Of course some good points and explanations have been made. I do see your points and appreciate them being shared with me and others who are reading this topic.
However, I continue to believe that BMS has more of a future if it gets, at the very least, VR support. VR adds immersion and makes the experience more REALISTIC, which is exactly what a hardcore simmer would want.
To get VR support, as I understand it, it’s native in UE5, so switching to the UE5 environment makes sense from the VR standpoint alone, and the visual improvements it can bring to the table would be welcome, and I don’t think anyone is going to argue against that.
We are still an unknown number of years, decades, maybe centuries away from being able to fly combat missions in a Holodeck, at “you are there” levels of realism, indistinguishable to your five natural senses from actually getting in the cockpit of a real F-16 with a mission brief to follow. And that will not be “eye candy”, it will be REALISM.
Call it eye candy if you wish. I say that visual enhancements contribute to realism, and in no small way. If “hardcore” simulation is the goal of BMS, then visuals must not be neglected. They should be as realistic as is practical without incurring a computer performance penalty because there’s nothing “realistic” about flying with lag or dropped packets.
Whatever future enhancements may come, no matter how modest or ambitious they may be, nonetheless I will welcome them. Even if we never get the enhancements I’ve mentioned so far, I still won’t stop enjoying BMS even if it’s just practicing various TEs and trying to pull off the sickest “simulate engine failure on takeoff, land safely on the parallel runway or other stupid pilot tricks” stunt flying anyone has ever seen in BMS.
I’ll be glad for what we are given. But I have high hopes for a global world, VR, and industry leading visuals.