Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Fineus on February 16, 2010, 04:26:58 pm
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Hey all,
I'm looking for a simulator that lets me fly through / around / over clouds. Preferably with controllable weather conditions but that's not essential.
No doubt a variety of flight sims cater to this. I'm not looking for a particularly "simulator" feel - arcade style would do just fine. Any suggestions?
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Free: YS Flight Sim
http://www.ysflight.com/
...This is moddable - if you need help, I'll do as much as I can.
Not Free (but damn worth it): X-Plane
http://www.x-plane.com/
...Heck, if you've got an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can get a version of X-Plane for that, too!
Cheaper and GOGable: Il-2
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/il_2_sturmovik_1946
...Well, all of these are moddable, but X-Plane is by far the easiest for that. Hope this helps. ;)
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Did any of these suggestions help, Kal?
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Lock On: Modern Air Combat?
Or Tom Clancy's HAWX, if you don't mind the no-mission-editor/lack-of-good-plot for good graphics/scenery/planes.
Though neither of these two are free.
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HAWX
:ick:
That's not a flight sim - that's a joke. Go for Lock-On or something else of good quality. Ace Combat and the like are not what you want when you're looking for a simulator.
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Battlestations Pacific has some nice cloud effects inflight. You can fly around or through them
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HAWX
:ick:
That's not a flight sim - that's a joke. Go for Lock-On or something else of good quality. Ace Combat and the like are not what you want when you're looking for a simulator.
I forgot to mention that it's an arcadey game :p
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Or there's always MS Flight Simulator. Mabey get an old version off amazon or something if you want it cheap.
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What, pray tell, brought this on? I'm curious.
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What, pray tell, brought this on? I'm curious.
It is a very "specific" request. :p
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I love flying through the storm clouds or sometimes just the puffy light clouds... usually in a jet fighter in IL-2 1946. The YP-80 is my favourite for sight seeing around some of the newer maps. The weather modeling isn't perfect but the sensation of flight is incredible!
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HAWX
:ick:
That's not a flight sim - that's a joke. Go for Lock-On or something else of good quality. Ace Combat and the like are not what you want when you're looking for a simulator.
I forgot to mention that it's an arcadey game :p
You forgot to mention that it sucks. Much better going with Ace Combat.
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You forgot to mention that it sucks. Much better going with Ace Combat.
You didn't just say Ace Combat is a flight sim. I know you didn't.
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I didn't forgot to mention that. Besides, it works on PC, unlike Ace Combat.
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I guess that's one thing going for HAWX.
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I love flying through the storm clouds or sometimes just the puffy light clouds... usually in a jet fighter in IL-2 1946. The YP-80 is my favourite for sight seeing around some of the newer maps. The weather modeling isn't perfect but the sensation of flight is incredible!
The F-86 is quite nice for that as well. The late versions can do supercruise! ;7
Or the Sea Fury, Spitfire Mk.XIV, late FW-190 Doras and Ta-152's, or MiG-15. They're nice fast planes too.
(http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/3245/1802201070112.jpg)
(http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3197/1802201082414.jpg)
(http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/1193/1802201064020.jpg)
(http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/8258/1802201063937.jpg)
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You forgot to mention that it sucks. Much better going with Ace Combat.
You didn't just say Ace Combat is a flight sim. I know you didn't.
Pred should be shot.
MS Flight Simulator, all, the ****ing, way. :D
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I love flying through the storm clouds or sometimes just the puffy light clouds... usually in a jet fighter in IL-2 1946. The YP-80 is my favourite for sight seeing around some of the newer maps. The weather modeling isn't perfect but the sensation of flight is incredible!
The F-86 is quite nice for that as well. The late versions can do supercruise! ;7
Wut.
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If you choose MS Flight Simulator X, you might be interested in the Active Sky weather add-on (see link below). There might be other similar such add-ons available too.
http://www2.hifisim.com/node/4 (http://www2.hifisim.com/node/4)
@Herra: Where may I ask did you get the Sabre from for Il-2? I used to really like a sim called MiG Alley by Rowan Software, but unfortunately I fear that I might have lost the CD.
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The F-86 is quite nice for that as well. The late versions can do supercruise! ;7
Wut.
Yes, that's what I thought.
In my experiment, I tried to keep it straight and level at 23000-24000 ft (isn't that easy to maintain zero vertical speed at those speeds without autopilot...) at full sustained power without engine overheat, which is about 95% power setting. It started shaking like mad past 450 or so MPH indicated air speed, and eventually accelerated up to about 560 MPH IAS. But it holds together and you don't start losing parts, just don't turn too fast or you'll lose a wing very fast. Ground speed at that point was above 1300 km/h, which to that altitude assuming normal tropospheric temperature translates to Mach 1.1564, so I would say it can supercruise.
Mind you the original F-86 was a transonic fighter, and while I think it could breach the sound barrier in a dive it couldn't reach it in straight and level flight in reality. On the other hand, in a ten-degree nose-down power dive from the apparent service ceiling of around 13000 metres this thing can reach true air speed of up to 1600 km/h without breaking apart.
Didn't really bother measuring sustained maximum speed at sea level.
My guess is that the flight model has a little lapsus in the maximum speed, possibly caused by someone read the TAS MPH from performance statistics and applied them as IAS, or something, but it's insanely fast nevertheless. :p
Also, the Sabre (among other goodies) comes with Ultrapack mod (http://ultrapack.il2war.com/index.php/board,7.0.html).
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Thanks Herra (I've actually come across that website before; seems I didn't look too closely at it the first time).
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Would this Ultrapack mod happen to be for the Pacific Fighters / Il-2 Sturmovik 1946 set of games?
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Would this Ultrapack mod happen to be for the Pacific Fighters / Il-2 Sturmovik 1946 set of games?
I think you need IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 version 4.09m (latest patch) before installing Ultrapack 2.0.
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Wow, lots of replies to go through. Thanks guys!
To address the "what the hell made me think of this?" question - I've played a few flying games but haven't found one since Battlefield 1942 that really captures the feeling of flight / atmospherics properly. Some of what you guys have posted are a little too hardcore for me (I'm hoping for a happy medium between something like HAWX and something really hardcore. Anyways there's a lot of material here so I'll get started trying to find the best looking / playing!
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Wow, lots of replies to go through. Thanks guys!
To address the "what the hell made me think of this?" question - I've played a few flying games but haven't found one since Battlefield 1942 that really captures the feeling of flight / atmospherics properly. Some of what you guys have posted are a little too hardcore for me (I'm hoping for a happy medium between something like HAWX and something really hardcore. Anyways there's a lot of material here so I'll get started trying to find the best looking / playing!
I can definitely recommend IL-2 1946 then, it's cheap as dirt from GoG and it has a wide range of difficulty settings, which makes it actually fairly accommodating for starters.
In my opinion anyway. :p
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Guh... If you go for a heavy-duty sim, don't go with MSFS. X-Plane is a much better choice. :yes:
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Wow, lots of replies to go through. Thanks guys!
To address the "what the hell made me think of this?" question - I've played a few flying games but haven't found one since Battlefield 1942 that really captures the feeling of flight / atmospherics properly. Some of what you guys have posted are a little too hardcore for me (I'm hoping for a happy medium between something like HAWX and something really hardcore. Anyways there's a lot of material here so I'll get started trying to find the best looking / playing!
HAWX I have to admit was pretty horrible and has no feeling of flight. Ace Combat 6 is REALLY good for that considering it's still an arcade game. I love just flying around in the free flight mode sometimes. Still IL-2 is the best... it is hardcore but with the settings you can easily turn off the hard bits and just have fun.
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HAWX I have to admit was pretty horrible and has no feeling of flight. Ace Combat 6 is REALLY good for that considering it's still an arcade game. I love just flying around in the free flight mode sometimes. Still IL-2 is the best... it is hardcore but with the settings you can easily turn off the hard bits and just have fun.
However, I'd like to say that you should always keep the stalls and spins as well as advanced engine management activated. It's half of the flying to not get into sticky situations and the rest is getting out of them alive. Deactivating realistic gunnery is probably the biggest difficulty increment, as is keeping engine overheating off.
Going into a perpetual backflip with a P-38 or F-86 is a horrible feeling, as you let your airspeed get too low in a vertical turn and the plane just lurches down, falling out of the sky... and getting out of that one takes a lot of altitude. Even normal spins are pretty hard to get out without letting it develope into a flat spin. :shaking:
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I find it funny that I can still stall (Not from low airspeed) with the stalls option off.
Getting the BF109Z (German version of the Twin Mustang) with five 30mm cannon rips stuff up. :D
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Ace Combat looks great in graphical terms but it doesn't seem to be out for the PC so that's out (I should have specified that a lot earlier shouldn't I!). I may well check out IL2 though :)
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Yes! IL-2 is v. good. :)
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Damn it. :lol:
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If you choose MS Flight Simulator X, you might be interested in the Active Sky weather add-on (see link below). There might be other similar such add-ons available too.
http://www2.hifisim.com/node/4 (http://www2.hifisim.com/node/4)
You should also try REX: http://www.realenvironmentxtreme.com/index.html
That or the HDE Clouds.