dont have time for both,think i need relaxation and combat not giving it,plus i love the idea of flying everywhere,judt worried ill miss pressing fire:) come on guys convince me to retire from combat please.

ok what id like is your honest take on this cus im sure most of you play both types
thanks

How about this. Get the VRS F-18. They are coming out with their "TAKPAK" pretty soon. We'll have air combat right here in FSX. Best of both worlds.

Stick to combat sims for combat and FSX for civilian flying and done.

Each type of sim does best what it does best. And FSX just can't do (theatre based) combat convincingly; regardless of mil aircraft and payloads.

I think you can do both. I do both.

But I find FSX pretty relaxing whereas there is a lot of frustration involed in combat sims (cause I am no ace).

What's fun about FSX is that almost every day is like Christmas...you can d/l something new and try it out, all free.

Also you can fly around the world.

If you watch Ice Pilots or a show like that, and they are flying a C-46 out of Yellowknife, you can do it in the same way, with the same weather, etc.

Always something new.

I think you just convinced yourself, Scylla. Go forth young man and explore the world!

But save some money for add-ons. FSX is more addictive and expensive than combat flight sims. After adding Acceleration (no one flies stock FSX without the MS Acceleration add-on). You also have to get REX 2.0, GEX, ORBX for Australia, My Traffic or Ultimate Traffic X or Traffic X. Possibly UTX. Then there are the airplane add-ons...break out the wallet.

I like that with FSX I can take off from my local airport in real time/real weather and fly an hour or so following landmarks that I recognize. There isn't much of a goal or purpose in that but I find it relaxing.

To be honest, I don't even have a combat flight simulator installed on my computer right now. I used to have five or six installed at any one time, and sometimes multiple versions for mods and stuff.

We at VCVW 8 "http://www.carrierpilot.com/" are doing "work ups" for TacPac in the VRS SB. This bird takes effort and time to master. If you buy FSX Gold, then the VRS FA18E "http://vrsimulations.com/FA18EFSX.htm", one of our members has a "spawn on moving carrier" which is available on the VRS web site. Once you get into Carrier work, you will be HOOKED!

FSX can be a hoot. Landing too big airplanes on too small a runway, very low altitude flying in the Grand Canyon, and basic flying around and looking out the window. I fly both Rise of Flight DCS and I still enjoy FSX when I have time to play around on the pooter.

thanks guys

I do. Because Acceleration is still too expensive for my taste here.

Ditto that.

Not interested in any of the planes, nor in Airrace, never flew a "Mission".

Some of those missions aren't bad.

Also i just got Acceleration for about $20 including shipping at amazon.com

The missions can actually be fun.

But the real pleasure for me comes from mastering the heavy jets and flying real world routes with real world AI all around you.

A couple of must haves IMO are REX 2.0, GEX, LD 767 (also really enjoy the Flight1 MD80, has the best training module ever), and some kind of AI traffic addon. All have their flaws but all are light years better then stock. For free stuff World of AI is great.

with GEX and REX etc.one just installs them and how does one then implement it in the sim does it give you an option to use default or other landscapes scenery etc.
thanks

And real ATC à la Radar Contact.

REX is the more complicated add-on. Yes, you can fly without REX weather but what's the point in installing it (a lengthy process) if you aren't going to use it. The coolest thing about REX IMHO are the themes. You get more of them if you also download and install the free add-on called Overdrive. But you have to have REX 2.0 installed for Overdrive to work. It's a lot of downloading. The themes change clouds, weather, water, airport lighting, and airport runway surfaces. Or you can change each individually. Create your own theme.

I think I have seen your name over on the 1c forums snake, once REX is installed it does it's own thing, I just play fsx as normal and you see a little message saying Rex is downloading the weather, then a few seconds later it looks amazing.

I don't have gex, but the scenery packs I do have just replace the default scenery, Orbx has demo's that include the olympic peninsula and tasmania.

hi Pos yes im on the banana forum and WOP gajiin forums, thanks all for your help,im seriously nearly buying this,only thing holding me back is do I have the time that its going to need

Sure you do, you can just hop airport to airport in a general aviation plane, I usually continue from where I land next time I play, going to fly around Australia eventually

My opinion (and it's only that) flying over England in Cliffs of Dover is far more realistic than almost anywhere in FSX with or without Acceleration, any game that requires 4 or 5 paid add ons before it starts to do what was promised on release is a money pit. Out of the box FSX looks Horrible compared to modded IL-2, a decade old sim with free add-ons, but that's just my opinion and I don't plan on reinstalling it, not even to fly A2A's Piper Cub with that but-ugly biatch in the front seat (a paid for add-on).

I really need see some pics of modded IL-2 then, FSX looks pretty good to me stock.

From the FSX demo



FSX Gold edition stock



And just for fun, the A2A piper cub with rex, and orbx addons and no one in the front seat (the girl defaults as off and resides in the baggage compartment)

Carrots and cherries.

CoD/IL-2 depicts a limited area, FSX depicts the whole world.

CoD/IL-2 runs way worse than FSX on today's hardware.

Even a modded IL-2 can't keep up with FSX plus UTX.

I play FSX and Acceleration out of the box and it looks great to me. I love playing the missions and extending them afterwards. In fact the missions are what sold the game to me - I love the mission where you land on the glacier etc. And the glider missions/tutorials are also great particularly when you have force feedback enabled. I am not one for flying long flights so I find the missions are great for picking up from time to time when I feel like it.

I have been playing Cliffs of Dover and Rise of Flight recently. They are very good for what they represent (RoF more so than CoD though). FSX seems a bit more grown up than going around shooting things but it can become dull after a while for me. RoF is superb at WW1 combat and flying atmosphere alone - sometimes its really nice just flying around a Sopwith Pup in that game without shooting things. COD needs loads of changes before it gets decent unfortunately but you can still fly a Hurricane or Spitfire around the limited area and get a pretty good feeling of flying. I agree that CoD runs terribly and also it looks terrible compared to FSX and RoF. I think you can enjoy several types of flight sims. For example I usually prefer jet combat and am thinking of getting DCS's A10 at some point as well. I also have Flaming Cliffs 2 which I haven't even tried properly yet

I do find myself coming back to each in turn depending on my mood. Sometimes I get sick of FSX's lack of adrenalin rush and I need a blast on a combat sim. Sometimes I get sick of all sims and try another type of game altogether.

There are actually quite a few options for us gamers around at the moment, well other than space sims/games of which there are practically none (well one). No need to tie yourself down to one game (although FSX is about the only game I would say its possible to do that considering the massive amount of addons and possibilities above any other game). Ive never felt like playing any game more than a few months solid myself.

lol Nats you sound very much like me,bit of this and a bit of that,i do think that FSX is big enough to keep enjoying for longer becuse of the variety and apart form not shooting things although i see an add on coming to allow shooting:).your not a gemini by any chance,

thanks for everyones input its been a big help in convincing me to get FSX,may wait a few weeks or so just to get a bit of space because i know it will take a fair bit of time up once started

I've always been a combat sim nut, but since upgrading my computer and installing FSX, then Acceleration, I can't stay away from it. The missions are really fun except for a few and they are well made.

The other day I flew a Buffalo C-46 from Norman Wells to Deline just because I saw it done on Ice Pilots. Boring flight you might think, but it was enjoyable. Plus I discovered some new things in the GPS that I had no idea was in there...very interesting!

If you want knuckle-busting excitement, try that F/A-18 landing in IMC. For a moderate challenge, the Vomit Comet is a great mission, really fun.

I'm still going through the missions, do them every now and then, currently did the apple delivery one, that second last airport was quite a challenging landing, REX turned the place into storm, raining and I couldn't see hardly anything.

I also love flying around in the cold in my buffalo dc-3 and dc-4, ice pilots is a fantastic show

Does REX slow down the game at all? It certainly looks impressive but my game is about just as fast enough to be well playable, I consider, and I am worried about getting these enhancements in case they slow it down just enough to be unplayable. Surely all those clouds must be very slow?

AFAIK, and experience, no. It just replaces stock cloud and water textures with more realistic ones.