Flight Sims

[Strelok]

Commercial planes, Warbirds, etc, post about them here.

Been playing Rise of Flight after getting most of the DLCs for cheap, messing about with the ingame career while I wait for the slightly better external career app to update to fix some rather bad bugs.

Currently flying the Airco DH2, a POS pusher aircraft with a rear mounted engine because at that point they had no idea how to fire a gun through the propeller so they decided fuck it mount the pilot infront of the engine. Haven't got a kill yet this career as a pusher craft has a big speed disadvantage, but it's a fresh career so no surprise there, only 58min of flight time in 3 days on the front.

My biggest problem is I am terrible at keeping track of my own squad, so when we finish up a job like attacking some balloons, I have completely lost my flight and need to manually navigate home using a map and landmarks because my flight commander is nowhere to be seen. I've been able to find my way home every time, but I'm afraid what might happen if I have to do the navigation while wounded or with a damaged bird, because in career mode dead is dead.

So, anyone else play flight sims?

 

[Overcast]

It's a genre I'd like to get into.

Closest thing I've played to a flight simulator would probably be Star Fox 64.

Anyone got any recommendations?

 

[Ron_Swanson]

It's a genre I'd like to get into.

Closest thing I've played to a flight simulator would probably be Star Fox 64.

Anyone got any recommendations?

I'm very new to the flight sim thing because of not having a powerful enough computer most of the time, but I was surprised by the graphics and how ok a couple of the flight sims in the iOS market are. if you can find it in your marketplace for whatever mobile device you own, 'Carrier Landings' is one game I was surprised by, and it has a 'lite' version to try out.

Don't go for the carrier landings right away, just try flying around, see if you have fun with that, then try a landing on the ground landing strip.

Flight simulation for me is mostly about sticking to realism so the more buttons I can push the happiest I am, and for a mobile game I found Carrier Landings satisfying, haha. I just a couple days ago got Flight Simulator X for steam, it's the first one I play after messing around with FS '98 back in the day.

 

[Strelok]

It's a genre I'd like to get into.

Closest thing I've played to a flight simulator would probably be Star Fox 64.

Anyone got any recommendations?

IL2 Sturmovik 1946 is pretty ace and can be had for like $10. It's mostly eastern front and pacific warfare though, little to no western front action. Rise of Flight which is WW1 also has a demo on steam (listed under f2p because they charge per plane) that has a couple of planes, enough to do a chunk of the default career mode, although personally I prefer the external app Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator for RoF, especially as it lets you select what planes you own so you can narrow down when you can play.

That said for any flight sim, if you don't have at least a twist stick, you're not gonna do well at all as the tail rudder is instrumental to dogfighting. The Logitech Extreme 3d Pro is like $25 though, so no excuses.

 

[millais]

Nowadays, I mostly play Strike Fighters 2 with lots of mods for Korean War combat in addition to the default Vietnam and post-Vietnam scenarios. The AI is way better than the IL-2 series and it straddles the gap between WWII guns-only combat and DCS World with all their fancy BVR and heat-seeking air-to-air missiles. Strike Fighters 2 series has acceptable graphics (with mods it's better than IL-2 1946 imo), the flight models are comparable to IL-2, and it's playable with keyboard and mouse if you can't afford a HOTAS joystick setup.

It's no DCS for sure, but it's a pretty good entry-level series for people interested in post-1945 jet combat, especially for the Korean, Vietnam, and Israeli wars. There are some pretty good WWI and WWII mods for Strike Fighters as well, but I've long since grown tired of those eras.

 

[millais]

Here is BLACK DICK, a F-86F-10 of 2 Squadron SAAF that was my trusty steed for a handful of sorties during a playthrough of a 1952-1953 Korean War campaign before the airframe was written off due to severe combat damage. I didn't think a fighter-bomber campaign would be that fun, but with something as fast and stable as a soft wing F-86F, it's child's play to put rockets and bombs on target, and you can still mix it up with MiGs on equal terms.

 

[millais]

I'm trying out Rise of Flight as well. Everyone gets the Nieuport 17, SPAD XIII, and Albatros D.Va for free, so I don't feel compelled to buy anything yet. The Albatros is very easy to fly even with only keyboard input in lieu of a joystick, so after a handful of successful practice dogfights against low-difficulty AI, I'm dicking around in career mode with it. Haven't scored any gun kills in career yet due to AI squadmates stealing all my kills at the last minute, but I did get a confirmed ramming kill on a British Nieuport 17 in a turning dogfight over no-man's-land. The collision ripped off my propeller and gave me a good jolt, but luckily I was able to glide back to German lines since all my control surfaces were undamaged and I had plenty of altitude to spare.

 

[AN/ALR56]

Falcon 4 allied force and the dcs family of combat sims are sick dude.
They are the best.
If you want naval patrol,anti sub warfare and shit,dangerous waters is the way to go,best p3 Orion sim I've saw.
Ww2 is il 2 1946 and il 2 cliffs of dover modded and il 2 battle of stalingrad

 

[Skeletor]

Flight sims were my jam back in the 90s. Used to play the heck out of Red Baron. Haven't really touched one in ages.

 

[AN/ALR56]

Flight sims were my jam back in the 90s. Used to play the heck out of Red Baron. Haven't really touched one in ages.

Try falcon 4 man

Or if you don't like modern combat,il 2 46 is awesome

 

[millais]

Played some more Rise of Flight, really impressed by the level of customizability they give you. I can pimp out my Albatros with all kinds of optional flight instrumentation, half of which I'm not sure how to read. The most useful ones are a primitive ammo gauge, a radiator temp thermometer, a high altitude altimeter, and an anenometer that displays IAS but is a bitch to check in the middle of combat because it is mounted on the starboard wing bracing. There are also two different optional reflector gunsights and one extra ringpost sight, but unfortunately I can't use any of them because they are not centerline mounted and I don't have Track IR. Another interesting optional upgrade is an overwing Lewis gun in the Foster-style adjustable sliding mount taken as a trophy from some fallen British flyer. I imagine it will be useful for tackling twin-seaters from below, but for now it's too much of a liability in dogfights against single seaters. The Lewis gun's 8 kg mass and high mounting really screws with the stability of the Albatros by making it wobbly and top heavy, it obstructs my forward view, it doesn't converge on the same fire trajectory as my twin LMG 08/15s, and it takes forever to swap drum mags after exhausting their 47 round capacity. The coolest optional upgrade has to be the personal sidearm with four spare magazines that you can draw and fire in flight. You have a choice of Colt M1911, Webley revolver, M1892 revolver, Luger P08, or Mauser C96. So far I've been rocking the C96 because of it's superior 10 round capacity and high muzzle velocity, though I don't think my occasional potshots have hit anything yet. Best part is that the sidearm doesn't replace your flare gun, so you can still use the latter to take out observation balloons.

 

[millais]

After having three Sopwith Pups stolen from me by the same greedy Hauptmann Walter (they were all forced landing kills over British lines, so maybe they wouldn't have increased my score anyway), I finally made ace by downing a string of R.E.8 twin seaters. They have pretty tough airframes, hard to kill them without either an engine kill or a solid burst to the wingroot to shear off a wing. Usually the rear gunner manages to shoot off a few of my bracing wires and about a quarter of the time, he manages to wound my pilot, so they are not sitting ducks by any means. For a long time though R.E.8s were all I could find, while everybody else in my Jasta was having the good fortune to mix it up with Nieuports, SPADs, and Sopwiths. Fortunately, the kill-stealing Hauptmann got his due when he got into a dogfight over British lines and I ditched his ass to get some more R.E.8s. With the Hauptmann dead, I was quickly able to climb the Jasta scoreboard with more R.E.8s and most recently what appeared to be an inexperienced training flight of 8 Sopwith Triplanes. They had the altitude advantage over my lone Albatros, but I was able to pick them off one by one by dragging them into maneuvering combat. Very easy to kill, even a short burst across the wings will cause enough damage for the wing spars to tear themselves to pieces if the Triplane keeps maneuvering. I followed that massacre up with a very unsporting battle over a British aerodrome where two other Albatrosen and I vulched a mixed bag of vulnerable British fighters, resulting in a SPAD kill for me.

My pilot's career record so far (it doesn't display barrage balloon kills for some reason):

The recent battle with the noob Sopwith Triplanes and SPAD was the most fun and exciting part so far. There was one point where I managed to induce a cowardly Triplane into doing battle with me by successfully scoring a potshot on him from below with my Mauser C96 pistol. But the long string of R.E.8 duels earlier in my playthrough was excruciatingly boring/painful. The two exceptions were one R.E.8 that I managed to engine snipe from 700 m away and another R.E.8 that I managed to kill despite missing half of my upper starboard wing, which had ripped off during an inconclusive brawl with a Sopwith.

 

[KatsuKitty]

MS Flight Simulator used to be considered the gold standard; what is it today?

 

[RP 520]

MS Flight Simulator used to be considered the gold standard; what is it today?

It's been a long time since I've been into the flight simulator scene but I am going to say that X-Plane is currently the go-to.

FS2004 was the last true flight simulator I played. I used to download early 1900's experimental plane add-ons and WW1 aircraft, turn all the realism settings to max and then attempt to do crazy stunts, usually ending with the planes stalling out or failing structurally.

 

[Ronald Gaygun]

Oh man, Microsoft FS was the shit when I was a kid, played so much of 2002 and 2004.

I bought the Falcon collection on GOG a few weeks ago, but I haven't really given it a shot yet because I don't have a joystick right now. Is it still worth it? I read somewhere they don't need a stick, but I'm not sure.

 

[millais]

MS Flight Simulator used to be considered the gold standard; what is it today?

Today the gold standard for realism is DCS (Digital Combat Simulator). Nothing can beat DCS in terms of flight model and cockpit fidelity. It's as close to the real thing as you can get without stepping into a multimillion dollar industry-grade simulator. To get the most out of DCS, you have to spend a good amount of time studying the real flight manuals for the aircraft and memorizing lengthy takeoff sequences before you can even fire up the engines.

The only bad thing about DCS is the price (each plane has to be purchased individually and they are upwards of 25-30 USD) and the current lack of historical combat matchups. I think right now its mainly P-51D vs Fw 190D, Su-25 vs A-10, and F-86F vs MiG-15bis. Hopefully that gets better with time as they implement new aircraft with DCS World.

Also I think DCS is probably unplayable without a HOTAS stick, rudder pedals, and a TrackIR set up.

 

[Strelok]

For me in Rise of Flight, nothing is as exciting as being a recon plane, although I dont think any of the base planes can do this. Circling over enemy detachments, directing artillery, all while under heavy ground fire is amazing. That said you probably want to run mods for that, as stock flak can be.. problematic at low altitudes. I don't have the download links anymore, but here's just the list of enabled mods I run. I think the majority were from a compilation mod somewhere on the RoF forum, which if so could probably be found with a bit of searching.

Spoiler: tall image

Most of this stuff is squadron skins and such (And the GUI mod is only for Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator), but some of it is very helpful especially for recon careers.

EDIT: Actually, went and compressed the non-skins mods which amount to around 600mb uncompressed (with skins we're looking at around 20GB) http://www.filedropper.com/mods_12

Use at own risk, backup files, blah blah you know the drill. Best if used with JGSE enabler to automatically mange backups and such.

 

[millais]

Just downed some more R.E.8s and Sopwith Triplanes. I also discovered that if you fire the flare gun straight down into your cockpit, it severely wounds your pilot and can knock you out of the war for three days while your pilot recuperates from the third degree burns in the field hospital. That was some serious bullshit, since my pilot has just started being regularly assigned offensive CAP missions in Allied airspace where contact with the enemy is far more likely than in defensive patrols over German lines. But overall I'm having a pretty good time with Rise of Flight even though I'm only flying with keyboard controls and the free planes. I have WASD rigged up for pitch and roll, QE for yaw, mouse wheel for throttle, and I use the mouse to look around. It's a little hard to fly straight and keep a solid bead on targets moving in a straight line, but not too difficult to set up deflection snapshots like in a flat scissors or plain old turnfight. So actually fighting maneuvering single seat fighters is very doable, though hunting non-maneuvering two seaters is more of a challenge.

Only complaint with the Albatros D.Va so far is that it's very fragile in a dive or G-inducing maneuver and it doesn't have any great gunsight options for people without Track IR. Once I finish my Albatros career, I think I'll definitely be trying out the free SPAD S.XIII in career mode as well.

 

[millais]

For me in Rise of Flight, nothing is as exciting as being a recon plane, although I dont think any of the base planes can do this. Circling over enemy detachments, directing artillery, all while under heavy ground fire is amazing. That said you probably want to run mods for that, as stock flak can be.. problematic at low altitudes. I don't have the download links anymore, but here's just the list of enabled mods I run. I think the majority were from a compilation mod somewhere on the RoF forum, which if so could probably be found with a bit of searching.

Spoiler: tall image

Most of this stuff is squadron skins and such (And the GUI mod is only for Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator), but some of it is very helpful especially for recon careers.

EDIT: Actually, went and compressed the non-skins mods which amount to around 600mb uncompressed (with skins we're looking at around 20GB) http://www.filedropper.com/mods_12

Use at own risk, backup files, blah blah you know the drill. Best if used with JGSE enabler to automatically mange backups and such.

Will mods still work even if I'm just running the free-to-play version of the game so long as they don't rely on the premium content? I assume environmental mods and that kind of thing would still work in my f2p version.

 

[Strelok]

Will mods still work even if I'm just running the free-to-play version of the game so long as they don't rely on the premium content? I assume environmental mods and that kind of thing would still work in my f2p version.

They should, since the game still has all the requisite files because otherwise MP would be a disaster.