Hey friends, I couldn’t find a thread for promotion, so I hope y’all don’t mind me creating one. I’m launching a new podcast today called Retro Dogfight, which is two old flight sim grogs and myself talking about all the old flight sims, mostly in chronological order.
You can listen and subscribe, and learn more, here:
And join our Discord here, if you wish:
I thank you for your time and consideration, and hope you enjoy the show!
Listened tp the opening episode and subbed. It looks like it will be good fun and resource 
Thank you so much!!
Ill give it a listen as soon as able.
Yay, thank you!!
Cool pod, enjoyed it. Two things:
I need to be on it. I’m an old simmer like you, started out with Falcon AT on an atari ST. The years with Falcon 3.0, X-wing and Aces of the Pacific were the best in many aspects. I’m also on QT3, and an old hand as well, so I almost feel passed over but I get it, because…
why so defensive about your attitudes towards current sims? There’s no need to defend your perverse predilections, noone’s gonna yuck your yum. Except me, a little, perhaps.
When time comes, late in your series, I would love to be the ‘other side’ debating whether sims have died, or are having a gorram golden age these days.
We have had this debate over at Qt3, and I’d love to rehash it on the pod, because I think your analysis is right on and your critiscisms are valid. They are also off target.
Little hint, if you do not like running a checklist but do want to take off from cold & dark, LeftWin+Home is your bud. Every DCS mod has that script, and it’s always that chord.
Go fly a Huey. And a Phantom. In VR. And tell me the best is in the past. Because it isn’t. It’s in the future.
Someone’s busy building a game to layer on top of the barebones simulation program to make sure you have interesting decisions to make while getting your pilot on. Some pretty cool things already have been built.
You weren’t passed over. I’ve known Denny and Chase for decades and have the kind of relationship with them that I thought would make a great show. Nothing personal.
This is why I’m defensive. Rivet counters, I feel, took the genre in the wrong direction and drove people like Andy Hollis out of gaming entirely.
If we start doing tangential topics, such as for a future Patreon or something, I can see this happening.
So…I’m both valid AND off target?
I’m not enamored with VR like you are. It’s nice and all, but it’s not the end-all-be-all.
What has already been built?
Also, thank you for listening!
You may be right. I am interested to see you guys unearth that story.
Rivet counters inherited the genre in a sense. I had to overcome my distaste for it to enjoy what’s there.
You guys have great chemistry and I was not that serious. I’d be happy to be a guest on the show.
For example when you come to Falcon. I take it 3.0 is right in the heyday and 4.0 marks the end of it.
Yes. I agree on what you see and how you see it. I just don’t agree with the conclusions you draw from it.
For me, the kid who wants to play fighter pilot, it is. In that straight line from kicking off my shoe on the swing set yelling “sidewinder away!” to holding a joystick on a desk and seeing if the things in “art of the kill” work in the game, VR is perhaps (hopefully not!) the end, but it sure is where the state of the art of “make me believe I’m driving a fighter plane” is at.
It is janky as hell. Cutting edge flight simming tech always has been. Either Denny or Scharmers said his career in IT started from learning how to coax enough HiMem out of a dos box to get it to run Aces over the Pacific or one of the other great old sims.
Well, my VR rig still took almost a PHD’s worth of study and tweaking to get to run just so. But boy am I happy with the thing.
The Aces games had a tab on their main menu. “There I was…” with little drop down boxes where you could choose what you flew, what you were doing, what the opposition was, etc. It was my favourite use of the game. Still is. A short hop, just the split second decisions of pulling a tad more lead, maybe go high a bit… take the shot? take the shot! Bam!
Ohh, distaste? Might you elaborate on this, please?
Fair, we’re likely gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.
This is why I’m still glad it exists, for folks who enjoy it. It’s just, ultimately, not for me.
Oh yeah, I bounced off hard off of Falcon 4.0 back when it got out. Not just the technical jank but the sheer rivet counteriness of it. I was very much a fan of the Navy Fighters series of lite sims and the aces games. I wanted to shoot an AI that flew convincing BFM, not twiddle with radar modes.
VR for me got me back. It was just so cool, so immersive. And that clickable pit suddenly made sense. Ticking the switches and things to make the beast come alive, to play the HOTAS like an instrument in a symphony of destruction, yeah that became fun only after VR motivated me to give it a go again. MiG-15 is still one of my favourite DCS modules, because it has no systems to speak of, but a very satisfying flight model.
If you have the DCS Huey module, skip learning to start it. left-win+Home tells your copilot to boot the darn thing up while you pick your teeth and adjust your ballsack. Learn to fly it. Can you set it down in a clearing? Then buy @reflected’s Paradise Lost scripted campaign for it. Cost you two donuts an a coffee.
Of course back then we had this great dichotomy between scripted campaigns and dynamic ones. And sadly it turned dynamic ones are incredibly hard to make convincing when your draw distance becomes larger than ten clicks. But a good script is nothing to scoff at. Believe you me.
Oh wow, so VR was your…heh…window back into sims. That’s fascinating, truth be told.
You two be nice 
I’ll crap all over DCS because it IS Digital Cockpit Simulator and ED’s predatory early-access garbage seriously softens my hog.
That being said, I bought the Cold War Europe map a couple weeks ago, because I am a sucker for Reagan’s War and I am a proud practitioner of Doublethink when it comes to sims (modern rivet-counter stuff both sucks and is awesome)
And I won’t harsh Schurem’s buzz over what is clearly his waifu sim
Spathi, I think both Denny and I would love Schurem as a guest when we start hitting F3
Yo, welcome aboard old man!
Yes its a drag, but whaddayagonnado? And is it really all that different from a buggy release that needed at least four rounds of patches until it fulfilled its potential? (EAW took 6 or 7 iirc)
If someone were to fly into an alternate timeline where microprose didn’t die and falcon 4 didn’t choke on its rivets but falcon6.0 exists along with gunship 2025 in their gamey immersive glory but with todays graphics (VR) I would kick that bish to the curb faster than you can split-S a FW-190.
But it’s mostly the only game in town. VTOL VR is great, but I may have fallen too deep into the Dark Side. Realism is part of what makes a sim a sim for me. so yeah, proud to call dcs my waifu.
If only…
Btw when is the next episode coming up? 
You know, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the initial DC offering for DCS will resemble the GS2000 or EECH gameplay loops. Fight at frontline nodes, interdict movement or strike generator buildings once their defences are sufficiently softened up.
Honestly that gameplay loop would be perfectly fine … but I’m still worried the AI isn’t good enough (it still doesn’t behave believably) to make it fun to play!
Thank you for asking! It’s a monthly show so we plan to release each episode on the first of the month. The next episode will therefore release on June first, and will be dealing with the three LucasFilm WWII sims.
I’m continually amazed by the AI in Gunship 2000, especially of my own flight. I don’t need to handhold or micro them. I just tell them where to go and they do their freaking jobs. Love it.
