Flight Sims

[iamfritz]

1 hour ago, Arch said:

Welcome to the club. BMS is much more sophisticated than DCS in everything that matters. DCS does some small things a bit better, but overall BMS blows it out of the water. Once many aircraft are high-fidelity with accurate avionics, DCS is going to start having a tough time given that BMS is almost free and has better functionality in most things.

Were you there for the FreeFalcon vs BMS Wars? I was. I loyally flew FreeFalcon/Red Viper for years. Hell, I owned Falcon 1 and 3 (skipped Falcon AT for some reason I don't remember). I actually purchased Falcon 4 3 times! First two times I was so disappointed that I just sold it to AFROTC guys in college (So I've spent over $100 on the sim). Third time I kept it. I have a few FreeFalcon videos on my YouTube channel even.

When the F-15C cockpit is done I'll have a lot more. I really like the F-16, but I love the F-15.

And their BMS timeline for the next couple years, (I mean, 4-6 weeks) includes a graphics engine overhaul that I'm sure will bring it up to par with DCS. It's almost there now IMHO!

[Arch]

34 minutes ago, iamfritz said:

Were you there for the FreeFalcon vs BMS Wars? I was. I loyally flew FreeFalcon/Red Viper for years. Hell, I owned Falcon 1 and 3 (skipped Falcon AT for some reason I don't remember). I actually purchased Falcon 4 3 times! First two times I was so disappointed that I just sold it to AFROTC guys in college (So I've spent over $100 on the sim). Third time I kept it. I have a few FreeFalcon videos on my YouTube channel even.

When the F-15C cockpit is done I'll have a lot more. I really like the F-16, but I love the F-15.

And their BMS timeline for the next couple years, (I mean, 4-6 weeks) includes a graphics engine overhaul that I'm sure will bring it up to par with DCS. It's almost there now IMHO!

Yeah, I started a bit over a decade ago. I don't know if it was the peak of the "wars" but the FreeFalcon vs BMS discussion was relevant.

 

BMS's exterior models look better IMO. The lighting is also better. Cockpits and environments just need work, and some other assets need touching up. They're working on all of that, but, well, free mod. Takes time. At least the bones are good.

[iamfritz]

7 hours ago, Arch said:

Yeah, I started a bit over a decade ago. I don't know if it was the peak of the "wars" but the FreeFalcon vs BMS discussion was relevant.

 

BMS's exterior models look better IMO. The lighting is also better. Cockpits and environments just need work, and some other assets need touching up. They're working on all of that, but, well, free mod. Takes time. At least the bones are good.

Ya it was crazy how it started getting kinda bitter. Site Admins were constantly reigning us in. But BMS won and nobody really remembers FreeFalcon now. I feel like a browncoat now lol.

[Arch]

2 hours ago, iamfritz said:

Ya it was crazy how it started getting kinda bitter. Site Admins were constantly reigning us in. But BMS won and nobody really remembers FreeFalcon now. I feel like a browncoat now lol.

I started with FreeFalcon due to it, well, being free. In my defense I was a kid back then and didn't really have the faculties to just get a cheap copy of Falcon 4 and install BMS. I installed FreeFalcon 5-something again a few years ago just to check on how it was. Not only does it look atrocious, it flies very strangely. I guess I couldn't tell the difference back then.

 

BMS is allegedly the closest thing to proprietary military trainers for the F-16 (According to people who develop said military trainers) and things like the DCS model, and really any other military aircraft model out for the public, are a step or two below. BMS's kinetic and aerodynamic modeling guy does know what he is doing to a high level; the model is not held back by his abilities, more-so hard factors like CPU capacity and obtainable data.

 

The BMS F-16 model is a bit too "snappy" and doesn't have enough "return inertia" when you stop a roll moment for example, and is missing some highly non-linear oscillations and whatnot that can happen in some combined transient input situations, but to be fair none of the other consumer sims simulate any aspect of the aerodynamic model as well as BMS already does. DCS doesn't yet correlate basic things like the cornering performance in steady state or fuel consumption in any state.

[iamfritz]

7 hours ago, Arch said:

I started with FreeFalcon due to it, well, being free. In my defense I was a kid back then and didn't really have the faculties to just get a cheap copy of Falcon 4 and install BMS. I installed FreeFalcon 5-something again a few years ago just to check on how it was. Not only does it look atrocious, it flies very strangely. I guess I couldn't tell the difference back then.

 

BMS is allegedly the closest thing to proprietary military trainers for the F-16 (According to people who develop said military trainers) and things like the DCS model, and really any other military aircraft model out for the public, are a step or two below. BMS's kinetic and aerodynamic modeling guy does know what he is doing to a high level; the model is not held back by his abilities, more-so hard factors like CPU capacity and obtainable data.

 

The BMS F-16 model is a bit too "snappy" and doesn't have enough "return inertia" when you stop a roll moment for example, and is missing some highly non-linear oscillations and whatnot that can happen in some combined transient input situations, but to be fair none of the other consumer sims simulate any aspect of the aerodynamic model as well as BMS already does. DCS doesn't yet correlate basic things like the cornering performance in steady state or fuel consumption in any state.

Lol Here ya go- somebody did a side-by-side comparison or two:

 

[Arch]

2 hours ago, iamfritz said:

Lol Here ya go- somebody did a side-by-side comparison or two:

 

I've already looked at some restricted data having to do with performance maps. DCS is pretty objectively off, and I'm not sure they can correct it given their commercial nature.

[iamfritz]

3 hours ago, Arch said:

I've already looked at some restricted data having to do with performance maps. DCS is pretty objectively off, and I'm not sure they can correct it given their commercial nature.

...and their Russian bias. For the longest time, the radar ranges of the F-15C were way short of what printed engagements indicated. But then Razbam was coming out with its accurate F-15E radar/AIM-7/-120 engagement ranges, ED fixed these on the F-15C. And at first, that was great!

Buuuuuuut... they nerfed the jets structure then so if you pulled over 9 Gs the wings just ripped off. Seriously, I even tested it after my jet just folded up explosively during dogfights a few times. (I might have video of it). It's SO frustrating!!!

So after moping a month or so over that, BMS announced its F-15C! You know they're gonna make it accurate.

[Arch]

10 hours ago, iamfritz said:

...and their Russian bias. For the longest time, the radar ranges of the F-15C were way short of what printed engagements indicated. But then Razbam was coming out with its accurate F-15E radar/AIM-7/-120 engagement ranges, ED fixed these on the F-15C. And at first, that was great!

Buuuuuuut... they nerfed the jets structure then so if you pulled over 9 Gs the wings just ripped off. Seriously, I even tested it after my jet just folded up explosively during dogfights a few times. (I might have video of it). It's SO frustrating!!!

So after moping a month or so over that, BMS announced its F-15C! You know they're gonna make it accurate.

DCS, being a commercial product, and also lacking potential for realistic scenarios due to the small size of maps and lack of good dynamic mission generation tools, tends to focus more on PVP arena style content as it requires little time and brainpower from the user, so it tends to be popular. Russian jets and missiles are severely inferior to western ones, so they have to balance it out by making them all much closer to eachother than in reality or PVP would always be NATO-biased; and despite that it still is.

 

It's been changing a little bit lately, but generally most of the content is balanced to work well pitted against eachother. It results in DCS being a product with relatively realistic flight dynamics and complex modeling of systems, but still being roughly about as arcade as Ace Combat. Hell, they even released an arcadey Ace Combat style campaign for it IIRC. It's not like ED is not aware.

 

There's some other silly things too, like not being able to damage stores by pulling excessive Gs, which makes flying even one their best simulated modules, the A-10C, an act of roleplaying instead of simulation.

 

If all of the pieces fit together then you can make a realistic AND compelling simulation scenario with realistic performance of equipment, but DCS ain't there yet. Realistic missiles and over-G would demolish the PVP aspect of the game. In BMS that's the norm and even when missiles actually over-perform slightly, it doesn't completely destroy the game due to most of the pieces fitting together.