A good combat flight sim?

[Darren S]

@McGherkin - you weren't kidding at the expense of DCS DLCs. Saw a pop-up in the Steam store this morning and to have all DLC enabled, you're looking at over £2,300.

Definitely baller spec!

 

[McGherkin]

Yeaaaah. Tbh though you’ll probably only buy a few aircraft and a couple of maps, and during a sale.

There’s no way you’d be able to remember how to fly more than a few planes at once so it limits you.

 

[Matthew]

I have a hard enough time learning the checklists for my actual aircraft, never mind learning the weapons and Nav systems for an F-18

 

[McGherkin]

You can certainly see why real pilots spend most if not all their time flying a single aircraft.

 

[Waitey]

Enjoy this guys videos

 

[Ant1]

Enjoy this guys videos

Looks decent that.

 

[McGherkin]

APKWS: because 91 laser guided rockets, each powerful enough to destroy an APC, on one plane. With room for 5 500lb bombs.

 

[-Jamie-]

Enjoy this guys videos

Quite enjoy his ARMA milsim stuff where he's air support, Then ones with the Vietnam vets were cool

 

[Darren S]

APKWS: because 91 laser guided rockets, each powerful enough to destroy an APC, on one plane. With room for 5 500lb bombs.
View attachment 1576209

Love the A-10 - such a focused, dedicated aircraft.

Makes me laugh how the US military keeps trying to kill it off. Yet they role over and admit defeat that there is nothing else in their inventory that comes close to what it does.

I read somewhere that even the exhaust gases are mainly cooler air in order to minimise its IR signature.

 

[McGherkin]

Yup, the gases pass over the top of the tail too, further hiding the heat signature from below.

It’d get owned against a modern adversary but for bombing peasants in deserts it’s untouchable.

 

[Ph1 Tom]

Enjoy this guys videos

I love how it's got 3 Clio 1*2 rear view mirrors retrofitted.

 

[McGherkin]

Sale on for a lot of DCS bits at the moment, good time to get addicted. 50% off for some bits although the big ticket items, F-16, F/A-18, A-10C are only 30%

 

[Darren S]

Is the DCS core free, with the different aircraft being the purchasable content?

 

[McGherkin]

Yup. You can fly the SU-25T and P51 on the caucasus map for free.

 

[Darren S]

Looks like the Marianas scenery pack is free as well?

 

[McGherkin]

Ah yeah, forgot about that. Yeah that too,

 

[McGherkin]

So.... bump.

It's awesome. I don't get a massive amount of time to fly in DCS these days but holy christ is it deep. I'd say I'm about 70% proficient on the F-16, 50% on the F/A-18, 50% on the A-10C, 80% on the Spitfire (well, there's a lot less to learn, lol), 30% on the F-14. I can cold start the F-16 and F/A-18, I can do cats and traps with the F/A-18 and I can use most of the weapons on the 16 and 18 including laser guided munitions, Harpoon, and SLAMs. Still kinda sucky with dogfighting but I can do enough to at least survive.

Flying in VR is absolutely fantastic. You genuinely feel like you're sat in the cockpit and using helmet mounted cueing systems to find and designate targets is really cool and helps with awareness a lot.

I've just picked up the Apache. Christ, it's not easy flying a helicopter. But it pew pews brilliantly.

Well recommended if there's any serious aviation nerds on here.

 

[BIFCAIDS]

f**k you all, Ace Combat 7 FTW

 

[leeds_182]

I watch that growling sidewinder guy on YouTube all the time.

I’m old now but if they’d have had DCS when I was in my teens I’d of been all over it.

 

[McGherkin]

f**k you all, Ace Combat 7 FTW

To be fair, you could pick up AC7 and be dogfighting far quicker than you could in DCS. It’s much more accessible.

I watch that growling sidewinder guy on YouTube all the time.

I’m old now but if they’d have had DCS when I was in my teens I’d of been all over it.

Yeah his content is very good. I certainly can’t dogfight like that*
*at all

 

[McGherkin]

Getting some practice in with the Apache. I’m no Prince Harry, but I’m doing alright. PNVS is quite cool, transitioning from forward flight to a hover less so.

Skip to 13:50 if you just want to see stuff get shot at

 

[JackJack]

To be fair, you could pick up AC7 and be dogfighting far quicker than you could in DCS. It’s much more accessible.

AC7 advanced controls are hard enough for me

 

[Darren S]

I watch that growling sidewinder guy on YouTube all the time.

I’m old now but if they’d have had DCS when I was in my teens I’d of been all over it.

Same here.

Back in the late 80s, I was obsessed with Project Stealth Fighter on the C64. Somehow, I even had the patience to tolerate the painfully slow loading times, ejecting the tape and turning it over and pressing Play once more.

I did kind of cheat with the missions though - having them on their easiest difficulty with no crash damage and unlimited weapons, purely due to the loading times involved. Kids today have no concept of waiting at least 5 minutes for a level to reload, just because you botched the take-off sequence and ended up in a fireball at the end of the runway.

 

[McGherkin]

DCS has just been updated with multithreading support. Literally doubled the FPS, massive improvement. Even with everything pegged my laptop with a 3060 in it manages 90-100fps. If you've discounted DCS because you needed a supercomputer to run it... good news.

And to think they're implementing DLSS too, that will speed things up even further.

 

[McGherkin]

f**k me, this s**t is hard.

 

[McGherkin]

@Zelenskyy how was it bud?

 

[McGherkin]

I don’t even like the F-4 Phantom but this looks incredible. I do have the F-14 so there will be good stuff from this coming over UI wise but I’m really excited for the Typhoon they’re working on now.

 

[Cookie]

I don’t even like the F-4 Phantom but this looks incredible. I do have the F-14 so there will be good stuff from this coming over UI wise but I’m really excited for the Typhoon they’re working on now.

The fidelity on that model looks nuts.. and an amazing promo video to show it off

 

[McGherkin]

Their F-14 is absolutely incredible, I doubt there's anything that has ever been simulated as well as the F14 is.

This was something they added recently:

 

[McGherkin]

Picked up the woppa choppa.

Still very early access, not much works and DAFCS doesn't really work so you really have to fly it manually and fight it all the time as it tries to swap ends especially at high speed, but it's great to fly a big helicopter like the Chinook. So much more performance than the Apache when you fly it empty, and you really feel the weight of it.
Spent a good half hour taxiiing in it, first using the one(!) steerable wheel on the floor then by picking up two wheels and wheelying around Akrotiri.
Had to have a go at doing a pinnacle landing which took a fair bit of effort and trial and error but got there in the end. Crazy difficult.

I actually knew someone who went on to become a Chinook pilot and the talent these guys have is incredible. Awesome aircraft too.

 

[Matt Cup]

This is a pretty neat flight sim set up/rig.

 

[McGherkin]

f**k me that's a few quid's worth

 

[Matt Cup]

This flight sim controller looks interesting.

 

[McGherkin]

I actually have a fair bit of success with a normal gamepad when I'm away from home, but rather than having something like that I tend to use the cross/circle/triangle/square and R3 buttons as modifiers so the D pad is actually 4-5 D pads.

Proper HOTAS is king though, except for being the gunner in the Apache as the TEDAC controls lend themselves quite nicely to a gamepad.