Falcon 4 BMS
 

I don't see much mention of flight sims 'round here. But there has to be some cross-over. And for us Silent Hunter fans spoiled by great dynamic campaigns, there is another sim that has a great one, and in my opinion, the greatest sim campaign of all, Falcon 4.

F4 was released back in 1998. It's come a long way since then. There are a few version choices for a virtual Viper driver, but for me the best choice is the BMS mod.

https://www.bmsforum.org/forum/content.php

The F-16 is modeled in painstaking detail, and it's true that it is a steep learning curve. Not everyone will take to a sim like this. But if you like combat jets and an amazing virtual war to fly them in, F4 BMS is the best thing going. Forget the rubbish heap that is DCS. Pick up a copy of Falcon 4.0 at GOG.com and download BMS. Cost: $10

The campaign is fantastic. It's a virtual war that rolls on with or without you. I'm sure most of you know about this already. It's complex. For anyone interested, I've done a campaign guide over at SimHQ. Read it here

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...ns#Post4336426

A few shots showing F4 BMS

http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergal..._30_221510.png

http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergal..._10_215403.png

http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergal..._26_181855.png

http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergal..._26_200549.png

http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergal..._02_221741.png

http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergal..._26_200250.png

http://simhq.com/forum/files/usergal..._26_201047.png


For best results a full HOTAS and Track IR are recommended. I use a Cougar. This sim is fantastic, in my opinion the very best there is. It's not easy, and takes effort to become proficient. But if you put the time in, you'll be rewarded with the best jet combat simulator out there.

I don't know why my screenshots are so huge. Sorry 'bout that.

Most are posted in the flight sim section :O:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=216

Hmm, you may be on to something... :)

Falcon 4 and Enemy Engaged are the only two flight sims I know that have both nice physics and a nice dynamic campgin. I remember a very early game about F-22 Raptor had a nice campaign. But sadly the graphics and physics didn't catch up.

Nice thing about F4 is that you're flying a multirole. So you have so many different ways to play the campaign.

DCS is very good at physics and graphics. Too bad it doesn't have a campaign or a good story.

P.S.: Falcon 4 is on sale now on steam for $3.50. It's really a steal for those who don't have it yet!

F3 Gold was one of my favorites growing up. I used to fly in an AOL (yes AOL) dial up ladder league.

That steam price is soooooo tempting.

Eh, Just remembered I have no joystick. I'll have to put that on my birthday list, but I can get F4 now for that price.

I still have fond memories of that game. Received that MOH once, for downing 17 enemy fighters before having to punch out myself. We were on a CAP over the Korean border, and our RWR started screaming and AWACS did too, a huge alpha strike was inbound. All 4 AMRAAMS hit, then all my sidewinders hit, and then I lost my wingman, and then I somehow got 9 more lucky gun kills, screaming for backup the whole time. Went Bingo weps and fuel, but could never escape the rest of them. Don't remember how I got shot down, but I did, punching out, and that Pilot went MIA. Ahh the memories of a wasted youth.

And looking at the Falcon Gold on Steam, holy crap I don't remember the graphics being that bad LOL.

And they are asking for a 1.8ghz processor minimum. I ran mine on a 66 mhz 386 back then.

You're thinking of DiD's F22: Total Air War, and it's a great game. While it certainly hasn't matured as well as Falcon BMS, there was actually also community work done on it for well over a decade after its original 1997 release. I can't link it here unfortunately because it falls into the same legal "grey area" as BMS (and even a little more so), but you can find it fairly easily if you search. It was one of my favourite sims back in the day and I recently got it running on my PC again :)

What fascinates me about that is just how much BMS (and other modders before them) managed to do with it - try running Falcon 4 without mods, and it's practically unrecognizable. Heck, even the Allied Force release from 2004 looks completely obsolete by comparison. It's amazing that it's still running on the same engine.

Then again, if you look at something like ARMA 3 - it's also still retains a fair bit of the original 2001 "Operation Flashpoint", while DCS is built on top of 2003's Lock On (which, in turn, is based heavily on the 1997 Flanker 2.5 and its predecessors), while today's versions of FSX/Prepar3D retain most of FS2002's code base and some from even older version. But today's Falcon definitely gets extra cookie points for basically being community-maintained for what's now been 18 years since the last official Microprose patch!

Another honourable mention should go to Jane's F-18, also. Although not nearly as active as the Falcon community, and lacking F4's dynamic campaign, it also received lots of mod updates over the years and is worth taking a second look at!

Well, I think Falcon Gold has Falcon 4.0 included right? So that may be why there are higher CPU specs?

Yes, I think it's that - I don't remember how it's packaged on Steam, but on GoG it's packaged in an odd way (probably for licensing reasons) - it's sold as a pack of Falcon (1.5) Gold, Falcon 2.0, and Falcon 3.0 all together, with Falcon 4.0 being a "bonus item" rather than a core part of the package. F4's license status has been a bit of a mess for a while, so I think everyone (not the least the BMS) team prefer to stay as low-key about dealing with it as possible - although I'm sure that the success of BMS is part of the reason it has gone back on sale now.

But I think you're also right that the specs are higher than you remember for Falcon 4.0 - I'll have to look at my original manual when I get home, but I think when it shipped, it listed a 233 MHz Pentium II as minimum. Considering how horridly unoptimized on release it was though, 1.8 GHz would've been much more realistic :O: I played the thing for at least 5 years on systems waaay below that 1.8 GHz spec though! First on a 400 MHz Celeron, then an 800 MHz Pentium III. I even managed to be part of an online squadron for years - on laggy 56k dialup!

Man, those were the days :D

IIRC, Gold was the last expansion of the 3.0 series. I believe that the gold on steam doesn't include 4, might be wrong though.

I got to laughing today in the car, realizing I had posted a recount of a single mission I flew about 25 years ago in a game.

I then realized I remember other games, like in the dial up head to head dog fight tourny I was in. I had my wings holed by his cannon, and was losing fuel quickly. I ran out of gas, and had to dive to gain speed, he followed me down to the deck, but I was able to pull up better than he was, and he crashed before I did, giving me the win.

Well, you have to admit - if you can still remember missions you played 25 years ago, chances are it was a pretty good game after all :yep:

I never actually got to play Falcon 3 - it was just a little bit before my time. Perhaps I should actually install it now that I have the pack of them from GoG.

We are flying BMS a lot these days. We have a dedicated campaign server and have a good old time. Of course you have to install 4.0 to use BMS now. I had snapped a couple of shots to compare the old and the new. Quite frankly, original Falcon 4 still holds up well. When I attach pics here they explode to massive size, so I will just link the post from SimHQ comparing the old and new 'pits.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...ey#Post4336731

Good post CCIP. With a handle like that you have to be a jetsimmer! Yeah, what Team Super Hornet did with F/A-18 was amazing. I haven't flown that in a long time, but it's one of the greats.