Lock On: Modern Air Combat

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007)
This article is about a computer game; for the computer security module, see LOMAC.
Lock On: Modern Air Combat

Developer(s) Eagle Dynamics
Publisher(s) Ubisoft
Release date November 20, 2003
Genre(s) Flight simulator
System requirements System: Pentium III 800 or AMD Athlon 600 or equivalent.

256 MB of RAM, 32 MB of Video Memory, 1100 MB of Hard Drive Space.
Input methods Joystick, Mouse, Keyboard

Lock On: Modern Air Combat is a popular modern fighter simulation developed by Eagle Dynamics and published by Ubisoft that is widely regarded as one of the most realistic simulators in its class. It contains 8 flyable aircraft and over 30 AI controlled planes. In the game the player can either emulate a fighter pilot or fly in the ground attack role. The game models AWACS (also known as AEW&C), carrier landings (for the Su-33), and Aerial refueling. The game has over 180,000 buildings, over 50 million trees, 21 cities, 1,700 towns, 500 bridges, 18 airfields, and 8 naval bases in the Black Sea region modeled. The 8 flyable aircraft are MiG-29A, MiG-29S, Su-27, Su-33, Su-25, MiG-29G (a German MiG-29 variant with a native board-computer), F-15C, and A-10A. Due to the small number of aircraft the player can only fly as a pilot from either the United States, Ukraine, the Russian Federation or Germany. A full mission editor is included to allow you to make missions of the same quality as the 20 missions included with the game. You also can make campaigns of the same quality as the four included.

Screenshot from Lock On FC , Ground Pounder Mod
Screenshot from Lock On FC , Ground Pounder Mod
Screenshot from Lock On FC , skin by Colt40Five for the Crimean AW Mod
Screenshot from Lock On FC , skin by Colt40Five for the Crimean AW Mod

Contents

[edit] Upgrades

Another Lock On screenshot
Another Lock On screenshot

The developer of the game, Eagle Dynamics, has released an add-on version 1.1 (named Lock On: Flaming Cliffs) which corrects flaws in the original game and adds another flyable aircraft, the Su-25T. Some upgrades to the games missile modeling are also included, as is an Advanced Flight Model (AFM) for the Su-25T. A patch to Flaming Cliffs was released, correcting minor coding errors and bringing the final game version to 1.12b.

The next official add-on for Lock On was to be called Black Shark. The publisher has now confirmed that this will instead be a stand alone game based on the Kamov Ka-50 helicopter as a flyable aircraft. The last official release date for Black Shark is early 2008 (there were earlier dates given that all turned out to be hype) according to the Lock On website.

Black Shark will allegedly feature an all new clickable cockpit system, and a re-vamped physics engine. An Apache and a A-10 add-on are eventually planned for this new simulator.


Eagle Dynamics may eventually rival the Battlefield Operations Series and Falcon 4.0: Allied Force by developing an F-16 Fighting Falcon simulator. The Lock On community has high hopes for it; Eagle Dynamics has implied an intent for extreme realism for the game. This, coupled with an updated physics engine, will give the flight simming community a realistic, gripping and graphically pleasing combat flight simulator. The release date is unknown, but predictions put it at around 2012. It will likely compete with Fighter Ops, which is to be released by XSI in modules to simulate real USAF training procedures, then combat operations for various jets operated by the USAF, including the ever-popular F-16.

[edit] The Battle Simulator

In 2006, Eagle Dynamics' focus shifted from development of an add-on/follow-up to LockOn to development of military grade simulation. Here is Matt "Wags" Wagner's comments[1] on this shift:

Dear all,

Regarding a release date for Black Shark, the original dates have been moved back due to two primary reasons:

1- While in years past TFC/Eagle has been primarily focused on the entertainment market, this has changed over the past year. Much of our work now is also focused on supporting military simulation contracts. Some of you may have heard about the A-10C PE Desk Top Simulation (DTS) for the U.S. ANG that we're just finishing up. Due to the demands of this project and others, the bulk of our engineering resources had to be shifted away from Black Shark this year. Thankfully, these resources are now being shifted back.

As other projects come up and we have to reprioritize resources, it's possible that Black Shark resources will once again need to be shifted, we just don't know right now. Because of this dynamic nature, trying to pin down the actual release date is problematic and could turn out to be grossly inaccurate. As such, we find it best to keep the release date very loose at this time until the project is close enough to completion that we can accurately predict its ship date.

2- Although the original plan for the Ka-50 project was to just add the Ka-50, it has grown substantially greater than this. Be it a new mission editor system, advances in ground unit and helo unit AI, new AI units, etc., all of these have contributed to the time and resource budget necessary to complete the project given a constant-size staff. So, although this has pushed dates back, you will get a much more feature-rich product in the end.

Regarding feature details of the project...

I realize that many of you wish for a lot more information and I can promise you that it is indeed coming. However, we have a specific publishing plan that will release many details, videos, developer logs at the proper time prior to the projected release (at no charge). Looking back at the experience of Lock On, we do not wish to start this process to soon and be accused of over-hyping the product and promising features before they are in fact in and working in the code. We’ve already been down that road and it was a bumpy one.

Much of the team is now working on Ka-50 again and a 2007 release still looks likely. Beyond that we will have to ask for your patience as we move forward.

As I get new information regarding the status of the project I will be posting it. __________________ Matt Wagner

Producer, TFC/Eagle Dynamics

The add-on "Black Shark", as of October, 2007, has become a full-fledged game, the first in a new series titled Digital Combat Simulator (or DCS for short). DCS: Black Shark is a simulation of the Russian Ka-50 attack helicopter and will be the flagship title of the new DCS series.[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Black Shark Update, 16 September 2007 - ED Forums
  2. ^ DCS - Digital Combat Simulator

[edit] External links

[edit] LOMAC sites

  Flanker series
view • talk • edit
Titles: Su-27 Flanker · Su-27 Flanker: Squadron Commander's Edition · Flanker 2.0 · Flanker 2.5 · Lock On: Modern Air Combat · The Battle Simulator
Related aircraft: A-10 · F-15 · MiG-29 · Su-25 · Su-27 · Su-33