No evasive actions

[Malone]

Hi, that's my first post in this forum and I started playing FC the past few days, so i'm totally newbie. I'm brazilian and still learning english, so I apologize in advance for my poor writing.

Last night I played the "shore bombardment" scenario adapted for NWP, and realized that my AV8B Harriers didin't performed any evasive actions when shot by AA missiles fired by enemy figthers. Not even flares/chaffs were dispensed. Anybody knows this problem?

Thanks

[Havoc]

You as the glorious supreme commander for all FC scenarios you play, are responsible for all navigational, sensory, attack, and defense matters of your aircraft.

Countermeasure systems are simulated by the aircraft's missile threat evasion rating and a variety of factors when anti-aircraft missile reaches its target. Therefore you will not see any countermeasures shown on the 3D screen. The NWP team took that eye candy out to reduce the chance of sluggish or buggy gameplay.

Yes, that means you are going to have to hug and embrace the annoying concept of micromanaging to defend your aircraft against threats. It depends on the scenario regarding the importance of micromanaging, some may be very dull and long missions requiring little of micromanagement. Others, however may have you so busy micromanaging, that you will wear your fingertips off and shortening the life of your computer mouse.

About 25% to 40% of understanding how to avoid anti-aircraft threats can be learned by reading manuals, tips, suggestions, strategy guide(s). The rest must be learned through lots of gameplay and practice, because there is no single "silver bullet" tip or tactic.

[Malone]

Hi, Havoc.
Thanks for the answer.
Just to be clear, it's necessary that the player selects the aircraft and order it to, for instance, drop altitude, turn on afterburner, change course and onthers evasive actions?
There are others measures that can be taken?

[Jittery]

There was a run from threat (i think) command?? read the manual and at the end a cheat sheet with all shortcut commands is provided.

Page 35 of manual. "ctrl+s" = scram south (ie: run away from threat south" and so on.

[Mike D]

Hi, Havoc.
Thanks for the answer.
Just to be clear, it's necessary that the player selects the aircraft and order it to, for instance, drop altitude, turn on afterburner, change course and onthers evasive actions?
There are others measures that can be taken?


Havoc is spot on.

We took a lot of the "eye candy" out of NWP so you don't see popping chaff and flares or subs launching noise makers or aircraft doing fancy avoidance maneuvers. Back when FC/NWP ran on Win95/98 and Pentium processors the extra graphics just ate up computers and seriously drug down system performance. All the CM's are actually automated in NWP so you never have to mess with them.

As far as what you can do, depends. (I always seem to use that answer.) If your an F-16C against say an F-4 and the F-4 fires an AIM-7 at you then do nothing. The CM on the F-16C are generally good enough to defeat the AIM-7. But if your a F-16C against another F-16C and a AIM-120 is fired at you then you got problems. You can rely on your CM which are pretty good but the AIM-120 is awful good. As soon as I detect a AIM-120 launch I Ctl+N/S/E/W and scram out at top speed directly away from the missile. I may climb or dive depending on the situation and I may manually adjust my direction. But my goal is to out run the AIM-120 as well as letting the game engine allocate CM's. You also have to consider your purpose, if your aircraft are protecting a base from airstrikes then consistently running away exposes the base. In this case you may actually charge at the attacking aircraft to get into dog fight range but this has real risks. Also having several aircraft in the air on different axises help a lot. Aircraft can only launch and gide a few missiles at a time, so if you have 2 aircraft being fired at and two off to the side of the hostile then attack from the side while they are tied with other aircraft.

So you need to be savy as to what your aircraft is capable of and what your enemy's weapons are capable of. Use jamming units if you have them. Be ready to run and keep aircraft in the air on different angles off the threat axis.

[Malone]

Thanks Jittery!
I saw the "scram" commands in the manual, but I was unsure about using it.
I just thought that aircrafts could take evasive manoeuvres for themselves, without orders from the player with NWP installed. Just like ships and aircrafts fire missiles against incoming targets (i.e. enemy missiles).

I'm having a hard time with this game. Maybe it's better learn with the original version of FC first, them try out NWP. What do you guys think about? NWP seems a bit too difficult to learn from the start.

[Malone]

Thanks a lot, Mike!
And by the way, congratulations to you and all people envolved with NWP!!! Thats a wonderful job!!!

[Havoc]

Back in the early to early mid years of Fleet Command 2000 to 2003/4, there was little difficulty in finding a virtual navy to join for improving your gameplay.

They had the resources, the training material, and sufficient number of multiplayer players active to play with or against. They also had regular events to add variety to the usual multiplayer FC matches, most of which were inter-virtual navy wars.

Those were the golden years, when FC gaming was at its best.

Now most virtaul navies are very small, inactive, or dead. I guess changes in gaming culture, internet security changes, and shrinking interest.

Why I mention this is because these organizations "used" to be the prime and best source for training and creative output regarding missions. If you wanted to be good or be the best, you went to them. Now most FC players who are new or active now have never been in one, or don't know about them other than very small details they have read.

Anyways, that's my two cents about how FC training and virtual navies are closely linked. When they die off, it negatively affects the FC community more than they know about.

[The Warrior]

Back in the early to early mid years of Fleet Command 2000 to 2003/4, there was little difficulty in finding a virtual navy to join for improving your gameplay.

They had the resources, the training material, and sufficient number of multiplayer players active to play with or against. They also had regular events to add variety to the usual multiplayer FC matches, most of which were inter-virtual navy wars.

Those were the golden years, when FC gaming was at its best.

Now most virtaul navies are very small, inactive, or dead. I guess changes in gaming culture, internet security changes, and shrinking interest.

Why I mention this is because these organizations "used" to be the prime and best source for training and creative output regarding missions. If you wanted to be good or be the best, you went to them. Now most FC players who are new or active now have never been in one, or don't know about them other than very small details they have read.

Anyways, that's my two cents about how FC training and virtual navies are closely linked. When they die off, it negatively affects the FC community more than they know about.

Ahhh yes. I had great times with The Seawolfs.

[killerr]

I was with virtual NATO and later on the Aggressor Navy.

Good times.

[Mike D]

When they die off, it negatively affects the FC community more than they know about.

This is very very true. The interest in NWP and FC and even other games like SC, DW, 688i and others has waned since the demise of the virtual fleets. We have tried to support them but the support really needs to come from the game maker/publisher. You would think that they would be interested in continuing public interest in their games, they could sell more games.

This is a bit off topic but it it has always peeved me that the companies that write military sims seem to just write the games then dump them on the market and walk away from them. Then they complain that there's no money to be made. Other companies write games like C&C, Civilization, MS Flight Sim, the whole SimCity spin off, and even the games we're doing at NWS and promote, support, update and refine them over many releases and an extended period of time. And they make money at it!

If some publisher had bought FC and did a more extensive update, contact the virtual navies and get them on board and promote them; encourage groups like NWP and promise updates and big fixes over time that could have sold tons of copies of FC over a period of several years and made good money. Instead they do a quick minor update and throw it at the market and hope they make a little money. Bad business model if I ever heard one.

[DHX]

Several years ago I was a maniac about Falcon 4.0 and the various mods that were created for it. The Falcon community took a buggy marginal game that was barely functional and turned it into an incredibly realistic F-16 flight simulator that far surpassed anything microprose ever conceived of.

Oh and as for evasion of missiles, in Falcon one of the most successful tactics for avoiding Sparrows and other beam riders was to put the missile on your beam, acquire it visually and then start kicking out countermeasures only engaging in drastic maneuvers if you didn't manage to elude it by putting yourself 90 degrees to it and employing your countermeasures.

Sparrows and most Russian radar guided a/a missiles were fairly easy to counter. SAMs like SA-2s, 3s and 5s were pretty easy to outmaneuver even without electronic countermeasures as long as you could keep your eyes on them and keep your situational awareness. The early Russian SAMs couldn't kill you if you kept your SA and your eyes on the missile and didn't ham fist your jet and bleed off all your energy. If the target was only defended by SA-2s, 3s or 5s I wouldn't even drag the jammer pod or a weasel package along.

Great game. Makes me want to dust of my Thrustmaster HOTAS and rudder pedals and go flying again.

[Malone]

Thank you for the answers.
As I said, I think I'll start with the original FC to learn the basics. I'm really having a hard time with NWP. I tried some early missions with the original FC and it went much better.

I hope you guys don't bother to help me out! This is a great community!

[Fleet Command CC]

Thanks Jittery!
I saw the "scram" commands in the manual, but I was unsure about using it.
I just thought that aircrafts could take evasive manoeuvres for themselves, without orders from the player with NWP installed. Just like ships and aircrafts fire missiles against incoming targets (i.e. enemy missiles).

I'm having a hard time with this game. Maybe it's better learn with the original version of FC first, them try out NWP. What do you guys think about? NWP seems a bit too difficult to learn from the start.

Hey Malone

Welcome to the NWS forum.

I would recommend you trying this Scenario ( Seychelles Raid ) in NWP19.01, I found it to be nice simple mission to do, I also would agree with you that the NWP Mod does make the game harder, but more like the real world in navy battles. :)

[Fleet Command CC]

This is very very true. The interest in NWP and FC and even other games like SC, DW, 688i and others has waned since the demise of the virtual fleets. We have tried to support them but the support really needs to come from the game maker/publisher. You would think that they would be interested in continuing public interest in their games, they could sell more games.

This is a bit off topic but it it has always peeved me that the companies that write military sims seem to just write the games then dump them on the market and walk away from them. Then they complain that there's no money to be made. Other companies write games like C&C, Civilization, MS Flight Sim, the whole SimCity spin off, and even the games we're doing at NWS and promote, support, update and refine them over many releases and an extended period of time. And they make money at it!

If some publisher had bought FC and did a more extensive update, contact the virtual navies and get them on board and promote them; encourage groups like NWP and promise updates and big fixes over time that could have sold tons of copies of FC over a period of several years and made good money. Instead they do a quick minor update and throw it at the market and hope they make a little money. Bad business model if I ever heard one.

Hey Mike

I totality agree, I couldn't have put it better myself. :cool: It would be nice to have navy game publisher supporting their games with updates, mainly new export\import plug in for graphic programs.

[BlimpCommander]

Hey I used to play Falcon 4.0 too! My favourite evasion tactic was to fly straight into the missile at max speed with a barrel roll! :D They'll miss because they can't track both pitch and roll at the same time. Good for closing the distance if you have a shorter ranged loadout. Works in Flanker 2.5 too. Dunno if it works in real life, but I wouldn't try it even if it does!