Nice video Devon, stylish slide at the end I see! With no baddies you really appreciate the huge scale of the beautiful scenery. And u saved me exploring for open hangars to go through!

Nice video Devon, stylish slide at the end I see! With no baddies you really appreciate the huge scale of the beautiful scenery. And u saved me exploring for open hangars to go through!

 

Not my video, but thanks, it seems it worked as intended. ^_^

Tried it today.

Feels too arcadish, controls are a bit imprecisely.

The look is too much "photo" wallpaper and too much fading fog.

 

For me Flight is still better, it looks more plastically and feels more realistic.

Everyone will have their own opinions, but I encourage you to keep trying. The controls are extremely adjustable and have a range of complexity and sensitivities. In the video above, the pilot was able to fly at low level through several hangers, which actually shows how controllable the planes can be....

 

I am not sure what you mean about wallpaper: fly upwards and you can reach and fly through the clouds, and view distance is adjustable in settings, as is time of day and weather etc.

 

On the other hand, its not going to be for everyone! ^_^

 

I did post a video of the various control modes below.

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/384169-war-thunder/

(Little gentle nudge). Please try to get this subject back on topic as much as you can. Please don't turn this very interesting post into a singular discussion about an unrelated sim.

 

Thanks.

Yes, I've been playing and enjoying this one too. Definitely recommended if you like WWII planes and combat sims. War Thunder is by the same developer that released Birds of Steel for consoles and it shares a lot of the planes with that game. You might enjoy that one too if you have a console and can find it for a good price.

The graphics beat FLIGHT hands down IMO, although the bump mapping and over effects are a bit overdone and may not be to everyone's taste. Trees don't sway in the wind but you can see yourself sitting in the cockpit and working the controls! Was excited to take a test flight over Oahu, followed by disappointment at seeing Honolulu represented by a handful of huts. And more disappointment at being forcefully turned around at the edge of the designated combat zone... I don't think flying between islands is possible.

 

Simulation-wise you can switch to manual engine management and juggle prop-pitch, fuel mixture and radiator settings. Cockpit levers will move correspondingly, although unlike FLIGHT you cannot use the mouse to interact with instruments and controls, you need to memorize all your key assignments.

 

Nice title if you're into warbirds but no substitute for proper civilian sim.

My feelings on it all are kind of convoluted: I consider Flight, War Thunder, Aerofly, DCS, and a few others to be of the general class I think of as "New sims" In that They are recent examples of some of the advantages of Flight simulators programmed to take better advantage of modern computer systems.

 

As a general rule, they showcase higher framerates, effects, and better use of modern GPU technologies, but they also tend to represent a return to an older paradigm of "Zone based" flight with explicitly delineated boundaries that are historically much more prevalent than the "open world" design of FSX/FS9 (Anybody remember flying through the end of a zone and reappearing on the other side of the map?)

 

I don't hold that against them, and in fact I think MIcrosoft managed to raise expectations of "Whole earth" coverage with FS9/FSX that may be financially unrealistic at this time. Those involved with Flight clearly regarded attempting to recreate the entire earth as "crazy" and I tend to think the fact that no other consumer simulation (Besides Xplane which was created in that same expansive era) are attempting such a feat with even as much success as FSX all those years ago is telling.

 

I suspect zone based simulation is here for the foreseeable future, and while Flight is more expansive than most due to its FSX heritage, I think War Thunder is still a contender (though not at this time as a civilian sim) due to more planes, cockpits, and numerous separate zones that ameliorate some of the lesser geographic coverage of any individual zone.

 

Aerofly also has a huge zone coverage, but its relative lack of ground detail and very limited flightmodels and systems are still a WIP that puts it behind Flight and War Thunder in that regard. DCS on the other hand seems to have the Flight models down pat, but flys you over a decidedly retro landscape with kind of flat-sided triangle mountains that make me smile as I think of older sims I have loved. (Though they are working on that)

 

I think the main thing is that it might be more constructive for us to perhaps not judge things quite so much through the lens of FSX/FS9 with their years of 3rd party development, and maybe find a way to look at these sims and the potential they represent(ed) a bit more on their own merits. I think sometimes we can be too impatient.