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I've wanted a more accessible combat flight simulator. Something like DCS or Falcon BMS with realistic flight physics, but more arcade controls (the aircraft sh
by Buttons840 3y ago
I've wanted a more accessible combat flight simulator. Something like DCS or Falcon BMS with realistic flight physics, but more arcade controls (the aircraft should handle realistically, but I shouldn't have to spend 20 minutes starting the aircraft and pushing simulated buttons and switches in the cockpit, even though I have a great appreciation for that level of detail).
I don't want my aircraft to have 99 missiles, and 9999 machine gun rounds. I want to have 2 bombs and 4 air-to-air missiles, and I want to fly a tense 15 minute mission into and out of enemy territory. Battle Royal games have shown players are willing to go 5 or 10 minutes between combat if the tension and possibility of surprise combat is there, and have perma-death, give me that in an air combat game.
- Daz1 3y agoEvery aircraft in DCS has an auto start function.
- kfrzcode 3y agoIf MSFS was a Bethesda game that mod would be the best-selling mod of any mod
- flangola7 3y agoWho sells mods for money?
- squarefoot 3y agoNo idea if there is something similar native to Linux and Open Source, but back in the day I had lots of fun playing "Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers", which today works with WINE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48L16mmR19Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48L16mmR19Y
- fock 3y agoI don't know if it's memory failing but the old Microsoft Combat flight simulators (not sure about physics, it's 20years now) seemed to tick a lot of those boxes (+aircraft models were not thaaat shabby to look at).
- nocoiner 3y agoI really liked the Combat Flight Simulator set in the Pacific. It was a blast flying the Corsair.
- FlightSimGuy 3y agoYes. That was Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator II and it was the best of the series IMHO. I spent a LOT of time with that classic old sim and I still have my copy. It runs on LINUX under Wine but not without a lot of tweaking and adjusting.
- t0mas88 3y agoDCS has some shortcut keys to do things like automatically running the whole engine start sequence. But I think you'll still need to spend some time on the navigation part to be able to fly a mission.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wossab 3y agoWar Thunder has a zillion planes, 3 modes of realism (including the one you want), runs native on LINUX and is free to try.
- mrguyorama 3y agoIf only it were actually enjoyable to play without spending a thousand dollars.
- ilyt 3y agoI have similar feelings for sim racing. I don't care about minutia of exactly tuning every single part of the car, but I want super-realistic handling
- isthisfoss 3y agoThere should be a prosumer game in the simracing genre. I don’t want to worry about refueling and tyre replacement, I just want to drive as realistically as a car can in a game. BeamNG is as close as we’re getting but it’s still quite slow and janky
- ArtWomb 3y agoDay-Z with F-14 tomcats ;) Do you recall "Onslaught Mode" in Unreal?
- laurensr 3y agoI wonder why you reference Onslaught Mode in Unreal. Does this game offer similar gameplay? To those who don't play UT: it is a game mode where teams compete to connect a network of nodes from their base to the other team's base.
- greendayle 3y agoVTOL VR
- Fabricio20 3y agoNo joke here, if you have a VR headset laying around, give this game a try, it's made by a solo developer who used to make mods for KSP. It's insane how good it is, with lots of systems being pretty detailed yet approachable. You don't need anything more than a VR headset for it, in fact, not supporting external input devices like HOTAS is sold as a feature.
- mrguyorama 3y agoThis is the exact kind of "I'm futzing about with switches for ten minutes" game the parent did not want though.
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y agoModern gaming in general lacks simulator type games. Falcon, Janes Combat Simulations, Silent Hunter, Wing Commander, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Strike Commander, Mech Warrior 2. I used to need a throttle with a toggle, a hat switch, some buttons, a joystick with a couple of hat switches, trigger, a few thumb buttons and I still needed the keyboard for a few functions because I didn't shell out for a HOTAS setup. Now all games can be played on a console controller with less than half the buttons.
- peterashford 3y agoI hear you! Some of my favourite games, but there's nothing available these days =(
- glimshe 3y agoYou can find older games from the 90s that might hit the spot. VGA 320x200 graphics, though. Things like the Dynamix Air Combat series are great. Falcon 3/Mig-29 are also quite accessible, as are the Microprose games (although these tend to be a bit less realistic).
- tushar-r 3y agoStrike Fighters on Android and iOS does this quite well.
- nocoiner 3y agoWhat about the low(er)-fidelity DCS modules? Are you specifically looking for multiplayer, or would something like Flaming Cliffs 3 appeal to you?
- tonmoy 3y agoFlying a low fi model like the F-15 on DCS was pretty realistic but arcadey at the same time. I could easily map most of the controls on my Xbox controller and have the keyboard ready for those rare cases
- mwambua 3y agoSeconded! The Su-27 is another nice lo-fi plane that ends up being much more fun/easy to fly as a result of its simplicity.
- stavros 3y agoI got some voice software for windows (I forget the name now) that's much better for the rare cases. I mapped some stuff to it for DCS and Elite and it was great, I could say stuff and it would happen. It feels very futuristic to say "landing gear down" and have the gear start deploying.
- mbo 3y agoCheck out Tiny Combat Arena - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1347550/Tiny_Combat_Arena/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1347550/Tiny_Combat_Arena...
- the_af 3y ago+1 to this, and let me elaborate: Tiny Combat Arena focuses on a (somewhat fictional) version of the Harrier Jump Jet and opponents from around that era. Attractive low-poly graphics -- and I do mean attractive -- very good performance and the right balance between arcade and flightsim. There is a flight model to the game, and some weapons systems get simulated in simplified form. Do you remember the flightsims of yore, like F-117? This is it, only with better graphics and flight.
- aitchnyu 3y agoWhy does the low poly graphics warm the heart (subjectively) more than LAC and even modern games?
- richforrester 3y agoBecause it leaves to the imagination, probably.
- myth_drannon 3y agoThe same reason why people love impressionist paintings or painting done with large strokes of pallete knive. Leave something for the human brain to fill in, do a small puzzle of connecting shape into something whole.
- _AzMoo 3y agoLoved F-117. Chuck Yeager's Air Combat in the same league.
- sdfghswe 3y agoI was skeptical when you said attractive low-poly graphics. I'd never seen such thing. But checking the link out, it is pretty. Incidentally, why is it that so many flight simulators are low-poly? I've seen FPS with amazing graphics, why not make flight simulators with amazing graphics as well?
- DillardTheDread 3y agoI have been enjoying Linux Air Combat for almost 2 weeks now and I have to say it's really good! It reminds me of the original Aces high from about 2005. Cockpit graphics are not at all realistic because it's all digital like a modern jet fighter. But the terrain graphics and clouds look as good or better than Aces High 2. Not as good as Aces High 3 by any measure but good enough to completely absorb my imagination. The feeling of flight is what I really enjoy. It just feels right! And very smooth response to flight controls. After several days studying online docs and practicing offline I finally tried the online missions yesterday. Wow. Very very fun and absorbing. When you're the only online player they automatically send in prerecorded enemies from earlier online battles so you get drawn into the war against them and you can shoot them down if your good enough. After a while another player joined in with me. At first he was on my side but later he switched to the enemy and we went after each other for a couple hours. I died a lot but I loved every minute of it and I learned a lot. This is the most fun I ever had flight simming on Linux. They have text comms and voice comms in flight. So far I have only tried text but now I'm gonna activate the voice comms. It looks like Wednesday and Thursday are scheduled with regular online groups so will be there.
- FlightSimGuy 3y ago"The feeling of flight is what I really enjoy. It just feels right! And very smooth response to flight controls." Yes. This. I am planning to try joining the group this Thursday evening. It looks like the best time is from 6PM Central Time Zone for a couple of hours. I can't start that early but I'll try to join about 7PM. I will probably be flying a Ki84. That was 1 of my best planes in Aces High and when I tried it in LAC it felt pretty much the same. Great plane. Graphics in LAC are OK to me. I only fly aircraft sims and I dont do it for the graphics. As long as theyre good enough to fire up my imagination what I am after is the realistic feeling of flight and LAC has it. My limited experience in their online missions have been really engaging with lots of activity involving replay pilots. Actually the quality of those replay engagements is amazing. It's been a couple days since I was on but as I write this I think I'll go back into the desert mission one right away. I got my first kill there and had a blast. Just a constant drumbeat of targets trying to destroy my air field and I was constantly trying to keep up with the threats. One thing I learned that helped me a lot was to press v for vocalize in flight which when you do that you hear a radio message directing you toward your target even if radar is out or if the target is flying below radar. Once I learned that the desert mission became my favorite. I also tried the Peabody mission but that one was too hard and way to complicated for me until I get a lot more practice.