I am still playing and modding SF2 a lot. But... twas not the point.

Here is what I want in a combat flight sim:

1 - A dynamic campaign. Or the next best thing, a campaign that at least has variety rather than a set in stone number of units in the same place every time.

2 - Accurate flight models. It doesn't have to be 100% (it should be at least 90+% accurate however) but it should reflect the differing capabilities of various airframes. A Corsair shouldn't turn inside a Zero and a Zero shouldn't outrun a Corsair.

3 - Simple flight controls. I need pitch, roll, yaw, gear, flaps and that is just about all. A tail hook for naval aircraft. Start the engine with one keystroke.

4 - Simple avionics for modern aircraft. Simple keystroke for air/ground mode. Another simple keystroke for maybe 2 (3 at most) sub modes of each. Then pickle the weapon.

5 - Accurate weapons modeling. Missiles, guided bombs etc should function at 90-100% as their real world counterparts would once released/fired. How they function after release is much more important than how they were fired (IE going through all the steps of selecting modes etc.)

6 - Modability. Let the community make new skins, new aircraft, new terrains, new missions, new campaigns etc.

Of course I know that Ice . I'm not exactly new to flight simulation. The point here is that it takes a lot of time to build up the knowledge and experience to make this stuff second nature. I have been simming in one form or another for 34 years now. On top of that there are several thousand hours of real flying in my logbook, so what I might look for in a sim today is vastly different from the pre-teenager who only had a rudimentary knowledge of aviation back in 1983.

Hardcore sims from the 1990's would not cut it as hardcore today (even Falcon 4.0 in it's original form). We need some less high fidelity sims, with modern graphics to act as a middle ground. They should not be too hard to learn, but difficult to master. Flight physics should be as accurate as possible though. They should focus on being engaging and inspire the imagination. I don't think Flight School sims work because they are not exciting enough. The vast majority won't want to fly a virtual C172 when they could fly a F16 instead (with no physical risk).



Realism is generally a good thing, but sometimes ultra-realism drags the more boring elements into the game (which is supposed to be for entertainment purposes, right?). Don't get me wrong, there will always be an audience for the hardcore sims, and I hope that they continue to increase in realism (where it isn't detrimental to the experience). I just feel that for a new player, Falcon BMS or DCS would be a daunting prospect, especially if they have limited knowledge when it comes to the fundamentals of flight, systems and avionics. These sims are better enjoyed if you cut your teeth with a more accessible simulation first.

Sounds like a great concept to me. I think that would appeal to a wide audience.

Isn't this Strike Fighters lol. Looking at the end result of Third Wire it doesn't look like it will get a repeat from other developers, or be able to get the funding I think.

- Personally I like Strike Fighters and TK a lot. But many others do not think like this you and me.

I agree with the simplification and near realism (not full) as a concept to develop flight simulation. Much more so if campaigns are dynamic and there is a pilot career and a historical background to the campaign.

Developing a no compromise full realism simulation is very expensive and takes a lot of resources and time to do right. But that product would only appeal to maybe 2% of gamers. You can add arcade/simplified avionics as a way to attract casual simmers, but that does not bring down the cost, and initially might appeal to another 5-10% of gamers, with maybe 1-2% sticking with it.

We cannot populate the market and make the genre popular again with hard core simulators. There is a niche for that, and probably is currently full.

There has to be a progression, first bringing beginners to flight games with mass appeal and lower development cost (Ace combat and such), and have mid range/mixed games that keep the interest and learning going, until finally we have a crowd that wants to get into and enjoy sims with full realism.

You know...like it used to be...

Side note : space sims suffered to a similar dry spell. A lot of space RTS and such, but very few space combat sims. Once Chris Roberts started to market and promote his vision for Star Citizen, and due to the success of the Kickstarter campaign, there were more developers wanting to join the genre again.

We need a flight sim Star Citizen. How would that look, I do not know....I just know it is not DCS.

Close, but Strike Fighters misses on some of these points (dynamic campaign for example). But I don't believe that Strike Fighters has died out because of lack of interest but more of a lack of promotion, Third Wire being almost a one man show.

Plus TK figured out he could make more money going the handheld route.

Strike Fighters strikes a good balance for my preferences,,,I don't usually do campaigns but like the single missions,,,I can set something I like ,,Fly what ever plane I like,,I't is on the lighter side but I'm not looking for a PHD in sims just a quick fly also added in the PTO WWII..Russian air war and Korean War mod and later going to get the European WWII mod,,Been flying since the 90's and settled in where I'm at ease SF2,,EAW,,Il-2 BAT..Still got some old stuff in a box up to Falcon 4,,Too old to try to relearn all that stuff again and some of the recent wargames have got my attention,,At least you can get up and then come back and the games just waiting,,You can pause flight sims but you loose your rhythm .. Not dumber just older

+1


However, I do recall reading something from TK stating that the last title, "SF 2: North Atlantic", did not sell as well as he was hoping.

It was never offered for sale on Steam either.

I don't know if I can blame him for that decision. Apparently Steam takes out a pretty big percentage for each copy sold.

?? SF has a very good DC engine. My korea mod campaigns rely heavily on it. If it was not a DC engine I would not have the motivation to make them to begin with nor any other related stuff.

TK has a valid point: If the market is already maxed out promotion yields marginal returns, but the core issue with the series is it is closing to shelf life after 10 years, any more titles is basically more of the same. How many on SHQ bought all of the SF2 titles - far as I can see very few, many only has 1 or 2 of SF1 titles max. Considering the user demographic and zero DRM I dare say a lot of users didn't even buy them. Series 2 strictly speaking is already "new bottle, old wine". The pivot to the mobile market is definitely the right call on his part. Plus the "lack of promotion" as well as the "why are u abandoning us" is just an excuse for many users to want more free stuff.

CAP2 can be a valid successor to the category. However there is nothing new here and now. Also CAP2 did not meet the KS quota. As Ssnake pointed out earlier there isn't enough of us to warrant it. At least on the current product format.

^^But the exposure to a larger audience would probably make up for that.

That's pure speculation.
As someone who is involved in the finance/sales aspect (and not being at liberty to talk freely about it), all I can say is that Steam allegedly wants about 30% of the sales price. If you invested, say, 2 million Dollars in the making of a flight sim and you can somewhat reliably expect it to sell 50,000 copies at $40.- at "zero" distribution cost, you exactly break even. Take 30% away from it and you're short 600,000.- USD. So you need to sell another 21,429 copies at $40.- to make a $14 profit. The question is, can you expect the market size to be more than 70,000.- units at full retail price?
Once that you apply a 25% discount in a summer sale (say, after the first 30,000 full-price copies were sold) the break-even point shifts to 85,238 copies needing to be sold.

In practice there's a constant swing between sales and raising the price again to skim the late-comers, but every cycle produces diminishing returns. At some point you need to reduce the price permanently, and if you haven't reached break-even by then the "fat tail" won't save you, you just lost money with your project.


Of course you could always argue that 50,000 copies sold is very pessimistic. But to put things into perspective, Falcon 4 is said to having sold about 500,000 copies - and that seems to be the high-water mark. And I doubt that those 500,000 copies were all sold at full retail price.

I don't know either but I agree this is on the right track. However to begin with I wonder what (exterior factors) suddenly caused the space genre's popularity. ....Elon Musk???



Cold Waters is currently on 17k copies according to steamspy. 23 dayz since release. - Seems it does translates to 50k to 100k full life cycle, but just my guess.

To compare Atlantic Fleet is 40k total. Interesting.

Then why do flight sims at all? If you want tactics and battlefield control, then maybe you're better off with Wargame or Combat Mission titles. Or the new Steel Division title. There's no startups in those games, no systems to learn, just tactics to employ and battlefields to study.


So at this point, what's wrong with Ace Combat then?


You seem to be mixing up DCS and BMS...


And again, you've missed me stating numerous times that DCS A10C and Falcon 4 BMS do not have "hardcore modes" only. Here's a shot of BMS' EASY (Recruit) and ACE realism settings. Note that you can adjust for anywhere in between, these are just the two extremes.

Are both games about the same when it comes to complexity or is one more "arcadey" than the other?

I'd say the general consensus is AF being more "lite" as 'twas originally a mobile game.


Personally I think CW is very lite as well. Personally.



I'd be more interested to know how many copies did Falcon: Allied Force sell. Far as I consider that was the last "full blown" hardcore flight sim to ever go on the shelves. But IIRC the devs never made the figure public, only stating it did very well. But I coulda forgotten.

Sorry if I implied that, it was not my point at all


But why? Why make a middle ground? What exactly is wrong with high fidelity sims? Genuine question here.... I'm really confused by the "need" for this.

Let me expound on this --- DCS A10C and Falcon BMS are regarded as high fidelity sims, right? But the majority of the systems are not needed in order to navigate, drop bombs, and return home... these are backup systems or background systems that you can access if you need to.... but are not necessary for flight enjoyment. For example, you could make a whole new route with several waypoints in the A10C cockpit via that computer (I forget the name) on the pilot's right console. In the F-16C, you could add new waypoints or adjust waypoint location via one of the many ICP sub-modes. Do you need this? Maybe in 1 out of 1,000 flights.

"Not too hard to learn, but difficult to master." CCIP is CCIP. CCRP is CCRP. What's too hard to learn about that? It doesn't matter if you're dropping dumb bombs on CCRP or CCIP, or if you're dropping LGBs or GBUs in CCRP, or if you're dropping a LGB in CCIP as your friend buddy-lases. The basic principle of dropping the bomb is the same. How you actually get into those bombing parameters in a safe and quick manner is what is difficult to master. Delivering straight-and-level at 25,000 feet is ho-hum, but it's a whole different story when you're dropping after and off-set pop-up attack.... but the delivery mode is always going to be either CCIP or CCRP.

I think what people stumble on is that they think they need to know everything in the cockpit before they can fly and enjoy the sim, which is TOTALLY FALSE. This is also why I used to take new pilots up in the A10C and talk them through a few training missions.... this is also why I ended up writing a very basic guide that's still in the DCS sub-forum. The "high fidelity sim" is a big, big meal and you will not consume it all in one sitting, so tackle the obstacle one bite-sized chunk at a time and before you know it, you're proficient at the basics and you're looking at the advanced stuff looking at how much further you can hone your skills and what else the sim has to offer.



Like I said above, if you look at the game in it's entirety, then I agree it is daunting... but here's the trick: Do you plunk down the whole game manual in front of the newbie and tell him he needs to read and understand the whole thing for him to enjoy the game? Or do you put him in an air-start, 10nm from target, CCIP bomb run instead? People learn differently and so the sim can be taught in different ways. People also don't learn addition and subtraction today and theoretical physics at the end of the week; even the most hard-core math nerd would tell you that's silly.

So get him into the cockpit in free flight and get him to grips with the HOTAS... joystick and throttle only as luckily the F-16 doesn't need any rudder input when flying. Once he's got that, put him in an air-start, 10nm from the KOTAR range, and tell him he needs to drop one of his bombs in the general vicinity of the parked aircraft in the range. Pause the sim during key moments when something needs to be explained, then let him do his thing. Once he's got that, challenge him to drop a bomb on one of the target circles.... and so on and so forth until they can fly the game for a good part without the "training wheels" of your assistance.

Sounds like "sim lite"... you want accurate flight models and accurate avionics and accurate weapons, but you want them all on a one-button setup. I fail to see why, at this point, do you want a simulation? Does it even matter if YOU are the one pushing the buttons or if it's some AI in the cockpit? We're going from simulating a fighter pilot in a fighter plane to... something else. Not an RTS, really, but I'm not sure I'd call this a simulation.

Put it this way.... if you had a high fidelity racing simulation --- tyre physics, temps, wear-and-tear, clutch wear, realistic impact simulation, realistic race lengths, practice laps, qualifying, and so on and played it on a PC with three screens, TrackIR, Fanatec wheel and pedals, shifter, etc... then yeah, I'd call that a "proper" simulation. Now port that over into a mobile game... high fidelity is still there for tyres, clutch, collisions, etc. but now the race lengths are shorter (say, 10 laps), tyre and clutch wear is 2x faster to compensate, and you "drive" by tilting the iPad. Is that still "simulation"?