ceecrb1

Are there any config files to edit that I can reduce the duration of track files. Eg 1 per hour or trigger manually a new file or ANYTHING similar? Just is a REAL pain when I want or need to replay something after an issue to sit through how many ever hours of replay to see whats going on, for when others have asked me for a copy as they are looking to grab a screenshot in replay etc.

First off, thank you to all who spent the time to read and reply. There have been some comments we agree with, and some we disagree with. That's just the nature of the beast. Like said at the start of the initial post, we were communicating our feelings and experiences. Others have differing opinions and experiences and that's fine. We are just as a community burnt out. There's nothing left for us. Just 2 nights ago we had a nearly 2 hour chat about how we'd spent YEARS dreaming of the apache. Now it's on presale, none of us have paid for it. It's hard to say why, but we just all collectively feel like there's "no point". A broad sweeping reply to some of the themes in replies. To those insisting it's all about a perfect simulation of reality: How do you measure how close it is to reality when you have very likely NO experience of what reality is. ED "could" make the aim120 react any old way they like and make a facebook post saying they've tweaked it to some document they've gained a copy of, when really its all made up, and we'd be none the wiser (not saying thats been done or going to be done, just an example of how we truly have NO idea what the actual reality is for us to compare it against). Is it all just "bragging rights" that "the sim I fly at home is the most real? For those who say being a fighter pilot is repetitive and boring, I can respond the other way. How many fighter pilots get an air to air kill, or even fire a missile in anger? How many ai aircraft have you shot down in 2 hours of DCS, let a alone a week. You cant pick and choose which parts are "like the real job" to suit. The whole experience of DCS is the "fighter pilot fantasy" for us grown ups with money for decent gaming rigs and hotas's. Why is it so embarrassing or painful to admit that? In our group we admit and own it and have a laugh about it. For filling out bug reports etc. This comes back to the long running never ending argument that we the user base are pushed towards using the open beta as most servers run this. Yes we started our own and were free to chose, but then we decide to visit others, rolling back or upgrading, or dedicating ssd space to 2 installs.... not so much fun. The end result is that it feels like us, the paying customers who just want to play a game, have the experience of being unpaid testing staff. Forever filling out forms, uploading logs and investigating crashes and tweaking settings or changing drivers on system just to keep DCS happy, when all other games (or work software) just happily keep on working day in day out without the need to spend hours reading articles online to fix issues, sign up to their forums or discord groups like we do here. RE the aim120 facebook post. It's less about the work done. Hats off to the guys, seriously sounds like some complicated code. More about the project management and tasks being handed out. In simple "why do that when there are so many simple issues that have been around for years still to fix!?!" Again, in short. We don't like the feeling of spending money on modules (yes I wrote units in the original thread, oops). To feel like we have a shiny new gleaming unit, is a muddy broken environment and UI. As stated by another poster. Our VR experiences in other games just can't compare with DCS. The fact that some get upset they don't own VR or fly in DCS in VR for whatever reason doesnt make our VR experiences invalid. A lot of the "marketing" and pull of dcs to get new people in is the VR element.... As a group our experience is that after so many years, we know where every ai is coming from and how it will react. Yes so many missions are scripted stories. But even with some of the VERY well built missions for online multiplayer, there was an attempt to build in randomness but they are all just a selection of spawn points of the same selection of units. Hell just having the ability to create a MASSIVE area on a map and say "randomly spawn from this list of ground or air units, in random values of quantity with random values of ability, static or with random tracks towards enemy area to follow, up to X value of units alive at a time". It wouldnt be controlled or "realistic" battle ground but with fog of war on would at least break from the same old script, would involve hunting for enemies and you wouldnt shoot down the same old SU27 and know to turn to a certain bearing because the next one always "spawns over there at fl X". Hopefully see you all again in a couple of years. Untill then I'm sorry to say, our server will remain cold and dark. Right or wrong, agree or disagree, as a group, with DCS we've learned all we can learn, experienced all we can experience and we feel it's not because of us not trying hard enough but rather there being nothing left to gain, when we feel like their could be. *engine shutting down and canopy opening noises*

First off. This is not meant as a rant or a complaining/offloading session. Second. I expect backlash from fanboys. Fill your boots, we know how we feel and what experiences we are having. I'm writing here representing a group of DCS pilots who met on a public server and have taken things so far as to all pitch in and build our own server which is connected to a symmetrical gigabit connection, we are all fully paid up users of warthogs, pimaxes, hp reverbs, 3090s, 2080ti's, physical helicopter collectives etc etc etc and have dedicated many hours of time to all aspects of the game, from flying, to mission planning, learning units and even god forbid, trolling, pissing about and having a laugh. As a group we spend our time in a large variety of games but have always based the group and friendship on our original meeting place and "beloved" DCS. The last 2 months, the server has been powered down. Before that, it spent nearly another 2 months not being used while running 24/7. This is where we used to fly daily. Interspersed by other games, (cod, onward, project cars 2 etc etc, but always returning to dcs). We all have ended up with the same feeling. All that is left for us is new units and once you've gotten over the "ooo new and shiny!" It always ends up being the same, just a new unit in the same environment. Again, this is not a rant, we do need to acknowledge the amazing work that has been done on so many parts of the game. (eg new clouds, was a long wait but worth it). We just want the base game to get some attention. No matter which mission we build or download, in the end we know exactly how it will play out. There's no "ai battle commander" moving things around as a surprise for example. We spawn into aircraft on the other side of the map to the AI enemies and have to rearm and refuel with an RWR lock warning blaring in our ears, while inside a concrete bunker. The locating lights under a tanker are NOT visible (who cares if they are "realistic" or not, you CANT see them in vr headsets). The current fashion of new units needing us to rebind hotas's after updates. Stop it! just STOP. These are a few minor examples. The fact is that today's facebook post about a rebuilt aim120 radar just wound us up. We see it (and many other things on the changelog when there are updates) as time spent obsessing over tiny fine details that really don't matter to 99.999999% of the people PLAYING dcs Yes I said playing, we ARN'T fighter pilots, this isnt a training session where your nations military are going to call you up at the start of WW3 to "save us all" because you have 2000 hours in the DCS f16. In short. We loved this game and spent HOURS on it EVERY day. Now we just see it as the same repetitive experience with the same basic base game that hardly gets 'love', improvements or fixes while we are getting spoon fed new units like they are distractions to cover up or hide the base issues. We REALLY hope we can get back to DCS one day. Right now, we are sorry to say there is just nothing left for us after we all learned our favored units.

Nope not at all offended. Just confused and curious. The thread started off as a genuine question which I still think was a valid one to ask. AKA if all units are on trial, many were surprised when this was not included as what was understood as "all units". I also stand by what I said on facebook. Seems like simple marketing to ride the hypetrain of the release moment and get as many people in it at launch as possible. So many sales from "group mentality" and it being the new shiny toy. E.D. Chose not to do go with that. I think it probably lost them a quite a few sales, but they have more info on their sales trends and numbers than ANYONE else here. It is both them with all the info and their choice. Even if I/we dont see the sense or logic in it.

Fingers crossed. Truth is I've spent far too much money on non-refundable units to instantly get buyers remorse (talking pre-trial era) as you had no real feeling for a unit until you fly it or try to get into it's systems etc. From quite a while ago I refuse to buy any units unless trialed first. Some just don't turn out to be what you expect and others are a good surprise. I'd say most people can get a feel for a unit within an hour or 2, so even a 24 hour trial is acceptable.

Would really like the ability to bind many "items" to one button or slider. EG F16 cockpit lighting could all be on one slider (4 individuals currently) OR EG Master arm and laser arm could be on the same switch

Would really like the ability to selectively load a map and in the standalone server be able to override the mission file's in built time, date and weather. With this we'd be able to take any map/mission that has hours of work put into it and just set it to night, winter, storm etc etc as we chose. Not asking for ability to change while the file is running, just at load/start of that mission.

Fly in a small group, we all also noticed an instant and huge upgrade in FPS/smoothness in VR. We've been slowly pushing up the p.d. in 0.1 increments to see how much more image quality we can get to keep the solid 60fps we like. We THINK the game is now spreading over more CPU cores but not entirely sure, havn't looked into it that much. Kinda looks like the CPU bottleneck has been reduced greatly.

Also, cant get any runway lighting to turn on when trying to land at night or in bad weather. Any ideas why or how?

can the caucucus tanker routes be changed so they are not so close to enemy units. It's all but impossible to refuel without being interrupted by sams or aircraft.

God yes it needs it! Stange though that it never needed it in the past, yet recently they changed the lighting, the lighting they say is how it should be and is realistic, yet when you set the black sea map to 8am in march and your retinas are burned out in your vr headset. You mean when they increased the suns power and then later had to release bug fixes to aircraft mfds, rather than reducing the sun to something realistic. You mean the sunlight where white hot bruning flares you drop are invisible and you only see the smoke trail they leave behind? Could that be why it's suddenly needed? Strange that. Almost like they only need to reduce the ambient lighting to what it was, but that would mean admitting fault.

Hi there, Still using 2.1.4 but has something in a script altered ILS? Trying to use the ils of senaki in an f16 and it's as if the airport has ILS off.. gone to test it in another mission/map and all working. Suggestions?

Wrong. I personally heard a high up member of one of the groups (will not publicly name them as it's not their fight) state that due to the terms of "the agreement" with ED, they were obliged to use the current open beta version. (Who knows what that agreement is, it was not discussed). This was while the whole group was debating if all their servers should be rolled back to 2.5.5 to actually be able to fly some missions. Or have you forgotten what happened a few months ago when 2.5.6 was so unstable that servers were crashing many times a day?

I think what upsets people (like myself) is paying full price for a piece of DLC which cost more than a full AAA title. Then, to have slow process, that is not so much of an issue, but to have things which were in the past, working, then broken and most importantly, clearly broken and known to be broken, (wag's video on new stearpoints clearly shows the hud is not legible above the horizon). To have that released, knowing to be in that state, makes those who have paid their money feel like they were taken advantage of. Beta tester may be "optional" but when ED and some online groups have an agreement where they are obliged to use the open beta, well it pretty much means it is no longer so optional as we need to be running open beta to fly with them, or should we also spend MORE money on SSD's so we fill them with different versions?