Hopefully this post will be viewed for what it is intended to be. A light hearted but sincere quest for some information. I started sims in the mid 90's with a fun and easy game called the Falcon 3.0. a DOS based game. Then Falcon 4.0 came along and I thought that this would be really good stuff! I was right. It was. But, It was a lot more complicated for a casual gamer.. I quit flight sims.
Until recently. Now I have Falcon 4.32 and DCS World. Why is the simple concept of a signing actions to the buttons on my newly acquired CH devices, so complicated?
Why do I need separate software to use these?
What is a DX device?
What is a Pinky Shift?
Why am I finding complicated spread sheets written by very knowledgeable and dedicated gamers when all I want to know is how to simply use my controllers in a game?
There are dozens of other things I could do to make my controllers. They are not working by the way.

I am posting this on Sim HQ hoping to find a kind soul who might sense my frustrations. I am on all of the other forums and those guys are all great. But no one gets to the point of any of my questions without throwing a lot of jargon, short-hand speak, and assumptions that I am a gifted config file editor. I don't want to do anything to a config file.
I don't give up too easily, but I am ready to throw in the towel once again and see if I can resurrect Falcon 3.0 once again.
Sincere thanks for enduring my ramblings here.
Pineapple Pete aka Steve

Yomo,

Falcon, even Falcon 3.0, has attracted sim-oriented gamers who wish to enjoy an experience as close to real as technology allowed. Falcon 3 was simpler, not because that was the intent but rather because HOTAS controls and multicore processors didn't exist. With BMS and DCS World, learning these systems and learning the ability to apply them in a coherent way is the joy. ED has done something very nice for players wishing for a simpler time, Flamming Cliffs 3. The flight model for the F15, Su27, Su25, and A10A are very high fidelity but the systems are simpler. It still has a steep learning cure. (You probably knew all that) But I hear you regarding config files. I wish PC games were more like console games in this respect. I just want to turn the thing on and see it work. But this is a genre for tweakers, control freaks and developers with limited resources.

Regarding Pinky Shift and the BMS keyfile, BMS comes from the dedication of a small group of volunteers scattered around the world. There just isn't time to make a slick GUI. I've set up the Pinky Shift before but found with my current CH it really isn't necessary. The payoff is more than worth it.

Gods, I get this heavy rush of nostalgia- thinking about Falcon 3.0 Y'all can't imagine.

Big part is for the game, the small part is that I was still a teenager and life was INDEED easier back then...


I do miss the old times. A bit.

Sorry...

There's no doubt that nostalgia for younger days is a key component behind the reason why so many gamers think that flight sims from the early 90's were just as hardcore as current day sims like DCS World.


As for me, Falcon 3.0 was the very first flight sim I ever played multiplayer.

They weren't as accurate, but they were usually more fun! They actually put thought into the game side of it, the UI side of it, the parts that weren't just about simulating weapons systems and flight controls.
You had wingmen that acted and reacted with a semblance of human response.
You had well thought-out campaign scenarios that engaged you.
You had a career or campaign progression that invested you in the outcome.

Falcon 3 died for me because of the terrible bugs in the campaign that tended to render them unplayable after about two weeks. They just stopped loading, and the worst part is even a new campaign wouldn't load. I had an entire backup copy of F3 in a separate folder so I could copy it over the top because installing took so long. Playing copy got corrupted, overwrite with pristine installed copy, don't touch the pristine one or you might corrupt it!!!




The Jedi Master

Dunno about that, my wingmen followed me at LOW ALT and consistently bought farms.
That was my main gripe with Falcon3.0-

Also you had to manage the entire Squadron Roster (you could have been ANY pilot!) and train those too green, trasure the veterans and manage Ordnance supplies.

And protect C-130 Milk Runs!

Boy it WAS immersive!

I didn't say they weren't dumb, I mean they acted like dumb PEOPLE. In current sims I feel more like I have drones on my wing, doing only what I tell them when I tell them, otherwise they do nothing.
Oh, they will shoot down someone I'm on the six of before I get to kill them, tracers flying over my wing to get them, but they will NEVER shoot down someone on my six.
The comms are also so flat and rote you never believe they're anything but robots.

"This is Six. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Over."




The Jedi Master

Hehehh you do have a point there. +1

I thought Falcon 3 was HARD!!!!!

Actually, within the last 5 years sometime we managed to get Falcon 3 working in Multiplayer using DOSBOX and its built in ability to emulate either Com Port/LAN or Modem connections over TCP/IP. Actually worked better than the fiddly modem connections did back in the day.

I don't recall if the connections were smooth or not, but it worked better than F-15 Strike Eagle III did under similar conditions. Neither of us remembered much about Falcon 3 controls, but just getting connected and flying around was a huge nostalgia rush.

Back in the day I never did any multiplayer in Falcon 3 except for ONE LAN meet I went to. I was never good enough to enjoy Dogfighting, and I don't recall if F3 even had COOP flights.

I managed to buy a copy of FALCON GOLD in all it's Glory (along with the Mig-29 and F/A-18 addons) for a keepsake and have it sitting on the shelf. I think my DOSBOX install was from the original 3.5" floppies.

You should have tried flying the MiG-29 and F/A-18. Those were even more difficult to fly.

Yeah, the flight models for those two were weird and changed a lot with patches. I WANTED to be good with the Hornet but it was so frustrating I usually just kept flying the Falcon.



The Jedi Master

Left and right were just way too touchy on the joystick for the F-18. I enjoyed flying the MiG, but boy was it Spartan on electronics.

I think those old games were fun because they were just complex enough that you felt like you were doing something kind of like what real pilots do, but without a lot of the complicated minutia, so it felt like you just got the meat, none of the gristle.

For example, they let people switch to the Mavericks, use the MFD to lock onto a target, making sure you're within range and other firing parameters while still looking for AA, but didn't make them turn 'em on over two minutes in advance to warm up, then remove the cover, etc. They let people do the action, not the paperwork.

Yomo,
I feel your pain. Unfortunately, setting up your controllers to properly control the sim is part of the challenge in both DCS and Falcon 4. For Falcon 4 I was fortunate to find a really good profile that I have been using for about 6-8 years now and so most of the controls are second nature to me. If I had to set it up from scratch- forget about it!

For DCS, on the other hand, I have found their control scheme very difficult to understand, and I have had very, very mixed results setting up my CH HOTAS with it...to the point that I don't really play DCS because it is so frustrating trying to get the controllers to work properly.

So you're not alone.

If you're going to play the hardcore sims you're going to have to learn about your gear to get the most out of it. But you have options. Thirdwire's sims lack a lot of the fidelity of DCS and Falcon, but are still fun. Less controls means less pain setting them up. Or, if you're not hung up on jet sims, I highly recommend Wings Over Flanders Fields. All you really need is the axes set up, and the trigger for the guns. Everything else you can use the keyboard for.

Good luck!

You might have been the person I sold my copy to on here some years back. I also had the original sim with all the add-ons on 3.5", someone here ended up with that as well.

Falcon 3.0 was just the right game at the right time. Computers were finally fast enough to do all the calculations, and the graphics were as good a balance of appearance and speed as you could hope for. Other similar games, like F15SEIII and Tornado, had everything F3.0 did except the dynamic campaign and squadron management. None of the other available sims even came close to Falcon 3.0.

I got Falcon 3.0 when I was in Germany, and soon after got the Thrustmaster FCS & WCS, those really made the game. I'd spend a week or 2 writing the config files, testing and tweaking, then rotate my pilots through the canned Red Flag missions along with custom ones I created until they all had high scores in all areas. Unfortunately, I never managed to make a campaign last long enough to be corrupted like Jedi Master mentioned LOL.

When Falcon Gold came out I picked it up solely for The Art of the Kill, and that video turned things around for me. I became a KICK ASS pilot, and even on the ace difficulty level it was rare for another pilot to shoot me down. Now SAMs were another story!

None of the sims I've tried since then - Falcon 4.0, Jane's F15, and Falcon 4: Allied Force - captured me the way Falcon 3.0 did. I haven't flown a sim in probably 8 years, starting with Back to Baghdad they just seemed more like work than fun. Anyone want Jane's F15, Longbow, Longbow2, and the original Flanker?

It was also super convenient having the entire Falcon 3.0 and add-ons collection on one CD instead of 10+ floppy disks. It made reinstalling so much easier and faster when the inevitable campaign corruption occured.

The Sierra/Dynamix sims like Red Baron and Aces XYZ had great immersion, as did the Jane's Longbow series.
I also really liked iF-22.

Never cared much for the Novalogic ones, they went too far into gamey territory.

The USNF->Fighter Anthology series was great for simplicity when you wanted a quick flight. Strike Fighters picked up that mantle. EAW was almost the WWII version of that, with a bit more depth. MS' CFS series offered more depth while lightening up on the plane modeling.

DCS and Il-2 carried forward the Falcon 4/Flanker 2 hardcore over fun threads, but really no one picked up the midrange we had with the MS CFS, DI, DID, Sierra/Dynamix ones.

More's the pity.



The Jedi Master

I think it would be pretty cool to have Falcon 3.0 and it's expansions on GOG.com

Looking back, my problem with F3.0 was not that it was too hard, but my computer was not up to the task of running it. Falcon 1 and Falcon 2 (Tandy 1000 16 color version) ran great. I followed the Sierra/Dynamic route with Red Baron, A-10 Tank Killer, and Aces of the Pacific. All which ran great on my Tandys. They seemed to be one with the Thrustmaster mk1 HOTAS.

Man am I encouraged by all of these great responses. I just hope that I can get the Falcon BMS and DCS world all figured out as I do enjoy the world of flight sims.
Actually, I am still a full time pilot so the airliner world has no interest to me. But, learning to fly a P-51 so precisely that I could learn Virtual aerobatics has my real interest.
Now, if I could just make my joystick, throttle, and pedals to work and gets those curves figured out.
Thanks again to all.