As many of you know, DiD have increased both ground detail AND frame rate under both Glide and Direct3d... good news! And under V2 this thing REALLY flies! Add to this GTT's Air Combat Designer and we really have a new sim to play with. Now that the DiD team can leave the patch behind, look for an update on TAW soon.

The significance of the patch changes goes far beyond ADF, of course. Changes made now will also continue into TAW and become even more important in that setting. Why? Simply because in Total Air War, with its dynamic campaign engine, your performance in one mission will impact all subsequent missions. Your success or failure becomes a great deal more critical when the next mission flows directly out of the previous one. Lets take some examples.

Say you've been assigned a deep strike mission with a single wingman. Stealth is critical because if you aren't stealthy you will never make it to your goal. But lets say you choose an external weapons load so that you can carry some additional stores in case you or your wingman don't make it to the target area. This increases your RCS and thus the chance of your being detected and intercepted.

If you fail a mission like this in ADF no big deal. First, you can refly it, and second, you don't get to fly the next mission until you DO succeed. But even more significant, in ADF the next mission will be the same in any case. In Total Air War, however, if you fail a mission those targets will still be there in the next mission (although you may not be assigned those targets in your next mission anyway). Or your failure to take out your assigned targets, say an early warning radar, a supply convoy or a key command post, may profoundly impact the ongoing campaign.

Consequently, any changes that contribute to your ability to successfully prosecute the enemy are good now and even more important later. There are a number of these changes in the patch, and they do indeed increase your chances of success, and they make ADF more fun!

The key changes that improve your chances of success are these:

• Increased fire delay between SAMs locking on and firing at you.
• Enemy given realistic number of cannon rounds.
• Can't now use view padlock to padlock objects which are outside visual range. You can still use target padlock though, since your avionics are showing you the location of the target.
• Made Radar guided missiles and SAMs slightly easier to spoof in medium and hard difficulty levels.
• Fixed aspect marker in HUD so it works properly when tracking a target over the shoulder.
• The player can now hide from the enemy mainstay, (their version of the AWACS), by going very stealthy.
• Reduced amount of chaff and flares to 20 and made them more effective against missiles.
• Missile trails can now be seen at a greater distance.

Of the changes listed, the top two are the greater effect of chaff and flares and the reduced RCS of the F22 when "clean." The next two most significant changes are probably the increased fire delay of SAMs and the reduction of cannon rounds for enemy aircraft.

Lets face it, the unpatched version of ADF did not really give us a stealthy aircraft. It was more obvious in some missions than in others, but even a clean and slow aircraft was often intercepted at a significant distance from opponents. Obviously we were visible to the Russian AWACS. (Its interesting to note that in iMagics first release of iF22 the radar signature of the F22 was 1/50 that of an F15 and the adjusted RCS in the later release is 1/100th that of an F15. The ACTUAL signature is closer to 1/1000 that of an F15).

The reduction in RCS is significant. You can approach to within visible range of enemy aircraft without detection, although if you are in the front quarters at less than ten miles you are still subject to the Mark I eyeball. But ADF is WAY more fun this way and your chances of survival, if you are cautious, are greatly increased! The fun factor is primarily that you can usually get on the tail of a bandit without being detected.

If you ARE detected, perhaps when you choose to engage multiple targets and aren't immediately successful, your decreased RCS is still an advantage. And if you get into a knifefight, a number of changes become important. First, the enemy now has realistic cannon rounds. Second, your ability to spoof enemy missiles is enhanced. Third, you won't be padlocking objects outside visual range. Fourth, the aspect marker is now correct when you are tracking a target over your shoulder. Fifth, if you are engaged you will see the missile at a greater distance. Finally, if you are engaged by ground defences you have some reaction time and your reduced RCS again becomes significant.

As you can see, these changes are VERY important and they do make ADF more fun. Having greater success is more fun in itself, but the tactical game has suddenly got new life. I have to confess I was becoming discouraged pre-patch but have renewed interest in ADF, which has also increased my desire to see TAW! My tactical decisions have changed also, and choosing to engage or to remain stealthy has become a significant option. Its very different to have this feeling in ADF. If you have multiple bandits to deal with you can set up your approach quite differently (remember to go to manual EMCON), and when I choose to go to AUTO EMCON and engage my adrenalin suddenly kicks in! I like it!

Other changes become significant for success when you do choose to engage air or ground targets. As above, your reduced RCS is significant, and your enhanced countermeasures are also important. But equally significant is the addition of a blast radius to your weapons. You no longer have to make a direct hit with cluster bombs to kill some targets, and likewise with all other A2G ordnance. Your pin-point accuracy is no longer critical, and in fact one weapon may now do a lot more damage.

On the other hand, watch out if you are too close to an exploding weapon! Drop those LGBs from two hundred feet or get too close to a target when it goes up and you may go up with it! I have taken damage that I didn't expect post patch, although I have yet to lose my aircraft entirely!

Speaking of which, you won't be riding the silk quite as much and you won't be a statistic quite as often either. Your MFDs won't all disappear in one unhappy chorus as often when you take damage. The damage model has been tweaked and the changes are good ones!

Finally, the other change that I have found very useful is the ability to check my wingmans status in detail. You get the full meal deal at the flick of a switch! As you can see from the shot above you get the at-a-glance graphical display as well as a status list on the right. If your wingman shows in RED you know he is in trouble. YELLOW signals that he has taken damage. His loadout is immediately obvious as well. You won't be ordering him to engage a target at 25 miles when he is winchester on AMRAAMs.

Following is a more complete listing of changes including new support for D3d cards.

Graphics Cards Issues

• Cards based around the Permedia and Permedia II chipsets
• Cards based around Nvidia Riva with PCI bus (this previously only worked with AGP)
• Cards based around the ATI Rage Pro with PCI bus (this previously only worked with AGP)
• Cards based around the Rendition V2200 chipset.

In addition problems have been found on the following cards: Serious graphical anomalies on Power VR chipset based machines when using Direct 3D. Problems have been found in test with Power VR or Rendition chipset cards involving the fogging effects.

F-22 ADF Multi-player and Communications

• 1. Improved multi-play connectivity using TCP/IP and IPX over services such as KALI95.
• 2. Improved plane position prediction to reduce warping.
• 3. Fixed bug when server cancelled DirectPlay dialog box. It now resets the selected service and screen properly.
• 4. The client's (game joiner's) multi-player details screen now resets each time a new scenario is selected. It displays the correct number of team buttons and weapons list.
• 5. Restricted the amount of data being sent across all media. This prevents hi spec machines swamping minimum spec machines.
• 6. Stopped wrong message being displayed when restarting further multi-player games.

Other Fixes and Enhancements:

• Increased fire delay between SAMs locking on and firing at you.
• Sensor range is no longer changed when you switch to manual Emcon levels.
• Enemy given realistic number of cannon rounds.
• Added system display for wingmen. Cycle 'WS' button in system display to select and cycle through all wingmen.
• Added List of wingmen + wingmen status to system display. Status is shown by the colour of the wingman text.
• Tweaked generate shootlist stuff. Prioritize targets in centre of HUD higher. To prioritize something higher, place it in the centre of the HUD, and press 'T'.
• Fixed Lantirn zoom problems when Lantirn is slaved. View is slightly further from object.
• Fixed problem caused by requesting refuel twice.
• Cluster bombs now open when they reach a certain altitude. They used to open after so much time making it impossible to drop them at low-level.
• Fixed inter-plane collision on the ground. Planes would not collide if the player was moving very slowly.
• Added blast radius to bombs. Bombs will now damage ground vehicles and planes in close proximity, not just those hit, (don't drop a bomb too low now!)
• Fixed Vocal warnings switch to turn off Bitchin' Betty.
• Wingmen now ignore formation commands when they're on the ground.
• Increased 'zoom-out' in Satellite view.
• Tweaked damage modeling. Cannon now do much less damage to buildings, as do MK20s.
• Speeded up adjustment of autopilot values in autopilot MFD.
• Modified weapon selection. When last AIM120 was released, Cannon used to be selected. Now, AIM9Xs are selected if present.
• Can't now use view padlock to padlock objects which are outside visual range. You can still use target padlock though, since your avionics are showing you the location of the target.
• View padlock no longer padlocks onto player's plane.
• Fix for lock-up when exiting the game while ACMI is still recording.
• Range added to superimposed MFD displays in full screen HUD.
• Tweaked missile damage for AIM9Xs and AIM120s.
• Made Radar guided missiles and SAMs slightly easier to spoof in medium and hard difficulty levels.
• Added wider selection of HUD colours. HUD colour is also saved between game loads.
• Added vertical speed value to ILS HUD. (VSI - in feet per second)
• Fixed crash to do with having a static target in your shoot list and looking down at the right-hand MFD.
• Fixed crash which would happen sometimes upon selecting Lantirn.
• Tweaked plane damage - planes won't disintegrate quite as often, and the player's MFDs won't all get knocked out together.
• Cluster Airfield - Target view in briefing shows a picture of the hangar which must be destroyed instead of the control tower. Finding the hangar used to be trial and error.
• Current wide angle views are now saved when you exit the game.
• Should support greater number of graphics cards via D3D
• Fixed crash caused by pressing 'Z' after ejecting.
• If the airbrake is damaged, wheel brakes still work.
• Tweaked difficulty in following missions: CAP UK, Raid Egypt and Cluster CAS.
• Alt C (joystick centre) settings are now saved when you exit the game.
• You don't need to kill the throttle completely now to detach from the refueller.
• Fixed aspect marker in HUD so it works properly when tracking a target over the shoulder.
• Added speech quality option.
• Changed expansion strip thumping noise so that it only occurs on taxiways - not on runways.
• The player can now hide from the enemy mainstay, (their version of the AWACS), by going very stealthy.
• Added new key command to select cannon - Shift-Enter. Fires cannon if already selected.
• Reduced amount of chaff and flares to 20 and made them more effective against missiles.
• Added '*' key on numeric keypad - Quick access to full throttle.
• In the Bomb LGB training mission, the tanks are targeted by other friendly planes, so the player won't necessarily need to destroy them.
• Missile trails can now be seen at a greater distance.
• New Sorting option - fixes the "seeing through hills" problem. This can be toggled ON/OFF in the Options. WARNING - this option should be turned OFF if strange graphical effects occur.