Still playing

[don246]

Just put FE2 Back on my Windows 10 PC and just had a blast still good after all these years it is modded, is any one still flying it?

[+DoctorQuest]

I do. Not as much as some other sims on my rig but every once and a while I need to go bust me some balloons. :)

[Wilches]

Always!

[+JulioJunqueira]

Still playing and skinning 

 

[+whiteknight06604]

I always have to have at least one install on my computer. I may not play it constantly, but I always come back to First Eagles. It's pretty sad to see just how much of a ghost town the FE forum has become. 

[+VonS]

On 2/29/2024 at 7:24 PM, whiteknight06604 said:

[...] It's pretty sad to see just how much of a ghost town the FE forum has become. 

Indeed a shame - hardly any regular posts in the FE2 forums anymore. Hope everyone's doing well - haven't seen names like Geezer, Crawford, and others in these forums for years.

Fully-modded FE2 is still my go-to sim for single missions with variety, and for tight-knuckle flying and dog-fighting - I'd say better than modded RoF, and also easier to set up and quicker to get into than the WoFF series (although the latter is definitely the gold standard for full-blown campaigning).

Come to think of it, the WoFF forums on SimHQ have also largely dried up over the last couple of years. And DiD IV, the latest Dead is Dead campaign being run in WoFF (on their CombatAce forums) is pretty much literally DiD too (compared with DiDs II and III from several years back).

Perhaps newer generations of simmers have mostly gravitated to multiplayer; or tablet/phone games have saturated the game market.

I hope to return more regularly to FE2 in the future - there are a few aircraft that I haven't tweaked the FMs for, and I still want to try to introduce (if possible) realistic turbulence into the sim. Also, there's something wholesome and relaxing about tinkering with FE2 - the virtual equivalent of an old, wooden hangar or quaint WWI aircraft factory.

Was busy for a while with AI mods for RoF (an exercise in frustration considering that RoF is so locked-down); and also re-discovered FlightGear in the meantime, a very nice, free sim for monoplane simulation and civilian flying - but be selective when choosing aircraft to fly in it. Some of the FMs are questionable, particularly for multi-wing aircraft. Recommended there is to stick to large airliners like the 707, 747, DC-10, also single-wing, small aircraft such as Pipers, Cessnas, Tecnams, gliders, and so on.

(Thinking to myself: sure would be nice to introduce the live weather and advanced weather systems from FlightGear into FE2 - i.e., METAR system, also moisture formation, storms, and so on - although that would require some way of having an open connection to the internet, from within FE2, to siphon in live weather data per whatever location you're flying through in FE2 at any given moment, etc.)

Cheers all,

Edited March 2, 2024 by VonS
Fixed typos.

[+Stephen1918]

I'm still playing from time to time. Mostly on the Eastern Front and the Spanish Civil War. Still modding a little bit too.

 

Edited March 2, 2024 by Stephen1918

[toot]

What are the differences between sf2 and fe2? besides the time eras and planes ofc. it looks like a cool game but is it worth it compared to just downloading some biplanes to sf2?

[+VonS]

@toot, the general rule of thumb is that the physics/world model in SF2 (i.e., winds, atmosphere, flight dynamics, etc.) is best suited to jet aircraft and to some extent to fast(er) prop aircraft - let's say with a minimum speed of 400 kph or so.

The simulated "world" in FE2 on the other hand caters much more effectively to slow(er) flying, and showcases better the flying (and fighting) characteristics of pre-WWI, WWI, and inter-war era aircraft of, for example, the 1920s (think "barnstorming").

To give an example of the different atmospherics and physics, an early 1950s (late model) F4U-5 Corsair has a historical top speed in the 750s kph in SF2, while, when dropped into FE2, it goes into the 880s kph.

Recommended also is to check over this thread regarding swapping of aircraft from FE2 to SF2, and vice versa - sometimes such swapping works, but often it doesn't. Furthermore, FE2 has higher-quality terrains (smaller-sized terrain pieces, as far as I know) and more subtle fog effects, I think, than SF2 - such things help with immersion because most aircraft in FE2 fly fairly low - on the other hand, use of such terrains in SF2 would probably result in an FPS hit, and is not really needed for jet aircraft scenarios where everyone is usually flying high and at great speed.

Cheers,

Edited March 3, 2024 by VonS
Fixed typos.

[+Stephen1918]

Also - Strike Fighters and First Eagles have different kinds of guns, bombs, pilots, etc. so after you bring an FE plane into SF, you would have to do some modding to the data files, and to the system resources to make it work. 

Edited March 4, 2024 by Stephen1918