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Flying and fighting in the Classic Jets of the 1950's is different from any other sim experience. You can consider it to be either the end of an era or the start of a new era:
End era: It is the last aerial conflict in which missiles did not play a part
Start era: First Jet to Jet conflict.
Me: What is the single most important ingredient that makes a good combat flight simulation (if it can be identified)?
Rod Hyde: It is difficult to choose. They are all important at different times. When a sim pilot first installs the game, he notices these things:
- It works! - this is much more likely now than the bad old DOS days.
- User friendliness
- Graphics
- Flight Model
- Situational Awareness
If any of these are not right then there is the chance that he/she will not persevere. It does not matter how good the rest of the game is, we have to get past the first ten minutes.
Then the other things become important:
- Dynamic campaign
- Historical accuracy
- AI
- Multiplayer options
- Special effects
- Radio chatter and communicating with ai pilots
- Replay
Military vs. 50$ flight simsWhile being more elaborate and leaning more towards historical accuracy, these answers are rather similar to those of the '3-wire' team, namely that the experience of a real pilot is trying to be replicated. The abundance of features listed here shows, though, that we simmers have in my opinion become spoiled regarding what to expect. Whenever I break a new box containing the latest sim and put the CD in, I am always in awe of everything I got for a mere 50$ or so. Yet, any self respecting hardcore simmer should do an inner search at this point and ask her- or himself whether all these features are really what he or she should be expecting from a good flight sim. Are we and our own demands really not pushing the development teams too far? I do not want to hinder development, but, given the current not so bright position of flight sims within the flow of game industry, isn't our reluctance towards sims that are otherwise hardcore but do not have as many playability improving features at this point in time doing the community harm?
The approach of many combat sims of today is in contrast with what the real military training flight sims are about. These do not need to present a totally immersive environment for the pilot as more than anything they are procedural and combat skill trainers. They need not, for example, present a persistent combat environment.
Many home computer simmers are surprised by the lack of features of the costly professional simulators. The relatively cheap boxes with CDs and manuals that we buy are really a marvel of programming and execution. They need all the possible features because the focus of most of our current (pilot) sims is to immerse the player into an interactive world and making him or her forget that the sim and the world within it is not real. They also need to provide what in the professional sims is provided by other people, which is most of the voice communications and mission assignments. In order to simulate the interaction between various elements in an all out war, also the AI of our sims typically needs to be more complex in certain respects to function as desired.
But there is only so much you can squeeze out of any computer. While the professional sims may seem limited, what they are required to do they do really well (at least the military hope so!). Current home sims are mainly Jacks of all trades for the reasons stated above, and for them to run acceptably in all their complexity on our machines some compromises in one area or another need to be made. I have always been in awe when just listening to the communications between planes in almost any top flight sim of today. Yet, while most of us simmers scream like addicts for these features that really boost immersiveness, we are equally loud when, for example, the glitches and predictability of AI or communications return us painfully back into the real world. Is it really a good idea then to put all possible features in if they may not yet all function satisfactorily within current hardware restrictions?
Come on already, what's in a sim?
This is common human nature. While you are young and don't yet have a car, you can easily go along by other means. But once you get your first pile of metal on some rubber, you almost cannot imagine spending even a week without it. Something like that is what some other sims before it but most notably Falcon 4.0 did for the flight sim community. By promising, and with the swan song 1.08 patch finally and amazingly delivering, a working real-time ongoing dynamic campaign, simmers since then want almost no less from the rest of their sims.
While the technical excellence of the Falcon series was never in question, this was a move that put Falcon 4.0 in its overall sense away from a mere flight sim, since as much as a flyer it is also a real time strategy game. While this is an interesting and for a large majority of people an appealing proposition and can as such attract an audience that is not strictly simmers, the issue of what constitutes a good hardcore flight sim has since then in my opinion been clouded.
The issue of flight, system and weapon modelsLet's get down to the basics, then. The term is Combat Flight Sim. From my understanding which I think to be consistent with the general opinion, this should simulate flying an aircraft within a combat environment, and simulating means being as close to the real deal as possible. So let us look, step by step, at what any combat flight sim should provide in order to justify the name, but trying to separate these things from what is nice-to-have yet not strictly necessary.
Firstly, the flight model. This a source of countless 'mine is better than yours' debates. Probably because this is the central part of any hardcore sim. The first thing that I like to do in any sim I get is not to fire a few missiles in instant action or whatever the selection is called, but to takeoff and see what my newest baby can do, usually ending in a lawndart in a couple of minutes or sometimes seconds.
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