Any Tips for a DCS / IL-2 Guy?
-
I gave BMS a try a few years ago but got hung up with a throttle axis issue that derailed me. Came back today, updated to 4.35 and resolved the throttle issue. I’m at the keybinding stage now. Thinking back over my DCS experience, there were a million things that I didn’t know and didn’t even know to ask. You don’t know what you don’t know…
Anyone have any tips, large or small, on things a noob might struggle with? Things that seem obvious now, but you wrestled with as a noob? I want to make sure that my go around with BMS “sticks” this time.
Thanks,
Bill
-
Did you get fly anything in DCS?
Are you a noob to flight sims in general?
Would suggest starting with the training missions 1 by 1 and using the training manual anyway (pdf) found in C:\FalconBMS\Docs
-
My generally tip is
take your time to read the manuals, practice the training missions as Migbuster said.
If something is not clear to you, read again, practice again.
Go step by step.
Eventually search also Youtube for helpfull vids.Still not clear to you, then search the forum, … many questions have been already answered.
Still not clear, then ask the really friendly and helpfully community with a meaningful describtion of your problem.
The more info, the higher the chance for help.
A picture of the problem would be helpfull as well.It might take a while until you’re combat ready to jump into the dynamic campaign,
accomplish a mission and survive.So … take your time!
And welcome back, Porkchopper!
P.S. using “Advanced Search” in Acrobat Reader you can search for a term in multible *.pdf documents
IHMO very helpfull.
Cheers, :yo:
LS -
Get familiar with all the manuals. Most questions will be answered in one if not several of them. Lazystones tip on searching multiple manuals is spot on.
-
Hop on one of the various discords (Ready Room for example) and see if you can get a flight going - someone will likely be happy to coach you through getting connected, getting started.
Welcome (back) to BMS!
-
Come check us out at the VTG invite in my sig block.
-
Did you get fly anything in DCS?
Are you a noob to flight sims in general?
I have almost all of the DCS modules. As far as jets, I spend the most time in the Hornet and Mirage. I’ve been flying sims since Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat I’m currently flying DCS, IL-2 1946, Stalingrad, and Cliffs of Dover, and finally, Rise of Flight.
-
All these flight sims are similar when it comes to piloting skill. Falcon is different in a few key ways.
One is age. It’s a little less modern in settings and controls. It’s no fun to configure controls. Patience pays off and over time you might learn to “code” the control file for some advanced features.
AI is not to be ignored. The other sims are basically do what you want solo. In Falcon you need to respect and use them, especially ATC. They can and will actually manage traffic to your benefit and barging through can disrupt operations a bunch.
Time is more of a real concept than other sims. Sitting in planning you don’t want to miss your step time nor do you want long stretches of low fidelity 64x. Showing up in package order and on time helps.
Today matters tomorrow. Jettisoning fuel tanks a lot means not having them. Don’t stress the kill today as getting your escort home is more important. Sortie connectedness us there unlike the others.
Unlike other sims starting the program is no biggie. It’s fast and you do it a lot. Between DTC and saves planning for 30 minutes and then restarting before flying is painless.
Due to the mature nature of BMS there are a lot of options and tweaks. Hanging out and flying with vets (or diving through docs and cfg’s) will be educational.
-
A lot of folks recommend the Alternative Launcher to ease the pain of dealing with keybd and hotas bindings…
https://github.com/chihirobelmo/FalconBMS-Alternative-Launcher/releases+1 to the recommendations to open BMS-Training.pdf and start working through it! You don’t need to do them in order … you can skip around as you like.
Ensure you have the latest update (4.35.2) released a couple months ago… there are still some crash and stability issues, so steel yourself for that.
But there’s a talented (and growing!) team working those things out.In the meantime, as someone already suggested, get into the habit of closing the app and restarting, after each flight.
-
Three invaluable, to me essential, BMS tools - all easy to find.
Alternative Launcher - makes keybinding to your HOTAS as easy as possible, has links to start BMS and the two apps below (and many others)
Weapon Delivery Planner - invaluable to help you set up your missions, install kneeboards
Mission Commander - VERY powerful, can take control of the entire campaign Theater of Operations, including re-supply of depleted ordanance -
Adding to what has already been said, for me this videos helped me a lot, not only for the campaign itself, but also about other planning and preparations.
Part 1
Part 2