The GUN Barrel's - 3rd Party Reviews of LIBs / Patches

• Opinions expressed herein may not reflect the opinions of Global Tribunal, DiversaCADD or the Chief Editor.
• These reviews are Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001. Global Tribunal, a product of DiversaCADD 1990-2001.

The following current cheater libs [they don't classify as a patch because their sole purpose is to change a minimun of objects so they can be used undetected by JCN and other players] WILL not be reviewed: (last seen)

• EL_DIABLOs AKA ICEMAN's JCN (2001/Jan)
• LongJohn's 49th (2001/Jan)
• Goblin's 7th(2001/Jan)
• Draco's (2001/Jan)
• Sir.Rip's (2001/Jan)
• ...

The GUN Barrel's Top list of peeves

• claims of superior edits
• claims of realistic edits when they are clueless or lying
• claims of edits not performed
• made up specs
• self referencing specs
• refusing to say "I don't know"
• hiding work in read only while using other's open source / importable
• no visual indication of what objects have changed

as of 2000 the FA scene had these players ATFG & Fighters Anthology - "Realism" Comparison Table

Varks 2.1 FA

Kirk has set the standard for research

2. 4. Varks does a superb job in this section
8. if playing against computer opponents you will get a fairer fight

I just loved Varks! Then it was gone. Sad day. [summer 98]

Wait just a sec Varks is back with his finally 2.1 - got to get this lib folks!

2.1 highly recommended as a starter LIB

VUSMC

One of my [retired] squads is off to good start with attention to graphic detail in weapons

ver 1.4 Aug 98
still under evaluation, seems to have bugs in ATFG version [avoid A4 F4 ]

ver 1.5 FA Oct 98 still evaluating
more improvements
very good stability online
bad = multiple ejector racks give unfair loadouts [same hole 714 fell into]
envelopes still basic = faulty
guns hits points are uneven [seems a little US biased]
missiles " "

shear quantity of edits and effort gets A for effort

lots of non American planes not corrected

note: VUSMC VDON have folded Nov 1998

Angel LIB

Richard David Hunter AKA HAwk-153

HAWK Site

v1.00 reviewed 2001/03/21

Looks like "Hawk" borrowed a great deal of the mistakes and lunacy from the 7th lib farce and added a few nutty things from the Iron Eagle school of arcadism:

• 100,000' ceiling on many US planes
• 9G F-111 Varks
• heavy loadouts on many US planes
• crazy MTOW weights on most planes eg: 268,000 LB mig25 with 9Gs
• agm114 8m targettng
• agm122 18m targetting

Pros:

• ?

Cons:

• inaccuraty abound
• greatly improves US planes

Grade: failure, could win the worst LIB honour if he continues along current path. Tough competition from the 7th and IRON EAGLE though...

Suggestions:

• wake up, grow up
• quit the bragging
• review flightsimHQ archives, see GT site

BMC 42MDP

Botack, MAC and Cargo CUSTOM ABA LIBs 2000, 2001

I would have to say Cargo is the genius of the operation since quality of the product drastically improved when he is in charge of it.

The learning curve in MDP is quite flat so repeatitive play is essential for their squad to remain a player. They are fanatical fliers as well as being hypocrits to their own ROE. back to the product review..

pros:

• well laid out maps
• host only needs to run it
• longer matches

cons:

• over the top tough objects, way too arcadish
• realism suffers greatly
• controlled testing environment problems
• minimal anti-cheat controls
• stability problems if hosting is shared without rebooting between
• often lags

There have been encouraging reports that the GT Patch improves the stability of BMC if only the BMC map lib is used

Jan 15, 2001

Pmok Delta 1.15 FA - site

First glance noticed improvements to US weapons, and degradation of Soviet ones, such as more visible smoke.

Guns will be looked into, specs claim more hit power..

Looking into unusual loadout cheat and fuel consumption for US planes...

PRO:

• lots of items,
• great documentation,
• great web site

CON:

• Seems like another biased lib -
• PMOK is an inactive member of VMF-257. Non US items seem weak and handicapped.
• PMok will be evaluating the Global Tribunal Patches and providing a link. No link as of yet Jan 99.
• Pmok refused to link to any GT site.

Conclusion: PMOK does fine mission building and art work. Libs are getting there.

Warning - watch out / avoid msg board it is run by 257th squad [they are vile oppressive] Oct 1999

714th / VMF-257

Sept 98 - still under evaluation

seems changes to guns have happened - guess what they appear to be closer to what I recommended and was attacked for doing so. They added a few planes I had added 1st... 714 still playing catch up

Well one complaint against my lib from 714 fanatics I have to address is this. "Greg [714 guru] has spend 1.5 yrs on lib making and you have only spend 200 or so hours". I'm getting tired of this cop out. - summer 98

1. Greg I guess is not as bright as I am, takes him much longer to get it right
2. I've been doing lib enhancements since Nov 97 - My hours are spent wisely not kowtowing to cheaters, I get reliable data not hearsay.

714 warning: amazing as it seems Greg the 'father' of the 714 'cult' engages in infantile censorship. How he deals with criticism is something we must judge unfavorably. 714 although it has advanced envelope edits, it is still little more than a biased lib with serious overcompensations. On top of that 714 has a militant following. Beware.  714 has banned basic reading of the web site from large providers

• globalserve.net
• istar.ca
• Electronic Frountier Canada's [anti-censorship advocates] anti-censor detour server 

If you are sickened by exo.com 's censorship let them in public forums

1. flight envelopes are what is suppose to make 714 a cut above the rest.; but they fail - at least they know how to make difficult mods happen... this doesn't make for accurate performance. They also blame the game for limitations, but until they get their egos in check this lib is worse than useless because it perpetuates false information.
review of April 02 - still many errors in G pull drag [too high] high alpha exaggerated.. gear speeds on migs handicapped [still!]  climb performance too high on american fighters ... just to name a few.. apparently they too incompetent to transfer data from Janes data books to their toolkit.

2. 3.
problems with 714 weapons [jan 30]: I strongly suspect they are using mph instead of km/h this results in slow guns and missiles. This speed reduction of 37% is compounded with high sea level performance reductions incorrectly based on high altitude specs. All specs I can find in Janes refer to S/L speeds. 714 assumes these specs are for 40,000ft and reduces performance at sea level by up to 60%. Fly a Mig29 at 1000 and fire an AA10, you can pass [?] this Mach 2 missle. Oops!  updated 98/04/12 still no change in weapons performance, this gives most US planes/NATO an unfair advantage. apparently providing fairness is not going to be 714 priority [if at all]

1. 714: no one is close to knowing as much about envelope editing as 714 but... redesigned envelopes have converted nearly all aircraft to high alpha. Not good. You'll get excessive altitude drops 100 kts above stall, only some [high wing loading] aircraft  should in real life do this. High speed end of every envelope often match the next envelopes. This can give unrealistic high speed performance, but 714 hopes to gives full G envelope with this technique. Sometimes it works.  Feb & March  [98] version of this lib also has mistakes in max climb angle, most lower performing planes are severely crippled. Even with the numerous [unverified] ex-pilots that give this lib the ok, all one can say is remember Chuck Yeager's [seal of approval] sim? It stunk in some ways.

4. 6. 714 loadouts [dec & jan 30, feb] are mainly based on  Jane's EA baseline which at many times are wrong. Compounded with many incorrect modifications: such as added A2A & gun pod hardpoints on non capable aircraft, multiple ejector racks [mostly American] that give at times outlandish missle quantities & advantages.
This lib has a long way to go in this area.

June 26 1998

Since certian people are banned from their site it is a little tough to get their libs...
june 26=farce
Here is why .. I flew several planes and noticed their spes and loadouts [if you can believe this] are worse than last release. F-16 F/A18 all have over performance 9 G f/a18! 9 G f16 fully loaded! Mig29M with only AA10s. One word comes to mind "CHEAT". What a joke!

1999 Oct 11 flight model

partially reviewed oct 16th

General weapon errors:

• gun fire delay set to 0 - will cause overload of objects in game and different firing rates on different CPUs
• no performance reductions for altitude on guns
• A2A missle performance increased by 100% ! if target is less than 3Gs [give us a break]
• many guns have same initial and final speeds
• many guns set to removal time of 10 [approx 1.0] - still too short [although greg and company said I was lunatic for using such large values [like 14!] in the past.. strange 714 keeps creeping closer to GT calculations with each release]

AGM65G 200 hits points on any target

A6-IR seeker 15 mile range

Suu16 50% chance hit at min range - 1/2 of your shots will miss

M61T test gun can be loaded as a cheat - it can shoot 100% 0.5m and then some

Aim9E - no sun reduction, not low enough all aspect

Aim4D all aspect missle? no it isn't

Flight models

general errors:

• climb rates too high on US planes
• not enough loaded performance reductions
• high speed of each envelope match - they should not
• planes perform too well up high
• speed over stall in which altitude is lost is too high [polars seem very wrong]
• loaded aileron, rudder, elevator not limited enough [generic values across the board?]
• weapon placement mistakes
• too high roll rates
• jammers improperly added to several aircraft
• many template values used instead of individual calculations [as Greg told me to'do the math' -right back at ya ;-O]
• lack of documentation explaining edits, lib mastering FAQs

eg.

F16C52 climbs at 29,000'min at 50% load [not so]

CF105 arrow loadout errors: 4 aim7es, 8 aim4ds / [should be 3 by 3 or 4] 5G at super sonic , way too agile, should not carry chaff or jammers

F106A way too nimble at high speeds and altitude. Considering 257th supplied the so called 'secret details', its still off.

A4SU - UFO climb and roll rates - Top Gun movie like

Atlas Cheetah - too low climb, loadout wacky. Mtow too high

Su25 - envelope too slow

What's good:

• rudder bank and drag - smooth
• dive angles attempted
• smooth envelopes all the way up high
• high alpha G pull drags

Still no idea why this lib is STILL read only when other libs can do it better. It still has a militant following. Oddly by cheaters. Did I mention cheater libs can be added on top of this patch un-noticed. Nov 2000

Virtual Military lib footnotes: VM was not designed to be realistic but to provide a wider range of weapons & planes.

No longer will be evaluated

Tomcat 2.1 lib

footnotes: if you like profanity you'll like the add on sounds! flight envelopes are choppy but at least attempted, many variations on plane's loadouts with some new textures. Guns are much too destructive.

214 lib

footnotes: for ATFG but works in FA fine - this lib was going places with 1.4, but version 2.1 big mistakes

2.1 evaluated June 12/98. Too bad this lib version is major step backwards:

• many sea level speeds are way way off
• weapon section is high, but hit points are off
• planes - stall speeds still way off
• planes - several Naval versions that incorrectly can land on ships F16XN, F117N, F22N ... they can not nor ever will
• weapon hard points, placed nicely but are off /overly generous especially on US planes - loadouts unfair
• some nice textures and shapes

Dagger's

Hobby LIB and mission builder from 369th Flying Beagles [my they love to howl at the moon.. when they are not in church]

Dagger seems to be the most reasonable of the bunch. He was awarded membership in flightsimHQ for a period where he gained considerable knowledge on flight envelopes, skins, mission mastery. Let's hope he'll put it to good use.

Gun Fighters 3c

Dec 2000

pros:

• plays with skins [claims shapes and skins are new, but appear to be copies of the exact corrupt shapes in CWF and Planes]
• some attempt at gun bubble correction

cons:

• major shape bugs, copied from object to object
• will cause memory holes and windows lock ups

A starter LIB with hopefully potential to improve.

Jan 15, 2000

CWF

CWF 0.7 1999/01

Well it’s a big lib with an impressive amount of work. Now the bad news just kidding that will come later. Well I only flew it for 120 mins so far... I'll try to BE positive! Ok I do like the visuals, fire rates, textures, more screen shaking but ran into many fatal crashes with smoke radius errors [might be associated with smoke specs from PMok] the loadouts were one of the best [except the cheats associated with MER use] F22N did not land on ships What was missing. [thanks to the lib crack one can look inside for not-so-right specs]

There were many and I’ve just started: Did not have to go far to find bias in favour of US planes Proper G load factors were inconsistent but attempted planes such as F16 had a 1/255 load factor = cheat, F22 0=loaded G drag yet another 9 G F/A 18 with limited loaded effects=cheat Weapon weights were not corrected, MER [yuk] rack rates not accounted for. Gun damage slightly high [some like the DEFA had the same amount of damage against any type of target]

General Envelope errors: G pull drag too low Dive angle not corrected [see my FAQ] - meaning no dead stick landings, bowling ball glide ratios climb angles increased on US planes roll rates increased on F22 etc [when they should haven been decreased] vertical ‘flop’ speed too high [you can drop many planes like a rock on landing - not so] - try values 35-55 minimal altitudes too low [try 1000’ for a F-104 4000’ for a Draken]

Political poop like ‘Iraqi trash’ and killing dope smugglers [a black market that only gets stronger with prohibition don’t you know] could be dropped as well.

good note CWF is taking into account my suggestion for improvements - watch their lib folks!

CWF 0.8

under eval 1999/07

• lib failed to correct many problems

Centurian Co. [not be confused with Centurian even though they were run by the same person ??!?!?!]

CGR Centurian Game Remod

3.13

Released Date: Aug 13, 2000

Reviewed: Aug 13, 2000

Global Tribunal author Galen Thurber attempted to build bridges: In early Aug 2000 GT extended an invitation to James "Centurian" to develope his lib making skills as well as contribute to flightsimHQ by joining the team. He did decide to join but later removed himself due to pressures as he said from his FA squad 666th [Grim Reapers] to quit flightsimHQ. This is too bad.

To the review:

Preliminary

Good:

• lib is importable [can be checked easily]
• attempted hit point fixes
• attempted altitude restrictions on some weapons
• seeker loadouts

Bad:

• no flight envelopes fixes or
• very minor changes in envelopes [he declared this]
• none of the major flight envelope bugs fixed from default FA
• landing speeds high, descent rate unchanged = land on roof tops if you want!]
• gun fire rate bug still present in his libs, [this results slow, unstable multi-player and cheats for faster CPUs]
• 9g F/A-18s = cheat
• F22n carrier ready = not real
• F22 has no bays?
• use of multi ejector racks [what I consider a big cheat, since their misuse can not be stopped] rack weight also was not included
• certain planes given min alt of 0 feet
• M61 gun given 1.6 range while others 1.2
• gun ranges hit point basic template not energy derived
• RKB cluster bombs radius 100% = too high [also their hit points are less than US clusters]
• too large target cones on most weapons
• linear hit point scale [doesn't account for 3d space]
• gun BK27 does not miss under 0.6 miles, does not hit past 0.6 miles
• GSH23-6 has higher damage points than GSH30-6
• MK20 high armour damage
• missle speeds are closer to accurate but fail to compensate for game bug speed limitation [cheat for faster CPUS]
• most missiles have same manoeuvreing and final tracking chance of hit = very unrealistic
• some a2g weapons have very low chance of final miss, agm84a, 84e, ...
• a2a phoenix is powered through entire flight
• not enough limitations after missiles are unpowered
• weapons hit percentage too low on older weapons, this is big mistake default Janes ATFG/FA used
• no general reduction is hit bubbles = way too easy to hit targets with guns and missiles
• CM quantities too high
• ECM values many cheats
• SAMs not targeting enough, too low hit percentage = they won't fire until too late

Conclusion:

• not for multi player, will cause lag and crashing
• US planes have gun advantage
• not recommended for IRONS only play, blast radius and percentage inconsistent
• AI / computer enemy will be handicapped, more if they use older weapons

Suggestions

• read up on weapon hits points in GT FAQ, Weapons libmasters tips
• split ECM from CM
• libmastering requires attention to detail and consistency, few can obtain ...
• avoid known cheats and bugs
• resist claiming accuracy when they are not
• learn from flightsimHQ

Good news as of Fall 2000, James has become a contributor in the flightsimHQ team.

CGR 3.xxx

Iceman's

3.01 [the definitive in LIB bunk]

Oh my I was surprised when I read the documentation. How could someone get so many things ass backwards in their edits! It can be done. There are good points however.

"A note on planes: most (but not all) of the jet-powered aircraft in the game have had their engine power-up/power-down times increased, to be more realistic. By comparison, many propeller-powered aircraft have had their power-up/power-down time decreased, also in the interest of realism. Also, a number of planes have had their stall-speeds (especially the F-22 and the X-planes) increased. This increases their takeoff run, but also makes landing easier (and makes flying them a little more realistic). In the stock game, some planes wouldn't want to land until you were under a hundred knots and nearly stalling. Finally, many planes have had their wheel brakes strengthened, to be more realistic. Some planes just didn't want to stop on the ground."

approx 650 objects, some barely changed, some borrowed.

pros:

• transports are reduced in hit points
• some stall speeds guessed at but at least increased
• base gun fixed a bit
• use of generic laser seekers to help ships react and track better
• rare few minute changes to aerodynamic drag on a few planes, still very low

cons: [take a deep breath if reading aloud]

• read only, hides the BS
• powerup increased on jets! wrong way
• wheel brakes strengthened! wrong way, planes stop way too short as it is
• clueless to the game scale bug
• ECM increased on already cheater planes !
• ECM jammer pods complete cluelessness in edits
• JSF = cheater plane
• chaff and flares increased! wrong way. Clueless edits
• use of MER to cheat loadouts
• Ramjet missles are not faster than rockets moron
• cheater weapons like aim120r, agm65, agm84e ... on & on
• runway damage increased! wrong again
• unguided rockets cheat, increased blast radius instead of decrease
• No fixing of gun bubbles
• a2a missles still too slow
• gun fire rate bug [0 delay], linked to CPU speed. bad bad bad
• many shortcuts in edits, many very similar objects just copied
• way too low loaded drag performance reductions

Does ICEMAN even read other sites on how to make libs properly?

old

2.5 LIB

2000/0829

• objects= 396
• sounds= some new, some from cwf
• icons= look good
• nukes= loads of them
• flight envelope fixes= none existent
• selection screen indicators [what was changed?] none

Plane are generally not touched AT ALL except to increase loadouts on American planes. Same old crappy default bugs and cheats from FA.

• Base gun hit points reduced=more fair for ABA
• damage points, guessed at and inconsistent
• A10 loadout increased = wrong
• F22n = loadout wrong, cheat? ...
• x30 = interesting fiction
• ...
• MERs (Multiple Ejector Racks) cheat ability
• Documentation limited but in some respects adequate
• does not live up to documentation claims
• rife with clueless blanket edits
• non importable

ECM x32 and f22 get an extra boost = cheat, clueless

Ordinance Poorly done, realistic it is not.

GUNS Guns suffer the major CPU fire rate bug, causing multiplayer game lag and cheat. Hit points are off. Hit bubbles are off. Soviet guns hit points lowered, unfair. Nearly all guns have same speed, clueless. Plus Gsh30 and Gsh30x6 have same hit points and fire rate; guess those other 5 barrels do not work! DEFA handicapped.

A2A AA11s crippled while Aim9 boosted. NATO cheats. AA12 minor improvement in ECM resistance and chance of hit; still handicapped. All A2A missiles are equally agile with final tracking miss at 9%, purely clueless edits.

ASM Many ASMS given easier final tracking making it much easier to kill ships. Cheat given to both sides, except a few nonNATO ASMS which have no ECM resistance, meaning they are nearly ineffective unless you are hunting fishing boats!

SAMS Sa10 is wrong in many areas, speed is wrong at 1000kmph Many sams have their hit percentage set too low, causes computer not to fire at you.

Conclusion: clueless arcade LIB. This lib will serve to make it even easier to win the arcade. The author with all his sim experience and research should be able to produce much better work. There are plenty of LIB making resources out there GT patches are importable look at them for reference

TimSmith

pros:

• bright fellow, perceptive
• incorporates Global Tribunal gun bubbles
• uses some rough aerodynamics edits from GT
• in depth research
• not US NATO biased
• good icons
• good selection of weapons

cons:

• no visual indication of what objects have changed
• limited anti-cheat features [cheat libs can be used on top if his LIB]
• too many weapon objects, looses ECM pods in process

VNFA

Jan 2001.

WOW if you are looking for arrogance, paranoia and control, HOTSNOT has a team for you. Quite a pity since they are precise in their edits and their research is quite good. Of course the commander is a very pro-American Christians and is intolerate.

They are the skins Kings for now and weild that the crown with smite to those they precieve as a threat.

They are up on eye candy as well, and they even know their stuff instead of faking it

VNFA main web site has annoying JAVA script that has caused browser crashes for over a year. Still no fix. Site too slow!!

Their products are read-only but can be decompiled to see what was really going on inside. Let's take a look shall we?

Korea 1950s [2000 build]

pros:

• very good textures [seen even better skins and textures on the way]
• great attention to details
• good loadouts & placements
• documented and executed missions

cons:

• militantly closed source, read only [sneaky]
• use of copyright materials, images
• limited anti-cheat value
• aerodynamics unchanged or incorrect
• movement data fudged, way off
• couple of duplicate objects that will cause memory leaks
• torpedo is super
• flak is still crippled
• no visual indication of what objects are changed

end