Basic flight-and massive confusion-Which manual applies…
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Good news. I finally figured out how to set up chaff and flares. Sadly, in all the documentation there is no mention (that I have found so far, and there is a LOT of documentation) you need to set that up in tactical engagement or even campaign before you can use chaff and flares in instant action. (There is no option to set up data cartridge in the instant action choice.)
I set flares and chaff to unlimited and went at it. Had 4 mig 21’s on me as I went bingo fuel, and the poor things were all out of missiles. Those 21’s are hard to fight close in, never could out turn them, could only match them. Still have yet to figure out how to get out of dogfight mode after pressing d. Seems like once I do that, all other options are off the table. (no MFD’s come back after hitting enter or backspace)
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Good news. I finally figured out how to set up chaff and flares. Sadly, in all the documentation there is no mention (that I have found so far, and there is a LOT of documentation) you need to set that up in tactical engagement or even campaign before you can use chaff and flares in instant action. (There is no option to set up data cartridge in the instant action choice.)
I set flares and chaff to unlimited and went at it. Had 4 mig 21’s on me as I went bingo fuel, and the poor things were all out of missiles. Those 21’s are hard to fight close in, never could out turn them, could only match them. Still have yet to figure out how to get out of dogfight mode after pressing d. Seems like once I do that, all other options are off the table. (no MFD’s come back after hitting enter or backspace)
The “c” button cancels “dogfight” and “missile” master modes.
Mig 21’s are pretty easy after a while. You will get bored with them at some point. It sounds like you need more practice with “energy management” and offensive/defensive maneuvering. Take the time to learn just a little bit more each day. In a few weeks, you will be flying the jet like an ace!
btw; I am soooo jealous of your computer system! I want to get something like that but I have to save money.
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Good news. I finally figured out how to set up chaff and flares. Sadly, in all the documentation there is no mention (that I have found so far, and there is a LOT of documentation) you need to set that up in tactical engagement or even campaign before you can use chaff and flares in instant action. (There is no option to set up data cartridge in the instant action choice.)
I set flares and chaff to unlimited and went at it. Had 4 mig 21’s on me as I went bingo fuel, and the poor things were all out of missiles. Those 21’s are hard to fight close in, never could out turn them, could only match them. Still have yet to figure out how to get out of dogfight mode after pressing d. Seems like once I do that, all other options are off the table. (no MFD’s come back after hitting enter or backspace)
If you set up your data cartridge in a TE or campaign, and save it, you will have your ECM programs in Instant Action
- D for entering Dogfight,
- M (or , on AZERTY keyboard) for entering MRM mode (quick link to your AIM120 for BVR engagment)
- C (as jhook said) to Cancel either mode.
About the MFDs : you can set which page will be displayed for all modes (AA, AG, Nav, MRM, Dogfight) in your DTC. You set up three “quick link” pages per MFD for each mode, and you control which of these will be displayed by default.
I think you can set up to 4 MFDs (you could indeed have 4 MFDs in the original Falcon, in a special view), but you only need the first two. MFD1 : left, MFD2 : right.And a piece of advice : to out turn sb, pay attention to your speed and be aware that turning too hard means losing more speed. The F-16 has a “corner” velocity (ie : max turning rate) between 330 & 440 kts, depends on your altitude.
Better be too fast than too slow : you can trade your excess speed for altitude to get back to corner speed, and then descend and gain some speed should you need some.
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If you set up your data cartridge in a TE or campaign, and save it, you will have your ECM programs in Instant Action
- D for entering Dogfight,
- M (or , on AZERTY keyboard) for entering MRM mode (quick link to your AIM120 for BVR engagment)
- C (as jhook said) to Cancel either mode.
About the MFDs : you can set which page will be displayed for all modes (AA, AG, Nav, MRM, Dogfight) in your DTC. You set up three “quick link” pages per MFD for each mode, and you control which of these will be displayed by default.
I think you can set up to 4 MFDs (you could indeed have 4 MFDs in the original Falcon, in a special view), but you only need the first two. MFD1 : left, MFD2 : right.And a piece of advice : to out turn sb, pay attention to your speed and be aware that turning too hard means losing more speed. The F-16 has a “corner” velocity (ie : max turning rate) between 330 & 440 kts, depends on your altitude.
Better be too fast than too slow : you can trade your excess speed for altitude to get back to corner speed, and then descend and gain some speed should you need some.
I kept my bird in the 400 kt range + - some, for much of the deck fight, until I ran out gas that is. Tried not to hit AB so as to conserve some fuel. With 4, 21’s maneuvering, it got confusing and kept breaking padlock. I guess the “good” news is I was able to “cheat” with unlimited counter measures and did cause the enemy flight to expend all missiles.
Radar also seemed to stop working after initial mig 21’s pass, even changing range. This isn’t a complaint or whining post, but a “I am making progress” post. Thanks for the tips Jhook, l3crusader.
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Radar also seemed to stop working after initial mig 21’s pass, even changing range.
If you were in Dogfight mode, I think I get what happened.
The radar change mode when you enter Dogfight, it goes in to ACM modes. Radar goes off when you enter Dogfight, but you can turn it on quickly :
When radar is off:
- TMS Up will enter BORE mode and activate radar.
In BORE mode, a cross appears in your HUD, and whatever aircraft passing inside this cross, at less than 10 NM, is instantly and automatically locked. - TMS Right will enter *20 30 mode, and activate radar as well.
The radar sweep an area roughly equivalnt to the HUD view and lock the first target it sees. - TMS Down will enter 10 * 60 mode (and activate radar too).
The radar sweep in a vertical bar, going from 10° down to 50° up. Very useful for locking a target when you are both turning, and you dont want to pull too hard on the stick to get it on the hud. That allows you to fire even if target is off the HUD.
If the radar is on in any of these modes, doing a TMS-down turns it off. TMS up goes to BORE if you are not, TMS right goes to 20*30.
You cannot change range in ACM mode, it is fixed at 10 NM. These modes are useful to quickly point the radar at a target you already see, in order not to lose time acquiring it on a MFD.
- TMS Up will enter BORE mode and activate radar.
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Get yourself a copy of the latest Weapon Delivery Planner. This gives you the option to include your chaff and flare programs in your data cartridge. A quick Google moment will find it for you.
It also gives other options that are not immediately accessible from the sim itself.
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Get yourself a copy of the latest Weapon Delivery Planner. This gives you the option to include your chaff and flare programs in your data cartridge. A quick Google moment will find it for you.
It also gives other options that are not immediately accessible from the sim itself.
I have the link to WDP, just not jumped in to download it yet. In my tweaking (old xp system here) today something went weird and now campaign test flights are back to slow fps. Still trying to undo what I did. Meanwhile, if anyone has an old 2 yr old clunker pc they want to donate….lol. Oh wait, where was that site where I could download more ram? Har har har.
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you need to set that up in tactical engagement or even campaign before you can use chaff and flares in instant action.
I know what you mean is that the in-game DTC editor is only available as a button in those areas, but the wider truth is that you can program EWS programs while flying. Throw the thing in standby and hunt through the ICP/DED menus for it and everything you can do in the DTC file you can do in cockpit. Of course it is convient to have EWS pre-set in DTC. DTC file is simply a text file which can be edited with in-game editor but also with WDP or Notepad. I encourage you to open up callsign.ini once in Notepad to see how simple and not-scary it is. WDP is a nice editor because it knows about more options for DTC data than even the Falcon in-game editor. You can force HUD dimmer 50% on load for example.
Those 21’s are hard to fight close in, never could out turn them, could only match them.
Maneuver combat is one of the hardest, deepest subjects of study for a fighter pilot. It starts from moderate knowledge of aerodynamics as well as some lightweight physics and trigonometry. That’s just to max perform your own jet. You need knowledge of the opponent and his relative parameters to develop a strategy to exploit your advantages. Add to that sensor use, weapon delivery, teamwork with other assets, and the larger mission context and it’s plenty challenging. Don’t feel bad if you struggle with it. Here’s a good video about BFM.
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I know what you mean is that the in-game DTC editor is only available as a button in those areas, but the wider truth is that you can program EWS programs while flying. Throw the thing in standby and hunt through the ICP/DED menus for it and everything you can do in the DTC file you can do in cockpit. Of course it is convient to have EWS pre-set in DTC. DTC file is simply a text file which can be edited with in-game editor but also with WDP or Notepad. I encourage you to open up callsign.ini once in Notepad to see how simple and not-scary it is. WDP is a nice editor because it knows about more options for DTC data than even the Falcon in-game editor. You can force HUD dimmer 50% on load for example.
Maneuver combat is one of the hardest, deepest subjects of study for a fighter pilot. It starts from moderate knowledge of aerodynamics as well as some lightweight physics and trigonometry. That’s just to max perform your own jet. You need knowledge of the opponent and his relative parameters to develop a strategy to exploit your advantages. Add to that sensor use, weapon delivery, teamwork with other assets, and the larger mission context and it’s plenty challenging. Don’t feel bad if you struggle with it. Here’s a good video about BFM.
WOW, this takes me way back! Haven’t seen Pete and the BFM vid in a very long time! Thanks for that FrederF!
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Part of the problem is not being able to see the enemy after I lose radar contact, and/or in dogfight mode. No track IR, so using mouse to look around, flying with left hand on joystick (logitech extreme 3D pro) which has throttle on base below stick (makes using the throttle problematic at times, trying to train my cat to help, but he just sits there with a dumb look). Best way for me to find the enemy is outside view, pan around, then jump back inside cockpit. I did a flight in instant action after my most recent post and doubled my kills/score to 52,000.
Lastly, as I feared, I’m not going to be able to do much if anything in campaign mode as my FPS is just too low. 8-12 fps on ground at airbase, sometimes worse. From 15 to 25 in the air, and sometimes lower.
I can do some of the tactical engagements and instant action, but that’s about it for now.
Sad as I looked up Falcon 4.0’s (original) system requirements:
Minimum CPU Type: Pentium
Minimum CPU Speed: 166 MHz
Minimum RAM Required: 32 MB
Minimum Hard Disk Space: 175 MB
Graphics Type: SVGA
Graphics Resolution: 800x600
Color Depth: High ColorNo happy medium here. Maybe some day soon I can afford to upgrade to a newer pc, but for now, not happening.
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Part of the problem is not being able to see the enemy after I lose radar contact, and/or in dogfight mode. No track IR, so using mouse to look around, flying with left hand on joystick (logitech extreme 3D pro) which has throttle on base below stick (makes using the throttle problematic at times, trying to train my cat to help, but he just sits there with a dumb look). Best way for me to find the enemy is outside view, pan around, then jump back inside cockpit. I did a flight in instant action after my most recent post and doubled my kills/score to 52,000.
Lastly, as I feared, I’m not going to be able to do much if anything in campaign mode as my FPS is just too low. 8-12 fps on ground at airbase, sometimes worse. From 15 to 25 in the air, and sometimes lower.
I can do some of the tactical engagements and instant action, but that’s about it for now.
Sad as I looked up Falcon 4.0’s (original) system requirements:
Minimum CPU Type: Pentium
Minimum CPU Speed: 166 MHz
Minimum RAM Required: 32 MB
Minimum Hard Disk Space: 175 MB
Graphics Type: SVGA
Graphics Resolution: 800x600
Color Depth: High ColorNo happy medium here. Maybe some day soon I can afford to upgrade to a newer pc, but for now, not happening.
In fairness the original didnt have as epic a flight computer.
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Do you have shaders enabled? Turning them off or just leaving the basic option enabled helped a lot for me.
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Do you have shaders enabled? Turning them off or just leaving the basic option enabled helped a lot for me.
Shaders off, no weather, all the “special” graphics enhancements off. I have everything turned down or off. Running n Native resolution of 1366X780. Weird thing is not even using 1gig of ram when I tab out and check on task manager. So this must be very cpu dependent. (Intel celeron 3.06 cpu)
Running an nvidia 8400gs (I know it’s not a true gaming card) with 512. The graphics even at minimumish settings look good, the frame rate is bad though.
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F4/BMS is pretty CPU intensive relative to GPU load compared to other games. What is your CPU? I have an i5 2500K which is getting older by now and it runs it very well.
As for looking around, have you experimented with the padlock view options? As for dogfighting, the goal is to never dogfight anyway. To get the job done you want to shoot at ~20nm and never merge. Instant action isn’t the best training tool because enemy spawn at ~15nm and are on top of you before you can sort them properly.
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Don’t use your mouse for panning if you can help it. I had a sidewinder pro when I started up Falcon on my systems again a couple years ago, and used the hat switch for looking around. I’ve since upgraded to a fighterstick usb, more buttons to press and modify. Anyway, loose the old commands that the old manuals give you. The keys these guys give you are at the basic level - if you modify your key file ~and I highly recommend you do since once you understand what functions you need most and what they do it becomes a lot easier to understand - you may change at your own peril. Don’t map or try [alt]+[tab] or [alt]+[q] or [ctlr]+[q], or [ctrl]+[alt]+[del/delete/num .] , these combinations are bad to you.
Close range radar/quick lock - get into Dogfight override mode and press TMS down to lock up anything along your lift vector - that’s along your pull straight up area. Helpful when your close enough to lock the guy up but can’t put your nose on his jet, or you’re in a turn and want to lock your opponent up before your MFD shows his history or he crosses your hud. The best use of DF mode is TMS up - you’ll get a cross bigger than the gun cross and anything within 10 miles that gets behind it is locked up. This will only work if you can get the target in the HUD, can’t wait for a normal radar sweep to detect something, and know for certain that somebody is there.
The old lock target command is ok, but the TMS commands are more sneaky and don’t let your target know you’re there as strongly. Unless you really want them to. But you can’t multi-lock 2+ aircraft with the lock target on the nose command - a bit more advanced but certainly worth it. The biggest takeaway for AA missiles is to remember that your Sidewinder will launch on any press when selected, your AMRAAMs require you to hold down the fire button for a MINIMUM of 1 second, they won’t fire otherwise. If you really want to learn AA, try out the Dogfight module and start out with recruit or rookie opponents, you need to add them each but it will allow your skills to advance in that aspect somewhat quickly. Change the enemys skill to higher when you’re getting bored with killing them easily. And when you need to know more, check out your free document manuals that come along with BMS. Many long reads? Yes. Outdated? Some maybe. But you’ll get some of the background understanding you’ll need to wrap your head around some of the sim.
The biggest and best piece of advice for BMS, though, is to keep your realism settings as high as possible. Your realism score should be 100% when you don’t have invulnerability checked. Some odd things will happen in your flight career if you don’t follow that.
Other than that the pointy end goes forwards and not into the ground. It’s rather finicky about that part.
-Babite -
F4/BMS is pretty CPU intensive relative to GPU load compared to other games. What is your CPU? I have an i5 2500K which is getting older by now and it runs it very well.
As for looking around, have you experimented with the padlock view options? As for dogfighting, the goal is to never dogfight anyway. To get the job done you want to shoot at ~20nm and never merge. Instant action isn’t the best training tool because enemy spawn at ~15nm and are on top of you before you can sort them properly.
Pentium 4
Intel celeron 3.06 cpu
2 gb DDR 2 ram
1Gb (512 actual) nvidia 8400gsWay before the (i) stuff came out. I remember when a 486 was the bomb! I think a 486 was = to a P1
Now I don’t know what is what. Wish they had stuck with Pentium…so new computers now would be a what, Pentium 20? lol.Starting a new thread soon inquiring about a PC I found on sale.
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The Celeron D 347 is approx 25% the performance of my i5 2500K in single-threaded applications and 2GB memory is rather low. It probably is time to upgrade to an i3/i5 and 8GB system memory. Processors ~$120-180 are plenty good so don’t feel you have to spend astronomical sums. RAM is cheap for standard speeds. I find I notice issues below 6GB so 8 is a safe bet. The 8400GS lags behind a little but there’s no harm in trying it around with better CPU/RAM to see if it’s sufficient.
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Well I’m looking at this
HP 6005 PRO 3.0GHz 8GB 1.5TB Win 7 Small Form Factor Computer (Refurbished)and a
GTX 650 Here
Both for about $400 USD. That’s about at the limit of what I can afford, as soon as I can sell one of our cars. (A 1995 Infiniti, rebuilt transmission, good engine, etc etc) Rebuilt the transmission myself., and takers here? $1500 and it’s yours.
Nothing is moving/selling these days it seems.
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Well I’m looking at this
HP 6005 PRO 3.0GHz 8GB 1.5TB Win 7 Small Form Factor Computer (Refurbished)and a
GTX 650 Here
Both for about $400 USD. That’s about at the limit of what I can afford, as soon as I can sell one of our cars. (A 1995 Infiniti, rebuilt transmission, good engine, etc etc) Rebuilt the transmission myself., and takers here? $1500 and it’s yours.
Nothing is moving/selling these days it seems.
That system should get you what you need. And your right, as it seems that no one has any money to spend these days. Myself included. Been on a tight budget for a few years now. Barely enough money for booze at the end of the week.
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How do I jettison the extra fuel tanks? Only jettison option I see in set up is Jettison all. Is there a way to jettison only external wing tanks, use those up first, jettison those and keep belly tank for last, then jettison that when it’s empty?