April 21, 2023 • 60 mins
An introduction to this podcast and a monologue on 1) new pilots getting into Falcon BMS; 2) a request for feedback on advanced topics; 3) the future of BMS and the Falcon IP; and 4) a call to the community to be ready for 4.38.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
You've tuned into the Tactical Frequency,a podcast centered around all things Falcon BMS
readings and welcome to the Tactical Frequency. This is the first episode of this
podcast. It's a podcast centered aroundall things Falcon BMS. Falcon BMS.
(00:33):
If you haven't heard of it already, chances are you probably have heard of
it. But if you haven't,it is an excellent F sixteen flight sim
and it's actually available for free.The only thing you need is a valid
copy of Falcon four point zero,which generally goes for about five US dollars
something around that. So this podcast, this is designed for people who are
(01:00):
interested in flight sims, particularly thoseinterested in the F sixteen and air combat,
because that's pretty much what Falcon BMSis centered around. So if you
like those types of ideas, thenthis podcast is definitely for you. So
the format of the show, we'regoing to do things a little bit differently.
(01:21):
And of course, the first thingI should know this is the first
episode, so you know, thismay be a little bit rough around the
edges. We do need people tobe a little bit patient, let's say,
on the first episode. But Ithink we have something good playing.
I'm actually pretty excited about this.I think this is a good project and
(01:42):
I think there's been a ton ofthought and effort put into it that will
be readily apparent. So first thingto note, we are doing this in
the spirit of radio. We're doingthis in the vein of talk radio,
and we still have to work outa schedule. Often we want to do
this when we're going to do this, but we have a lot of options.
The benefit of doing this like radiois that we can do this live.
(02:07):
We don't have to do a lotof work in post and that is
actually really really good because you canget bogged down, I think in post
production, whereas if you have everythingset up properly, you can do the
show in a good setting and justrun through it and make it work.
(02:28):
Obviously, both have challenges, butbeyond the format, my goal for this
podcast is that this show should bea forum and a venue for people in
the Falcon Byness community who would liketo speak their mind. You can hear
from people that are like minded orpeople who differ. We can have diversity
(02:49):
of thought. But as long asit's about Falcon bms and as long as
it's positive and constructive, I thinkit should be on here. Now that's
not to say we can't have criticisms, but I mean it should be positive
in the sense that it should beconstructive. So the idea of this being
done in radio. We do havebreaks, these segments, or rather this
(03:14):
show is broken up into segments.We have musical transitions, room for commercials,
public service announcements. You will hearsome of these PSAs related to BMS
and things like that throughout this show. And this show can support guests,
so we can do guests. Wealso want this to be able to be
(03:34):
carried by a host, so obviouslythat would be me here. I'm going
to be doing my best this episode. We don't have any guests this episode
and nothing like that, but inthe future, the plan is to have
guests. And the plan is alsoto support the equivalent in radio of callers,
so that means that live we couldbe able to have people show up
(03:59):
on the show and you know,give their opinion on something, you know,
ten seconds or something. Just geton here. Let's say we're doing
a show on air to air refuelingand you want to give your you know,
top tips on how to do airto air refueling. You could do
that we could literally have people andwe would do that through discord staging.
So a discord stage channel in thereyou have the ability to sort of signal
(04:20):
that you'd like to be on theshow. We could pull you on.
You give your ten second point.This is how I do air to air
refueling. I do this, Ilook at the lights this way, and
then the next caller could come onand give his point, and we could
do this on a number of differentsegments or different styles. So I'm really
(04:40):
excited about that first thing. I'drecommend, though, get a pen and
paper or some ability to take notes, because we're coming up to our first
break and the information for the discordinvite is going to be read out.
So if you'd like to join theTactical Frequency Discord, you're going to want
to be ready and take down thefollowing information. To join the Tactical Frequency
(05:13):
Discord. Use invitation code uppercase,Romeo, lowercase, Charlie Niner, Sierra
Niner, Bravo, Yankee, PapaWhiskey, Kilo. What are some of
the prerequisites to learn Falcon BMS?Here are just a sample. First,
you need self motivation and time.BMS is a study sim you need a
(05:34):
personal commitment to learn, one thatdoesn't rely on others. Second, you
need to fly regularly. You won'tget better unless you're learning new things and
solidifying what you've already learned. Third, you need some hardware. A throttle
and stick are greatly recommended, particularlya pair with a lot of hat switches.
(05:55):
Can you fly with a keyboard anda mouse? Yes, painfully,
it's really not recommended. Fourth,head tracking or VR get one or the
other. The gold standard for headtracking is track IR, but other cheap
alternatives will do just fine. Fifth, you need to buy a copy of
Falcon four point zero. It goesfor about five U S dollars on Steam
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and goog. Falcon BMS itself isfree, but its license as a mon
for Falcon four point zero for legalreasons. Falcon one, drag Net one,
Picture clean. You're listening to thetactical frequency, Brittings and welcome back.
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You're listening to the tactical frequency.I am your host, Bible Clinger.
So we were just talking about whatthis show is like, what this
podcast is set up to be,and that last announcement, by the way,
talking about buying Falcon four point ohfrom Steam and Goog. We'll talk
about that more in the future,but it looks like the future of BMS
(07:08):
might be a little bit different thanwe imagine, So if you are planning
on buying it from Goog, you'llhave to do it quickly since it's going
to be delisted shortly. But we'lltalk about that later. Right now,
let's talk about BMS for newbies.If you're new, and I guess one
of the things I should point out, we're not taking callers this episode.
(07:30):
So if you've heard this and you'rethinking, well, I'm gonna run and
going to go do this, notthis episode. We're gonna do it in
the future. Though. First step, let's get people to join the discord.
Whether you're new or a BMS veteran, please join the discord. I'd
love to hear feedback from you.Okay, with that out of the way,
let's get back to the idea ofBMS and new pilots. So there
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are two types of categories. Let'slet's say one people that have not tried
Falcon BMS yet, and then thereare others that have just started and they're
learning, but they're still at barebasics. So let's talk about the first
group, If you have not triedBMS, but you know you would like
(08:11):
to, then the question that Iwould pose right now is why wait.
I'd like to recommend that you bea little bit careful about coming up with
excuses as to why you don't wantto start yet. Now, this is
not talking about people that have reallife obligations or problems, or they lack
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the the hardware and they really can'tfly just yet. I'm talking about those
of you who have everything you needto get started, but you're delaying it
because you think it might be difficult. If you keep delaying it, it's
just going to be easier to delayit. You've got to make a decision
to actually get in there and tryit. So I'd like to share something
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I asked a group of people.Unscientific survey, if you will, but
I asked a question, and thesimple question I asked was what preconceived notions
did you have if any of FalconBMS before you started? And a lot
of these answers were all along thesame lines. The first one says that
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it was daunting. The second answersaid I knew it was going to be
daunting and complicated by a minute.For the long haul. So the idea
of BMS being daunting is it's veryinteresting. Some people will say, well,
I thought it was daunting, andthen they kind of act like it's
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not so bad, but others arelooking and saying, no, I thought
it was daunting and complicated, andit is, but it's manageable. I
can still overcome the complications. Sothese are people that are already out there
flying, that are already in multiplayerflights, and they have varying degrees of
skill. That quote was from somebodythat used to fly older versions like Falcon
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four point zero and Allied Force,you know, way back when those are
around, and other people are morenewish. Let's say to the F sixteen
in general into BMS. But thisis a general idea. In fact,
there's another quarter here. Falcon BMSis super complex and super niche. Indeed,
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it is super complex and super niche, but I actually think it is
relatively accessible as someone who only flieswith a midrange HOTS. So that opinion
right there kind of matches everything thatI'm saying as well. So if you
want to get into BMS, thenyou just have to start somewhere. You
(10:45):
should, honestly, at the veryleast, try downloading it, try installing
it. You can download it fromFalcon DASHBMS dot com or Falcon HYPHENBMS dot
com. Install it, set upthe controls. And by the way,
there are plenty of videos that haveopinions of different people who fly MS on
the perfect binding strategy. If youhave a joystick that does not have enough
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hat switches and you can't fit allof the controls on there, then there
are people out there that will say, well, the way it works for
me is and they'll give you astrategy for how to bind things. So
if you're worried about that, thereare plenty of YouTube videos. Just search
for them, try to find themost up to date ones that would make
just the most sense. But honestly, the strategies are going to be the
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same for the most part across BMSversions of general strategies. And then once
you get into it and start flyinga little bit, you start realizing,
wait, I need this button tobe more accessible. I don't like it
on the keyboard, I want iton my stick. And you'll figure it
out, and then maybe down theline, if you're really into this,
then you could buy a better joystickand throttle. If you've already got a
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good joystick and throttle, it's gotplenty of hats, switches, plenty of
buttons and everything, and dials,and then just binding you should be the
least of your concerns. It shouldbe you should have a focus on other
things. So now, the bestway of learning I don't think this is
really controversial at all, just tosay the best way of learning Falcon BMS
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is through multiplayer. You really haveto be flying with other pilots, particularly
pilots that are better than you,and have a greater understanding of how to
fly, how to participate, howto debrief. All of these things are
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very very important, but there arecertain things that you have to be able
to do before you can get intomultiplayer. You cannot install this jump into
multiplayer and expect to be effective.I mean, you can try it,
but the moment somebody tells you todo something or tells you what they're going
to do, if you can understandthe thing that they're saying, you don't
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even know how to get the jetoff the ground. I mean, you're
not really doing much at that point. So the bare basics, I would
say the first thing is gain somefamiliarity with the F sixteen. It's a
bonus if you can ramp start.And the reason why is because you'll become
very familiar with all of the switches, the switch oology, the mentality required
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to fly, and once you reallyappreciate the F sixteen controls the way it
was designed for the pilot to havehis hands on the thrittle and the stick,
a lot will begin to make senseto you as to why things are
designed the way they are. Italso helps when somebody tells you to flip
a switch when you get into trouble, you know, turn on a backup
system or something. You don't haveto just stare at a bunch of unfamiliar
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switches and go where is that.If you are doing ramp start, you
probably now know, at least ingeneral where these panels are all right,
so once you have a and youdon't even need this right away, but
like I was saying, general familiaritywill help. But the real requirements I
would say are to take off,navigate land, and employ some weapons.
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And this dictates what you can doonline. If, for example, you
can take off navigate land and youcan drop dumb bombs on targets with CCRP.
Then that is something you can doin multiplayer that gets you in with
the community to do online events.Then learning how to drop the bombs in
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CCIP is maybe the next step,or switching and doing another weapon, maybe
learning am rams or A nine orsomething like that. The next thing you
need to be able to do beforeyou get online is to be able to
communicate while doing all of the previousthings. So the coms hat switch needs
to be bound. You need tohave your radio's bound, and it helps
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to the data link things bound aswell, and that obviously brings us to
the next thing. Data link andtack in are also bonus things. If
you can figure those out, learnthem and single player you're doing really well.
So I asked people what was yourbiggest fear when you decided to fly
Falcon bms, And almost every singleone, even more so than the previous
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question, these were almost the sameanswer, one after the other. The
first answer was not being good enoughto fly with all the folks that had
been flying while I was away fromthe game. That was from somebody that
used to fly years ago. Thenext answer that I wouldn't have enough knowledge
and skill to be effective. Mybiggest fear and multiplayer was not knowing what
to do and learning how to bea wingman and not knowing what to do
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is okay to a certain extent,and he starts to give advice after that.
Another opinion was wondering if I hadenough knowledge to join multiplayer or not,
and the last opinion I got saiddisappointing others. So there are plenty
of people that want to get intomultiplayer, but they don't know if they're
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ready. If you can do theabove, if you can take off,
if you can navigate, if youcan land, and if you can employ
some weapons, add communication to that. If you can do all of that,
you're ready to start getting into multiplayernow. I should add also be
familiar with the BMS interface. That'sa real plus. But for the most
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part, it doesn't take that muchto get into multiplayer. So we're gonna
take a break right now and we'llresume in a bit. We're just getting
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started. We'll be back soon afterthis message. Founcon BMS comes with a
lot of manuals. If you're newto BMS or should you start, the
first manual you'll want to use isprobably the training manual. This is meant
to be used when you fly throughthe Tactical Engagement training missions. These training
missions come with Falcon BMS and arethere for you to learn various subjects from
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starting the jet to operating the radiosto employing weapons. But the training manual
is how you know what to doevery step of the way while you fly
these missions. You should have theTraining Manual ANDY on another monitor or on
another electronic device. The other manualsyou want to read are the DASH one
and the DASH three four. They'recalled this because they have DASH one and
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DASH three four in their very longnames. If you're looking for a reference
on how to fly the F sixteenor use any of its systems, you'll
want the DASH one. If you'relooking for information specifically on weapons employment,
you'll want the DASH three four.Drag Net one single group Rock two twenty
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thousand track South Bogie. You're listeningto the Tactical Frequency. Greetings and welcome
back to the Tactical Frequency. Sowe've covered a couple of things today.
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Last segment we talked about getting newpilots into BMS, and I want this
podcast to have a segment four.Veteran BMS pilots. So I mean I
want the theme of this general episodeto be new beginnings, and this section
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that I'm about to talk about stillfits this. The idea is that I
want this podcast to something for everyonein BMS. So if you've been flying
for or amount of time or along time, it doesn't really matter.
There's something in here that should makeyou want to come back and listen.
There's something here that's in there foryou that's either entertaining or informative or otherwise
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something that you want to listen to. Now, one of the things that
I could try to do is obviouslyI could try to impress people with something
new that they're unfamiliar with. Butif you've been flying this for ten years,
it's going to be difficult for meto impress veteran pilots with something that
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you know, I know that youmay not know, And not only that,
the degree of accuracy that I wouldneed to be at might just be
too high for me to do thisevery episode. And so what I'm asking
for here is for community feedback andparticipation. So feedback fits in the vein
of this entire show. It allowsme to figure out what topics the veterans
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of BMS would like to be covered. In my opinion, participation is where
we can really make this show really, really professional. We could discuss a
topic and then people in the communitycould provide their perspective in real time.
I've given the example previously about likeair to air refueling, but we can
cover all sorts of things, youknow, even some of them more dryer
(20:19):
topics of BMS. Once we're interestedin fragging packages, we could have community
involvement. How do you do that, what's the best way of doing it?
What tools do you need? Youknow, what's your workflow to design
a large event? We could talkabout air to ground operations, you know,
things like casts, more complicated ideas, or seed with harms? How
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do people actually use harms? Nowwith all the latest updates in BMS,
the community can provide their perspective onhow they do things, offer tips,
ask questions. You know, wecould have a given take so on in
this vein I ask folks last yearwhen thinking about this show, I asked
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for feedback. Of course, Iasked, you know, is there interest
in such a thing? And Igot positive feedback on that. But my
next question was what type of contentwould people be looking for. And the
first reply I got was anything todo with news tactics, real life stories,
or references. That's understandable. Thatmakes me think of other podcasts that
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I've heard, that one in particularthat is considered quite successful. Then another
opinion was, quote, maybe asection of Falcon for people who've forgotten how
to Falcon end quote. That's nota bad idea, but I'm not entirely
sure exactly how we would gauge.You know, if someone is rusty and
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coming back, how do we knowwhat they've forgotten? So maybe that would
fit into the sort of newby helpsection that we might be doing. So
if we're doing a segment on howto do things geared towards newbies, maybe
rusty pilots would be able to benefitfrom that. But if you guys have
ideas on how to help rusty pilots, by all means, let me know.
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I would be interested. And anotheropinion that makes a lot of sense
to me was somebody wrote interviews withinteresting people in the community or people tangentially
related to it. Interviews are agreat idea. Having guests are a great
idea. One person even told mehe thought the show would be terrible without
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guests. We absolutely need guests.You need to have guests on it.
Don't do it without guests. Now, I have maybe a complex view on
this. I don't disagree with that. I really think we do need community
involvement, and that's why I've goneto the extent I've gone to try to
get live interaction working with the technologythat we have. But I will have
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to say there is a challenge indoing interviews. So if you imagine this,
we can prerecord them. But ifwe're going to have this show the
way that it is, I reallywould like to have it as a fixed
length. I don't want to haveone episode it's five minutes, another episode
that's an hour long, and onethat's half an hour. And I notice
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a lot of podcasts do that,and there's nothing that dictates you can't do
that. But I would like tohave some level of uniformity to what we're
presenting, so you know exactly whatthis show is about, you know how
to break it down and listen towhat you want to listen to. And
the other thing is I want todo as little editing as possible, as
little post as possible, but prerecordinginterviews is definitely a valid option, and
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it might be better for the guestbecause then they can show up at whatever
time zone they're at. Is particularlyif we're in different time zones and you
know, we have to coordinate.That might make the most sense, and
I'm open to doing that. Alternatively, we can take a segment or even
an entire episode and do a liveinterview. The downside of that is that
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the guest is limited to the format. If we have a ten minute segment
and then you know, that's hisblock, he can talk about whatever he
wants. He's got ten minutes,and that might go faster than he thinks,
or on the other hand, maybehe runs out of material in five
minutes. You know, it alldepends on the guest. But if we
do an entire show or multiple segments, the nature of how we do this
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with breaks might be a little bitdifficult for some guests to adapt to.
And by the way, I definitelywant segments. I don't want to go
talking for the same subject for anhour without giving myself and any guests,
and definitely you the listeners multiple breaks. Now, one problem with a live
show is that the ghost, theghost of the guest has to be standing
(24:48):
by like a ghost for the exacttime to be welcomed on the program.
Right, He's got to be onthere at the exact time. And if
he's late, this is difficult forme to adapt, but really difficult for
him to recover. And you'd say, okay, why do we want him
at a particular lifetime? Well,what if we would like to have a
segment, let's say where a guestis on. Let's say that one of
(25:11):
the developers or whoever, agrees tocome on here. Okay, what if
we want to have a question andanswer period where people can quote unquote calling
into the show and ask the developersa question. That would be a nice
idea, But that requires everybody tobe around exactly at the same time.
So my whole point is that thereare logistical concerns, but let's put that
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aside for now. The other suggestionthat I got what to talk about would
be GCI tactics. Now, Ithink that's a fantastic topic to discuss,
and definitely it fits into the realmof advanced ideas that I would like to
for this segment. Now, Idon't want to go into this long right
now, but I think it's afantastic topic and I should really devote an
(25:56):
entire episode just to GCI tactics anddealing, because if you don't know,
when we say GCI, we werereferring to a human taking on the role
of a wax, and that opensup so many possibilities. It is incredibly
dynamic. I'm reminded of a timethat in a team versus team environment,
we were having trouble with our awax always being either shot down or just
(26:17):
not working. It was really weird. So we set up a mission with
a live GCI. We had everybodycoordinated together. The GCI was the package
lead for this one because we figuredhe'd have the most situational awareness, and
we shot down something ridiculous like twentynine aircraft in one mission, broke through
their front lines and bombed the airbase. It was a fantastic operation and we
(26:42):
could not have done that without thecoordination that we had. Now, in
terms of tactics, I'll give youone, guys. One tactic that we
actually used in team versus team.One pilot who really knew the viper very
well. He would ask the GCI, let me know when they're within such
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and such a range, and youknow, he gave me different criteria,
right, you know. But howhe would do this and what he wanted
is he wants the GCI to tellhim these things because he's turning his radar
off. So if you're on theenemy side, a lot of the times,
your RWR is what lights up firstand you get an idea, Hey,
there's an F sixteen out there orwhatever it is that you're being painted
(27:26):
by. You're like, hey,he's out there, so you're already knowing
to look for him before the AWAXtells you, before you ask, before
your radar season. But with thisguy, because his radar is off,
he's not sending out anything out therefor the enemy RWR to pick him up.
And then once he's known, okay, you're within whatever it is,
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thirty miles or something, he'd turnon his radar, lock him up and
be ready to go. And ifthe enemy wasn't ready, he's got seconds
to figure out he's being hard locked. So that's just one example of some
of the advanced things that we cando with GCI. But I think a
full episode would be good on thissubject. We'll catch you on the next
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segment don't go anywhere. We'll continueafter this break. Alpha, Bravo,
Charlie. You've probably heard phrases likethis in military movies. This is part
(28:32):
of the NATO Phonetic alphabet. It'sa way of saying words that represent letters.
For example, Alpha represents the letterA, Bravo represents the letter B.
You can probably already guess that Charlierepresents the letter C. These words
are used in place of letters becausethey are meant to be used over military
radios. Radio transmissions are not alwaysclear, particularly when you're in the middle
(28:56):
of a war. It also doesn'thelp that English has many letters that alsound
similar B, C, D,E, G, P, t V,
and even Z if you're from America. There are even some pronunciations that
matter. Quebec is the code forQ, but it's supposed to be pronounced
k back. Knowing all of this, you can spell any English word with
(29:18):
this system. Tango foxtrot would bethe initials of this podcast. The tactical
frequency. That one. This isthe tactical frequency. Welcome again to the
(29:45):
first episode of this podcast. Beforewe go any further, we probably should
address the very large eight bit elephantin the room first. Some basic history,
not a lot, just basic bearhistory of Falcon BMS. It actually
has a very long and complicated history, so we're going to simplify it for
(30:06):
you. It was born out ofthe Falcon series, specifically Falcon four point
zero. So Falcon four point zerocame out in the late nineties, and
soon after it came out, thecompany that owned the intellectual property went under.
They went bankrupt, and it juststopped being supported. The source code
was eventually leaked to the public andmatters were all trying to rewrite the game
(30:30):
with the existing source code that theynow had, adding here, changing there.
Benchmark Simms was one of those eventualmodding teams now Benchmark SIMS. The
developers of Falcon BMS have had alicense agreement with the current IP holder,
which was Telmo. Temo was themost recent owner, and Benchmark Simms were
(30:56):
licensed and allowed with certain restrictions tocontinue their development of BMS under this license.
Now, one of the requirements whenyou install BMS is that you have
Falcon four point zero installed on yourcomputer prior and only then will BMS actually
be installed. Now, this mightbe something that was part of their negotiations
(31:19):
in the license agreement. I don'tthink the license agreement was ever made public,
but it would not surprise me ifthis was actually a requirement. So
let's fast forward now to the present. The news that just hit recently was
that Atari bought a bunch of oldgames from the eighties and nineties. Falcon
(31:41):
four point zero was not listed inthe article that I read. However,
Goog announced that they were delisting theFalcon Collection, citing quote a change of
licensing rights. The full Forum postis as follows. Quote We'd like to
inform you that, due to thechange of licensing rights, Falcon Collection will
(32:01):
be delisted from our catalog on Thursday, April twenty seven, three pm UTC.
For everyone who purchased the title priorto delisting, it will remain in
their Goog library end quote. Sowhat exactly does this mean for Falcon BMS
and its future? Now, first, I should know it is speculation that
(32:25):
Atari actually bought this, bought Falconfour point zero, the rights to Falcon
foy point zero, at least fromwhat I can see right now. Probably
by the time you're listening to thisepisode, it will be known whether that's
the case or not. But forthe sake of this discussion. Since a
lot of people currently right now areoperating under this assumption, let's just explore
(32:49):
it. If Atari owns the rightsto Falcon four point zero, then that
means essentially they could in theory,order Benchmark Simms to stop work king on
Falcon BMS. They could send thema cease and desist letter, so this
could become a legal issue. Now, if I understand the history of Falcon
(33:12):
correctly, this actually happened about twentyyears ago. Atari had the rights to
Falcon four point zero and ordered theBMS team to stop working on Falcon BMS.
That's my understanding of the history.This is like twenty years ago.
Now we could look and say,okay, but why did they do that
(33:35):
then? What are they doing now? What are their motivations? Well,
first, let's say Atari stands tomake some money on Falcon four point z
sales just by letting Benchmark SIMS continuetheir current development. Let's be honest.
Most people do not buy Falcon fourpoint zero because they want to run that
They run it, or rather theybuy it because they want to run Falcon
(33:57):
BMS. People seem to forget Falconfour point zero in its old state was
not very stable. It would crasha lot, and a lot of the
things that Matters were really initially involvedin was just the basic task of fixing
bugs and improving things. So ifAtari saw BMS is their meal ticket to
(34:22):
making a little bit more money,then this would be good if they just
let them continue. And it seemsthat right now that's the current current feeling
from what I've seen in terms ofpublic statements from the BMS depths. Right
now, they seem to be calm, not wanting to comment except to say,
(34:45):
well, until we hear anything,we just assume everything is good.
That doesn't sound like a definitive statementthat they've heard anything or not. It
just seems to be that they justdon't want anybody to panic right now and
that nothing has definitively changed. Butnonetheless things could change if a new license
holder changes their mind. So rightnow, Falcon BMS is actually scheduled to
(35:12):
see the new version four point threeeight released. I know some people have
said it's supposed to be released theend of this year, but always things
can change with rumors and different ideas. But the new version is supposed to
have a new terrain engine. I'veseen screenshots of it, and it's definitely
an improvement to what we have now. Now if you consider Atari could in
(35:37):
theory attempt to put an end toall this, and the obvious question would
be why why would you want todo this? Well, I think the
fear that some people have is thatthis would play out a little bit like
it did in the past, becausethere could be an attempt to commercialize Falcon.
For example, Atari could in theorytell Benchmark Simms stop doing what you're
(36:00):
doing. They could use the existingsource code of Falcon BMS and create a
commercialized version based on the latest versionof Falcon BMS that they have, and
then they could try to stop allmodding efforts that are free and force everyone
to go buy the latest commercial version. That's what I think everyone fears now.
(36:25):
Of course, the question would bedoes this even look lucrative to Atari?
Is this something that they would evenwant to do, Because if you
do try to kill the madding sceneby killing off Benchmark Simms, you might
end up just killing the community.Nobody buys your product, nobody flies anything,
and then you've destroyed the Falcon fourpoint zero ip in any meaningful way.
(36:51):
So it's a little bit of arisk for Atari to do this,
but this could be like an attemptat making Allied Force two Allied for us
being the last attempt to commercialize Falcon, I believe after the fall of four
point zero. It's also worth interestingby the way, Falcon development by monning
(37:12):
teams was not always done with licensingagreements. Most of it was actually done
in spite of a lack of alicense agreement. No one really cared who
the IP holders were. They justwanted a better if sixteen SIMM to fly.
So even in theory, if Ataridid by the Falcon four point a
license, and even if they didorder Benchmark SIMS not to continue, it's
(37:35):
actually a real possibility that the cyclewould continue. Either the source code would
become leaked or the BMS team wouldgo underground and develop in secret. It's
obviously we're just wildly speculating, butsome of the speculation is based on things
that have actually happened in the pastover the last twenty years, so it's
(37:58):
probably a good idea right now,Like not with it. We don't want
anyone to panic or think, oh, they're destroying Falcon. None of that's
happening. This is just exploring thewhat ifs. But still I think it's
still good to look at what isthe BMS experience? What does it mean
to fly in Falcon BMS, Whatdo you get out of it? Why
do you do it? What doyou appreciate about it? And would it
(38:21):
be the same thing if a differentteam was working on it, and if
they were making you pay for it. Just something to think about. And
then of course it's always good toappreciate what you have while you have it,
because I think sometimes we don't alwaysappreciate what we have until there's a
threat of losing it. And nowsuddenly people are looking at BMS and hearing
(38:45):
this news and they're getting a littlebit concerned, and you're thinking, you
know, maybe we won't get anymore updates. And I have to admit,
for me, for Falcon BMS,one of the things I always liked
about it was not necessarily what wasin it, but the potential. There
was always the idea that well,this isn't maybe working on this version,
but you know it could be comingin a future update, and sure enough
(39:07):
it would certain things like when theupdate came and we got if that was
fantastic. So that type of potentialthat there's no real limitation. We could
one day get LINK sixteen or thisterrain engine or whatever else. All of
these ideas that people have been askingfor. We keep thinking we'll get it
in the next version or maybe aversion thereafter. So that's always important.
(39:31):
But it's also good to be thankfulfor what we currently have. So just
some thoughts on a complicated subject.We'll be right back after this break.
(39:52):
Stay with us. Have you everlistened to a multiplayer emission and heard people
say something like fox three or defensivesay two. This is what is known
as brevity. Are pilots who flyflight sims just trying to sound cool by
speaking in a sort of pilot code. No, not at all. First,
let's understand that the radios in theF sixteen are half duplex. When
(40:15):
you're transmitting, you're blocking yourself fromhearing any other transmissions on that same radio.
Another problem is that if two pilotstransmit at the same time, these
two competing transmissions end up clashing inFalcon bms, the non transmitting pilots don't
hear voices. Instead, they heargarbage audio that sounds like bad dubstep music.
(40:37):
Using brevity, is not strictly necessary, but a team that doesn't use
it will be at a disadvantage.You can begin learning brevity by watching videos
of multiplayer missions, as well asby opening the real life non classified manuals
that come with BMS, specifically theBM and atp Falcon one drag Net one
(41:00):
negative. We need you here onthe tactical frequency. Welcome back. This
is the tactical frequency. And againI am your host Bible Clinger. I
(41:22):
wanted to do a little bit ofa segment here on the future of BMS
and the community in general. So, like I said before, the theme
that we had here was new beginnings, new beginnings for the podcast. It's
a new beginning for new players gettinginto BMS. It's a new beginning with
(41:42):
the new license holder or whatever therumors are with this potentials for new beginnings
everywhere, and we're also looking atthe future of BMS with four point three
eight supposedly around the corner. Wellobviously when we stay around the corner,
we don't know exactly when. Itcould be the end of the year,
it could be next year. Butwe've been waiting for this update for a
(42:05):
while. The developers have been talkingabout it for quite some time, and
so the best way of getting readyfor that, I would say there are
two things I really want to address. I mean, the first actually is
pretty simple. Let's say, ifyou're new to BMS, if you haven't
tried it, please get into itnow. It's probably the best time to
really start getting ready before we havea really major update. But the other
(42:30):
thing I would say is that ifyou're already in the community, if you're
already part of a major subsection ofthe Falcon BMS community, then we should
really focus on making sure that weare in a position to welcome newer pilots.
Now, why do I say that, I do think that four point
three eight has the potential to bringin a lot of new players, people
(42:52):
that maybe have been watching BMS butthey're not too thrilled about whatever the older
graphics compared to other flight sims.And we've already got the VR update,
and we had an influx of peoplecoming into try VR now with better terrain
and new options. In four pointthree eight, I could see another group
(43:15):
of people deciding now's the time totry BMS, So we really should be
prepared for that. To think aboutwhat type of community we want to be
when that happens. And obviously weshould always be helpful. If you're a
BMS veteran and you've flown BMS foryears, I mean, obviously it helps
think about when you were new,and let's try to be helpful to the
(43:37):
new people. And also we reallyshould be helpful to other BMS veterans.
Sometimes the SIM changes and the peoplethat had learned things, they did their
due diligence, they read the manuals, they studied, they watch videos,
they flew for years, and thenthey leave and things have changed. This
(43:59):
sim gets dated and something doesn't workanymore. I'm reminded of just a recent
flight I actually that just happened wherewe had some people that had no idea
how the data link worked. Andthat's not because they didn't fly before it,
didn't study it. It's because thedata link underwent massive changes over the
(44:19):
years. It used to be thateverybody could be on the data link and
BMS you could run it in continuousand all the members of the flight would
get perfect updates. They'd be ableto see where everybody is, and it
was actually, I mean, youcould get an update on any eight people
that you wanted all seven if youdon't count yourself, And that wasn't really
(44:42):
the way that the system was supposedto be working. Apparently the BMS devs
came in there and change that sothat now it's a little bit more complicated,
and I won't get into all ofthe details, but it can get
a little bit technical when you startputting in certain people in your table for
the data link of who you wantto communicate with, and other people put
in other different ideas. The worstthing that you can do is have mismatched
(45:07):
tables and somebody puts it on continuousmode or continuous updates, because that essentially
jams other people outside of using thedata link. They can't even see members
of their own flight sometimes, andthere's always somebody that does that because they
really just don't understand how the datalink works. And sometimes it's because they're
(45:28):
basing this off of old, oldknowledge, something they had done before,
or something someone told them was validto do when it was valid to do
it. So we want to behelpful with that. Sometimes that could be
done with better documentation. Maybe itneeds to be clear what's been updated,
or maybe we need to be betterabout putting out different content ourselves in terms
(45:52):
of the community by informing people what'sbeen changed. Sometimes maybe this isn't a
good example, but you know,there are different ways of being helpful,
and sometimes it makes sense for itto come from the debs or to come
from the community. Now, interms of I mean, obviously that's the
first thing I want to say iswe should be a good community, and
(46:12):
I think by and large the falconUns community has been very friendly. I've
actually been impressed at times with howfriendly they know they can be to people
and how welcoming. Now, ofcourse, we're all humans and there are
times where I've seen some negative thingsfrom people within the community. That's not
surprising, but overall, we wantto make sure that the community does not
(46:35):
ever change from that idea of itbeing friendly, and it's always been a
concern of mine, particularly last year, I mean a little bit more aware
for various reasons of when there arethings that are not going as smoothly as
they should be. So that's whyI wanted to take the time and mention
that we should really be focused onthis from a community perspective. We should
(46:57):
be ready to welcome other people fourpoint three eight. Now on the flip
side, I have heard from peopleoutside of the community that some of them
see BMS folks as elitist, andthat's the term that I've heard, elitist,
And I'm not sure where this iscoming from. I really don't know
(47:22):
why people would think that. Now, if you fly BMS as your main
sim, you probably think it's thebest sim. If you fly DCS as
your main sim, you probably thinkit's the best sim. That's not being
elitist, in my opinion, notin and of itself. That's just having
an opinion and then making a logicalchoice on which sim to fly based on
(47:44):
your opinion. If I thought,you know, DCS was better than BMS,
but I never flew DCS, thatwould just be strange. Why would
I never fly it? So ifyou enter a BMS community only to be
shocked, shocked that everyone really likesto fly BMS and they're not impressed with
(48:06):
other flight sims, I'm not reallysure what to tell you. That's just
obvious to me that every community believesin the product that that community is centered
around. So I'm not sure ifif that's where it's coming from, or
maybe something else. It is possiblethat some people think that BMS pilots are
(48:29):
elite or elitists. Excuse me,because when they come to a BMS community,
they get told to read the manualwhen they have a tech question.
Now, being told to read themanual is not elitist in and of itself
either, Be honest, is ahuge sim to learn. There are systems,
and there are subsystems to the systems. Then even if you understand how
(48:52):
everything works, you have to addtactics on top of it in order to
get the best performance. You know, like, even if you know technically
how to fire weapons, what ifthey're not hitting? What if you're getting
killed before you can do anything.So let's come up with some example.
Look, if you ask a verycomplicated question, how do we explain the
(49:15):
answer to you in a simple discordtext chat? So an example, a
newbie shows up and asks the question, how do I fire an Amram?
Well, that question is already assigned. It's just something is very very wrong.
Are we to assume he knows howto select the amram? Are we
to assume he knows how to turnmaster arm on? How about how to
(49:39):
operate the FCR and lock up atarget? Or does he even know how
to id his target. Is heliterally asking how to press and hold the
weapon's release button? Actually, thatreally might be his problem. He might
not be holding it. He mightbe assuming it's a short press when amrams
require a long press. But whatdo we say when we tell him press
(50:04):
and hold the weapon's release button andhe replies, didn't work. I mean,
at this point, he's not givingon us enough information to go on.
And I do think a lot ofthis does rest with him the questionnaire
at this point, and the problemis that he clearly didn't do any real
work here. There are manuals,including the training manuals, that walk you
(50:28):
through stuff like this, and thereare YouTube videos done in all sorts of
different styles that tell you how todo these kind of things, so they
can adapt or you can adapt theresources to your learning style. If you
want to watch, if you're moreof a visual learner, you think and
you'd rather watch a video, orif you'd like to read the manual,
you have these options. Now,for some people, perhaps reading manuals is
(50:52):
outdated, particularly for a video game, but in BMS, it's absolutely essential
that you learn how to learn,and if you're asking questions like this,
how do I fire an ambram?Your learning will be very painful and it's
also not much fun for the peoplewho are trying to help you. Not
(51:14):
to be clear, I'm not sayingthat, you know, if you've asked
this question, you're you know,you're wrong, You're terrible, And I'm
not saying that. I'm just sayingthis is not the way to learn,
This is not the way forward,and it's that's not necessarily your fault that
you don't know this, but youneed to use the resources at your disposal.
At some point, you need tohave a basic foundation in order to
(51:35):
ask your questions. So, forexample, if somebody asks how do I
lock up a target? That answeris also complex, barring explanations of how
the radar works and how the targetingpod works. We can try guessing and
say TMS up, which is obviouslythe hat switch on the stick for targeting.
We're telling him to push the hatswitch in the up direction. But
(51:55):
when he says what's that, he'snot ready for a long answer, he's
not ready for an explanation. Now, better yet, if he says,
okay, yeah, TMS, whatbutton is that? Folks, we don't
remember a lot of the default binds, especially the binds that really should be
easily accessible on the throttle or stick, we bind those to our throttle and
stick, so we don't know whatyour control is for it. We don't
(52:19):
often remember the defaults. And then, of course if you want us to
look up the defaults, well,I mean, at that point, you
know, why don't you look themup? It's literally in the same documentation
that we have. So telling someoneto read the manual is not always meant
to be a condemnation. Sometimes it'srather merciful. For one, it stops
(52:42):
you from learning in a very inefficientmanner by asking questions that just pop into
your head in an order that soundslinear to you but probably is not so
linear from the perspective of how bestto learn. So it also frees up
time for people who are volunteering theretime to answer questions for free. So
I don't know, I don't thinkthat we're an elitist community, but some
(53:07):
people think so. Perhaps hopefully wecan change that to join the tactical frequency
discord use, discord invitation code uppercase, ROMEO lowercase, Charlie Niner, Sierra
Niner, Bravo, Yankee, Papawhiskey kilo. You're excited to get into
(53:32):
a Falcon BMS multiplayer session just tofind out that the mission would require air
air refueling. That can be intimidating, particularly if you already know you're non
good at getting fuel from the tanker. If you're new to BMS, I
wouldn't recommend rushing to learn it unlessit's very important to you, But eventually
it's a good skill to have.So where do you begin. Step one,
(53:55):
become proficient at flying formation. Othershave suggested flying formation and with the
tanker in single player as initial practice. Step two. Understand that the throttle
of the F sixteen will feel abit delayed the act ahead of time.
If you know you're going too slow, don't wait to apply thrust. Step
three. Rock the throttle aggressively,but give gentler movements to the stick.
(54:19):
Step four. Be patient. Thisis like riding a bicycle. You'll be
terrible at it until one day itjust clicks. Step five. Once you
have it, practice periodically to keepin shape. Falcon one drag Net one
coffee fuel yellow sending relief. Pleasestay on the tactical frequency. Welcome back
(54:47):
to the last segment of the firstepisode of the Tactical Frequency. It's been
actually quite fun. It's also beena little bit stressful. There's a lot
of work that goes into this,but overall on pretty happy with where we're
going. I do have to say, though, that we are at the
point now we're really I'm passing nowthis over to you, the listener.
(55:10):
If this is a project that youlike, if this is a project that
you see potential in, please jointhe discord, join the community, and
help me make this podcast better.I've heard for a while some people saying
they thought BMS could use a podcast. I think it definitely could. We're
(55:30):
not a very large community, butI do think to some degree are a
very passionate community, and I thinkif we want to make something like this
succeed, we very much can.So thank you everyone for listening to this
episode. And again I'm asking forsupport, and I'd like to remind everyone
that you can take steps to influencethe future of this endeavor. So when
(55:52):
I say support, what do Imean? First Please listen to this Listen
to this podcast, Listen to theepisodes, to share and discuss the podcast,
let other people know about it.Maybe you've got friends that want to
get into BMS, or maybe they'vebeen thinking about it, they're on the
fence. Maybe there are people thatwould like to discuss advanced tactics, all
(56:13):
sorts of ideas. Please share anddiscuss this. And obviously, like I
said, join the discord. Thisis where we can get feedback, take
calls, listen live. The callswill only work if we have people that
want to participate. If it's thesame you know, just me every week
or every month or whatever, orand it's just one or two other people
(56:34):
that are calling all the time,I mean, it's essentially just turning into
like a three host show, right, So we would welcome diversity of thought.
I would like to have more peopleparticipate. And the last way you
can help is to be a goodexample, both for people inside the community
and for people on the outside.This will be the way for us to
grow the community, not just thetactical frequency community, but the Falcon BMS
(57:00):
community in general. And I thinkthat's a good thing. I think we
have a lot of potential here.So that's where we're heading right now.
And I would like to ask again, you know, just that everyone takes
this as seriously as they could.For the purposes that I mentioned, and
with that we're actually coming to theclose here. I'd like to thank pis
(57:22):
of a dot com for the music, Tchsfree dot com for the voiceovers.
I used a lot of the musicfrom pis of A. I mean,
I actually you'm looking at the listhere, I use like shark Hunt,
this world has gone crazy in jazz, fun, disco, rockets, summer
hip hop, ad desert Storm,and many more. These are I think
they add a little bit of lifeto the show. I've really appreciated these
(57:45):
little things. I was able todo the little blurbs. If you have
ideas for those, by the way, little sixty second segments that I could
put in here, or if somebodyactually wants to do advertising for some reason,
that's also an idea, mum,you know, just anything along those
lines. It would be good toget feedback. So this has been a
(58:07):
grand experiment. I'm actually really excitedto see the future of where this could
go. So thank you guys onceagain for listening. Falcon one Dragnet one.
(59:57):
You are now leaving the tactical frequency
You've tuned into the Tactical Frequency,a podcast centered around all things Falcon BMS
readings and welcome to the Tactical Frequency. This is the first episode of this
podcast. It's a podcast centered aroundall things Falcon BMS. Falcon BMS.
(00:33):
If you haven't heard of it already, chances are you probably have heard of
it. But if you haven't,it is an excellent F sixteen flight sim
and it's actually available for free.The only thing you need is a valid
copy of Falcon four point zero,which generally goes for about five US dollars
something around that. So this podcast, this is designed for people who are
(01:00):
interested in flight sims, particularly thoseinterested in the F sixteen and air combat,
because that's pretty much what Falcon BMSis centered around. So if you
like those types of ideas, thenthis podcast is definitely for you. So
the format of the show, we'regoing to do things a little bit differently.
(01:21):
And of course, the first thingI should know this is the first
episode, so you know, thismay be a little bit rough around the
edges. We do need people tobe a little bit patient, let's say,
on the first episode. But Ithink we have something good playing.
I'm actually pretty excited about this.I think this is a good project and
(01:42):
I think there's been a ton ofthought and effort put into it that will
be readily apparent. So first thingto note, we are doing this in
the spirit of radio. We're doingthis in the vein of talk radio,
and we still have to work outa schedule. Often we want to do
this when we're going to do this, but we have a lot of options.
The benefit of doing this like radiois that we can do this live.
(02:07):
We don't have to do a lotof work in post and that is
actually really really good because you canget bogged down, I think in post
production, whereas if you have everythingset up properly, you can do the
show in a good setting and justrun through it and make it work.
(02:28):
Obviously, both have challenges, butbeyond the format, my goal for this
podcast is that this show should bea forum and a venue for people in
the Falcon Byness community who would liketo speak their mind. You can hear
from people that are like minded orpeople who differ. We can have diversity
(02:49):
of thought. But as long asit's about Falcon bms and as long as
it's positive and constructive, I thinkit should be on here. Now that's
not to say we can't have criticisms, but I mean it should be positive
in the sense that it should beconstructive. So the idea of this being
done in radio. We do havebreaks, these segments, or rather this
(03:14):
show is broken up into segments.We have musical transitions, room for commercials,
public service announcements. You will hearsome of these PSAs related to BMS
and things like that throughout this show. And this show can support guests,
so we can do guests. Wealso want this to be able to be
(03:34):
carried by a host, so obviouslythat would be me here. I'm going
to be doing my best this episode. We don't have any guests this episode
and nothing like that, but inthe future, the plan is to have
guests. And the plan is alsoto support the equivalent in radio of callers,
so that means that live we couldbe able to have people show up
(03:59):
on the show and you know,give their opinion on something, you know,
ten seconds or something. Just geton here. Let's say we're doing
a show on air to air refuelingand you want to give your you know,
top tips on how to do airto air refueling. You could do
that we could literally have people andwe would do that through discord staging.
So a discord stage channel in thereyou have the ability to sort of signal
(04:20):
that you'd like to be on theshow. We could pull you on.
You give your ten second point.This is how I do air to air
refueling. I do this, Ilook at the lights this way, and
then the next caller could come onand give his point, and we could
do this on a number of differentsegments or different styles. So I'm really
(04:40):
excited about that first thing. I'drecommend, though, get a pen and
paper or some ability to take notes, because we're coming up to our first
break and the information for the discordinvite is going to be read out.
So if you'd like to join theTactical Frequency Discord, you're going to want
to be ready and take down thefollowing information. To join the Tactical Frequency
(05:13):
Discord. Use invitation code uppercase,Romeo, lowercase, Charlie Niner, Sierra
Niner, Bravo, Yankee, PapaWhiskey, Kilo. What are some of
the prerequisites to learn Falcon BMS?Here are just a sample. First,
you need self motivation and time.BMS is a study sim you need a
(05:34):
personal commitment to learn, one thatdoesn't rely on others. Second, you
need to fly regularly. You won'tget better unless you're learning new things and
solidifying what you've already learned. Third, you need some hardware. A throttle
and stick are greatly recommended, particularlya pair with a lot of hat switches.
(05:55):
Can you fly with a keyboard anda mouse? Yes, painfully,
it's really not recommended. Fourth,head tracking or VR get one or the
other. The gold standard for headtracking is track IR, but other cheap
alternatives will do just fine. Fifth, you need to buy a copy of
Falcon four point zero. It goesfor about five U S dollars on Steam
(06:16):
and goog. Falcon BMS itself isfree, but its license as a mon
for Falcon four point zero for legalreasons. Falcon one, drag Net one,
Picture clean. You're listening to thetactical frequency, Brittings and welcome back.
(06:46):
You're listening to the tactical frequency.I am your host, Bible Clinger.
So we were just talking about whatthis show is like, what this
podcast is set up to be,and that last announcement, by the way,
talking about buying Falcon four point ohfrom Steam and Goog. We'll talk
about that more in the future,but it looks like the future of BMS
(07:08):
might be a little bit different thanwe imagine, So if you are planning
on buying it from Goog, you'llhave to do it quickly since it's going
to be delisted shortly. But we'lltalk about that later. Right now,
let's talk about BMS for newbies.If you're new, and I guess one
of the things I should point out, we're not taking callers this episode.
(07:30):
So if you've heard this and you'rethinking, well, I'm gonna run and
going to go do this, notthis episode. We're gonna do it in
the future. Though. First step, let's get people to join the discord.
Whether you're new or a BMS veteran, please join the discord. I'd
love to hear feedback from you.Okay, with that out of the way,
let's get back to the idea ofBMS and new pilots. So there
(07:50):
are two types of categories. Let'slet's say one people that have not tried
Falcon BMS yet, and then thereare others that have just started and they're
learning, but they're still at barebasics. So let's talk about the first
group, If you have not triedBMS, but you know you would like
(08:11):
to, then the question that Iwould pose right now is why wait.
I'd like to recommend that you bea little bit careful about coming up with
excuses as to why you don't wantto start yet. Now, this is
not talking about people that have reallife obligations or problems, or they lack
(08:35):
the the hardware and they really can'tfly just yet. I'm talking about those
of you who have everything you needto get started, but you're delaying it
because you think it might be difficult. If you keep delaying it, it's
just going to be easier to delayit. You've got to make a decision
to actually get in there and tryit. So I'd like to share something
(08:58):
I asked a group of people.Unscientific survey, if you will, but
I asked a question, and thesimple question I asked was what preconceived notions
did you have if any of FalconBMS before you started? And a lot
of these answers were all along thesame lines. The first one says that
(09:18):
it was daunting. The second answersaid I knew it was going to be
daunting and complicated by a minute.For the long haul. So the idea
of BMS being daunting is it's veryinteresting. Some people will say, well,
I thought it was daunting, andthen they kind of act like it's
(09:39):
not so bad, but others arelooking and saying, no, I thought
it was daunting and complicated, andit is, but it's manageable. I
can still overcome the complications. Sothese are people that are already out there
flying, that are already in multiplayerflights, and they have varying degrees of
skill. That quote was from somebodythat used to fly older versions like Falcon
(10:03):
four point zero and Allied Force,you know, way back when those are
around, and other people are morenewish. Let's say to the F sixteen
in general into BMS. But thisis a general idea. In fact,
there's another quarter here. Falcon BMSis super complex and super niche. Indeed,
(10:24):
it is super complex and super niche, but I actually think it is
relatively accessible as someone who only flieswith a midrange HOTS. So that opinion
right there kind of matches everything thatI'm saying as well. So if you
want to get into BMS, thenyou just have to start somewhere. You
(10:45):
should, honestly, at the veryleast, try downloading it, try installing
it. You can download it fromFalcon DASHBMS dot com or Falcon HYPHENBMS dot
com. Install it, set upthe controls. And by the way,
there are plenty of videos that haveopinions of different people who fly MS on
the perfect binding strategy. If youhave a joystick that does not have enough
(11:11):
hat switches and you can't fit allof the controls on there, then there
are people out there that will say, well, the way it works for
me is and they'll give you astrategy for how to bind things. So
if you're worried about that, thereare plenty of YouTube videos. Just search
for them, try to find themost up to date ones that would make
just the most sense. But honestly, the strategies are going to be the
(11:33):
same for the most part across BMSversions of general strategies. And then once
you get into it and start flyinga little bit, you start realizing,
wait, I need this button tobe more accessible. I don't like it
on the keyboard, I want iton my stick. And you'll figure it
out, and then maybe down theline, if you're really into this,
then you could buy a better joystickand throttle. If you've already got a
(11:56):
good joystick and throttle, it's gotplenty of hats, switches, plenty of
buttons and everything, and dials,and then just binding you should be the
least of your concerns. It shouldbe you should have a focus on other
things. So now, the bestway of learning I don't think this is
really controversial at all, just tosay the best way of learning Falcon BMS
(12:18):
is through multiplayer. You really haveto be flying with other pilots, particularly
pilots that are better than you,and have a greater understanding of how to
fly, how to participate, howto debrief. All of these things are
(12:39):
very very important, but there arecertain things that you have to be able
to do before you can get intomultiplayer. You cannot install this jump into
multiplayer and expect to be effective.I mean, you can try it,
but the moment somebody tells you todo something or tells you what they're going
to do, if you can understandthe thing that they're saying, you don't
(13:01):
even know how to get the jetoff the ground. I mean, you're
not really doing much at that point. So the bare basics, I would
say the first thing is gain somefamiliarity with the F sixteen. It's a
bonus if you can ramp start.And the reason why is because you'll become
very familiar with all of the switches, the switch oology, the mentality required
(13:24):
to fly, and once you reallyappreciate the F sixteen controls the way it
was designed for the pilot to havehis hands on the thrittle and the stick,
a lot will begin to make senseto you as to why things are
designed the way they are. Italso helps when somebody tells you to flip
a switch when you get into trouble, you know, turn on a backup
system or something. You don't haveto just stare at a bunch of unfamiliar
(13:48):
switches and go where is that.If you are doing ramp start, you
probably now know, at least ingeneral where these panels are all right,
so once you have a and youdon't even need this right away, but
like I was saying, general familiaritywill help. But the real requirements I
would say are to take off,navigate land, and employ some weapons.
(14:13):
And this dictates what you can doonline. If, for example, you
can take off navigate land and youcan drop dumb bombs on targets with CCRP.
Then that is something you can doin multiplayer that gets you in with
the community to do online events.Then learning how to drop the bombs in
(14:39):
CCIP is maybe the next step,or switching and doing another weapon, maybe
learning am rams or A nine orsomething like that. The next thing you
need to be able to do beforeyou get online is to be able to
communicate while doing all of the previousthings. So the coms hat switch needs
to be bound. You need tohave your radio's bound, and it helps
(15:01):
to the data link things bound aswell, and that obviously brings us to
the next thing. Data link andtack in are also bonus things. If
you can figure those out, learnthem and single player you're doing really well.
So I asked people what was yourbiggest fear when you decided to fly
Falcon bms, And almost every singleone, even more so than the previous
(15:24):
question, these were almost the sameanswer, one after the other. The
first answer was not being good enoughto fly with all the folks that had
been flying while I was away fromthe game. That was from somebody that
used to fly years ago. Thenext answer that I wouldn't have enough knowledge
and skill to be effective. Mybiggest fear and multiplayer was not knowing what
to do and learning how to bea wingman and not knowing what to do
(15:46):
is okay to a certain extent,and he starts to give advice after that.
Another opinion was wondering if I hadenough knowledge to join multiplayer or not,
and the last opinion I got saiddisappointing others. So there are plenty
of people that want to get intomultiplayer, but they don't know if they're
(16:07):
ready. If you can do theabove, if you can take off,
if you can navigate, if youcan land, and if you can employ
some weapons, add communication to that. If you can do all of that,
you're ready to start getting into multiplayernow. I should add also be
familiar with the BMS interface. That'sa real plus. But for the most
(16:27):
part, it doesn't take that muchto get into multiplayer. So we're gonna
take a break right now and we'llresume in a bit. We're just getting
(16:51):
started. We'll be back soon afterthis message. Founcon BMS comes with a
lot of manuals. If you're newto BMS or should you start, the
first manual you'll want to use isprobably the training manual. This is meant
to be used when you fly throughthe Tactical Engagement training missions. These training
missions come with Falcon BMS and arethere for you to learn various subjects from
(17:15):
starting the jet to operating the radiosto employing weapons. But the training manual
is how you know what to doevery step of the way while you fly
these missions. You should have theTraining Manual ANDY on another monitor or on
another electronic device. The other manualsyou want to read are the DASH one
and the DASH three four. They'recalled this because they have DASH one and
(17:40):
DASH three four in their very longnames. If you're looking for a reference
on how to fly the F sixteenor use any of its systems, you'll
want the DASH one. If you'relooking for information specifically on weapons employment,
you'll want the DASH three four.Drag Net one single group Rock two twenty
(18:03):
thousand track South Bogie. You're listeningto the Tactical Frequency. Greetings and welcome
back to the Tactical Frequency. Sowe've covered a couple of things today.
(18:26):
Last segment we talked about getting newpilots into BMS, and I want this
podcast to have a segment four.Veteran BMS pilots. So I mean I
want the theme of this general episodeto be new beginnings, and this section
(18:49):
that I'm about to talk about stillfits this. The idea is that I
want this podcast to something for everyonein BMS. So if you've been flying
for or amount of time or along time, it doesn't really matter.
There's something in here that should makeyou want to come back and listen.
There's something here that's in there foryou that's either entertaining or informative or otherwise
(19:11):
something that you want to listen to. Now, one of the things that
I could try to do is obviouslyI could try to impress people with something
new that they're unfamiliar with. Butif you've been flying this for ten years,
it's going to be difficult for meto impress veteran pilots with something that
(19:33):
you know, I know that youmay not know, And not only that,
the degree of accuracy that I wouldneed to be at might just be
too high for me to do thisevery episode. And so what I'm asking
for here is for community feedback andparticipation. So feedback fits in the vein
of this entire show. It allowsme to figure out what topics the veterans
(19:56):
of BMS would like to be covered. In my opinion, participation is where
we can really make this show really, really professional. We could discuss a
topic and then people in the communitycould provide their perspective in real time.
I've given the example previously about likeair to air refueling, but we can
cover all sorts of things, youknow, even some of them more dryer
(20:19):
topics of BMS. Once we're interestedin fragging packages, we could have community
involvement. How do you do that, what's the best way of doing it?
What tools do you need? Youknow, what's your workflow to design
a large event? We could talkabout air to ground operations, you know,
things like casts, more complicated ideas, or seed with harms? How
(20:40):
do people actually use harms? Nowwith all the latest updates in BMS,
the community can provide their perspective onhow they do things, offer tips,
ask questions. You know, wecould have a given take so on in
this vein I ask folks last yearwhen thinking about this show, I asked
(21:00):
for feedback. Of course, Iasked, you know, is there interest
in such a thing? And Igot positive feedback on that. But my
next question was what type of contentwould people be looking for. And the
first reply I got was anything todo with news tactics, real life stories,
or references. That's understandable. Thatmakes me think of other podcasts that
(21:23):
I've heard, that one in particularthat is considered quite successful. Then another
opinion was, quote, maybe asection of Falcon for people who've forgotten how
to Falcon end quote. That's nota bad idea, but I'm not entirely
sure exactly how we would gauge.You know, if someone is rusty and
(21:48):
coming back, how do we knowwhat they've forgotten? So maybe that would
fit into the sort of newby helpsection that we might be doing. So
if we're doing a segment on howto do things geared towards newbies, maybe
rusty pilots would be able to benefitfrom that. But if you guys have
ideas on how to help rusty pilots, by all means, let me know.
(22:11):
I would be interested. And anotheropinion that makes a lot of sense
to me was somebody wrote interviews withinteresting people in the community or people tangentially
related to it. Interviews are agreat idea. Having guests are a great
idea. One person even told mehe thought the show would be terrible without
(22:33):
guests. We absolutely need guests.You need to have guests on it.
Don't do it without guests. Now, I have maybe a complex view on
this. I don't disagree with that. I really think we do need community
involvement, and that's why I've goneto the extent I've gone to try to
get live interaction working with the technologythat we have. But I will have
(22:56):
to say there is a challenge indoing interviews. So if you imagine this,
we can prerecord them. But ifwe're going to have this show the
way that it is, I reallywould like to have it as a fixed
length. I don't want to haveone episode it's five minutes, another episode
that's an hour long, and onethat's half an hour. And I notice
(23:18):
a lot of podcasts do that,and there's nothing that dictates you can't do
that. But I would like tohave some level of uniformity to what we're
presenting, so you know exactly whatthis show is about, you know how
to break it down and listen towhat you want to listen to. And
the other thing is I want todo as little editing as possible, as
little post as possible, but prerecordinginterviews is definitely a valid option, and
(23:41):
it might be better for the guestbecause then they can show up at whatever
time zone they're at. Is particularlyif we're in different time zones and you
know, we have to coordinate.That might make the most sense, and
I'm open to doing that. Alternatively, we can take a segment or even
an entire episode and do a liveinterview. The downside of that is that
(24:03):
the guest is limited to the format. If we have a ten minute segment
and then you know, that's hisblock, he can talk about whatever he
wants. He's got ten minutes,and that might go faster than he thinks,
or on the other hand, maybehe runs out of material in five
minutes. You know, it alldepends on the guest. But if we
do an entire show or multiple segments, the nature of how we do this
(24:25):
with breaks might be a little bitdifficult for some guests to adapt to.
And by the way, I definitelywant segments. I don't want to go
talking for the same subject for anhour without giving myself and any guests,
and definitely you the listeners multiple breaks. Now, one problem with a live
show is that the ghost, theghost of the guest has to be standing
(24:48):
by like a ghost for the exacttime to be welcomed on the program.
Right, He's got to be onthere at the exact time. And if
he's late, this is difficult forme to adapt, but really difficult for
him to recover. And you'd say, okay, why do we want him
at a particular lifetime? Well,what if we would like to have a
segment, let's say where a guestis on. Let's say that one of
(25:11):
the developers or whoever, agrees tocome on here. Okay, what if
we want to have a question andanswer period where people can quote unquote calling
into the show and ask the developersa question. That would be a nice
idea, But that requires everybody tobe around exactly at the same time.
So my whole point is that thereare logistical concerns, but let's put that
(25:33):
aside for now. The other suggestionthat I got what to talk about would
be GCI tactics. Now, Ithink that's a fantastic topic to discuss,
and definitely it fits into the realmof advanced ideas that I would like to
for this segment. Now, Idon't want to go into this long right
now, but I think it's afantastic topic and I should really devote an
(25:56):
entire episode just to GCI tactics anddealing, because if you don't know,
when we say GCI, we werereferring to a human taking on the role
of a wax, and that opensup so many possibilities. It is incredibly
dynamic. I'm reminded of a timethat in a team versus team environment,
we were having trouble with our awax always being either shot down or just
(26:17):
not working. It was really weird. So we set up a mission with
a live GCI. We had everybodycoordinated together. The GCI was the package
lead for this one because we figuredhe'd have the most situational awareness, and
we shot down something ridiculous like twentynine aircraft in one mission, broke through
their front lines and bombed the airbase. It was a fantastic operation and we
(26:42):
could not have done that without thecoordination that we had. Now, in
terms of tactics, I'll give youone, guys. One tactic that we
actually used in team versus team.One pilot who really knew the viper very
well. He would ask the GCI, let me know when they're within such
(27:03):
and such a range, and youknow, he gave me different criteria,
right, you know. But howhe would do this and what he wanted
is he wants the GCI to tellhim these things because he's turning his radar
off. So if you're on theenemy side, a lot of the times,
your RWR is what lights up firstand you get an idea, Hey,
there's an F sixteen out there orwhatever it is that you're being painted
(27:26):
by. You're like, hey,he's out there, so you're already knowing
to look for him before the AWAXtells you, before you ask, before
your radar season. But with thisguy, because his radar is off,
he's not sending out anything out therefor the enemy RWR to pick him up.
And then once he's known, okay, you're within whatever it is,
(27:47):
thirty miles or something, he'd turnon his radar, lock him up and
be ready to go. And ifthe enemy wasn't ready, he's got seconds
to figure out he's being hard locked. So that's just one example of some
of the advanced things that we cando with GCI. But I think a
full episode would be good on thissubject. We'll catch you on the next
(28:10):
segment don't go anywhere. We'll continueafter this break. Alpha, Bravo,
Charlie. You've probably heard phrases likethis in military movies. This is part
(28:32):
of the NATO Phonetic alphabet. It'sa way of saying words that represent letters.
For example, Alpha represents the letterA, Bravo represents the letter B.
You can probably already guess that Charlierepresents the letter C. These words
are used in place of letters becausethey are meant to be used over military
radios. Radio transmissions are not alwaysclear, particularly when you're in the middle
(28:56):
of a war. It also doesn'thelp that English has many letters that alsound
similar B, C, D,E, G, P, t V,
and even Z if you're from America. There are even some pronunciations that
matter. Quebec is the code forQ, but it's supposed to be pronounced
k back. Knowing all of this, you can spell any English word with
(29:18):
this system. Tango foxtrot would bethe initials of this podcast. The tactical
frequency. That one. This isthe tactical frequency. Welcome again to the
(29:45):
first episode of this podcast. Beforewe go any further, we probably should
address the very large eight bit elephantin the room first. Some basic history,
not a lot, just basic bearhistory of Falcon BMS. It actually
has a very long and complicated history, so we're going to simplify it for
(30:06):
you. It was born out ofthe Falcon series, specifically Falcon four point
zero. So Falcon four point zerocame out in the late nineties, and
soon after it came out, thecompany that owned the intellectual property went under.
They went bankrupt, and it juststopped being supported. The source code
was eventually leaked to the public andmatters were all trying to rewrite the game
(30:30):
with the existing source code that theynow had, adding here, changing there.
Benchmark Simms was one of those eventualmodding teams now Benchmark SIMS. The
developers of Falcon BMS have had alicense agreement with the current IP holder,
which was Telmo. Temo was themost recent owner, and Benchmark Simms were
(30:56):
licensed and allowed with certain restrictions tocontinue their development of BMS under this license.
Now, one of the requirements whenyou install BMS is that you have
Falcon four point zero installed on yourcomputer prior and only then will BMS actually
be installed. Now, this mightbe something that was part of their negotiations
(31:19):
in the license agreement. I don'tthink the license agreement was ever made public,
but it would not surprise me ifthis was actually a requirement. So
let's fast forward now to the present. The news that just hit recently was
that Atari bought a bunch of oldgames from the eighties and nineties. Falcon
(31:41):
four point zero was not listed inthe article that I read. However,
Goog announced that they were delisting theFalcon Collection, citing quote a change of
licensing rights. The full Forum postis as follows. Quote We'd like to
inform you that, due to thechange of licensing rights, Falcon Collection will
(32:01):
be delisted from our catalog on Thursday, April twenty seven, three pm UTC.
For everyone who purchased the title priorto delisting, it will remain in
their Goog library end quote. Sowhat exactly does this mean for Falcon BMS
and its future? Now, first, I should know it is speculation that
(32:25):
Atari actually bought this, bought Falconfour point zero, the rights to Falcon
foy point zero, at least fromwhat I can see right now. Probably
by the time you're listening to thisepisode, it will be known whether that's
the case or not. But forthe sake of this discussion. Since a
lot of people currently right now areoperating under this assumption, let's just explore
(32:49):
it. If Atari owns the rightsto Falcon four point zero, then that
means essentially they could in theory,order Benchmark Simms to stop work king on
Falcon BMS. They could send thema cease and desist letter, so this
could become a legal issue. Now, if I understand the history of Falcon
(33:12):
correctly, this actually happened about twentyyears ago. Atari had the rights to
Falcon four point zero and ordered theBMS team to stop working on Falcon BMS.
That's my understanding of the history.This is like twenty years ago.
Now we could look and say,okay, but why did they do that
(33:35):
then? What are they doing now? What are their motivations? Well,
first, let's say Atari stands tomake some money on Falcon four point z
sales just by letting Benchmark SIMS continuetheir current development. Let's be honest.
Most people do not buy Falcon fourpoint zero because they want to run that
They run it, or rather theybuy it because they want to run Falcon
(33:57):
BMS. People seem to forget Falconfour point zero in its old state was
not very stable. It would crasha lot, and a lot of the
things that Matters were really initially involvedin was just the basic task of fixing
bugs and improving things. So ifAtari saw BMS is their meal ticket to
(34:22):
making a little bit more money,then this would be good if they just
let them continue. And it seemsthat right now that's the current current feeling
from what I've seen in terms ofpublic statements from the BMS depths. Right
now, they seem to be calm, not wanting to comment except to say,
(34:45):
well, until we hear anything,we just assume everything is good.
That doesn't sound like a definitive statementthat they've heard anything or not. It
just seems to be that they justdon't want anybody to panic right now and
that nothing has definitively changed. Butnonetheless things could change if a new license
holder changes their mind. So rightnow, Falcon BMS is actually scheduled to
(35:12):
see the new version four point threeeight released. I know some people have
said it's supposed to be released theend of this year, but always things
can change with rumors and different ideas. But the new version is supposed to
have a new terrain engine. I'veseen screenshots of it, and it's definitely
an improvement to what we have now. Now if you consider Atari could in
(35:37):
theory attempt to put an end toall this, and the obvious question would
be why why would you want todo this? Well, I think the
fear that some people have is thatthis would play out a little bit like
it did in the past, becausethere could be an attempt to commercialize Falcon.
For example, Atari could in theorytell Benchmark Simms stop doing what you're
(36:00):
doing. They could use the existingsource code of Falcon BMS and create a
commercialized version based on the latest versionof Falcon BMS that they have, and
then they could try to stop allmodding efforts that are free and force everyone
to go buy the latest commercial version. That's what I think everyone fears now.
(36:25):
Of course, the question would bedoes this even look lucrative to Atari?
Is this something that they would evenwant to do, Because if you
do try to kill the madding sceneby killing off Benchmark Simms, you might
end up just killing the community.Nobody buys your product, nobody flies anything,
and then you've destroyed the Falcon fourpoint zero ip in any meaningful way.
(36:51):
So it's a little bit of arisk for Atari to do this,
but this could be like an attemptat making Allied Force two Allied for us
being the last attempt to commercialize Falcon, I believe after the fall of four
point zero. It's also worth interestingby the way, Falcon development by monning
(37:12):
teams was not always done with licensingagreements. Most of it was actually done
in spite of a lack of alicense agreement. No one really cared who
the IP holders were. They justwanted a better if sixteen SIMM to fly.
So even in theory, if Ataridid by the Falcon four point a
license, and even if they didorder Benchmark SIMS not to continue, it's
(37:35):
actually a real possibility that the cyclewould continue. Either the source code would
become leaked or the BMS team wouldgo underground and develop in secret. It's
obviously we're just wildly speculating, butsome of the speculation is based on things
that have actually happened in the pastover the last twenty years, so it's
(37:58):
probably a good idea right now,Like not with it. We don't want
anyone to panic or think, oh, they're destroying Falcon. None of that's
happening. This is just exploring thewhat ifs. But still I think it's
still good to look at what isthe BMS experience? What does it mean
to fly in Falcon BMS, Whatdo you get out of it? Why
do you do it? What doyou appreciate about it? And would it
(38:21):
be the same thing if a differentteam was working on it, and if
they were making you pay for it. Just something to think about. And
then of course it's always good toappreciate what you have while you have it,
because I think sometimes we don't alwaysappreciate what we have until there's a
threat of losing it. And nowsuddenly people are looking at BMS and hearing
(38:45):
this news and they're getting a littlebit concerned, and you're thinking, you
know, maybe we won't get anymore updates. And I have to admit,
for me, for Falcon BMS,one of the things I always liked
about it was not necessarily what wasin it, but the potential. There
was always the idea that well,this isn't maybe working on this version,
but you know it could be comingin a future update, and sure enough
(39:07):
it would certain things like when theupdate came and we got if that was
fantastic. So that type of potentialthat there's no real limitation. We could
one day get LINK sixteen or thisterrain engine or whatever else. All of
these ideas that people have been askingfor. We keep thinking we'll get it
in the next version or maybe aversion thereafter. So that's always important.
(39:31):
But it's also good to be thankfulfor what we currently have. So just
some thoughts on a complicated subject.We'll be right back after this break.
(39:52):
Stay with us. Have you everlistened to a multiplayer emission and heard people
say something like fox three or defensivesay two. This is what is known
as brevity. Are pilots who flyflight sims just trying to sound cool by
speaking in a sort of pilot code. No, not at all. First,
let's understand that the radios in theF sixteen are half duplex. When
(40:15):
you're transmitting, you're blocking yourself fromhearing any other transmissions on that same radio.
Another problem is that if two pilotstransmit at the same time, these
two competing transmissions end up clashing inFalcon bms, the non transmitting pilots don't
hear voices. Instead, they heargarbage audio that sounds like bad dubstep music.
(40:37):
Using brevity, is not strictly necessary, but a team that doesn't use
it will be at a disadvantage.You can begin learning brevity by watching videos
of multiplayer missions, as well asby opening the real life non classified manuals
that come with BMS, specifically theBM and atp Falcon one drag Net one
(41:00):
negative. We need you here onthe tactical frequency. Welcome back. This
is the tactical frequency. And againI am your host Bible Clinger. I
(41:22):
wanted to do a little bit ofa segment here on the future of BMS
and the community in general. So, like I said before, the theme
that we had here was new beginnings, new beginnings for the podcast. It's
a new beginning for new players gettinginto BMS. It's a new beginning with
(41:42):
the new license holder or whatever therumors are with this potentials for new beginnings
everywhere, and we're also looking atthe future of BMS with four point three
eight supposedly around the corner. Wellobviously when we stay around the corner,
we don't know exactly when. Itcould be the end of the year,
it could be next year. Butwe've been waiting for this update for a
(42:05):
while. The developers have been talkingabout it for quite some time, and
so the best way of getting readyfor that, I would say there are
two things I really want to address. I mean, the first actually is
pretty simple. Let's say, ifyou're new to BMS, if you haven't
tried it, please get into itnow. It's probably the best time to
really start getting ready before we havea really major update. But the other
(42:30):
thing I would say is that ifyou're already in the community, if you're
already part of a major subsection ofthe Falcon BMS community, then we should
really focus on making sure that weare in a position to welcome newer pilots.
Now, why do I say that, I do think that four point
three eight has the potential to bringin a lot of new players, people
(42:52):
that maybe have been watching BMS butthey're not too thrilled about whatever the older
graphics compared to other flight sims.And we've already got the VR update,
and we had an influx of peoplecoming into try VR now with better terrain
and new options. In four pointthree eight, I could see another group
(43:15):
of people deciding now's the time totry BMS, So we really should be
prepared for that. To think aboutwhat type of community we want to be
when that happens. And obviously weshould always be helpful. If you're a
BMS veteran and you've flown BMS foryears, I mean, obviously it helps
think about when you were new,and let's try to be helpful to the
(43:37):
new people. And also we reallyshould be helpful to other BMS veterans.
Sometimes the SIM changes and the peoplethat had learned things, they did their
due diligence, they read the manuals, they studied, they watch videos,
they flew for years, and thenthey leave and things have changed. This
(43:59):
sim gets dated and something doesn't workanymore. I'm reminded of just a recent
flight I actually that just happened wherewe had some people that had no idea
how the data link worked. Andthat's not because they didn't fly before it,
didn't study it. It's because thedata link underwent massive changes over the
(44:19):
years. It used to be thateverybody could be on the data link and
BMS you could run it in continuousand all the members of the flight would
get perfect updates. They'd be ableto see where everybody is, and it
was actually, I mean, youcould get an update on any eight people
that you wanted all seven if youdon't count yourself, And that wasn't really
(44:42):
the way that the system was supposedto be working. Apparently the BMS devs
came in there and change that sothat now it's a little bit more complicated,
and I won't get into all ofthe details, but it can get
a little bit technical when you startputting in certain people in your table for
the data link of who you wantto communicate with, and other people put
in other different ideas. The worstthing that you can do is have mismatched
(45:07):
tables and somebody puts it on continuousmode or continuous updates, because that essentially
jams other people outside of using thedata link. They can't even see members
of their own flight sometimes, andthere's always somebody that does that because they
really just don't understand how the datalink works. And sometimes it's because they're
(45:28):
basing this off of old, oldknowledge, something they had done before,
or something someone told them was validto do when it was valid to do
it. So we want to behelpful with that. Sometimes that could be
done with better documentation. Maybe itneeds to be clear what's been updated,
or maybe we need to be betterabout putting out different content ourselves in terms
(45:52):
of the community by informing people what'sbeen changed. Sometimes maybe this isn't a
good example, but you know,there are different ways of being helpful,
and sometimes it makes sense for itto come from the debs or to come
from the community. Now, interms of I mean, obviously that's the
first thing I want to say iswe should be a good community, and
(46:12):
I think by and large the falconUns community has been very friendly. I've
actually been impressed at times with howfriendly they know they can be to people
and how welcoming. Now, ofcourse, we're all humans and there are
times where I've seen some negative thingsfrom people within the community. That's not
surprising, but overall, we wantto make sure that the community does not
(46:35):
ever change from that idea of itbeing friendly, and it's always been a
concern of mine, particularly last year, I mean a little bit more aware
for various reasons of when there arethings that are not going as smoothly as
they should be. So that's whyI wanted to take the time and mention
that we should really be focused onthis from a community perspective. We should
(46:57):
be ready to welcome other people fourpoint three eight. Now on the flip
side, I have heard from peopleoutside of the community that some of them
see BMS folks as elitist, andthat's the term that I've heard, elitist,
And I'm not sure where this iscoming from. I really don't know
(47:22):
why people would think that. Now, if you fly BMS as your main
sim, you probably think it's thebest sim. If you fly DCS as
your main sim, you probably thinkit's the best sim. That's not being
elitist, in my opinion, notin and of itself. That's just having
an opinion and then making a logicalchoice on which sim to fly based on
(47:44):
your opinion. If I thought,you know, DCS was better than BMS,
but I never flew DCS, thatwould just be strange. Why would
I never fly it? So ifyou enter a BMS community only to be
shocked, shocked that everyone really likesto fly BMS and they're not impressed with
(48:06):
other flight sims, I'm not reallysure what to tell you. That's just
obvious to me that every community believesin the product that that community is centered
around. So I'm not sure ifif that's where it's coming from, or
maybe something else. It is possiblethat some people think that BMS pilots are
(48:29):
elite or elitists. Excuse me,because when they come to a BMS community,
they get told to read the manualwhen they have a tech question.
Now, being told to read themanual is not elitist in and of itself
either, Be honest, is ahuge sim to learn. There are systems,
and there are subsystems to the systems. Then even if you understand how
(48:52):
everything works, you have to addtactics on top of it in order to
get the best performance. You know, like, even if you know technically
how to fire weapons, what ifthey're not hitting? What if you're getting
killed before you can do anything.So let's come up with some example.
Look, if you ask a verycomplicated question, how do we explain the
(49:15):
answer to you in a simple discordtext chat? So an example, a
newbie shows up and asks the question, how do I fire an Amram?
Well, that question is already assigned. It's just something is very very wrong.
Are we to assume he knows howto select the amram? Are we
to assume he knows how to turnmaster arm on? How about how to
(49:39):
operate the FCR and lock up atarget? Or does he even know how
to id his target. Is heliterally asking how to press and hold the
weapon's release button? Actually, thatreally might be his problem. He might
not be holding it. He mightbe assuming it's a short press when amrams
require a long press. But whatdo we say when we tell him press
(50:04):
and hold the weapon's release button andhe replies, didn't work. I mean,
at this point, he's not givingon us enough information to go on.
And I do think a lot ofthis does rest with him the questionnaire
at this point, and the problemis that he clearly didn't do any real
work here. There are manuals,including the training manuals, that walk you
(50:28):
through stuff like this, and thereare YouTube videos done in all sorts of
different styles that tell you how todo these kind of things, so they
can adapt or you can adapt theresources to your learning style. If you
want to watch, if you're moreof a visual learner, you think and
you'd rather watch a video, orif you'd like to read the manual,
you have these options. Now,for some people, perhaps reading manuals is
(50:52):
outdated, particularly for a video game, but in BMS, it's absolutely essential
that you learn how to learn,and if you're asking questions like this,
how do I fire an ambram?Your learning will be very painful and it's
also not much fun for the peoplewho are trying to help you. Not
(51:14):
to be clear, I'm not sayingthat, you know, if you've asked
this question, you're you know,you're wrong, You're terrible, And I'm
not saying that. I'm just sayingthis is not the way to learn,
This is not the way forward,and it's that's not necessarily your fault that
you don't know this, but youneed to use the resources at your disposal.
At some point, you need tohave a basic foundation in order to
(51:35):
ask your questions. So, forexample, if somebody asks how do I
lock up a target? That answeris also complex, barring explanations of how
the radar works and how the targetingpod works. We can try guessing and
say TMS up, which is obviouslythe hat switch on the stick for targeting.
We're telling him to push the hatswitch in the up direction. But
(51:55):
when he says what's that, he'snot ready for a long answer, he's
not ready for an explanation. Now, better yet, if he says,
okay, yeah, TMS, whatbutton is that? Folks, we don't
remember a lot of the default binds, especially the binds that really should be
easily accessible on the throttle or stick, we bind those to our throttle and
stick, so we don't know whatyour control is for it. We don't
(52:19):
often remember the defaults. And then, of course if you want us to
look up the defaults, well,I mean, at that point, you
know, why don't you look themup? It's literally in the same documentation
that we have. So telling someoneto read the manual is not always meant
to be a condemnation. Sometimes it'srather merciful. For one, it stops
(52:42):
you from learning in a very inefficientmanner by asking questions that just pop into
your head in an order that soundslinear to you but probably is not so
linear from the perspective of how bestto learn. So it also frees up
time for people who are volunteering theretime to answer questions for free. So
I don't know, I don't thinkthat we're an elitist community, but some
(53:07):
people think so. Perhaps hopefully wecan change that to join the tactical frequency
discord use, discord invitation code uppercase, ROMEO lowercase, Charlie Niner, Sierra
Niner, Bravo, Yankee, Papawhiskey kilo. You're excited to get into
(53:32):
a Falcon BMS multiplayer session just tofind out that the mission would require air
air refueling. That can be intimidating, particularly if you already know you're non
good at getting fuel from the tanker. If you're new to BMS, I
wouldn't recommend rushing to learn it unlessit's very important to you, But eventually
it's a good skill to have.So where do you begin. Step one,
(53:55):
become proficient at flying formation. Othershave suggested flying formation and with the
tanker in single player as initial practice. Step two. Understand that the throttle
of the F sixteen will feel abit delayed the act ahead of time.
If you know you're going too slow, don't wait to apply thrust. Step
three. Rock the throttle aggressively,but give gentler movements to the stick.
(54:19):
Step four. Be patient. Thisis like riding a bicycle. You'll be
terrible at it until one day itjust clicks. Step five. Once you
have it, practice periodically to keepin shape. Falcon one drag Net one
coffee fuel yellow sending relief. Pleasestay on the tactical frequency. Welcome back
(54:47):
to the last segment of the firstepisode of the Tactical Frequency. It's been
actually quite fun. It's also beena little bit stressful. There's a lot
of work that goes into this,but overall on pretty happy with where we're
going. I do have to say, though, that we are at the
point now we're really I'm passing nowthis over to you, the listener.
(55:10):
If this is a project that youlike, if this is a project that
you see potential in, please jointhe discord, join the community, and
help me make this podcast better.I've heard for a while some people saying
they thought BMS could use a podcast. I think it definitely could. We're
(55:30):
not a very large community, butI do think to some degree are a
very passionate community, and I thinkif we want to make something like this
succeed, we very much can.So thank you everyone for listening to this
episode. And again I'm asking forsupport, and I'd like to remind everyone
that you can take steps to influencethe future of this endeavor. So when
(55:52):
I say support, what do Imean? First Please listen to this Listen
to this podcast, Listen to theepisodes, to share and discuss the podcast,
let other people know about it.Maybe you've got friends that want to
get into BMS, or maybe they'vebeen thinking about it, they're on the
fence. Maybe there are people thatwould like to discuss advanced tactics, all
(56:13):
sorts of ideas. Please share anddiscuss this. And obviously, like I
said, join the discord. Thisis where we can get feedback, take
calls, listen live. The callswill only work if we have people that
want to participate. If it's thesame you know, just me every week
or every month or whatever, orand it's just one or two other people
(56:34):
that are calling all the time,I mean, it's essentially just turning into
like a three host show, right, So we would welcome diversity of thought.
I would like to have more peopleparticipate. And the last way you
can help is to be a goodexample, both for people inside the community
and for people on the outside.This will be the way for us to
grow the community, not just thetactical frequency community, but the Falcon BMS
(57:00):
community in general. And I thinkthat's a good thing. I think we
have a lot of potential here.So that's where we're heading right now.
And I would like to ask again, you know, just that everyone takes
this as seriously as they could.For the purposes that I mentioned, and
with that we're actually coming to theclose here. I'd like to thank pis
(57:22):
of a dot com for the music, Tchsfree dot com for the voiceovers.
I used a lot of the musicfrom pis of A. I mean,
I actually you'm looking at the listhere, I use like shark Hunt,
this world has gone crazy in jazz, fun, disco, rockets, summer
hip hop, ad desert Storm,and many more. These are I think
they add a little bit of lifeto the show. I've really appreciated these
(57:45):
little things. I was able todo the little blurbs. If you have
ideas for those, by the way, little sixty second segments that I could
put in here, or if somebodyactually wants to do advertising for some reason,
that's also an idea, mum,you know, just anything along those
lines. It would be good toget feedback. So this has been a
(58:07):
grand experiment. I'm actually really excitedto see the future of where this could
go. So thank you guys onceagain for listening. Falcon one Dragnet one.
(59:57):
You are now leaving the tactical frequency
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