Falcon 4.0 part 12: Falcon BMS and EF2000 RETRO

This is the last of the releases to be covered, Falcon BMS. Falcon BMS is the current generation development of Falcon 4.0. However, BMS is no longer the community driven mod or addon to Falcon 4.0, but has transcended that classification to become an entity in it's own right.

This articles takes a quick look at the history of BMS and instead of concentrating on a BMS release, (which is done far better by the BMS team on their website), it takes a look at an addon for the addon, EF2000 RETRO.

History

Falcon BMS history

BMS began as an continued development of SuperPak 3. SuperPak 3 would be the mod/addon to provide a vast majority of the functionality changes, while SuperPak 4 would produce the vast majority of vehicle/weapon database changes. So it would make sense for BMS to be initially developed from SuperPak 3.

Beta versions would be released until BMS 1.0 in December 2003. BMS would later include patches to integrate SuperPak 4 with the release of BMS 2.0 in May 2004.

After the legal issues around BMS it would continue to be developed, but was not released directly, instead providing a basis for both FreeFalcon and OpenFalcon releases. The last version of OpenFalcon v4.7 would be build on BMS 3.9.1.6.

With the agreements reached between rights holders and the BMS team. BMS received a new lease of life as BMS 4.32. Current development has continued since v4.32 with the latest version being v4.38 (at time of writing). For a more detailed look at the Falcon 4.0 history the Falcon Epopee is recommended at Falcon 4 history.

For more information on BMS the dedicated BMS website is the recommended source for all things BMS.

EF2000 RETRO

Rather than cover the Falcon BMS directly, an addon to the BMS addon may have passed under the radar of many. That being the EF2000 RETRO addon, created by Scorpion82!

What is it?

This is best described by Scorpion82 (taken from the EF2000 RETRO discord):

EF2000 RETRO is an Add-On inspired by Digital Image Design's EF2000 PC based combat flight simulator, first released on 29th November 1995. The EF2000 RETRO Add-on aims to introduce a distinct EF2000 flair to Falcon BMS. It is designed as an Add-on theater that seamlessly integrates with Falcon BMS, without adversely impacting the stock Falcon BMS installation, or any other Add-On theater you may have installed. In principle EF2000 RETRO for 4.37 is a memorial release commeorating the original EF2000 (30th anniversary). EF2000 BTO is mainly a separate mod that transfers the work on the EF2000 to 4.38 (not by default included).

At present there are two streams of development, one for BMS 4.37 and one for the latest version BMS 4.38.

There continue to be two versions as EF2000 Retro (for BMS 4.37) uses a Nordic theater just like the original EF2000. This is due to the public availability of theater creation tools for BMS 4.37.

BMS 4.38 being the latest major version release of BMS uses theaters created/modified with tools that haven't been publicly released yet. This version of EF2000 RETRO (for BMS 4.38) uses the Balkans theater.

Having these two versions is also useful for those with older hardware who may wish to use the less performance intensive BMS 4.37.

It is some truly amazing work by Scorpion82, so if you're a BMS fan or an old EF2000 fan, or both, I'd highly recommend getting this and trying it out! Huge thanks to Scorpion82 for creating EF2000 RETRO!

Where can you get it?

Again shamelessly using Scorpion82's release notes:

For BMS 4.37

RELEASE EF2000 RETRO v1.11 - 25th September 2025

EF2000 RETRO v1.11 is out.

IMPORTANT!!!

EF2000 RETRO v1.11 is a FULL release, it is recommended to make a fresh install, but you can also install it on top of v.1.10. This should have no other consequences then increasing the memory consumption due to a couple of now superfluous files!

EF2000 RETRO v1.11 is compatible only with Falcon BMS 4.37.8!

INSTALLATION:

1. Download the EF2000 RETRO v1.11_FULL.zip

2. Unzip the EF2000 RETRO v1.11_FULL to your "Falcon BMS 4.37" installation directory, ensure "complete path information" is enabled

Changelog

• v1.21 FM with new Lift/Drag tables, Add. Sec. updates

• Alignment of EF2000 aircraft and cockpit Model and Texture numbers with EF2000 BTO

• Cockpit data update: default view point, DOF movement and panning limits, HUD data update

Download (2.32 GB)

For BMS 4.38

EF2000 BTO v1.00 for Falcon BMS 4.38 RELEASED - 30th August 2025

The EF2000 BTO v1.00 Add-On for Falcon BMS 4.38 is now available. This Add-on is conceived as an aircraft centric, dependent add-on theater. That means it requires the Balkans Theater of Operations to be installed.

The objective of this add-on was to transfer my work on the EF2000 for to the BMS 4.38 environment.

Pre-requsites:

• Falcon BMS 4.38.0 installed

• Balkan Theater v1.08.0 + Hotfix 3 installed

Installation:

1. Extract the EF2000 BTO v1.00.zip onto your "Falcon BMS 4.38\Data" main installation directory

2. Start Falcon BMS Launcher and select EF2000 BTO as the Theater

3. Launch game with above selected Theater

Changes (compared to Balkans Theater Baseline):

• UI background/splash screens

• EF2000 Sound Tracks for UI

• Instant Action and Dogfight Mode implementation

• More EF2000 Squadrons in "Joint Guard" Campaign (Save5.cam)

• TacRef update

• Badges covering all EF2000 wings and squadrons

• German, British, Italian, Spanish and Austrians variants updated / introduced incl.:

• EF2000 Advanced Flight Model

• EF2000 Cockpit

• EF2000 aircraft models (not latest PBR state, but with more skin sets and model fixes)

• New EF2000 Rack data

• Custom cockpit audio and voice warnings

• Weapon updates (Brimstone I & II, IRIS-T, ASRAAM, METEOR, 1000L SFT, ALARM, TAURUS, AAQ-28)

• New weapon GBU-48

• Enter/Leave load screens for EF2000

• Instant Action implementation

Known issues/limitations:

• Models (11000 onwards), Textures (11000 onwards) and Cockpit folder (EF2000) are installed into stock Balkans Theater (no over-writting of existing files)

Download (533.58 MB)

News and releases

As EF2000 RETRO is still in active development, the best place for the latest news and release info is the EF2000 RETRO discord.

Example video

Here's a quick example test video, playing EF2000 RETRO (for BMS v4.37). No real idea about what I'm doing!

You can see much higher quality flying from Scorpion82 on the EF2000 Retro channel!

Finally, to the BMS team...

Although putting these articles together and trying out old Falcon 4.0 releases has been fun, there has been a bit of uncomfortable realization about how much has been lost to time. During this process I began to compile what I had into patch collections and upload them to the Internet Archive to preserve what I had found.

Now the BMS team is comprised of volunteers with their own lives to lead and precious free time, so I can wholeheartedly understand the viewpoint of concentrating on only the most current releases to prevent queries/work generated from older releases 'diluting' the development effort. It's probably the most sensible/practical approach to take.

However I would humbly suggest that they consider either archiving their older BMS versions publically, (on the Internet Archive for example). Or if they feel this may affect their current development, archive older versions privately and later archive these older versions publically at a time of their choosing (when they feel it would not affect their current development).

I suggest this, as I've seen how easy it has been for important releases in the Falcon 4.0 history to disappear over time and the older BMS versions are an important part of this continuing Falcon 4.0 history.

And all that's left to say is, incredible work guys!

Good hunting!