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Old 01-04-11, 11:01 AM   #1
Redtack
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Default F4AF NOOB Question

After finally admitting to myself that the Realistic Radar mode is kicking my rear-end, I have switched to Simplified Avionics. I'm doing much better but I now I'v lost my navigation tadpole and best speed carat.

I've been using HSD on my right MFD, but need that one for my SMS display, and I still have a problem getting to station on time. Is there a better way to navigate with Simplified Avionics?

Second question, With the heartbreaking demise of Frugal's World, is there an alternitive sourse for F4AF info?

Thank-you for your consideration,

Redtack
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Old 01-04-11, 02:08 PM   #2
CCIP
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I've never flown with simplified avionics, so I'm not familiar to what extent it simulates the various modes - I actually encourage you to learn the more realistic one if you can. The general answer for any difficulty though is... do you need that SMS display on at all times? It's really only useful when you're setting up weapon parameters in AA or AG mode.

The easy way around it regardless of mode, though, is the [ and ] keys - these quickly switch between MFD pages on the two MFDs. Remember that for every mode, besides the MFD page that is already on, there are also 3 pages in the background that you can pre-configure and switch to at any time. One of these pages is (almost) always the HSD, so hit the [ or ] buttons and see what you get with the MFDs. You can think of these as different windows on your PC or tabs in a browser - your MFDs are both kind of like that, and it's easy to switch between these pages.

By default, whenever I fly my left MFD (almost) always has the FCR (i.e. radar) page on, and the right MFD is on HSD. I only switch away from those when absolutely necessary (e.g. to program weapon settings), using HOTAS shortcuts for the [ and ] keys. SMS is not the kind of page you need to have on all the time, really - you generally have enough feedback elsewhere (like your HUD) to keep track of your weapon numbers and settings.
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Old 01-05-11, 12:49 PM   #3
Redtack
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CCIP, Thank-you! The transition from IL-2 has been harder than I expected. I've been trying to overcome some of my dextarity issues with this sim. (hitting the wrong key when changing modes rapidly.) It is becoming aparent that this sim was meant to be played full realism.
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Old 01-05-11, 01:18 PM   #4
CCIP
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Ah yeah, going from IL-2 to this has to be quite a trip (I went the other way, and even then it took a while for me to 'fix' my atrocious gunnery skills). I think F4 is doable on simplified, just that in the end I think you'll find more support and advice on the full-realism avionics, because that's what most of the community flies and most of the game documentation uses.

The toughest thing to learn with F4, in my experience, isn't the systems themselves but situational awareness. Whatever difficulty setting you use for radar etc., you're still going to be bombarded by a lot of information from different sources, and the only right way to manage it all is in your head - because systems still give you inaccurate and sometimes conflicting info, and you have to decide what info to trust yourself. It's extremely rewarding when you get it right, but going into it is tough. My advice is to move to the realistic systems as soon as you can, but play with all labels on. That way it'll at least take off some of the initial confusion and let you concentrate on learning weapons procedures etc. With labels you'll know where things actually are, so at least for a while you won't have to play the guessing game while trying to sort out weapon settings and radar modes at the same time. But the real rewarding part of the game starts when you take off those labels and start working out situational awareness in your head - that's where Falcon can't be matched by other sim, imho. It's where the immersion really hits you.
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