Which WWI sim would you recommend?

I'm reporting back to The Aerodrome after a LONG furlough, and would like advice on which is the best WWI sim for my money. *Since my last post at The Aerodrome, I've been accepted into college, and after surviving my freshman year, I have a refurbished Dell Intel Celeron 600 MHz laptop. (thank you dad!!) Naturally, with all this power at my disposal (I'm used to a 100 MHz desktop) I'm ready to start playing the sims that I always wanted to buy, but didn't have enough power to use. *This laptop has a 5 gig hard drive, 73 megs of memory, 24x CDROM, 56K modem, Sound Blaster 16, and came with Windows 2000 already installed.
I've heard about Red Baron II and 3D, and recently came across Red Ace Fighter Squadron in a local computer store. *Those are just the ones I know about off the top of my head. *I'd like reviews, recommendations, suggestions, and pros and cons for the WWI sims from the wise ones at the forum. * *I can't wait to finally try one out.

[Shooter]

G'day m'lady:

Despite its many flaws, I would recommend RB3D. The Microsoft CFM2 is alleged to have a tack-on mod that allows WWI flight models, but I have yet to see it so I will not testify as to how good it is. CFM and CFM2 are good pgms in themselves, but RB3D is the one that addresses the Great War.

There are some (mainly in the UK) who support Flying Corps Gold, but I have not had good results with it.


Shooter sends

[Lufbery]

I, too, would recommend Red Baron 3D. It's really the only game out there. Its strengths are its truly fantastic single player campaign, and the fabulous add-ons created by the user community.

The MS Combat Flight Simulator 2 add-on that Shooter is talking about is called (I think) Combat Aces. Do a search for that on this board and you'll see some reviews of it posted. I think Alpha Sims made it, but it's no longer availbe through them. I'm sure you'll still be able to find a copy, though, if you want it.

By the way, what school are you going to?

Regards,

I ended up with RB3D after all, and from what I can see the graphics, etc., are great, so much more advanced than the original, which I'm used to.

I'm now a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma.

[Lufbery]

I ended up with RB3D after all, and from what I can see the graphics, etc., are great, so much more advanced than the original, which I'm used to.

I'm now a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma.

Excellent. I'm a prooud Penn State grad myself.

Anyway, now that you've got the game, there are some excellent unofficial patches that you may want to try out. A fellow called "Panama Red" has made some great flight model and damage model upgrades for the planes. Those have made the game a lot more enjoyable for a bunch of us.

Do a google search on Panama Red and see what you come up with.

Regards,

[Scimitar]

Don't forget that good old "WINGS" will be re-released soon, in a remasterized version. Not really a pure flight sim, because some sequences (attacks of convoys or trains) were more assimilable to an arcade game; but yeah, what a funny game!

> For your future enjoyment. I would send you to this site.
http://www.wingswithwires.com/

As much as I like Red Baron 3D, I have to confess that I still like the original Red Baron better. 3D is more complex and 'interesting' but I still feel the original Red Baron was just more fun to play.

But, I might be tainted by the awful experiences I had with Red Baron 2 before 3D was released to address the problems. I do like 3D much better than it's immediate predecessor which I found to be more trouble than it was worth.

Hi

I fly RB3D regularly and am a member of an online squadron - the Royal Air Corps.

It's a fabulous FlightSim and completely addictive. The flight modelling is excellent and accurate.

But, best of all, the RB3D community is "in charge", now that the maker of the game, Sierra, has disowned it. Some very clever amateur (and professional) computer boffins contribute regular updates and add-ons, almost all of which are free and easily downloadable.

The community is very friendly and ADORES new addicts. My own squadron has regular training sessions where the art of the game can be learned. But any pilot will help another, less experienced flyer, to improve their game. This is because we all love the game so much - we just want it to flourish so we can keep playing it.

For more information you could try the following website, which is the community's unofficial home - http://www.wings-of-valor.org/

Or you could visit the RAC website:

www.citigraph.com/rac/

Enjoy!

Regards

RAC Felix EF

[Billy_Bishop]

I would also toss in my site, located at:
http://www.billybishop.net/RedBaron3D

VBR,

Al