streakeagle

SF2 is great out of the box, especially if you have the full $100 package with all the games and DLC. I agree with Wrench that it is best to get a feel for the stock game before adding mods. Get your controls mapped to your liking and find out what kind of aircraft and missions you enjoy flying. You can spend of a lot of time just experimenting with the settings which can tune the graphics experience, AI behavior, etc. However, if there are specific aircraft you want to fly that are not covered by that package, you might want to start with those first. If you are an F-5 fan, you are in for a treat. Some recent SF2 F-5 mods are top notch. You will find the quality of mods highly variable depending on when they are originally developed and the preferences of the modder who made them. Some are older with lower polycounts and smaller textures to maintain performance. Some are newer with higher polycounts and larger textures that push the limits of the game's rendering engine. SF2 mods adapted from SFP1/WoX mods will usually show their age. But most mods work well and look more than good enough to enjoy flying them. The three big total mod installs I always favored were Korea, Vietnam, and NATO, but others prefer a more modern one like Desert Storm. It is best to create a separate custom install for each total conversion mod to avoid conflicts/bugs. There are some payware mods that are not hosted here, but you might like if you are still able to purchase them. RAZBAM had several addon aircraft. They never got fully upgraded to SF2 standards, but they are still great mods. My favorite is their F2H-2 Banshee, which I have thoroughly enjoyed flying in the SF2 Korea mod for so many years. I also love Century series fighters, particularly F-101B Voodoos and F-106 Delta Darts trying to stop hordes of Soviet Tu-95 Bear bombers with AIM-4/AIM-26 Falcons and Genie nuclear rockets. There is a mod to add the nuclear detonation of the Genie based on the actual video of the only live test. Watching an airburst take out a flight of Bears is pretty cool. Another big mod that you may be interested is the Yankee Air Pirate series (a Vietnam history experience) which also has modern and WW2 mod packages. The original mod was payware, but after the owner died, the modders picked up the pieces to make an updated SF2 compliant version. If you are into carrier operations, there are many mods to add new aircraft carriers from many Navy's and time frames as well as graphical upgrades of the stock aircraft carriers. Yankee Air Pirate has some really good aircraft carriers. My favorite is CVAN-65: the Enterprise as she looked during Vietnam. There are too many options to list. Just think of something you like and search Combat Ace to see what you can find. Some mods are still hosted at their original sites, but the links have been disappearing slowly but surely over the years. Good luck! I hope you enjoy this game as much as I have over the years.

There is a separate combined FE1/FE2 forum: First Eagles 1 & 2 - CombatACE But you posted in a place that got the help you needed, so it isn't really wrong

I had pre-ordered the WinCtrl FFB stick and rudder pedals. But WinCtrl seems to have problems with quality control, production schedules, communication, and customer support. So, I canceled the order and got a MOZA AB9. I have been using a VKB Gunfighter Mk2 upgraded to a Mk3 for years. I didn't want to give up the MCG Ultimate grip, so I got an adapter. The AB9 provides the force feedback, the VKB grip is connected to the VKB USB black box and retains the custom configuration I love so much. The VKB was the smoothest, most precise stick I ever owned, but the AB9 equals that and adds force feedback. But force feedback is only as good as the software profile driving it. It turns out the two aircraft that I love and fly the most, the DCS F-4E and DCS UH-1H also happen to have the best in-game profiles. Both are an absolute joy to fly with the FFB stick. In the meantime, I have learned how to customize the MOZA profiles to accommodate DCS modules that have poor native profiles. I have also been using a vibrating seat pad for many years. The force feedback stick complements the seat pad very well. I have waited a long time for a decent force feedback solution. The MOZA options are somewhat affordable and have established a record for decent quality/reliability with decent customer support. After the WinCtrl FFB stick and rudder pedals have been around long enough to work out the bugs in the software and hardware, I may end up getting them just to compare. By the time that happens, my bank account should be in a position to afford it.

The glide slope of the space shuttle. Really just a controlled free fall before popping a chute. If the wind isn't gusting, probably safer than jumping out of a plane. I went hang gliding once in California. Again, safety is subject to the wind. But you can stay up as long as you want if you are good at finding thermals. It is true flight rather than a controlled descent. My launch consisted of running down the slope of a mountainside at 5,000 feet until the ground dropped away. Peak altitude was 7,000 ft above the desert floor.

I have tried the "exams" for the P-51D, F-84G, F-86A, and MiG-15bis. Once I got my controls mapped correctly, I had no problem taking off, dogfighting, and landing. The flight models and controls are so similar between IL-2 Korea and DCS World that experience in one will largely make you proficient in the other. I have not tried multiplayer. The graphics are comparable to DCS World, but that comes at the price of performance. Unlike the older IL-2 titles, the frame rates in VR are the same or lower than in DCS World. However, even with lower frame rates, the game looks smooth: I don't really see any stuttering. As some YouTube reviews have cited, the 0.50 caliber guns seem to be somewhat more effective than most other games. The only problem I have had so far is that the F-86 wings would snap off easily. But the 0.2 patch appears to have solved that problem despite not being listed in the patch notes. Besides having period correct aircraft and ground objects, the big advantage over DCS World is having a proper Korea map. It generally looks as good as the best DCS World maps without the performance penalty down low that some DCS maps have. I will say that after flying the Caucasus map as a substitute for Korea in DCS for so many years, that I see quite a bit of similarity between some parts of the IL-2 Korea map and the DCS Caucasus map. But I still wish DCS had a Korea map. As IL-2 Korea has turned out to be very well done, I suspect that this level of competition will guarantee that DCS will never focus on Korea. Someone interested in the Korean air war will be much better off buying IL-2 Korea. I hope IL-2 Korea is successful enough to justify continued development to further expand the flyable aircraft set as well as adding aircraft carrier operations. I still have Rowan's MiG Alley in the original box. I loved that game, but it was never fully patched up and was quickly rendered obsolete by newer games... especially SFP1 with the Korea map and mods. IL-2 Korea has taken the crown for best Korean air war combat simulator, leaving Rowan's MiG Alley and SFP1/SF2 Korea mods far behind. SF2 Korea is not totally obsolete: it still has a much more diverse flyable aircraft set and supports aircraft carrier operations. But IL-2 Korea's support for VR and multiplayer and its modern graphics quality make it the better choice if you can live with the current flyable aircraft set.

IL-2 Korea Early Access is available for download/gameplay. I installed and played it for a few minutes last night. It is in fairly good shape for early access. The MiG-15bis and F-86A-5 both flew decently.

It is an amazing park and museum. Years ago (spring 2019), my son and I spent a long weekend in Pensacola seeing the Naval Aviation Museum and the Alabama Park/Museum.

The F-100D is another outstanding DCS module. The cockpit and external 3d models and textures are amazing and the flight/systems modeling is outstanding, especially for an initial release. The Early Cold War DCS servers that I help administrate/host had large numbers of people coming in to try out the F-100D in a Vietnam setting. The lack of a proper Vietnam map is an inconvenience, no different than the release of SFP1 with a Vietnam era flyable plane set, but a fictional Middle East map. The basic geography and order of battle can be recreated both in the air and on the ground. US forces can fly close air support, interdiction, strike, SEAD, CAP, escort, etc. against ground units that have period correct air defenses like the SA-2, ZU-23, and KS-19. The main thing missing is the correct colors/vegetation. The closest DCS maps to Vietnam in terms of colors and vegetation are the small Marianas maps. These small maps look great but have some of the worst performance of all the DCS maps. DCS Vietnam is planned but won't be possible without advanced in the DCS terrain engine. It needs to be a large map covering Thailand to Hanoi to Yankee Station and it is covered with performance killing jungle vegetation. If useful performance breakthroughs are made as the graphics engine migrates to AMD's Vulkan API, DCS may finally get a Vietnam map and perhaps Korea, too.

I am buying the upgrade expansion, but I doubt I will ever fly it much. I primarily fly the F-14A rather than the F-14B. At some point, the RAZBAM F-15E will no longer function in DCS World. When that day comes, the F-14BU will be there as a substitute. Of course, I don't fly the F-15E very much either. I focus on 1950s to 1970s Cold War aircraft and principally fly the F-4E and UH-1H.

The main Third Wire web page is back up. But the all-important store and downloads sections are not. At least TK made some progress.

CAP2 is on Steam with forums where you can ask for help from the developers and other owners of the game: https://steamcommunity.com/app/347170/discussions/

Still one of my favorite skins for the F-15.

As for TK/Third Wire putting Wings Over Europe on Steam: I think you will find that it was the publisher, Strategy First, that put it on Steam. If you read the reviews, it is evident that it is an old, buggy, unpatched build so people who buy it have to find their way to Third Wire's website to get the most recent patch. But at $8.99, it is a steal compared to $39.99 on Third Wire's website. I suspect TK keeps his prices high to encourage people to buy the final all-in-one SF2 package. But most people don't understand that it is worth the $99.99 price tag and just buy one of the other SF2 games for $39.99. Of course, this is where the open game framework hurt TK: if you buy the right game, you can get mods to make it anything you want without having to buy the all-in-one package.

TK started with an almost completely open sim, which resulted in his IP getting pirated. 3d models were stolen. It was interesting that he never resorted to anti-piracy systems as it is very clear that a lot more people pirated the games than bought them. TK's decisions were logical. He locked down files that were costing him time and money. To say he wasn't listening simply isn't true. He spent a lot of time on Sim HQ forums both prior to and after the release of SFP1. A lot of the things that were implemented from Wings Over Vietnam to Wings Over Europe to Wings Over Israel were exactly what people had been asking for. SimHQ forums became hostile to TK. He opened his own forums and never looked back. The transition to SF2 marked the beginning of the end. Most people who bought one or more of the SFP1/WoX games never bought any of the SF2 games. The criticism was valid: why buy the same game(s) twice? Modded versions of the older series were largely comparable to the new series. Each SF2 release returned less revenue: notice I didn't say profit because as far as I can tell, TK was losing money throughout SF2 development, particularly when he developed the mission editor and North Atlantic. Apparently, the free-to-play games were much more profitable. 3d models/texture quality are much lower requiring less time to add new aircraft. Virtually no cockpits modeled. Minimal controls. He doesn't even have to interact with the customers anymore, which greatly reduces stress. He did attempt a crowd-funded cleanup of SF2 to make it more Windows 10 friendly. But that didn't draw enough support, perhaps deservedly so since SF2 generally works ok on Windows 10 and Windows 11 for most people and there would have been no new content. What's left is still a decent workable game with tons of mod support and room for many more. But for me, SF2 has been dead for years. DCS World isn't that much harder to fly than SF2. Hop in an F-86F or F-5E: you can use a key-combo cheat to get started up, then you largely have the same controls you would have had mapped in SF2. Most of the older aircraft don't take that much effort to do a full-blown by-the-manual startup. Again, the F-86F and F-5E are great examples. I have been looking forward to the GD F-100D. It will be even more fun than the SF2 F-100D with its higher fidelity flight model and systems modeling. The GD F-100D will support one of the most challenging aspects of DCS: inflight refueling. It will essentially be a supersonic F-86 with poor handling qualities and less maneuverability. DCS will now have the entire line of fighter designs produced by Edgar Schmued: P-51, F-86, F-100, and F-5.

TK wanted a survey sim. But when you look at the changes from SFP1 to SF2, there were a lot of improvements in realism. The modeling of ECM was drastically improved and is still equal or better than the ECM modeling in DCS. The F-4 Phantom variants each had correct cockpits and systems (RWR/ECM changed constantly) with detailed flight model variations. The A-4 Skyhawk variants were the same way. The modeling of the F-14 and F-15 avionics were very realistic with the main limitation being the lack of clickable cockpits. At the very end, when SF2 North Atlantic did not do well enough, TK was threatening to start dumbing down the game to more of an arcade level by taking away mapped controls such as having automatic landing gear and flaps. Instead, he simply ceased production and migrated his idea of a simpler arcade level game to free-to-play Android games. At that time, SF2 was a more realistic sim than LOMAC/Flaming Cliffs. Until the Heatblur F-4E was released, there wasn't a more realistic combat simulation of the F-4 in a PC game. LOMAC/Flaming Cliffs had superior terrain graphics, but the 3d modeling/textures of aircraft in SF2 were more accurate and more detailed. It wasn't until DCS World Flaming Cliffs 3 that the flight and systems modeling of the F-15C exceeded the SF2 implementation. DCS has come a long way. But still falls short of SF2 in several areas. The biggest one is the terrain: No Vietnam. But they recently released Cold War Germany which beats SF2 Europe and the Kola map which is superior to SF2 North Atlantic. There is no shortage of desert maps to beat SF2 Israel with Syria, Sinai, Iraq, and Persian Gulf. While TK never released a Korea themed expansion, the free mod version is comparable if not superior to official SF2 terrain. If DCS added decent Vietnam and Korea maps as well as the appropriate era asset packs to support them, it would be real close to surpassing SF2. The dynamic campaign for DCS World is still a long way off, but it should end up being superior to SF2 campaigns. In some ways, SF2 AI was better than DCS World, but a lot of AI improvements have been made recently and will continue to be improved to make the dynamic campaign work. Ultimately, it should be possible to have online dynamic campaigns similar to if not superior to Falcon 4.0/BMS. SF2 would need a lot of money/time/work to get it up to modern standards: 1. Aircraft and cockpits with high poly counts/hi-res textures and fully modeled for looking in all directions. 2. VR support. 3. Proper online multiplayer support compatible with offline missions/campaigns. How many people would buy an upgraded SF2 compared to staying with the already established DCS World? Even when SF2 was at its best, it ran out of money while LOMAC continued to evolve. Arcade people have Warthunder. Hardcore people have DCS World. Is there a market for an in between game? I honestly don't know how DCS World has survived. It is a niche market. DCS World is going to have new competition: Il-2 Korea. Its existence may guarantee DCS never makes a Korea map. But Il-2 may discover why there has never been many Korea themed combat flight sims: everyone loves World War 2 and the only other popular era was the modern teen series fighters. World War I sims never do that well and Korea/Vietnam era sims are almost non-existent. It is a tough market. I hope SF2 continues to be playable despite its age and that both Il-2 and DCS continue to move forward.