I've wanted a more accessible combat flight simulator. Something like DCS or Falcon BMS with realistic flight physics, but more arcade controls (the aircraft should handle realistically, but I shouldn't have to spend 20 minutes starting the aircraft and pushing simulated buttons and switches in the cockpit, even though I have a great appreciation for that level of detail).
I don't want my aircraft to have 99 missiles, and 9999 machine gun rounds. I want to have 2 bombs and 4 air-to-air missiles, and I want to fly a tense 15 minute mission into and out of enemy territory. Battle Royal games have shown players are willing to go 5 or 10 minutes between combat if the tension and possibility of surprise combat is there, and have perma-death, give me that in an air combat game.
+1 to this, and let me elaborate: Tiny Combat Arena focuses on a (somewhat fictional) version of the Harrier Jump Jet and opponents from around that era. Attractive low-poly graphics -- and I do mean attractive -- very good performance and the right balance between arcade and flightsim. There is a flight model to the game, and some weapons systems get simulated in simplified form.
Do you remember the flightsims of yore, like F-117? This is it, only with better graphics and flight.
I was skeptical when you said attractive low-poly graphics. I'd never seen such thing. But checking the link out, it is pretty.
Incidentally, why is it that so many flight simulators are low-poly? I've seen FPS with amazing graphics, why not make flight simulators with amazing graphics as well?
Yes, did you see the contrail effects? Pretty cool. And I own the game -- it's even cooler in action. And the explosions of cluster bombs raining on tanks... very satisfying!
> Incidentally, why is it that so many flight simulators are low-poly? I've seen FPS with amazing graphics, why not make flight simulators with amazing graphics as well?
For commercial games, I'm sure you know DCS and its amazing photorealistic graphics. I assume you mean indie games, and I think the answer is multiple:
- The authors want to recreate the experience from the flightsims of their childhood, which were all wireframe or flat polygons.
- Flat polygons can look pretty cool if well animated. They give a cartoon/retro vibe that many of us like.
- It's way faster to prototype and have something running on low-poly than having to deal with textures, shaders and whatnot, especially if that's not what the developer is interested in toying with.
- "Good graphics" in a flightsim can be very taxing! Developers probably just want to toy with their favorite planes, add some cool features, and have it running on a midrange computer. I can play Tiny Combat Arena at very high res with all effects maxed on a mid-range laptop from 2016! I think I probably wouldn't even be able to start DCS with this, let alone having it maxed.
The same reason why people love impressionist paintings or painting done with large strokes of pallete knive. Leave something for the human brain to fill in, do a small puzzle of connecting shape into something whole.
I still have the large binder from the original Falcon 4.0 in my closet. Those were great childhood memories. My machine couldn't run it at first though so I just had to read the manual and fantasize at the time (until I was able to afford a new processor) hahaha.
I have been enjoying Linux Air Combat for almost 2 weeks now and I have to say it's really good! It reminds me of the original Aces high from about 2005. Cockpit graphics are not at all realistic because it's all digital like a modern jet fighter. But the terrain graphics and clouds look as good or better than Aces High 2. Not as good as Aces High 3 by any measure but good enough to completely absorb my imagination.
The feeling of flight is what I really enjoy. It just feels right! And very smooth response to flight controls.
After several days studying online docs and practicing offline I finally tried the online missions yesterday. Wow. Very very fun and absorbing. When you're the only online player they automatically send in prerecorded enemies from earlier online battles so you get drawn into the war against them and you can shoot them down if your good enough. After a while another player joined in with me. At first he was on my side but later he switched to the enemy and we went after each other for a couple hours. I died a lot but I loved every minute of it and I learned a lot.
This is the most fun I ever had flight simming on Linux. They have text comms and voice comms in flight. So far I have only tried text but now I'm gonna activate the voice comms. It looks like Wednesday and Thursday are scheduled with regular online groups so will be there.
Hi, I am from Belgium and I have played LAC many times now since I discovered this beauty : A really fully Linux running Combat Flight Simulator .
I couldn't agree more with your description, @DillardTheDread !
And I know what I'm talking about : I started playing Linux Air Combat
more than one year ago .
The only disadvantage that I have, is the fact that I live in Europe, so my time zone is CET (= UTC + 2) . This means that I have to play very late in the evening or at night to be able to fly when other, American users play .
But I can assure you, the man who developed the biggest part of it is very helpful and very polite : He has helped me through installing the game & the 'Mumble' voice comm client . And he explained step by step to configure this Mumble (there are some function keys setups : F1 = chatting with the members of your team, red or blue, F2 = chatting with all members playing the same mission , red AND blue, F3 & F4 for putting the voice comm volume up or down)
Now I am ready to do that myself, so when playing LAC for the first time WITH Mumble voice comm running, don't be afraid if I start talking to you with a foreign accent, okay ? (my Mumble name is "B-FORCE", which appears in one of the mission teams too when I am playing) I can help you out with the most stuff to do when playing Linux Air Combat .
"The feeling of flight is what I really enjoy. It just feels right! And very smooth response to flight controls."
Yes. This.
I am planning to try joining the group this Thursday evening. It looks like the best time is from 6PM Central Time Zone for a couple of hours. I can't start that early but I'll try to join about 7PM. I will probably be flying a Ki84. That was 1 of my best planes in Aces High and when I tried it in LAC it felt pretty much the same. Great plane.
Graphics in LAC are OK to me. I only fly aircraft sims and I dont do it for the graphics. As long as theyre good enough to fire up my imagination what I am after is the realistic feeling of flight and LAC has it. My limited experience in their online missions have been really engaging with lots of activity involving replay pilots. Actually the quality of those replay engagements is amazing. It's been a couple days since I was on but as I write this I think I'll go back into the desert mission one right away. I got my first kill there and had a blast. Just a constant drumbeat of targets trying to destroy my air field and I was constantly trying to keep up with the threats.
One thing I learned that helped me a lot was to press v for vocalize in flight which when you do that you hear a radio message directing you toward your target even if radar is out or if the target is flying below radar. Once I learned that the desert mission became my favorite.
I also tried the Peabody mission but that one was too hard and way to complicated for me until I get a lot more practice.
Welcome to LAC guys! Today's regular Wednesday LAC event is just winding down. Here's a brief, 8-minute video clip showing what it was like about an hour ago, as the "BlueTeam" was finally able to win the "desert mission" you ("FlightSimGuy") must have been exercising:
As you can see in that video, the LAC crowd makes good use of voice comms through the free, well-known, open-source "Mumble" VOIP application, which is deeply interfaced into LAC's cockpit for seamless use as the official voice radio. I highly encourage you to configure mumble and to get comfortable with its use, since it is also the "social hub" of LAC, where we meet up and arrange network flights.
We hope to see you with us for tomorrow's "Thursday Evening" gathering. We are a small group, but the best time to catch us in an organized activity is Thursday evenings Central USA timezone. Things tend to start up around 6PM CST and people will hang around, on and off, for at least 2 or 3 hours. Sometimes nobody shows up, but you can usually find at least 1 or 2 others. If you don't have mumble yet, just start flying in Network Mission 2 or in Network Mission 3 and somebody will probably find you there. Better yet, if you do have mumble, tune to the "root" channel at "LinuxAirCombat.com" and just start talking. We'll hear you and negotiate more fun than you ever thought was possible in a LINUX flight sim!
Nice video. Sorry I missed last Thurs. Couldn't be helped. I hope to join tomorrow about 7PM Central/ 8PM Eastern. I can't get home any sooner than that so I will miss the 1st hr or so.
I tried the Peabody mission again and again. Wow. Is it even POSSIBLE to win that one? I keep trying to defend against waves of bombers coming in high but I can't even get up to their altitude before they are blasting my base to bits. Then right after that waves of low alt strafers and raiders come in with rockets and they all have tail gunners that whack my plane to bits. Should I switch to something more rugged like a P47 to last longer when theyre shootin at me?
The Peabody mission is written to require teamwork, and in Realm 01 (which you were evidently using) it is populated by a vicious set of RedTeam "Replay Blokes" that fly as coordinated squadrons to ensure that it is very difficult to prevail on the BlueTeam. If you want to see what victory looks like, I suggest you just switch to the RedTeam.
It is POSSIBLE to prevail while flying solo for the BlueTeam. I've done it myself, but only after weeks of practice and my victorious session required more than two hours of white-nuckle, sweaty-palmed intensity. I was flying a P38 at the time (my favorite).
If you switch to one of the other Realms you won't run into Replay Blokes. In that case it's easier to prevail in the Peabody mission, but you'll still need to keep the pressure on in order to damage/destroy both enemy airbases faster than their ground crews can repair them.
A couple of months ago we had a goodly group flying one Thursday evening and we all decided to join Peabody's BlueTeam to battle the Realm 01 RedBlokes as a team. We were able to win in about 45 minutes. I think there's a video showing that session. Just a minute and I'll try to find it....
I couldn't find the exact clip I wanted, but that one shows what it's like to fly Peabody's mission with a wingman. We inflicted a lot of damage that time!
...And the clip includes a good example of how to deal with those high-altitude bombers. The trick with that is to notice them EARLY and to immediately start climbing as hard as you can. You get some warning whenever an enemy heavy bomber is detected beyond your current visual RADAR range setting. Your RADAR display's background color switches from the usual green to yellow. Whenever you see that, zoom your RADAR range out and check to see if there are high-altitude heavy bombers approaching from long range. Then climb up and shoot them. Even if you don't get them all you can usually weaken their formation and that will help your bases survive and give your repair crews a better chance to keep your side in the battle.
TODAY is Thursday, not tomorrow lol! We hope you join with us tonight. We usually get started around 6PM Central or 7PM Eastern. If you join about 7PM Central you'll probably still find activity going strong. Tomorrow (Friday) you might still find somebody, but there won't be the usual amount of organization.
BTW there is now a new web page showing who is online. It gets updated about every 60 seconds. It's a little tricky to interpret, so the page first shows instructions and a commented sample. You have to click a link at the top of the page to see the current report. Here's the link:
Yes, I think so. I mean I downloaded it and I think it's working right but I don't have much experience with it. They use mumble for voice and that's FOSS too. Do you have it working?
Config : Do mind that mumble starts up and puts you in the appropriate channel of the LAC free server channel the moment you choose a mission to play
(that's the start page of the chosen mission, you don't need to start the mission yet) On that mission page you can change the team you want to play with ; red or blue, the realm you play it in (best for now to leave it on 1 because it's the realm that has all the missions fully working)
To change the team, click on the "Blue" (or Red) team button, mentioned in the upper left part of the start page . DO NOT forget to click on "Update" to make the changes in the game and in mumble .
Once mumble is running in the LAC server and you are in the chosen mission and team, you need to configure the Mumble connection : click on Configure, then choose settings and click on shortcuts .
On that screen one has to add 4 function keys, being F1 talk to your team (Blue or Red), F2 to talk to all players in that mission (Red AND Blue),
F3 for mumble volume down 10 % and F4 mumble volume up 10% .
Follow these steps :
Click the ADD button, then click on the "unassigned" field under Title "Function" and choose Push to talk, then click under "Shortcut" and press the F1 key .
Click the ADD button, then click on the "unassigned" field under Title "Function" and choose Whisper/Shout, then click under "Shortcut" and press the F2 key . under the Data column , then click on the 3 dots on the right of "Empty" and change in the Whisper Target screen like this : on top, click on Shout to Channel, and at the bottom click on shout to subchannels .
For F3 : click on Add, choose "Volume down 10%" in stead of unassigned on click under Shortcut and press the F3 key .
For F4 : click on Add, choose "Volume up 10%" in stead of unassigned on click under Shortcut and press the F4 key .
And that's it for mumble, but if your connection is bad or not working at all, click on configure and then on "Audio Wizard..." and follow through all steps .
Modern gaming in general lacks simulator type games. Falcon, Janes Combat Simulations, Silent Hunter, Wing Commander, X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Strike Commander, Mech Warrior 2.
I used to need a throttle with a toggle, a hat switch, some buttons, a joystick with a couple of hat switches, trigger, a few thumb buttons and I still needed the keyboard for a few functions because I didn't shell out for a HOTAS setup. Now all games can be played on a console controller with less than half the buttons.
DCS has some shortcut keys to do things like automatically running the whole engine start sequence. But I think you'll still need to spend some time on the navigation part to be able to fly a mission.
Flying a low fi model like the F-15 on DCS was pretty realistic but arcadey at the same time. I could easily map most of the controls on my Xbox controller and have the keyboard ready for those rare cases
I got some voice software for windows (I forget the name now) that's much better for the rare cases. I mapped some stuff to it for DCS and Elite and it was great, I could say stuff and it would happen. It feels very futuristic to say "landing gear down" and have the gear start deploying.
There should be a prosumer game in the simracing genre. I don’t want to worry about refueling and tyre replacement, I just want to drive as realistically as a car can in a game.
BeamNG is as close as we’re getting but it’s still quite slow and janky
No idea if there is something similar native to Linux and Open Source, but back in the day I had lots of fun playing "Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers", which today works with WINE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48L16mmR19Y
You can find older games from the 90s that might hit the spot. VGA 320x200 graphics, though. Things like the Dynamix Air Combat series are great. Falcon 3/Mig-29 are also quite accessible, as are the Microprose games (although these tend to be a bit less realistic).
I don't know if it's memory failing but the old Microsoft Combat flight simulators (not sure about physics, it's 20years now) seemed to tick a lot of those boxes (+aircraft models were not thaaat shabby to look at).
Yes. That was Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator II and it was the best of the series IMHO. I spent a LOT of time with that classic old sim and I still have my copy. It runs on LINUX under Wine but not without a lot of tweaking and adjusting.
I wonder why you reference Onslaught Mode in Unreal. Does this game offer similar gameplay?
To those who don't play UT: it is a game mode where teams compete to connect a network of nodes from their base to the other team's base.
No joke here, if you have a VR headset laying around, give this game a try, it's made by a solo developer who used to make mods for KSP. It's insane how good it is, with lots of systems being pretty detailed yet approachable. You don't need anything more than a VR headset for it, in fact, not supporting external input devices like HOTAS is sold as a feature.
I don't want my aircraft to have 99 missiles, and 9999 machine gun rounds. I want to have 2 bombs and 4 air-to-air missiles, and I want to fly a tense 15 minute mission into and out of enemy territory. Battle Royal games have shown players are willing to go 5 or 10 minutes between combat if the tension and possibility of surprise combat is there, and have perma-death, give me that in an air combat game.