I am pretty sure VR will come. But my rekindled love for this sim is unaltered whether it does or doesn’t. In fact I no longer really care. BMS is itself such a different experience than anything else out there. I’ve got this hangup that’s getting worse with age. I need to feel part of something. DCS, unless I am playing on a good and active MP server, is a big, beautiful sandbox–but nothing more. Even the best stuff by @Baltic_Dragon have, through no fault of the designer, little flaws and forced triggers that kill the immersion while reminding me that it really is: all about me. In BMS I get to exist within the hugely populated strategy game. Planes are everywhere. Me and my guys will hit a target on one side of a city and I can see strike packages hit another. Stuff is happening all over the theater. And don’t forget about the weather. Its more dynamic in BMS (although the player must start the process through a little god-work). It can be clear at takeoff and overcast at the target.
I’m in the same boat. VR is great, awesome, amazing, and all the other adjectives that are rightfully ascribed to it, but BMS has a magic that will make you overlook the current 2D world it’s shackled to. Sure, DCS has it’s benefits (you won’t find a better Tomcat anywhere), but BMS has the environment down to a tee.
One of the other things I love about BMS is that they’ve actually implemented a system so spotting is realistic. They used a thesis paper where someone did a bunch of research with real pilots to determine the distances in real life where you’d be able to detect various aspects of a target, such as initial spotting, then orientation, and finally type. They then repeated the tests in the original Falcon 4.0 and adjusted scaling factors so the pilots would detect the same information at the same distances as in real life. BMS took that info and integrated it beautifully. It’s great to actually know what’s going on around you, not just hoping that there’s a bandit within 2 miles that you just can’t see. Just one of the little things that makes it such a joy to fly.
“I need to feel part of something”
Agree. Myself and a [too] small group, early 90’s, tried to write a mil flight sim with just that ‘mission statement’, almost word for word. Then Falcon came out and I went, “Dang, beat us to it”. We were doomed from the start as I was the only C/C++ programmer…
I’m with ya, on both points. I’ve actually asked myself, “why do I like this [DCS] VR thing?”. Only answer I can come up is: I’m there, in the cockpit, and I feel more like I’m actually flying something. My bass-shaker setup helps, surprisingly a lot, but that would probably feel stale with a 2D monitor.
The above is probably why I don’t get real deep into DCS: cuzz it doesn’t lend itself to that as described within this topic by many; its performance wouldn’t allow it either.
Dunno, perhaps I’ll dust off BMS again. I’m only on 4.33 and need to get in the mood to ‘dance’ (though they’ve greatly improved this).
Odd though, I like WWII sub sims, but not in VR; it’s like, in those vessels, your only view of the outside world is through a tiny little viewport anyway; and wearing it for hours and hours would wear on me too. Though since DCS+VR came out I’ve engaged in nothing but for the last couple of years.
An interesting conversation.
I will readily admit that F4.0’s dynamic campaign really made you feel like you were part of something. I really enjoyed the Allied Force upgrade because I had actually been part of that in RL at the HQ level…it was much more fun than RL. 
DCS World may not be well suited for a dynamic running campaign in a SP mode.
That said, I suppose one could run/host a multi-day (week?) MP session - with some type of “god of battle” monitor, sitting behind the scenes - handing out missions according to a dynamically updated ATO. Having done that in RL it is quite an undertaking, however, it could be accomplished…all the necessary doctrine publications are actually on line…not that we ever read them… 
As soon as Falcon BMS supports VR, I will go back to it for 75% of my flying. It just feels so much more alive than anything DCS can accomplish. DCS graphics and cockpit feel better and flying in DCS is more fun, but that’s it. Anything outside the cockpit, Falcon BMS does better, including ATC and AWACS.
Not putting DCS down, both are amazing simulators. Flying the F-14 and the Viggen in DCS is funner than heck, but try ordering a wingman to attack a target… 
There are two sides to that coin… Bms is focused on the campaign engine which is great for all the obvious reasons as highlighted above. However, the only control you have as mission builder is the flightplan and the ai takes care of everything else. Meaning that if you want the ai to do something specific you have to factor in what the ai will do and this can result in a thousand test flights before the damn mig will do what to want,I.e before you put it forward to you squadron buddies. Mission scripting like in DCS has its perks too as some of my squadrons’ mission builders are finding out, particularly when involving the lua aspect.
Somewhere out there on the webernets is an interview with Kevin Klemnick (sp?) where he makes exactly the same arguments IN FAVOR of the staged trigger system newly (at the time) implemented in DCS. I’ve designed missions and I fully agree that DCS is an order of magnitude better in that regard. IL2 better yet. ARMA perhaps best of all. But right now I don’t want to create. I want to play a game. Ask me again next month and I might be back in creator mode, newly content with the sandbox, and BMS will get a break.
Excerpt from that interview with Kevin Klemmick
Many recent simulators are released without even trying to code a Dynamic Campaign engine. Why do you think today’s sim developers are so scared of what you guys were able to create more than a decade ago?
Well, it’s just really hard to do. Looking back on it, I think the only reason we took on what we did is because we were too inexperienced to know better. Knowing what I do now, even given my experience on Falcon, the cost to develop such an engine would be substantial. Since flight sims don’t bring in that kind of revenue companies look at it from a cost to benefit standpoint and Dynamic Campaigns score pretty low in that regard. There is also the argument that scripted missions are more interesting which has some merit. I think if I were to do it over I would do a mix of scripted/generated missions, so that the player still feels like they’re involved in the world, but there is also some variety thrown in to keep things interesting.
edit: here’s the link to full interview
I am hurt… 
Interesting discussion - make sure to listen to new ACS episode on BMS where some of the topics posted here are covered!
No need to be hurt @Baltic_Dragon. 
You know I love your work! In fact you were precisely what Klemmick had in mind when he sort of endorsed the scripted campaign.
That Falcon 4.0 history timeline… the ‘battles’ on Frugal’s … so many memories…
Oh man…the battles over the flight model were legendary…
Every time someone brings up flight modeling battles it reminds me of Dart’s signature where he quotes Laser.
From Laser:
“The forum is the place where combat (real time) flight simulator fans come to play turn based strategy combat.”
I got to the sim forum crowd somewhat late, getting online full time in September 2008, so I missed seeing most of those epic blow outs happening in real time. Reading the redacted threads was still an eye opener though.
Wheels
Because She’s had 2 Rounds of Plastic Graphics Surgery…
And it continues today. I tired of it early back then. People miss the forest for the trees (weeds in this case).
No the battle between lovers of the RP branch who felt they had the moral high ground over the eRazer users (used the source code) were the best!
Wow! That looks sharp as!
Another update. Nothing major. Now at 4.34.4
My Bitdefender detected Malware (Gen:Variant.Razy.359856) in the IVC.exe while I was running this update. Not sure if this is a false positive or not; I vaguely recall something about this a while back. Running a system scan now and will run a follow up with MWbytes next.
–Edit: Niether Bitfdefender nor MWbytes detected anything. Still don’t like it though. 