Installation
StarForce aside, once you get it FC is a breeze to install. I was one of those who took the Paypal plunge and downloaded in the first week. You downloaded the add-on in three packages. First is the add-on itself, then a new package of scenery, and finally, several movies that you can play in the newly added on .avi player. They are all self-installing files that you simply click on once you have them on your hard drive. I had no problems getting FC installed. It should be installed to a fresh and v1.02 patched install of Lock On.
What You Get
Flaming Cliffs adds a large package of upgrades to your vanilla Lock On install. The installer alone weighs in at 282 megabytes and I have no idea how big it is once installed. Here are some of the more obvious changes:
- New HUD symbology for the MiG-29 and Su-27 / 33
- Revamped HUD angular dimensions for the MiG, Su-27 / 33, and F-15
- Revamped radar for the Russian fighters including the Head On, Pursuit, and Auto DVB modes and the Track-While-Fly DVB submode, along with realistic gimbal limits
- Russian fighters employing R-27R / RE missiles now have Lock-On-Jam mode available
- Automatic lock-on for Russian fighters in close-air-combat Vertical Scan mode
- FIO missile-seeker mode has been revamped and locks automatically now
- F-15 steering-dot logic has been improved
- Land and sea-based SAMs have been tweaked and improved
- Bomb-release characteristics have been revamped for all aircraft
- Approximately 66 new ground target buildings were added to the mission editor
- Aircraft AI has been improved
- New aircraft: the Su-25T tank killer, along with its own dedicated “Sukhogruz” infrared jammer and MPS-410 radar jamming pods and multiple new systems
- Advanced flight model for the Su-25 and Su-25T
- New seasons available in the mission editor — it’s not just summer in the Black Sea region anymore
- New training missions for the Su-27, Su-25, Su-25T, A-10, and Top Gun air-to-air missile avoidance
- There are three new campaigns in FC, one for the Su-25T, one for the Su-27, and one for the MiG-29 — a total of 76 missions.
And that’s just a taste of what is improved or added to the game. There are a lot more changes under the hood, and I could spend three reviews like this one cataloging the changes made by the Eagle team to improve their product. For this review, I’m going to take a closer look at the Su-25 and Su-25T, since we covered the avionics upgrades for the Su-27 / 33 and MiG-29 in a previous article. Those were basically final at the time of our Flaming Cliffs preview, and from what I have seen they have not changed.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
