Recent air combat sim recommendations?

It is, thats like 120 bucks of planes, from an F-100 to an F-14, an A-4 to an A-10.

Damn, I should’ve donated.

Hey @scharmers how’s the WoFF PE treating you? Would you say it’s worth the $25?

Also, remind me, can you start a mission in WoFF in the air, like Strike Fighters 2?

Oh, interesting, I didn’t even know this existed. Damn, tempting! I should grab it and reinstall this thing…

It’s apparently a very new thing.

Oh, and as to your specific question, I found this on this post:

Selecting ‘Airstart’ now specifies where you will start, and the waypoint lines up to Waypoint 1 or the specific start waypoint are removed.

Mmmmm… well, yes and no. It’s still WoFF UE, just with yet another coat of paint, tweaks, enhanced community fixes (even more custom AnKor shaders for example), and a few more planes. The list presented at the site is dead-on. So, for folks with cursory interest in this sim, I would say “not really”.

For me: yep, it is.

So I dunno “recent” but I just streamed 1996’s Hind for three hours, and my god what a blast. I forgot how fun, varied and brutal the damned game was, even on its easiest difficulty level. Yet the mission variety and sheer thrill of flying that beast of a thing make it worth it. Graphics hold up too, surprisingly.

The SVGA-res untextured polygon style ages really well, much better than the 320x200 textured polygon stuff, IMHO. Digital Integration really packed a lot of goodness into their sims, and Hind is a forgotten classic that got a lot of respect in USENET at the time.

I loved hind. And the other stuff DI put out. They were way ahead of their time. If only they kept at it. How did they go under?

Apparently got bought by Titus Games, which faded into nothing…

https://www.mobygames.com/company/digital-integration-ltd

Actually, the core of DI ended up as Razorworks, who put out a couple of highly-regarded help sims y’all might have heard of, and are still alive thanks to the source code release.

Yeah, playing Hind today got me jonesing to reinstall the Enemy Engaged games.

Those had arguably the best dynamic campaigns I ever played.

Xaxaxa, check this out:

JF-17 looks like a fun aircraft in terms of all round capability and well modeled:

Deka Ironwork interview

Looks like one to pick up at some stage.

So I just found out that, in SF2, I don’t have to accept the failure of a campaign, and can refly a mission.

I somehow missed this entirely.

Time to start a whole new A-10 campaign and see it through to the end.

Can you play that on Windows 10?

Sure can, I am.

I’ve curbed my DCS module purchases somewhat in recent months, because all of the developers (with the kind-of exception of Heatblur) have gotten into the habit of releasing unfinished things and slooooooowly finishing them while starting other projects.

I think I’m apt to break that streak thanks to the DCS JF-17. Development so far has been quiet, but evidently it’s releasing tomorrow and it’s just about complete—a full weapons suite, all radar modes, etc. etc.

The JF-17 is a neat little plane, too—a Chinese/Pakistani F-16-alike, with a DCS-first full glass cockpit and a bunch of fun datalink and sensor fusion things. Until Eagle Dynamics finishes putting the game in, I don’t have much interest in flying something I already know about (so no Viper or Hornet), but the JF-17’s strange enough to be worth the price of entry for the novelty.