Combat Flight Sim (DCS, IL-2, RoF, CAP2, and a bit of WT)

I have this now - bought Flaming Cliffs 3 because Sim is fun.

 

Some fun stuff to look forward to in DCS

DCS: Bf 109 K-4 Kurfürst by Eagle Dynamics and The Fighter Collection


DCS: F/A-18E by Coretex Designs

 

DCS released a patch today that contains the beta version of the PFM (professional flight model) for the Su-27

 

Oculus is going to be, at lowest, around $300. TrackIR is half the cost.

I'm actually going to get TrackIR in the next month or so, I think consumer oculus is still like 9 months out for actual delivery. The 109K4 is not released yet for DCS? Also, how does it work, currently there's only the Mustang for WWII, so fighting now is just mustang vs mustang?

 

No, you have both the Mustang and Fw 190 D-9. The 190 stopped being a beta with the patch yesterday. The Bf 109 K-4 will be released this month.

 

There may even be a cheaper alternative - there's a few guys in England working on something called EDTracker - built for Elite Dangerous by fans who just wanted a cheaper alternative to TrackIR. Unlike the optical and IR solutions, this one uses accelerometers, making it more accurate than Optical (FaceTrackNoIR) and much cheaper than IR.

Price for a unit at this point (it's pretty barebones, though) is about 28GBP or so, excluding postage. They hand-build and test them to order at this point, but it's still a freaking awesome concept and dirt cheap.

 

If you know how to do it you could aslo build your own. What i have heard is that its not that hard to do and that it costs very little

 

Yea you can use facetracknoIR and build a cheap led headset with 3 lights, get a webcam that either doesn't have an IR filter or remove it from the cam and it works perfectly as well as trackIR. I'm just lazy and have disposable income, so, yea, don't care.

 

Ah cool, I didn't see the FW mention anywhere. Thats a pretty sweet matchup, although if you get p51s vs 190d9s and k4s at the same time they're going to have some problems finding an advantage.

 

I think I may get this. Looks like it has less lag than FaceTrackNoIR.

 

I believe the Spitfire IX is next followed by P-47D-30 and last would be Me 262A-1.

 

The Bf 109 K-4 have been delayed a few days until December 3rd.

 

The 2014 Steam Holiday Sale have started and alot of flight sims are on sale so its a good time to get started.

Microsoft Flight Simulator X is currently 80% off (only for 7 more hours)
X-Plane 10 Global is 30% off
IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad is 25% off while the addon planes are 50% off.
Rise of Flight is 60% off
DCS is 65% off on most modules. Bf 109 K-4 is 20% off and MiG-21Bis is 50% off

Here are some news about Rise of Flight that appeared at the start of December

Spoiler: Rise of Flight: United Edition

Rise of Flight: United Edition

Dear Pilots!

In the last 5+ years we've presented you over 40 massive updates, 30+ flyable aircraft, dozens of new versions and hundreds of fixes. And even after all this time, new players keep coming to ROF every day! We never thought that our very first project would remain that long in the stormy sea of the game industry and keep you interested. This is a fantastic success for us. Next year begins the 6th year of ROF and we think it will keep going strong. Thanks to everyone whose hands and hearts made this game possible! We'll be grateful to you, always.

Our small team has been on a long journey for last two years. We were busy discovering a new era - World War II. As you know, we’ve been working on IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad, which was been released this fall. Everyone in the studio was worried that we weren't paying much attention to Rise of Flight. But honestly, we just could not work on two projects of such scale simultaneously - there's only a few specialists capable of making flight-sims in the whole world, not to say in a little development team like ours. So, when IL-2 was released we sat down and started thinking about ROF. What can be done for players now? We read the emails and messages you sent us, studied players' comments everywhere on the web and came up with the decisions about what needs to be added to ROF.

A few months ago we announced the ILYA Muromets project in partnership with the Russian Historical Military Society and devoted it to the dawn of Russian aviation and Igor Sikorsky's plane in particular. We also launched an Early Access program for it recently. ILYA Muromets was initially designed to be a stand-alone product, but in response to requests by our customers, today we are changing that. This project has its roots in ROF and we received tons of requests, threats, bitterness and claims - all that to persuade us to add the bomber to Rise of Flight. Not everyone was able or willing to buy a separate product, but everyone wanted to try the plane in the big virtual universe that ROF provides. And we came to the decision to unite these projects, merge them into one game. All the IM content (the plane, map in three seasons and the historical campaign) will be added to ROF.

Thus, ilyamuromets.su and ilyamuromets.net will stop receiving new account registrations on December 11th. Personal accounts of all ILya Muromets users will be transferred into the Rise of Flight data base by December 18th. If the emails in IM and ROF are matching, all the content will be moved automatically. If you don't have a ROF account, then the IM account will be moved to ROF data base with all the IM content you own. In case if anything goes wrong and you need our assistance in merging the accounts, please, submit a ticket to our customer support, give them necessary information, and we'll get everything sorted for you as fast as we can.

Also, pre-order is going to open for Ilya Muromets bomber on riseofflight.com. The item includes the plane itself plus a historical campaign including 10 specifically designed missions.

Since the project is going to unite the two fronts (Western and Eastern) we've decided to update the free-to-play version of the game on our website. Starting with December 18th the free version will include 3 aircraft (SPAD 13, Albatros D.Va and the Nieuport 17 produced by the Russian Dux plant), and Western and Eastern front with 3 seasonal maps. Players can fly in all modes of gameplay for an unlimited time with these three aircraft without limitations: try it, let your friends try it too - the more the merrier.

Also the update on December 18th will be including many bug fixes that you have asked for along with some Flight Model tweaks that have long been requested by ROF users. However, FM tweaks are a very subjective topic and it has been our policy to try and stick to the research documents and technology we have at our disposal to lead us on this topic. And this issue is a source of never ending argument in the community and can really drive a wedge between us and our customers no matter how hard we try. However, we have taken into account the general comments on the forums about various FMs and attempted to tweak them to match the requests. But we need to warn everyone, changing FMs can lead to unforeseen technical issues and unintended consequences. The endless debates about flight models will likely continue no matter what we do or how hard we try to make it right. So, with that in mind, this is likely the last attempt to tweak existing FMs in ROF. We’ve given it our best shot and we hope you find them acceptable.

In addition we plan to upgrade the Rise of Flight website and forum using newer technologies and design solutions. This is scheduled for January 2015. A move like that requires a lot of time, all the more so because we want to keep and transfer all your posts correctly.

Throughout ROF’s existence, we've received many comments about the complexity or the controls in ROF aircraft and the need for a joystick to play. Some gamers have an interest in flying airplanes and even though they do not have a flight stick they still have desire to see the WWI planes in virtual action. As a result we are missing a clear opportunity. With the ILya Muromets we've started an experiment to try to implement mouse controls without simplifying the flight physics out. Player feedback from that experiment tells us that it was pretty successful. So, now we're planning to transfer the technology to ROF and apply it to all the planes in the game. This should help to attract new pilots which are very important to keep the aviation history of World War I alive in hearts and minds of gamers all over the world and grow the ROF community.

Our mouse control was specifically designed to not interfere with how each individual aircraft flies or their unique personalities. Our intention is not to make ROF easier, but to simply give a new input method to those that prefer it. They will die over No Man’s Land all the same. Pilot skill is STILL the most important factor in ROF aerial combat. Please welcome such new users with a Vickers or Spandau hand-shake!

All these updates will take us almost two months to be completed and released: we'll start on December 18th and plan to finish in January 2015. This renewal process starts today with transferring everything we made for ILYA Muromets project into Rise of Flight.

Thank you for being such a great and supportive community all these years! Long live Rise of Flight!

It is also the Holiday Season and we want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Happy New Year wherever you are!

We should also try to fly togheter soon.

 

Oooooh... ROF update.

Updating now...

 

I should really at least try the free version

 

Very much worth it - it's the essential basic of flying along with the very genesis of dogfighting that makes this game really intriguing.

 

If we get enough people I'd definitely be up for some more rof to relive the good ol days , I rmemeber there where quite a few of us who enjoyed a bit of random dogfighting.

I think I still have the map that we set up for everyone to be able to join in quickly with all planes.

 

I'm always ready for some RoF.

We might be able to find some SC people that have a joystick aswell.

 

Why WWI dakka is better than WWII dakka.

WWII: dakkadakkadakkadakka *jams* - Oh fuck! RTB! RTB!
WWI: dakkadakkadakkadakka *jams* - Oh dear... *cycles action manually with the left hand while flying like boss with the right* Righto! dakkadakkadakka etc.

 

Also they shot at each other with pistols.