Done with Multipayer shooters. Flight sims any good?

Interested in trying some flight sims. I am bored with mw2 and bc2. There comes a point when you just master a genre and it offers no challenge. I'm thinking about going into flight sims thinking it might offer a different challenge. Any recommendations? I've been looking at Wings of Prey. Any recommendations as far as what kind of controls I should buy.

 

I hope you enjoy reading instruction manuals that are textbook sized...

 

I have been playing falcon 4.0 allied force. You should definetly have some kind of joystick if you are going to get into flight sims.

 

Depends on if you want more action/arcade fun or harder core realism.

Blackshark is a great super realistic modern helicopter sim
DCS - Digital Combat Simulator

IL2:1946 is a GREAT WWII realistic flight sim with a great online community, and is cheap too $9.99 from either steam or gog.com
IL-2 Sturmovik?: 1946 - GOG.com

Wings of Prey is really fun, but it leans more towards the arcade side of things... great graphics, really fun, but not the most realistic

Flight Sim X and X-plane are both great if you want to try your hand at a non-combat realisitic experience... there are some great add-on aircraft that really expand the sim... here's an example:
Shockwave Productions

As mentioned above, Falcon 4 is still great and has a good following still. Also, check out Lock-On for another realistic modern fighter sim

I personally LOVE the genre, been my favorite since I first played flight sim 2.0 way back when.

EDIT: As far as controllers, if you are truly serious and want something that will last you a long time, I personally love these controllers. CH Products has done me well for decades, without any issues. Love their stuff. Also, much better prices than on the website here are available on amazon.com Almost half of MSRP for a lot of it.
http://www.chproducts.com/retail/index.html

 

I still find myself playing the old Star Wars flight sims from 10+ years ago, namely X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance. They can still run on modern hardware without too much work, but unfortunately neither one is available on GoG so if you didn't buy them when they were new, you're going to be stuck paying way-too-high-a-price from someone who still has a CD they'd like to sell.

The Freespace series is also decent, and it is available from GoG.

 

Gosh I miss my flight sims. I wish I had the time to dedicate... sigh... one day, one day. I bought DCS Black Shark, installed it, got the bird up and running, did a pattern around the airfield and landed, and haven't touched it since. I'm reluctant to get out my flight gear (CH stick, throttle, rudder) for fear my wingnut gremlins will destroy it.

 

DCS BlackShark looks fun. A little depth is nice. Might get wings of prey for some shooting action and blackshark for a bit more depth. What would be a good controller for blackshark? Do you recommend a particular model? Will blackshark run good with a 5870m?

 

For in depth sims like DCS and Falcon 4 you will have the best experience with a separate flight stick and throttle and preferably rudder pedals, although a twist stick will work.

An inexpensive but decent quality twist stick system is the Saitek X52. For a more elaborate setup, the CH Products line is great. I own the CH Fighterstick, CH Pro Throttle, and CH Pro Pedals. Have for probably six or seven years now and still going strong. That setup will cost you probably about $350, maybe less if you can find a decent deal, but deals are hard to find on those.

Wings of Prey does look like fun, haven't bought it yet mainly because I know I won't be able to play it, but I've logged hundreds of hours in IL2 as well as Falcon 4 (original) and Falcon 4 Allied Force. Best damn sims out there. Lock-On Modern Air Combat (also known as LO-MAC) is a great lite sim that allows you to fly the A10! One of my fav aircraft. Good buy as well.

 

I was watching a youtube video about the starting sequence for the blackshark game. Insane.

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Blackshark will run great on a 5870m... I run it on my G73 great, and it actually plays suprisingly well on my M11x, so you'll be just fine.... just plan to spend some time actually learning the sim and the systems of the helicopter.... there is an arcade mode for just a quick jump in and blow stuff up experience, but the real deal is the sim mode. It's not really that hard, but is very detailed, and will require a bit of tinkering to figure out.

Wings of prey is actually really good with a 360 game pad, I actually prefer to play it with that than my CH gear. Really fun game, and has a lot of sim elements, so would be a good start and defintely fun.

As far as controls, if you are going for a true sim experience, get a good stick and rudder pedals. I'm using the CH Combatstick, it's the middle range model with a great amount of buttons, but doesn't have quite as many as the fighterstick. It is plenty for me though. Also, it has a throttle wheel, as does the Fighterstick, so a seperate throttle isn't necessary. For total realism a seperate throttle would be more realistic, but I don't normally use one. I do have the pro throttle, but usually just use the one on the stick.

Rudder pedals I would recommend though, as they truly do add to the experience and increase your accuracy exponentially, atleast for me, over twist sticks.

So, for a CH Combatstick and CH rudder pedals, on amazon it's $100 for the pedals, and $78 for the stick, and will get you some serious gear to get started with. You can always add the throttle later if you really like sims and want it.

 

Not sure if it will be wise to invest $350 in flight controls since this is my first time. What's a good cheap alternative to just get my feet wet. That way if I really like it, I'll invest in some real controls for it later on. Is there a way to maybe just getting by with a cheap stick at first? Guess I'm going to have to research this a bit more.

 

check some of these out...

PC Gaming - PC Joysticks - Flight Sticks

 

Ok, think I will just get the stick first, and the throttle later if I really like the game. Wait, do I need the pedals?

 

Pedals, not if you get a twist stick, that act as rudder. Rudder pedals also act as toe brakes for aircraft as well. If you don't want to make big investment you can get a decent single stick with throttle and twist for rudder.

CH Products stuff are top notch. Unfortunately I don't believe they make a twist stick, so you'd need some form of rudder control, especially for a chopper. I've seen some people use their POV hat for that, but not really that easy.

A Saitek X52 costs about $100 for stick and throttle with rudder twist on the stick. Otherwise Logitech and Thrustmaster have a few all-in-one single stick solutions for under $40. Logitech 3D Pro is a good starter stick.

newegg has a decent selection so just browse over there at least as a start.

Also, one fun toy that works great with sims is the TrackIR. It's a little pricey, but if you get into sims, you almost can't live without it. It tracks your head for movements so you can freely look around your aircraft, freeing up your hands for actually flying. I haven't used mine in a while, but ended up not being able to play IL-2 without it. The immersion is unbelievable.

 

haha at video ! makes me think about gettin in the chopper on BC2 and immediately taking off

2ndly, what is the appeal in flight sims? i myself cannot see it, it seems a bit boring, but i am open to opinion. what is it you guys find the fun part about it?

 

Flightsims tend to appeal to the person fascinated with flight, be them real pilots are not. The experience of starting up an aircraft like in Falcon 4.0 and FSX is all part of the experience for those that are really into them. Me personally, I'm not that much into long start ups, but I'm into high amounts of controls during actual flight and combat. Despite owning a Logitech G940 Flight System, I'm a bit impatient about setting everything up, and I've only properly set up Wings of Prey out of all the flight sims I have which include Lock On, FSX, IL-2 + 1946, and a few others. It takes alot of time and patience. It is worth the few hours it might take (yes I said few hours) if you're into such a thing. It's only too bad I don't have a good chair set up for all the controls The joystick itself has gotten more use with BF2 than anything, and the stick itself is pretty good for that game, though I can imagine how interesting using the pedals for walking movement could be. It would be much like a mech I imagine LOL BF2 doesn't support using a joystick as your look control, but BF2142 does, and I'll tell you what, it sure makes aiming hard as hell but it's interesting to just try out lol.

 

Come master me and get bored on quakelive...

The QuakQuak

 

I read a review on blackshark and they say it takes a few months to really learn. 555 page manual? Wow, they should offer a course for this simulation.

That said, blackshark appealed to me the most. I like the Hardcore Realism aspect, and the attention to detail of the game after reading up on it more. Ordered the game, but still deciding on the controls.

Its times like these where I wish I had a eyeinfinity capable system. Imagine playing Blackshark with a 3 monitor eyeinfinity system with IR tracking....

 

Yeah I have been playing falcon 4.0 for a few years and still haven't mastered it yet. I can't count how many times it took me to get air to air refueling down.

 

I'm not a big fan of civilian flight sims, although some runs in FSX with a small aircraft are fun, especially if you're a real pilot and like to practice certain procedures, especially as a student.

Combat flight sims are an entirely different experience. You get detailed aspects of all parts of the aircraft, including radar, weapons deployment, damage control, waypoint navigation, etc. In fighter jet sims like Jane's F/A-18 and Falcon 4, the detail in the MFD's alone are fun to mess around with. Locking on targets requires some skill and knowledge of the situation, not to mention mastering the aircraft to fly within its limits or "flight envelope".

Some parts of sims can be over the top, like the full sequence of dials and switches just to startup an aircraft. I don't care to do that, well maybe on occasion just to know how to do it. I don't want to spend 30 minutes starting up only to get blown out of the sky 20 minutes into my sortie.

All in all, combat flight sims are a very rewarding experience once you learn to master them. Getting a kill is kind of like getting a goal in soccer (football, whatever), where it's rare, but quite an accomplishment. A full set of flight controls are really needed to get the best experience. They are very detail oriented, so if you're not into that sort of thing, then maybe its not your cup of tea.

 

LOL.

I hear ya. I used to play a lot. But then I quit for a couple years, and getting back into it was just like the first time I played it. If you don't use it, you forget everything. Plus I lost my HOTAS profile, so had to recreate that, and that takes a long time as well to get it how you like it.

Before I had kids, I had a projector, a self-made cobbled together cockpit with push button MFD, and second PC with monitor to display flight gauges,etc, all for Falcon 4. I would spend literally most of a weekend on sorties with me and my buddy hooked up online. The problem with these hard core flight sims is the amount of hardware, so it's not like you can LAN with it very easily. Although I did make a stand that housed all my control equipment that folded up for easy storage. Just required a plug into a wall outlet and a USB port.

 

If only you could drive a Ka-50 "Black Shark" to work every day, then you would retain all that flight knowledge.

 

What about space flight sims or flight games? Why is that genre dead? Are there games that still exist like that? X-wing vs. Tie Fighter and Wing Commander aside, the last ones I heard of were like Starlancer and Freelancer... are there anymore more recent ones?

Edit: I bought ST Legacy , but that was an epic fail due to it just being a shoddy port from X360

 

I think the flight sim genre is dead/dying because they are expensive to make and the market is very small.

 

Unfortunately pretty much all space sims are old. Some good space sims are Freespace 2 and several mods out there, Independence War 2, DarkStar One is fairly new, and online only distribution are the games by starwraith. Very well done too.

I would like to see a remake to X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter. I'm sure that would be a big hit. Also a Freespace 3 would be awesome too.

True combat aircraft sims are dead because they are a huge investment with little return, although they have a very vocal and avid fan base.

I don't see why space based sims wouldn't be successful though like those sequels I mentioned.

 

ye i don't think the extreme setting up and patience is my cup of tea. i'm an actionman! give me a shotgun, 12kg of C4 and a target to annhialate any day.

 

And this is exactly why flight sims are dead. Everyone wants instant bang bang gameplay. Not really anything wrong with it, but so many younger people don't think twice about playing hours at a time on the same game doing more or less the same thing over and over again.

Sims require lots of time, but once you master it, it's like an accomplishment, like you've graduated almost. Then it gets really fun. With games like Bad Company 2 your life expectancy is less than a minute usually. In deep sims like Falon 4, you do your best not to die after spending 20 minutes setting up your aircraft, taking off, and approaching the target. Those 20 minutes aren't boring either. Scanning for enemies along the way, and setting up your proper approach. Sure you may get jumped by a couple of MiG's along the way, but that just makes it more exciting.

 

I think it still has a following enough to keep it afloat. And it's one of the genres that really separate the pc from consoles.

 

not when i'm playing properly

 

lol if youre done with your BC2 lend me your serial XD haha

 

You must have more competition in that game than on console (even though PC players are generally better than console players anyways, I have had moments where it's the other way around).

I easily get 1.5k-2k+ points every game on the 360, and I play all classes. Just had a few games tonight actually with a KDR of 2-2.5 with the UMP.

 

Problem is that hit detection is "hit or miss" pardon the pun. Sometimes it's great, and I get 3 or 4 to 1. Then I have games where I must have accidentally picked up an airsoft gun, because I'll get 1 or 2 to 4 or 5, and that happens more often than not.

Plus on the 360 it's max 24 players compared with 32 players which are the maps I usually play. From the videos I've seen on Xbox 360 or PS3 it seems a lot less congested, and well, a lot less situationally aware players.

 

Same here, but based on your stats, it shows your average lifetime of 59seconds. Even the best players don't have an average lifetime of much more than a miute.

 

ye the first 20odd levels i was learning and pissing around. i doubt the average then was more than 30 secs. i am thinking about making a new soldier so i don't have quite so lame stats. now i seem to go 5mins at a time alive. unless i spawn on someone standing on a grenade >:|

 

I thought I'd start over too, but it's too much of a grind IMHO to level up. I used to worry about my stats, now I don't care. I just go in and have fun.

 

Just got the Extreme 3d pro stick for now. I've read some reviews that it was good, however, it might be a bit suspect as far as durability. It's the cheapest way for me to get into flight sims at $30, plus $30 for the game, so we'll see how it goes.

 

What game did you purchase? I started with the extreme 3d pro also. It is a very good starter joystick.

 

Yeah, if you like the sims, then I'd definitely consider a HOTAS (Hands On Throttle and Stick) which consists of Stick and Throttle and typically refers to rudder pedals/toe brakes as well.

Usually the CH stuff lasts for years. I bought mine probably close to five years ago and still going strong.

Anyhow, yeah let us know what game you got. Either way I highly recommend IL-2 1946. You can get it for $10 at most places, I believe Steam, and Gog.com (recommend). You won't regret it. It has simplified and advanced controls and flight model. Great fun.

 

I still have a Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2. I wish I had the room to use it. The thing is so damn bulky. I have been a huge fan of the FS series. My laptop can only handle FS9. I would love to move on to FSX but i just cant afford it