Yes your are correct.
He is the flight model author…authority I would say…
I know perfectly well who he is, that’s why his behavior does so much damage to the climate between both communities. I had several discussions with him and I-Hawk that i tried to keep stictly factual, but the sarcasm and snide remarks are just a tad too much. Those two are individuals and don’t speak for the BMS team and i know that quite a few BMS guys are everything but amused over that sort of behaviour, but it goes to show that it takes just one bad apple to spoil the bunch. For every sarcastic post, there’s more than a handful of idiots that feel empowered to start another flame war.
1 Like
Well step 1 is done…Falcon 4.0 is purchased. Now onto installing BMS.
2 Likes
Hmmm I’ve run into my first issue. Trying to download the 4th version of the incremental installer and I’m only offered the torrent link which apparently downloads a .torrent file which I have no idea what to do with. Such a newb…
I’ll let the more technical savvy folks explain the details. Torrent files are just another way to download big files. When you have everything preset it is pretty much automatic.
That 4th update file is only 25mb. Here it is on my google drive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BEg_lW5-46fRVMT3Vh_z-gG_phYI19Nn
You can use a torrent client such as Transmission (I use on Fedora) which will open the file and let you download the actual exe.
Thanks guys! In the process of installing through the 3rd update now via some help from this video…
1 Like
Moving right along. Everything is up and running and now I guess I need to figure out joystick mapping.
Joystick mapping in BMS is pretty easy unless you wish to use one button to shift the functionality of another. On the first screen just point the axis to your joystick. Don’t worry about any other axis yet. If the little cursor in the square moves when your stick moves, you’re golden. Then take care of a few buttons: Trim, TMS, CMS, Trigger, Weapons Release, etc. Now go to “Advance” and it is here where you map the rest. One great thing about BMS is that it loads into 3d so quickly that you can make a change and then test the change in well under a minute. If you are using a HOTAS you will have the most success if you map as closely to the F-16 as your equipment allows.
I mapped mine to a desk, in my house, in Hampton, VA… 
I see in your previous posts that you feel that this may be a steep learning curve compared to DCS. I found the opposite to be true. Perhaps it is because I started with Falcon 4.0 back when it came with the tabbed binder, so the documentation was extremely good. (If you got that you are in good shape) Regardless, as you noted, this is a finished product with no “gaps” to learn around, as it were. The closest DCS jet IMHO is the A-10C, as far as learning the MFDs and HOTAS controls adjust the general feel of the mod. That is just me.
Thanks guys. Yep, the documentation is VERY good and quite large 
I think the strangest thing so far for me in just doing some poking around flights (without having a clue what anything in the pit or MFD’s do as of yet) is having the view zoom on the mouse wheel instead of on the grey lever slider on my TM throttle like I mapped it in DCS.
I have zoom mapped to a wheel on my throttle. The slider is certainly doable.
There is also a “Look Closer” toggle which I use a shifted DX button to toggle. Most of the time this works well, but I do leave the zoom axis assigned to my mouse wheel if I want to take the time to zoom very close (or otherwise have fine(er) control over the zoom).
Regarding manuals (from the screenshots thread which has drifted): Chuck’s Guides for BMS would be amazing. Those that we enjoy now are masterpieces in visual clarity. But until they come for this sim let’s consider why BMS has what many players consider to be bloated manuals currently.
-
BMS Isn’t simply an F-16 simulator. It’s a complex game within which the F-16 plays the central role.
-
The game (the campaign) is not an easy thing to manage at first. Learning how to manipulate HQ options and frags within the ATO is complicated and needs a lot of study in order to manage the battle to the player’s satisfaction.
-
In multiplayer, individual players have the ability to quickly ruin the campaign (which might have been running for a month up to this point) for everyone in minutes. And there is little that the server can do to stop them. There are a dozen or more steps that must be accurately executed before one can enter the 3d world in multiplayer.
-
Someone accustomed to a modern GUI can quickly get lost in a campaign, single- or multiplayer.
-
IFF. This is a great example of why the dash 1 is so big. It is a new feature that doesn’t just add new functionality but also changes completely the old way of ID’ing other planes. It’s amazing how in-depth the team have managed to recreate this one system. Reading that chapter was, actually, a quite enjoyable experience for me. But you don’t have to! The author himself said in the first paragraph that so long as you properly load the DTC, IFF functions largely automatically (you just turn it on). But if your squadron wants to manage IFF differently than what was arranged by HQ, then that long chapter can’t be shortcutted. (Why would a squad want to do that? I don’t know nor care. But I do know how to do it.)
-
The Viper. It’s not that hard. And the manual actually reflects its simplicity. The “3-sweeps” ramp start chapter is just a few pages long and it can get you in the air in half an hour from install.
Those are just a few things that popped into my head. One nice thing about both the dash 1 and the -34 (weapons employment) is that they are quite honest about what is functional and what is eye candy. I believe they’ve done an admirable job giving the player all the information he needs to enjoy the sim to its fullest. But it is complicated. And learning to start the jet and to “put the thing on the thing” will only get the player about a 10th of where he needs to be to enjoy the whole package.
I don’t want to be defensive. But I am for a reason (I hope). There are better places to go to thoroughly learn a simi-modern fighter or helicopter. Well actually one place. And that place is still the greatest combat flight simulator money can buy. BMS is not far behind in the simulation department. But it comes with so much more that cannot be explained away in a few pages. There is no free lunch. A rich and complex game like this requires a lot of effort to learn.
13 Likes
Hoggit now has a dedicated BMS server. Server details:
2 Likes
True that. After reading that document I have been able to figure out how to ramp start the Viper. Now I’m on to navigation and landing practice…
As somebody who watches a fair bit of Twitch streaming of DCS and now BMS, it’s been interesting to me to see how some of my followed DCS players are firing up BMS for perhaps the first time or the first time in years and are rediscovering how good it can be.
Forgive another newb question, but one thing I’ve been trying to figure out in watching other people plan BMS missions is in looking at the map it appears you can see all of the enemy forces. With that being the case, when you are doing your flight plan is there any element of surprise involved in the actual flight?
On the 2D map you never see all the forces (ground or air) so don’t get that impression before you fly over an SA-10 site…oh and the SAM operators have been upgraded in 4.34 
You generally see aircraft picked up by AWACs for example…and some ground forces show when friendly a/c fly near them sometimes.
Intel reports sometimes give a clue to SAM locations from the amazing SIGINT platforms
2 Likes