Free flight Simulator!!!

[Hawke]

Ever since AC I've never been satsified with any combat simulator available on the market. There are still nice ones out there I haven't tried, but typically they all put emphasis on the wrong things, making it more of a video game experience than a flight sim.

A while ago I installed "Flight Gear" which is a free flight sim, but I got bored with it pretty fast.

Just yesterday though I found "YS Flight". It's the best free sim that I've seen. On the down side, the graphics are REALLY simple, and the sounds in it are pathetic, but the flight simulation is good and the combat is fantastic. Still not anywhere near AC sims (where can I get me one of those!?!?!) , but it is a really nice sim for FREE! You can get it HERE:
http://homepage3.nifty.com/ysflight/frmindexe.html
(It's the first one in the list of downloads)
Note: since it's a home brew Sim, it's not super straight forward. You have to open a default flight or create one. Just follow on-screen instructions

Also, if you are willing to pay big bucks, pick yourself up the Cougar Hotas Joystick and throttle from Thrustmaster:
http://ftp.thrustmaster.com/pictures/PC ... /Hotas.jpg
All metal construction. Very heavy feel. Very realistic. I haven't tried them yet, but they look awesome! (anyone trying to get rid of a set for cheap???)

Anyway, try out the YS flight sim. It's fun and FREE. You can even fight over the internet!

[Hawke]

UPDATE:

My friend and I tried multiplayer today. It was a blast!! My friend set up a server at his house and I connected over the internet. Took us less than five minutes to get it started.

When you enter a hosted server, you simply pick what jet/helicopter you want, select your weapons, pick your spawn point wil be (sky/airfield/carrier/etc), and what team you want to be on (up to 4 possible teams, simply numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4).

The actual gameplay is pretty nice. Your moniter serves as the HUD similar to the AC sims (except for non HUD aircraft such as civilian or old WWII planes...in that case they do a simple animation of the cockpit). You can assign any function to any key on the keyboard or to the joystic axis and buttons.

Once you spawn, enemies show up on your screen circled in yellow, and friendlies circled in white, both with the closure rate displayed next to the circle. The targeting system is a bit elementary (unfortunately). The weapons system automatically locks on to what you're pointing at. Once you're in range to shoot with whatever weapon you've selected, the target turns red and "SHOOT" is displayed in the HUD. When you have the guns selected, a simplified version of the "gun snake" that was in the old Mach III sims in the 90's shows up. Line up the red circle on your target and *BAM*. Each plane can take a few hits from the guns before they blow up.

On the defensive, the HUD warns you when someone has lock on you as well as when a missle is fired. One great element of the sim is counter-measures. You start with 20 flares that you can drop to avoid being hit by missles.

Once you die, it boots you to the aircraft selection screen. Select an aircraft, weapons, and spawn point and do it all again. Quick action that just keeps going.

Like I mentioned before, the sim is pretty simple and there's no way it will compare to AC's sims, but my friend and I played for a couple hours straight. That's pretty good, considering the fact that we quit after 30 minutes with every other multiplayer sim we've tried.

Oh, and did I mention the sim is FREE?? Big salute to the guys that built this sim.