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Good WW2 Flight Simulator


Floule

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Hey guys!

I'm searching for good WW2 Flight Sims. And I mean Simulators, not those arcade games, like "World of Warplanes"

Of course I am willing to pay for a good simulator.

I'm thinking of things like:

Realistic plane-handling

Dog-fighting

Real planes, like the Spitfire or ME109

I also fly in real life, and always wanted a game that takes me back to the "Real flying", where not everything is controlled by a computer.

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Hey guys!

...where not everything is controlled by a computer.

I don't get this. Go rent a Cessna or Piper for a little bit if they are flown in Switzerland. Those have hard wired mechanical control systems.

That being said, maybe you're asking this due to a limited budget of poor weather (I know how both of those feel.) If that is the case, you could try Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator. I've never played it, though.

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IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey

Realistic plane-handling - Nope

Dog-fighting - Sure thing

Real planes, like the Spitfire or ME109 - both included, with plenty more.

IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946(Pacific Fighters optional)(PM me if interested)

Realistic plane-handling - I don't know.

Dog-fighting - Sure thing

Real planes, like the Spitfire or ME109 - both included, with plentyTONS more.

War Thunder

Realistic plane-handling - On Simulator controls I think.

Dog-fighting - Sure thing

Real planes, like the Spitfire or ME109 - Not quite too many planes, LOTS of prototypes, experiments and planned. ME-109 and Spitfire(s) included.

Loads of grinding - most definitely.

P2W - Absolutely.

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I second (third? fourth? ugh...) IL2: 1946. It has loads of planes, pretty good system management in the newer updates (not on par with X-plane and similar, but you do have to worry about overheating, mixture and propeller pitch control, bomb fuse timers, separate convergence distances etc.), good to excellent damage and flight models, an active modding community, runs well on older machines and is still being played online (via the Hyperlobby program).

...did I mention it's still being updated?

The downside would be that it's a bit hard to get it to run. Also, it doesn't look that good visually. But that's what cosmetic mods are for!

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t283/BravoFxTrt/2014-01-19at22-51-27_zps5f91181a.jpg~original

(not my screenshot)

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I don't get this. Go rent a Cessna or Piper for a little bit if they are flown in Switzerland. Those have hard wired mechanical control systems.

That being said, maybe you're asking this due to a limited budget of poor weather (I know how both of those feel.) If that is the case, you could try Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator. I've never played it, though.

Yep, at the moment I'm flying with sailplanes, because I'm not old enough for engine aircraft's. But yes, in Switzerland there are a lot of Piper Cubs, and of course Cessna's (The bicycle of the skies :D)

Thanks for all the answers guys, I will try the IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946.

I also found out about IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover. It has a nice modding community, which keeps the game alive.

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Yep, at the moment I'm flying with sailplanes, because I'm not old enough for engine aircraft's. But yes, in Switzerland there are a lot of Piper Cubs, and of course Cessna's (The bicycle of the skies :D)

Stick with your gliders. Flying GA aircraft is very expensive and very, very boring. I spent a lot of money finding that out.

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"warthunder" (WT) is pay to win with lot's of prototype planes? i think you are mixing it up with "world of warplanes" (WoWp).

most planes in WT are normal warplanes that saw duty during ww2. in case of the spitfire and me109, there are many subversion (BF109E series to BF109K) with different weaponlayouts and flightcharacteristics and of course some planes to fill some gaps in the techtree. but its a different matter compared to WoWp.

pay to win? absolutly NOT pay to win. what do you can buy with real money in WT? you can buy premium account for better and faster grinding ingame money and experience points to unlock planes and stuff. and you can buy premium planes. but these premium planes do not have overpowered charateristics. they are mostly normal planes or soem prototypes, well classed in the matchmaking system, and have to fight against good or sometimes superior enemys. the advantages of a premium plane is, that they earn more money, experience points and are cheaper to maintain.

edit: and ofcourse you could buy upgrades for you planes to make them better BUT you can buy them on the normal way with grinding too...

compared to WoWp, warthunder has NO premium weaponary. you CAN NOT buy magic weapons or ammo to be overpowered. every machinegun, machinecanon or bomb rack as manny ammotypes to chose from (depending on nation the diffenrece will be greater) together with the damage model, there is not a change to "buy" a win or killstreak (alt least if you don't buy cheats like aimbot and such) or bigger damageoutput. if you fly a a fighter with a 37mm canon, then it will HURT a lot compared to a fighter with only 7mm MG's. everything only a matter of the weaponlayout of the plane. (and your flightskills)

in WoWp you have premium ammo, that will be consumed on fire and has to be rebought with real money, but gives you huge advantages. (don't know if they changed it already like in their tankgame), mostly deals more damage and has high chance of burning the enemy plane (equal to unescabale death).

summary: warthunder is a fungame, if you like aracde airbattles with a huge amount of different fighters, heavyfighters and bombers (over 150 to 200 planes i think). there are flaws (cheating problem), but it is focused more on realstic beahviors then other games. if you want, you can choose between three majoy difficultys: arcade (simple controls, easier flightmodel and damagemodel), historical (real flightmodel but simplified control) or full simulation (hardcore controlls, joystick requiered for best experience, real flightmodel and damagemodel).

edit2: Warthunder is focused on mutliplayer. there are singplayer missions and you can buy some greater missionspacks (like the japanese pacific campaign) but sadly the AI is realy stupid =/ so if you want to enjoy a good dogfight, without the frustation of fighting against real humans, then warthunder ist not your choice. the multiplayergamemodes are getting boring very fast and most of the time the teams are acting stupid.

BUT if you can playwith friends in a squadron you can have a lot of fun (one flying bomber and two covering him as fighters etc.), you can enjoy a very good looking game (graphics) and nice soundeffects.

Edited by Darth Lazarus
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  • 3 weeks later...

I'd stick to IL-2 1946, from there you'll want to update it at the very least version, 4.09, if you want to stay stock, look up Team Daidalos, they've been updating with Oleg's blessing. If you're doing mods, either Ultrapack or SAS are good choices, SAS tends to look prettier, and I think, someone may need to correct me on this, ultrapack has more aircraft going up through the Korean war. It should run on Windows 7, I've seen forum posts on mission4today that Windows 8 can be iffy though.

There's also IL-2 Cliffs of Dover, the successor, better graphics and engine, I'm assuming that there are mods, but the stock is limited to the Battle of Britain.

Beyond that you're looking at older games and arcade-like controls.

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As the guys said above, the IL-2 1946 (especially with mods) is very, very good!

Don't be afraid upon seeing the title. The "1946" refers to some prototype aircraft (like the Horten Ho 229), which are also included in the game.

You can do fighter or (dive)bomber missions, and the simulation is quite realistic! (Like wings breaking off at high G-forces, fuel spill and engine fire, aircraft damage (like jammed elevators, rudders, flaps, etc). Also, there is a built-in mission editor, which offers endless possibilities.

For being a quite old game, it still offers nice graphics in my opinion. Not that photorealistic stuff the newest games have, but still enjoyable. It has also multiplayer, if I'm right.

I don't like these games like war thunder and wowp as they aren't real simulators... In my opinion, of course.

Edited by jmiki8
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Again, at a risk of sounding completely obsolete... : )

Battle of Britain.

http://www.xtcabandonware.com/game/1362/their-finest-hour-the-battle-of-britain - just one of the possible locations to obtain it. Don't forget DosBox.

Yes it is old. No, I haven't ever seen a better mix of strategy/sim when it comes to aerial warfare in ww2. The sim part is surprisingly robust for its time - aerodynamics is reasonable, the damage modeling is still unsurpassed (wonder why they stopped modeling damage properly since then). Be ready for lots of unexpected developments in the course of the campaign.

I could sing it praises for a while longer, but I won't. Just give it a try - it's been free for ages.

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Oh, I loved that game! I have an old laptop (alongside my desktop computer) running win 98, and I played it a lot on that! Also, I know it's not an actual sim, but I really enjoyed this 2d dogfight game which includes real fighters from WWI to jet age: http://www.xbattlestation.com/2dfs/game.aspx?id=dogfightbits

Edited by jmiki8
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Try IL2 Cliffs of Dover excellent graphics and immersion impressive dmage model etc.

You will need community patch from here http://www.theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/ to get the best experience. The forum is full of helpful people that would be happy to help you get started.

Other than that IL1946 is excellent although graphics are dated but flight models are still very good certainly better than the likes of warthunder and world of warplanes, also there are still active servers for it.

Also DCS Mustang and upcoming DCS World War 2 are/will be extremely detailed study sims with fully interactive cockpits and incredibly detailed flight models and damage models.

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GOG.com sells Il-2 for $10 or so. It's interesting, but there's almost no instruction or learning help. The "tutorials" are non-interactive vids of the game. It may be as great as people say it is, but I don't want to spend weeks figuring out how each individual plane flies, so I just mess around with instant missions. Not bad for $10, though.

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I enjoyed Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator 3 (early 2000's) It has the planes you mentioned and then some. I only wish I was a pilot so I don't know how realistic the handling was, but it wasn't hyper-realistic with all the cockpit bells and whistles.

It kept me entertained for several months, and taught me how to line-up and land on the runway. Dropping a 1000lb bomb while taxiing down the runway was always entertaining too.

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