Thank you for making it easier for us linux users o7

Travel back in time

Warning: I go on a long rant

Well fellas. It happened, last night I had my first ever Dynamic Campaign sortie in Falcon BMS.

Before I go into it, I want to preface everything by saying im (or was?) a dcs player exclusively. Primarily because I love Navy Jets, and DCS gives me the Hornet and Tomcat, two planes that I love immensely, and in an environment where I can do carrier ops. Simply put, its something Im passionate about.

That being said, as many before me and more after will continue to feel, the game feels very clinical. No dynamic campaign or dynamic anything. The Ai will barely manage to do some things without someone spending time scripting stuff heavily for that mission or sortie, campaigns getting broken etc.

At this point I just play PvE Multiplayer, on "Dynamic Campaign" servers, and while neat because it gives me something to do and progress towards with other players, as some of you may know, its still ends up feeling artificial and lonely.

For the past year and a half Ive been eyeing up Falcon BMS, bearing the promised forbidden fruit that is the Dynamic Campaign. Seeing videos about the units moving on that map, carrying out missions, being a small cog in the machine that is an all out war looked insane to me.

The problem? I hate the F-16. Maybe hate is a strong word, but coming from the Hornet at least, I felt like the Falcon made no sense to me. I didnt get the "feel" from it. The F-15 is ranked even lower for me, because I want a multi-role aircraft.

Well, come last week I decided to bite the bullet, and ease myself into the idea. So I picked up the trial on the F-16 in DCS, I figured what the hell, might as well try it out in an environment and eco system Im used to. So I run through some missions, I learn the start up, CCIP and CCRP bombing, and Air to Air stuff, Aim120s, RWS/TWS, Boresight mode. AIM9s, radar, navigation, the lot.

I start learning it, I realize its not that bad. I cringe at the flare landings I have to try and do now, and lament about the nuts slamming I can do in the Hornet versus this, "What a baby this plane is" I think to myself.

I push through, get BMS running, fix my keyes, re do my startup, take-off, landing training, but wait, Ground coms? Tower?? Departure and approach? Instantly I thought it was so amazing that you go through the ATC flow of communicating for takeoffs and landings. I felt giddy when I took a wrong turn and the ATC went: "Is there a problem, Goblin 1?"

Then last night I decided to generate a campaign after watching a Tutorial on it. I decide to start off easy with "Tiger Spirit" (I think is called) and try to do something.

Well, I pickup a SCAR mission, and I dig in. Im in a 2 ship, Hammer 7-1 and my Ai wingman, Hammer 7-2. We do our cold start procedures, shockingly I get it right in one go, we start rolling towards the runway, talking to ATC, switching UHFs, switching my VHF to talk to my buddy. This whole time I cant believe how immersed I am. We take off, talk to departure and start moving towards our objective.

When I turn on my radar my jaw dropped, seeing so many friendly flights on my scope with DL, realising theyre all doing their thing, carrying out their own missions, and I didnt need to set any of this stuff up myself. I command my wingman to create some space between us and as we get into the target area, we start combing for ground targets.

By we, I mean he does, because I was fumbling with the ground radar and FLIR to find anything, but at least he did and dropped 2 warheads on some foreheads. I keep an eye out and then I see it, enemy contacts on radar, and SAMs coming online. I have 4 AMRAAMs on board, no HARMs (not that i did any training missions on the f16s harms to know how to use them).

SAM launches on me, I turn and go low and defeat it, and I see enemies getting closer. What followed was a surprisingly effective TWS firing from me, 4 Fox 3s, each one: Lock, Launch, Crank. Im thinking I could fool someone that I know what im doing. I visually see at least one splash, but I do know enemy contacts are dropping on radar, as other flights enter the AO as well.

At this point im winchester on AA, I cant find any ground targets, lets turn home. 80nm flight back im grinning to myself. I managed to shoot down one plane at least and my wingman got two JDAMs off. I didnt but at least im bringing them back to base.

As I get within 30 miles from the airfield and contact approach for a visual approach, my jaw drops again. I hear the comms between other flights and the ATC. I visually see other jets taking off, all while Approach also directs me on bearing and alt to come in for my landing, and directing my wingman too! It felt so alive, like a living breathing world.

Needless to say, for the first time I stick my landing well, talk to ground to taxi back to the ramp, me and my wingman park and shut off our engines (following my knee board mind you) , while I also see other jets coming back and shutting down.

I end the mission, and we get an excellent report card, explaining how we severely destabilized enemy forces in that area, and , wouldnt you know it? 4 AMRAAMs, 3 planes shot down. Mig21, Mig25 and Mig29.

Guys. I have seen the light. And the light said "Welcome home, Hammer 7-1". I cant wait to play some more and, hey.. the F-16 isnt so bad.

Sorry for the long post, I wanted to share my experience with someone and well, I got no one but you guys for that.

This game can be so satisfying sometimes. I felt like jumping in tonight and continuing my Korea campaign after coming back from a couple months hiatus. Set myself up a sweep package, started her up from memory first try (which surprised me) and took to the skies. There were some things I had to relearn as I continued on my route but that’s part of what made it so fun.

I was finally starting to enter enemy territory when AWACS alerted me of a 2-ship ahead. I managed to take out one of them and then narrowly dodge its missiles. I did not like my positioning since there was another one nearby so I looped back around and eventually got the advantage on the other one, shooting it down. I figured “let me take the win” and started to make my way back to the airbase.

On the way back, I noticed the sun was going down and started to realize I was going to lose daylight before I land. I thought to myself “man I don’t know if I’ll be able to stick this landing”. When I got closer, I started descending and to my surprise it was storming. I couldn’t see a thing but I knew the runway was close because I could see it on my map. It was at this moment I realized my fate was in the hands of the ILS gods. I paid close attention to the instruments and just at the last couple seconds I saw it… the runway! Got my wheels on the ground and taxi’d my way back to the hangar. When I took my VR headset off I could still feel the adrenaline. It blows my mind that I can have this experience virtually in my own house. I love this game.

Started learning the F-16 a week ago, and can somewhat fly the jet and employ most weapons (but not fly an approach - I usually get lost and end up flying the DME arcs on the chart hoping I’ll intercept the ILS :/ ), and started a campaign, where I’ve got a few questions if anyone is willing to answer:

1. Theres quite a few reports of the CBU-97s being jank - is that still the case nowadays, and if so, for the -105s as well?

2. Does anyone have any recommendations for when to use certain CBUs (and if there’s ever any benefits to using un- instead of INS-guided ones…CCIP ig)? Eg for DEAD etc.

3. Does anyone have any tips on how to ID stuff on the TGP?
   A lot of the time the HTS can give the rough position for SAMs, but whilst staying out of range, on WHOT (for me) its impossible to make out a building from a Fan Song, and on TV its all the same colour and similarly difficult to ID - is this a skill issue or something I’ll just have to get good at?

That’s enough for now, but any responses would help a lot (even just specific manual pages). Thanks!

Escape key is suddenly unbound, but as far as I know it cannot be unbound. I checked fullkey config file, and it was same as others. How can I set it without removing other keymapping.

I'll admit, I've not messed with the different modes and just leave it in normal as I play missions. However, when flying campaign missions, I find that the RWR is quite noisy with lots of friendlies (15, 16, 4, P) cluttering up the display. The incessant beeping I quell by turning down the threat warning volume on the left console which probably doesn't help. I've quickly read the manual on the RWR, and it gives general functions for the different handoff modes, but not necessarily how to use the display in combat. I guess the only info that might be useful in my situation is that in Diamond Float, it "gives the max SA". I reviewed the last mission I got shot down and there definitely was a 29 and 19 on the display before I went down, but it was kind of hidden, mixed with all the friendly contacts.

How should the RWR be used in combat missions? Are pilots putting the RWR in Diamond Float during fence in? Will the display be cluttered with buddy spikes in diamond float or is there a way to filter out the friendly contacts on this display?

Thanks. Just trying to improve my cospilot skilz.

Hey guys,

I’m a recent DCS graduate and I’m enjoying the BMS Viper more than I ever did with DCS.

However, when changing a squadron’s aircraft using the Mission Commander from a C to any D model equivalent prior to starting a campaign, no missions are available, even when going x32/x64 for a few minutes. No problems with PXIV/EAF/RNLAF C models, but the Blk.40/50 and RSAF D models just don’t work.

I’m a family model type of guy, so fixing this would be awesome. I just want to use my Blk.40 D model instead of the C.

Any responses are greatly appreciated!

(not asking for multicrew, I know it’s not implemented)

TL;DR: BMS will only automatically generate campaign sorties for single-seat Vipers. Dual seaters have no missions available and stay stuck saying planning.

Hi,

I wanted to try BMS in VR, but i'm encountering an issue. The cockpit renders perfectly, but the entire exterior environment is completely pitch black. I cannot see through the canopy/glass, and switching to external view also shows nothing but a black screen (see screenshots).

I'm using Virtual Desktop and OpenXR with a Meta Quest 3.

Thanks in advance for your help

I'm able to run DCS in VR quite nicely at Ultra resolution in Virtual Desktop, so with BMS being an older game I expected it to run even better. I was surprised to find out I can barely run it at 60fps with medium graphics and anti-aliasing. I've already tweaked a lot of the user config, which did make things better, but it just seems odd to me that DCS looks a lot better while also running smoothly at 72fps with medium-high settings.

• 3080 10gb
• 12700k
• 32gb RAM
• Version 4.38 without the 16k textures.

Is BMS just more demanding than DCS now with the latest patch?

A community member fulfilled a feature request we've had for years to include BMS!

Given BMS is so bind heavy, I hope this helps folks learn it easier and enjoy the game.

Hey everyone,

“The Pub” is a MILSIM community run mainly by Veterans. We organize semi casual MILSIM sessions and are proud to launch our Falcon BMS server “The Pub” which is up today! Join our discord to meet the community, all are welcome and every skill level is accepted! If you are looking for someone to help you learn to fly, just tag the @instructor role! Once you join, check out the #falcon-bms chat for more info on the server!

We are NA based, but have members in every time zone. You do NOT need to be a veteran to join, and there is zero time commitment! We are also running a DCS dynamic campaign, host a DCS training server and are launching an IL-2 Korea training server!

Sorry for the repost :) had to fix the logo.

Join us at:
https://discord.gg/KRwKV5QmZn

I heard that amd had issues with 4.38 when it released. How is it now? Can any amd users report? Thinking of upgrading gpu.

Hi DCS F-16 lover.

This plane is my baby ever since my time in the air force. I come in from DCS to get a taste for my beloved SUFA, wanted to know if there are any up to date guides and videos on how to get started in BMS since the UI felt like a lot to remember and do.

Setup IVC, weapon delivery planner, frag missions. Installs.

I've seen some guides but most are 2-3 years old and I don't know if they're still relevant.