Foxhound1

Clearly, Strike Fighters 2 has not performed according to TK's expectations - by his own admission, SF2 North Atlantic still hasn't made back the money it cost to develop. There are a number of reasons why this could be so: 1. The game and its expansions are of poor quality. I would dispute this, as I'm sure most people on this forum would. 2. Flight sims are an increasingly niche market, and there simply isn't enough interest in them to support decent sales. I would dispute this as well. According to SteamSpy, the Il-2 games have hundreds of thousands of owners. The main DCS module has several millions. That module in itself is free, but it is at least useful as a tool to gauge the general interest in jet combat. If only a fraction of those people bought SF2, TK would be set for life. Obviously, those games were made by larger teams and their production values are well above what SF2 could aim for (although with the help of mods, it could certainly come close), but SF2 has other qualities that I am certain would appeal to a large portion of the owners of the games mentioned above. 3. Strike Fighters 2 is available for sale only to an extremely limited market, through an obscure website. This, I believe, is why the game has failed to meet with financial success. It can only be purchased on the ThirdWire website, only a small portion of the gaming community even knows of its existence, and to make matters worse the game and its expansions are severely overpriced. Il-2: 1946, the complete original Il-2 package, can be bought for $10 on Steam, or even less during sales. SF2 Complete is sold for $100 and can only be found on the ThirdWire website. It is all very frustrating, because I want SF2 to do well.

If TK put out the Strike Fighters 2 Complete package, with Windows 10 support, on Steam and GOG for $15 or $20, I would be very, very surprised if sales and the revenue they brought in didn't exceed the game's lifetime numbers up until now in fairly short order. Personally I'd be willing to pay as much as $40, but I don't think that's a realistic price for a ten year old game, regardless of how many expansions it has - sales would plummet and it would make far less money than if it was sold for less. $100 is right out. Money would continue to trickle in for years, during Steam sales there would be a sharp increase in sales, and TK would find it much easier to fund his future projects. Hell, he might even get those $2 million he needs for SF3 - especially if some of the mainstream PC games media gave his $15 SF2 Complete Steam release the attention it would deserve. Rock, Paper, Shotgun most certainly would. But that's just my opinion. I will never understand why the game isn't already out on Steam. Wings over Europe is already there, and maybe TK found its sales on the platform disappointing. But I have to believe that SF2 Complete would do much, much better. I just don't see what he would have to lose, and there would be so much to gain.

I've been playing a lot of Strike Fighters 2 campaigns recently (the stock versions). I've been whining a lot before about how I prefer static campaigns, but I can truly see the value in dynamic campaigns where if you go beyond your mission objectives and kill that stray MiG-21 or bomb that nearby SAM site, you know that's one less threat you and the rest of your forces will have to face in future missions. There is certainly a lot of replay value. One gripe I have with the SF2 campaigns is that there seems to be so much going on under the hood that is invisible to players. When you finish a campaign, I wish it would show stats on total enemy and friendly losses, etc... which strategic targets were hit, which weren't. The presentation is extremely bare-bones in this regard. The manual also mentions very little about how campaigns work. Are there any online resources that go behind the scenes to explain how campaigns really work in Strike Fighters 2? For example, when you destroy a hangar or a fuel depot on an enemy airbase, what effect does this have? Is a random number of enemy aircraft assumed to have been inside the hangar? Does lack of fuel limit enemy sorties?

Which flight model do you use when playing the game? I've been flying with Hard, but I read in an older thread that modders typically design new aircraft for use with the Normal flight model. I also read that all AI-controlled aircraft always use the Normal flight model, which presumably would give them an unfair advantage in any air combat maneuvers.

I have found that while flying an F-4 on Hard, some of the default loadouts the game assigns you are so heavy that it is impossible to take off before you run out of runway. Meanwhile, your wingmen, carrying identical loadouts, nimbly lift off without any problems. This makes it seem to me that the game was designed for the Normal FM. Since I've been playing with the Hard FM, I typically solve this by removing the drop tanks, since I'm using "Normal" fuel usage and can typically do just fine without them. ;)

Every flight simulator has a number of different elements that can make or break the game for its players. The flight model, the level of realism, graphics, multiplayer functionality, and so on. Which element is the most important depends on who you ask, but for me it is probably the campaign. I am willing to forgive a lot if the game comes with a good and interesting campaign (hello, Strike Commander), but sadly it often seems to be an afterthought. Newer sims tend to feature dynamic campaigns, whereas older ones often had a linear mission-based structure. There are pros and cons with both systems, although my impression is that most flight sim fans prefer the dynamic ones. Personally, I'm in the other camp. To me, dynamic campaigns often feel cold and flavorless. You go on randomly generated mission after mission, whittle down the enemy's numbers, and eventually you are treated to a victory screen. There is little flavor in terms of reports about how the war is going, or sudden dramatic strategic changes (Russia has entered the war, etc). I am a big fan of Strike Fighters 2, but I have honestly had a lot of trouble getting into that game's campaigns. I remember having a similar problem with the otherwise excellent EF2000 back in the day. Now I'm obviously missing something, so I would love to hear from other flight sim players what their favorite dynamic campaigns are, and what makes them stand out. If you know of any really good linear campaigns, I would love to hear about them too - there aren't really that many, in my experience. What are your favorite flight simulator campaigns? What is it that makes them good?

My first combat flight sim was Top Gun: Fire at Will. Did anyone else play that game? It was on the lower end of middle-ground flight simulators in terms of realism, although it still felt reasonably authentic - certainly the most realistic of all the Top Gun games that were released over the years. It had a ton of atmosphere and really captured the tone of the movie. I loved the banter you heard in the air during missions... the game even had some friendly ribbing between Air Force and Navy pilots during exercises over the Grand Canyon as I recall. Excellent voice acting. Second sim was US Navy Fighters. Needless to say, I was sold on the F-14 after those two games...

It sounds like Il-2 1946 with its mods really is the place to go for the best static single player campaigns. I own two copies of the game (retail and GOG versions), but I have only really dabbled in it. I really should dive in, install the Dark Blue World modpack and play through the best campaigns. I do like WW2 stuff, but my main interest is jet fighters. I so wish that Strike Fighters 2 had the kind of tools Il-2 does for static mission and campaign building. With the release of BAT for Il-2, it seems like that game might be getting more jet fighter content in the near future, though. My main gripe with DCS is that I don't really do study sims, and the campaigns are limited to the Georgian theater.

Hey everyone, I recently purchased DCS: Flaming Cliffs 3 during the summer Steam sale, but I haven't had time to actually play it yet. I was wondering, how does it compare to Strike Fighters 2 in terms of realism? I understand that Flaming Cliffs 3 is the "light" variant of DCS World, with aircraft featuring somewhat simplified systems. Another question... the game comes with a map of the Caucasus, and I understand that you can purchase (expensively) new maps of Nevada and Normandy, but are there any free terrains made by fans that can be downloaded? Or can you only use the three official maps?

A tragic accident to be sure, but I don't understand the name of this thread or the OP's quote. Is it meant to imply that this accident was somehow a consequence of the US Navy accepting women into its ranks?

It's a terrible shame, because there are no other modern survey sims like Strike Fighters 2 out there. SF2 hit right on the mark for me in terms of realism. Games like DCS, Falcon 4 and even Flaming Cliffs 3 are too complex for my taste. I can understand the appeal, but they're not for me - I simply lack the patience and/or brain power, I guess. It seems that flight simulators today are either extremely authentic study sims, or simple arcade shooters like Ace Combat. The games that are somewhere inbetween (moderately realistic, but with some simplification), like Jane's US Navy Fighters or Strike Fighters 2, are simply not made anymore. I can't argue with the economic realities of ThirdWire, but I still think they could make a fair bit of money with minimal effort if they released some sort of SF2 compilation on Steam with all the expansions, similar to IL-2 1946, and priced it at around $10 - $20 (IL-2 is sold for $10 currently). It would add a new standard for modders to work towards, since they would no longer have to concern themselves with all the different versions and packages of SF2 that people are currently using.

Hi all! Has anyone made any non-dynamic campaigns for SF2? As in, where you progress in a linear fashion from mission to mission in the old school fashion of Fleet Defender and US Navy Fighters among others, with text briefings informing you how the war/conflict is progressing. I believe the IL-2 1946 crowd refer to them as "static campaigns." I can certainly appreciate the replayability of dynamic campaigns, but my personal preference (I may be in the minority here) has always been for more scripted campaigns with some kind of narrative (even if it's just text briefings).

That's a shame. It seems like adding support for displaying custom briefing/debriefing text and the ability to link missions to play one after the other would be relatively trivial things to code. But since it doesn't look like SF2 will be getting any more expansions, and it's very unlikely that TK will ever release the source code, I guess it's not gonna happen... Modders have released some truly creative campaigns for Il-2 1946, like being a seaplane pilot operating from a Japanese cruiser or taking on the role of a Beaufighter pilot stranded with his crew behind enemy lines in the Pacific, etc. I would love to see more personal stuff like this in the vast time-span covered by SF2 and its mods... there are certain things that simply can't be done in dynamic campaigns.