What to play?

[Snow46 0]

After 23 years as the chief engineer on a number of new aircraft I am now retired and want to play a few fun sims.  Any advice on the latest fun combat sims?

[simonmiller416 1,817]

If you want a advanced simulation game I would suggest Microsoft Flight Simulator and DCS world series former is for Civil Aviation and later is for Military/Combat.

I think you might even come across products that you designed yourself.

If you like something relaxing and entertaining but a little sim, Strike Fighters2 is a good choice. There are also extremely rich third-party mod resources on this site.

Thank you for your tremendous contribution to the aviation industry over the past two decades.If you don't mind, could you briefly talk about your work? I'm always interested in the experiences of masters like you.

[MigBuster 2,884]

Falcon 4 BMS -  updated Falcon 4 with VR, gfx and everything else. cheap as well.

[+Trotski 936]

My respected collegues in infamy, ommitted to mention Wings over Fladners field, and First Eagles 2 if you would like to try the wings and wrapping paper flying experiece, IL2  Forgotten Battles series is also very good.

[+daddyairplanes 10,216]

if you are not looking to replicate the exact experience of flying a combat aircraft (checklists, switches, comms etc) i second the suggestion for SF2. out of all the combat sims, it has the largest set of free third party mods ranging from terrains and campaigns to skin sets to fly a given aircraft for any nation or unit you may desire.

and if we dont have what you want, its quite easy to mod and create for yourself what you want

[+streakeagle 871]

Strike Fighters 2 has two major limitations compared to modern sims: no multiplayer and no native VR support. Minor limitations include dated terrain system (low resolution meshes) and things like air-to-air refueling.

But if you are primarily interested in having fun flying a huge variety of aircraft, some of which are modeled as well as many current sims, in a huge variety of terrains and historical scenarios, nothing can beat Strike Fighters 2.

Being an older sim, it tends to run very well on modern PCs, but sometimes encounters gpu driver issues as updated drivers are released. Despite its age, it tends to run just fine on Windows 10 (and I presume Windows 11 as I haven't tried it on 11). Some people do encounter technical issues running it on modern PCs/Windows.

I love VR and was a proponent of online multiplayer when Strike Fighters Project 1/WoX series had a basic, limited multiplayer. DCS World expanded to include many of my favorite Cold War era aircraft such as the MiG-21, F-5, F-86, MiG-15, and UH-1 and now have finally added may all-time favorite, the F-4. So, I switched to DCS World quite some time ago. I was able to get SF2 to run in VR using a third party software package called vorpX, but that package was constantly updated, which periodically broke SF2 support. The stock cockpits were never designed for looking outside of certain view angle limits and are therefore incredibly ugly in VR.

SF2 shines with historical missions packed with AI all over the map: great dogfights, intense AAA/SAMS, etc. The dynamic campaigns are somewhat historically accurate in scope and feel. The problem is that an accurate Vietnam campaign means there aren't many MiGs to fight, and you often get tasked with bombing the same meaningless targets mission after mission. Israel is where the historical action is with lots of combat with short range mission profiles. The fictional campaign allows you to fly as a mercenary pilot in a war between fictional countries in the middle east where you earn money to buy better planes and build a squadron. Overall, SF2 can be set up to give you whatever you want out of combat flight simming as long as you don't mind the aforementioned limitations. But you won't see the real benefit until you realize the volume of mods available. Almost anything you can imagine from WWI to the 1980s is available, though you will need the separate game using the same engine, First Eagles 2 , for the WW I experience.

If you have the cash, the complete SF2 package will all games/expansions/DLC for $100 is a bargain, then $40 more for First Eagles 2 if you like biplane combat.

On the other hand, if you have a decent PC/gpu and like the idea of VR, DCS World and the IL-2 Battle/Flying Cirucs series offers brilliant graphics, decent multiplayer, and the amazing immersion of VR.

[+daddyairplanes 10,216]

15 minutes ago, streakeagle said:

(and I presume Windows 11 as I haven't tried it on 11).

it runs ok for the most part. it can crash occasionally  if you have a heavily modded install or run more than 4-5 missions in one sitting. but i experienced that more on my desktop that was upgraded from 10 to 11 than my laptop that was 11 out of the box