I've been following Vector Thrust for a while, and it looks like it is finally up on Steam in Early Access form. For those looking for a basic arcade style flight game this might be worth looking into, even if it is from a low budget independent developer:

[url="http://store.steampowered.com/app/242130/"]http://store.steampowered.com/app/242130/[/url]

Some features to highlight are the mission editor and ~200 real and fictional flyable planes.

From what I understand only one guy is working on it, at least until recently. Terrain does look pretty low end (hope they improve it by release). Looks like a decent through back to games like Air Force Delta, Lethal Skies and similar. I'm a fan of those arcade type flight shooters as they are excellent for just jumping in for which action. I'm considering pre-ordering it although I don't have much to spend on games at the moment.

Posted this here because it isn't a true flight sim.

This has great potential as the dev's have allowed modding right from the start.

http://www.moddb.com/games/vector-thrust/forum

They are also very active and aren't afraid to chat with their users (a good combination)

Recent Update v0.9103


Originally posted by TimeSymmetry:
Another update has been released!

It already has been some weeks since the last update, during that time the development was in full production and a lot has been done, so much that the planned update have grown more than expected.
The problem is this also made it difficult to release, as there were plenty of new stuff that require additional testing to be sure that it didn't had any bugs.

But at the same time, I wanted to release the update as soon as possible to move on to other elements of development, so my goal was to release this week, but due to the sheer volume of content and additions, it was hard to have everything ready on time.

Initially, when I noticed that it would be difficult to have it ready this week, I was planning in posting a new report and announcement to talk about the current state the update, but then, the plan has changed again and I decided to split this update in two parts.

What you see here is the first part of this update, the rest will be added in the few days.

This update also adds several new aircraft families, but the next part will add even more.
As for challenges, this update only adds a few, more are to come in the next update, but some of them use elements that are not fully tested, so they required more time.

Other element that was omitted in this update was the ability to skip challenges, while the system was ready, most of the challenges didn't had a price, so it will only be available in the second part.

Also, after experiencing the development of update that took several weeks, I´ll be making for a while smaller and quicker updates to tweak and give every aircraft their respective challenge.

CHANGE LIST
FIXED: F-117C wrong family name
FIXED: Texture for F-35C had panel details of the gun port (F-35C does not have internal cannon)
FIXED: Texture for F-35D had panel details of the gun port (F-35D does not have internal cannon)
FIXED: F-14B rudder animation
FIXED: MiG-21PFM rudder animation
FIXED: F-16 FSW flap animation
FIXED: MiG-29K missing heat up effect
FIXED: NF-104A missing heat up effect
FIXED: F-16 FSW flap animation
FIXED: MiG-29OVT's condensation over the wings
FIXED: crash when quitting the mission while leaving trails with a variable geometry aircraft
FIXED: crash that appears randomly after a mission ends (appeared more frequently after F-14A and F-14D challenge)
FIXED: Pointer show action for the mission editor
FIXED: Multiplayer chat now always shows the last message first


ADDED: F-16C Block 25 Aircraft
ADDED: F-16 Agile Falcon Aircraft
ADDED: F-4J Aircraft
ADDED: MiG-23S Aircraft
ADDED: XF10F-1 Aircraft
ADDED: X-36 Aircraft
ADDED: F-5A Aircraft
ADDED: Climb rate now change significantly if the aircraft is using the afterburner or not
ADDED: Acceleration rate now change significantly if the aircraft is using the afterburner or not
ADDED: Player speed trigger for the mission editor
ADDED: Npc unit speed trigger for the mission editor
ADDED: Npc unit HP trigger for the mission editor
ADDED: Npc unit proximity trigger for the mission editor
ADDED: Player proximity to Npc unit trigger for the mission editor
ADDED: Npc unit proximity to Npc unit trigger for the mission editor
ADDED: The challenge mode now displays the difficulty level of each challenge
ADDED: Credits in the option menu
ADDED: Max velocity stats in the aircraft selection screen
ADDED: Ability to mod weapons load out without changing the original file
ADDED: MiG-29_9-12 Challenge
ADDED: MiG-29_9-13 Challenge
ADDED: MiG-29S_9-13S Challenge
ADDED: MiG-29SM_9-13M Challenge
ADDED: XF10F-1 Aircraft Challenge


UPDATED: Campaign editor, it is now fully completed and now allows to reveal new units after you clear a specific mission of the campaign
UPDATED: F-22 family stealth values (still doesn't use the weapons bay so the stealth is mitigated by the external load out)
UPDATED: max speed and acceleration value sin all aircraft