posted 07-31- 11:23 AM               

Thank you for any and all input. I am trying to make as informed a decision as possible before take the learning curve plunge. It is greatly appreciated.

posted 07-31- 11:51 AM               

Eaw is much better as sim, fast and maybe the most realistic stalls..spins you have around in some aspects. I fly Typhoon there... a odd plane too... i must use energyfights-tactics because i cant turn with it... really fun too... and no one flying it...nearly except me. The community is more relaxed but you donīt get so close anyone there like in WWII if you are looking after friends to fly with.

Iīm probl going to fly here now from time to time ...and in ACES HIGH because i think the community is friendly here and very active and looks like they have lots of humor. But iīm still testing them ....

I have decided not to fly in any community i donīt think are focusing on the flying and to have fun. There are to big egos and quarrels in so many communitys around and i donīt like to let my ears be anyones trashcan anymore.

I think you like me can give this sim a try, and maybe also flying little EAW and ACes High.

The only bad thing i think about this sim are - the onlineflying are mostly on my mornings (iīm living in sweden). And i should wish there was more pilots online in the evenings after i got home from my work. Thats why iīm right now testing Aces High... at this moment i prefer that before flying Typhon in EAW.

This is little about my opinion but some of the veterans should give you what they think about this Sim.

My advice to you is to be careful to chose flying WWII fighters (Janeīs WW2 at Hyperlobby) and iīm telling you that after having been 26th C.O there for 26th and flying there maybe 2,5 years and get really disapointed from time to time. I have made some statements about my opinion of the common behaviors in that community on the messageboard they use. You can find several Statements from me on the messageboard in the Hyperlobby if you look some time backwards... i was hard in my opinion about some common behaviours there. So what i tell you about my opinion of WWII community in Hyperlobby isnīt any secret.

Yours

Barcat

posted 07-31- 12:19 PM               

I think you guys are going to love the way the planes fly in this sim! I find they are much more realistic than Janes or other sims. Give us a try, you will like what you see.

posted 07-31- 12:34 PM               

------------------
Silverfox

posted 07-31- 12:43 PM               

I was flying as illwind26AC there ! I left over the C.O command to Budweisy for maybe more than a year... time is going so fast...i donīt remember now. I changed callsign after that for maybe close a year ago because i was feeling i need some more "sunshine" in my callsign....

I taking my callsings from p51 landed in sweden during ww2 so.. Barcat was the most neutral i could find of all of them...

But Fast and sometimes Casualty (Casualty have much better control over it) still calling me illwind over Roger Wilco.... pretty fun...

Iīm not sure my new callsign like me ... but i try to do someting with it.... if i haventīhad so tiny little brain ..i maybe found some better one but i picked up my book and pointed with my finger with my eyes shut down...like i did when i chosed illwind as callsign.

If i change i put up the old one on the roster see also www.26th-aircorps.org so everyone can check who i am

posted 07-31- 05:22 PM               

LOL Joking fellas! The planes here are very well done and getting better and better on a daily basis. It's a good community and the people here are very helpful.

posted 07-31- 05:32 PM               

Pros:

Best physics there is. By far. No other sim I have ever played has given me the feeling of flight like this one has. The planes just feel right - and that's not easy to do.

Great graphics. They didn't start out that way, but they keep getting better and better.

Lots of different planes to fly. More every day in fact.

Completely open architechture. You might have to fiddle to get it to do what you want, but you can do just about anything. Planes, boats, trucks, guns, you name it.

Cons:

Unfinished. The game itself was that way when it shipped, and now it seems many of the add-ons get half done and stop.

Small terrain. 40 miles square. Iccy-ugg.

No campaign, limited missions.

Simple missions.

Comparison:

In the past it was like this...

Graphics: Janes
Physics: SDoE
Campaign: EAW

Now the graphics one is swinging over here too. Now if only we had a real campaign system on realistic maps, it would be perfect.

posted 07-31- 08:22 PM               

So do you guys fly online a lot? I have seen some posts that indicate not a lot of games are up... Can you do a dedicated server for this game that just cycles through different games (ala. Unreal Tournament or Mechwarrior4)? If you do not have campaigns, do you have any type of real competitive online leagues or tournaments?

I see as a community you are active, but do you fly together or against each other all that much?

Can anyone tell me about the Open Plane things and its relation to SDOE?

Sorry again for all the questions...and it is much appreciated if you put any time into answering...

posted 08-01- 01:56 AM               

During the winter I stayed online several times for over four hours and there were never less than 6 people and sometimes we had to run 2 online games as there were more than 16 people that showed up.

There are several squadrons, there are squad wars, tournaments, "SDOE wars", and just a bunch of guys that play online missions.

On line play is usually cooperative although a "free for all" is allowed in the online settings. Instead of just going up and seeing who can shoot who down, you can actually play missions on one side or the other with objectives that neeed to be fulfilled. If you don't have enough people for the mission, the AI will fly the remaining planes.

With the driveable ground vehicles you can now have one group playing the ground convoy AA support, One group flying CAP for the convoy, and another trying to blow it up!

Open PLane is the "engine" SDOE is based on. It sets the parameters and formats needed for a model to be used in SDOE.

Mission editor- The mission editor is included when you buy the game.

Here are the prop sims I own
SDOE, EAW, WWII Fighters, CFS, CFS2.

For flight realism NOTHING even comes close to SDOE. I was extremely disappointed in the flight characteristics of CFS2- I expected a lot more.

Janes is/was great eye candy, but the hi res skins allowed by the "Patch" are even better looking in my opinion. Janes has a BAD habit of crashing for some people, and if you're system is one of them, there's no fix for it.
The area of play is limited and a Fw190 in Janes feels like it's flying through molasses. Not even close to what it should be like.

EAW- I like this sim, if you want HUGE furballs, this is the way to go. The "atmosphere the game sets up for the player is pretty good.

I disagree with Barcat's comparism of SDOE and EAW. Although the planes will spin and stall in EAW, they aren't very realistic as the whole plane tends to stall rather than one wingtip stalling first. Normal spin recovery procedures can get you into trouble. The reason Barcat mentioned this is the original FM's in SDOE sucked because they were "dumbed down". Apparently Activision was afraid too much realism would chase people away.

Many of the user created planes exhibit correct stall characteristics. Thrustmaster took the pilot's notes for a Spit and compared the flight characteristics of the sim planes to pilot's notes. Originally, they decided to test EAW, Janes, and CFS. At the last minute the threw in the SDOE Spit and it happened to be the one Tailslide did the FM for. Every sim fell flat on it's face EXCEPT for the SDOE spit. Stall characteristics when turing, landing and climbing were virtually identical to the pilots notes. Airframe stability for the SDOE spit was the only one that was realistic. Stall recovery, spin recovery, stall buffeting were all like they were taken right out of the pilot's manual.
At the end, the author admitted SDOE was thrown in as an afterthought, but he was amazed at how realistic the flight model and physics were.

I'm in the process of updating the FM's to be more realistic. (BTW Barcat, you should try the NEW Typhoon FM). Stalls and spins will be put back in and I spend a lot of time reading pilots comments and historical accounts to try and get the plane to fly realistically.

Last, since you live in the US, you can get the game for the cost of shipping from www.unbeatabledeals.com
For only Six dollars, it's a pretty cheap way to find out if you like the game.

With all of these sims SDOE is the only one I play on a regular basis. For me, it is hands down the most fun of all of the sims.

posted 08-01- 09:31 AM               

iīm reding this topic with intrest and liked your comment about stallings.

I donīt know so much of flying in real and donīt know the differences in unrealstic stalls in EAW in comparison with SDOE. I only guessed it was real in EAW because it feels so nasty and hard to get out from sometimes.

In the dogfights, i mostly fly duels because i like tem best, is for me to fly so close stallings i can, and use so much speed i can to get out of trouble before it appears. That two parts and get a balance between them is so intresting for me and i got close to the challenge in a intresting way by flying 109 in Janeīs and Typhoon in EAW. If i fly a angelfighter i got to temptated to turn too hard and waste my energy to soon... but iīm not an Ace like some of my brothers in 26th - as most average. But i have lotīs of fun.

yours Barcat

posted 08-01- 09:33 PM               

I do understand the stalling, etc - i.e. one wing before the other, wingtip or root before the rest of the wing... Ever seen a stall fence? I am in ground school, and that is what has perhaps re-piqued my interest in a combat flight sim - I can not wait to get into the air! Thx. all and see you online soon (I hope - if I am not surfing or sailing...)

Helmut "Steel" Fritz
helmut@rlgaming.com

posted 08-03- 08:53 PM               

FWIW, and if I understand it correctly, the reason SDOE (or rather any OpenPlane sim) allows such realistic flight characteristics is that the plane builders (yes, you nutters :) rather than describing the stall/spin/etc numbers, instead describe the structure of the aircraft in quite minute details. The shapes, weights, and such forth of each of a great number of separate components that make up the plane. The sim itself then combines all the components and runs its physics simuation over them and the realistic performance comes naturally as a result.

If the components of the simulated plane are close enough to those of the real thing, then the final performance will be very similar to the real thing. Obviously no computer physics model can truly simulate the real world, but SDOE does a darn good job.

And the damage modelling is also impressive, because if one of those components is damaged or shot off of the plane, the physics engine automatically changes (or removes) the properties of that component when calculating the overall response of the plane.

As such, making a SDOE plane is hard (the plane builders are wonderful dedicated lunatics for hunting down and implementing such detail :) but the results are brilliant.
(My apologies if I got any of that wrong; I'm not a SDOE/OpenPlane expert by any means... just an appreciative (and not very talented :) virtual pilot.)