Holy fuck shit was moving fast back then. But the 30 years between Janes’ USAF and current DCS did get us VR, so yeah :D
Great picture, but it undersells what a quantum leap VR has offered. Those were 2D cockpits, where I pushed a key to move my head 90 degrees left for a prerendered image of the left side of the cockpit. Now I’m looking around a gorgeous cockpit in a fully 3D space, tracking an aircraft passing behind me by twisting around in my chair, judging the distance naturally because it’s all in real 3D. The immersion is incredible.
Having played Fleet Defender for endless hours back in 1995, I still can’t believe what a huge leap we’ve made to DCS’ F-14A Tomcat here in 2022. Just started learning this bird a month ago, and while it’s fun to remember some of the details I learned back then (RWS, PD-STT) and apply them anew, it’s so much deeper in both immersion and simulation modeling.
And there is plenty of SP content now available for the most popular DCS aircraft like the Tomcat. I’m still training on it, learning how to fly it well and operate the systems. But ahead of me are 4-5 hand-crafted campaigns (Zone V, Fear the Bones, Operation Reforger, Operation Cage the Bear), each with 12-15 missions.
Last difference: IIRC, Fleet Defender didn’t offer any options for multi-player pilot and RIO in the same aircraft. A few friends and I just tried this out in DCS, and it was some of the best gaming I’ve had in a long time. The partnership between the pilot and RIO made the combat that much more exciting and the survival that much more satisfying.
I truly believe gaming technology never moved as fast as it did in the 90s.
Preach, brother, preach!
I agree, but VR (for flying at least) is a quantum leap imo.
I, again, truly believe the leap from no 3D acceleration to 3D acceleration was bigger and quicker than the slow buildup of VR.
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The fundamental issue here is there’s nothing to prevent, say, an F-14 sim that flies as realistically as the DCS F-14, looks as good as the DCS F-14 in VR and 2D, and also has an entertaining, well-designed mission structure like Fleet Defender, has a mode where the systems are as easy to navigate as Fleet Defender (to make it accessible to newbies), etc.
Fun and realism are not incompatible.
I want a sim with entertaining missions and accessible flight to bring in new people, where you can then turn up the realism as you get hooked. That’s the only way to ever get flight sims out of the current niche.
“But I like the niche the way it is! It’s fine!” Well, great, you enjoy having just three options for combat sims, then.
If someone dropped millions of bucks on me and said make a sim, it would be a WW2 sim where you could jump in and play something that felt a bit like a hybrid between the Baa Baa Black Sheep TV show and 1942: PAW, but could crank up the realism and play historical missions with fully realistic systems, damage modeling, and AI behavior.
No argument here. I remember firing up my Voodoo 3DFX and my jaw dropping at the huge leap forwards with Mechwarrior II. That revolution all happened in 1-2 years. VR is happening much slower, but for me, the leap is as great or even greater. One of the problems with VR is that I find it much harder to get immersed in the wealth of great games remaining from the 2D days. I still haven’t played through Prey, Dishonored II, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, The Witcher 3, etc. These are exactly the kinds of games I’ve loved my whole life. But I’ve tried firing them up a few times, and the lack of full 3D immersiveness means I bounce off them now. They’re just not engaging in the same way as jumping into a fully real cockpit and soaring among the clouds in a vividly immersive 3D environment.
On the other hand, I waited on Subnautica until a good VR mod came out. Subnautica in VR then became one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. So for me (YMMV of course), we’re in a weird chapter in gaming. It’s like the late 1980s/early 1990s, where computers were good enough to do wargames, strategy and simulations, but nobody had invented DOOM yet. Similarly, VR is good enough now to make flight (and tank) simulations incredible gaming experiences, but it isn’t good enough yet for a wider set of genres that I also love (immersive FPS, strategy, etc).
And so say we all.
But that’s not on the market. What is is an offshoot of a serious training tool for serious people doing serious work. There can be played games with it, but it’s like playing games with, I dunno, a school’s classroom multimedia apparatus? So yeah it’s mostly about hitting the right button, because that’s what ED sold to the US and French air forces. A cockpit trainer.
A bit like how ARMA is an offshoot of the very serious infantry tactics training tool VBS. And interestingly, ARMA has the same sort of criticism levelled at it; jank, focus on rivet couning detail instead of fun. Well that’s because it’s not meant to be fun.
What these two also have in common is incredibly powerful editors. People have built dynamic campaign systems for both games. They are janky and imperfect but definitely getting there. There’s also some truly great linear stories out there for DCS, told through the sim and recorded audio.
And yeah, the advent of the GPU was a sudden change that is perhaps of a greater magnitude for gaming overall, but from the perspective of the little boy who wanted to fly jets, VR is by far the greatest advance made in home computing.
I don’t think anyone here is arguing that fun and realism are incompatible.
However, I’m skeptical there’s a single game these days that could span the range you’re describing. To have something that’s highly accessible and brings in new players, while also being able to “crank up the realism and play historical missions with fully realistic systems, damage modeling and AI behavior”.
The problem is that the deep end is so much deeper than was possible in the 1990s. The kinds of system modeling, fleet tactics, radio communications, weapons intricacies that are presented in DCS’ F-14 Tomcat is an incredible achievement. It also requires serious study to master, with incredibly deep gameplay (defined as interesting decisions) resulting from all those variables you’re mastering in a real-world combat environment.
To create something like DCS’ F-14 Tomcat, and also create all the extra mechanics & simplified layers to make it accessible for newbies is probably beyond any single team these days. That’s where you need multiple games to bring people along the path to DCS. MSFS has brought millions into flight sims since 2020, and IL-2 is there as a good medium-weight simulation that doesn’t quite reach DCS level of complexity. Can IL-2 be a better +game+? Absolutely. Totally agree with the criticisms there. But we need more mid-range games like the Microprose games of old to fill the gap between MSFS and DCS, not a single game that can do it all.
It’s like asking CMANO to also be capable of being Panzer General.
Dude for me Birds of Steel is scratching that EXACT itch.
Omg please be a sequel to Gunship 2000 and not Gunship! oh please oh please.
What about the current state of Falcon 4? Some day when I have ample free time and my brain is in learning mode, I’d love to sink into that full dynamic campaign. Heck, I want someone to make a Ukraine variant where I can fly for them and blow the hell out of the Russians turning the tide of the war.
Falcon 4 is now BMS Falcon 4, and has been for years. It’s a massively study-level sim now, that’s basically been written from the ground-up. It’s amazing what 20+ years of constant modding can do.
Mere punters need not apply.
Don’t let scharmers scare you off—study sim though BMS Falcon 4 may be, the dynamic campaign is still right there with the best there’s ever been in a combat flight sim. I’ve put a lot of time into DCS and other study sims, and the time into BMS was the most rewarding by far.
(Battle of Britain 2 also gets high marks from me.)
Oh yes another excellent sim, to be sure, with a fantastic campaign.
Reading through this thread,the consensus of many seems to be that DCS is soulless. This has led me to reflect deeply on myself and why I love it so much.
Passing through inner doorways opened with mescaline, LSD, psilosybin and Tide Pods, this great journey has led me to a spiritual awakening, a revelation that has given me a profound sense of tranquility.
I am also soulless.
Carry on.
for one: Fuck the consensus.
for two: What is soulful in Art is very much in the eyes and expectations of the beholder. Where one who expects a game that draws them in with emotional ties and dire strategic threats would find DCS rather soulless, one who has eye for the meticulously lovingly recreated machinery and environment (yes there may be a lot wrong with it, but nothing out there has better aerodynamics, EW or FLIR modelling) would hold a different opinion.
To me, DCS brims with life and is vibrant as a Miles Davis jazz record. To some of the more prolific and influential posters on here… eh. W/E as the younguns say.
Remember that project you had going with the Time Pilot campaign? That rocked dude. You should find time to pick that up again :D Show these old geezers how to make DCS sing.
PREACH brother. I’ve had some of the best moments ever in flight simming with DCS. That’s coming from an old greybeard who cut his teeth on Spectrum Holobyte’s Falcon for the original Macintosh. VR is an absolute game-changer. Combine DCS, VR and newer SP campaigns like Operation Hormuz Freedom (AV-8B) or Blue-Nosed Bastards of Bodney (P-51D)… there’s plenty of immersive fun there to enjoy.
I’m serious, sort of. A soul is singular. It’s a walled, lonely garden, that may be beautiful in itself, but is so very limited. I don’t think I have one. I don’t want one. I’d rather swim with all the electrons and be all the electrons.
Time Pilot is a passion project still and will be finished at some point. DCS that allows you to fly A-10s, F-5s and Tomcats to mass slaughter Zombies, and Nazis while using powerups? Yes please. All of that working too, as you know :)
