It’s worth mentioning that there are two great free community aircraft mods that one could get lost in without spending a penny. A-4E-C Skyhawk and UH-60L Black Hawk. Both of those are a blast to explore the Marianas in.
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Yes, the new FLIR is great. How well the FLIR worked used to be dependant on whether a livery stood out from the environment. Now it just works independently of that.
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… And as to the OP’s question. No don’t wait. If you wait, wait for better GPU prices. Wait for the right partner in life. Wait for this sh!t to blow over. But don’t wait to get back into playing with toy airplanes.
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Agree.
As above, often DCS makes me think, “Wow” , graphically: Climbing out through the clouds in the early AM, sun at my low 4-o’clock, looking back over my right wing. Pretty.
Then I mark a point (simple road intersection for instance) and attempt to get my wingman to ‘hit that’. “Unable”, as it wanders off 50 miles to attack a Zeus, and gets bagged. Now it’s, “Wow!..really?”.
Someday we’ll have visuals that are indistinguishable from real life. But the bots will still be a box of rocks.
I don’t need generals, I need common-sense privates (with a logical fear of death). I can code-up some big-brass AI myself.
With every significant drop, after reading all the changes/fixes, I realize they are spread waaaaayy too thin. Focus!
But it’s all we [VR] types have got. So I press on…
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Thanks everyone for the replies. It is nice to hear the good outweigh the bad. For me, as I’m sure it is for most, there is so much nostalgia to playing flight sims - my formative years were the 90’s, and flying night strike missions in F-117 2.0 or taking off from the carrier in Jane’s USNF is still such a visceral memory for me I’ve not been able to shake it whenever I look at flight sims these days. I realize I’m probably about to have my mind blown.
It only took about 12 hours of convincing, but I ordered the PC build, the stick, and the monitor. Ready to jump back in!
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We’re right behind ya! 
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And all of the above is without mentioning multi-player … which has been some of the best parts of DCS for me… get a group togeather and you are in for a good time 
@schurem @komemiute @Victork2 @Mace @Cib @Derbysieger and apologies to anyone i missed
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DCS enthusiasm for me waxes and wanes.
It’s nice to have something to do when at times I can’t go out and do sports. But I always have to know what to expect. AI sucks, there’s just no way to sugarcoat it. Damage models can be a bit hit and miss.
On the other hand, AMRAAMs have become absolute death rays lately through the CFD and guidance logic work that ED have put in. FLIR is now great. Clouds are gorgeous. Though Viper-specific but i’ve been enjoying the HTS/Harm combo a lot. Sometimes a well made user campaign sucks me in. Then, after seing the F-16 DM make the plane go down in the same way after the 10th time straight, for 6 months I’ll be like, “meh, why bother”. When a mission is well made, DCS is incredible. At other times it can be incredibly frustrating.
It often comes down to what your expectations are.
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Excellent point.
My ‘play time schedule’ is all over the place so I don’t do much there. But, one of the most memorable times in DCS was following a dude (former RL Phantom pilot*) around for about an hour in fingertip. Man, that took some serious concentration. I was a tad spent. But what a neat experience.
The Air Quake thing though bores me - there’s no real fear of consequences, so it changes things. But that’s just me.
[1] from way back - neat to see he was still ‘in the game’ so to speak. Hey, that would be cool to do again, once the HB F-4 comes out. Just long ago forgot his handle and even where he hung out, virtually.
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Well, you know very well why I didn’t mention Multiplayer!
We’re Professionals after all!
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With the exception of Arma 3, DCS is the only game in which multiplayer holds any interest for me.
That is not because of the game itself but because of the learning we (occasionally) get around together and to be perfectly honest jist spending time having a giggle with you lot.
I learned more in a couple of hours Hogging with @schurem than i could do in a month reading manuals and flying on my own.
Its the best part of all of it for me.
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We have those here?
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Only one.
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I hear that he’s exceptionally good looking.
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From him.
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The best thing I can say about DCS is that they do offer one free plane that people can try out before he or she makes a decision on buying. That’s pretty nice and it isn’t something that everyone is doing.
However, the learning curve to really become proficient enough to enjoy the game is ridiculously steep. Anyone just wanting to “jump in” and play is going to be in for disappointment. This is not that game. This game requires a significant investment in all sorts of peripherals to fully get everything it has to offer.
This is one of the reasons why I don’t have it on my hard drive anymore.
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I used to feel the same but some modules aircraft are quite fun and not that deep, IMO. The A4C freebie is a blast. The F-5 is even more simple (but not free). F-86? UH-1 maybe?. I’m sure others can think of more.
I can teach an eight year old how to slap things down with a viper in about half an hour. That thing is hardly as complicated as it seems. Dogfight switch aft, uncage that missile and whoosh, things die.
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I’ll agree with @PFunk that if you want the “full mission package” with coldstart, INS align, etc. that the learning curve is steep. Learning to fly fast jets with 100% competency isn’t for everyone. The joy of DCS is that you don’t have to mess with 99% of that if you don’t want. I know for most of us we’ve never set anything on “Arcade” but that option does exist and it works just fine if you want to go Ace Combat on things.
We are at the far end of the bell curve in terms of resources and interest in our hobby. Most of us own flight sim peripherals that are more expensive then peoples gaming rigs. It is very possible to enjoy this hobby on a LCD monitor with a twist grip stick and the settings turned to medium or low. We all used to do this on CRT monitors in 800x600 with a joystick with 2 buttons.
I think the question may depend on how old you are and what you do for a living. I’m 55 and operate heavy machinery all day at my job so I’ve found that I have zero drive to learn complex combat flight sims in my limited down time. Even civilian flight sims are falling by the wayside as I dream of having enough time to enjoy them. I can GUARANTEE you in 10 years when I retire I will be very enthusiastic about getting back into it!
In the mean time I just enjoy hunting people in the various Battlefield and tactical shooters. 
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