So far this year Frugal's World has had 1,008,147 views. This represents a significant increase over the same time last year. This figure is before adding the traffic to the hosted sites like Cougar World, F4UT etc. Including the hosted sites the FW network has been viewed around 1.25 million times so far in 2004. When I started this site I had no idea that it would grow to this kind of popularity. Somewhere in the news archives you will find me getting exited about getting 200 visitors in a day.
Thanks for all your support over the years, I look forwards to giving you an even better service in 2004.
The new Megascenery 2004 New York has been released for Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2004. This add-on provides 22,000 square miles of high resolution sattelite-based scenery for the New York City area, including all of Long Island, parts of New Jersey, and parts of the state of New York. There are three scenery types available: standard day scenery (for spring, summer, and autumn), winter scenery, and night scenery.
To view or purchase this product, and to view other Megascenery products, click
HERE
A set of high-resolution FAA Sectional Aeronautical Charts for the United States have been made available at avsim.com by Matt Fox.
These jpeg files, ranging around 6-10 mb, are high-quality (approximately 12,000 x 8,200 resolution) scans of the official FAA sectional charts. The following charts are currently uploaded at Avsim, and more are expected to be added soon:
Albuquerque Sectional Chart Billings Sectional Chart Brownsville Sectional Chart Charlotte Sectional Chart Cheyenne Sectional Chart Cincinnati Sectional Chart Denver Sectional Chart Detroit Sectional Chart El Paso Sectional Chart Great Falls Sectional Chart Green Bay Sectional Chart Halifax Sectional Chart Hawaiian Islands Sectional Chart Houstion Sectional Chart Jacksonville Sectional Chart Kansas City Sectional Chart Klamath Falls Sectional Chart Lake Huron Sectional Chart Los Angeles Sectional Chart Memphis Sectional Chart Montreal Sectional Chart New Orleans Sectional Chart New York Sectional Chart Omaha Sectional Chart Phoenix Sectional Chart San Antonio Sectional Chart San Francisco Sectional Chart Seattle Sectional Chart
NOTICE: These sectional charts have recently expired, and are no longer authorized for real-world aeronautical/navigational useage. But they are very good for simulated flights on PC simulators within the US.
To get to the Avsim website for downloading these charts and other files, click
HERE
SAN FRANCISCO - January 15, 2004 - Ubisoft(tm), one of the world's largest videogame publishers, announced its next submarine simulation, Silent Hunter(tm) III, for PC launching late 2004 - pricing and ESRB rating will be announced at a later date.
The next title in the Silent Hunter franchise will add new dimensions to the simulation experience. The player will engage in a compelling ocean environment, featuring dynamic weather, and experience the intensity of historical naval warfare. Taking the role of the U-boat commander, players will seek their enemy with sonar and periscope, attack the enemy with torpedoes, destroy them with the deck gun, or command their crew to do the job. The all-new 3D engine features impressively detailed U-boat models, both externally and internally, with exact replica WWII technology.
"Silent Hunter III will go beyond current naval simulations and offer a brand-new dimension: a U-boat captain simulator," said Florin Boitor, producer in Ubisoft Studios. "From detailed crew assignment to essential decisions in combat to career evolution, everything will be in the player's control."
In fact, the game reaches even further and recreates a WWII movie atmosphere with cinematic cameras focusing on the most crucial events around the player. Whether they are stalking Destroyers or hiding from depth charges, players will experience the game as their own personal war story. Also available will be a robust multiplayer mode that includes cooperative and best of the pack game modes.
"The Silent Hunter series has a legacy of award-winning titles and Silent Hunter III will continue in that tradition," said Tony Kee, vice president of marketing, Ubisoft. "The innovative crew management system, spectacular environmental effects, and high realism will set the simulation standard for years to come."
Silent Hunter Background:
The critically acclaimed Silent Hunter series recreates the ferocious battles between the German U-boats and the Allied naval forces during WWII to gain domination over the oceans. Its impressive list of features, beautiful 3D graphics, and unrivaled gameplay assure that this installment of the Silent Hunter series will reinvent underwater simulations.
For more info keep an eye on the Ubisoft site
HERE
I have posted a LO:MAC lan report by Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw. Here's a snippet:
We were all anxious for the evening for a couple of reasons. First after the steak debacle the night before, we were excited for Dusty's wife's famous chicken enchiladas (and we also found out she was baking a cake ... everyone thought more meets could be at Dusty's ... NO PROBLEM!). The other reason was CRASH had a plan. The 100th AFW Buddy Boys use Internet TCP/IP protocols in LO:MAC for LAN sessions. Since we used Internet settings why couldn't someone from the Internet log into the same game and fly with us? CRASH had set up 7PM PDT as the time. YODA, one of our members that could not attend planned to try to hop in. We also invited our sort of adopted sister squadron the 32nd Arctic Knights from the frozen north of Minnesota. At a little after 7 PM (we all had seconds of the enchiladas ... sorry guys) the Ventrilo server we use for comms on line (and may consider it for LAN as a back up for our CB radios it works so well) lit up with YODA, BBALL, DOC and a little later CAT to join CRASH, DUSTY, EVENSTRAIN and GRIFF at the LAN meet. For those you unfamiliar with Ventrilo, it is a comms program much like Roger Wilco, Team Speak and the like....
I's like to take this opportunity to welcome Dan "CRASH" Crenshaw to the Frugal's World Team. Dan has already submitted some great articles on an informal basis and has now joined the team as Contributing Editor. Many of you will already know Dan as the former Owner/President of SimHQ and Author of How to Live and Die in the Virtual Skies. I couldn't be more proud to welcome him to the team.
There is a new site dedicated to CH products users. Here is some info:
Welcome to 'The CH Hangar' This site is intended to provide new and old CH users with a place to find all the news, profiles and chat about their controllers. This site is currently under construction but our forums are fully functional and you will find profiles, CMS scripting help and ideas as well as news on CH Products controllers.
On the other side during last months we organised two week-end dedicated to online campains which succeeded in gathering lots of french pilots.
So we decided to organise a week-end Arena 2vs2. The principle of such week-ends is to do as if we were participating at a LAN even if we are at home. So the idea came to organise such a week-end dedicated to Arena 2vs2.
This first week-end will take place march 5-6-7.
More details will be given (rules, Falcon4 version, ...) later. (We have time )
One particularity in the evolution of the principle of this competition is that now competitors have to register by pair.
The sooner we'll know the number of competitors, the easier it will be for us to fix the way to organise the fights during this week-end. We intend to produce a rating for pilots, pair, squadrons and countries. So you can understand because of possible various slot times (and we hope it will be the case) it is important for us to know who will participate as soon as possible.
If you have contacts with other squadrons all are invited. I don't have a lots of squadron url so if you can help thank you
Hope to get a chance to be airborne with you, even if against at the same time
Terrapin has a review of the LOMAC enhanced manual up on Flighhanger.net. Here's a sample:
Printing itself is very good; the text appearance is crisp, values of the color pictures seem to be 'correct' and - more important - consistent throughout the reviewed copy. Merely some drawings in the Aircraft Recognition guide (eg. of the Roland system or the Molniya Corvette) have been scanned from low-resolution originals and don't fit the high overall quality of the manual.
The new LOMAC 1.01 patch for US and UK versions is now available. Here are some details:
NOTE: this patch is not compatible with the French or German versions of Lock On
This is the first patch for Lock On: Modern Air Combat and is designed to address many of the significant bugs identified with the initial release of the product. This patch is however not designed to fix all identified bugs. We plan to provide additional patch(es) that will address problems not fixed in this first patch.
Please note that due to several items being fixed in the patch, some of the training missions will not play back correctly now. If you wish to play all the training missions, we suggest that you only apply the patch after doing so. A training mission correction patch is planned.
Please take a look at the Readme file for a list of updates and fixes and make sure to back up your Lock On folder and settings before installing the patch.
** There are two versions of the patch: one for the US and one for the UK. If you are unsure which version you have, please check the Lock On logo displayed in-game: red and blue for US, silver for UK **
Only change is that the new BMS config file, FalconBMS.cfg is now correctly handled. Download here FalconSwitcher Version 1.2
To upgrade: 1. Backup your Utility.ini and FalconCfg.ini files. 2. Run the new .msi and select Remove 3. Run the new .msi a second time and install into the same folder 4. Restore the two backed up files.
If (and only if) you are already running version 1.1 you can just download the hotfix and simply copy the exe from the hotfix over your existing exe.
- Fixed a bug where using TV/IR modes with Z-Buffering disabled would display a black strip on the horizon.
- Fixed a bug with hook animations.
- Fixed a bug where the ACQ cursor drawing function would place a slewable cursor on the MFD for STT mode. Now it doesn't.
- Fixed ACQ cursor elevation limit calculation so that the altitudes are calculated correctly (wrong trig function previously).
- Changed the way the antenna elevation tracking works. This was done to fix a bug where the ACQ cursor would occasionally show 0/0 for the altitude limits after an undesignate command in situations where it should not tilt the antenna down.
- New falconbms.cfg variable, g_bAntElevKnobFix (configurable from the BMS Config Editor), makes knob elevation control independent of mode and always followed for RWS/SAM and no-target TWS.
(See the manual for a more in-depth explanation of the new antenna knob elevation features.)
- ACMI wingtip trails are made from longer segments 50' vs 5'.
Installation Instructions:
The instructions provided below do not cover the installation of patches from the F4UT or FreeFalcon groups. BMS 1.03 requires Falcon SP3, SP4, or FreeFalcon 2.
NOTE: TE´s and campaigns created or saved with BMS 1.03 are NOT compatible with any previous versions of Falcon 4. Furthermore, TE’s and campaigns created or saved with any prior version of BMS are NOT compatible with BMS 1.03.
1) Back up your log book (callsign.lbk) (and any other files you may wish to retain, but NOT callsign.pop, or display.dsp!).
2) Install a fresh copy of Falcon 4 from your CD, followed by the 1.08US patch, then either SP3/SP4, or SP3+FreeFalcon2. Install any additional cockpit, skins, terrain tiles, or models before installing F4-BMS.
NOTE: DO NOT INSTALL ANY NEW THEATERS AT THIS POINT IN TIME!
4) Run the F4-BMS 1.03 Installer and install the patch. Once the installer has finished, click exit. This will launch the F4-BMS Config Editor program.
5) In the Editor, tick the “(SP) Falcon Configuration“ check-box, hit “Apply”, then quit the program.
6) Double-click on the F4-BMS shortcut, located on your desktop, to launch F4-BMS. Once in-sim, create a new pilot, then configure your Graphics, Sound, Sim, and Input settings.
7) If you wish to use the new DXTn compressed texture pool option located in the “Advanced Graphics“ window, you must select the “DXTn Compressed Pool“ option in the “Texture Pool“ listbox, then hit the “Compress Textures“ button. NOTE: This process may take anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours on slower computers.
8) Quit F4-BMS, then copy your previously saved log book (callsign.lbk) over to the [FalconRoot]\config\ directory.
That said, if you have a previous version of 1.x, you should be able to install 1.03 over your current installation.
