DELTA DOG

Wondering if anyone in here flies/plays Digital Combat Simulator (DCS World)? I've managed to get hooked by the Viper and the flying has been pretty easy, however, I have zero sense of tactics and weapons employment. I'm wondering if you can recommend a cool group of guys/gals to fly with that wouldn't mind mentoring me a little?

T1000

[QUOTE=DELTA DOG;3648904]Wondering if anyone in here flies/plays Digital Combat Simulator (DCS World)? I've managed to get hooked by the Viper and the flying has been pretty easy, however, I have zero sense of tactics and weapons employment. I'm wondering if you can recommend a cool group of guys/gals to fly with that wouldn't mind mentoring me a little?[/QUOTE


Growling Sidewinder on YouTube is one of the best. He is very informative and his videos are instructional for almost all the aircraft in the game!

rickair7777

I'm afraid to even set one foot down the DCS path...

T1000

Same with me! But I get hours of enjoyment learning and watching Growling and many others. Obviously not completely realistic, but as close as us none fighter pilots will ever get to understanding what goes on in the fighter pilot world.

DeltaboundRedux

I'd recommend (*) heading to YouTube and watching The Grim Reapers channel.

https://www.youtube.com/@grimreapers

They run all kind of multi-player scenarios on a regular basis. They really geek out on this stuff, including how to set up the ultimate flight sim rig (most of the good equipment comes from abroad).

Stuff like:

YF-23 Black Widow II vs Su-57 Felon: BVR Missile & Dogfight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl13...7iUTDo&index=3)

Could an ExRAAF F/A-18 Hornet Air Wing Beat a Russian Su-35 Air Wing?

Could Taiwan Survive An Aerial First Strike by China?

2025 UK Carrier Group vs 2025 Russian Carrier Group

(*)Saw enough to know I can't go down this rabbit hole and stay married. Insane time suck. These sims are incredible. Head trackers, VR goggles, realistic peripherals, PvP and team games. Whew.

AirBear

I had been a gamer since the Commodore 64 in the 1980's, and online since the mid-90's. When I retired in 2017 I played 10-12 hours a day most days and on some of the games spent a small fortune. I never tried DCS but did try IL-2 Sturmovik even using a good quality VR headset. It was a little too realistic for me although the game looked great. I spend a bunch of $$$ on an Alienware gaming rig along with the VR headset I mentioned. Then about 2-3 years ago I just burned out and stopped gaming. I went back to using my 2019 iMac because I like the OS for general computing and also because of the great 5K 27" screen. I still have my 32" widescreen gaming monitor and a 25" standard monitor hooked up to the iMac. My expensive gaming rig has been gathering dust since then.

For anyone who likes space sims take a look at "Elite Dangerous". I played the original version on my Commodore 64 almost 40 years ago. Then a new version came out around 2015. One of the good things is you only pay for the game, it's not one of those "free to pay, pay to win" type games. Once you buy it that's it. The only money you can spend is on "eye candy" type stuff (ship paint jobs, fancy uniforms, etc) that don't affect game play. The game has multiple career paths: Trading, Exploring, Bounty Hunting, Pirating. There are political factions you can join and assist and of course squadrons you can join. Ships range from very small scout ships to large cargo ships and other large ships that can be configured as battleships or long range exploration ships. They're even added Carriers although you'll need to play quite a few hours to make enough credits to buy one. You can have up to 40 ships on your CV and it will jump up to 500 light years whereas other ships are capped around 70LY even when heavily engineered. The downside is after the CV jumps it's a 15 minute cool down before you can jump again so smaller ships with 50-70LY jump ranges can get somewhere faster via fuel scooping around stars. The galaxy in the game has over 400 million stars so even after 8 years there's still a lot of star systems that haven't been explored.

John Carr

Even Max Afterburner (and his terrible stache) does videos of Growling's videos!