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rediscovering old combat flight sims on linux

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rediscovering old combat flight sims on linux

Postby backspin » Fri Dec 04, 2020 7:09 pm

Thanks to linux and its windows emulation layer, it is now possible to revisit the golden age of combat flight sims. This golden age started in 1998, when the ambitious combat flight sim/war game commercial products were released. It only lasted a few years, until it became clear that there wasn't a big enough market to profitably sell these complex sims.

For several more years, though, open source development continued thanks to community volunteers. The sprawling code bases, with patches buried in old internet forums and Windows 10 incompatibilities, were later abandoned.

Now thanks to linux/wine, you can download and run these old sims easily on linux :D

Three of the best old combat flight sims are available at the github page below. These sims are now free and open source.

https://github.com/sim-museum/esports-for-engineers
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Re: rediscovering old combat flight sims on linux

Postby bugman » Fri Dec 04, 2020 9:08 pm

Are you sure about the open source part?

Regards,
Edward
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Re: rediscovering old combat flight sims on linux

Postby backspin » Fri Dec 04, 2020 9:43 pm

For the two Rowans' sims, the source code was released to the public by Rowan/Empire under terms which involved making improvements available, among other conditions. It was a big deal for a commercial company to publish its code, but the Rowan developers persuaded the execs to do this because the games were old and no longer valuable. I read somewhere that Rowan's terms did not qualify the Rowan source to be posted on sourceforge because it didn't meet sourceforges' definition of open source, though. In the case of Free Falcon, the code was licensed to the Free Falcon team. Bottom line - this code is free, but the source is probably not unencumbered enough to use in FlightGear.
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Re: rediscovering old combat flight sims on linux

Postby msalama » Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:10 am

Does Mig Alley have clickable cockpits? AFAIR their BoB did, or had them partially modelled at least, but I'm not sure anymore since it was so long ago...
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Re: rediscovering old combat flight sims on linux

Postby backspin » Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:23 pm

Mig Alley does not have clickable cockpits.

If you right click in a BoB cockpit, you can manipulate enough controls to start the engine (fuel cock, magneto switches, fuel prime, starter). Also you can move throttle, prop pitch and trim with the mouse. Radiators and mixture are not user controlled.

Although the cockpits are pretty basic in these Rowan games, IMHO the dynamic campaigns are still state of the art.

Patched versions of both Mig Alley and BoB are included in the linux tar file available for download from the github page.
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Re: rediscovering old combat flight sims on linux

Postby msalama » Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:30 am

Thanks. Might be tempted to install it regardless and yeah, the DCs were indeed excellent. Alas, there's no CFS dev interest in developing good single player DCs anymore since they're considered too much work for little gain...
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classic combat flight sims, open source and free on linux

Postby backspin » Sun Nov 14, 2021 3:08 am

Patched versions of Rowan's Mig Alley, Rowan's Battle of Brittan and Microprose' Falcon 4 are now free and open source. These are not fantasy games; the wars simulated are actual historical conflicts from, respectively, the early monoplane prop, early jet and electronic battlefield eras.

These sims are 20 years old, but their dynamic campaigns, in which you pilot a plane within an unscripted simulation of an entire war, are still state of the art.

A linux installer for these sims is available as a free download. See links below for more details:

https://github.com/sim-museum/esports-f ... ochure.pdf

https://alternativeto.net/software/espo ... ers/about/

https://github.com/sim-museum/esports-for-engineers

P.S. Can you run these sims on MS Windows? Yes, but you'll need to apply the patches and configure these old codes for your version of Windows manually. In more detail - the sims are windows .exe files. The download package contains these .exe files along with linux scripts that install the appropriate patches and configure settings for linux. You can download the package and install these .exe files on Windows also. For free falcon (a patched version of Falcon 4) this is straightforward. For the Rowan's sims you need to carefully install the patches and, for best results, use a Windows version older than WIndows 10.
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revisiting Mig Alley, Free Falcon, Fighter Squadron:SDOE etc

Postby backspin » Sat Jul 16, 2022 11:34 pm

There is a free self-study class on learning classic combat flight sims, and also mindsports, at this link: https://github.com/sim-museum/esports-for-engineers/blob/master/files/syllabusFor_eSportsForEngineers.pdf

These sims are from the golden age of desktop flight sims back in the late 1990's. They are now open source, freeware, or abandonware. To work your way through the class, download the game package on the github page and supplement, if desired, with additional downloads per the instructions.

Some of the sims included are: Rowan's Mig Alley and Battle of Britain, Free Falcon, Fighter Squadron: Screaming Demons over Europe. Surprisingly, these 20 years old sims work perfectly under linux on a modern PC or laptop. Better than perfect, actually, because the sims have been improved enormously by volunteer communities, and benefit from higher graphics resolutions and CPU speeds. (The sims can also be persuaded to work pretty well on MS WIndows, if you have an older version of Windows).

Mig Alley, Battle of Britain and Free Falcon have great dynamic campaigns.
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Superb old combat flight sims, now free and open source

Postby backspin » Sat Nov 18, 2023 2:10 am

Classic PC flight sims from the '90's, including Rowan's Mig Alley and Battle of Britain, as well as Free Falcon, are now open source and available as a free download here: https://github.com/sim-museum/esports-for-engineers
Fighter Squadron:SDOE is also included, along with classic sim racing games. The download file is configured to install and run on the Linux operating system, but the individual game executables can be manually installed on Windows as well.

Documentation is here:
https://github.com/sim-museum/esports-f ... ochure.pdf
and here:
https://github.com/sim-museum/esports-f ... ineers.pdf
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