Il-2 Stalingrad Announced

[Jack Nastyface]

So I am going to be the "hater" and say "why could 1C and 777 have done a Korean Air war game?"  There really hasn't been a good early jet age sim or mod (yes, I've played both the Korean War stuff for IL-2 and SF) since Mig Alley in 1999 (the year the moon left our orbit because of that horrible explosion).

[Toonces]

^ It's hard to find anything to disagree with in that post.

[republic]

So I am going to be the "hater" and say "why could 1C and 777 have done a Korean Air war game?"

I agree completely.  There are no modern Korean or early jet age games at all.

I've been thinking for awhile, wouldn't it be neat to make a flight sim with some sort of interesting story.  So you start out in flight school in the states before the war flying early jets.  You have to pass your navigation tests, and maybe for a navy carrier you have to land on a runway painted out like a carrier.  Then you move on to actual carrier qualifications.  (All skippable of course)

The great thing about the early jets is how quickly improvements came.  Let us start on Vought F7U's so that we are terrified of landing...and then give us F2H Banshee's and F9F Panthers...etc.

Korea would be a great era to give flight sims a soul again.  As you complete missions and gain rank, you can start planning your own sorties.  Eventually maybe your responsible for an entire Carrier/Airbase.

Give players hard choices.  You can take out that ammo dump today, but if you do you can't cover your sector's ground forces.  If you take out valuable targets you gain political points, but ground forces suffer without your close air support.  You can spend those political points to speed up development of aircraft that maybe didn't make it in time for the war, or gain access to other NATO nations aircraft.

I get worked up thinking about this sort of game, it's been a dream of mine for awhile.  :)

[mikeck]

So I am going to be the "hater" and say "why could 1C and 777 have done a Korean Air war game?"  There really hasn't been a good early jet age sim or mod (yes, I've played both the Korean War stuff for IL-2 and SF) since Mig Alley in 1999 (the year the moon left our orbit because of that horrible explosion).

Would love Korean War sim...or Space 1999 for that matter!

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Put me in the opposite camp.  Gimme more WWII.  The idea of a Korean War sim puts me to sleep.

[Swatter]

I like them all, I just want to see some sort of dynamic campaign. It doesn't need to be a huge and complicated one, the original Red Baron had a fairly simple dynamic campaign, and it worked well. I do like the idea of a Mig Alley type sim, but I would appreciate almost an era (except maybe futuristic).

[Toonces]

Well, when you think about it, we're not really gutted with WW2 sims.

There's IL-2 of course, which is fine for what it is but is starting to show its age compared to modern sims.  BOB2 is nice, but limited in scope.

For high-end WW2 sims that's about it.  CLoD is limited in scope as well.  The various World of iterations are not exactly "sims" although I don't want to get into semantics; still I don't count them in the same league as an IL-2 or BOB2.

Having said that, there is a gaping hole in the Korea to 1990 or so eras.  Nobody but Strike Fighters has even dabbled in a Vietnam-era sim, and there is so much interesting stuff going on in the 70's that it's really a shame....all those iconic jets and great matchups.

[jomni]

Cold war stuff is great.  You get to fight less deadly BVR rengagements and go in with guns like WW2
but unlike ww2, the planes are fast.  I'm not too good at modern BVR engagements.

[republic]

I try and try at DCS BVR combat but I inevitably go down without ever having a clue where the other guy was.

Part of that is the superiority of the F-15 and the other part is that EVERYONE wants to fly the best hardware so I'm usually in a distinct minority on the OPFOR side.  So for every one of us there are 2 or 3 AMRAAM flinging monkeys coming against us.

Early Sparrow's are the most 'fun' BVR combat.  You have to ripple launch because one will not track...and it is only BVR for a few moments before your in sidewinder and gun range.

[MengJiao]

CoD and RoF are both soul less in my opinion.  They are technical marvels in the visual and simulation aspect but they really need a good dynamic campaign that lets you experience the war.

I stopped skipping CLOD and quit RoF.  CLOD is my current favorite air game.  With the mods it's a pretty good game.

When Il-2 Stalingrad comes out, I'll probably switch to that.  Strike Fighters was great, but I'm moving on -- probably to DCS whatever eventually.

[Yskonyn]

With the slow pace DCS is getting updates and new modules we will all be either retired or dead before we see a WW2 theatre and sufficient planes in that era. ;)

[MengJiao]

With the slow pace DCS is getting updates and new modules we will all be either retired or dead before we see a WW2 theatre and sufficient planes in that era. ;)

  I guess I actually like the way air sims are going these days.  CLOD is a pretty good template: take a limited region and a limited time frame and try to cover it as well as you can.  Il-2 Stalingrad seems a reasonable take on that model.  I'm not sure how DCS is supposed to work in those terms -- DCS seems both focused (recent stuff in the Black Sea area) and unfocused (all kinds of other things).

[Yskonyn]

Yes, a common complaint.

They have been recycling their stuff from Flanker 2.0 for ages now. Same theatre, just slightly expanded.
With the opening up to 3rd party developers I think some good things may come. The Huey is a proper DCS brand product, for example.
A little useless in the current DCS battlefield, but still.

Once the F/A-18 hits and a working and detailed radar modelling gets introduced into DCS, things might take off big time. Especially when they will have a different (bigger) theater to offer as well.

But as of now, the KA-50 offers a very limited capability platform. You cannot do much more than being a sniper.

The P-51D is a beautifully modelled aircraft, but aside from being fun, pretty useless as a weapons platform in the current DCS battlefield.

The Huey is nice because it is modelled in high fidelity and has multiplayer crew positions. Other than that not very useful. And plain boring on a MP server for multiple sorties.

Combined Arms is a nice gimmick, but far too arcade. The JTAC is broken, so the feature to be able to control and order around land units on the mapview is left, which is a nice feature.

Flaming CLiffs offers a medium fidelity set of aircraft. They fit well in the scope of the DCS battlefield.

A-10C fits well too and is a beautiful sim.

Nevada map is confirmed to being worked on again and more info will follow in the coming weeks.

F/A-18 is confirmed, but no release or timeframe is given.

The various aircraft of Flaming Cliffs will get an upgrade to their flight model en cockpit modelling. SU-25 and A-10A have just been released.

It's a bit of a rag tag lot at the moment. And the cool stuff (read: Naval ops and F/A-18, radar implementation, proper A-A combat) is miles away still.

RUMOUR: A third party might be working on a dynamic campaign system for DCS.

[republic]

I've missed realistic carrier ops for a long time.

I do wish they would focus on earlier aircraft.  It would make it easier for new players to get in, and make multiplayer much more fun.  The modern aircraft, especially fighter ops, are more of point and click destruction than getting down and dirty.

[Jack Nastyface]

I've missed realistic carrier ops for a long time.

...slightly off topic...but didja ever play Aces of the Pacific?  I LOVED how the Landing Officer would "flag" you into for a trap.  Would indeed be nice to replay that memory in a new game.