On DI Tornado, Wimpy burgers, Sarah Green and Eagle Dynamics.

[GGTharos]

To be clear, I agree with you, it's just a matter of resources - it isn't that MP is an excuse for it, it's just how things are right now.

 

This is not the right approach in my opinion, multiplayer should not be used as an excuse far lacking singleplayer. SP is still what the majority of the people play (the latest SimHQ article mentions only 20% of the players even touching MP).

 

You have to ask yourself why the player is supposed to make things up himself to improve the experience, why this is not what this sim (A-10) is about. In my opinion the campaign/career gameplay is what every sim should centrally be about. But of course this is just my opinion and every developer is free to create a product of his liking.

[Succellus]

Extremely pleasant read, i too wished to be a fighter pilot, when i was 3 up to something my best toy was a red and white matchbox fishbed (didnt even knew the plane name at the time) exept i discovered early that i would never fly, minor spine problem and asmatic...dream over. Civil?? nah...all or nothing.

I too began with a comodore 64 turning night over day delivering mail on "fly solo", but this was in the early 90. After "Fly solo", there was a f15 sim all planes wired, then a f14, and finally i switched to PC. DID TFX, F14 fleet defender gave me exactly the same sensation you had with my first plane landing on a deck, then the GREAT magic for me....DID EF2000 and then DID ef2000V2, i sold the first to buy the later.

Hell how many zillions hours have i passed trying to hold back the ruskies, re tasking flights, creating mission more apropriated for the situation, invade neutral space of not, first time POLITICS!!!

This for the modern plane sim of the 90, not even counting WW2/1, red baron (redbaron 3d in the 90?), AOE,AOP, add ons, etc, and many i ve probably forgotten.

Then came MR. SR. Falcon4.0 , it didn t make a score as big as EF2000 or F14FD, cenário wasn t as good, but i flew it right, learning all, by this time, i had to work and study so simming time is what it is today quite reduced.

Then came DID f22(overdone), LOMAC and it sequels , EA BoB (was it ea?), IL2, some that i am forgeting, K50 which i fell in love with the chopper, not the sim :P (i m too bad at it), and finally A10C, Rise of Flight and SoW:BOB.

Men we re almost in the 90 golden age, but with a ton more content per sim!!!!

Edited January 3, 2011 by Succellus

[Sparky75]

So it wasn't just me then?, brought a few memories back, I had an Amstrad CPC 464, and my first flight sims were Harrier Attack (

) and an airliner type sim where you had to fly over a mountain range and IIRC you had the option of adding bad weather in the form of fog (the screen changed colour to beige lol).

When I got my Atari ST that really was the start of things, Falcon by Mirrorsoft/Spectrum Holobyte, Gunship in fact I used to love all the Microprose sim's the manuals were great, and I never got bored of being shot down and captured by the soviets and having my picture appear in Pravada in F19.

Happy Days

(BTW who remembers when codemasters was a budget publisher selling tapes for £1.99 and the dreaded syntax error message meant you had to start a load all over again lol)

[Succellus]

MBot, i know what your talking about.

 

What the today games lack is:

Glamour, and user friendly GUI.

I remember in DIDef2000 you setted a point and with a small interface, you calculated grossly how much combustible you would need to reach the desired point depending on altitude and load, Whith such you could adjust your fuel load. Would you like to hit and run, or hit and loiter for oportunity targets? What was the likeliness of encountering OPFOR, would it be better to go high or choose terrain masking, go hi lo hi or a mix of possibilities.

Situational and local: EF2000 was a masterpiece in localization, F14 FD a masterpiece in situation, fleeing to try to save you carrier and when able trying to give a payback time.

Both had squadrons, with ranking, death, and you feeled like somepart in the big picture. F4 had that but only in the flot.

DID tryed to put such to the max with Typhoon which floundered i don t know why, maybe the settings weren t correct.

DCS totally lack this "imersiveness", i was going to say dut to probably due to the limited campaign mode, and then IL2 also, but its not that F14 FD has exactly the same campaign design and approach, and then i was feeling more inserted and more caring for my pixel buddy than i do care for the robotic wignmen i have now.

Death is a mere line in a board, another wingmen is just another AI with won t evolve with me and "fight better over time".(rookie to ace)

Also

There was much more Pictures of the planes you flied and some blurred to give some would be spy archive. There was more care in the wallpaper and gui, at least it didn t appear so cold. Am i more cynical, probably. D i care less, guess no, its just they aren t able to grab my attention to this kind of detail. Much time i would rather fly solo than have a wingman that will halfway obey and halfway screw my plans and endanger itself for nothing.

 

I agree eastern sims have a more engeneering feeling, but this is a trend in all the market. You get FPS/RPG its all wizzbang and few elaboration in settings and history. Eyecandy has turned itself more important then setting, poligon count more than a great tale where you feel part of, or thing or not obviously downright.

Today they prefer to put a 3d model than a picture in the enciclopedia

Edited January 3, 2011 by Succellus

[redtail]

you mean..."SOLO FLIGHT" :) yeah that was probably my first flightsim for the C-64. much fun. EF2000, I still have the CD, keep telling myself I want to dig it out and see if it will install on my current PC just for fun. But i really have to get my head into the new king....DCS A10C and get into the ground school (manual)!

[shagrat]

I guess what made EF2000 (the V2!) so immersive and got us spending whole weekends in the "Flightseat" was the conflict modelling on tactical and strategical level.

It actually did(!) matter what you planned for your mission and than achieved:thumbup:

 

I remember when I tried to push OPFOR forces back to Finland I came up with the idea to eliminate EWR stations first and then going for the supplies and POL sites...

Tactics worked like a charm! Without EWR the Reds where unable to find the strikers quick enough, so about 40-50% of the strike packages got through.

 

Basically it was the foundation of what Falcon 4.0 perfected with its dynamic campaign.

 

DCS:A-10C has a great potential here, the JTAC with perhaps the option to make situational decisions on importance of dynamic targets could be a great source for immersion. Add a 2-3 layer tactical and strategical situation that is changed according to goals achieved (which can be things like kill the SAMs and AAA to get an Airfield under control, forcing OPFOR to move back their forces on the greater scope for lack of CAS or CAP support in that area...).:smartass:

[Mad Dog 7.62]

I too would like to see more of the element of squadron management in single player, and a more immersive experience. I well remember choosing my wingmen in Falcon, watching thier ability rise slowly with experience, and being disappointed when one of my good ones got shot down. Also, having to manage my stores and allocate them. I do miss that part of the experience.

MD

[Succellus]

you mean..."SOLO FLIGHT" :) yeah that was probably my first flightsim for the C-64. much fun. EF2000, I still have the CD, keep telling myself I want to dig it out and see if it will install on my current PC just for fun. But i really have to get my head into the new king....DCS A10C and get into the ground school (manual)!

 

I guess i have all my manuals from f14 FD from this day. And i guess unless i lost some i have all the CD.

Freak collection.

Damn i even have 5.1/4 windows instalation (the one right before 95) can t remember name.

 

Yes mad dog your right today modern plane sims lack this fine part where you can plan retask, assemble and tactically decide what to do. Thats the awesome side benefit of a dinamyc campaign (for the player).

Its not realistic i know but the hell its a game, even if the most sofisticated sim we ll ever have without 3d immersion.

One thing that was blasting in DID Total war (i have that one too) is the AWAC module. Want to refresh your head, jump in awac, want to help someone i trouble jump in pilot seat.

A pity this game setting where so offboard, i once did a marathon mission, just refuelling and rearming, i quite brought down more than 60 planes.

 

On a side note it would be AWESOME if DCS realease a fast jet next module then release a dynamic campaign a la F.4 instead of another plane.

Would breath totally new life to all the flyables.

Edited January 4, 2011 by Succellus

[nippinpippin]

Great memories which I can surely relate to. Reading your little piece did spring back great memories.

 

One for me was Digital Integration`s Apache on the Spectrum. The graphics in their full wireframe glory and the fun getting the tape player volume just right for that all important 5 minutes of game loading time. (About 7 1/2 was the sweet spot on my tape player if my memory serves me right). Gamers these days don`t know they are born.

 

I always loved the Apache, I don`t know why. I was in awe of the footage of the AH-64`s tank busting in the first gulf war. It looked ugly but mean, a bit like the A-10 I suppose.

 

So along comes the Janes Longbow series on the PC, I was hooked, they were great sims with fantastic graphics and an instruction manual which I couldn`t believe. Hours,days and months disappear.

 

Decades pass and now I have discovered the DCS series. Like yourself I am back interested in combat sims again after a long time away. The realism stuns me every time I take either Black Shark or the Hog out for a training flight, but I will always remeber where the love began, a Spectrum +48K and a quickshot 2 joystick.

 

Note to ED, Apache AH-64 Longbow for the next DCS title please.

 

Nearly forgot I did love TFX,TFX2 on the PC.

[frankiekam]

Hi

 

To the original post's author, DotChuckles, it is 2016 and you now have your wish. Well, almost. Let me explain.

 

Most modern flight sims of 2016, that feature the Panavia Tornado, have long outstripped Tornado in the graphics and realism departments. We're talking beautiful graphics, clickable buttons, photo-realistic pilot and navigator stations, shadows falling over the cockpit, air-to-air refueling, realistic avionics, terrain-following radar, detailed and accurate real-life landscape that whizzes by you as you fly nap-of-the-earth, and a 101 other mouth-watering things. It has never been more immersive to fly a Panavia Tornado than it is today.

 

It is just that Digital Integration's Tornado was the complete package that included a killer mission planner to plan coordinated multiplane attackes, enemy AI that shot you out of the sky, tons of targets and structures to blow up, numerous missions and a dynamic campaign to die for. You would be hard-pressed to find a 'complete Tornado package' in any modern sim today.

 

Cheers,

Frankie Kam

Malaysia

Edited November 4, 2016 by frankiekam

[Rangi]

Thanks for reviving this thread. DIs Tornado is still the sim I judge all others by, that dynamic campaign just made me keep playing for years and years, even after the graphics were years out of date. The OP genuinely brought a tear to my eye when I remembered back to those days.