Top 2025 Combat Flight Simulators

[CptTrips]

And 10 years ago everyone was saying flight sims are dead.

The space sims are a bit of a stretch but some look like fun.

[Shane]

who gives a flying f?  you're insulting our collective intelligence if you think we're incapable of researching things like this if we so desired.

I kind of agree with animl about your attempts advertising other games like this having no place here.

[CptTrips]

who gives a flying f?  you're insulting our collective intelligence if you think we're incapable of researching things like this if we so desired.

I kind of agree with animl about your attempts advertising other games like this having no place here.

Which forum rule have I broken?

And who is forcing you to open the thread?

And this is the O'Club.

[AKIron]

MSFS 2020 and "Covid" kept people at home and drove the market for HOTAS and faster machines. The masses want it to look real but don't want to have to spend the time necessary to learn an actual simulator. There is a market for those that do though as is evident today and more powerful computers support that market.

[CptTrips]

MSFS 2020 and "Covid" kept people at home and drove the market for HOTAS and faster machines. The masses want it to look real but don't want to have to spend the time necessary to learn an actual simulator. There is a market for those that do though as is evident today and more powerful computers support that market.

COVID was certainly an accelerant.

Ironically, I think it was stuff like War Thunder World of Tanks or what ever those are called actually saved flightsim.  They re-invigorated the popularity of combat vehicle simulation. 

Before that, everything was just going FPS.

[AKIron]

Grandsons and I enjoyed many evenings together in PUBG and Fortnite, among others.

[CptTrips]

Grandsons and I enjoyed many evenings together in PUBG and Fortnite, among others.

I dropped a lot of time into BF 1942, 3 & 4.

It may not be everyone's cup a tea, but I always thought that from a gameplay design point of view they were almost perfect.

[AKIron]

We never did get the gokart racing addon working in Arma 3.

[CptTrips]

We never did get the gokart racing addon working in Arma 3.

ARMA is something I almost got into.

I really loved the original for SP play.  Never had a chance to try it MP.

Got lost in BF but maybe someday in retirement I might go try it again.

I remember some intense gameplay on some of the SP ARMA stuff.

[Brooke]

I dropped a lot of time into BF 1942, 3 & 4.

It may not be everyone's cup a tea, but I always thought that from a gameplay design point of view they were almost perfect.

Same.  I loved BF 1942.  But it I hate it's business model.  Charge for the game, don't have company-provided multiplayer (leave it on shoulders of users), put out an expansion or two but then abandon it to move on to another game to sell.  It leads games having a limited lifespan.  And any great game, within another different release or two, whenever was special is lost as they change things to make a new game.

I quit playing BF 1942 a bit after it went out of support.

[CptTrips]

Same.  I loved BF 1942.  But it I hate it's business model.  Charge for the game, don't have company-provided multiplayer (leave it on shoulders of users),

Different strokes.

I actually like that model.  I like how players have to freedom to setup their own servers with whatever configurations they can concieve with as much capability as any other, and let the player marketplace decide who has the better design as opposed to one vision being forced on everyone by a single server only the company controls.

The way I prefer the States to be laboratories of Democracy. I don't trust anyone to have the monopoly of a good idea and I like the letting others try something.

HTC has custom arena, but limited to only a trivial coop count, too hard to keep up perpetually, not able to support any real base capture or anything that would actually make it valuable, unable to run sets of scheduled missions.  Basically nothing but a moshpit furball capability.   

DCS has even more flexibility with an extremely rich and powerful scripting API.  Apparent, from those who know, dwarfs anything IL2 or ARMA have, that from experience IL2 and ARMA modders.

Different platforms different approaches.

Dang dude.  I was still occasionally getting on full BF4 servers not too long ago and that was released what 2015?
How long do you think you should be able to play a single MMO release?  You ought to get out more.

<Shrug>  Different strokes.  Pro's and con's to both models.  It's good we have choices.

[Dadtallica]

Why is it taboo for a bunch of flight simmers to discuss flight sims in a flight sim forum?

[Meatwad]

Why is it taboo for a bunch of flight simmers to discuss flight sims in a flight sim forum?

As you can see it hurts the feelings of certain other people here

[The Fugitive]

Why is it taboo for a bunch of flight simmers to discuss flight sims in a flight sim forum?

From a marketing view they dont want anyone "selling" a different game on their boards. Hitech was never worried about that and has always allowed talk of other games, good or bad. DSC on the other hand doesnt allow any talk because they may be worried.

[AKIron]

No one who posts here works for Eagle Dynamics or profits from DCS sales, period. That's just stupid and irrational to imagine anyone here is trying to steal AH customers. I for one am a long time flight and flight sim enthusiast with a few long time friends that still visit here. Someone trying to run me off just makes me want to stick around.