Good Flying Fighter Sims

[Luciel]

Just got a new joystick after many years of mine been broken, so i played my fav fighter game F-22 Raptor, trouble is, appart from that i don't really know any other (sure i've heard of falcon 4 but doesnt attract me) i've also been recommended il sturmovik and b16 flying fortress, are these any good? and any other recs?

[d0hnut]

Heya,

mmm, it would be hard to surpass either sim you already mentioned tbh. IL-2/Pacific Fighters is surely the King of propeller powered aircraft and WW2 simulation and Falcon 4 is the Emperor of all sims (some bias in there ofc ). IL2/PF features some 200 aircraft! and Falcon 4 nowadays allows you to fly around 40 different combat aircraft iirc (varying degrees of simulation apply here though) but the popular modern combat aircraft are all covered F-16/15/14/18/117 etc in glorious detail - oh, the A-10 is there too!

Only MS Flight Sim 2004/5 and X Planes remain but they are mainly civil/airline (zzzz!?) sims. Mind you, MS Flight Sim does provide a very uber helicopter simulation on full realism if you can master it. IL-2 and F4 have very loyal and dedicated communities constantly developing new content also. Well worth checking out I'd say.

Have you flown in BF2 with joystick? It's so much better, imo anyway. Or Flashpoint? OFP helo's are superb with a joystick, much more satisfying to control!

Dang, you got me talking about airplanes!

Enjoy, over & out!

[Luciel]

Hey i just tried il2 the combat is awsome however it takes like 5-10 mins b4 it in every mission which is annoying about falcon 4 i couldnt find it anywhere, unlike il2 which was rereleased for 5 quid so that's how i got it, about bf2, yeah i tried it with joystick, so hard though

[d0hnut]

Falcon 4 is soon to be kinda rereleased (upgraded heavily) by Lead Pursuit so it will be available in EU sometime soon, afaik its out in the US since June so keep a lookout for that.

If you want fast/cool action in IL-2 you need to get Hyperlobby (google it, i would post url if you want but that kinda thing can get me banned without permissions etc ) and register and this opens up loads of multiplayer game types for all different levels and it's kinda like instant action on demand!

BF2 with joystick hard? I cannot fly anything properly in it with keyboard !! I guess it's what one is used to and with practice you might see many benefits. Maybe you are missing rudder control? What type of stick is it? I use Thrustmaster FLCS + pedals for F4/IL-2 but MS Sidewinder FF for BF2/OFP etc.

hope this helps.

[Luciel]

its a sidewinder without pedals, also, ill have a look out for F4 and dont worry about posting links, im a mod , isnt that the publisher of F22 Raptor? in another note, the game i love playing with the joystick is freespace 2

[d0hnut]

So do you have a 'twist' action on the handle? If so, you can assign that to the rudder controls or as the Alternate control for A and D (in BF2/OFP). Now if you 'twist' (rudder) the stick in the same direction you are turning (aileron + elevator or left/right + up/down) you will turn harder, faster and smoother bring enormous accuracy to your flying in both fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Now you can influence the craft on 3 axes simultaneously, something that, although doable, is extremely irritating to try via the keyboard (in my opinion!).

I think F4: Allied Force will be near enough full retail price on release so will probably only appeal to simnuts. It depends on what you want. If you want to learn a lot about and really experience military aircraft and operations then F4 has no equal. It's multiplayer dynamic campaign is simply awesome and second to nothing in the world! (outside of CIA/NORAD at least ). A good place to visit, particularly for the forums, is http://forums.frugalsworld.com/vbb/index.php? which has a varied and very active global sim community.

Just called a friend who works for GAME and he says Sep. 16th for F4: Allied Force in the UK.

http://www.simhq.com/_air5/air_160a.html
Some 'warm fuzzy feeling' reading about the upcoming F4:AF release!

http://hyperfighter.sk/modules.php?n...showpage&pid=5
"HyperLobby (or just HL) is an online gaming lobby primarily designed to support online flight simulation and other online games." - have used to play IL-2/PF online.

I've played most space sims games a bit X, Starlancer, Freelancer, Xwing/Tie, Edge of Independence (I think, green cover), hmm, I played the original Elite on C64 (no agist remarks please ) but I dont get the sense of speed in space that you do 200ft over terra firma at Mach 1.2+

One last thing ( I promise) forget B-17 Flying Fortress. If you want to experience that WW2 gaming, load up IL-2 fully patched and select one of many bombers. You can then allocate human crew members in either LAN or online who man the turret guns, pilot/copilot seats and bombardier sight. This is truly awesome with good players. I've not done it online myself but have done several LAN session in multi-crewed bombers - it r0x - but it's hard on realistic !

hope this helps!

[Flanker]

What the hell? No one mentioned about Lock On yet? That's THE Best modern flight sim, not to mention its beautiful especially with its new addon Lock On 1.1 Flaming Cliffs. You should drop by the site http://lockon.ru/ and check it out yourself.

[Luciel]

i installed b17, and cant even move, theres so many controls and things i dont understand and the tutorial doesnt even give u a clue of what u gotta do it assumes u alredy know most stuff, it's real annoying

[d0hnut]

@Flanker, Lock on or Log off?

@Luciel - well .... a B-17 has 4 engines and a wide range of instruments and controls. I'm not sure about B-17 Flying Fortress (game) but I know in IL-2 you can dumb down the complexity of the game whereby all the difficult stuff is done automatically by an Autopilot. Also, it might help to start in mid-air, say 20,000ft to allow some time to get things under control

[Luciel]

oh i get il 2 its fine after u know what everythings for, but b17 is just badly designed with begginers not in mind.