The BIGGEST problem with Linux Air Combat

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LAC is struggling. Our online community is too small! We get lots of downloads, but very few people are spending more than a few minutes in our online, multi-player missions.

I have been troubled by this for a long time as I have wondered why our online crowd loses about 99% of the people that download LAC. I am persuaded that the trouble is NOT caused by technical incompatibilities or by difficulties related to compiling from source code. As you can see from other areas of these forums, LAC is very very compatible, easy to install, and it is almost never necessary to compile it. LAC is compatible with more computing hardware than any other multi-player combat flight simulator.

I am also persuaded that the trouble is NOT caused by any lack of "features" or any failing in LAC's support for multi-player missions. Our feature set is the most robust of any native LINUX combat flight simulator. We aren't losing users because they have a better LINUX-based option. As "J-Bird" says in his review "LAC is unquestionably the best linux native air combat simulator out there."

After pondering this question for years, I think I just figured it out: The world-wide combat flight simulator community is really COMMITTED to Microsoft Windows. There are dozens of really fine combat flight simulators for Windows with better graphics than LAC, and several that are better overall than LAC. Although LAC is the best Linux-native combat flight simulator out there, it is NOT as good as the best Windows-based combat flight simulators, and it will never exceed them. The economics of LAC's free, open-source genetics just don't permit competition versus the corporate funding and for-profit marketing that has kept the flight simulator community wed to MIcro$oft Windows.

Every week, about 100 people download LAC. I think most of them are able to get it working without a lot of trouble. I think most of these people are new to LINUX, and they are trying to decide whether or not they can make a permanent switch away from Microsoft. They have heard that Linux Air Combat is the best Linux-native combat flight simulator, and they are hoping to find that it is good enough to persuade them to abandon Microsoft. Alas, within a few minutes almost all of them conclude that they can still enjoy a better, more comprehensive combat flight simulation experience with one of the Microsoft Windows-based combat flight simulators that they already own.

The bottom line is this: A few flight sim fanatics are committed to LINUX. For them, the fact that LAC is free, open-source code that is truly native to LINUX is important. THOSE are the people that stay with LAC and form the basis of our small online community. They are proud of LINUX and are delighted to find that LAC is as good as the "classic" old flight sims that sparked their original interest years (or decades) ago.

The vast majority of flight sim fanatics are still enjoying fantastic, modern, Windows-based sims that surpass LAC in graphic detail, sound effects, or in other areas. Many of those people suffer occasional grief with Microsoft and would welcome an opportunity to switch to LINUX if they found a Linux-native combat simulator that was as good as the best they already own, but they quickly realize that LAC has not caught up with the best Windows-based sims that they have been flying for the past 5 years. I think those people just decide "No. Not time to abandon Windows yet."

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To help you see what I mean, take a look above. It's a brief YouTube video clip that demonstrates LAC's current graphics, sound, and player activity when everything is pretty well maxed out for best results:

Now compare that with the clip above showing one of the latest, greatest Windows-based combat flight sims and you will see the difference. It's a recent clip from "Aces HIgh III":

On the other hand,compare those with this one showing "Aces High II", the best Windows-based combat flight sim from about 12 years ago:

As you can see, LAC is much closer to the 12 year-old Windows sims than to the most modern ones.

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Finally, for historic perspective, compare with this "Aces of the Pacific" clip from 1992:

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Here's another recent LAC video that makes a better comparison:

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Here's an example video clip showing the latest improvements in LAC's cockpit graphics from late 2024: