S1E10: A Retro Era

1. A look at three 90's games and/or sims, and how they pushed boundaries.
2. An interview with Enigma on learning Falcon BMS, as well as his thoughts on what makes a good sim.
3. A brief mention of the news of Falcon 5.0.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
You've tuned into the Tactical Frequency,a podcast centered around all things Falcon BMS.
Greetings, and welcome to the TacticalFrequency. Today's theme, we're going
to be looking at some retro gamesand SIMS and how this connects to Falcon
BMS. Will also be playing aprerecorded interview with Enigma about his experience learning

(00:35):
Falcon BMS from the perspective of someonewho has been a veteran DCS pilot for
quite a while. Greetings, mycall sign is Bible Clinger, and I'm
a little bit under the weather today. I trust that we'll be able to
get through it. It is awonderful day and I'm very happy to be
here and to be able to recordthis episode for you. Falcon BMS is

(00:58):
a SIM that has its roots inan earlier era. Obviously, for those
in the know, Falcon VMS comesfrom Falcon four point zero. Four point
zero is over twenty years old.This has been quite a journey to get
from that point to this point.I thought we'd do something a little different

(01:19):
today. Let's take a step back. Let's look at the past and see
how did we get here. Notthe history of Falcon VMS or even Falcon,
But a little bit more of ahistory of gaming and simulation. In
both the eighties and nineties, nomatter your operating system, you had severe
limitations on what you could do asa simulation developer. This era, centered

(01:44):
mostly in the nineties, ended upseeing a very rich library of sims.
Enigma, who will be hearing fromlater in the broadcast, calls this the
golden Age of simulation, and inmy opinion, for good reason. Companies
were putting quality products. If youwanted to fly the F fourteen, there
was a game for it. Ifyou wanted to fly the F sixteen,

(02:07):
you had an option. What wasconsidered a simulation all those years ago,
would buy today's standards be considered agame now. I understand some people look
at Falcon BMS and say, look, don't kid yourself, you're just playing
a video game anyway, You're nota real fighter pilot. I get that,
But the problem is that, asI've explained at other times, I

(02:29):
don't think it's fair to people tosay, oh, go play this video
game called Falcon BMS, and theythink it's going to be the same as
any other video game experience. They'regoing to expect the game to be designed,
so maybe this little tutorial stage andmaybe they could learn the game in
an afternoon, maybe to'll work ontheir Xbox controller and they'll preset bindings for
it. This is not what FalconBMS is. It's called a study sim

(02:52):
for a reason. And the simulationsback then in the nineties, they were
designed for you to study them aswell. Now they had a bunch of
technical limitations, but they put alot of work in there, so you
still had to learn how they worked, and they were more complicated in some
respects than the games of that era. Now. Falcon four point I even

(03:14):
came with a philosophical explanation of whatdid they need to cut back, what
do they need to add in.They weren't trying to simulate every single thing
in the F sixteen or every singlething in war. They were trying to
just get a good experience that presentedthe fighter pilot life from the perspective of
an F sixteen pilot delivered to yourhome on your PC. So I wanted

(03:38):
to talk about three different titles.The first one I want to bring up
is definitely a game both of itstime and of the current era, and
that game was called Desert strike.Returned to the Gulf. You flew a
what's supposed to be an Apache helicopter, although they drew it like a comanche.
Partly it was kind of a frankencoopter. But it was a fictional

(04:00):
version of something resembling the First GoalfWar, that is Operation Desert Storm,
and instead of Saddam Hussein, you'refighting the madman who has nuclear ambitions.
He's invaded a small country for oiland he tortures his political opponents. Sound
familiar. Now again. I bringthis up because it had certain aspects to

(04:21):
it that were important. It broughtserious challenges to the player, such as
fuel management and AMMO management. Now, yes, it was handled in an
arcade way. For example, youcould find resources and enemy buildings. You'd
blow up the buildings, pick upthe fuel, pick up the AMMO.
It was not realistic in any sense. But what it did teach the player

(04:42):
was mission planning. Even it wasimpromptu mission planning. If you only had
so many missiles and so many rocketsand so much fuel, you'd have to
think about whether or not you'd bebetter off refueling and rearming before continuing to
the next objective. Yes, itwas done in an arcade way. But
compare this game to some of theshoot'em ups from that era, let's

(05:05):
say aerow Fighters. If you compareDesert Strike to Errofighters, you'll see Desert
Strike was moving towards more of asimulation type of genre. The point is
that it was going against the grainof the arcade experience. I don't really
have enough time to go into this, but there's a lot more that really

(05:27):
could be said about this title,in my opinion, to reflect what was
going on in that era. Theway they handled the camera view, the
way they handled the control scheme.Certain things in there, in my opinion,
were either groundbreaking or they showed someingenuity that was needed in that era
with the limited hardware that they had. Now, let's take a step up

(05:50):
to something a little bit more simlike let's talk about the COMANCHEE series by
novel Logic. Now, Noval Logicput out a number of sims. I
got into Comanche three back in theday. That one was for doss and
of course the Camanche helicopter in reallife was a stealth helicopter. Now,
the real Commanche was only a prototypeand was never mass produced. But in

(06:14):
my opinion, The idea was fantasticfor at least a simulation, but a
stealth helicopter means you can do interestingthings. You could sneak up on a
SAM site and obliterate it, andI managed to get modern hardware set up
to fly Comanche three the way itwas meant to be flown. I actually
had my hotest working. The onlything I couldn't really get was track I
are to work. You couldn't playwith your MFDs or any equivalent like that.

(06:36):
The cockpit controls didn't really exist.You just pushed buttons that corresponded to
shortcuts, and the controls were very, very simplified. Back in the day,
I flew it with a keyboard,that's how simple it really was.
But the controls were so nice andelegant that you could fly it with a
keyboard and still get somewhere. Itwas possible to do. Now. From

(06:58):
a technical perspective, it was ratherbrilliant. They used a Vauxhall engine,
so voxels are pixels but three dimensional. In later versions of the engine,
voxels would be used to draw theterrain very efficiently, and more complicated polygon
calculations were done for helicopters and thebuildings. Now, they updated Camanche three

(07:21):
for Windows and they called it CamancheGold and added some content and they actually
supported early nineteen nineties virtual reality,or at least that was the intention.
I'm not sure if it ever reallyworked, but I did see that option
was somewhere included in the Comanche Goldfiles. Now, of course, VR

(07:43):
back then is much worse than VRtoday. VR headset resolution was incredibly low,
but they were pushing the boundaries withnew technology. That's the important part.
Now. The last one I wantedto talk about was one of my
personal favorites of all time, andthat was James If. It was known

(08:03):
in Israel as Kohav kajol in Hebrewforgive my butchering. This means blue star.
Now on the box side, itboasted it was the first flight simn
to really model an entire air force, and you could fly the Mirage,
the Kafir, various F fours,the F fifteen, the F sixteen,

(08:24):
and the Levee, which was areal life Israeli prototype aircraft. It was
essentially their vision of what the Fsixteen could be, but it was never
mass produced. But you got tofly this variant in James if and the
graphics were good for the time.They use satellite imaging to get the terrain.

(08:48):
It was low resolution, but forthe time it was great. Now
this would let you fiddle with theradar, unlike Comanche. It was the
closest thing to Falcon BMS that Ireally got into. The missions were fantastically
crafted. There were three historical campaignsand three fictional future campaigns. They were
set in a modern or a futuresetting, and historical campaigns were more wild

(09:11):
at times than the future campaigns.The stories they included from the past were
just absolutely wild. If you've neverread anything about Israel's history since forty eight,
particularly with their air force, Iwould absolutely advise you to read those
stories. They would be just extraordinary. Now, sadly, there was no

(09:33):
dynamic campaign. When I say thatthese had campaigns, these were crafted scenarios,
so NBMS equivalents, they would betactical engagements. Now, what was
curious to me is that the simlevel of detail how things worked in the
jets seemed to be based very looselyon the F sixteen, and I mean
that about all the jets. Now, they had some limitations. Your bombing

(09:58):
modes were CCIP and there was noCCRP. There was GCI, but there
was no Bull's Eye. There waspadlock but no track I R. There
was a multiplayer, but no voicechat. Strangely, the F sixteen had
a ded but all that was displayedwas a digital redoubt of your fuel.

(10:20):
Most of the screen was blank.It taught older tactics that were relevant back
then, pop up attacks, napof the Earth. So one day I'm
on YouTube and I see videos ofFalcon BMS, and it reminded me of
James If, but more advanced.It had better graphics than IF. I
was able to learn Falcon BMS frommy experiences and my knowledge of James IF.

(10:46):
I combined this with video tutorials andI was on my way. So
that's a quick look at some ofthe old games of the past. There
are many more that I could havementioned, like Mike Stuff Flight Simulator,
which was also considered groundbreaking for itstime. You could see in that era

(11:07):
people wanted to push boundaries. Theywanted to model things better, and this
is the era that gave birth toFalcon four point zero. If people were
content to just copy the same gamesof the past, we probably would have
never seen anything like the Falcon series. We probably would not have received a

(11:28):
dynamic campaign, and that means withoutFalcon four and without the dynamic campaign,
we would not be flying Falcon bmstoday. That is something to think about.
After the break, will jump rightinto a prerecorded interview with Enigma.
Don't go anywhere, Please keep listening. Your support means a lot. Have

(12:01):
you heard AWAX or GCI mentioned bullseyeand BRA These are different ways of giving
locations in a way that pilots canunderstand. Bullseye is an arbitrary position agreed
upon by all parties. Locations aregiven relative to this fixed location. For
example, zero nine or zero fiftyis fifty miles due east of bulls eye.

(12:24):
BRA on the other hand, standsfor bearing, range, altitude,
and aspect. BRA is relative notto a fixed location, but to the
aircraft involved in the radio conversation,such as your aircraft. Bullseye has a
number of benefits, one of whichis that all aircraft listening in on the
transmission can understand the information presented ifthey are using the same Bull's eye.

(12:48):
BRA is easier for the aircraft thatis being referenced, but much more difficult
for other aircraft to decipher BMS.Lets you customize Awax to speak always in
bra You should really learn bullseye frommultiplayer Falcon one negative. We need you

(13:09):
here on the tactical frequency. Joiningme today is Enigma. He is a
flightsim enthusiast DCS pilot and YouTuber whosechannel has provoked discussions in multiple flights in

(13:30):
communities, including the Falcon BMS community. He owns and operates the Cold War
Server in DCS. Enigma, thankyou very much for joining me today.
Good morning, Thanks for having meon. I understand that you've more recently
got into BMS despite being a DCSveteran. Why is that. I think

(13:54):
a lot of people really associate themselveswith the game they play, But for
me, I just like games ingeneral. So I've never really considered myself
a DCS player, Like I playedDCS, but I don't really that's not
like my identities tied to DCS.I just like games in general, and
I really like combat flight SIMS forBMS. I've always kind of heard about

(14:18):
it in the background, and youknow, like any other person that plays
games, you kind of just rotatethrough them and you see what you like,
and when you don't like? Whatis your impression of Falcon BMS.
I like BMS. I like ita lot. I kind of fell into

(14:39):
it because I kept hearing about BMS, but I never really had the time
to jump into it. Last year, I took a sabbatical where I had,
like I forget, like three orfour months off of work, and
I basically just played a lot ofdifferent games. I was getting bored them
really quickly. And this is youknow, happening me almost immediately after COVID

(15:00):
and playing through all the games andpretty much I essentially exhausted all the content
that was available to play. SoI decided why not try BMS. My
first impression of BMS was that,well, the honest one, it was
how nice the cockpit looked relative tothe outside. That that was like my

(15:20):
first immediate impression. And then thenext real impression that really kind of stamped
me, if you will, wasthe campaign map. And I think I
sat there for like twenty minutes andput the time on sixty four X and
just kind of watched what would happenand kind of clicking around and checking the
health of units and reconning them andkind of looking around. I think that

(15:43):
was the thing that really kind ofhooked me. Did you have any preconceived
ideas before trying Falcon BMS? Andwere these notions correct? So what did
I know about BMS before I knewthat BMS had a dynamic campaign? I
knew that the BMS players, perHoggett, had sort of an attitude that

(16:03):
they were playing something that was better, more realistic fill in the blank,
and there was a little bit ofor what I thought, there was a
little bit of tension between the nonBMS players versus the BMS players. So
those were kind of like my preconceivedideas or thoughts about what I was expecting

(16:26):
to go into it. Were theycorrect. I don't want to say if
the preconceived ideas were correct, moreso were the underlying things that formulated those
ideas were correct. BMS very clearlydoes a lot of things better and things
that I care about better, likethe dynamic campaign. And I can see

(16:48):
why there's a little bit of atension between the two different player groups because
sometimes you kind of have to wakepeople up, and I can see like
kind of jolting people awake with Idon't know, language or whatever kind of
makes them question their thoughts. Ifeel like a lot of people get really

(17:10):
invested in things and don't want tolet go. I think the underlying things
that were kind of pushing those ideasto pop up, I think they were
coming from a good place. Whathas your Falcon BMS experience been like in
terms of the gameplay, in termsof the immersiveness, the interaction, what
has that been like. So Iwas born, like I said, I

(17:30):
was on sabbatical, I started toI jumped into BMS, and the thing
that really helped me back on VMSwas it actually wasn't the graphics, and
it wasn't that it was another game. It was actually the F sixteen.
I don't like flying modern planes thatmuch, and I really only flew modern

(17:52):
I think really in DCS. Imean, any other planes that I flew
that were modern were like such oldgames that they're not even worth mentioning.
And and I think what BMS doesreally well is it actually does a really
good job of making some information reallyeasy to understand. Like on the campaign

(18:12):
map, like you can go andclearly see the recon targets, you can
clearly see the damage on them,you can see what they have but then
when you load up and go inthree D mode, those units could move.
The iff is not perfect like itis in DCS or in other games,
So that makes the like you havea very clear picture going into a

(18:32):
scenario, but as the scenario playsout, the picture becomes less clear.
And I think that's really important becauseit's really boring when you play these scenarios
and other games where it's basically thesame thing over and over and over again,
and it just doesn't really feel likeyou're playing you're playing something new or
dynamic. You almost go into likehighway hypnosis, where you're just kind of

(18:53):
going through the motions like I SometimesI literally play and at the end of
it, I'm just like, Ihave no idea what I just did.
But in b like it takes alot more thought and yet to be on
the ball much more, and ironically, I actually feel like it does a
better job of pushing you to learndifferent things that you wouldn't really necessarily learn.
Like in DCS, I almost neverbother learning the radios. I never

(19:15):
bothered learning the navigation systems because I'veplayed the scenario so much I can just
look at the ground and know exactlywhere I'm at but because the picture is
less clear in the three D modeand BMS, you really have to like
there's actually a reason to learn thesystems because you actually need them. And
I feel like in other games likea DCS, like these extra features are

(19:36):
like almost frivolous in a way unlessyou're like specifically curating a scenario in order
to use these systems. You mentionedto me before the interview that you focus
on multiplayer and not single player.How was the Falcon BMS multiplayer community with
you. I've flown BMS multiplayer,mostly in coop, most with people that

(20:00):
pulled me into the game. Theseares like small groups of people and they're
like they're definitely enthusiasts, So propsto them for exposing me to the game.
It's been fun. I My onlyregret with it is not regret,
but the only sticking point is thatbecause BMS is so involved, a lot
of the people who I end upplaying with get too busy or get too

(20:21):
tired to play BMS. I thinkI've only ever finished one campaign from start
to finish. Ironically we lost it, which is funny. But all the
other ones we you know, getthrough. I don't know twenty thirty missions
or whatever it is, and thenit should be kind of just lose momentum
and we stopped playing. I dofind that the BMSAI is really good and

(20:45):
actually very interesting to play against becausethe environment is so rich, Like you'll
see moments where you're fighting it andyou're like, oh, it's acting a
little funny, But within the contextof how it lives within the game and
the scenario, it really does feelconvincing enough. And I don't know,
ironic meant I'm a little rusty onthe BVR stuff, But when I was

(21:07):
playing DCS with PVR, and I'mnot like the best partle in the world,
but I would get bored really quicklybecause the fights just had like no
depth to them, and they werejust kind of like throwaways, like I
said earlier, like kind on Highwayhypnosis. But the AI and BMS ironically
fights better than a lot of theDCS players fight online, and I find
that the fights are much more interesting. So it's been mostly coop. I

(21:30):
have tried Falcon online, and Falcononline is an interesting community. I feel
like I was a little lucky becausepeople recognize who I was, so they
were really willing to help. IfI didn't have that help, I feel
like it would have been much harderto get going there, because it is
really I don't want to use theword particular, but I'm sure there's certain

(21:55):
nuances that have to be overcome toset up be a mess to work online
for a you know, a twentyfour seven server, So that's probably really
hard, and it's and it's not. It wasn't super easy to figure out
how to get it going, ButI don't think that's something It's not their
fault. It's a really old game, and they're trying to take a really

(22:15):
old system and try to make itconsumable based on like consumer expectations these days.
How would you compare this experience tryingto learn BMS in a multiplayer environment
with when you were new to DCS. Let's say I go back, and

(22:36):
I've actually been thinking a lot aboutthis a lot lately, and for DCS,
the single best thing that they havethat teaches them how to play is
Chuck's Guide. Ironically, because it'snot even part of it's ironic, it's
it's actually not part of the game. It's just some dude Chuck who makes
these these manuals and their bite size. You can go and flip the chapters

(23:00):
and see how things are done.Like it's actually pretty good because you can
learn any plane with that, andwith how DCS is you can approach the
game from learning everything like piece bypiece. There really isn't a scenario where
you have to kind of run throughlike everything if you will BMS. Going

(23:22):
into BMS was a little bit differentbecause my first reaction was like, let
me pull up Chuck's guide and Iwas like, oh, there isn't one.
And then it was like, oh, what's the different between BMS and
DCS. And one really hard thingabout DCS is that, I mean,
I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, butI think this is very fair to say
is DCS is probably the buggiest combatflights I'm on the market right now.

(23:45):
Now. That sounds really bad tosay, but I lt great battles isn't
nearly as buggy BMS is from Ican tell it is not nearly as buggy.
And then you have DCS and there'sjust a lot of bugs with it,
but it's just the nature of thegame. Because it has their party

(24:07):
module makers, it has FC three, it has mid fidelity modules, which
are like really legacy, like themid twenty one, and it has like
more full fidelity modules which are likethe newer ones have come out. So
it's kind of like, I don'twant to say it's been by design,
but it's just a much bugier game. And then learning DCS is like you
have to learn the plane, butyou also have to learn the game.

(24:30):
And with BMS, I didn't reallyfeel like I had to learn the game
so much in terms of like whatbugs are there, and what are the
certain nuances and what are those thingsand that things that don't work. For
BMS, it really felt more likeI need to learn the F sixteen and
I just you didn't really have tolearn too much about the campaign. It
was more just like how does thedata cartridge thing work? And then how

(24:52):
do you set up like how doyou frag packages? That was the only
really thing I felt like. Ohand the kymapper. The key mapper was
a little bit tricky because started infour three six, so I had to
use the alternative launcher. But that'skind of the difference to what type of
DCS players would you give a recommendationto try Falcon BMS. I mean the
short answer is all of them.But my answer would be true for like

(25:14):
any other Flights Him. I tellpeople all the time that they should be
playing Aisle two Grade Battles. Ithink Aisle two Great Battles is a wonderful
game, and BMS is a wonderfulgame. Like all these games do things,
do different things really well, andalso do things really poorly. You
know, DCS has I think thebest sounds out of ever, and that

(25:37):
flights him. It has probably thebest key mapper ever out of all the
flights hims, and it actually probablyhas the best mission editor out right now.
But BMS has some things that arereally strong too, and Aisle two
Great Battles has some things that arereally strong too. And I think that

(25:59):
any DCS players to be playing BMSand also playing Iole two. Like there's
I don't see. I've never reallybeen like a all or nothing type of
guy. I'm more like all ornothing and multiplayer vers a single player.
But I feel like everyone should beplaying all these different things because there's a
lot of things to learn from allthese different games. Do you think comparisons
between Falcon, BMS, and DCSare ill advised or at least the way

(26:22):
that we're doing it. Are wegoing about our analysis in the wrong way.
I think it's impossible not to comparethem because they're both combat flight sims.
I think the simple truth is thatno matter who you are, you're
limited by only having twenty four hoursin the day. So at some moment
every single day, a combat flightsimmer sits down and looks at their desktop.

(26:45):
They see dcs, they see bms, they see iole two great battles
in nineteen forty six, and theyhave to decide which one are they going
to play on. And sometimes peopleclick Chrome and they open up Netflix and
binge watch something for an hour ortwo. Rights it's just it's just math,
and people have an option, andI think it's really natural for people
to compare them. For me,it's not all or nothing. I think

(27:08):
all the games have value in someway, but I think very clearly that
some games do some things much betterthan other people, or that than other
games. So I think, likeI said earlier, like the if you
really want to experience what it feelslike to play in an actual reel,
I guess you know air quotes likea real setting, and what would it

(27:30):
feel like to take part in alarge conflict like BMS is for sure probably
like your best option. But likeI said earlier, if you want to
experience what it would feel like tofly at MICK twenty one, like right
now, DCS is your only option, so I think it's naturally compare them.

(27:53):
We'll be right back after this break. Stay with us. You're excited
to get into a Falcon BMS multiplayersession just to find out that the mission
would require air air refueling. Thatcan be intimidating, particularly if you already
know you're non good at getting fuelfrom the tanker. If you're new to
BMS, I wouldn't recommend rushing tolearn it unless it's very important to you,

(28:17):
but eventually it's a good skill tohave. So where do you begin?
Step one, become proficient at flyingformation. Others have suggested flying formation
with the tanker in single player asinitial practice. Step two. Understand that
the throttle of the F sixteen willfeel a bit delayed. Act ahead of
time. If you know you're goingtoo slow, don't wait to apply thrust.

(28:40):
Step three. Rock the throttle aggressively, but give gentler movements to the
stick. Step four be patient.This is like riding a bicycle. You'll
be terrible at it until one dayit just clicks step five. Once you
have it, practice periodically to keepin shape Package two five four zero roll

(29:07):
call on the tactical frequency. Thenyou would recommend that BMS players should try
or at least look into DCS.Yeah. I mean, let me say
this way, like, if youwanted to fly at MICK twenty one,
there's probably no better game to doit than DCS or even helicopters. I

(29:30):
mean, that's actually one thing thatI don't feel like a lot of people
mentioned too much. But I'm notreally big helicopter guy, but I mean
I don't think anyone's ever really gottenclose with helicopters compared to dcs. I
mean, that's like a thing thatthey've I don't know. I mean like
I'm completely unchallenged on I feel like, off the top of my head,
I can't really think of another helicopterexperience in a combat flights some other than

(29:56):
and the name is escaping me rightnow, but I think it's the yes
enemy engaged. I've just been givena note by mister p X one.
But I understand what you what youmean about helicopters in general. I tried,
actually to get a mod going forBMS to at least make the helicopters

(30:17):
playable. I made a helicopter theaterpack, and the flight models were nowhere
near realistic. We couldn't even fathomthe idea of doing that. But we
actually just took a Harrier flight modeland did some horrible things to it.
But the one thing I can sayis I wish Falcon BMS had helicopters.
I always wonder how helicopters wand MSwould be the only thing I can think

(30:41):
because the environment is definitely better thanDCS, that's for sure, but the
terrain is probably holding it back.So I wonder what it would feel like
to fly a helicopter in BMS andbeings super close to the terrain like all
game. When I tried it,I found a couple of things. One
is that the current BMS terrain didnot feel as flat as it does when
you're up at twenty thousand feet.And the other thing I discovered was how

(31:06):
paranoid I was flying low level waitingfor somebody to shoot me down with a
handheld launcher. It was a verydifferent experience. I actually I would love
to update that theater again when thenew terrain renderer for Falcon BMS comes out
in version four point three eight.I think they would be a very nice
experience, but we're back to thesame problem. It won't be a realistic

(31:30):
flight model, so I don't knowwould that impact on people's decisions to even
try it? Probably right, Okay, I'm gonna say something crazy, But
some like crazy ideas popping my headsometimes, and I played around with them
kind of like I guess like Platoand I kind of like mold it around
in my head and just see whatit like can I defend his position?

(31:51):
And something that I've been thinking aboutis this is the crazy part, which
is the planes are the least importantpart of a flight sim And it sounds
weird, but if you kind ofthink about it, especially within the context
of BMS, it makes sense,or at least makes sense to me.
I think As two nineteen forty sixis also a really interesting thing because Ale
two nineteen forty six has these superjanki planes in terms of like flight model

(32:17):
and like there's like no fidelity,but the things you can do in aleteen
nineteen forty six you can't do inany other game. You could have hundreds
of AI moving around ground, sea, and air, and you can have
the persistence saved, all the theatersare covered. They have like more maps

(32:37):
modeled than any other game for flightsand that I can think of, except
for you know, the Microsoft one. But it's still really impressive. And
for BMS it's like, I don'teven like flying net six scene, like
I genuinely, I mean, Iappreciate it for what it is, but
it's not really my vibe. ButI am happy to fly it in BMS
because the scenario is really compelling.And if the flight model was a little

(33:00):
bit worse, it wouldn't it wouldn't. I wouldn't care if some buttons were
less clickable, I like wouldn't care, like because it's it's just it's not
like the most important thing for me. What's what gets me really going is
being presented or being in a dynamicscenario where something happens and it's like,

(33:21):
oh, I have to react.Here are the things that I need to
juggle in my head, like thefuel or the altitude or how many missiles
I have left or whatever, andadapting to the scenario and kind of rolling
with it and then you know,getting through it, and then afterwards,
like we got through it, whatwas the impact on the the overall picture,

(33:42):
like what are we going to doabout it? How are we going
to react? And just kind ofconstantly thinking about stuff. To me,
that's really interesting and I think thatthat's independent of the plane itself. So
this kind of goes back to whatlike one of the last videos I posted,
which was I was calling DCS,it's really kind of making a parallel

(34:02):
to like it being a museum,Like if you want to experience in mid
twenty one, there is no betterplace than DCS, right, But if
you want to experience what's it liketo fly a plane in a scenario that's
believable, that's interesting, Like somethinglike BMS is probably the best thing out
there right now for Gen four stuff. And I would even argue that ALT

(34:25):
nineteen forty six is still relevant.We launched our dynamic campaign for ALT nineteen
forty six last year, and Ithink we had like ninety people on the
server, which would make which wouldprobably have made it like the biggest flight
SIMS server at that point, andit was a lot of it. It
was really interesting if people really likedit, So that's kind of where my

(34:45):
head goes. I guess that kindof describes what you were saying earlier as
to why some of these older sims, like from the nineties and the early
two thousands were popular despite not beinganywhere near the level of detail that we
have today in DCS and bms becausethe background in the immersion factor was much

(35:08):
higher in other ways, would yousay that's accurate? Yeah, yes,
And it's interesting too because I don'tknow why that is. Like, was
it like did the game developers backthen, did they just realize that they
couldn't make the planes more realistic sothey were trying to compensate and made the
environment more realistic or was it?Was it just a different design philosophy that's

(35:32):
kind of gone to the side,and it's just like a relic of the
past. I don't know, butit is interesting. I mean, the
environment's definitely felt much richer. Ithink the number one game that I've ever
played in my life was World WarTwo Online, and that game had playable
tanks and infantry, anti tank guns, anti aircraft guns, planes, strategic

(35:53):
bombers, ships, and that waslike one big persistent online World or two
campaign that just kept going and itwas all player driven, and that held
my attention more than any other gameever. I was actually thinking about how
some of the games I used toplay in the past, by today's standards,

(36:13):
they offered very little content. Iused to play Jane's IAF which,
for all intents and purposes, theircampaigns were static missions. They were just
like Falcon BMS's tactical engagements. AndI played Comanche three, which again the
same thing, and the campaign andthe maps were incredibly small for Camanche,
and yet somehow there was that immersivenesscoming through there that you know, I

(36:37):
actually felt like I was flying theaircraft against whatever opponent I was up against.
And those were also before the dayswhere multiplayer was ubiquitous. How can
we recapture that essence of what wehad in the past in the future simulations.
Let me let me let me changeyour question, okay, because maybe
it'll help me answer it. I'mgoing to change your question to be like

(36:59):
if I if I was given afree hand to design a new combat flight
sim like, how would I doit? And the way that I would
go about it is I would saythe three main pillars would be main things
believable, and what I mean bybelievable is that things just be modeled just
enough. Two believable, and sustainable. And what I mean by that is

(37:23):
like making things if you're gonna beif you're gonna model a certain level fidelity,
you have to be sustainable so itcan be standardized and maintained so it's
not buggy. Have a really powerfulmission editor, and a lot of people
I think actually don't give DCF DCSenough credit for the mission editor, because

(37:43):
it actually is quite powerful. Ittotally blows away the ile two great battles
one and it's really good despite allof its things that make you pull my
hair out. And a really goodmission editor really allows the sandbox and allows
creativity to happen or allows creativity tobe actioned on. And the third thing

(38:07):
is some sort of dynamic element toit, like a campaign, and the
dynamic campaign has to allow for aisand players to coexist, because I feel
like right now there's an over emphasison single player and it is interesting and
I'm incredibly biased because I do notlike single player, so I'll probably erase
some people by saying this, butI you know, DCS has said that

(38:30):
I forget where I heard this,but I know it's public that ten percent
of the players play multiplayer only,so ninety percent of the player of the
consumer base in that game is singleplayer only. And for Ill Two Great
Battles, they confirmed late last yearthat fifteen percent of their players only play
multiplayer. So on both games,there's it's it's a huge emphasis on single
player. And I think it's reallyeasy for businesses to look because I see

(38:53):
this all the time in my professionallife. That's like, here's our core
consumer, let's keep focusing on it. But you sort of lose the You
kind of are giving up on anysort of growth opportunity and trying to push
people from single player into multiplayer.Like for example, in DCS, they
have basically stand alone, which nobodyplays in multiplayer, and then you have

(39:15):
open beta, which is where themultiplayer community lives. I bet you there's
a non trivial amount of people whoare on stand alone the stable release branch,
who click multiplayer and see five serversthat are all not populated, and
then they just stay in single playerand they're just like, oh, this
game doesn't have a multiplayer scene.They only play a single player and I

(39:37):
am shocked that like DCS hasn't doneanything where like they don't want to have
like a pop up when you clickmultiplayer and single player and say, hey,
like, if you want to playa multiplayer, we recommend going to
open beta, right would I wouldimagine that would help push people over and
I would imagine if they if theywere spent a little bit more time in
multiplayer, there would probably probably wouldn'tbe a ninety ten split in single players,

(39:57):
So like there's growth opportunity there.Peop us should brief roadmap for where
you would want to see Falcon BMSor air combat simulation in general in about
five years, I would like tosee more emphasis on the actual gameplay.
Focusing so much on like detail andfidelity has really held up some of the

(40:17):
games. I think actually, outof all the business models and how things
are organized right now, I actuallythink that Iole two Grade Battles actually probably
has the best thematic approach on things, Like they have a pack that's like
I don't know, fifty bucks.You get like ten planes, you get
a relevant map, you get acampaign with it, and all the planes

(40:40):
make sense and they coexist, whichis like the total opposite of DCS,
which is like you get some mapwhich like no planes are relevant for it.
It's all a mental gymnastic session ofconcessions, which is like, oh,
we'll remove this weapon and do thisor that, and you're like trying

(41:00):
to like nerf these planes so theylike kind of fit. And then you
have BMS, which is like hasthe gameplay and has scale from the campaign
perspective, but you only have theF sixteen. And I would really enjoy
it if the next five years focuseson thematic, cohesive experience that offers scale

(41:28):
and asymmetry. We talked a littleabout a little bit about some of our
ideas. You've talked about your ideasabout where you'd like to see things.
Where do you see the future ofcombat simulation. Do you think that they'll
take these ideas to heart or doyou think, let's say, both of
BMS devs, DCS devs, andother developers will go into different direction.
I think DCS has kind of dugthemselves into a hole a little bit because

(41:53):
it's clear that they are successful.They are definitely the largest combat flight sim
and they have the high train workingfor them, so they're doing really well,
and they have a huge lead start. I would imagine that anyone trying
to compete against dcs, it wouldbe really hard. I would imagine that
any Let's let me tell you thisway, if you were to if I

(42:13):
told you, let's make a companywhere there's only one other company in this
space that has a twenty year leadstart and has an ecosystem where they have
third party vendors working for them.It's it's basically like, would you want
to enter a marketplace where there's essentiallya monopoly? Right? It's like on

(42:35):
paper, you're like from a businessat standpoint, it's like no way,
right. Like the things that they'redoing in terms of like the graphics and
the sounds and the community they built, it would just be really hard to
break into that scene. Word ortwo. That one is I feel like
so strung out and it has beendone over and over and over again.
I feel like people have gotten boardof it. Combat pilot right now I

(42:59):
think is the best chance for somethingnew to happen or BMS. The other
big thing that's holding back BMS isthat it's not done by professionals. And
what I mean by that, it'slike they're they're hobbyists. Right, and
it is a game, but there'sonly so much output that those guys can
have because they're limited by twenty fourhours on a day and they have like

(43:20):
their real life jobs, so that'sreally hard. And for them, you
know, they have done something superwonderful and unique, but for them to
do it again with a different planeand to make it coexist like that would
be I would imagine take a lotof time. I'm really rooting for them,
but there are just natural constraints.Combat Highlight that new game that Jason
Williams, who was the executive produceron IO two Great Battles, He's making

(43:43):
a new game, and I thinkthat could be really interesting because I know
they want to have a dynamic campaignbased on the CEO system, the scores
online warfare system which IL two nineteenforty six had. That could be really
interesting. But to go back toyour the root of your question, like
what do I think might happen?Then I actually do wonder if there's going

(44:05):
to be a rejection of the superhigh end stuff and to go to simpler
stuff. And what I mean bythat is like something like a Strike Fighters
too. You can look at battleBit which has like the worst graphics ever,
but the gameplay is really interesting andit's already kind of happening. Flight
Sims like Tiny Combat Arena, whichhas like pixel art. Some people really

(44:25):
like that game, and it's justgetting too expensive and too complicated to compete
with the really big studios. Sothe only other natural option is that something
else has to give, and ifyou give up on the graphics or the
level of fidelity, then you makeup for it with gameplay, which is
not too dissimilar what the original CombatFlight Sims did, so I could maybe

(44:46):
potentially see that happening, because it'salready happened in first person shooters, like
with Battle Bit. Let's talk aboutyour YouTube channel a little bit. You
produced a video Bit made a bitof a sp in the Falcon BMS community,
at least the parts that I'm in, and the video was entitled are

(45:07):
we in a sim Gaming Dark Age? Could you summarize what the video was
about and why you made it?I'll start with the why I made it
because I was sick and tired ofbeing bored, because I have been basically
chasing the same high from word ortwo online and I haven't able to find

(45:28):
anything that has scratched that ditch.Back in my day, when I played
World two online, I was presentedwith a dynamic campaign that was PvP multiplayer
only, that had fairly believable planesfor the time, a really good damage
model combined arms actions with consequences,and it was really competitive and really fun.

(45:55):
And since then, basically the youknow, the games have just kind
of gone to the wayside. It'sjust been more fidelity, more detail,
but like the gameplay has really suffered, and the video is actually, I
think actually pretty applicable to just gamingin general, because if you think about

(46:16):
it, think about like all thenew game releases that have happened in the
last I don't know, five years, I guess, like what has really
come out that's actually kind of likestuck hold that wasn't like immediately consumed within
like six months or a year.Like pretty much like the big popular games
are the same popular games that cameout twenty or whatever ten fifteen years ago,

(46:38):
like war Thunder and DODA and Leagueof Legends and DCS and Ile two
franchise. Like there's there hasn't beentoo many new big games that I can
remember that or for me at least, that have like, I'm like,
Wow, this is a great newgame that I still play and still want
to play. It's just kind ofmore of the same. But the video

(46:58):
really kind of was a reaction toBMS, because me playing BMS, I'm
like, this is like old school, and this is coming from a place
of like trying to make things believableenough, focusing on gameplay and scale,
just basically explaining to people that like, there's everyone plays DCS, but here's

(47:19):
BMS. It does some things muchbetter than DCS, and I think people
will be really surprised by that.And how do we get into this dark
age? And I talk about warth Under sucking the air out of the
room and really capturing a huge market, and I would say that it has

(47:40):
limited the market of potential players who'vebeen able to come to these more complicated
sims, which has made the spaceless viable for new companies to come in
and has shored up the defenses,if you will, of the current companies.
And then the next thing is like, how do we get out of
it? I do genuinely think thatwe are still kind of in a dark

(48:01):
age, but I will say thatthere is a little bit of a light
at the end of the tunnel,because I think Combat Pilot and with the
recent updates that BMS has been teasingout, I think there could be something
really interesting going on. And there'sa big question mark about idle two great
bottles of what they're going to donext. And you know, DCSs teased
out some news by their Dynamic campaignand like if that's coming or when it's

(48:22):
coming or whatever, like who knows, So it's I don't know. What
do you think about the video?I actually really enjoyed it. I wanted
to actually go watch it again,and you know, with all the information
that I had taken, and Iwanted to go see it again sometime and
I'd like to watch that again andget a new, fresh perspective on it.
But at the time, I rememberthinking that it really did raise questions

(48:47):
that we in the community. Idon't think we always have answers for,
you know, where did some ofthe experiences of the past go. Why
don't we have titles like we didin the past, Like I just mentioned
Jane's If and Commanche the Camanche seriesand things like that, and the Comanche
series died a horrible death in someways in my opinion because it started to

(49:09):
move more towards arcade, not lessfidelity, more gameplay, but more into
the action arcade side, and soit just disappeared from the simulation genre almost
entirely. I think they came upwith a recent one that was I actually
thought it was rather bizarre. Idon't know if you're familiar with if you've

(49:30):
seen the latest Commanche title, youhave a stealth helicopter, which is the
Commanche, but for whatever reason,they have missions where you are launching drones
from your helicopter and fighting in whatlooks like air ducks in buildings, and
it just I don't know. Idon't know where we're going with these old

(49:52):
titles and these old ideas, Andit seems like BMS and DCS and you
mentioned IL and some others. Itseems like there are only a few titles
that are holding the old traditional together. And I think your video raised some
very good questions about this and gaveus a lot of things to think about.

(50:14):
It's a really weird situation that we'rein. I think the quick summary
was that, like, we havemore button suppressed now than ever, but
we have less to do, orwe have less things that we're able to
do, and I think that's reallyfrustrating, and I think it sucks.
Something has to give, right itLike it's either gameplay or more fidelity and
graphics, and I definitely enjoyed thegameplay more than the graphics. I actually

(50:37):
did play Strike Fighters too recently duringmy sabbatical, and I actually thought that
game was actually pretty neat. Itjust felt too old for me to really
play it more. And I don'treally like playing against AI, so I
kind of got bored of it.But I mean, you look, everyone
has to pay attention to DCS becauseit's the biggest one. There's Ile two

(50:58):
grade battles, which I actually reallyenjoy. I think Combat Pilot is going
to be really exciting because there hasn'tbeen a new combat flights on the market
in a really long time. Andthen you have BMS also, which I
think it has a really important thingthat it provides. And you know,
no one else is really doing genfor in a good way or in a

(51:22):
way where it's compelling enough to actuallysit down and actually learn those plans,
because those planes are like you know, it takes time to learn those things,
and I don't really want to doit in DCS anymore. Like I
learned a couple of them, butthen once I started doing stuff in the
scenarios, I was like, thisis not really worth the time investment to
learn these things because the scenarios arenot compelling enough. And that's kind of

(51:42):
why I like the early mid ColdWar stuff in DCS, because it kind
of does it well, Like thethe learning curve on those planes aren't really
that complicated. The level of fidelitythat DCS has probably shouldn't really extend past
the Cold War stuff because it feelslike it's out of pace with what the
game can really handle in terms oflike the AI and the scenarios. So

(52:06):
DCS to me is a Cold oversimulator. I'll two Great Battles is like
the best place for PvP combat rightnow, and BMS is like if you
want to experience like an actual richscenario with the story, a campaign that
plays out over an extended period,and you could do it in co op
once so you can have fun withpeople. What's the type of content that
you have on your YouTube channel?Is it gameplay footage or is it more

(52:30):
like the videos that we're discussing thesame gaming dark Age discussion, do you
have interviews? What's on there?So my channel, I was bored during
COVID and my girlfriend goes asleep reallyearly, and I'd like to say up
late, and I was annoying herplaying super late. So what I started
to do was play earlier in theday and watch my footage because I used

(52:51):
to just watch for gunnery purposes toget better. And then I started editing
videos. And kind of what Iwas thinking about was everyone makes they either
do raw gameplay or they do rawtutorials, which is like press this button
to do this and whatever, butno one was really explaining like how would
you use these things? And multiplayerif you play these games, A lot

(53:15):
of the things that the playing cando don't really matter in PvP multiplayer because
the scenarios are generally made in away where they skew toward trying to get
more players, and there are certainflight times, there's you know, the
servers are ran by hobbyists. Theycan only make so many different scenarios.
Like you learn the maps, youdon't need to know the navigation once you

(53:36):
start playing enough. It's just that'sjust how it is a multiplayer. And
I wanted to make content that waslike how like guides for multiplayer that kind
of cut out all this stuff thatyou don't really need to know, and
making things that are actionable. Ihave taught as an adjunct at a university,
and it's interesting to hear student feedbackcompared to actual professors that have less

(54:01):
industry experience and it's more theoretical.I wanted to marry the theory with the
industry experience, and that's kind ofhow the channel was kind of focused on.
So that's how it kind of gotstarted. And as the audience grew,
I started wanted to talk about commentaryabout the industry in general, which

(54:25):
is like the Dark Age video,and I also wanted to talk about the
development and kind of what goes intoit, because I feel like people need
to understand that this niche is notnearly as big as people to expect.
And the joke that I have,which is really morbid, is that some

(54:47):
really important projects are are only ouronly one bus away from being stopped.
And if you think about it,like you look at the DCS module makers,
you look at some of the servers, you look at other community other
games, like how many people dothey actually have involved that are doing certain
things that are absolutely like super important, and you know, something bad happens,

(55:15):
car accident, whatever they hit bybus, and like that project is
like totally stuck in some ways.And I think that trying to humanize the
module makers and the people involved inthe scene, I think is really important
because it kind of grounds people andit also kind of reminds people of like

(55:35):
what are we really pushing for?Does it really make sense that we're pushing
for like this most advanced level offidelity that's never been seen before, when
like some of these projects are likeliterally just like a three man team.
Well, Enigma, thank you verymuch for joining us today. I think
we covered a lot of material andit sounds like I really should have you

(55:59):
back another time. Yeah, thanksfor having me. There's one that you
Chad. I hope I made peoplethink about something and I appreciate you having
me on. We'll be right backafter this break. Stay with us.

(56:22):
Alpha Bravo, Charlie. You've probablyheard phrases like this in military movies.
This is part of the NATO phoneticalphabet. It's a way of saying words
that represent letters. For example,alpha represents the letter A Bravo represents the
letter B. You can probably alreadyguess that Charlie represents the letter C.

(56:43):
These words are used in place ofletters because they are meant to be used
over military radios. Radio transmissions arenot always clear, particularly when you're in
the middle of a war. Italso doesn't help that English has many letters
that all sound similar B, C, D, E, P, t
V, and even Z if you'refrom America. There are even some pronunciations

(57:07):
that matter. Quebec is the codefor Q, but it's supposed to be
pronounced K. Back. Knowing allof this, you can spell any English
word with this system. Tango foxtrotwould be the initials of this podcast.
The Tactical Frequency Dragnet one, Lowdown, One Cool podcast, The Tactical Frequency.

(57:37):
Ah Yes, the Tactical Frequency.Welcome back once again. Like I
said earlier in the broadcast, I'mvery happy to be here today and be
able to do this episode. Iwas a little bit worried I wouldn't be
able to get everything done on time, but it worked out great. Keeping
with the theme of retro games andsims, let's talk a little bit about

(58:01):
MicroProse in the current era. MicroProsehaving bought the Falcon four point zero intellectual
property rights, have decided to workon Falcon five point zero. We're not
entirely sure about a lot of thesedetails. Will Falcon five point zero be

(58:22):
more arcade than sim Will it besim level based on what the past was,
in which case people today may notsee it as a simulation like they
would have twenty years ago. Orwill Falcon five point zero have new features,
new abilities. I believe it wasRipper who brought up the fact that

(58:44):
MicroProse has a connection already with anestablished engine that does worldwide planetary support.
That means, essentially you could haveFalcon five point zero come with a worldwide
theater. We'll have to just bepatient and see what they're bringing to the

(59:08):
table for the Falcon legacy. Mycall sign is Bible Cleaner. I've been
your host for this hour. Thankyou very much for joining me during this
episode of the Tactical Frequency. Ilook forward to speaking again with you in
another two weeks. Falcon one Dragnetone, you are now leaving the Tactical Frequency