Best Modern Air Combat Sim?
 

Anyone point me in the right direction? Been looking at LOMAC

Depends on what you're looking for really. LOMAC is a good game and reasonably complex compared to things like Ace Combat, but I'd consider it more of a complicated game than a full-fledged simulator. If you plan on getting the Flaming Cliffs expansion you should be aware that it contains starforce, but it also adds another plane 2 or 3 more campaigns and a better flightmodel, most MP servers will require it too. Good training videos can be found HERE.

My vote for the BEST modern combat sim would have to go to Falcon 4: Allied Force. It features one of the best dynamic campaigns I've ever seen, has a clickable cockpit, and accuratly simulates almost all of the F-16's avionics. Graphically it's not very impressive, but thats almost completely ignorable once you dig into the 716 page manual (pdf). So far i've logged about 90 hours in it and I have (slightly) above basic understanding of all the systems. I have yet to try MP, but I hear theres a good group that plays at Multivipers.

Another option, which I have no experience with...yet, is DCS:Blackshark. From what i've seen, it's a very accurate simulation. I believe Porphy has a thread laying around here about it.

If you've got the money, I'd reccomend getting both LOMAC and F4:AF. Falcon is only $19us and lomac ~$2us on amazon if you look at the "new and used" pages. LINK to where I got it.

Hope this helps.

Falcon 4 :up:

I've got both Allied Force and the original F4+Open Falcon installed, even though Allied Force sees much more action thanks to the added avionics in OF that I haven't bothered to learn yet :lol: The F16 is indeed a pretty complicated bird to master. In my opinion it is also a good looking sim if one cranks the graphics up to the maximum. As UberGeek said above the dynamic campaign is also one thing definitely worth checking.

Falcon 4.0 is the one to aim for, it has a learning curve but the sim comes with a very good manual and ofcourse training missions.

HunterICX

Gotta chime in agreement with Falcon 4, nothing tops it

I never thought much of LOMAC myself. The campaign is what totally killed it for me. I cannot stand canned mission campaigns in military sims.

If your looking for lite sims to jump into http://www.thirdwire.com 's Wings over x series (Vietnam, Europe, Israel, etc) are fun little sims, but not very in depth.

As for DCS Black Shark, it also has starforce, and its a helo sim.


P.S. I'm surprised were even talking modern combat sims in here, I swear all I ever hear from this corner of Subsim is IL2 this and IL2 that and occasionally something about biplanes. ;)

Falcon 4.0.

Yes, Falcon 4.0 is very good, and is probably the best is you want to have a good modern air to air combat and a dynamic campaign. I have never really got hooked on Falcon though, something in the bland feeling of flying the jet puts me of.

Having tried Black Shark Ka-50 for a week, I must say it is a very impressive sim so far. If you like air to ground combat and sweaty, hands on, helicopter flying with a superb 3d clickable cockpit nothing else comes close. If Eagle Dynamics continue their work in the same style and with that kind of detail, I think a lot of people will jump on the DCS Digital Combat Simulator train. Uppcoming is A-10 and AH-64 Apache.

cheers Porphy