Yeah back in the day they really were spectactular.
Rez
4905
I forgot to mention that that first (second?) combat flight sim I played was Project Stealth Fighter on the C64 so yeah. Tornado’s graphics were spectacular compared to that. However, I felt the game-play in PSF was fantastic. I think I only had as much fun with Red Storm Rising back then; both in my Top Five C64 games I would say.
I just recently played RSR for the first time and loved it. Old hat on F-19 though. Great stuff.
So I am loving this game you guys.
It is really super impressive. It’s just horribly documented.
Editer
4908
God I miss those days. The sims were so much more rich, before Oleg listened to all of the rivet counters and the Russkis were the only ones who could still afford sim development and the sim market moved to today’s technically impressive but mostly soulless rivet simulations.
If you’re designing a combat sim, a job prerequisite should be reading at least three memoirs from WW2 air crew members. The excitement isn’t when FlyAirPutin341366 hits your plane with a 50mm round and the appropriate hydraulic leak is perfectly simulated. It’s flying escort for a swarm of B-17s and being jumped out of the sun by a squadron of FW-190 and trying to keep the Forts alive in a furball where the AI pilots fly like the real ones did. It’s flying an F-8 Crusader at 50 feet over Cuba and trying not to get shot at while you photograph missiles. It’s a WW1 dogfight where you learn the hard way about BFM while the fight goes on in the trenches below.
Civilian sim developers need to read “Fate is the Hunter” and if they’re going to simulate systems in nauseating detail, let me fix the heater behind a DC-2’s cockpit in a thunderstorm I can’t climb over.
Man, I wish the folks developing sims in the US and UK in the 90s weren’t all off doing different things now.
#oldnerdlawnrant
You and me both buddy. Having a lovely time streaming this period in sim history. Can’t WAIT for Tornado next week.
Except from Greg Orwell’s 1999:
“But always – do not forget this, Winston – always there will be the intoxication of CPU and GPU power, constantly increasing and constantly growing grosser. Always, at every moment, there will be the increased emphasis on simulating boring systems. If you want a picture of the future, imagine playing SSI’s Su-27 Flanker - for ever.”
schurem
4912
Perhaps we should rename this thread to “Ancient Air Combat Sims for the Elderly”.
I’m not going to post today’s DCS changelog. It’s obviously not wanted here ;)
Maybe the thread should be changed to combat air simulation celebration or something like that.
jpinard
4914
Wow, I thought I was the only one who felt that way.
While I do like modern combat sims like DCS, I would have liked to see them develop more immersive campaigns where the AI always works. In both DCS and Arma3 the AI breaks down and doesn’t function as designed way too often.
schurem
4915
Yeah, boring, utterly soulless. Compared to the glory of perfectly sensible gameplay that is DI’s Tornado, this is trash. Complete garbage. Fuck that shit. And the gall they have to ask fifteen bux for a scripted campaign on top of the costs of all those stupid expensive toys! /s
Rome wasn’t built in a day. This shit aint easy. We see it in other genres too, when a game becomes complex and has a level playing field, AI becomes a hard problem. HOI players continuously complain of AI.
jpinard
4918
Cool! I’d never even seen that before!
My AI complaints are in the scenarios I’ve made, and when I got help because things weren’t working, the response was always, “yea the AI doesn’t work with those commands for some reason”. Sometimes they were as easy as “go here and try to blow x up”, and instead they’d go there, circle once, then fly away. Was super aggravating.
schurem
4919
I know, and it fucking sucks. Glorious as the thing is (IMO) it is also broken in myriad ways. Such is the nature of big things made by small companies. At least they are passionately comitted to getting that shit fixed. The current geopolitical situation is not helping.
jpinard
4920
Ohhh no. Are they based in Ukraine or Russia?
schurem
4921
All over. There are people in Kyiv, Moscow and St. Petersburg that (used to) work for Eagle Dynamics.
I think DCS would do themselves a favor if they just removed all single-player content. Make it pure PvP, since it’s pretty much that any way. They should have it so you just log into a PvP server of your choice when you start. I mean, the AI has been broken for years - the MiG-15’s still a UFO! - and it has nothing but canned missions with fragile, hand-scripted AI for SP. Wait - you in the back - put your hand down. I know a dynamic/semi-dynamic campaign is a “priority” for ED, but it’s been a priority for… two weeks. And the AI for the PvE is nowhere near being close to being able to support a dynamic campaign.
DCS is pretty amazing in some ways, but it’s the for the hardest of the hardcore and PvP, kind of like ArmA 3 is now. If you’re not part of a virtual squadron, you’re not getting anything but the most sterile playing experience it provides.
(I imagine that being in a virtual squadron is pretty much a hoot, though. I’d join one, except that my old-man reflexes and deteriorated joystick skills make me unable to chew gum and dial in trim at the same time without me ending up piling in to the nearest Baby Milk Factory.)
I think my happiest spot would be the IL-2 BoX sims (it’s modern, it’s gorgeous, and you can dumb the switchology down if you want) combined with a WOFF 2 campaign.
Or a modern EF:2000/F22 TAW rerelease with DX12 graphics
Or TK suddenly fired up with actual inspiration and drive, and redoing SF2 in DX12.
But as always, do what you like. I still get a kick out of firing up truly ancient sims like AotP for a couple hours of nostalgia dopamine.
You guys. I’m so happy. $5.
