Helicopter sims

[kiep 0]

What is the best one out on the market today? Looking for one that would cover roles for gunship,transport, recon? If such a game is out there. I heard whirl wind is close but has alot of bugs to be worked out.

 

To all you modders great work. I wish I had a pinch of your talent in computers!

Thanks guys! keep up the great work!

[Nesher 628]

I think the first Enemy Engaged Comanche vs Hokum was very good for it's time.. didn't try the newer one :|

you have Flight Sim X for just flying arround, didn't try that either

 

good luck with that :)

Edited September 12, 2007 by Nesher

[JediMaster 451]

I think the last helo sim that let you do transport missions was Longbow 2 (I don't count Whirlwind, it's an unfinished mess).

EECH is probably the best released THIS century, with EE2 being a "remake" of sorts that needs patching but has yet to get any.

[BUFF 8]

the best 3 at what they do (for they all do things differently) are usually adjudged to be LB2, EEAH/EECH series & Gunship!.

[+streakeagle 871]

If you can live with the flight model (which isn't so much worse than the so-called dedicated heli sims once you get used to it), I find Operation Flashpoint/Resistance to be the most immersive helo sim.

I made a multiplayer Vietnam mission (using addons of course) where 3 UH-1D slicks have to land 3 squads in a small clearing while 2 gunships with miniguns and rockets provide support as an overwhelming number of VC squads surround the clearing. No dedicated heli sim ever made can compare with the experience. I have played this mission over and over as gunship pilot, slick pilot, and infantry squad leader. The VC can and do shred the helos with MG fire, but if the gunships can identify and strafe/rocket their positions fast enough all helos can survive the landing. My favorite is trying to hunt down VC in the jungle vegetation using the gunship with rockets. With good eyes, you can spot the squads and level them with rockets in a couple of passes.

 

I have played the stock single player mission where you are in a Cobra hitting a defenseless convoy countless times. I like to kill the trucks using the 3-barrel 20mm cannon so that the crews survive and try to run away... then I revert to rocket hunting. However arcadish the FM may be, it is still extremely challenging to fly helos and land them exactly where you want when you don't use the "autohover" freature. Another stock mission I have played countless times is the cargo helo one where you drop troops off under enemy fire then pick up wounded soldiers before returning to base. The initial drop can be done from the air, but I have much more fun trying to land on one of the few flatspots in the assigned area.

 

Due to the open nature of OFP/Resitance, the possibilities are endless (aside from a realistic hard-core FM).

I have the newer Armed Assault and have played the stock helo mission in it a few times. Graphically, it is far superior, but I think the FM took a small turn for the worse. Still a pleasure to play though.

[Wolf65 0]

Ah yes, Flashpoint, nothing better then shooting tanks in a Mi-24, I love doing that...

[+streakeagle 871]

An Mi-8 with a ton of rockets is very fun too.

A recurring theme for me: rockets can be hard to learn to use effectively, but are so much fun once you do.

There was a huge user-made mission one time where along the way you acquired an Mi-8 and then had to use it to get to your final objective.

The more damage you did with the Mi-8 on the way in, the less you had to fight door-to-door after you landed since you needed to clear a town.

I lost that mission after formatting a hard drive one time and never found it again :(

[JediMaster 451]

I totally forgot about OFP/ArmA because it's pretty much an infantry sim with armor and air support added in.

 

I do agree about the FMs, though. It was far easier to fly around in OFP than it is in ArmA, unfortunately.

[Wolf65 0]

Has anyone played team apache, that game was pretty good (i don't know about how realistic it is).

[zagnut 0]

Anyone know where I can still get a copy of LB2?

[kiep 0]

I would love to see a wov but changed to a helo game. I would make it basic and let the modders run with it. The whole vietnam war has me wrapped up in it. Also a sim for the soviet afgah war would be really interesting. That could be played at so many different levels. I guess I'll hold on to my cash a while longer and see what comes out in the near future. thanks for all your input gang!

[Wolf65 0]

I don't know if you like old games, but this one is a Mi-24 sim with afghanistan:

 

http://www.abandonia.com/games/497/downloa...rSimulation.htm

[Nesher 628]

ohh.. i remembered something...

the new Lo-Mac (named "Black shark" i think) going to have the Ka-50 or Ka-52... check it out :)

[FOTF 0]

To call OFP a helo sim is stretching it. Based on that, we should call BF Vietnam and BF2 helo sims cause they have helos in them...

 

 

KA-52 was a good sim...I liked that one....but Longbow 2 was by far the best

[JediMaster 451]

Yes, the Blackshark addon for LOMAC featuring the Ka-50 should be the LB2 of the 21st century. Well, almost. Still no dynamic campaign, but the systems fidelity and FM should be the best we've seen.

 

I played Hind quite a bit in the late 90s. I remember dodging Stingers launched by those little men quite often! It linked up with the previous sim, Apache, for H2H action, but I never got to try it.

[+streakeagle 871]

To call OFP a helo sim is stretching it. Based on that, we should call BF Vietnam and BF2 helo sims cause they have helos in them...

KA-52 was a good sim...I liked that one....but Longbow 2 was by far the best

 

I agree, BF Vietnam and BF2 are sims. Unfortunately for me, they are too arcadish to provide immersion for me. Whereas even with old, inferior graphics, I find OFP to be the most immersive "sim" I have ever played. Falcon 4.0 with all its button-pushing glory does not make me feel like I am in combat with my life on the line the way OFP has over the years.

 

What is the qualifier for a helo sim? Does it have a cockpit? does it have collective and cyclic? Do the instruments provide correct indications? Do the helo flying qualities approximate the performance expected for the available control inputs? The OFP physics model is obviously toward the arcade side in terms of the response to the control inputs... But all sims vary in their degree of simulation of various aspects of reality. I have never played a helo sim that got 100% of the physics correct. What % does it take to be a sim? Operationally, OFP can simulate things none of the other "sims" can. How many flight sims have people in them? Combat helo operations involve lots of people be it a transport hauling people or a gunship strafing people/vehicles. OFP can provide quite convincing immersion in most respects with the exception of the physics. It should be noted that while the physics are not correct, they are very challenging. The helos in OFP are harder to fly than in some dedicated helo sims. Neither MSFS nor X-Plane are very good helo sims. What dedicated sim comes even close to modeling a UH-1 Huey correctly? Modeling fly-by-wire AH-64s and subsequent digitally controlled helos is quite different from modeling traditional helos.

 

To me, a true sim is a program that has been designed to replicate some aspect of reality to train its users to perform a real task. Do any of the PC games available meet that standard? X-Plane and MSFS have been successfully certified for this purpose for small single engine fixed wing aircraft, but are more for procedural training with flight model replication merely being adequate for familiarization. PC helo "sims" (including MSFS and X-Plane) at best provide no better and at worst are intended purely for entertainment.

 

So, if we can agree that the available combat helo sims are really more games than sims, then what makes them useful is how much you enjoy flying them. Having flown in a Huey hanging out the side door, I find OFP to give me a better sense of what it is like to fly and fight from a helo than any other game available and as such I consider it to be a superior sim head and shoulders above those focused high-tech cockpits and/or detailed physics models. Even for jet aircraft, OFP offers some unique experiences. You can walk around on an aircraft carrier deck and climb into your F-14. You can raise and lower your helmet visor. You can have another player fly with you as your wso/rio/gunner. Being able to pick-up/drop-off a squad of players and having another player as a door gunner is far more interesting and realistic to me than using a mouse to push panel buttons on a screen while listening to computer generated radio chatter. All the while, I am using a cyclic, collective, and tail-rotor pedals to fly in a way that reasonably mimics helo flight.

 

Now would I prefer a game that has all the flexibility of OFP, the details of Falcon 4.0, and the graphics of LOMAC? Sure. Give me a game where I could crawl with an M-16, drive an M-1 Abrams, fly an AH-1, or fly an F-4 Phantom all with exceptionally good graphics and physics. But PCs aren't strong enough to do it all and development budgets for sims aren't so big these days, so each game designer makes the approriate compromises for their target market. Armed Assault improved the graphics and retained the flexibility of OFP... if they could just get the physics right for ground vehicles and aircraft and permit more detailed controls, Bohemia Interactive could establish a new class of super sim that would largely replace the separate shooters, armored warfare, and flight sims.

 

The fact is that many sims are heading in this unified reality direction where you can experience warfare from many perspectives:

Aces High: focused on hi-fidelity planes, but including somewhat realistic sea and land combat just short of infantry battles.

Battleground Europe-WWII Online: focused on infantry, but including somewhat realistic air and armored combat, have they added sea combat yet?

Dangerous Waters: A true simulator used as a cheap supplement to train real sonar techs in the USN covering in depth ASW operations from submarine, surface, air... add in the ability to fly fighters and operate cruisers and destroyers and this would be the ultimate blue-water naval sim.

Edited September 14, 2007 by streakeagle

[Stratos 3,188]

EXCELLENT WORDS!!!

Agree 100%

[Platinum Rogue 48]

Great post, streakeagle for President! :)

 

OFP and ArmA are great all-round shooters and have passable helo flight modeling. I don't have any complaints with ArmA's helo physics, besides being able to team up in the Cobra or MAPFACT Apache more than makes up for it, and I only fly in ArmA using keyboard and mouse

 

I reckon EECH with the community mods will give you the closest thing to what you want, kiep. Good physics, good avionics, reasonable terrain modeling, a wide variety of types of mission - recon, attack, SEAD, escort, insertion and transport are all available in a dynamic campaign environment.

[The_Nephilim 0]

I would Vote for EECH/AH. If you find a copy of EECH make sure you also get a copy of Apache/Havoc!!