Alpha Sea Venom Out Now!!

[Quixoticish]

that's really tempting. From the screenshots it looks like the same 3rd party developer as the Cutlass - a plane I flew for so many hours and really got my money out of.

The venom is a great looker, especially in paint.

Just a question to owners of the new Sea Venom, in the panel foler is the VC panel bitmap also present next to the 2D bitmap? I love it when they're like that as they're super easy to modify. Second question in the panel.cfg how many Vcockpit sections are there? If just one it means maximum gauge refresh rate which is always tempting and just yearns for modification!

There are two VCockpit sections but only one has physical bitmapped gauges in it, and yes it does have a nice bitmap behind it so it's easy to modify The other VCockpit section is only used for the control gauges like smoke/wingtip vortices and now in my case the radar keyboard control.

Like I said guys for £15.00 this just ticks all of the boxes for me, it feels "right" for reasons that I just can't really elaborate on and unlike a couple of Alphasim releases I don't feel like I've been sold something I probably won't fly again. It does exactly what it says on the tin and for an obsessive tinkerer like myself that's high praise indeed. In fact I may actually get to fly this tonight rather than spending donkeys years modifying the FDE and panel. The only fast jet payware aircraft that I've managed to not spend hours modifying that were in a very good state "out of the box" was Cloud9 Toom a (and obviously IRIS releases but then I manage to have my say during development with the majority of them).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing this to the more far more expensive release from Cloud9 I've just mentioned, you don't get complex systems modelling or anything, but then for £15 you can't really complain.

It's a shame FSX runs like a lame donkey on my system or I'd love to come and join a multiplayer session in one.

[d0mokun]

Hi chaps,

The Cutlass was built by another chap. This one is by Mark Harper (FSDSman) of Phantom phame.

KR
Dan.

[DaveB]

Chris..

Try running FSX 'Windowed' and see how it goes. My load runs a darned sight better.. in fact, it's useable now where it wasn't using 'Fullscreen'. I know it seems a retrograde step and you have to put up with the 'Not so real as it gets' blue bar across the top but you get used to it

OK.. I took the plunge and agree with pretty much everything that's already been said about the Venom. It does seem a tad fast.. moreso when you get to above 500kts and the ASI is only calibrated to 500 so that's where it stays. Thought I'd broken it (in reality.. I probably would have) I needed about 6 taps down in VC to even see the Ark on approach but I did catch the wires so that's another one I walked away from I aimed for around 135kts which is where a Sea Vixen would be.. much bigger.. much heavier.. no comparison really but you gotta start somewhere! Will have to plonk an 'Eyepoint' gauge in the 2D and see how I get on with that

I couldn't find a nav lights switch so hit the 'L' key and checked to see what had moved on the panel.. the cockpit/instrument lights :roll: Sure it didn't work like that on the real one but hey.. that's splitting hairs

Not sure about the sounds but I'd not expect anything even vaguely throaty. I don't think they're far off the mark tbh

Only checked the one paint so far (HMS Eagle colours) and they look okey doh.. suitably sharp even at quite close ranges

One thing has struck me recently and it's slightly off topic. Most of the RN paints on these type of models tend to be for HMS Eagle and what's the one bl**dy carrier we don't have.. HMS EAGLE Rarely do you see any paint with an 'H' or a 'C' or a 'V' or even an 'R' on the tail so on the strength of this.. I motion that someone, somewhere makes an HMS Eagle to go with all our misplaced aircraft

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Quixoticish]

A repaint kit is sadly missing otherwise I would have knocked up a few already. In fact I'll go and nag over on the Alphasim forums (politely of course) for a paint kit.

Regarding FSX Dave, I've just no idea why it runs so utter pants. It was running in low fps when it was released, then with SP1 the fps cleared up but I had a lot of stuttering, so much so to make it unplayable. I've tried all the tweaks, my system is fairly beefy, I've just no idea why. I just gave up in the end, until country-wide UK2000, FSNavigator and a few other things work for FSX I won't get very much enjoyment with it offline.

If the CBFSim multiplayer sessions are turning into regular events however I may install it and give it a crack again, and see if I can get it running smoothly.

[d0mokun]

Dave, quick tip mate! I think.

If the menu bar is annoying you.. press and hold ALT.. it'll go away then. Of course, I might've caught the wrong end of the stick completely! It is 1am after all.

Nighto and enjoy the Venom, chaps.

KR
Dan.

[DaveB]

Yo Dan

Pressing and holding ALT when you're in fullscreen gets rid of the taskbar (I think it was you who guided me onto that little tip some months back) but I don't think.. in fact, I'm pretty darned certain that it won't remove the taskbar in windowed mode as it's a window and not fullscreen.. if that makes sense

Chris..
Yup on the paintkit. I can't remember when Alpha last released a model without one so it was immediately noticeable (by its absence) on the download page. Wonder why?? :think:

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Michael davies]

Dave,

Is it the Windows task bar thats along the bottom with Start and clock and all that crap in that you want to get rid of ?

If so then right click the bar and then click properties, see the auto hide tick box, tick that, then after a few seconds it will go away, to get it back just place the mouse over the lower part of your screen where the task bar would be and hey presto it will appear again, move the mouse away and after a few seconds it will go away, works a treat and you get almost a full screen in windowed mode....which BTW is often much smoother with FS, no matter which platform you prefer, FS9 or FSx. I also tick always place task bar on top, that way you will always see it when you mouse over it.

Best

Michael

Yo Dan

Pressing and holding ALT when you're in fullscreen gets rid of the taskbar (I think it was you who guided me onto that little tip some months back) but I don't think.. in fact, I'm pretty darned certain that it won't remove the taskbar in windowed mode as it's a window and not fullscreen.. if that makes sense

Chris..
Yup on the paintkit. I can't remember when Alpha last released a model without one so it was immediately noticeable (by its absence) on the download page. Wonder why?? :think:

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[steve p]

One thing has struck me recently and it's slightly off topic. Most of the RN paints on these type of models tend to be for HMS Eagle and what's the one bl**dy carrier we don't have.. HMS EAGLE Rarely do you see any paint with an 'H' or a 'C' or a 'V' or even an 'R' on the tail so on the strength of this.. I motion that someone, somewhere makes an HMS Eagle to go with all our misplaced aircraft

Alphasim put up some screenies of a WIP Eagle a couple of months ago.

Best wishes
Steve P

[AndyG]

One thing has struck me recently and it's slightly off topic. Most of the RN paints on these type of models tend to be for HMS Eagle and what's the one bl**dy carrier we don't have.. HMS EAGLE Rarely do you see any paint with an 'H' or a 'C' or a 'V' or even an 'R' on the tail so on the strength of this.. I motion that someone, somewhere makes an HMS Eagle to go with all our misplaced aircraft

Alphasim put up some screenies of a WIP Eagle a couple of months ago.

Best wishes
Steve P

Yep, wasn't it the guy who did the Ark? iirc he was looking to model Eagle at various points of her career.

AndyG

[DaveB]

Chaps..

I think it was Danno who started doing an ArkIV so he'd be the logical man to assume (though this is always dangerous) to be tweeking it in a fashion as to represent Eagle. Btw.. I looked at the other RN paint and it's off the Ark!!! Ain't that typical! Still.. the majority are for Eagle so I'll not withdraw my 'build one' motion

Michael..
No mate.. it's not the bar on the bottom. You know when you open a prog in windows and you get a bar across the top (blue.. title bar I think it's called).. well it's that one mate. I can't see of anyway when using a prog in a window to get rid of this bar.. in fact I'm sure you can't so it's something you have to get used to running FSX in 'windowed mode'. Holding down the Alt key still removes the 'menu' bar as it does when in fullscreen though

ATB

DaveB :tab: