There does not seem to be a general sub-forum for this thing, so hopefully I'm posting this in the best place.

Anyway, I've recently decided that I want to get into serious simulators. Last year I bought myself a joystick and a wheel. Hardly top of the line things, but as my economy is limited, and I did not know if I "really" wanted to get into these games, or if it was just a spur of the moment. And since then I've made a few attempts at serious simulators.

I've played IL-2 Sturmovik, and its semi-sequel Wings of Prey (played the later on "Realistic", which is the middle of the ground simulation level), and quite enjoyed both. I've also played some Race 07, though it was probably not the best introduction to serious driving sims, as it gave no proper tutorial, though I at least played it enough to get a hang of the controls.
Just a short while ago I was gifted a copy of DCS: Black Shark, and well, I'm not good at it. In fact, I'm terrible at it:

And I just can't seem to get the hang of it. On the lowest simulation levels the game is a piece of cake, but then as soon as I up it (it does not give you nearly as many options for how detailed you want the simulation to be as say IL-2), I just keep on crashing, without really knowing what to do.
I've also tried some more niche ones, namely Ironclads & Panzer elite, and I can't say that I enjoyed either one of those a whole lot. I do have a copy of Iron warriors: T-72 Tank Command and Dangerous Waters, but after my experience with Panzer Elite, I've not really been in the mood for another tank sim, and Dangerous Waters, well, it is intimidating.

Anyway, with this in mind, could anyone give me some advice on good starting points? I would like to sample different types of simulators, but preferably not shop aimlessly, as I might end up with another super complex one without a good introduction, like DCS: Black Shark.

Hi Fnord,

You have probably picked the hardest flight sim to start off with The Ka-50 wants to kill you if you give her the chance lol. Have you downloaded DCS World? It's free and you get the Su-25T free to fly and it has an excellent flight model along with some good tutorials (downloaded separately). http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/world/

Whatever sim you fly though I would urge you to skip the arcade mode and go for the realistic mode as you will learn the hard way and as long as you stick it out you will 'get it'

Hi Fnord. My advice would be to pick one simulator and focus on it. Dabbling in a few will just get confusing, and you won't really improve on any of them. I'd recommend trying the Rise of Flight demo, as it is free RISE OF FLIGHT or sign up for the beta for War Thunder WAR THUNDER . Good luck.

The way I played IL-2 & Wings of Prey was that I started in a relatively "arcadey" setting, and then with each mission I would add one to two more levels of simulation complexity, and I found it to be a rather good way to get a hang of the games. Though I hope that in future games, I won't have to start at such a low level of simulation.

And thanks for pointing me towards DCS World. I did not know about that one, downloading it right now. I never explored the DCS website all that much, I just downloaded the lessons for Black Shark.

*edit* I'm afraid that my computer won't be able to handle Rise of Flight due to its crummy graphics card. It is a rather old machine, and I can't afford to replace it right now. But I might try the demo, to see if it works.

At the moment I'm trying to figure out which type of simulator I want to learn first. I'm no stranger to complex games, I've played Paradox's strategy games (all of them ) and a few other games of that complexity level, and also World in flames and a bit of ASL tabletop.

Tank simulators have been rather poor, in my opinion. But you'd missing out on the best contemporary representation of mounted armored combat ever designed if you dismissed Steel Beasts based on Panzer Elite and Iron Warriors- that, is, if you're really interested in the subject matter. It simulates many tanks, PCs, and infantry fighting vehicles. The meat of it is a sandbox style editor, you can create your own maps and scenarios with a few vehicles to battles with hundreds of mixed units, infantry, and so on.

As long as you find a sim you like and you have the urge to learn then skip the easy setting as when you move to the 'sim' setting you are learning all over again. Just take it steady with the Su-25T and even if you don't get to learning the weapons systems you can learn how to fly, land, navigate etc.

Steel Beasts looks like it might be interesting, but $100? That is quite a lot for a game that I'm not sure if I'll absolutely love.

"...as it gave no proper tutorial..."

Yeah, that's the downfall of sims. Most don't teach you crap, assuming you know it all already.
Personally, I think jumping into the deep end and ignoring the easier settings is a one way trip to frustration since you get little pay off (that being enjoyment) for a while. Or you have to accept different goals---a good start up sequence flying...getting around the track cleanly, if slowly, when racing...so forth and so on. Being competitive can't be the goal for a long time.

Can't give advice on flight sims, other than try a few out and then pick ONE to stick with.

For racing, there's plenty of info out there. Youtube is your friend. Watch back episodes of Inside Sim Racing for info on sims, wheel set ups and more specific advice. iRacing has a video series of tutorials that are pretty good, I think they're public now. A large part of sim racing is learning the track as much as the car. That knowledge goes with you to other sims that have that same track well represented. Have a favorite track, learn it. Make sure it's a real-world track and look it up. You'll find a racing instructor somewhere has a video up about it. Use a driving aid in the car, then turn it off and use a different one. Why? Figure out what it is you're having trouble with that's sending you off the track. Then turn them all off. The hardest part is learning to tune the cars, which isn't easy. Learn some basic adjustments (camber, air pressure) without getting too in depth and slowly add more. Find some suggested tunes on the internet for the sim, car, track and weather.

Best advice: don't try to be "hardcore" at the expense of enjoyment. Find what level of realism you enjoy and just go with it.

You can even try it before you buy- they'll lend you a license to fiddle around with it a bit.

Besides, it has Swedish vehicles.

DCS Black Shark is the BEST and MOST DIFFICULT sim out there.

Stick with it, it's incredibly rewarding when you get proficient at it. Just taking off, flying the waypoints, and getting back to the base with the chopper intact is a challenge.

The biggest step is to get the controllers fine-tuned to your liking, and learn to use the TRIMMER.

After that, THIS is the next step:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2626185/Tutorial_How_to_take_off_and_b#Post2626185

Yep, there is a trial for it that you can obtain, just contact the guys at the steelbeasts website fnord, and TBH the sim is easier than most of the modern era flight sims to get your head around. I have been playing the series for a decade now and it still gives me those "oh sh#t" moments, so immersion is pretty good. It is well worth a look.

Yeah, first things first --- what do YOU want to do? Do you want to race? Play submarine commander? Fly an F-16? An A-10? Or a Ka-50? Do you want to be a tank commander?

Once you narrow it down to one or maybe two sims you'd like to try, then we can be of better help.

As they've said, someone on the Steel Beasts forum can lend you a trial license so that you can test the game out for yourself if you like it. The game is expensive, yes, but AFAIK there is nothing else in that genre that comes close.

As for Black Shark, do note that there is an upgraded version of that game called Black Shark 2. You can get BS2 for a lower price from the ED website which will put you in the same page as most other BS flyers, but I would suggest you hold off on this until you are sure that you want to be flying the Shark.

Welcome to SimHQ!

Ice said it best. What do YOU want to play???

I'm not much of a flyer anymore, but there are some great sims out there now for flying.

I'm mostly a racer...and for a halfway decent gaming rig right now, rFactor rFactor 1 is what a lot of folks are driving.

http://simhqmotorsports.com/forum/ubbthreads.php

If you're really into racing, quite a few new titles coming up in 2013.

You forgot to mention that iCrack iRacing for addicted racers!
Or that pure racing pr0n pCars....

I've held out against my racing urges so far, but I got a feeling I'll be caving in come 2013!

It's the natural progression from flying...racing s cool...lol.

I'm currently on a long-term hiatus from flight sims, but my experience is that the old (and I mean OLD!) ones have the best tutorials & flight training. Falcon 3.0 had great canned missions, and a great mission editor/creator feature. Tornado was even better. Su-27 Flanker was very good, too. I wasn't very impressed with Falcon 4.0, Janes F15, or F4:AF, but I have pretty limited experience with them due to my self-imposed hiatus. Actually, JF15 had a great mission editor, I just didn't think the canned tutorial missions were very good.

This is a problem for most complex "niche" games. Many turnbased strategy games have an incredibly high learning curve, with very little in the way of handholding in the form of a tutorial or at least a proper introduction to the games concepts. And this is probably a large reason for why they have a hard time finding new players for these types of games. While "simple" games like Doom and Call of Duty will always have more of a mass appeal, the more complex games could probably get a bit more of a mass appeal by making the initial learning curve a bit gentler (note that I don't mean to say that CoD or Doom are bad games, because really, they are not).

I don't really know much about race tracks and cars in real life. Never been able to sit through even 15min of a race (even though my father used to try and make me do it), though I enjoy driving virtual cars. But I'll take a look at some videos from iRacing and see if I can use that as a source of reference.


I don't really know what I want to play the most actually. I know from my experience with IL-2 that I quite enjoy flying WW2-era aircrafts, and from my experience with Race 07 that I also very much enjoy driving games. Also, in my younger days (I think I was 15 back then) I played some Silent Hunter 2, and found that to be a surprisingly rewarding experience. I would imagine that I'll enjoy flying WW2-era aircrafts more than modern jetfighters, simply due to how modern technology has changed how dogfights work (or don't work).

I'll see if I can get a licence for Steel Beats, but first I'll try my hands at DCS: World, which I've just finished downloading.



Nice, it even has a free trial. I'll give it a shot.

If you want a flight sim I can offer up some advice.. for racing and tanks I won't be much help. Wings of Prey is NOT the sequel to IL2 in any way. Cliffs of Dover was before it was abandoned by it's developers and is now in a state of limbo but I am sure someone will pick it up. After the last patch it was much improved unfortunately it was too little too late. Wings of Prey could have been a great sim but it was hobbled out of the gate by no mission editor of any kind to speak of and after lackluster support at best it was also abandoned by it's developers in favor of a new product War Thunder. Frankly WoP and WT are both IMO hampered by the system used to run them. You have to hook up to YuPlay's wonky system and for me anyway the MMO thing was never an end all and be all for me.. I don't want to have to earn the plane I want by flying something I hate and accumulating points etc.. For me I want a sim that will give me a choice of aircraft to fly and the means to do it as painlessly as possible. IL2 does that .. IL2 may be a bit dated.. but it is still a pretty decent piece of kit and the recent merger of 1c and 777 studios on a new product IL2: Battle of Stalingrad due in 2014 will hopefully fill the shoes to IL2 that Cliffs of Dover tried to and failed to do. Don't get me wrong Cliffs is a nice product .. but it still has issues and the departure of not only Oleg Maddox and Maddox Games but also Ilya Shevchenko from the mix does not bode well for the future of the product. We will certainly see in a few years what becomes of Cliffs and whether it will ever become what it has the potential to be. Battle of Stalingrad looks VERY promising. Rise of Flight is another great product that is out there and IL2 Battle of Stalingrad will be based on a modified version of the same engine so RoF will give you an inkling of what it is about. As has been stated .. you can DL the basic RoF for free and that comes with two aircraft.. a Spad and an Albatross. I think that RoF's business model is the wave of the future. You can by additional aircraft at a nominal fee of @ $6 and up .. depending on if it is a bomber or not.. and they often have sales .. like the one they have right now till 12/30 where everything is 50% off.. I like RoF but at heart I am a WWII kind of guy so.. DCS makes the finest aerial simulators to date if you like modern day sims.. They do have a P-51 which is great but there are no other WWII era aircraft in the sim and taking my Mustang up against SAMS is .. enhh.. but it is still a very good product without a doubt. If you like modern day sim than DCS is the way to go. It may not offer up all the planes that you might want to see but what t does offer up is done very well and if you have a decent rig it is visual crack.

.. but like I said.. If you want something you can get for under $10 (get the disk from Amazon) that will allow you to fly in multiple aircraft across multiple theaters of operation .. on a rig that is not top of the line .. then IL2 is the thing for you. It has a very clearly defined community and is still IMO pound for pound the bets WWII flight sim and arguably the best combat flight sim period on the market considering all the things it does.

Hope all that helps..

GT Legends and I think GTR2 (both on steam now) are great racing sims that also simplify the tuning to a couple of sliders that do it all for you. Much faster and easier to use while you concentrate on the track and racing part of it all.

For racing I'd also recommend F1 2012. With all the aids turned off it's a pretty challenging and realistic racing sim and the career mode really adds a lot of immersion. There's no "sterile" feel here like in some other racing sims.