Too complex!

[Nats]

I used to play Falcon 4 a lot, way back when Freefalcon and BMS was just starting off, and it was a great game - still quite complex but still a lot of fun. But this iteration of the game is not fun. Firstly you need to download a cope of BMS 4.33 even to get it to run.

Then I spent half an hour just looking for the commands to put into my joystick and I still havent even managed to find the fire control for the guns!!! Its just ridiculously complex now - about four or five pages of keyboard controls! Who could possibly remember all that? I trained on Flacon 4 for a few months a few years ago and I used to be able to pick this game up and still play it reasonably well. But 4.3 has changed all that - all the commands are different, all the controls are extremely complicated, its just gone far too complex for any fun now.

So yeah I cant possibly play a game this complicated. Going back to Thirdwire's Strike Fighters games. They are more my sort of game.

So well I just wasted £7 but luckily I think I can get a refund so maybe not.

But what a great shame that Falcon 4 should come to this - so complex no normal gamer can play it ! Terrible what is happening to flight sims now. Its either ridiculously complex or arcade simple, there is very little in the middle for people like me who used to enjoy games like Tornado, EF2000, F22:TAW, Gunship 2000 and the like.

[yonksotime]

Interesting. I haven't found that it's any different Allied Forces. I suppose it's about much you want to fly it. I don't go in for all this "team flying" stuff that folks take so seriously, but I do like to "pootle about". And youtube is your friend if you want to learn all of the control systems.

Good luck with the refund :)

[Nats]

Originally posted by yonksotime:

Interesting. I haven't found that it's any different Allied Forces. I suppose it's about much you want to fly it. I don't go in for all this "team flying" stuff that folks take so seriously, but I do like to "pootle about". And youtube is your friend if you want to learn all of the control systems.

Good luck with the refund :)

Its massively different to Allied Force. Maybe I used to have time for complex sims like this but times have changed. I now have to pick my games carefully so I dont wasnt money on games I will never play. I think my time with Falcon 4 is at an end. It was a great sim in its time but not any more. The hardcore crowd have ruined it.

[chihirobelmo]

Watch this video and read descriptions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2haRQ6DCzSM

or read
C:\Falcon BMS 4.33\Docs\Falcon BMS Manuals/TO-BMS1F-16CM-34-1-1.pdf
1.1.1 Hands-on Controls

There are not so many keys to setup in BMS4.33. You only have to know how to use HOTAS control. Its not like "press this button to lock the target, that button to select steerpoint..." but more like "press [TMS up] to lock the target while you are in AA mode, or select steerpoint while you are handling HSI page." so one [TMS up] button has several functions dependent on several modes.

[Nats]

The main problem with all of this is that it assumes that you have a joystick wtih loads of buttons and two hats on it, and you have something like TrackIR to look around - ie you are heavy weiught sim enthusiast and if you are I am sure yu will be in heaven with this new Falcon 4.0.

Whereas I dont have trackIR and dont plan to get it anytime soon, and my joystick only has eight buttons and one hat. So I like to use the hat to look around and at least two of the buttons are mapped to swapping between looking forwards and padlocking the enemy.

So this is how I like to play sims, and yes I would say I am not a hardcore sim player. Ive played most sims in my time starting from early ZX81 sims all the way up to Spectrum and Amiga sims through to PC sims like Tornado and Falcon 4, and finally Strike Fighters 2. Falcon 4 is the hardest I have ever played a lot of any it took me months to learn it and then I played it for several years and really enjoyed it over that time.

But nowadays I just dont have the time to learn sims like that any more I hav a family and an important job and little time. So I havent got into IL2, or RoF or DCS or any of those what I would call overly- complex sims. And unfortunately Falcon 4 has now joined that ultra realistic crowd where realism is rated above fun and gameplay. It took me about half an hour trying to find the gun trigger to realise I didnt want to play this version of Falcon 4.0.

And it is a shame. Because I did enjoy Falcon 4.0 years ago and was looking forward to trying it again. It is also a shame BMS havent done a lighter version without all the hardcore commands with only the better graphics etc. Its a shame there isnt an easy keyboard set up for people like me who dont have 2 hours to set up their joystick.

So yeah - I guess the user base of Falcon 4 has just shrunk a lot. Well done. I am going back to my Strike Fighters 2 now, I think its practically the only sim left thats actually fun to play.

[chihirobelmo]

If you find you don't want to play this version of Falcon4 anymore and stop playing it, its fine and no one can force you to continue playing. However, if you think those sims nowadays including BMS4.33 are over complex so that it can't be played with reasonable price joysticks, with out TrackIR. I would like to say "no its not".

I have a friend who have a wife and young children, has a joystick with only 1 hat switch, few buttons and doesn't have a TrackIR, flies Multiplay every weekend and enjoy dogfight. I can find BMS pilots who uses same joystick without TrackIR even at BMSforum. As I said before there are not so many keys to setup in BMS4.33. HOTAS control and Fully clickable cockpit made this possible. If you'd like to fire the gun its "Second trigger detent" which will do the job in DOGFIGHT mode. BMS4.33 summarized all HOTAS control in [5.11 Flight Stick] and [2.19 Throttle Quadrant System] sections at key mapping menu, so you only needs 10 or less minutes to assign all essential key controls.

I also uses "Microsoft Force Feedback 2" joystick which has only 1 hat switch and 8 buttons, but I play "IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad" and "DCS:Flaming Cliffs 3" with this. These 2 latest sims are much more simple then original Falcon4. As easy to play as "Strike Fighters 2".

[pardus]

OP IS RIGHT. *ORIGINAL* FALCON 4.0 WAS A MASTERPIECE. TOO BAD IT WAS FOR WIN98-3DFX!!! NOW -FOR YEARS- THEY HAVE GONE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CRAZY WITH REALISM - THESE GAMES ARE NO LONGER PLAYABLE. LOOK NO FURTHER THAN DCS!!! I WAS A *HUGE* SIMMER BACK IN THE DAYS OF D.I.D. EF2000, JANES F15/AH64, AND MICROPROSE FALCON4.0.... BUT THESE DAYS ? I JUST PLAY FSX TO CHILL. FALCON BMS MADE A MESS OF ONE OF THE BEST PC GAMES *EVER*. DCS IS A HUGE SIM BUT A JOKE OF A GAME.

[Nats]

Originally posted by pardus:

OP IS RIGHT. *ORIGINAL* FALCON 4.0 WAS A MASTERPIECE. TOO BAD IT WAS FOR WIN98-3DFX!!! NOW -FOR YEARS- THEY HAVE GONE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CRAZY WITH REALISM - THESE GAMES ARE NO LONGER PLAYABLE. LOOK NO FURTHER THAN DCS!!! I WAS A *HUGE* SIMMER BACK IN THE DAYS OF D.I.D. EF2000, JANES F15/AH64, AND MICROPROSE FALCON4.0.... BUT THESE DAYS ? I JUST PLAY FSX TO CHILL. FALCON BMS MADE A MESS OF ONE OF THE BEST PC GAMES *EVER*. DCS IS A HUGE SIM BUT A JOKE OF A GAME.

I dont liike the DCS games either, I cant play a sim if it doesnt have a good dynamic campaign. Even Atlantic Fleet, a £6 WW2 naval sim, has a great dynamic campaign that puts these other more expensive complex sims to shame. Falcon 4 was great when you could play it relatively easily once you had learned the basics. But even then it was too complex really. Now its just a mess. And the DCS games dont have immersive campaigns to speak of. So for me its Strike Fighters II and Atlantic fleet all the way. But there is another sim coming out soon about the Falklands War that looks great called Combat Air Patrol II that looks a lot like the Strike Fighters games and will feature a dynamic campaign so it says.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/347170/?snr=1_5_9__205

[pardus]

.. we need a renaissance of jet fighter games from real publishers like janes and microprose .. not these amateurs with their $1000 setups or mil-sim companies like eagle ..

[chihirobelmo]

I recommend pardus to try Flaming Cliffs 3 if you don't miss dynamic campaign, press "Shift+Home" to start engine, "2" to A-A mode, "I" to turn radar on, move cursors and just press "ENTER" to designate and shoot. Original Falcon4.0 was much more reallistic than FC3 in avionics, so if you were from original F4 it must be the latest released playable sim.

BMS has gone CRAZY WITH REALISM (That is why I like it but I know you two don't). Yes, that's right. However, You don't need to learn RAMP start, HANDOFF AGM-64 LOS to TGP, Launch AGM-88 without HTS pod, Buddy Lasing, TFR, etc, All those CRAZY with REALISM features added by BMS team. Most of basic handling procedures are not so different to the original. You can skip engine startup, use CCIP/CCRP bombing, override MRM mode and shoot AIM-120 as same as original F4. I used to play BMS4.32 that way until I decided to learn more crazy realistic part of falcon BMS one year ago.

[Nats]

Yeah I am sure the game works pretty much as usual, but when I got into it years ago I had loads of time for messing about on computers, learnign complex flight and weapons systems etc. Dont have that anymore. So this is why I play lighter sims these days.

And you know apart from Falcon 4 all of my earlier sims were lighter sims - games like Gunship 2000 and EF2000 werent very complex flight wise, they concentrated more on providing an overall experience in an ongoing developing war more than getting the flight and operational characteristics of the planes/copters ultra realistic. And they werent any less of a game for that. In fact thats really what I like, being part of a simulated developing war.

If I was that interested in just the flight dynamics and button pushing I would go fly a real plane. Thaose aspects dont really interest me at all.

So DCS and the IL2 games have never done it for me really and now Falcon 4 has joined that list of ultra-realistic sims - and they are not what I am looking for in a sim. And at the other end of the spectrum neither are War Thunder and World Of Tanks.

There is a sim middle ground that isnt being filled at the moment by anyone. And we had loads of such sims throughout the 1990s. Now we have practically none.

[pardus]

yes flaming cliffs planes are nice.

I draw the line with A10C and the new falcons. The deal breaker in falcon is precisely when they replaced the old control scheme with the tms-dms (etc.) stuff, which is a double layer of abstraction for the avionics!! Because clearly I dont have an F16 stick in my home and those button names mean nothing to me!! I want my buttons mapped to the actual functions, not to more obscure abstracted buttons in the plane interface. Then I also learned A10C when it came out as standalone, and I went mad with its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ china hats, boat hats or whatever.

Today I use su25T and the kamov, which is hard as hell but at least it doesn't have its own insane control scheme for the basic functions like the american glass cockpits.

[=VG= SemlerPDX]

I don't think you will enjoy this sim - it really is about learning the actual aircraft, barely anything is left out (oxygen flow for example). I have met a player who used a mouse and keyboard (laptop at that) and I was quite amazed at his conviction - this is INDEED hard without at least a simple, cheap HOTAS style flightstick and that's always close to or just over $100. A pricey item at twice the price of most new games. You can click around the cockpit for EVERYTHING that is not a key on the HOTAS, so, you could essentially just map the HOTAS section of the keybindings under controls and click for the rest.

But I gotta say, going from a 1 HAT flight stick learning Falcon (probably allied force back then) on whats now called a Saitek FLY5, I was at least happy to have analoge throttle control. I thought TrackIR was the coolest thing I had ever seen, and I already played Arma, so budgeting the near $180 was easy but took awhile of course.
I so understand where you are coming from - but it's passion alone that has put me where I am today, fully familiar with the F-16C Block 52 and all it's buttons, and with a very easy to understand HOTAS key mapping on a rather affordable (non-Pro) Saitek X52, indeed using TrackIR (with the second $40 track clip cuz I snapped off the first one a few years back).
For example, my X52 flighstick which is a HOTAS style has 3 HATS, not enough for the F-16 still - AND I don't need one for POV cuz I have TrackIR - I have to use the Pinky-Shift button so each HAT turns into a second function (TMS, DMS, CMS, Trim, Cursor, Comms)

Is it worth it? For me - yes.. X52 plus a TrackIR (all of which make most any flight game or sim, or racing game, Arma, etc. feel like a form of virtual reality with the head tracking) over the many years I've enjoyed flying an F-16 in this simulator would cost less than $0.40 cents a day if I had only used those peripherals for 2 years on this sim. Most people who fly in this sim or it's versions stick with it for years due to the 1:1 realism of the aircraft. These days, I have a second monitor with Thrustmaster MFD's mounted on it with display extractions of the MFD's and it was a fun project to get that all to work physically and technically with the displays the correct size - but I wouldn't have been able to get through such a project, and mapping all 96 buttons to work in the sim, if I didn't have a passion for playing this, if I didn't know that this simulator was complete with a real working simulation of a Korean war to fight in once I learned this complex sim.

It's no game - you will not be combat mission ready overnight or even over-weekend - and the systems are true to life "complex" in their depth. If you don't have the passion to learn and to keep learning, and to get some gear that helps you translate, keep playing games and sims you do enjoy and check back with this one later to see if the passion sparks you to invest time or money in this simulator in a way that makes it more playable to you. I've been slowly adding bits over the years, but I'll never be one of those guys with a true home cockpit - I have the passion nonetheless.

[Nats]

Yes I am well aware of how long it takes to learn I was playing Falcon 4 a few months after it first came out, and yes it took me a few weeks to learn everything and it was simpler then. I wouldnt put myself through that a second time with all the new systems.

I was interested, I guess, to see what the new graphics were like - but apart from that its only got a lot more complex for no benefit to me as a gamesplayer. So I have moved on to other games now.

I wish the development team well for its future incarnations, out of nostalgia for the game more than anythng else, but also for those who want that sort of sim. But no, it isnt the sort of game I want to play anymore.

[StOnEd-SnIpEr]

All i hear is allot of QQ,still best combat flight sim

[Secret Squirrel]

Before you resign this game please be sure you haven't gotten sucked up into the training missions which force you to do everything as per real life, such as start the engine and all the systems. Make sure you don't start missions on the ramp, and start on the taxiway or runway. Doing that, all you have to do is throttle up and go and turn ECM on to auto.

Radar and weapons systems do have a significant learning curve. There is no getting around that except investing time and learning it. Videos on youTube by Krause will help with this.

While you don't "have" to invest in a stick and throttle, the sim becomes monumentally easier with that equipment. And TrackIR head tracking solves the problem of having to learn how to use the padlock view while in close range ACM, and provides a level of situational awareness that cannot be achieved any other way. These are not cheap items, but the plus side is you don't have a $60 game title cost to bear in addition.

Falcon 4 was abandoned by its maker after a premature release before the game was finished and they were unable to produce patches that could close the huge gap in quality/stability. Following a leak fo the source code to the Internet in 2003 (if I recall) that enabled many people, who formed communities to work together to do what MicroProse should have done instead of leaving millions of customers hanging. They put simulator realism as a governing principle over being an "arcade" style game.

People who are not looking for that realism or this kind of time investment will not find this enjoyable. Part of me thinks this should not be on steam, as it is likley people will buy this thinking it is an arcade style game and be dissatisfied to find it is not. But the reality is, if the license holder wanted to make it an issue, they could flex their muscle and make it very hard for the BMS team to continue doing what a lot of people like and for which they receive no pay. The license holder needs to make money, so they put it on steam and they don't advertise its potential downsides.