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[ukulele]

Dont they also have LOMAC? I tought it was from DCS too and you have a few planes there.

[Anvilfolk]

I don't think they integrate. LOMAC is also much fidelity AFAIK, but easier to get into.

You could also pit a P-51 against a Ka-50 or an A-10... which makes no sense

[Thendash]

They have Lock On: Flaming Cliffs 3 but it requires an installation of LOMAC so it's a kind of weird expansion pack in a different engine. There is a few planes in that but it isn't as high fidelity as the dedicated modules.

[Fishbreath]

They're finally getting around that by doing an advanced flight model for each LOMAC/Flaming Cliffs airplane, and selling them individually at the $15 point. Kind of steep, but at the same time, I don't really want any of them, so.

A friend of mine and I have been working on our Su-25T flying (the freebie), in the hopes of eventually dragging in some more friends. Here we are, on our way to the SEAD range in our practice mission for some anti-radiation missile and cluster bomb practice.

[Anvilfolk]

Thought I'd come around and say that Team Fusion, a mod team, has been working on IL-2 Cliffs of Dover. Someone from my guild finally convinced me to try it out, and I had a blast on the ATAG server. It performs better, works better, is less buggy... they're doing a wonderful job. It's a bit of a pain to set up though.

ATAG had 50+ people, and apparently it's common for it to reach 100 people during european timezones - so the community is actually picking up. We're looking at scenarios from '40-41, some of them historical, some of them not so much (imagine Operation Sea Lion was successful, and the Luftwaffe needs to protect the initial landing grounds).

If you have the game, install that, then the Team Fusion patches, and join the ATAG server! I understand their Teamspeak server is also usually well populated.

[Fishbreath]

(That's a cool AAR, Anvilfolk.)

This thread has been much too dead lately. I've been getting more heavily into DCS, and my Youtube channel has a few random videos. I've also been writing a guide to flying the Ka-50 on Steam, and roped two more friends into the flight simming fold. (Both of them have scored a few planes beyond the freebie Su-25T.) It's a lot more fun with friends than it is single-player, I think.

[Anvilfolk]

Thanks! I guess it's tangentially related to this thread too... it is a flight simulation of sorts

I really enjoyed DCS A-10C for a while, but the more singleplayer nature of it and the fact that most engagements occur at stand-off distance kind of put me off. I think my heart really is in WW2. I did manage to grab the DCS P-51, but I felt there was too little variety... I still enjoy them, but have little time and prefer MP offerings. So I tend to fly the old IL-2, or now the new IL-2, or PlanetSide 2, or ARMA 2, with my gaming group

And really, for me, multiplayer is where it's at There's just nothing like being on voice communication with other people in a dogfight. I re-watched the Memphis Belle movie from the 40s, and when I go online, it often sounds exactly like the comms in the movie. It's a surreal experience. It's given me goosebumps at times... especially with the added realism and immersion of Cliffs of Dover.

I feel the MP in DCS offerings isn't as ... interactive somehow?

[Fishbreath]

The A-10C is definitely a standoff weapons platform, and I don't fly it all that much because of that. I'm much more a rotorhead; it's like being an infantryman in the sky, and the experience is a lot more directed than in the A-10. (The A-10A and the Su-25/T fix the standoff problem, too, but aren't as switch-flippy.)

I agree that multiplayer in DCS sometimes feels a little sterile. That mainly comes down to mission design—the ground attack planes especially require a lot of effort in tasking, briefing, and events in-mission to make them feel exciting. (One set of missions, by Ranger79, capture the feel of being the on-call support in a biggish area of operations very well.) It's a little easier with the fighters. My usual wingman and I flew an F-15 mission the other which also really captured the feeling of being there, and I could have replicated that one pretty easily.

One of these days, I'd like to convert some of the single-player campaign missions to multiplayer. Generally, they're complicated and immersive.

[Anvilfolk]

The most fun I've ever had online has been exactly when you take complicated, typically singleplayer scenarios, and put them in multiplayer.

If you've ever flown IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946, did you try Lowengrin's dynamic campaign generator? It used to have moving frontlines with ground troops which could capture air fields, persistent squadron aircraft, etc, etc, and randomly generated missions. Everything you did, like bombing troops on the ground and shooting down aircraft, would have an actual impact on the war. It was great. And then, some guys made a MP server out of it. All of a sudden it mattered which side you were flying with, and you could come back the next day, see the effects of other people's sorties, and try to push back the enemy yet again. It was great fun!

Another amazing experience was flying with Ghost Skies. It's basically an online campaign with two factions. Before each mission, commanders set orders for all the task forces and armies on the ground, and they move along the predefined paths, etc. This happens a couple of times a week. And of course, everything is persistent all over again. So now there is a big, community/player controlled strategic layer on top of IL-2. Furthermore, getting shot down meant you were out of that week's mission - your scores would be reset (and the more you lived, the more score you would get) - and you would lose an airplane for your faction, which could severely impact performance in the long-run. So people really tried to stay alive!

Both of these were an absolute blast. I wish I had any friends who were into flight sims, but given that I don't, organised MP with voice comms is what I prefer.

Have you tried Flaming Cliffs 3? That seems to be an essentially MP offering, which can integrate with most DCS study sims. I wonder how that is

[Fishbreath]

I pretty much only played Lowengrin's dynamic campaign generator when i wanted single-player IL-2 1946 action. I quite liked the Winter War campaign.

I probably spend most of my DCS time in various Flaming Cliffs 3 airplanes—the A-10A and Su-25 make for fun, simple ground attack missions, and the fighters are a blast. I haven't used them a lot in competitive multiplayer yet, but the F-15 mission I mentioned uses the Flaming Cliffs F-15.

[Anvilfolk]

First of all, Rise of Flight (which is F2P), a WW1 flight simulator, is featured in the latest Indie Gala! It gives you access to quite a few planes, which is nice.

I've kept doing the IL2: Cliffs of Dover thing with people, and the game still has bugs but is pretty amazing. I've been on when there were 80 people on... plus AI! Shooting down bombers, dogfighting, etc has never been this immersive! Seriously, if you have the game, give it a whirl! We've been having a blast!

[foil]

I ended up buying most modules for DCS over the last couple of sales.  Bought the MI-8 last and its a nightmare to fly, great fun lol.

Having fun with FC3 too with the fighters but until they get an advanced flight model they feel a bit scripted on the limit rather than physics all the way.

They changed FC3 a few weeks ago too so you dont need to own the older FC games to buy or install 3 now, thank fk as i wasnt going to buy 2 old games to get different tech FC3 lol.

Does anyone here play DCS online much?

[Anvilfolk]

Nah, sorry... if you want to go back a few decades and do WW2 though...

[Fishbreath]

I play DCS a little bit online, though mainly with old college pals. I wouldn't be opposed to a Bay12 DCS evening sometime, though.

[Anvilfolk]

Hi all!

I thought I'd give you an update on stuff that's happening in the WW2 online world!

There is a big Battle of Midway event for IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 + HSFX being hosted this Saturday 15h EST. Sign up here. Lots of squads are already in, and several dozen pilots are registered. There are plans to make this a semi-regular thing.

401 Squadron is looking for Blenheim pilots to escort in circus bombing missions to France every Saturday at 9pm EST, for IL-2: Cliffs of Dover. Information here.

A persistent Storm of War campaign for IL-2 Cliffs of Dover is in the works or already started. It runs on Sundays sometime in the afternoon. If you die, you're out for 30 minutes, so try to stay alive! Realism, persistence, teamwork. Keep an eye out on this site or this thread.


Great stuff is happening in the flight sim worlds, get involved!