Author Topic: Pacific Fighters...pfft..... (Read 2665 times)

Waffle · « **on:** October 31, 2004, 02:46:01 AM »

I was looking at Best Buy at video cards..(just shopping, no purchasing) and saw Pacific Fighters on the shelf...

I looked at and put it back down - then looked at some cds and then picked it up and thought - awww - what the hell...

Anyway, I loaded it up and tried it out....

I must say - I'm not impressed.

The graphics look nice on screen shots and advertisments, but honestly, I don't see Aces High that far away from being better than the graphics that are in PF. (in some case, AH2 is already better)

Here's a shot from AH - Pay attention to the wings

Now here's one from Pacific fighters

Now granted, in PF the water looks good - but guess what - we got new water. Well PF has clouds - We got clouds - don't see them that much, but they're there.

Now the new cockpits in Ah and the new models will be something to be seen. I for one am looking forward to the new models, but, like everyone - I am never happy...lol

There are several things, that I am not sure that I like in the new cockpit screen shots that I have seen from AH. I guess that the primary "visual" concern is the 3d instrument bezels.

as example in the ki 84:

and the b24:

as you can tell, they are 12 sided polygons, instead of a circle.

I, personally like the way they currently are rendered - the bezel is done in 2d... and the 109 Artifical Horizon looks great since it was updated for example

I do like the fact that they now have "glass" over the gauges that will reflect with light.

Considering that most of the time playing AH is inside the cockpit, I believe the polygon bezels will give it a "blocky" feel.

Maybe allowing for more bitmap "space" in the interiors would help. Instead of having one or 2 1024x1024 maps, add a 3rd or 4th bmp to allow more detail in the cockpit using 2d instead of 3d.

One thing that i do like that I would like to see in AH is the canopy glass modeled. the distortion around the edges of the glass as well as the relections than would be seen from the inside. Also stuff like the "knock-out" panel on the spitfire canopy..stuff like that.

one more thing would be to incorporate other damage into the models. when you loose a wing tip...a little twisted metal or a spar showing would be neat to see..instead of the perfect break.

Btw - i love the fact that we have bullet holes where ever we get hit

All in all I believe that Aces High will have the best of both worlds very soon. the candy and the playabilty. Looking forward to it. As you can see - we already have better aircraft textures

MANDO · « **Reply #1 on:** October 31, 2004, 03:03:38 AM »

IMO, the primary key for these superb graphics of IL2, FB and PF is the management of the light and the Sun.

gatt · « **Reply #2 on:** October 31, 2004, 03:20:39 AM »

Oleg is paying a lot of attention to cockpits and number of aircraft. Il-2/FB/AEP/PF has now some 200+ aircraft. No wonder the flight model quality has definitely gone.

UBI strategy doesnt help as well, they rushed PF, they couldnt put everything on 2 CD's, the game miss some important maps and skins and has the usual amount of bugs. Now they have to fix everything with a mega patch/add-on. As usual. Then they wont be able to support PF becouse work on BoB is beginning. As usual, same story with FB and AEP.

Business is business

Pei · « **Reply #3 on:** October 31, 2004, 04:07:09 AM »

Yes the flight model fairy has definitely been at it again in PF.

I think there has been a general effort to dumb down the FM, especially in the carrier aircraft.

I have to admit the eye candy is very nice (just upgraded my vid card so I can have lots of effects now), but I won't be playing it much until the magic looping corsairs get fixed.

Furball · « **Reply #4 on:** October 31, 2004, 04:12:39 AM »

I got pacific fighters yesterday too.....

nearly cremed my pants when i saw this:-

Beaufighter Mk21

And a clipped wing Spit VIII.

I have only done 2 campaign missions so far, one in a RN Seafire (wow) pwning Ki84's and i was VERY disappointed with the Pearl Harbour mission in D3a.

i gotta say the graphics do not look all that groundbreaking to me.

Pei · « **Reply #5 on:** October 31, 2004, 04:19:59 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Furball

i gotta say the graphics do not look all that groundbreaking to me.

That's because everyone else is catching up.

I agree with MANDO that the lighting effects make a big difference.

The others are:

The water (if you can have it without killing your fps): but it already looks like HT are working onsomethign similar.

The damage effects (depends on each a/c but the holes you can see into and broken struts where parts go missing are very cool).

The effects: especially hits (sparks and explosions) little bits coming off, ammo casings, fire etc.. The AH hit sprites are looking pretty dated.

Colours/palette: the jello green land and navy blue sea in AH could do with some tweaking.

Kirin · « **Reply #6 on:** October 31, 2004, 04:23:23 AM »

We have clouds? Really? Never seen any...

Well I know we HAD clouds but they must have disappeared somwhen on the way. God how I miss the could-fighting!

---

PF wasn't supposed to have ground-breaking gfx - hey it's the same engine! They improved water effects though! You're high-alt shot does not praise that. Down low you have moving waves, reflections and what not.

Now I am also not THAT impressed with PF but I know what to expect. It's FB in a pacific scenario! The carrier ops are most impressive and far more challenging than AHs cv landing.

The IL2 series was groundbreaking at its start. Though they screwed up a few things it's still THE best prop sim out there! It cannot beat AH in the multiplayer part though - and that's why I am here.

TrueKill · « **Reply #7 on:** October 31, 2004, 04:38:45 AM »

PF wasnt made for big improvments to graphics it was made to put more planes and upgrade some stuff.

Purzel · « **Reply #8 on:** October 31, 2004, 04:40:31 AM »

Hmm,

I'd say PF is way better than AH2 gfx-wise. Even if you dont turn on perfect water, the graphics are really good even on a mid-range-pc. The forests are way better looking than in AH2 I think. But, PF has the big advantage that there is no GV that has to move through them. Cockpits look great in PF although the FW190 has a spirit-of-st-louis-gunsight.

Flight-models are, well, questionable. The F4U is rock stable at low speeds, can only be outturned by Zeros and spits it seems. I believe that this is an advantage all the carrier-planes got because they have to be able to land on a CV.
I think while the FMs in AH may be less sophisticated in some areas, the planes do match up better against each other.

The online-experience is way better in AH off course. PF has now 128-Player-capability, but still its only a big furball. Just bigger than it was before. Its fun for some time but it gets old. There is a coop-mode but that is somewhat "canned" as well. Coop needs you to bring some time as well. But then these missions can be fun. But, if you want a quick hop just before bed or what, forget about coop. In AH everything is giong on in the same arena at the same time. There are no other gamplay-aspects or modes in PF AFAIK.

In single Player they now have dynamic campaigns, but these are missing the big picture, so is seems they are just many of the same missions over and over.

Just like in AH a few years before the F4U1-C just rules the skies. Quad hispanos, much ammo, very tough DM and a favorable FM make this plane very dangerous.

All in all I like to play both and after all we may be pretending to want to have everything as RL-like as possible, but actually we are very well off with just playing games. And both are just that. And thats OK by me.

Creamo · « **Reply #9 on:** October 31, 2004, 04:52:54 AM »

"The graphics look nice on screen shots and advertisments, but honestly, I don't see Aces High that far away from being better than the graphics that are in PF. (in some case, AH2 is already better) "

wow

TrueKill · « **Reply #10 on:** October 31, 2004, 05:28:21 AM »

i say IL-2s graphics are way better then AH the trees look real the sun looks real the water looks real clouds look real. IL-2 trys to make the whole game look real but AH just trys to make the planes look real.

this

vs this

Furball · « **Reply #11 on:** October 31, 2004, 06:02:25 AM »

Boring.

Thats what i think of the PF campaign so far (IJA IJN RAAF). Takes too long to get to the fight.

And waffle, your screenshots at the top are biased. you are using a player made skin vs. stock.

Pei · « **Reply #12 on:** October 31, 2004, 06:42:07 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Furball
Boring.

Thats what i think of the PF campaign so far (IJA IJN RAAF). Takes too long to get to the fight.

And waffle, your screenshots at the top are biased. you are using a player made skin vs. stock.

YOu know there is a command now to skip to the next way point? You'll need to map it to a key to use it/

Furball · « **Reply #13 on:** October 31, 2004, 07:09:30 AM »

oh cool thanks, didnt realise!

it really needs it.

Wotan · « **Reply #14 on:** October 31, 2004, 08:03:02 AM »

If you only bought PF as a stand alone you wasted your money.

Get the FB/AEP gold pack and dump the campaign generator that ships with the box (DGEN) and get one of the 3rd party campaign/mission generator.

PF will be patched several times and as a matter of fact there's already a beta patch for DGEN/PF.

There's also tweaks you can do in your config.ini and tweaks for DGEN.

For example if you use DGEN then you can add the following in your config.ini

[DGen]
NoBadWeather=1
MissionDistance=50
NoAirfieldHighlight=1
RandomFlights=5
MaxFLAK=5
AirIntensity=High
GroundIntensity=Low
Maxbomberskill=1
CampaignAI=Hard
CampaignLength=VeryLong
CampaignDifficulty=Hard

I am not going to go throw and explain what each line does but you can search the UBI or SimHQ forums.

You can also add planes to the campaigns and you can specify the types of sorties you want to fly (fighter, attack etc...)

FB/AEP + PF is the only way to go.

PF = typical boring Pac garbage with a huge 'Jap-Gap' in terms of plane match ups. Great for the Farm Boi Ami warrior hero types but a complete bore for us normal folk.

If you only play offline you should know that AI is simplified in that all planes fight the same way. So if you are flying as Japanese fighting against F4Us they will turn fight you etc...

AI is no fun to fight no matter what the game. Once you get familiar with their pattern no matter what you set their difficulty to they are easy to kill.

The IL2/FB/AEP/PF series all had and have issues but you are blind if you think AH cockpits look 1/10th as good as those in IL2/FB/AEP/PF. The planes skins in IL2 are at a lower res in that the entire aircraft is crammed into one 1024 x 1024 template. For instance the AH wing is about 4 times as large as a pf wing. However, the AH models (I haven’t seen the new ones) are low poly and can't compare to those in IL2/FB/AEP/PF.

AH's cockpits are functional and utilitarian. I guess that’s a good thing for those who can't read metric and need ammo counters etc...

I will say that IL2/FB/AEP/PF cockpits are the reason for the restrictive view system. The cockpits there are designed with a fixed head position in mind. For instance the round knobs really aren’t round. They can be half round or quarter round depending where they are. If you could move your head around you would see this. As is the IL2/FB/AEP/PF cause a pretty big FPS hit depending on the plane. Test it by going cockpit / no cockpit.

I play IL2/FB/AEP/PF exclusively. The problem with AH isn't the 'graphics' it’s the players and the game play. I would rather spend a few hours a night furballing on a good DF server then 10 min watching the pork and auger in the main.

In terms of FMs I fly 109s exclusively and fly them the same exact way in FB as I did in AH. I still kill the same planes (p51, spits, lalas etc...) the exact same way as I did in AH.

The 190s suck worse then mushbirds, err warbirds. But 190s are for nachwuchs and Kurt Tank wannabees.