Forum: F-16 Simulators

Just wondering if anyone has any insight on this one; I've been checking it out on the net, but there hasn't been too much that I've seen about it. Anyone one read any advanced reviews in the magazines or anything about this sim?

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Here's a pretty long review on Falcon 4.0: Allied Force that I recently found. Sorry, but I don't own any magazines that say anything regarding this game:

http://news.gamewinners.com/index.php/news/3056

Here's a press release from 13/06/2005:

One of the aims of Lead Pursuit is to deliver a fully realistic working environment of airbase operations, and Falcon 4.0: Allied Force moves us much closer to that goal. The controllers in the tower have a huge responsibility to safely schedule the arrivals and departures of expensive aircraft vital to the war effort.

As in real world airspace, the airports and carriers are the busiest areas for aircraft and with the exception of the Forward Line of Troops (FLOT), they are the areas of highest risk to individuals and hardware. A single pilot error or wrecked aircraft on the runway can render the airbase closed for hours. So intelligent management of flights in and out of the base – and around it too -- is essential. In these development notes, Mike Laskey walks us through airbase operations.

With AI routines, players tend to notice very quickly when things aren't working quite right. The aim of our ATC focal area was to deliver subtle AI that you don't notice. We'll begin with some of the primary improvements:

Advanced ATC awareness of the approach and departure queues. The controllers in the tower are ever watchful, and have a good understanding about aircraft separation. For example, if a large transport aircraft is waiting on the taxiway ready to depart with an F-16 on final approach, ATC assesses carefully the position of the F-16 before giving the transport aircraft clearance onto the runway. The transport will be held in the "hold short" position until the F-16 touches down. At that point, ATC will clear the transport onto the runway. ATC will grant takeoff clearance once the conditions are safe for the transport aircraft to depart.
In some circumstances where ATC determines a backlog of aircraft to depart, additional time buffers are introduced between each arriving aircraft to allow the departure backlog to clear. Airbase operations can be extremely busy – it's a difficult balancing act for the busy virtual controllers living inside the battlefield!
One important area of the ATC is supporting pilots as they limp back to base with wounded birds. We wanted to give pilots every good chance of making it back to base, whether they choose to divert to a closer airfield or struggle back home. In our product, we are excited to allow players and AI aircraft to participate in airbase stacking. More on this later.
Calling an emergency dramatically increases the workload of the ATC controllers and adds additional risk to other aircraft as they are expected to remain airborne for longer. Therefore, ATC does not approve of "hoax" emergency landings or landings without permission. All pilots are expected to operate within the rules and penalties are dealt out to pilots who do not comply.
Airbases in Falcon 4.0: Allied Force can at times be tremendously busy. The "TowerCam" puts you right into the controller's seat and allows you to watch and zoom in on any of the aircraft around the airbase. It's fun to buzz the tower with the low altitude fly-by, replicating a great scene from a classic air combat movie.
Falcon 4.0: Allied Force supports two-ship formation take-offs for player and AI controlled aircraft. Only fighters can utilise this privilege and only when carrying air-to-air ordnance.
We've added a new controller's voice to provide full support for the Balkans theater of operations and a bunch of new radio calls. For example, ATC will now assign departure headings and warn you about traffic conflicts.

Stacking

As we've already mentioned, one important feature is "stacking". This is an assigned area close to the airfield where aircraft are held in an "airborne queueing" arrangement, while ATC deals with an emergency. The act of a pilot calling an emergency landing is enough for ATC to divert other aircraft that are already in the pattern, into the stack instead.

Typically those that are on final approach and not too far from landing are permitted to continue their approach. But where other aircraft already in the pattern and those attempting to join the pattern are considered a conflict, then one or more aircraft will be diverted into the stack. Whenever ATC is stacking aircraft, ATC will give a new heading and a new altitude above the standard landing pattern. This considerably adds to the immersion factor, making the player feel even more that they are part of a living battlefield environment.

Once you reach the stack, ATC will order you to orbit and will confirm your assigned altitude. Each aircraft in the stack is separated vertically by 1,000 feet and stacking operates on a first-in first-out basis. Those arriving later are placed on the top of the stack. Once the emergency is over (hopefully the aircraft in trouble landed safely!), ATC will empty the stack from the bottom.

One by one, ATC will call the aircraft at the bottom onto the base leg to start its approach, and as that aircraft leaves the stack, ATC will order each pilot remaining to reduce altitude by 1,000 feet. Note that until the stack is completely empty, any new aircraft attempting to join the pattern will continue to be added to the stack.

On a playability note, during stacking, it's vital for the safety of fellow pilots to maintain the altitude they have been assigned to by ATC, to avoid collisions. Should the pilot find himself stacking and short of fuel, he or she must make the problem heard and call an emergency. This is about the only other situation where calling an emergency is legitimate though.

Landing Help

After leaving the stack, the pilot will be given bearings and directions to land. Of course, successfully landing is critical, but it is far from the easiest of experiences. That's why we've developed a "landing tutor" to help ease to process of bringing the bird home safely.

A series of rectangular indicators showing the path to the active runway are drawn in the sky. This pathway consists of four distinct sections: the base leg, the turn to finals, the 3° descent onto the runway and the flare. As the distance decreases between the indicators and the runway, the rectangles become smaller and smaller to emphasise the increased importance of accurately following the glidepath.

The landing help system also teaches speed control which trains the player to land in a timely fashion without flying too quickly nor too slowly. This is conveyed visually by gradually changing the colour of the pathway indicators. At the correct speed, the pathway indicators will be coloured black. As the aircraft slows to below the expected speed, the indicators will begin to turn blue to let the player know that the speed should be increased slightly.

If the pilot fails to respond appropriately, the indicators will turn more blue. It is likely in this case that the pilot will either fall short of the runway, or risk interrupting traffic that might be landing behind him. Conversely, if the aircraft velocity is too fast, the indicators will gradually turn to red, and the pilot is likely to overshoot the runway or interrupt aircraft scheduled to land ahead of him.

During final approach, the player should aim to fly directly through the centre of the indicators with the flightpath marker positioned at the base of the runway. Within two hundred feet of the runway, an on-screen text description prompts the pilot to commence the flare. At this point, the pathway indicators no longer represent a 3 degree descent but instead level out more to help visualise this concept. At the start of this phase, the indicators are likely to change to red to inform the player to reduce the speed of the aircraft. The pilot should reduce throttle and pull back on the stick to flare the aircraft smoothly onto the runway.

After touchdown, an assessment of the landing is displayed to the pilot. To enable/disable this feature, press ALT-H. The aircraft must be flying in order to turn the landing help on, and it is automatically disabled once the aircraft comes to a stop.

Forum Veteran Joined: Dec 25, 2003 - 10:03 PM Posts: 679

I gotta buy it. Can I find it in stores?

The game is expected to be released in stores on June 28 of this year.

Hopefully it'll show in the BX over here.......

That sounds like a really nice game... Does anyone know when it is expected to be released outside of the US?

DeepSpace wrote:

That sounds like a really nice game... Does anyone know when it is expected to be released outside of the US?

wow, good question. I haven't the slightest idea!!! If it doesn't get released overseas I'm sure you could mail-order it (amazon.com is accepting pre-orders), or have someone over here buy it and ship it to you.

Hey I was at Gamestop's website and it has a Falcon 4.0 Gold instead of Allied Force. It comes out the same day as Allied Force so do you think they just put the wrong name on it. They had a pic of the box and it's definetely not Allied Force. So maybe a remake of the original???

http://www.lead-pursuit.com/index.htm

Looks like next week is the schedule release date of what looks to be a great game. If anything like Falcon 4.0 this sould be kick @$$. Mark your calendars if your interested in buying this computer sim.

Its like the old SP3 with some exe edits, IMO Falcon died a long time ago in my book, and even though i enjoyed the sim for 3 years, it was broke when i bought it, and broke when i quit playing it. (did do a lot of work on it though)

viper_pilot wrote:

Hey I was at Gamestop's website and it has a Falcon 4.0 Gold instead of Allied Force. It comes out the same day as Allied Force so do you think they just put the wrong name on it. They had a pic of the box and it's definetely not Allied Force. So maybe a remake of the original???

Falcon 4.0 Gold was actually developed by another company, G2i, but ended up falling off the face of the earth, actually Atari said no to us (I was in the former G2i OIR bunch), they must have had a deal with Lead Persuit instead. If they're anything like what they used to be like with the old SP series, it'll do quite well, just hope a lot has changed since then.

Get Lock On: Modern Air Combat with it's expansion for the most realistic PC Flightsim available on the market today. AFM on the Su-25T is amazing... Hard as hell to fly, but I love it. After a few hours with it I downloaded a new A-10A Campaign, and boy, what a difference. Just experiencing the difference in Western vs Eastern CAS was awesome. In the A-10, You can make a pass with bombs and yank the nose around in 10 seconds and finish off the rest of a column. In the Su-25T you get One pass before you have to start another attack 25km out and 5000m higher, the tradeoff being a great set of precision weapons.

I'm still considering getting Allied Force, simply because Lock On has no flyable F-16. As much as I love the F-15C in Lock On(Though I won't get its Avionics upgraded to more or less what the real thing has until the next x-pac, unfortunatly), I prefer the F-16 in just about every aspect, so I'm going to give the dated F4.0 a try. But Lock On has completely absorbed all the time I've devoted to flight simming, so it may have to wait awhile. Maybe once I can start taking down Western fighters regularly outnumbered in the Su-27. If anyone's played both, could they give a little comparison of flight modeling?

The flight modeling is different because the F-16 is a FBW fighter ,all the fighters in LOMAC are mechanical or hydraulic assisted/augmented so the two games feel different to fly because of this. You need to trim all the Russian jets to fly them well in LOMAC, the F-15 is easy to fly because it has an auto trim feature and the A-10 is ok as is has a small speed bracket.

But the Damage model in the Su-25T is amazing. But overall I like Falcon better because of the fully clickable cockpit and full start up feature. Plus the dynamic campaign feature is second to none as no other game has a decent one. They are both good games that you really need to own both. Plus a 760 page manual in F4:AF in PDF format is going to be great. Pure hard core F-16 simming that you can't get anywhere else. The avonics in LOMAC is very watered down and will now on concentrate on the Russian birds only, which is no bad thing. Its nice to fly something different for a change. Even though the Cobra maneouver is scripted whenever you perform it.

Hey Dammerung, I also got Lock On. Don't you find the manual terribly lacking? I'm way new to combat sims, and I picked up the game for about 11$ a week or so ago. I normally only play the non-combat flight sims and those radars and trillions of buttons are explained in such a boring and bad way in the 'training missions'... Also for some reason one time the plane will move real swiftly, and another time it will move like a piece of junk in the air Razz

It's probably me though, but I don't find it userfriendly at all. The new Falcon wasn't in the store today here, so wouldn't know about that one..