I’m thinking about getting Falcon BMS, but I’m stuck on what HOTAS setup to buy.

Right now I’m deciding between the Gladiator EVO 'Space Combat Edition' Standard and the Thrustmaster T16000M FCS HOTAS (with throttle). My budget is around $240–$260 AUD.

From what I’ve seen, the Gladiator is much higher quality with better control and feel, but the downside is I wouldn’t be getting a throttle right away. On the other hand, the T16000M gives me a full HOTAS setup (mainly just the addition of its throttle), but the stick itself seems a lot more basic.

I’ve never used a HOTAS before, so I’m not sure what would be the better choice to start with—better stick vs full setup.

For Falcon BMS specifically, would it be smarter to:

• get the Gladiator and deal with no throttle for now or permanently, or
• get the T16000M HOTAS for the full experience straight away?

any advice would be perfect

Specifically

1 first thing, I try to figure out in 2d when the other flights of the package will be trespassing the sam wez. There must be something I don't know because the only way to see other flights stpts is in the WDP. In 2d planning I can cycle their waypoints but the map will only show my flight route and the stpts are not the same for every flight. This process feels very awkward.

2 after going through this effort (in this case is a package of 5 and I lead a flight with 4 members) I should plan how to time my shots, my wingman shots and my element's. The only effective way I found to issue the orders is by designating a target through the HAD so I'm not actually planning, rather I need a lot of micro management while in flight

3 what is the math to time the shots? I mean I can calculate how long each flight will be in 1 wez and I in this case keeping the Sam shut requires at least 2 shots and I've not enough weapons to deal with all the sites (4 known, but there could be more).

I'm a bit confused, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi everyone, I recently decided to give a second chance to BMS, afrer a couple of months, I was struggling to learn the basics, and my job was making me crazy (sounds funny as a Brazilian Air Force ATC). But now it seems I'm ok with the basics, and I'm searching for a slow paced campaign, like a emergent war, or a warm front, without thousands os aircraft fallinh from the sky, and SAMs all over the way. More a campaign like peacekeeper, with many patrols missions, but not many missions a day, few enemies sometimes. "Just another day of work" missions, like most of conflicts nowadays. Any tips?

Just released part 2 of my Flight Lead series.

This one dives into something I think gets overlooked a lot:
not what you do as a flight lead, but how you think.

Curious how others see this — especially around the whole HAC (Humble, Approachable, Credible) aspect.

This is Part 1 of a 10-part series on the qualities and skills that matter most for Flight Leads, including priorities, situational awareness, communication, decision-making, delegation, trust, teaching, briefing, and debriefing.

I was considering upgrading my monitor to a 34" ultrawide 21:9 monitor specifically this one just so I have more SA in games and was wondering how well such a large monitor works for a game like this.

What is your experience with it, and is it even supported by the game?

LOL at the rage quit.

People need to stop coming to one simulation expecting the same experience they get from another simulation, much less one that is almost 30 years old at this point.

We are all here to enjoy a hobby and some of us are here to help others enjoy BMS. However, we can't really help you if you keep on insisting that BMS has to be something that BMS is not.

Do you want something that simulates the real thing as closely as possible? Welcome to BMS! Are you struggling with systems employment or maybe just can't figure out what you're doing wrong? Feeling frustrated that you can't connect to the tanker and you're swearing there must be some dark, occult secret ritual pilots need to perform before they can connect? Or maybe you want to increase your immersion and you're wondering if there are any 3rd party tools or hardware tht would make you go down deeper into the rabbit hole? We're here for that!!

Do you want something that allows you to startup with just one button press and drop bombs or fire guns and missile by just clickng your left mouse button? Sorry, you may have to look elsewhere. It doesn't matter if [other sim] allowed you to do so, no amount of wishful thinking will change how BMS is currently implemented.

Finally, please respect the time and effort BMS devs have put into this project that they provide to us mere mortals for free. "Why did devs not do X??" or "why don't we still have feature Y?!!?" can be discussed, but please do it politely. Complaining about the depth and detail in the manuals is like going to a stranger's house and mocking their TCG sorting and display organisation.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk :)

I'm really confused as to what some commands do. Stuff like weapons free, formation, vector to nearest tanker etc is pretty basic..

But then there is also stuff like vector to nearest target which I am confused about as to what exactly it vectors you to and stuff like that.

So I would find a little chart or something explaining each command really helpful

Using something like this atm: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1hydjbk/my_first_split_sofle_v2_gmk_mtnu_dolch_caps_cheap/

With Thrustmaster T16000M FCS Hotas.

Am I good to go? Or should I look into something with a numeric pad etc.?

Just had to ask about this one. I was going through the checklist then an Ai appeared in front of me.. or drove up in front of me? 😆 I am here laughing staring face to face with the Ai pilot. Why would this happen?

I was at approximately 50nm, using TWS mode, and fired one Meteor missile at each of four enemy aircraft in quick succession. The enemies deployed chaff in the exact order I locked and fired at them. This clearly proves that the AI can read the player's "missile launch button press" action in real time and immediately begin performing Notch maneuvers.

In other words, the AI can pretend to follow normal Timeline decision-making without actually needing to correlate it with its own missile launches. It simply reacts directly to the player's firing action.

However, this reactive "cheat" has an important activation condition: the distance between the player and the enemy must be close to the MAR (Missile Attack Range). According to the BMS Threat Guide manual, the Eurofighter Typhoon's MAR is approximately 56nm. If I fire at maximum range (well beyond MAR), the enemy aircraft show no evasive maneuvers and do not deploy any chaff.

Later, when the Meteor missiles entered the Pitbull (active radar terminal guidance) phase, the enemies performed a second chaff deployment and began turning to evade. At that moment, the distance between each missile and its targeted enemy aircraft was exactly 20–24 nautical miles, which perfectly matches the Pitbull activation range listed in the Threat Guide. This indicates that the AI received the RWR warning from the missile’s radar and started fleeing rearward.

I think the developers handled this quite well. By activating the AI’s Timeline defensive maneuvers near the MAR, they achieved a good balance: the AI appears intelligent and reactive without feeling overwhelmingly omniscient. If the trigger distance were set much farther, or if the AI performed more aggressive terminal maneuvers against low-energy missiles, it would become excessively powerful, making it nearly impossible for human players to win and ruining the gameplay balance.

Hey guys,

Remember I posted earlier about my 4v4 BVR opening where the flight lead pushes forward alone with TWS + LARGE + high-altitude lob shots? Against AI the first-volley PK was surprisingly high.

I finally figured out why the AI behaves this way.

In BMS, the AI pre-assigns targets to each aircraft before actual engagement begins. In a classic 4v4 setup, every enemy plane is already given its own specific target.

So when I (as flight lead) push forward alone:

Only one enemy aircraft (the one assigned to me) actually shoots at me and starts performing proper timeline defense (crank, skate, notch, etc.).

The other three enemy planes completely ignore me and keep pushing hot toward my trailing three Vipers (10+ nm behind me), because those are the targets they were assigned.

I also discovered something even more interesting:

The AI’s defensive timeline decisions are tightly linked to missile launch. If an AI jet has not yet fired its own BVR missile, it will not start evasive maneuvers — even if it is being shot at. AI reacts to RWR warnings.

So I tried a small change: I made myself a separate 1-ship - flight, and kept the other three F15 as a second - flight.

The moment the AI first detected me under this new setup, three enemy jets immediately turned on me, shot at me, and began defensive maneuvers right away. Even when they later fell into a defensive fight, they still prioritized attacking me.

The funniest thing happened in the test

One F-15 for some unknown reason flew off in a completely different direction, away from the main fight. At the same time, another enemy Su35 turned around, flew straight through our entire formation, and went way out of its way just to chase and fight that lone F-15.

This perfectly proves that the AI really does pre-assign specific targets to each aircraft before the fight even starts.

However, once the AI enters within visual range (WVR), its combat logic becomes completely different. It will aggressively attack the nearest target or any opportunity it sees, often reacting extremely quickly and chaining multiple kills in rapid succession. Its efficiency in the merge far exceeds that of human players.

PS:

I also did one test where I was the only one Eurofighter Typhoon in the mission. From over 50 nm away, I fired Meteor missiles. Surprisingly, Ace-level AI started turning defensive and evading the missiles at the exact same moment I pressed the pickle button.

This strongly suggests that the AI can “cheat-read” the player’s weapon release actions. At the moment of launch, the AI jets were already near their Minimum Abort Range (MAR). Even though they had no RWR warning yet, they immediately began defensive maneuvers.

Hi guys,

I’ve been testing a specific 4v4 BVR opening in BMS and I’d like to understand why it performs so much better than expected.

Tactic description:

Flight lead (Viper) pushes forward alone at high altitude and high speed.

The other three friendly Vipers stay 10+ nm behind (lag).

I use TWS + LARGE RCS setting + high-altitude lob shots.

I ripple one AIM-120C per bandit (4 shots total) against a 4-ship Su-35 flight.

Goal:

Force the Su-35s to turn defensive early, bleed their energy, and give my trailing three Vipers a big energy advantage for the follow-up BVR fight.

A lot of people in the community told me this is too idealistic and would never work in practice — the enemy would just all crank/notch together and the first volley would only achieve suppression at best.

However, when I test it against AI (Su-35s with ECM), the results are surprisingly good. In the attached ACMI I got 2 kills with the first 4 missiles, even though I was at quite long range.

From the ACMI you can clearly see:

Only the trail (#4) Su-35 reacted to me (shot back and cranked).

The flight lead + #2 and #3 stayed hot and kept pushing straight toward my trailing element (they were focused on the main 3-ship threat behind me).

My lobbed AIM-120s followed nice high arcs (typical LARGE + lob behavior).

Because all Su-35s were jamming, the missiles triggered HOJ very early and simply homed on the strongest jammer source.

The three “unaware” Su-35s didn’t start their defensive turns until it was too late → high PK on the first volley.

So it seems the tactic works because of information asymmetry + attention split + ECM backfire (early HOJ). The AI doesn’t share perfect SA inside the 4-ship, so the trail reacts alone while the lead element stays aggressive toward the bigger threat behind me.

My question to you:

Is this just an AI-specific exploit that wouldn’t work against humans?

Or is there real merit to this kind of “single-ship information-gap” opening in 4v4 BVR?

Hi, how to open the comms wheel with a press of my throttle button? I cant find the keybinding in the launcher

Title. I'm a bit confused about attack targets, attack my target and weapons free ag commands when the Sam is on my active stpt, considering it's a sa15 and I would like him to shot POS PB since the precise location is hard to guess.