streakeagle

They no longer force Facebook accounts. The VR market is still relatively small. The dominant market share is the Meta Quest app store. So, if you want to make money selling VR games, time spent on supporting anything other than Quest is time and money lost.

I thought SF2 (perhaps only in early patch levels?) was backwards compatible with old mods that had shadow models. My memory extends mostly to old mods being used in SF2. The Razbam F2H-2 sticks out in my memory. The SF2 shadow technique mixed poorly with the old mod, so disabling the shadow fixed the problem. The F-111 pack I have on file was an updated SF2 version with the following lines: [Shadow] CastShadow=TRUE ShadowCastDist=10000 MaxVisibleDistance=400 As such, CastShadow can be set to false if the F-111's shadow is causing the performance hit. Interestingly enough, the ini is only using a single LOD reported as 1,713 kB: [LOD001] Filename=F-111Ad.lod Distance=8000 But has a 2nd smaller lod file included in the folder reported as 799 kB: F-111A.LOD I wonder why there are two LODs, but only one is utilized in-game?

There are two ways to generate shadows: The original method incorporated a separate shadow 3d model. The new method generates shadows from the regular lod. If this is an old mod, it may still be using the separate shadow lod. If so, there is a chance editing the F-111 ini file to use the new shadow method may solve the problem. If not, perhaps completely disabling the shadow for the F-111 in the F-111 ini file will solve the problem at the cost of no shadow at all.

It is only available from the Meta Quest store for the Quest 2 and Quest 3 series headsets. It was made using the "Unity" game engine, so they could port it to other platforms, but I doubt they will do that. It is similar to the free-to-play Strike Fighters android game (which is also available as a PC game), but it is VR only and flown from the cockpit. I don't see any way to see external views. A typical mission involves startup, takeoff, fly through a portal to get to the mission area, fly through some waypoints, accomplish the mission, fly through a portal to get to the turn onto final approach, and finally land. The clickable cockpits, startup, takeoff, and landing procedures give the game a simulator feel. But targets have generous hit boxes and 0.50 cal. MGs can kill most targets with ease. But the differences between attacking with rockets, bombs, and guns are fairly well modeled. The bombsight is basically CCIP and the bombs usually detonate well after you have flown past the target, so bombing is much easier than it should be. Dogfights are not that much different than F-86 vs MiG-15 in DCS World: the AI can extend at will in a climb or hit the brakes to make you overshoot. Because I have already learned how to deal with this type of AI in DCS, I do fairly well. I finally earned enough money with the T-33 and F-80 to get the F-86. Now I want to save up enough for either the F9F-2 or the FJ-3.

This is a decent flight sim for a VR headset game. The graphics are similar to 1999/Falcon 4.0 but with anti-aliasing making it prettier. Make no mistake, it is a game. But the cockpits look decent and the flight models are not totally arcade.

SF2 only needs a couple of upgrades to be more competitive: native VR support and cockpit 3d model/texture upgrades for VR. SF2's lower gpu/cpu requirements run wildly fast in VR when you can get it to work using VorpX. The cost of upgrading the cockpits of so many aircraft variants to decent VR standards for a 360 degree view would be quite high. After spending all the time and money, how many people would buy it? The fact is that what is left of the jet combat sim market is dominated by DCS World. DCS has made great strides in covering jet fighters previously only flyable in the SF series. SF2 still has an overwhelming large set of aircraft, terrains, and historical campaigns which can be played on much less expensive hardware than DCS, but not enough people bought it when it was originally released and it will never get any useful number of sales in the future. I gave up on SF2 when TK did. In a very short time frame, DCS added the MiG-21bis, UH-1H, F-86F, MiG-15bis, and F-5E which sold me on migrating to DCS. The addition of the AJS-37 Viggen, AV-8B, F-14A/B, MiG-19P, Mirage F1, and advent of VR sealed the deal. DCS is still growing/improving. SF2 is still stuck with a late 90s terrain engine, no multiplayer, and no VR.

I forget what the website was called before ownership changed hands and the name changed to CombatAce.

You young whipper-snappers, I hit 20 back in January :P

This is now the ultimate modern Navy sim. With as much or more realism than its pure map-based forerunners combined with awesome graphics and player friendly game mechanics: Jane's Fleet Command on steroids.

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.

I flew that terrain so many times before the release of Wings Over Vietnam. I think some of the historical missions I created for it are still out there on the internet at Avsim and CombatAce.

Flying Circus is the successor to the old Rise of Flight. It has all the advantages/disadvantages of the IL-2 Battle series. One of its strong points is that it looks and plays great in VR.

DCS World has missed the boat. DCS already has a lot of assets that would have supported the Korean War. But they don't have the map and never focused on filling in the gaps. DCS still hasn't added dynamic campaigns, either. So, this will be the "go to" sim for the Korean War. When this comes out, I most certainly will get it. But I doubt it will equal the detail and accuracy of the DCS P-51D, F-86F, and MiG-15bis. I almost exclusively fly DCS World. The release of the Heatblur F-4E has assured that I will continue primarily flying DCS World for the foreseeable future. If the flight modeling and AI are decent, I will still find some time to fly this new Korean War sim, too. If they include the F2H-2 Banshee and it is modeled really well, I might even split my time between DCS and this Korean War sim.

I really should sell all of my books. I have reached a point in my life where I don't really want any material goods. The internet appeases my appetite for information. But for some reason, seeing all of my books on a shelf warms my heart. My memory is starting to slip with age. I love being able to go to my books to find information that others want to know but I can't recall accurately. I have so many books, I have trouble remembering which one has the information I recall reading. The internet is so wonderful with free pdfs on so many subjects including flight manuals. But there is nothing more satisfying to me than flipping through the pages of a book. Many of my books are way out of date having been published before the collapse of the Soviet Union, so the information is more speculative. I love seeing the contrast between what the West thought was true and what we know now. Korea and Vietnam histories are much more complete/accurate in recent years. I don't know why I am so obsessed with military aviation technology and history, but it is one of the few things that never bores me.

It seems all of the books in the series are falling out of print. I wish I had gotten a few more of the books. I just picked up a used Su-57 book for $25 plus shipping from Amazon, which was effectively free since I used my "Discover bonus" to pay for it. I don't really care about the Su-57, but that book includes coverage of all of the Soviet next gen aircraft, which is cool. I wonder if the Ukraine war is the cause of the end of this series? Maybe once the war ends, publication/re-publication will resume? I want the Tu-22, Tu-95, Su-24, and Su-25 books, which I could have had at list price. I can live without them, but if reprints or a good used price comes up, I will eventually get them.