Falcon 4 BMS

[Threadfin]

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
















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.

[Threadfin]

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

[Mud]

Most are posted in the flight sim section

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

[Threadfin]

Hmm, you may be on to something...

[qiaoyech]

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!

[Gargamel]

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.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by qiaoyech

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.

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

Originally Posted by Threadfin

Forget the rubbish heap that is DCS.

Yeah right, DCS is 'rubbish'.
What nonsense, really.

It's like saying Italian food sucks because you like Indian food better.
There's no need for elitist nonsense between falcon and DCS at all.

[Threadfin]

OK, fair enough nippelspanner. I disagree with your analogy and it's far more than a matter of taste. And I accept that calling DCS 'rubbish' isn't fair. The sim is good looking, the aircraft, systems and weapons are well modeled for the most part and the 'pits are gorgeous. Beyond that though I have little good to say.

For me, DCS is a fantastic flight sim while BMS is too, while also being a fantastic combat flight simulation. Beyond the actual software though, DCS, to me, is a mess. Haphazard development map, fractured community, substandard releases, ridiculous forum and so on. There's much dissatisfaction and downright hostility in the DCS community. So even if someone might think I am full of sh!t, it's out there for all to see.

If you like DCS that's great. Have fun if it scratches that itch. Having more sims is good. I was wrong using the word rubbish to describe a sim that does indeed have good qualities, even if I personally feel it misses the mark in many facets I believe are essential to a sim that models combat aircraft. Good hunting.

[Red October1984]

I bought F4 during a steam sale a while back meaning to do BMS but I need to get a new flight stick. My old one crapped out and I haven't touched a flight sim yet.

[Threadfin]

Red October, here is a good step by step install guide Ice did. If you decide to get in to BMS it makes it a lot easier to get it all set up

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...-3#Post4347779

Get yourself a Warthog or another HOTAS and start flying!

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Threadfin

OK, fair enough nippelspanner. I disagree with your analogy and it's far more than a matter of taste. And I accept that calling DCS 'rubbish' isn't fair. The sim is good looking, the aircraft, systems and weapons are well modeled for the most part and the 'pits are gorgeous. Beyond that though I have little good to say.

For me, DCS is a fantastic flight sim while BMS is too, while also being a fantastic combat flight simulation. Beyond the actual software though, DCS, to me, is a mess. Haphazard development map, fractured community, substandard releases, ridiculous forum and so on. There's much dissatisfaction and downright hostility in the DCS community. So even if someone might think I am full of sh!t, it's out there for all to see.

If you like DCS that's great. Have fun if it scratches that itch. Having more sims is good. I was wrong using the word rubbish to describe a sim that does indeed have good qualities, even if I personally feel it misses the mark in many facets I believe are essential to a sim that models combat aircraft. Good hunting.

I think this is a great analogy, and thanks for taking a fair perspective on it.

Honestly, I would have to agree with you completely on this, too - I do like what DCS does and I'm happy that it seems to have a live and active community of both players and developers behind it. I think what they definitely nailed was the development and sales model with 3rd party content. Not that it's a new thing, as it's basically a more modest version of what the Flight Simulator payware scene looks like - but it is good that it seems to be doing well in a combat simulator too. As a result, DCS is easily the finest "study sim" there is - if you're willing to pay to get all the various high-detailed aircraft.

Falcon is a study sim too - though even in these latter-day versions, a true study sim of the F-16 only (with other flyable aircraft doing a fine job of being plausible, but still often relying on F-16 systems modeled underneath). DCS aircraft do have a number of finer details modeled in some respects, but overall I'd argue that the BMS F-16 is still the ultimate simulated combat aircraft - though it is helped by the fact that the F-16 comes in more versions and deploys a greater range of weapons than any DCS plane does. At the end of the day, if I had to pick only one aircraft to fly in a combat sim, that'd have to be it.

What's more important, though, is the rest of the simulation - DCS does boast better graphics, physics, and even the (for now mostly theoretical) ability to play as ships and ground units (something Falcon was originally envisioned to do as well, but it was just a pipe dream at the time). But F4's campaign just blows everything out of the water. Ultimately, it's the difference between well-choreographed scenario play in DCS (and all credit due to great scenario designers of course!) vs. a live, unscripted, massively complex air/ground/(somewhat sea) combat theater in F4, essentially a self-playing strategic wargame where things like integrated air defense systems, supply, morale, manufacturing etc. all play an active role.

I say it without the slightest irony or exaggaration, but IMO Falcon 4.0 is not just a great game but one of the most ambitious pieces of software ever written. That ambition made for a pretty much unplayable game on release - but ultimately, it is still the closest we ever got to having a computer game where you can actually be part of a full-scale war, and interact with any of the hundreds of aircraft and thousands of ground vehicles - in 3D - which are meanwhile interacting with each other in all sorts of ways. Now it's nearly been two decades, and Falcon is still as close as you can get to a full-scale virtual war you can participate in first-person - and not because it's better than other sims, but because nobody has even attempted to do something so stupidly daring since. Can't blame them - F4 was not a financial success, and was among the reasons Microprose folded not long after its release. But even next to other great dynamic campaign games like the Enemy Engaged series, what it set out to do is pretty jaw-dropping to this day. And after all these years and a stubborn community, the fact is - that dynamic war in Falcon makes for a game that's infinitely richer than anything else out there, including DCS. And amazingly, it's not just singleplayer, but you can have all the campaign features in multiplayer too (and now it actually works and is stable, too!)

DCS will probably continue to draw the lion's share of multiplayer interest though, because it is better at multi-platform play - and at the end of the day, dynamic campaigns are not as important to most playing online. Most people tend to be more interested in human opponents, not the AI backdrop there. But in singleplayer - or even smaller-scale coop play - Falcon is going to be hard to beat. So I totally agree - I think that compared to anything out there including DCS, Falcon just has more to it as a game. But I don't think that's meant to make others look bad! More sims = better for us all

[Threadfin]

Good post CCIP. One of the things that makes BMS more interesting, more fun and more replayable is the fact that the Viper is a multi-role jet. The DCS F/A-18 will do a lot to bridge that gap, but you're still left with the point you made that I agree with the most -- and that's the campaign.

DCS is great for learning the systems,controls and weapons, mastering the jet. And it looks fantastic all the while. You do some training and get to the point where you are comfortable flying combat. This is where it all starts to fall apart. So you fly some missions. Maybe you didn't get it right. So you fly again. Now you know that the Su-27s are west of steerpoint five. Now you're ready for them. Since you saw no other planes in the first go 'round you aren't even scanning another part of the sky. Nothing there. And you already know it. So now your antenna is right where it needs to be and this time you pick them up early.

You get your missiles off first this time, after all you've already done it once. Two Flankers killed and you fly around and maybe back to base just looking at the clouds because hey, you've already done this and you know what is there or isn't.

My long winded point is that even though DCS makes a fantastic jet, what are you left to do with it? Some mission scripters are amazing, it's true and can almost give the the perception that you're flying something dynamic, changing, evolving.

But deep down you know you're not. The 'soft factors' of flying jet combat are lost on DCS like uncertainty or the unexpected. And there is no feeling of import or weight to what you are doing. The results, good or bad, have no impact on anything. This is where BMS shines as you rightly point out. Of all the great sims we listed earlier that have great campaigns, not one of them comes anywhere close to what F4 does.

[Eichhörnchen]

No matter what beautiful confections are created in the future, Falcon will always stand as a benchmark and an inextinguishable favourite, just as SH3 does.

[petros13]

Nippelspanner;2477567]Yeah right, DCS is 'rubbish'.
What nonsense, really.

It's like saying Italian food sucks because you like Indian food better.
There's no need for elitist nonsense between falcon and DCS at all.[/QUOTE]

120... points for you !!!: Kaleun_Cheers:: Kaleun_Applaud: