....if you grew up playing Longbow 2? I mean, does it have the flight dynamics and complexity that I remember Longbow having? Ground troops? Dynamic campaign?

Thanks for any input.

Fred

No DC but yes very worth it IMO!

hi Mrfritz i to grew up on longbow2 and mis the flying the Helo. hope DCs get the Apache done soon. Yes DCS BS HAS much more complexity than LB2, better flight dynamics than LB2 so my guess is you will like it very much. Dont forget to buy yourself a TrackIR you will thank me for it later...happy hunting.

There are definitely ground troops, including those everloving ManPADS.

I am also someone who appreciates the beauty of a good dynamic campaign - Falcon 4.0 had an awesome one and EECH was great, too. But even without this particular feature, Black Shark is definitely worth it.

I never played Longbow, but BS has all the complexity you could ask for. I've been flying this thing since it came out and still have a lot to learn about its intricacies:
*The navigation system can be programmed manually - I haven't delved into that yet
*The radio system is quite advanced - I just leave it on the pre-programmed frequencies for now
*There is a nice datalink system for assigning targets to wingmen - I actually use this one!
*Fully manual start-up (optional) with all switches available as clickable in the 3D cockpit
*etc . . .

And it's stable online and allows for feople to join a game already in-progress.

Damnit.....who's got TrackIR for a reasonable price?

Well you don't have to have it but ask just about anyone that has one and they'll tell you that they wouldn't go back to using a HAT switch! TrackIR 4 is just as good as the new version and you can get one new here http://naturalpoint.com/trackir/02-products/product-TrackClip-PRO.html for a $120! Might be able to find it cheaper though.....

@mrfritz: Free-track is a much cheaper solution to TrackIR. it's only 1/10 of the price if you already have a proper webcam.

Black Shark is not yet on the list of supported games for Free Track, but it might just mean it hasn't been added yet. Either way, best to investigate just to be sure.
http://www.free-track.net/english/freetrack/liste-titres-compatibles.php

Pretty sure FreeTrack works with BS, my buddy uses it at least.

No dynamic campaigns but the flight and avionics complexity is several levels above that of Longbow 2. As for ground troops, I've played many missions that had very active land engagements between infantry, artillery and vehicles.

and multimonitor goodness.

also multicontroller

so i set up the shkval to run with the ABRIS on to separate monitors and let my 10 year old take car of targeting and navigation from another desk using a Saitek gamepad controller. its a riot to hear her say - "daddy, target locked and lazed in range, weapons free!"

;-)

cheers,

Dude, that is freaking awesome. Not only that your 10 year old is interested in hardcore sims but that she also has the smarts to know how to do it!

I too have experienced the joy of multi crewing the single seat Blackshark, except not being blessed with 10 year olds running around my house I had to grab someone more my own age. It was a great way to learn, after swapping chairs a few times we were more prepared to go solo and of course fly more traditional multiplayer with one player to a bird.

Really I think it comes down to this: Do you like helicopters? Do you like simulations? What are you waiting for? There probably won't be another helicopter sim like this for quite some time.

/this

I've been playing heli sims since the days of Gunship on the Amstrad CPC6128 and I consider Black Shark one of the finest flight simulations I've ever seen.

And besides that: how many developers actually still create hardcore flightsims with such an apparent love and passion for the genre?

Buy the sim, support the devs, enjoy a great product.

I use Free-track that I made myself with BS. With free-track the big thing that will make it very cheap but as good as trackIR, is the proper camera. I have used both systems on this system, and there is no discernible difference. But before I got the camera issue sorted out the Free-track system was very hit and miss and also the CPU usage was horrible.
Now I use a dirt cheap outdoor surveillance camera that I already had and I use the video capture function of my Hauppauge HVR 1250 card. CPU usage went to 2% max. Camera frame rates are always 30 FPS which is perfectly fine for head tracking. I also followed all instructions on the construction of the head gear. I am using the three point system with the modified LED'S. Before I modified the led's I had issues with it not working exactly right when looking in the lower parts of the cockpit at some switches also the look close function didn't work exactly right I used the trackIR borrowed about five times lol, but got mine working the exact same. It's a great project. There is one file in BS and FC2 that needs to be replaced. the files are available if you go look at the freetrack site.
TrackIR has fought to keep their monopoly on this stuff, and put the strong arm on the Software dev's to keep it that way.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Yeah, except now SHE wants to fly the chopper...and her hand can only just barely wrap around the Cougar setup. Plus thats less stick time for me!!!

:-)

+1

Unfortunately, I know that a lot of people stayed away from buying Black Shark because it wasn't US hardware. I'm not trying to start a flame war but it's just an observation I've made from reading many, many posts from other flight simmers since Black Shark was released.

In my opinion, so many people doesn't like Starforce protection. So they won't buy game with Starforce.

True, that is another major reason why some people avoided buying this sim.