From: knutson@.mcc.com (Jim Knutson)
Subject: some quick thoughts on F15 III
Originator: knutson@urbino.mcc.com
Organization: MCC, Austin, Texas
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 23:01:36 GMT

Someone asked me what I thought about F15 III and how I thought it
compared to Falcon.  Rather than do this for one individual, I
thought I'd post my thoughts.

For me, there are some things I like better about F15 and some I think
are worse.

Padlock view in F15 is a joke.  Without a reference point, I can't tell
where the bogey is in relation to me.  Dug a hole a couple of times 
because of that.

The clouds look better than Falcon, but you only get cloud layers
and no cumulous that are parked right in front of the end of your
runway.

Ground objects look better than Falcon, but they're infinitely more
difficult to find in the splotchy ground rendering.

Aircraft detail I don't like so much.  There's something about this
that makes it difficult for me to judge what an enemy is doing.

I hate the jaggies from rendering the roads and airfields on the
ground.  It looks like bugs crawling or landing lights sequencing on a
runway and is most annoying.

I like the dawn-dusk transitions.

Night is too dark (i.e. pitch black).  I like the Falcon night better,
it allowed for moonlight.

I haven't quite figured out the radar yet.  I've made a couple of quick
passes through the authentic mode description and have yet to figure
out the meaning of the second number from the top left (DTEWS).  It
looks like 10R to me and almost never seems to change and that seems
to make no sense based on the description.

I don't like not having a ground proximity warning (e.g. pull up!).
If I remember correctly, autopilot (altitude hold) flew me into a mountain.
I would think that altitude hold would be more like a TFR altitude hold,
but maybe not.

I don't like having to lock on a target to use IR missiles.

The death dot for manual bombing doesn't seem to change with the weapon
(e.g. high or low drag).

Flight model control is very discrete (e.g. only change throttle in 10%
increments, my FCS feels notchy (e.g. push, push more, push more,
click, the nose drops a bit).

The closure rate on the AA mode HUD symboligy wanders up and down all
over the place.

No indication of rounds remaining for gun.

Backseater seems pretty useless unless you were flying with a modem
linkup.  I haven't tried this.

I like the ground radar, but don't see it as all that useful.  I'm
having a hard time correlating mountains with it.

The lantirn pod doesn't seem to show mountains at all.

Target selection with the mouse is excellent, but I haven't figured out
why you would want to do this since the waypoints already select the
target for you.

I can't find anything using the HRM.  Neat idea, but didn't do anything
for me.

Frame rate hasn't bothered me much yet (486/50).  I run max
everything.

The "Fence In!" and "Fence Out!" messages usually scare the piss out of
me since they are so much louder than the engine noise.

Wish the AWACS would give me more info on SNAP than bearing and some
really(!) rough distance.  How about altitude, direction, and speed?
How about warning me without asking if they heading for intercept?

I've had a JSTAR change my targets once.  That message scared the piss
out of me too.  Wish the speech volume wasn't so loud.  Guess I'll have
to dig out my SB manual to see what I can do.

I don't like this flying alone stuff.  I got spoiled with Falcon.

The aerial tankers seem to be stationary objects.  Approaching from a
90 degree aspect angle, I never had to make a heading correction.

There's no mission planning or intelligence.  In F19 and F117 you at
least got to look at intelligence reports of troop concentrations and
radar/sam/airbase info.

Still the flat world mentality.  I wish somebody would get the hint and
take the terrain model of Falcon and add detail to get a non-flat earth
with more ground detail.

Weapons load is a pain (it's not as configurable as I would like).  The
NxM numbering seems like a joke.  For instance, a 3x1 load of rockeye
is supposed to give you one drop of 3, but it loads six for balance, so
what's the point?  Also, having full stations usually means that I have
overloaded my plane for what I really want to do.  Also, there is no
control over the ripple.

I haven't done all that much landing yet, but the HSI is good and the ILS
seems ok.

This is all based on 3 or so evenings of playing with it with only a
bit of reading the manual.  Overall, I'm mixed about it.  I'd like to
learn the system more before I decide whether I really like it.

-- 
Jim Knutson                                                | |
knutson@mcc.com                                         --=oOo=--
cs.utexas.edu!milano!knutson                               +
Wk: (512) 338-3362                                      Check Six!