An Alien Ate My Flight Boots!

Hi all

I don’t suppose any of you will remember this Badger from my posting here over a year ago when I first bought FS2002. But at the time I was having a problem with the second of the basic flying lessons and the programs seeming inability to detect my beautiful right hand turn and carry on with its lesson. Instead leaving me spinning round and round until I felt quite sick.

Well I never did solve the problem and in the end I simply skipped the lesson in question and moved onto the next. But that’s not the reason I’m posting today.

Instead I’m here because I just fancied chatting with you about FS2002 in general and my impressions of the program, having been away from it for a few months and just come back.

I guess I’m what some of the more hard core simmers here might call a “fair weather flyer,” in that I never get very far with games like this, but I keep coming back to them. You see I really like the “idea” of a civilian flight sim, but my undisciplined butterfly mind will never allow me the dedicated perseverance required to scale the heights and reach the lofty peaks above.

This has been going on for years and years of course, but I’d always shied away from shelling out the cost for a proper civilian flight sim, (particularly the exorbitant ones which Microsoft specialise in.) when I was sure it would only be resident on my hard drive for a short while.

Last year though I saw FS2002 on special sale for £19.99 and couldn’t resist. Ok so it wasn’t cutting edge anymore, but still, I knew, a top notch sim. I decided if I bought this, then I’d never need to worry about a civilian flight sim ever again. If ever I felt that urge, all I would have to do was to load up this little baby and sail through fluffy clouds until the urge went away and I could return to the more gentlemanly pursuits of killing alien scum and generally blowing things up.

This time I find myself delving into the cockpit of my Cessna again at the prompting of none other than Tom Cruise! Yep, Maverick himself.

Perhaps I should qualify that.

Once a year more or less, the dusty video recorder at Badger Towers plays host to yet another showing of “Top Gun.” Once more the Navy’s finest roar across the screen in their F15’s. (F15’s right?) Once more we give “the bird” to the “Mig” drivers. Once again we raise our glasses as our heroes get “That Loving Feeling” and once more we dab our eyes in a most un-manly fashion, as Goose takes a nose dive into the drink!

Not much in this life is a “given”, but some things are, some things can be relied upon and thank goodness. We know for example that when you throw an apple in the air, it’s coming back down. (Unless eaten by a passing bird obviously and this would have to be a quite unfeasibly large bird for your general urban area, so it barely seems worth mentioning.) Another example might be the sun rising majestically to herald a new day.

But another “given” not well known outside certain circles, is that after watching “Top gun” (At an unspecified period which shall be between five minutes and twenty four hours) the Badger MUST re-install “Falcon 4”. It is an absolute as inescapable as either of the other two examples given above, it is quite simply.. the law.
“Falcon 4” is of course as I am sure many of you will know, a horrendously complex beast and quite beyond the cognitive processes of this humble forest dweller, so it never stays on for long. But this time it had an even shorter stay than normal thanks to the incredible skill of the team at “Free Falcon.”

“Free Falcon” is the end result of the combined genius of a team of “modders” who have taken the original program and added heaps more depth and realism and graphical tweaks, all far beyond the original. Then packaged the whole thing up into an “add on” which installs at the click of one button! Even I can cope with that.

I found them on a magazine cover dvd and I was quite unprepared for how much prettier the game would look and amazed that there did not seem to be any significant framerate cost attached.

After a couple of days though of sailing though the air breathing “WOW”, a major problem became evident. So much has changed on the jet, from decals right through to avionics and cockpit layout, that it no longer bore much relation to the original manual, or the Prima guide I had tucked away. So in other words great for people who already know how to fly it, but pants for anyone who doesn’t know “calling the ball”, from dancing at one.

So sadly off it came and an enormous flight hole was left on my hard drive. It didn’t take long to realise that this hole was Cessna shaped! And there on the shelf like a faithful friend, sat FS2002. “Come fly me” it seemed to beckon.

So we’re back in business again and FS2002 has pride of place once more on my pc. I decided to begin from scratch and take the flying lessons again from the start, even though my last time out I got half way through the “Private Pilot Licence” sessions.

In between lessons and having absorbed enough to get me into the air and down again, with a reasonable chance of level flight in between the two, I’ve been taking little joyrides across the UK just for fun. Gatwick to Luton, Luton to Cambridge, Cambridge to Sheffield and I’m currently saved part way through a flight from Sheffield to Bournemouth. It’s a virtual tour around all the people I know. 🙂 And it’s been very satisfying …… to a degree.

Thing is that already I can feel my attention beginning to wane, I can hear the distant call of “B17-The Mighty Eighth.” Begging me to fly to distant parts of Germany and throw bombs and empty beer cans down on to the heads of the Nazi’s frantically goose stepping below.

I have to wonder what it is that keeps me from sticking with FS for long enough to achieve anything. Up to now I’ve simply assumed that it was all too much for me to take in and indeed with some of the concepts involved that is quite literally the case.

But those high level techniques don’t really apply at this stage, because I’m not in a position to have learned them, or need to use them yet.

But as I thought about this I came up with another theory. It’s not the eventual steep level of difficulty which puts me off, because I’ve not encountered it yet. It’s actually the exact opposite. FS is too accessible!

Yep.. I know that sounds crazy coming from a mental midget like me, but just hear me out.
I don’t know squat about navigation or control tower communications up to now. And yet I have been able to crisscross the UK in my little Cessna, committing lord only knows how many air offences as I cut a swathe across the country to my target airport and all with no consequences what so ever.

The day before yesterday, despite a promise to myself that I would not do it until I had earned my stripes, I none the less found myself sitting on the runway at the controls of a 737. Off we thundered making the tarmac a memory and soaring off into the wild blue yonder. But with no real plan or destination in mind I ended up getting bored and attempting acrobatics! Next thing I know there’s grass in the cockpit.

The point is that privileges not earned are swiftly abused.

At one point in the Cessna, it occurred to me that I was about to fly over a small airport and I found my self considering that in real life I would not be free to just cut across their airspace unannounced. So hitting the “scroll” key I tuned into their frequency and found an option to traverse their airspace, which I used. But if I hadn’t what would have been the consequence? Nothing.

I might be committing a sacrilege here and if so I apologise to you of the faithful, but I’m going to draw a comparison here between “FS” and “Gran Turismo” (sorry I know that sounds unlikely.)

I’m too old a dog to have much to do with the consoles, but I do dabble now and again with the PS2 and have burned a little rubber on the tracks of “Gran Turismo 3.” In the simulation mode of this game you begin with only one car and must gather the funds for new ones by winning races.

The clever bit is, that in order to gain access to many different races, you need to pass various driving tests in order to qualify for the appropriate licence. So in other words you earn the right to progress through personal achievement.

I think this is ultimately my great problem with FS2002. There is a wealth if things to learn, but with access to everything available from the start, there is no real incentive for all but the most committed to do it. With so little direction to focus my undisciplined mind, there is not enough to hold me in one place. With so much to learn and do it’s pretty ironic. Surrounded in all directions by water, my gaming soul is dying of thirst.

I’d like to have seen this structured approach with limitations for beginners and penalties when you commit a sin, like my ill planned cross country dashes for example. Obviously this will make the program less user friendly for the beginner, but this is where the “Gran Turismo” model gets it right again by having an “Arcade” mode, for those who just want the roar of the engine and the smell of the exhaust fumes, without all that pesky book learnin.

Wouldn’t it be funny if one of you replies to this post to say that “FS” HAS an arcade mode and that’s what I must be playing!!

For those of you who are still reading this far in, well done you are patient souls to wade through my ramblings and in closing I’d like to ask your advice on a few little points.

*It’s a big sky, but it really is empty up there. I have traffic pushed up to 100% but I’ve still only ever seen other planes on the ground. I know there are retail releases which up the count to a realistic level, but I’m not spending any more money. Is there a free mod which does a similar job?

* The UK airports I’ve seen so far in vanilla “FS” are pretty sad to see. I know that there are mods for specific airports like Heathrow and Luton etc. But I’m barely computer literate and I don’t even recognize half the file extensions I’ve seen on various sites, let alone how to use them. 😞 Can anyone help me with a duffers guide to what’s good and how to apply it?

*My pc is a game old girl, and runs FS2002 beautifully, but she’s not up to the challenge of the latest games. If I start adding scenery and plane models and other clever stuff, will this adversely affect my framerate?

*Any advice on how to maintain a level of excitement which will keep FS on my hard drive for a little longer this time around would be welcome.

Ok well that’s it for now. Thankyou for reading and thanks in advance for any advice you feel able to offer or comments on how totally wrong my impressions are. 🙂

All the best

The Grounded Badger.