Why no Combat Flight Sims???

Remember "Janes Combat Sims" Specifically "USAF"? When will there be some more Flight simulators like that?? HAWKs was obviously a Joke in comparison - and MS-Flight X isnt exactly a Combat Simulator..

With today's graphics and controlers, etc...and with the lack of original game stories, I think now would be good timing for a Super Realistic Simulator..

How Say You > ?

Yeah the series did just slowed down quite abit... I guess no market for them. Still have my Janes AWF collection and whatnot. The only recent game is DCS - Black Shark Heli. Then we also Falcon 4.0: Allied Force.

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/

http://www.lead-pursuit.com/products.htm

Wings of Prey came out back in December. Its decent and a WWII flight sim/arcade game.

My guess is combat sims are as hard to get into as flight sims. There's definitely a learning curve. That said, I started out my pc gaming with flight sims which is still my favorite genre.

unfortunatly america has been quite strict on the flight sim genre..... ever since 2001..

this is sad, but they are starting to get some back as of late, with hawx and the ww2 one someone mentioned earlier.

My guess is combat sims are as hard to get into as flight sims. There's definitely a learning curve. That said, I started out my pc gaming with flight sims which is still my favorite genre.

jun_aka_pekto

unfortunatly america has been quite strict on the flight sim genre..... ever since 2001..

this is sad, but they are starting to get some back as of late, with hawx and the ww2 one someone mentioned earlier.

Lach0121

Last I've heard Lead Pursuit was working on something, but I don't know anything else about it. Lead Pursuit are the guys that bought the rights to Spectrum Holobyte's Falcon 4.0 and released, Falcon 4.0: Allied Force.Threesixtyci

But it would be great if got to work on a kick-A&& Sim..

[QUOTE="Threesixtyci"]Last I've heard Lead Pursuit was working on something, but I don't know anything else about it. Lead Pursuit are the guys that bought the rights to Spectrum Holobyte's Falcon 4.0 and released, Falcon 4.0: Allied Force.Xsan3

But it would be great if got to work on a kick-A&& Sim..

[QUOTE="Threesixtyci"]Last I've heard Lead Pursuit was working on something, but I don't know anything else about it. Lead Pursuit are the guys that bought the rights to Spectrum Holobyte's Falcon 4.0 and released, Falcon 4.0: Allied Force.Xsan3

But it would be great if got to work on a kick-A&& Sim..

Frugal's forum is down now. Guy had divorce or something and couldn't keep the site up. It's unknown if it will ever come back.

As far as I know, this is the last post on the subject of what happened to Frugal's site:

10/26/09

The server was moved and it seems the machine it was moved onto was simply not up to the job. I now need to upgrade to a new server which is going to cost an extra 50 bucks a month. However the time it is going to take to rebuild the server is the main issue. On the good news front as far as I can tell the forum backup is intact and so we should not lose any forum posts, at worst we will lose 24 hours worth.

For those that don't know I am a single parent to my 3 children these days. I also work full time. This means that the web site, although very dear to my heart, is quite low priority. It does not help that as the server went down my ex decided that she wants to try to get the house. Fortunately the kids told her outright that they don't want to live with her, they want to stay with me. This has meant that she has dropped the idea of getting custody (for now). As you can imagine it's been a very tough few weeks, actually it's been a very tough year.

My main focus in the very short term is spending this weeks school holiday with my kids at our caravan in Clacton. My next focus is going to be trying to secure my house for my kids future. My ex is willing to sign it over to me now so that she can get a place off the council but that is going to be costly and pointless if she can still take the house (or rather force me to sell it) as part of the divorce settlement.

In the background I will be trying to get the site back online particularly for the hosted sites like Cougar World and eBattalion, the latter of which I am very concious of how important it is to the people that use it while their loved ones are deployed.

FW has had a good run over the last 10 years and I don't intend it to end here, but it is going to be a bumpy road for a while.

12/30/09

I'm a bit behind schedule getting the server back up as I've had the flu and Christmas has been pretty busy. The last few days I had to choose between spending my time with a beautiful girl or getting the server back up. Now FW means the world to me but it was a no brainer. FW will be back up pretty soon but it looks like my traditional New Year message will be a couple of days late in 2010.Frugal

Ah-I see (judging by ur Avatar :D)...The learning curve is what makes it fun sometimes, ya know? Vearing away from teh basic WSAD - to an entire Keyboard of Functions (Excluding WOW & EVEonline) Xsan3

Sometimes the learning curve can be a bit too much. The environment also takes getting used to. Unlike regular fps games, combat/flight sims are always in a full 3d environment. It's easy to lose sight of an enemy. If the physics are good, you might find yourself in a stall or uncontrollable spin if you depart from the flight envelope of the aircraft. That still happens to me from time to time.

For many people, that's too much when all they want to do is game.

There are still some good sims out there, with more on the way. Sadly, the audience for flight sims has remained pretty much static since the mid-90s when flight sims, RPGs, and wargames made up the lion's share of the PC market. PCs were much harder to use back then, so PC users tended to be people who were technically competent and had an affinity for complex systems, analytical thought, and problem solving. These were the kind of gamers who enjoyed cracking open a 200+ page manual and having to put in the time and effort to learn how to operate a virtual F-15 radar system.

Once PCs OS's became easier to use, they went mainstream. The gaming audience got much wider and more casual. twich based gamers became the target audience. Better, more powerful PCs meant development cycles became much longer as gamers expected better and better graphics and features. Since the hardcore flight sim audience wasn't getting any bigger, most publishers stopped funding flight sim development as the profit just wasn't what they could get if theey churned out Call of Duty.

Now, flight sims are pretty much a niche market dominated by a few Eastern European development teams with a smattering of budget titles coming from elsewhere.

There are some good sims out there, you just have to dig a little to find them.

Head over to www.SimHQ.com to find some good reviews, articles, and forums.

Some games you might want to have a look at:

WWI

Rise of Flight

Over Flanders Fields III

First Eagles

WWII

IL-2: 1946

Battle of Britain II

Storm of War

Rising Sun

Modern era/Hypothetical

DCS: Black Shark

DCS: A-10

Flaming Cliffs

Strike Fighters 2: Europe

Strike Fighters 2: Israel

Strike Fighters 2: Vietnam

Yankee Air Pirate 2

I think they're hard to get into, hence why we get stuff like HAWX instead of good dogfight simulations. Although to be honest it's kind of hard to keep track of the battle when your vision inside the cockpit is so limited. The controls get pretty complicated when you're looking around the cockpit (you know, looking up/sides/back to track the enemy) while at the same time trying to fly the plane.F1_2004

Buy a TrackIR! Never have a problem with your view again (unless you're flying a bi- or triplane in Rise of Flight and then you'll be cursing the top wings)

Here's a good video showing how it works.

I'm looking forward to Storm of War as well, but UBI's new DRM scheme has me a bit worried. I dislike the fact that all save files are stored on UBI servers rather than on my PC. I doubt it'll matter much to SOW, but for games like Silent Hunter V, it'll mean modding will be next to impossible.

[QUOTE="F1_2004"]I think they're hard to get into, hence why we get stuff like HAWX instead of good dogfight simulations. Although to be honest it's kind of hard to keep track of the battle when your vision inside the cockpit is so limited. The controls get pretty complicated when you're looking around the cockpit (you know, looking up/sides/back to track the enemy) while at the same time trying to fly the plane.bogaty

Buy a TrackIR! Never have a problem with your view again (unless you're flying a bi- or triplane in Rise of Flight and then you'll be cursing the top wings)

Here's a good video showing how it works.

[QUOTE="Iantheone"]Im waiting for a new IL-2 game. I just want the same game with better graphics. I usually fly really close to the ground and end up crashing into trees because they arent rendered in 3d (so i cant see them from the side). Also we need more planes in the battles. @F1_2004: Ive never had a problem flying the plane and keeping an eye on the enemy. Its pretty much the same as driving without staring at the road the entire time.F1_2004

Actually, most do have mirrors.

I still play Jane's Combat Flight Sims today... they are timeless games. F/A-18 is my favorite.

i think rear mirrors have pretty become non-existent since the fourth generation. the cutting edge avionics have rendered such devices.... useless.

Nope. They're still used. Mostly for keeping tabs on your wingman during formation flying.

may i know your source of information? on my end, i've checked actual cockpit shots of every 4th gen fighters i can think of. all post-70s variants have shown no rear mirror. needless to say, it will be unthinkable for 5th gen fighters to rely on such stone-age devices.

Sure. Head over to the SImHQ forums. A fair number of regulars there are Air Force and Navy weenies and they say that mirrors are pretty much a standard feature and drivers will ask to have them put in if they aren't already mounted. This is especially true of the guy who fly CAS. They like having the mirrors to check for optically or heat guided SAM launches and get a visual confirmation of ordinance effects when doing non-stand off ground attacks.