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[guitarxe]

I haven't played any flight sim games since I was a little kid, but having recently tried War Thunder I have a surprising itch to play some.

Could anyone recommend where should I start as a beginner that's never really played any before and doesn't know the difference between a plane and a car? I don't have much of a preference, it could be an old game with dated graphics so long as it's fun to play. If it has some kind of multiplayer than all the better.

Also, would someone please recommend a decent, but cheap, joystick? Something that's good enough for flight sims but within around $60? I was looking at the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro which looks alright and is going for just $35 on newegg right now, but don't know if that's good enough for flight sims.

Any advice would be welcomed

[Mullet Master]

I am going to assume you are a complete beginner to flight sims and you are seeking out a non-military sim.

Microsoft Flight has pretty much the lowest learning curve of any flight sim I've ever played, interesting tutorials, and you can ramp up complexity pretty easily when you are ready. There are pretty decent civilian missions, too. There is a decently functioning multiplayer, but it boggles me as to why anyone would want to play multiplayer civilian flight sim... there's a bunch of planes in the same general area, woopee!

Better yet ... it's free, or at least the early portion of it. If you want more planes, or a different area to fly around, that's where the money comes in.

You can find it at http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/

[Anvilfolk]

If you're just starting out, World of Warplanes seems like a good solution, actually! It has solid graphics and an interface most people seem to be accustomed to with all the F2P games, it's free, and has a nice range of arcadeyness to realism.

I have't followed much on the situation with IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 and IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover, but last I looked they still had sizeable multiplayer communities. If you go into these more specialised, hardcore sims, be aware that multiplayer is absolutely unforgiving. There are some more populated arcadey servers, but the full-real servers are full of top-aces and it'll be years (or a metric ton of luck) before you bring any of them down. Definitely not for the faint of the heart, though one of the most rewarding experiences I've had. The singleplayer... not so good. A lot of it is spent getting to and from the battle zone, if you meet anyone at all. There are some nice scripted campaigns that you can try, but I've never done that myself.

As far as joysticks go, I can absolutely vouch for the Thrustmaster T-16000M, if you can get your hands on it. It has amazing precision, even compared to much more expensive joysticks, and has a twist-axis. In any case, do not get a joystick without a twist axis! You will need it to perform minor adjustments and actually hit moving targets!

Keep in touch

I should get back into flight simming, but all my equipment is still in Portugal... hope to bring it back sometime in September!

[guitarxe]

I am going to assume you are a complete beginner to flight sims and you are seeking out a non-military sim.

Well up until you said this I didn't even know there were non-military flight sims out there. I knew of microsoft flight simulator, but I saw screenshots of fighter jets for that game.
To be honest I don't think I would much enjoy flying civilian planes, that seems a little boring to me. I'm much rather get to know some historic WW2 fighter planes, for example.

[ukulele]

While war thunder its not a simulator it is a decent first step in my opinion specially if you dont have a joystick, fly some historicall battles or even some missions against the AI. Once you have a joystick and are ready for something a little more challenging move to IL2 1946, it is dated but the fact that there is basically no engine management required and that ww2 era planes dont have 3000 switches is a good start point. From there its just experimenting LOMAC is a good modern sim, but its hell for a beginer, Black Shark its a combat helicopter sim but its again hellish, you could also try Rise of Flight a WWI free to play sim.

[guitarxe]

I also wanted to ask, do any of these games teach how to control the airplane? I remember those few games that I played when I was a kid it would just plop you down in the cockpit and somehow expect you to know how to fly an airplane. Probably because back then these games came with a manual rather than a tutorial, and I probably didn't read them. But who knows, maybe these games do expect people that play them to have an aviator license or something 

[ukulele]

No simulator i know has a tutorial besides button things, engine start procedure, landing/takeoff checklist or things like that, never strategy or tactics to use in combat. There is TONS of tutorials writen and in video, and since flying a plane is flying a plane it doesnt matter much wich game you are playing all knowledge is usefull. Also the simulation comunity in general is super friendly, be it ground, sea or air, its basically the oposite of the MOBA community.

[Anvilfolk]

Yeah, that's true! The communities are generally pretty nice I mean, you've got to keep the fresh meat around, haha, they're easy kills

Also, I totally forgot to mention Rise of Flight, which is free! You can then buy more planes if you feel like it. I actually think they're having a sale right now!

Rise of Flight might be a nice starter game because you can really yank back on the stick without very adverse effects. WW2 planes started getting faster and faster and require a lot more finer control to avoid a high-speed stall or snapping wings off

[sluissa]

just to put a shout out to the civilian flight sims out there, Either Flight Simulator X or the most recent version of X-Plane are the go to civilian flight sims. Very few flight simmers consider Microsoft Flight to be a true contribution to the genre but it would be a perfectly fine stepping stone just to get into flight sims, since it is free and is fairly friendly.

There is a huge community out there that still do civilian stuff on the older software and even the Vatsim community which does it "multiplayer" and with real human air traffic control. (Not all airports are staffed, just major ones, and those only certain times. But you're still expected to treat unstaffed airports as if you're following the proper regulations for an uncontrolled airport, even if it is occasionally odd to simply announce that you're going to land at a major international hub and not have anyone file you into a pattern.

Back to the combat, if you're a beginner, I'd stick with one of the free to play options already mentioned, but I'll also add that IL-2 1946 is a great little simulator, if slightly dated. But it's fun as all heck and one of the most realistic I've ever been in. It is a bit tough to get set up though especially if you want to do multiplayer.

As for control hardware, I've tried a lot over the years, and I've found that most joysticks are just a bit too finicky for me to use for any sort of fine control. In Warthunder I use the mouse+keyboard exclusively. Even outside of that, especially in the civilian sim FSX I simply use a 360 usb controller, which works perfectly for civilian flight, but is again, not quite responsive enough for combat. Personally, I think the whole joystick between the legs thing is an anachronism we could stand to get away from and only really had relevance for planes that had mechanical linkage controls directly from the stick to the control surfaces, but some people prefer it and manage to do quite well.

[ukulele]

Im preatty sure flying any simulator with a 360 controler its not only a bad idea but heresy, its like people that prefer controlers instead of a mouse for FPS, they should burn them with the witches (?).

[Anvilfolk]

Hahahah, agreed, but the fact is that World of Warplanes has gotten mouse control for arcade mode to a pretty fine standard, and a mouse has finer control than a joystick.

Where physics are actually a concern, I don't mouse or Xbox controller are options, no matter how well the input programming is done. A mouse has 2 axis, a joystick should have 3. Plus, a joystick has "constant input". If you push it back a little, it's permanently inputting that inclination value. A mouse you need to continuously move up, lift it, move back, put down, move up. That is *not* how you want to fly planes, as they will be destabilised and loose speed. Xbox controllers are just too inaccurate.

[Anvilfolk]

Also, if I mentioned World of Warplanes in any of the above, I meant War Thunder. I just realised that! Definitely War Thunder!!!

[JWNoctis]

Also Falcon 4 BMS if you want a bit of modern flavor. F-16 is a very forgiving and comfortable aircraft to fly, and this also simulates a full war in the background, instead of having to go with scripted missions. Go for DCS stuff when you become comfortable with that. And there's also DCS - though that can be even more difficult without a HOTAS stick.

Go for FSX if you want civilian aviation.

And yep, TM T-16000M is really the best non-HOTAS stick out there.

[Mookzen]

If WW2 is of interest IL-2 Sturmovik is up there with the very best, both for a beginner and a seasoned simmer. Game is old as sin and yet still amazing, that's quality.

[Anvilfolk]

If you do IL-2: 1946 you need to do a ton of work to get a good installation. Updating all the patches and adding a modpack - which can make the graphics a ton better, btw!