I hope this video pushes a few people to take the leap and try out BMS. For those that are interested our reoccurring BMS Weekend server is launching the day this video was posted public so feel free to join us on our discord.
I loved Falcon 4.0 as a kid (and Flanker 1.0 and 2.0) But today I just can't get over the flat buildings, really ruins the immersion at lower altitudes. But overall it's an amazing effort by the BMS team.
@@fihalhohi5353People like you dismissing the game because of poor graphics, you are the majority. BMS has some of the best depth and gameplay of the flight sim genre but “ew it looks bad XD” You are missing out on BMS because of a false assumption that looks bad = bad game
@@christopherbazaka1564 don't get me wrong, I have high respect for those devs and the project, but graphics are important. big fan of falcon 4, i had the manual actually printed out back then, used to be my favorite game. but it's just too dated in that regard.
@@muhammadsaleh7229 I've played DCS for ages. Its not "breaking" at all.... maybe you just have a bad PC that cant handle the updated visuals? Which would be surprising because you really dont need that high of specs at all for it.
The graphics comment is on point. I mean, I actually agree with everything in the video (especially the training). As someone who flies in VR, DCS has been a love / hate relationship. It can be amazing, and it can run like total dogshit. The number of times I've walked away from DCS for months because of the weird performance issues is probably half a dozen (I've been playing since Lock-On). I hopped into BMS, and it's buttery smooth all the time. The terrain is a little rough at certain altitudes. But also, at some altitudes, the city textures look okay, and actually give a better sense of a real city than DCS. The planes look great, the airfields look okay, in all honesty, the graphics didn't hold back my enjoyment at all, and sometimes DCS performance does hold back my enjoyment. The feeling of really being in a conflict is unmatched. I remember one of my first missions a few months ago when I hopped into BMS, I got held short on the runway because a flight of F-15s had declared an emergency, and one of them was coming in with just one engine running. Just little emergent details like that are so amazing.
Awesome thanks for the video. Yes learning is different in BMS. Understanding the jet is more important than knowing how to do specific tasks because the situation will never be the same.
I think this is only a question of perspective. People in DCS tend to learn things task by task because the content on RUclips is done this way. As Enigma said, you find the same manual contents in BMS and DCS, it is just presented differently. Personally, as a fan of the Tomcat, I don't care of the simulator docs because I can find more precise manuals to learn in depth how the aircraft systems work and how each one of them interacts in the aircraft. The simulator itself doesn't change the way you learn aircraft because it is only dependent on the motivation of each pilot to see further than a few tasks
Fun fact, after being playing BMS in instant action for years, only learning the basics of selecting targets in TWS mode and little more than that, I learned the whole startup procedure in a 1 min video. After this I started watching other videos and learning other stuff, like the comms ladder, and how to employ A-G weapons (unguided, laser, GPS, HARMs and mavericks). In a month you can start to have your fun, even if there's still a lot more to learn.
BMS is so underated. But little by little and especially after the release of Update 4, big steps have been made and it certainly draw more peoples attention. The future is bright and i cant wait
Been considering getting into BMS for a while now, since DCS single player just wasn’t doing it for me. These exact misconceptions kept me at bay for a while, but it’s safe to say you’ve sold me on it! Also wanted to say that I don’t think you comprehend the sheer value you put out with videos like these, bringing attention to and coming in defense of gems like BMS.
Nailed it regarding the lack of bugs. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to be able to learn a jet...and everything just works. Not only that, it continues to work. One of my biggest frustrations with DCS is how frequently what would seem fairly obvious bugs are introduced. Learning in DCS is significantly more difficult because you don't always know if you're just doing something wrong or if its a bug. I never have this issue in BMS.
@@ARTIK_29 No, all he said was people play VTOL VR not because the graphics are superb, but because the game is one of the greatest and most popular flight simulation games ever released. You seem rather but hurt and probably despise all of these smaller really fun flight sim games and quite frankly, falcon BMS provides an amazing and vastly superior Wargames simulation with F-16, F-15, F/A-18 and AV8B-2 all full fidelity modules with their own attributes and a super campaign engine. New terrain will make most haters points invalid as well. He's Not objectively wrong as he never brought DCS into the comment, think before you write bozo.
The one thing I really think BMS needs right now is.... documentation for mission commander. Im working on making my own 80s theater right now but mission commander is SO powerful and with the right skills anyone can make their own maps
Rewatching this video this morning and I realized I wanted to make a shout-out to this channel. Has every BMS subject covered youtube.com/@aviationplus
Falcon 4.0 has an incredible manual that I think even if you don't play Falcon you should read. Way better than DCS manuals, that's for sure. DCS manuals have so much padding and repetition and are just very messy and hard to read compared to a real dash-one
BMS Graphics ROCK the Casbah...I love BMS, especially in VR...I have no idea what I'm doing, but I love it...been loving the Falcon series since 1988 and still have all my boxed versions.
Played on BMS waaaay before DCS probably 10 years ago now. This got me into modern era sims. I’m glad they’re still around I did enjoy the dynamic campain
Would make sense for the BMS devs to publish some guides for how to contribute, and really push for community developed aircraft and modules. That's where they could overtake DCS - by focusing on community first.
Maybe. DCS while it has a lot has no standards. It is very dejecting when some rules apply to some planes vs not others. BMS devs seem to do a good job of not biting off more than they can chew.
I've gotten the impression they don't want that. Opening up modding and encouraging it will open the floodgates to a bunch of crap sim models that will cheapen the overall sim. Most developers have no clue what they're doing, while BMS's model is quite alright for a consumer model and is developed by experts. They're also realistic about the development timelines although they've sped up lately due to effectively having a huge batch of flight modeling work done in years past. BMS is also a mod, and it's their mod. It's not a product being sold and they don't have to answer to any community and can decide what to put in it. It's just fortunate they decide on high-quality elements where possible. I say this *as* a simulation modder/model developer and as someone who's open to sims being open to modding. I don't know if the model behavior is tunable in the public version; I saw someone working on an AH-64 mod with helicopter physics some years ago so I suspect it is to some degree.
The immersive experience of the entire campaign and each flight is unmatched. It is crazy how being a cog in a machine feels. The full ATC and AI wingman experience is awesome too.
Love DCS. Play BMS a few times on an off over the years. Recently me and a mate decided to give BMS a proper go, give the campaign a good crack - It's an entirely different game. It's an amazing experience that is currently very unique to BMS and it's easier than it's every been to get in. If you've tried BMS years ago and ran into issues, i'd strongly suggest trying again now. And, I still have DCS and can go back any time I like.
Excellent, thanks for saying what those of us that have been flying falcon 4.0 since it's inception in 1998 know... so glad to see what BMS has/will become presented intelligently. 👍
I feel like we are lucky to have BMS. We are in a time without any competition in the modern combat flight sim market, having a game that succeeds in almost every single one of it's competitions major pitfalls is crazy. Most areas where DCS falls short, BMS does very well. I'd say BMS' major pitfall(for most) is F-16 only gameplay, and graphics. These things are tough to change as a modding dev team, but they are making leaps and bounds. It amazes me what a group of random people can and have been achieving in this space, without any monetary return. I think that if BMS was a commercial product, DCS probably would have been a failure. But as it is, DCS with it's growing popularity and glaring problems, BMS is faring for better and better from the spill over. If Falcon series ever returns, with it's reputation it could change the market. We salute you BMS dev team!
I begged my dad for Falcon 4.0 in 1998. The idiot actually bought it for me for my birthday. I've been lost in this world ever since. All those versions too. The great Open Falcon/RedViper war etc. And here we are. Still running BMS, which still requires the original Falcon 4.0 CD I got for my birthday 26 years ago. And that CD still works fine.
The addition of VR really drew me back to BMS (hoping they keep optimising this as it still takes some serious power to get a good experience). I'm playing it more and more these days and only occasionally going back to DCS. I would say it is my main flight sim now and there is so much depth to it. DCS is a bit sterile weather wise and this was the first big difference I noticed coming back to BMS. You are really aware of the effects of wind on the jet.
Yeah, landing on some of the coastal Korean airstrips, and that cross wind can really make your butt clench up. Are you saying that the VR didn't run well for you though? I ran a server for about 4 friends for a few weeks, and all of us fly in VR, and it ran way better than in DCS for all of us.
@@roberthaynes3657 I'm getting 90fps pretty much all the time in VR. So VR running very well it's just that I'd like to crank the resolution up more as the visuals start becoming very good at around 1.8 in the config file but I lose about 40fps doing that and gets a bit stuttery. Very happy with it but I know it could be so much more. Quad view implementation would go a long way to allowing me to push the visuals.
I've been flying the F16 since Falcon 3.0. It has come a long way over the years. Big thanks to all developers and community for making this sim truly amazing.
I started BMS today and absolutely love it. Yes, DCS has other planes I prefer, and all the bells and whistles, but BMS has a different feel that I don't get with DCS. Perhaps there is a lack of fluff with BMS that makes it feel like a true simulator. The mission set, campaigns, SA involvement etc. I'm impressed.
Great video. I have been playing DCS for the last six years and have spent a lot of money on planes and terrain maps, VR equipment etc. Although I own a lot of modules, my true favorite is the F-16. Overall, I have loved playing DCS and still continue to get on it because I know it's still improving despite its shortcomings. With all that being said, I have become bored with it. I don't have the time to get into an online group to fly with so there's really not much of any variety outside of my own mission builds or the few Campaigns you can purchase online. I re-found BMS over the last few weeks and have been hooked ever since. The sim is solid, the AI works great, for the most part and I am loving the campaigns and missions. Being forced to read all the manuals has actually made me learn more about the systems and how they work. A lot of what I learned in DCS has crossed over and I've been able to build upon that knowledge through BMS. Great sim and can't wait to see how it continues to develop.
You hit the nail on the head for me with controller configuration. That's what made me give up 6yrs ago. The fidelity of the f16 flight model is unparalleled. So, I guess I need to get back. I'm praying that the VR setup isn't too bad.
Thanks for the summary. Just gave it another try and it is indeed amazing at a fraction of the price of BMS. Spotting air targets in VR is so much easier in Falcon it seems
@@Carlos27thFS how? Download is basically all about launching 2 setups and clicking next buttons. Settings and keybinds are pretty simple with alternative launcher which comes with BMS itself for a long time now. Only hard thing is probably Tactical Engagement editor for creating your own missions but you don't need it at first and it is not like launching a spaceship, a few youtube videos are you are done.
@@Carlos27thFS Did you set the key for the F-15 too or are you trying to use F-16 keybinds in F-15. If yes and you are %100 that you are mapping the correct one I don't know about the VR implementation maybe it is not 100% done with F15 or buggy but I don't think so since no one seems to complain about it online.
As someone who played more DCS, I just wanted to note that I've really been a fan of the BMS turorials by Fisgas' Fighties on RUclips! Much more DCS tutorial-esque and broken up into smaller bite-sized how-to-do-X chunks.
Thanks for the video Enigma. Been out of the BMS scene for a fair bit, and still held some of the misconceptions. The addition of "Non F-16" avionics and the key mapping are two massive game changers for me that will probably have me reinstalling it, for a while anyway. In the graphics department though (which appears to soon be alleviated by the terrain upgrade), there's that absolutely miserable view distance. I know the technical reasons why it's there for the most part, just... it's hard to get over sometimes to be in this state of perpetual bad haze over Korea. Otherwise, I find the graphics to be just fine, all things considered. Something I'll probably put back into the rotation for sure. The IADS interaction and campaign has always been amazing to me.
I can totally relate to the fact of having bugs while learning a module in DCS. It gets very frustrating to figure out if things are implemented and properly working or not. Thx to ED for this horrible Early Access experience. Nowadays everything is Work in progress if they mess things up. I really should give BMS a chance it seems. Thx for the video!
Thank you for this, as I have moved from DCS with my F-16 Simpit that came from Thrustmaster in 1997 built for Falcon4. I reworked it and now I was able to setup my AWS server with BMS running on command along with my DCS dedicated server. I am enjoying the transition.
Veterans Gaming has an online persistent campaign, it’s as close to drop in/drop out as you can get. I think on Sundays a bloke named Kav does training flights, he’s been doing that for a year or so, the discord would be the place to find out
It's, at most, a $10 purchase. $10 gets you what is essentially the best F-16 flight simulator, with a dynamic campaign system and multiplayer functionality, to download a mod that is continuously being updated by a team of dedicated volunteers.
Kudos on these guys for keeping Falcon 4 alive after decades of its release. Now for the rant, as someone who flew BMS, and Free Falcon before that and so on, and so on, for YEARS, and actually worked for a time with a team to bring a new airplane to it, i must say that first argument is a strong one. BMS has for the longest time been the F-16 playground. And it's not just the avionics. For the longest time the flight models for NON-Viper planes were at best SFM lookup tables, that made what was essentially an F-16 fly on the surface like something else. And i have written i few myself. Let's not even go to more sophisticated flight dynamics. Efforts have been made over the years, but progress is slow. Not to mention the core team always had its own ideas about what planes should be available ingame..... choices not all of us agreed with. Or agree with. Especially those among us who never really liked the F-16 to begin with, but had to tag along, because it was the only modern jet sim around. But not to sound like a hater or anything, the audience is till here. We may be silent, but we are here. And when the time is right, we will return. When we feel like what is offered is to out liking.
being someone that got into flight sim after a 25 year hiatus i have to admit, when searching what game to play, lots of those misconception came up in many even very serious and "trustworthy" sources. This video totally made me buy falcon 4.0 just now for 5 bucks, now only the Path of Exile LEague needs to be done so i can actually test BMS. Very very informative, thx!
Great take Enigma; 100% on the graphics; it's pragmatism. I've never played BMS, but I played Falcon Allied Force (as I understand it, a commercial branch from Falcon 4.0 that came about around the same time BMS was being developed) and I'm still suffering through the trauma of trying to get that to run from 20 years ago. My main issue with BMS is just related to plane availability -- that said, depending on what you want, even DCS is functionally limited. One of the reasons I was attracted to ECW (and thus, your channel) was the focus on cold war and honestly, even ECW was focused a little later than I was interested (eg. Korean War, first gen jet aircraft). Even if these planes are available on DCS, the opportunities to play them at a peer level, are practically nonexistent -- I mean, yes, part of the fun is the challenge of fighting above your weight class but after a certain time it gets tiring to maintain a modicum of competitiveness. That said -- BVR and modern BFM just isn't an interest of mine, so it's unlikely that I'll jump to BMS any time soon but it's not really widely captured in DCS very well either (which partially explains why I haven't played much over the past year). From a single player perspective, BMS, if it is anything like Falcon 3.0, has a lot to offer over DCS, and that might be the one draw for me, if I ever decide (and find the time) to invest the time into it.
This is why I'm very excited for IL2 Korea. I like the speed of jets, but I still want the aircraft to be a bit of a shitbox. Korean war era stuff satisfies that.
@@fineline2212 My sentiments, exactly. I also feel like the red vs blue dynamic is much more equal at that era, as well, both in terms of what aircraft are available and their relative capabilities; I haven't looked in to IL2 Korea, but i'll follow.
For quite some time now Ive thought the main thing that limits BMS is the lack of a multiplayer server menu to make it easy to play, should be a main priority of the devs to try sort out
Honestly i think it just boils down to people rather being comfortable with what they know than to give something new a chance. Give it time and honestly I'm sure more people will give BMS a shot and it will grow.
Man in 2005 I played bms in college and was fine on a Logitech 3d. 20 years later I find the time required to understand the game more than im willing to commit
My 2 cents : Not sure the choice of the Mig 23 ( having no custom cockpit ) convince a lot of people to try. I wonder if you should perhaps have shown the F-18 or M-2000 which have already pretty good custom cockpits but still no proper avionics ...
I think maybe my point was not clear. The point of showing that was to show the old limitation in the game, that everything had to be with F-16 avionics. This barrier is now gone and we can have custom avionics like we do in the F-15C.
I dug up my old Falcon 4.0 disc to try BMS earlier this year after hearing about the F-15C avionics, but quickly gave up because I go so frustrated binding things, thinking I had to exit and relaunch the game to change bindings. The tip about being able to reload the bindings in-game after editing them in the launcher is what I needed to know to give this another shot, at least for some of my flying (though I've got too much ADHD to spend all my time in a small handful of airframes)
People: it's too hard! Me: literally starting my missions on the runway and going back to 2D when I left the target area (select the last steerpoint back to base before leaving the cockpit).
I agree with your graphics and performance statement. I used to be able to run DCS at 60 FPS, then my stick broke right before COVID and I wasn't willing to pay out the ass for a new one, leaving me without the ability to fly for 2 years. Meanwhile, they apparently improved the graphics to the point where I struggled to achieve 30 fps when I finally got back to flying. This wouldn't be a huge deal if they didn't tie aircraft updates to game updates, meaning I had to suffer with low FPS or accept that the aircraft I paid for would always be stuck on some older version. That was the point where my relationship with DCS ended and I went BMS full time, having already played it for years.
If it wasn't for DCS I wouldn't even know that BMS existed. There is just way more DCS content on RUclips and that's what got me into DCS. Also, I'm a rotorhead. All of that said I heard of BMS from fellow DCS players (only positive things) and I plan on trying it out. Also, I have some friends with older PCs that have a hard time playing DCS so this might be an option for us to play together.
I don't know is misconception or not, but looks like BMS is focused on providing e2e experience, lengthy missions etc. As a busy adult I usually play sims like "ok, I have 15 minutes to kill, let's do a quick bomb run/landing/...", and go back to my stuff. DCS have simple yet powerful mission editor which provides me this experience: "I want my target to be exactly between this two mountains, and my airplane 5nm north of it, flying east with TGP and 2 gbu-12", and I feel missing that in BMS. Although the system modeling, high FPS (even on my crappy setup) makes it really promising sim. Was super-excited learning that BMS now has F-15 as a completely separate core plane rather than "another f-16 skin"
I think BMS has a PR problem in a form of bunch of former jaded, disenfranchised DCS players who switched to BMS and now try to convince everyone that BMS is better and that 'DCS is for kids', not because they'd love BMS, but because they hate DCS (or more specifically, ED probably). And that creates two issues. Firstly, it alienates the very group of people what BMS could interest and secondly it creates completely unreasonable expectations. For example, it's completely common to read that BMS has same planes as DCS, which is not true, unless we count F16s playing dress up. It also perpetuates the myth that no skills from DCS are transferable to BMS. That said, I hugely respect what BMS devs did, it's an amazing achievement in its own right. Hopefully this video does clear some misconceptions and will make BMS more accessible!
Will for sure check this out. I'm new to flight sims, learning the F/A 18 as a first plane currently, but I will look into this. As a VR player it probably will perform insane in comparison too.
For the majority of DCS users it is about module collecting. We buy a module make a couple of flights and then go back to the forums and spend out time typing instead of learning to fly and fight the modules.
You did also leave out that BMS has pretty amazing VR support as well. I still remember the PC Gamer demo disk that I loaded up Falcon 4.0's Demo from on the old family HP Pavilion 8180 back in 1998. 266Mhz P2, 48MB ram, and I upgraded to a PCI Voodoo Banshee from the ATI RAGE IIc it came with to run most 3D games back then. That demo was... Rough but it did work back then when it wasn't crashing. Man the game has come a long way since with BMS.
I agree with alot of this. I'm a helo dude so my main reason for staying with DCS is the helo part. I wish DCS had a dynamic campaign and better logistics, but I'll settle for having to script all of it out for now. Also it's like sim racing on Iracing vs ACC. I like driving in ACC a lot, but it's so hard to find good servers and the racing in Iracing is better.
basic in game tutorial/training is what keeps me coming back to dcs instead of bms. Would play tf out of bms, but I need to beat procedures into my head through doing, which learning is greatly sped up through demonstration. Reading and figuring it out is just something my brain isn't great at, is also made a little more difficult in VR, and not how I want to spend my time.
BMS has ingame missions that you do while having the manual open, they teach you in the exact same way that DCS would, just with the manual open on another monitor
To be honest, something about BMS' graphics work for me. And I think it's a great, great thing to have a flight sim game that is so detailed and doesn't need a great PC. Especially in VR!
Hi.Falcon BMS is a very good simulation, that's out of the question, but there was often a lot of frustration, especially when it came to updates. The netcode in particular was often a problem and everyone had their own experiences when the blue font came and a mission with 15 pilots vanished into thin air.Bms has been around for 25 years and has continued to develop, but it is not the saint.Dcs and Bms both have their right to exist.Such highly complex military simulations will only remain a niche product for hardcore fans in the future and I am pleased me on both Sims.Greets
I've had BMS installed for a long time but never seriously got into it since a few months ago, when i finally got fed up with everything happening in and wrong with DCS. Best decision I ever made. If anyone's on the fence, existing knowledge from DCS F16 and F15E is more than enough to serve as a launching pad. To do a little manual reading, asking for a little help from the community, a little keybinding (like any other game) and a little getting used to. You should be up and running in the dynamic campaign in no time.
My initial interest in BMS came during the VR update but I immediately hit a REALLY big wall after getting introduced to the old keymapper (if you could even call it that) and completely lost interest. I was so glad when I recently caught news that the new mapper was actually pretty decent now. As for the learning curve (specifically the resources part), I am not sure why but I've honestly never heard of Falcon Lounge until after watching this video. I don't even remember it ever being mentioned in the official BMS site FAQ before. Probably an oversight on my part though. Anyway, all I had to learn from back then was the official BMS documentation, the BMS wiki, and a handful of videos from Aviation Plus. Plenty of stuff that could've benefited from a video demonstration where completely left to the imagination. Either that or I just ended up watching stuff that were meant for DCS. 😅
I love helicopters, I got into dcs finally because the Kiowa released, and have since learned the huey aswell. If BMS drops some helis, and has more interesting ground AI when compared to dcs I’d be all over it.
I spent a lot of time on Falcon4 and its various mods/enhancements back in the 90ties. On some level I want to give BMS a go, but I just don't have the time and energy to read up on the F16 and all it's systems, these days. I even stepped back to the simple planes in DCS, like Huey and now Viggen. Oh to have all that free time on hand, as I had in 1990. I never knew how good I had it.
I love BMS graphics just as they are right now ... Good FPSs and a nice complex simulator ... A good mission in BMS is a very rewarding mission ... And now we have F-15 ? yeah baby!
I do hope and wish BMS well, I used to fly Falcon 4, in fact I still have the manual, I also flew BMS. That said, I really enjoy DCS much better and I hope the competition will energize DCS to get with the program and do not rest on their laurels. I don't fly in VR due to various reasons and i have good 100+ frame rates most of the time. I don't trust BMS as far as having different planes, as I only see F-16's in different skins. I'm not a DCS Fan Boy, I know there are a lot of warts in DCS , but I hope the increased competition will spur them to continue improving their sim.
I love BMS since I started playing it I have deleted DCS. Some of the maps in DCS that I've purchased I'm unable to run without stuttering and lagging even if I only have a single plane on that map. You can of course lower the graphics settings to low but the graphics is much worse than in BMS.
The last time I have tested BMS (years ago) the terrain was made of squares. has it improved? In particular I am interested in the Balkans map. Thanks!
RTFM - Read The F*cking Manual is the motto of the BMS community lol. Real life does not have interactive training missions; you study and you fly and if you fail; you study and try again
It's what the DCS community and RUclips generation have come to expect. Which means that the skill of reading a manual and comprehending it is dying out, fast. So I would argue that interactive tutorials are not what BMS or humanity needs. Also remember the goal of BMS Devs is to make it good, better etc, not to "win" DCS players over.
@devnull-uk I see people mention this all the time but ultimately it's the same stuff. You read something or you watch something. Fundamentally you are learning. Someone took the time to write a manual or someone took the time to make a video. People learn in different ways.
@@Duvstep910 For real and that's just not a good attitude from the developers/ community (though honestly, do they really care how big the userbase is?) That would be fine if the manual wasn't so obtuse. The manual is written by people who have played the game fo 5, 10 or 20 years. For a beginner there is a ton of acronyms, jargon, and technical terms to deal with. It is NOT step by step as the video says. You will be jumping around A LOT in the manuals, forums, and youtube.
I tried BMS about 2 years ago before is even started DCS. Things may have changed now, but back then, I couldn't find anyone that would even point me in the right direction. Hell, the people on BMS told me to go to DCS. I'm new players need the community to learn BMS it would be beneficial to not be a rude ass to new people, don't you think.
Was thinking about it if its worth buying cause it seems they would have a lot easier time modelling electronic warfare and interlinked systems with fake planes than dcs.
i am actually very interested in the BMS F-15 since i already enjoyed the Eagle in DCS, i do have a hard time getting familiar with the user interface and just the process of getting into a mission or multiplayer server. Also i do not have that much free time to fill with flight sims and for a quick hop on saturday evenings… being familiar with DCS makes it just a lot easier but i think i will check it out as soon as i can
One misconception I dont see as much is "the flight model is too 'on rails'" That was definitely the case when I started getting into Falcon back in the Allied Force days, but I believe BMS has rectified a fair bit of that
@andrewa837 yep, you can see the difference if you look at old F4 or F4AF footage vs present day BMS. I'm so glad there is a group continuing to carry Falcon BMS into the future. Got another couple decades ahead of it once the new terrain is implemented :)
BMS F-16 flight model is somewhere inbetween a professionally developed customer model and a typical consumer sim model. It's probably one of the best consumer sim flight models in existence. I suspect the only reason it's not pro level is that they can't just directly copy all of the classified data 1:1 without getting into trouble and because some hysteretic transient effects are probably nigh-impossible to model without hundreds of millions dumped into testing.
@@DerPilotMann The F-16 became available for civilian ownership a while ago, so it might be technically possible to donate hundreds of millions to conduct some serious testing, lol. At least on the flight side. Car simulators are a bit better and it "only" costs a few hundred thousand to test one tire.
Very good points, ty! Especially the part about optimization: DCS is a great game and has pretty good graphics (not really good, like MSFS), but the 25 year old Russian Spagetti code is hurting it bad! Especially with newer tech (VR, 4090/5090), as it does not really scale well.
Have MicroProse release Falcon 4.0 on GOG and integrate BMS in the same manner Fallout London is easily integrated with Fallout 4. People who buy Falcon 4.0 on GOG would be able to install BMS on top of it with the click of a button.
![FNAF vs TF2 - Episode 2 [SFM]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/z5b3V2-VLb0/mqdefault.jpg)
I hope this video pushes a few people to take the leap and try out BMS. For those that are interested our reoccurring BMS Weekend server is launching the day this video was posted public so feel free to join us on our discord.
Does the sever map rotate
@@sebastiannewburn Yes, Georgia, Baltic, Korea and Israel
@@Enigma89thank you for promoting BMS, deserves to be so much bigger.
I loved Falcon 4.0 as a kid (and Flanker 1.0 and 2.0)
But today I just can't get over the flat buildings, really ruins the immersion at lower altitudes. But overall it's an amazing effort by the BMS team.
@@Enigma89 wen dose it rotate
BMS is the perfect example of 'I fear not the man who has practiced 1000 kicks once; but the man who has practiced the same kick 1000 times.'
nobody fears the 80 year old man tho. the game just looks like trash in 2024 lets be honest here.
@@fihalhohi5353 It's really not that bad
@@fihalhohi5353 if u only care about graphics thats fine but dont complain when you dont get any other features in a game.
@@fihalhohi5353People like you dismissing the game because of poor graphics, you are the majority.
BMS has some of the best depth and gameplay of the flight sim genre but “ew it looks bad XD”
You are missing out on BMS because of a false assumption that looks bad = bad game
@@christopherbazaka1564 don't get me wrong, I have high respect for those devs and the project, but graphics are important.
big fan of falcon 4, i had the manual actually printed out back then, used to be my favorite game. but it's just too dated in that regard.
An F 15 / F 16 flight sim with a dynamic campaign and good ai and bug free . This is a dream come true
the a-10 is also partially modeled, clickable cockpit but the mfd/rwr are ripped from the f16, still fun to fly it
@@1Kn2828 I'd take that as well . Thanks for the heads up
Its far from bug free.
@@soliitudegaming7275 better than Dcs , and not breaking with every update. I'll take that anyway
@@muhammadsaleh7229 I've played DCS for ages. Its not "breaking" at all.... maybe you just have a bad PC that cant handle the updated visuals? Which would be surprising because you really dont need that high of specs at all for it.
The graphics comment is on point. I mean, I actually agree with everything in the video (especially the training).
As someone who flies in VR, DCS has been a love / hate relationship. It can be amazing, and it can run like total dogshit. The number of times I've walked away from DCS for months because of the weird performance issues is probably half a dozen (I've been playing since Lock-On).
I hopped into BMS, and it's buttery smooth all the time. The terrain is a little rough at certain altitudes. But also, at some altitudes, the city textures look okay, and actually give a better sense of a real city than DCS. The planes look great, the airfields look okay, in all honesty, the graphics didn't hold back my enjoyment at all, and sometimes DCS performance does hold back my enjoyment.
The feeling of really being in a conflict is unmatched. I remember one of my first missions a few months ago when I hopped into BMS, I got held short on the runway because a flight of F-15s had declared an emergency, and one of them was coming in with just one engine running. Just little emergent details like that are so amazing.
Awesome thanks for the video. Yes learning is different in BMS. Understanding the jet is more important than knowing how to do specific tasks because the situation will never be the same.
I think this is only a question of perspective.
People in DCS tend to learn things task by task because the content on RUclips is done this way. As Enigma said, you find the same manual contents in BMS and DCS, it is just presented differently. Personally, as a fan of the Tomcat, I don't care of the simulator docs because I can find more precise manuals to learn in depth how the aircraft systems work and how each one of them interacts in the aircraft. The simulator itself doesn't change the way you learn aircraft because it is only dependent on the motivation of each pilot to see further than a few tasks
Fun fact, after being playing BMS in instant action for years, only learning the basics of selecting targets in TWS mode and little more than that, I learned the whole startup procedure in a 1 min video.
After this I started watching other videos and learning other stuff, like the comms ladder, and how to employ A-G weapons (unguided, laser, GPS, HARMs and mavericks).
In a month you can start to have your fun, even if there's still a lot more to learn.
Thanks for this video and expose BMS a bit more from a different angle! Cheers
BMS is so underated. But little by little and especially after the release of Update 4, big steps have been made and it certainly draw more peoples attention. The future is bright and i cant wait
Been considering getting into BMS for a while now, since DCS single player just wasn’t doing it for me. These exact misconceptions kept me at bay for a while, but it’s safe to say you’ve sold me on it!
Also wanted to say that I don’t think you comprehend the sheer value you put out with videos like these, bringing attention to and coming in defense of gems like BMS.
Nailed it regarding the lack of bugs. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to be able to learn a jet...and everything just works. Not only that, it continues to work. One of my biggest frustrations with DCS is how frequently what would seem fairly obvious bugs are introduced. Learning in DCS is significantly more difficult because you don't always know if you're just doing something wrong or if its a bug. I never have this issue in BMS.
If graphics were so important, nobody would play VTOL VR. :D
dcs daily average players is more than vtolvrs all time peak
@@ARTIK_29 Who asked bro 💀
@@beaverdam1199 hes just objectively wrong
@@ARTIK_29 No, all he said was people play VTOL VR not because the graphics are superb, but because the game is one of the greatest and most popular flight simulation games ever released.
You seem rather but hurt and probably despise all of these smaller really fun flight sim games and quite frankly, falcon BMS provides an amazing and vastly superior Wargames simulation with F-16, F-15, F/A-18 and AV8B-2 all full fidelity modules with their own attributes and a super campaign engine. New terrain will make most haters points invalid as well.
He's Not objectively wrong as he never brought DCS into the comment, think before you write bozo.
@@beaverdam1199 who asked?
The one thing I really think BMS needs right now is.... documentation for mission commander. Im working on making my own 80s theater right now but mission commander is SO powerful and with the right skills anyone can make their own maps
As MC will be replaced with upcoming version. There is no work for any doc on it anymore
Rewatching this video this morning and I realized I wanted to make a shout-out to this channel. Has every BMS subject covered youtube.com/@aviationplus
Well deserved! Prime tries to be helpful each time an occasion arises :)
Falcon 4.0 has an incredible manual that I think even if you don't play Falcon you should read. Way better than DCS manuals, that's for sure. DCS manuals have so much padding and repetition and are just very messy and hard to read compared to a real dash-one
Falcon 3.0 had a thick book of a manual and it was amazing. As I kid, I had no idea what I was reading but it was so interesting
BMS Graphics ROCK the Casbah...I love BMS, especially in VR...I have no idea what I'm doing, but I love it...been loving the Falcon series since 1988 and still have all my boxed versions.
as a DCS enjoyer this makes me happy because anything that stands like a competition with Eagle Dynamics will surely improve DCS world (I hope so)
Played on BMS waaaay before DCS probably 10 years ago now. This got me into modern era sims. I’m glad they’re still around I did enjoy the dynamic campain
Would make sense for the BMS devs to publish some guides for how to contribute, and really push for community developed aircraft and modules. That's where they could overtake DCS - by focusing on community first.
Maybe. DCS while it has a lot has no standards. It is very dejecting when some rules apply to some planes vs not others. BMS devs seem to do a good job of not biting off more than they can chew.
The tactical engagements on the Korea map are sort of the training. The training pdf's talk you through each one.
I've gotten the impression they don't want that. Opening up modding and encouraging it will open the floodgates to a bunch of crap sim models that will cheapen the overall sim. Most developers have no clue what they're doing, while BMS's model is quite alright for a consumer model and is developed by experts. They're also realistic about the development timelines although they've sped up lately due to effectively having a huge batch of flight modeling work done in years past.
BMS is also a mod, and it's their mod. It's not a product being sold and they don't have to answer to any community and can decide what to put in it. It's just fortunate they decide on high-quality elements where possible.
I say this *as* a simulation modder/model developer and as someone who's open to sims being open to modding.
I don't know if the model behavior is tunable in the public version; I saw someone working on an AH-64 mod with helicopter physics some years ago so I suspect it is to some degree.
They have tons of guides
Their totorials are mainly in texts, not videos.
The immersive experience of the entire campaign and each flight is unmatched. It is crazy how being a cog in a machine feels. The full ATC and AI wingman experience is awesome too.
I'm so happy they updated the key mapper, I bounced off BMS a few years ago because of this.
Love DCS. Play BMS a few times on an off over the years. Recently me and a mate decided to give BMS a proper go, give the campaign a good crack - It's an entirely different game. It's an amazing experience that is currently very unique to BMS and it's easier than it's every been to get in.
If you've tried BMS years ago and ran into issues, i'd strongly suggest trying again now.
And, I still have DCS and can go back any time I like.
Excellent, thanks for saying what those of us that have been flying falcon 4.0 since it's inception in 1998 know... so glad to see what BMS has/will become presented intelligently. 👍
I feel like we are lucky to have BMS. We are in a time without any competition in the modern combat flight sim market, having a game that succeeds in almost every single one of it's competitions major pitfalls is crazy. Most areas where DCS falls short, BMS does very well. I'd say BMS' major pitfall(for most) is F-16 only gameplay, and graphics. These things are tough to change as a modding dev team, but they are making leaps and bounds. It amazes me what a group of random people can and have been achieving in this space, without any monetary return. I think that if BMS was a commercial product, DCS probably would have been a failure. But as it is, DCS with it's growing popularity and glaring problems, BMS is faring for better and better from the spill over. If Falcon series ever returns, with it's reputation it could change the market. We salute you BMS dev team!
I begged my dad for Falcon 4.0 in 1998. The idiot actually bought it for me for my birthday. I've been lost in this world ever since. All those versions too. The great Open Falcon/RedViper war etc. And here we are. Still running BMS, which still requires the original Falcon 4.0 CD I got for my birthday 26 years ago. And that CD still works fine.
Why is he an idiot
The addition of VR really drew me back to BMS (hoping they keep optimising this as it still takes some serious power to get a good experience). I'm playing it more and more these days and only occasionally going back to DCS. I would say it is my main flight sim now and there is so much depth to it. DCS is a bit sterile weather wise and this was the first big difference I noticed coming back to BMS. You are really aware of the effects of wind on the jet.
Yeah, landing on some of the coastal Korean airstrips, and that cross wind can really make your butt clench up.
Are you saying that the VR didn't run well for you though? I ran a server for about 4 friends for a few weeks, and all of us fly in VR, and it ran way better than in DCS for all of us.
@@roberthaynes3657 I'm getting 90fps pretty much all the time in VR. So VR running very well it's just that I'd like to crank the resolution up more as the visuals start becoming very good at around 1.8 in the config file but I lose about 40fps doing that and gets a bit stuttery. Very happy with it but I know it could be so much more. Quad view implementation would go a long way to allowing me to push the visuals.
I've been flying the F16 since Falcon 3.0. It has come a long way over the years. Big thanks to all developers and community for making this sim truly amazing.
I started BMS today and absolutely love it. Yes, DCS has other planes I prefer, and all the bells and whistles, but BMS has a different feel that I don't get with DCS. Perhaps there is a lack of fluff with BMS that makes it feel like a true simulator. The mission set, campaigns, SA involvement etc. I'm impressed.
A good weekend for BMS with Enigma's videos and also @CWLemoine (F16) / @AviationPlus (F15)
Great video. I have been playing DCS for the last six years and have spent a lot of money on planes and terrain maps, VR equipment etc. Although I own a lot of modules, my true favorite is the F-16. Overall, I have loved playing DCS and still continue to get on it because I know it's still improving despite its shortcomings. With all that being said, I have become bored with it. I don't have the time to get into an online group to fly with so there's really not much of any variety outside of my own mission builds or the few Campaigns you can purchase online. I re-found BMS over the last few weeks and have been hooked ever since. The sim is solid, the AI works great, for the most part and I am loving the campaigns and missions. Being forced to read all the manuals has actually made me learn more about the systems and how they work. A lot of what I learned in DCS has crossed over and I've been able to build upon that knowledge through BMS. Great sim and can't wait to see how it continues to develop.
You hit the nail on the head for me with controller configuration. That's what made me give up 6yrs ago. The fidelity of the f16 flight model is unparalleled. So, I guess I need to get back. I'm praying that the VR setup isn't too bad.
I usually have my BMS first thing in the morning after a cup of coffee.
Thanks for the summary. Just gave it another try and it is indeed amazing at a fraction of the price of BMS. Spotting air targets in VR is so much easier in Falcon it seems
Bms used to be really a bear to setup but they have improved the UI so much and now its similar to anything else.
It is without a doubt the most convoluted bs sim to try and download
@@Carlos27thFS at least it’s much faster to download since it’s not hundreds of GBs.
@@Carlos27thFS how? Download is basically all about launching 2 setups and clicking next buttons. Settings and keybinds are pretty simple with alternative launcher which comes with BMS itself for a long time now. Only hard thing is probably Tactical Engagement editor for creating your own missions but you don't need it at first and it is not like launching a spaceship, a few youtube videos are you are done.
@@j0xx02 Cool, so I can recenter the Viper in VR. But the same key does not recenter the 15??
@@Carlos27thFS Did you set the key for the F-15 too or are you trying to use F-16 keybinds in F-15. If yes and you are %100 that you are mapping the correct one I don't know about the VR implementation maybe it is not 100% done with F15 or buggy but I don't think so since no one seems to complain about it online.
As someone who played more DCS, I just wanted to note that I've really been a fan of the BMS turorials by Fisgas' Fighties on RUclips!
Much more DCS tutorial-esque and broken up into smaller bite-sized how-to-do-X chunks.
Thanks for the video Enigma. Been out of the BMS scene for a fair bit, and still held some of the misconceptions. The addition of "Non F-16" avionics and the key mapping are two massive game changers for me that will probably have me reinstalling it, for a while anyway.
In the graphics department though (which appears to soon be alleviated by the terrain upgrade), there's that absolutely miserable view distance. I know the technical reasons why it's there for the most part, just... it's hard to get over sometimes to be in this state of perpetual bad haze over Korea. Otherwise, I find the graphics to be just fine, all things considered. Something I'll probably put back into the rotation for sure. The IADS interaction and campaign has always been amazing to me.
I bounced off the keybinding system, didn't know it had been updated. Cheers
I just got BMS, and kept procrastinating it because of the perceived high workload. But after watching this I’ll give it another try.
I love dcs but this video is going to make me retry BMS again in VR
And…BMS have a really nice ATC! 🎉
I can totally relate to the fact of having bugs while learning a module in DCS. It gets very frustrating to figure out if things are implemented and properly working or not. Thx to ED for this horrible Early Access experience. Nowadays everything is Work in progress if they mess things up. I really should give BMS a chance it seems. Thx for the video!
Thank you for this, as I have moved from DCS with my F-16 Simpit that came from Thrustmaster in 1997 built for Falcon4. I reworked it and now I was able to setup my AWS server with BMS running on command along with my DCS dedicated server. I am enjoying the transition.
Man I REALLY want to try BMS and make vids on it. Maybe try it out this weekend
Great vid
Plz do it. I love your vids man
Veterans Gaming has an online persistent campaign, it’s as close to drop in/drop out as you can get.
I think on Sundays a bloke named Kav does training flights, he’s been doing that for a year or so, the discord would be the place to find out
It's, at most, a $10 purchase.
$10 gets you what is essentially the best F-16 flight simulator, with a dynamic campaign system and multiplayer functionality, to download a mod that is continuously being updated by a team of dedicated volunteers.
Kudos on these guys for keeping Falcon 4 alive after decades of its release. Now for the rant, as someone who flew BMS, and Free Falcon before that and so on, and so on, for YEARS, and actually worked for a time with a team to bring a new airplane to it, i must say that first argument is a strong one. BMS has for the longest time been the F-16 playground. And it's not just the avionics. For the longest time the flight models for NON-Viper planes were at best SFM lookup tables, that made what was essentially an F-16 fly on the surface like something else. And i have written i few myself. Let's not even go to more sophisticated flight dynamics. Efforts have been made over the years, but progress is slow. Not to mention the core team always had its own ideas about what planes should be available ingame..... choices not all of us agreed with. Or agree with. Especially those among us who never really liked the F-16 to begin with, but had to tag along, because it was the only modern jet sim around. But not to sound like a hater or anything, the audience is till here. We may be silent, but we are here. And when the time is right, we will return. When we feel like what is offered is to out liking.
being someone that got into flight sim after a 25 year hiatus i have to admit, when searching what game to play, lots of those misconception came up in many even very serious and "trustworthy" sources. This video totally made me buy falcon 4.0 just now for 5 bucks, now only the Path of Exile LEague needs to be done so i can actually test BMS. Very very informative, thx!
Great take Enigma; 100% on the graphics; it's pragmatism. I've never played BMS, but I played Falcon Allied Force (as I understand it, a commercial branch from Falcon 4.0 that came about around the same time BMS was being developed) and I'm still suffering through the trauma of trying to get that to run from 20 years ago. My main issue with BMS is just related to plane availability -- that said, depending on what you want, even DCS is functionally limited. One of the reasons I was attracted to ECW (and thus, your channel) was the focus on cold war and honestly, even ECW was focused a little later than I was interested (eg. Korean War, first gen jet aircraft). Even if these planes are available on DCS, the opportunities to play them at a peer level, are practically nonexistent -- I mean, yes, part of the fun is the challenge of fighting above your weight class but after a certain time it gets tiring to maintain a modicum of competitiveness. That said -- BVR and modern BFM just isn't an interest of mine, so it's unlikely that I'll jump to BMS any time soon but it's not really widely captured in DCS very well either (which partially explains why I haven't played much over the past year). From a single player perspective, BMS, if it is anything like Falcon 3.0, has a lot to offer over DCS, and that might be the one draw for me, if I ever decide (and find the time) to invest the time into it.
You may like the 80s ITO campaign. It's later than ECW but you are flying a much less capable F-16.
This is why I'm very excited for IL2 Korea. I like the speed of jets, but I still want the aircraft to be a bit of a shitbox. Korean war era stuff satisfies that.
@@fineline2212 My sentiments, exactly. I also feel like the red vs blue dynamic is much more equal at that era, as well, both in terms of what aircraft are available and their relative capabilities; I haven't looked in to IL2 Korea, but i'll follow.
For quite some time now Ive thought the main thing that limits BMS is the lack of a multiplayer server menu to make it easy to play, should be a main priority of the devs to try sort out
Honestly i think it just boils down to people rather being comfortable with what they know than to give something new a chance. Give it time and honestly I'm sure more people will give BMS a shot and it will grow.
Man in 2005 I played bms in college and was fine on a Logitech 3d. 20 years later I find the time required to understand the game more than im willing to commit
My 2 cents : Not sure the choice of the Mig 23 ( having no custom cockpit ) convince a lot of people to try. I wonder if you should perhaps have shown the F-18 or M-2000 which have already pretty good custom cockpits but still no proper avionics ...
I think maybe my point was not clear. The point of showing that was to show the old limitation in the game, that everything had to be with F-16 avionics. This barrier is now gone and we can have custom avionics like we do in the F-15C.
its 50% the graphics & 50% barrier to entry.. very hard to convice my freinds to go in
Very wise words. Enigma. Cheers!
I dug up my old Falcon 4.0 disc to try BMS earlier this year after hearing about the F-15C avionics, but quickly gave up because I go so frustrated binding things, thinking I had to exit and relaunch the game to change bindings.
The tip about being able to reload the bindings in-game after editing them in the launcher is what I needed to know to give this another shot, at least for some of my flying (though I've got too much ADHD to spend all my time in a small handful of airframes)
People: it's too hard!
Me: literally starting my missions on the runway and going back to 2D when I left the target area (select the last steerpoint back to base before leaving the cockpit).
I agree with your graphics and performance statement. I used to be able to run DCS at 60 FPS, then my stick broke right before COVID and I wasn't willing to pay out the ass for a new one, leaving me without the ability to fly for 2 years. Meanwhile, they apparently improved the graphics to the point where I struggled to achieve 30 fps when I finally got back to flying. This wouldn't be a huge deal if they didn't tie aircraft updates to game updates, meaning I had to suffer with low FPS or accept that the aircraft I paid for would always be stuck on some older version. That was the point where my relationship with DCS ended and I went BMS full time, having already played it for years.
The F-15C is sensational - it has transformed the simulator, and has made it twice the enjoyment.
convinced me. been learning a ton of dcs, but never found my 'game mode' to just play. dynamic campaign sounds like that.
I have BMS downloaded but never really played it because I’m far more interested in Helicopters
It makes sens. BMS is absolutely not an helicopter sim. For this, DCS is the best combat helicopter sim in the world.
If it wasn't for DCS I wouldn't even know that BMS existed. There is just way more DCS content on RUclips and that's what got me into DCS. Also, I'm a rotorhead. All of that said I heard of BMS from fellow DCS players (only positive things) and I plan on trying it out. Also, I have some friends with older PCs that have a hard time playing DCS so this might be an option for us to play together.
Good to see Falcon still going strong..
I just wish we had poinctrl style hand tracking for vr in bms. That would be the cherry on top.
I don't know is misconception or not, but looks like BMS is focused on providing e2e experience, lengthy missions etc. As a busy adult I usually play sims like "ok, I have 15 minutes to kill, let's do a quick bomb run/landing/...", and go back to my stuff. DCS have simple yet powerful mission editor which provides me this experience: "I want my target to be exactly between this two mountains, and my airplane 5nm north of it, flying east with TGP and 2 gbu-12", and I feel missing that in BMS. Although the system modeling, high FPS (even on my crappy setup) makes it really promising sim. Was super-excited learning that BMS now has F-15 as a completely separate core plane rather than "another f-16 skin"
I think BMS has a PR problem in a form of bunch of former jaded, disenfranchised DCS players who switched to BMS and now try to convince everyone that BMS is better and that 'DCS is for kids', not because they'd love BMS, but because they hate DCS (or more specifically, ED probably). And that creates two issues. Firstly, it alienates the very group of people what BMS could interest and secondly it creates completely unreasonable expectations. For example, it's completely common to read that BMS has same planes as DCS, which is not true, unless we count F16s playing dress up. It also perpetuates the myth that no skills from DCS are transferable to BMS.
That said, I hugely respect what BMS devs did, it's an amazing achievement in its own right. Hopefully this video does clear some misconceptions and will make BMS more accessible!
Will for sure check this out. I'm new to flight sims, learning the F/A 18 as a first plane currently, but I will look into this. As a VR player it probably will perform insane in comparison too.
For the majority of DCS users it is about module collecting. We buy a module make a couple of flights and then go back to the forums and spend out time typing instead of learning to fly and fight the modules.
You did also leave out that BMS has pretty amazing VR support as well.
I still remember the PC Gamer demo disk that I loaded up Falcon 4.0's Demo from on the old family HP Pavilion 8180 back in 1998. 266Mhz P2, 48MB ram, and I upgraded to a PCI Voodoo Banshee from the ATI RAGE IIc it came with to run most 3D games back then.
That demo was... Rough but it did work back then when it wasn't crashing. Man the game has come a long way since with BMS.
holy shit that in game key change i didnt know that! this changes everything
Thanks for this! The thing that was keeping me from coming back isn't a thing anymore, I guess! Whee!
I agree with alot of this. I'm a helo dude so my main reason for staying with DCS is the helo part. I wish DCS had a dynamic campaign and better logistics, but I'll settle for having to script all of it out for now. Also it's like sim racing on Iracing vs ACC. I like driving in ACC a lot, but it's so hard to find good servers and the racing in Iracing is better.
basic in game tutorial/training is what keeps me coming back to dcs instead of bms. Would play tf out of bms, but I need to beat procedures into my head through doing, which learning is greatly sped up through demonstration. Reading and figuring it out is just something my brain isn't great at, is also made a little more difficult in VR, and not how I want to spend my time.
BMS has ingame missions that you do while having the manual open, they teach you in the exact same way that DCS would, just with the manual open on another monitor
OK OK, I will try it when I finally learn the F-16 in DCS.
Why not learn it in BMS? there are differences between the two.
@@ViperPilot16 I already don't know how to use that game.
To be honest, something about BMS' graphics work for me. And I think it's a great, great thing to have a flight sim game that is so detailed and doesn't need a great PC. Especially in VR!
Hi.Falcon BMS is a very good simulation, that's out of the question, but there was often a lot of frustration, especially when it came to updates. The netcode in particular was often a problem and everyone had their own experiences when the blue font came and a mission with 15 pilots vanished into thin air.Bms has been around for 25 years and has continued to develop, but it is not the saint.Dcs and Bms both have their right to exist.Such highly complex military simulations will only remain a niche product for hardcore fans in the future and I am pleased me on both Sims.Greets
I've had BMS installed for a long time but never seriously got into it since a few months ago, when i finally got fed up with everything happening in and wrong with DCS. Best decision I ever made.
If anyone's on the fence, existing knowledge from DCS F16 and F15E is more than enough to serve as a launching pad. To do a little manual reading, asking for a little help from the community, a little keybinding (like any other game) and a little getting used to. You should be up and running in the dynamic campaign in no time.
My initial interest in BMS came during the VR update but I immediately hit a REALLY big wall after getting introduced to the old keymapper (if you could even call it that) and completely lost interest. I was so glad when I recently caught news that the new mapper was actually pretty decent now.
As for the learning curve (specifically the resources part), I am not sure why but I've honestly never heard of Falcon Lounge until after watching this video. I don't even remember it ever being mentioned in the official BMS site FAQ before. Probably an oversight on my part though. Anyway, all I had to learn from back then was the official BMS documentation, the BMS wiki, and a handful of videos from Aviation Plus. Plenty of stuff that could've benefited from a video demonstration where completely left to the imagination. Either that or I just ended up watching stuff that were meant for DCS. 😅
holy shit! I wonder what variant of the fulcrum we will get
9.13 AFAIK
@@Enigma89 amazing
There's the F-15C, and many many variations of the F-16...
6:53 PHANTOM!!!!!!!! I heard one was being developed, hope it comes soon cause I would love to add BMS to my phull phlight collection
Competition is good, we need more of it in the flight sim community
I love helicopters, I got into dcs finally because the Kiowa released, and have since learned the huey aswell. If BMS drops some helis, and has more interesting ground AI when compared to dcs I’d be all over it.
Can't wait to get back into BMS!
I spent a lot of time on Falcon4 and its various mods/enhancements back in the 90ties. On some level I want to give BMS a go, but I just don't have the time and energy to read up on the F16 and all it's systems, these days. I even stepped back to the simple planes in DCS, like Huey and now Viggen.
Oh to have all that free time on hand, as I had in 1990. I never knew how good I had it.
I love BMS graphics just as they are right now ... Good FPSs and a nice complex simulator ... A good mission in BMS is a very rewarding mission ... And now we have F-15 ? yeah baby!
I do hope and wish BMS well, I used to fly Falcon 4, in fact I still have the manual, I also flew BMS.
That said, I really enjoy DCS much better and I hope the competition will energize DCS to get with the program and do not rest on their laurels. I don't fly in VR due to various reasons and i have good 100+ frame rates most of the time. I don't trust BMS as far as having different planes, as I only see F-16's in different skins. I'm not a DCS Fan Boy, I know there are a lot of warts in DCS , but I hope the increased competition will spur them to continue improving their sim.
I love BMS since I started playing it I have deleted DCS. Some of the maps in DCS that I've purchased I'm unable to run without stuttering and lagging even if I only have a single plane on that map. You can of course lower the graphics settings to low but the graphics is much worse than in BMS.
The last time I have tested BMS (years ago) the terrain was made of squares.
has it improved? In particular I am interested in the Balkans map. Thanks!
Interactive tutorial missions is what BMS needs.
RTFM - Read The F*cking Manual is the motto of the BMS community lol. Real life does not have interactive training missions; you study and you fly and if you fail; you study and try again
It's what the DCS community and RUclips generation have come to expect. Which means that the skill of reading a manual and comprehending it is dying out, fast. So I would argue that interactive tutorials are not what BMS or humanity needs. Also remember the goal of BMS Devs is to make it good, better etc, not to "win" DCS players over.
@devnull-uk I see people mention this all the time but ultimately it's the same stuff. You read something or you watch something. Fundamentally you are learning. Someone took the time to write a manual or someone took the time to make a video. People learn in different ways.
@@Duvstep910 For real and that's just not a good attitude from the developers/ community (though honestly, do they really care how big the userbase is?) That would be fine if the manual wasn't so obtuse. The manual is written by people who have played the game fo 5, 10 or 20 years. For a beginner there is a ton of acronyms, jargon, and technical terms to deal with. It is NOT step by step as the video says. You will be jumping around A LOT in the manuals, forums, and youtube.
DCS needs interactive tutorial missions, too. Instead of broken wordy lectures with bad jokes.
8:20 i feel like Aerges' Mirage F1 guide was a step in the right direction away from "how do you do X".
so true. especially since DCS is sinking fast in its bugs, toxic community and developers. BMS will come out on top even faster ! great !
I tried BMS about 2 years ago before is even started DCS. Things may have changed now, but back then, I couldn't find anyone that would even point me in the right direction. Hell, the people on BMS told me to go to DCS.
I'm new players need the community to learn BMS it would be beneficial to not be a rude ass to new people, don't you think.
Biggest issue I had with BMS was finding content like the new terrains also the F15C, its not simple to find this stuff
I think BMS stable performance is the real selling point compared to competitors. DCS performance is just exhausting and takes away the fun.
Real. Getting too old to fight it anymore
Good video! Will you ever make a video about your thoughts on VTOL VR?
Was thinking about it if its worth buying cause it seems they would have a lot easier time modelling electronic warfare and interlinked systems with fake planes than dcs.
DCS has airframes that i prefer (Mirages, Mig-21 among others).
yes i also like DCS' graphics
i am actually very interested in the BMS F-15 since i already enjoyed the Eagle in DCS, i do have a hard time getting familiar with the user interface and just the process of getting into a mission or multiplayer server. Also i do not have that much free time to fill with flight sims and for a quick hop on saturday evenings… being familiar with DCS makes it just a lot easier but i think i will check it out as soon as i can
One misconception I dont see as much is "the flight model is too 'on rails'"
That was definitely the case when I started getting into Falcon back in the Allied Force days, but I believe BMS has rectified a fair bit of that
Not true at all anymore. BMS flight model is more accurate for the F-16 than DCS's.
@andrewa837 yep, you can see the difference if you look at old F4 or F4AF footage vs present day BMS.
I'm so glad there is a group continuing to carry Falcon BMS into the future. Got another couple decades ahead of it once the new terrain is implemented :)
BMS F-16 flight model is somewhere inbetween a professionally developed customer model and a typical consumer sim model. It's probably one of the best consumer sim flight models in existence. I suspect the only reason it's not pro level is that they can't just directly copy all of the classified data 1:1 without getting into trouble and because some hysteretic transient effects are probably nigh-impossible to model without hundreds of millions dumped into testing.
@ArchOfficial if only I had hundred of millions to donate to the team.
I agree though, it's as good as it gets for non-professional simulators
@@DerPilotMann The F-16 became available for civilian ownership a while ago, so it might be technically possible to donate hundreds of millions to conduct some serious testing, lol. At least on the flight side.
Car simulators are a bit better and it "only" costs a few hundred thousand to test one tire.
Simulators are in general fun to watch, but not so fun playing yourself. That's whats keeping me from playing personally
We've come a long way since Falcon 4.0. I still have my manual binder.
Very good points, ty!
Especially the part about optimization: DCS is a great game and has pretty good graphics (not really good, like MSFS), but the 25 year old Russian Spagetti code is hurting it bad! Especially with newer tech (VR, 4090/5090), as it does not really scale well.
Maybe if BMS was sold on Steam for $60 it would be talked about?
I prefer how it's done now but agree this is a hurdle for many and having BMS advertised on Steam would make a huge difference.
Surely yes 🤣🤣
Have MicroProse release Falcon 4.0 on GOG and integrate BMS in the same manner Fallout London is easily integrated with Fallout 4. People who buy Falcon 4.0 on GOG would be able to install BMS on top of it with the click of a button.
For all the wrong reasons, but you are not wrong.
It's sold on steam for $7