's plenty of commercial sims for the Mac, but I don't want to pay
for something I'll only use a couple of times a month.