Page 1

Flanker 2.5: First Look, First Kill
By Bob "Groucho" Marks

Game Title: Flanker 2.5 Upgrade
Version: v2.5
Category: Combat Flight Sim Enhancement Pack
Developer: GAME Studios/SSI
Release Date: Late February 2001
Required Spec: Windows 9x/Me, 32MB RAM, DirectX compatible video card, 8X CD-ROM, Sound card and speakers.
Reviewers Spec: AMD Athlon TBird 1GHz, WinMe, 384MB VCRAM, Hercules GeForce2 GTS 64MB Video card (Detonator3 v6.50 drivers), Saitek X36 USB HOTAS
Past Articles: Click Here For List
Article Type: First Look
Article Date: February 13th, 2001

Dedication. It’s a rare things in the flight simulation world, particularly from the developer standpoint. While most products in the genre are orphaned within months—or even days—after release, the team at Game Studios / SSI has remained bullish on the Flanker 2.X series. A year and a half after it’s initial release, SSI has developed the final enhancement to the franchise: Flanker 2.5.

One of the great things about the F2.5 enhancement is that it’s not really a patch, at least not in the usual sense of the word. It isn’t a fix, as most code-related and balance issues were addressed in the 2.0x series of patches. Flanker 2.5 is probably best defined as an add-on pack. Introducing a new flyable aircraft (the MiG-29K), new challenges (moving naval units, air-to-air refueling), updated graphics that take advantage of the newest generation of video cards, and a host of other new tricks, F2.5 is a great boost to the hard drive life span of Flanker.

It does little, however, to reach a new audience. The flight models are still highly authentic, the AI brutal, and the game play limited to individual missions. If you were intimidated by the F2.0’s wicked realism or found the lack of an dynamic campaign not to your liking, these enhancements won’t do anything for you. If you are a Flankerphile, however, you’ll step on your mother to download all 75MB of Flanker 2.5. And the best part of all is that it’s free.

In an effort to clear the decks for the upcoming Sim-To-Be-Titled-Anything-But-Flanker:Attack, SSI has decided to offer the F2.5 upgrade as a freebie to Flankerphiles. It's a downloadable file, which should be good news to our friends in Australia and other places with punitive import fees. True, it is a fairly hefty download, but there is a lot of good stuff in here.

No-Fornication Installation

---

The F2.5 patch installed simply and easily with a single click of the mouse over a fresh, virginal Flanker 2.0 installation. No profanities were uttered and no dieties' names were taken in vain. Easy enough.

"Give Me A Place To Stand, And I'll Move The Earth"

---

The Fulcrum's front office. Note how much crisper the graphics are than in the F2.0 versions.

Archimedes is oft misquoted as saying that if only he had a lever long enough he could move the world, when what he really said was all he wanted was a strong point of support for his lever---a fulcrum. The most obvious change in F2.5 is the inclusion of the MiG-29K, a navalized version of the Fulcrum. Smaller and lighter than her muscle bound cousins from the Sukhoi stable, the MiG is a blast to fly. The lesser physical stature of the MiG-29 is communicated through the tight feeling of the beautifully-rendered cockpit. Flown competently, it's a great mount to have in a knife fight. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the MiG's flight control system is nowhere near as advanced as the Sukhois. As such, it's very easy indeed to get into deep kim-chee with the little fighter. Spins are very easy to enter, while not quite as simple to get back out of. And a bolter off of the carrier deck in a heavily loaded Fulcrum may make you wish that the Russians hadn't put up that damned ski-jump on the bow of their carriers.

A Movable Feast

---

That ski-jump can be a bit of a bother during slow-and-heavy bolters...

That blown approach may not have even happened were it not for another of F2.5's newest innovations: mobile naval units. Hitting a moving carrier is a bit trickier that one that's frozen in place, to be sure. Waypoints for the naval units can be set within the Mission Editor, and they will engage enemy units automatically. These battles on the high seas are incredible to watch as they unfold, with missiles leaping out of their tubes and guns blasting away. I have actually parked my airplane on autopilot, safely out of harms way, and simply observed the fray. Amazing stuff. One must be careful how the units are steered, however. The AI fleets will simply continue on their pre-programmed course and duke it out with the enemy until (1) their weapons are all expended (not bloody likely), (2) there’s no one left alive to fight, or (3) the fleets sail out of engagement range again. As a tool in mission building, sending your task force into range of an OPFOR fleet must be done carefully: Let’s face it, the AI crews may be excellent shots, but tactically-speaking, they are as dumb as rocks.

Landing on a moving carrier is challenging...and fun. This is how we do that!

Thats An Order

---

A much more extensive wingman command structure has also been implemented in F2.5. The backslash key will bring up a pop-up list of possible commands, to which your wingman will reply with “Roger.” He’s still not a particularly chatty fellow, probably nursing a wicked Stoli hangover.

Flanker 2.5 now sports an extensive wingman command list

Tactically, these additional commands are great boon, as now your wingmen can work for you instead of being merely guided weapons.

This is more necessary now, as the enemy AI has been tweaked to attack as a team now, instead of sending individual fighters to do battle. With this enhanced and definitely more aggressive AI attitude, your wingman is more important now more than ever.

Got Gas?

---

Service with a smile! A Fulcrum attempts to wet its whistle.

Easily the most challenging new aspect of Flanker 2.5 is air-to-air refueling from the Candid tanker. The Russians use the probe-and-drogue configuration, so Jane’s F/A-18 veterans will feel right at home. In fact, I spoke briefly to Matt Wagner, a lead designer on the EA/Jane’s team who now works with SSI, about some of the similarities. “Refueling in Flanker is actually easier than it was in F/A-18,” he said. “There was a FM bug in Hornet that made it artificially harder to tank from the Viking. Flanker is a bit easier, but is more realistic.”

COMBATSIM.COM publisher Doug Helmer sent me these shots to confirm that catching the basket IS possible....the gloating bastard.

That may be well and good, but I can’t hit the basket in either sim. COMBATSIM.COM publisher Doug Helmer has been doing his best to throw dirt on my already wounded ego by sending me screenshots and “.trk “ files (the movie format of Flanker 2.X that allows the saving and gloating of missions—very slick) of his successful hookups. I have been practicing my refueling techniques over that last few days, and have come to learn that my biggest problem is—well-- that I suck.

D'Oh! A Refueling excersize gone horribly wrong. The explosion effects have been greatly improved over 2.0, by the way.

That’s OK. All of that will come with practice and an increased resolve to make it happen. Man was not born with the ability to deftly insert a probe into a waiting….oh, never mind.

The ability to refuel from a tanker is done purely for the challenge. It’s highly unlikely that A2A gassing up will be necessary, particularly when you take into account that SSI has now included drop tanks into the aircraft loadouts.

Graphically Speaking

---

One of Sukhoi's finest climbs out from the Task Force

The graphics department at Eagle Dynamics, the Russian studio that has developed Flanker, has obviously been hard at work re-doing some of the graphics. The image quality has improved all around, with most of the blurriness of early 1999 3D graphics enhanced for the newer crop of video cards. Small touches abound-- the in-cockpit views are enhanced by crisp, animated control movements and insignia and panel line details on the aircraft have been boosted significantly. The special effects have been revamped considerably—water splash effects, explosions, and smoke look much better than their pre-2.5 counterparts. POL tanks burn fiercely and pump out curtains of dense, ugly smoke. Aircraft in distress break up slowly. All are very nice touches, indeed.

I had a problem in the Mission Editor screen with the screen flashing blue and “sticking” during movement. Others with identical cards were not experiencing such problems. It may have been due to the “Leak of the Week” Detonator3 v6.50 drivers I was using. In any case, switching to the new “Standard Windows Interface” in Flanker eliminated that problem. It turns out that I greatly prefer the Windows interface over the old, clunky rendered one, especially in mission building. The inclusion of toolbars and the like puts much more info and options at your fingertips, is more "natural", and is much faster.

The Mission Editor in Standard Windows Interface mode. Note the missile efficacy pop-up option.

It's the Little Things That Count

---

Flanker 2.5 comes loaded with a few Antonovs full of smaller, less obvious tweaks and improvements:

• All missions start in "pause" mode, which allows the mission to load up without causing the frame rate to crap out. A slap at the "S" key sends you on your merry way.
• The ability to operate from roads--useful when simulating remote-strip operations--is now enabled.
• Missile effectiveness, long a subject of debate among fanatics, is now adjustable in the "Options" menu to three levels: Easy, Medium, and Realistic. I personally have a very limited time with the Medium setting (hey, I didn't even know it was there until late in the evaluation), but i like not being shot down every single time I go for a joy ride. According to Carl "Stormin'" Norman of SSI, the "easy" setting renders the missiles so stupid and sluggish as to be almost useless. It's obvious that many workers at the Department of Motor Vehicles come with a similar programmability.
• New weapons loadouts are possible with the inclusion of the Kh-65 AGM for flyable aircraft and MER /TER racks on AI aircraft.
• There have supposedly been several FM tweaks, though I was not able to nail any changes down specifically.

Notice the spray of fuel at the moment of uncoupling

Onward and Upward

---

With the release of Flanker 2.5, GAME Studios/SSI have shown their incredible dedication to both their series and flight simulation as a whole. By offering up the excellent improvements in F2.5 as a freebie download (available in late February), they finally let the second generation of the Flanker franchise go. This clears the decks for the next series, which will no doubt be called something like Weird Symbol: The Simulation Formerly known as Flanker:Attack.

They'll need a bigger box, though.

Click to join a discussion about this article.

Past Flanker Articles:

---

Flanker Attack Screenshots September 2000 Future Flanker- 2.5 And Beyond by Bob "Groucho" Marks May 2000 Flanker 2.02: Sweating the Little Stuff Bob "Groucho" Marks May 2000 The Downside of Realism in Flanker 2 Stan Ilin December 21st, 1999 Building Fear & Making Loathing Over The Crimea: Creating Missions In The Flanker 2.0 Bob "Groucho" Marks December 15th, 1999 The Russians Are Coming: Flanker 2.0 in Review by Thomas "AV8R" Spann November 29th, 1999 Su39 and the Digital Combat Series by Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson November 22nd, 1999 Flanker 2.0 Screenshots Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson September 15th, 1999 Flanker 2 Interview by Dan "Crash" Crenshaw September 1st, 1999 Bigbear II: International LAN Meet Willem-Jan Renger August 22nd, 1999

Flanker 2.0 Update 2 Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson July 10th, 1998 Flanker 2.0 Update 1 Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson May 3rd, 1998 Exclusive E3 Flanker 2.0 Preview Revealed Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson April 1st, 1999 Flanker 2 Preview 2 by Ed Reddy & Mark Shepheard January 19, 1999 Flanker 2 Preview 1 by Chaos January 6th, 1999 Su27 Dynamic Mission Designer Daniel "Crash" Crenshaw Pre-1999 SU27 1.5 Mission Disk by Daniel "Crash" Crenshaw August 30th, 1997 Running with the Big Dog: A Player's report on Su-27 Flanker by Pierre (Papa Doc) Legrand Flanker Joystick, Throttle, Keypad Configs