Recent air combat sim recommendations?

Yeah, they certainly paid a lot more than CGS+/CGM, though I enjoyed writing for those people. And I was blown away by the artwork and layout CGW did for my article.

Good times.

Late '90s were a golden age for flight sims, only thing that sucked was forever fighting the upgrade wars…::shudder::.

Once you had a Glide card – even the base Voodoo 1 – and a 300 Mhz CPU, you were OK for quite a while

The TNT2 kinda changed everything, but that was, what, 1999?

Ah, those were the days indeed. And VR was a distant pipe dream.

Yeah, I started updating or rebuilding my computer every year in order to review the latest sims. Of course, I did get a magazine to pay for one of my builds for a “Building a computer for dummies” type article. ;)

Thought I’d re-post this question here in case some of you don’t venture into hardware sub-forum.

I decided I want to get a trackball mouse that I can set on a small barstool chair right next to me so I can do some mousing while I’m in VR for my flight sims. I’ve never had or used a trackball before and I’m not sure what I would adapt well to. So far I’ve looked at Kensington and Logitech’s but have no idea what would be best.

I’ve owned both (as well as the late, great Microsoft trackball). They’re both good, it’s really a matter of picking a physical layout you like. I’d say go for a center “poolball” design rather than one with a small ball designed for thumb manipulation. I’d lean towards the Kensington because the larger ball offers more precise control.

OK, I’m doing that. As I was looking at so many HOTAS setups I saw a lot of people with these tricked out seats that not only had spots for their HOTAS, but also a small mouse platform as well. But I can’t connect anything else to my chair without it toppling over from being so unbalanced. Some of the shapes of the setups I’ve seen like this:

made me think about what I could do to replicate it. Remembered I have a foldable barstool downstairs so I think I can make this work for me. Will post a pic in a sec.

Yeah, this is my setup. Note that with the mouse positioning, I’m able to use the mouse blind with the headset on with no issues. So I wonder if some kind of mouse tree might be a better solution for you than the track ball?

I know my place is an assault on the eyes, but only so much I can do.

Trackball will go on round thing

That’s really nice. I don’t see how I can attach anything to my desk since I have a keyboard tray, and I’d have to rip off the rest of the trim off the front of my desk to make it work.

KITTY

Yeah, I had to remove my keyboard tray. But it was too narrow on this desk anyway.

Nice, that is the monstertech mount right? And a c64 in the background :)

Yep, Monstertech. And that’s actually a “TheC64,” the modern recreation with HDMI, USB, etc. :)

Hmmm. I really like my keyboard low which is why I got this tray and installed it. Wonder if I could deal with the keyboard up high on the desk (high for me).

Yeah, you know, just in case you gotta squeeze in a game of Mail Order Monsters between flights

Cat tax paid

Come on. The real star of the show is that Commodore 64 you have sitting so coyly in the background…

Quick question. Aren’t jet engines, by their very nature, “reusable”?

A lot of hypersonic test vehicles so far have been throwaway, I think—a rocket boost stage to get a ramjet/scramjet up to operating speed, and then the whole thing falls into the ocean when it’s done.

I suppose the engines are hypothetically reusable, though, it’s just the vehicle treated as disposable.