Flaming Cliffs vs. Other modules

[dryerflyer]

I have been reading through the forums and I looked at the majority of the faqs. One of them covered this, but I felt I still don't grasp the differences fully.

Are the stand-alone modules all clickable?
Do they contain a lot more depth/detail that the Flaming Cliffs do not?

Is Flaming Cliffs old? Is it just 'extended' on to DCS as a separate module?
Do the Flaming Cliffs planes have at least the same simulator difficulty as the frogfoot/other modules?

I really loved flying the free frogfoot and I do not care much for a clickable interface. I am trying to figure out what I should buy first.

[fearlessfrog]

EDIT: Updated product terms here:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=122801


Flaming Cliffs has been described as a 'medium fidelity' sim, versus a the 'high fidelity' of the A10C etc stand-alone. The biggest differences (just my personal opinion, just incase people get mad :D) for me are:

- FC is a 'survey sim' rather than a 'study sim', in that you spend most of your time not trying to figure out how to work the aircraft, but more how's the best way to *use* the aircraft's abilities. Example: the F15C you don't have the correct MFD buttons to press or all modes of the AN/APG-63 radar unit, but you do get to use the aircraft in a realistic tactical way against other fighters, i.e. you can do what you do in real-life, just not how exactly you'd do it in the cockpit. Conversely, the A10C, the cockpit and systems are modelled a lot closer to real-life (or whatever we want to pretend is realistic).

- FC includes quite a few varied modules for the price of one really detailed module. You can tune the AM radio of the Mi-8 Hip to hear the outer marker of an airfield, but would you rather just fly more jets?

- The simulation of the flight model of some of the FC3 jets is more basic, i.e. ground handling isn't as accurate, but that's something that is being updated over time, i.e. the A10A, Su25 are 'advanced', while the F15C and Su27/33 are awaiting an update. If you spend a lot of time at 40k strategizing on how to edge the doppler of a SA13, then in many ways it dosn't matter that you don't bounce properly on the runway when landing, versus the Huey needs to have a nice ground effect model when fully loaded..

- The stand-alone are all cockpit clickable, and six degree of freedom cockpit models, which if you have TrackIR allows you to have full XYZ axises for head movement. The FC set are being updated, but aren't all done yet.

So in summary, the FC set allows you to get fast movers without too much cockpit learning, but still offers lots to do in terms of strategy of how best to use and fulfill that role on the battlefield. Individually it's less detailed than an individual module, but not 'better or worse', just a different goal.

Hope that helps.

[dryerflyer]

That was exactly what I have been seeking.

I do not know if it was your tutorial or something else that covered this, but I would like to see some of the FAQs updated with this information.

Thanks for the time it took to write it out.

[fearlessfrog]

Thanks - I'll update the FAQ.