Best Modern Air Combat Sim?

[Falkirion]

Anyone point me in the right direction? Been looking at LOMAC

[Ubergeek87]

Depends on what you're looking for really. LOMAC is a good game and reasonably complex compared to things like Ace Combat, but I'd consider it more of a complicated game than a full-fledged simulator. If you plan on getting the Flaming Cliffs expansion you should be aware that it contains starforce, but it also adds another plane 2 or 3 more campaigns and a better flightmodel, most MP servers will require it too. Good training videos can be found HERE.

My vote for the BEST modern combat sim would have to go to Falcon 4: Allied Force. It features one of the best dynamic campaigns I've ever seen, has a clickable cockpit, and accuratly simulates almost all of the F-16's avionics. Graphically it's not very impressive, but thats almost completely ignorable once you dig into the 716 page manual (pdf). So far i've logged about 90 hours in it and I have (slightly) above basic understanding of all the systems. I have yet to try MP, but I hear theres a good group that plays at Multivipers.

Another option, which I have no experience with...yet, is DCS:Blackshark. From what i've seen, it's a very accurate simulation. I believe Porphy has a thread laying around here about it.

If you've got the money, I'd reccomend getting both LOMAC and F4:AF. Falcon is only $19us and lomac ~$2us on amazon if you look at the "new and used" pages. LINK to where I got it.

Hope this helps.

[Fincuan]

Falcon 4

I've got both Allied Force and the original F4+Open Falcon installed, even though Allied Force sees much more action thanks to the added avionics in OF that I haven't bothered to learn yet The F16 is indeed a pretty complicated bird to master. In my opinion it is also a good looking sim if one cranks the graphics up to the maximum. As UberGeek said above the dynamic campaign is also one thing definitely worth checking.

[HunterICX]

Falcon 4.0 is the one to aim for, it has a learning curve but the sim comes with a very good manual and ofcourse training missions.

HunterICX

[NeonSamurai]

Gotta chime in agreement with Falcon 4, nothing tops it

I never thought much of LOMAC myself. The campaign is what totally killed it for me. I cannot stand canned mission campaigns in military sims.

If your looking for lite sims to jump into http://www.thirdwire.com 's Wings over x series (Vietnam, Europe, Israel, etc) are fun little sims, but not very in depth.

As for DCS Black Shark, it also has starforce, and its a helo sim.


P.S. I'm surprised were even talking modern combat sims in here, I swear all I ever hear from this corner of Subsim is IL2 this and IL2 that and occasionally something about biplanes.

[Skybird]

Falcon 4.0.

[porphy]

Yes, Falcon 4.0 is very good, and is probably the best is you want to have a good modern air to air combat and a dynamic campaign. I have never really got hooked on Falcon though, something in the bland feeling of flying the jet puts me of.

Having tried Black Shark Ka-50 for a week, I must say it is a very impressive sim so far. If you like air to ground combat and sweaty, hands on, helicopter flying with a superb 3d clickable cockpit nothing else comes close. If Eagle Dynamics continue their work in the same style and with that kind of detail, I think a lot of people will jump on the DCS Digital Combat Simulator train. Uppcoming is A-10 and AH-64 Apache.

cheers Porphy