Rex

DCS load screens are very helpful in that they give us time to engage in some other of life's pursuits. I'm just curious which ones you do? P.S. This isn't serious, they really aren't that bad at all, I just hate load screens in general and grow impatient after 2-3 milliseconds.

How much more resources do uncontrolled aircraft use when they have not yet been started? How does a fourship of, say, Uncontrolled F/A-18s compare with a four ship of Static F/A-18s when it comes to FPS? I want to build a mission where there are several POTENTIAL active aircraft (Triggered Actions -> Perform Command -> Start) at every airfield, which I will activate with triggers (Part of coalition in trigger zones or random on-mission-start) and/or scripts. The overwhelming majority of flights will never be started during an instance of any particular mission, and the un-started flights will act as defacto static flights, to serve as scenery and potential targets for the enemy. A mission like this would contain scores of 'Uncontrolled' flights, possibly even approaching 100. Does anyone know how Static Units and Uncontrolled Units behave from a resource-usage perspective? P.S. In a related question, how to "Late Activation" flights effect Framerates? Can you have 1,000 L/A flights queued up, that use zero resources until activated, or do they always use something, active or not? Edited to Add: I found a year-old thread related to my question. It looks like Uncontrolled does use more, about double, and I wonder if the practical implications of this have improved with multi-threading?

Wow, thank you very much for all of the excellent info! This was very educational.

Apologies! I'll check for that in the future before posting.

Sorry if this has already been addressed, I didn't read through the entire thread. My Presets are always greyed out now. Is anyone else seeing this as well? null

I've been searching around, but I cannot find the answer for this ... If there was a group of, say 16, B-17s going on a bombing mission, how many escorts were they usually accompanied by? Was it typically 1:1 Fighters:Bombers, or did they go with 1 fighter for every 2 bombers, or something of that nature?

I dunno, I'd kind of like to have a girlfriend that could create high-fidelity fighter jet sims. Imagine the roleplaying possibilities. Her: Is that an M61 20mm autocannon or are just happy to see me? You: 20? Pfffft. This one here's 30mm, baby, and not a millimeter less, wanna see it fire?

Space Shuttle! Come on, who's gonna make it?

While doing general web searches about tank platoon specs, I stumbled on the following document: https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/atp3-20-15.pdf It has a lot of info about artillery specs, etc. In case anyone else is interested. Example:

Found it right where you said it would be! Thank you so much!

I just flew a homemade mission, and I wanted to keep the track file, but when I exited the mission, DCS crashed, and I wasn't able to go through the "Save Track" process. I have not yet restarted DCS. Is there somewhere I can fish the last track file out of?

What percentage of the population is clamoring for a study-level F15E? It's a tiny niche market that the big game developers wouldn't touch with a 100-foot pole. I'm just grateful as hell that someone has actually gone through the trouble and tedium to make one, and as a software dev myself, could imagine 1,000 last-minute things that could come up and derail a scheduled launch. It's an incredibly-complex project. I'm impatient too, and want this thing yesterday, but I'm so grateful that they're even making it, that you would never be able to convince me to criticize them. RAZBAM does good work, and good work is rarely timely work in software. I take the slips as an indication that they care about releasing a quality product. I'm sure they want it released every bit as much as we do, and they are just as, if not more disappointed, when it doesn't happen when scheduled. Cut them some slack, IMHO, and be happy that it's coming relatively soon .... even if we don't know precisely when. I mean, I always wanted a Hi-Fi F15, and mulled over my two options: 1) Spend 200,00 man-hours writing the code and creating the images 2) Plunk down $60 and have someone else do it for me It was a tough decision, but after weighing all sides, I went with #2. I don't know how demanding I can reasonably be about it, though.

The Internet Outrage Machine has been on overdrive for the last, what, four or five years? Who gives a flying monkey !@# if they get mad, I'd love to know so I can clear that day of everything else. And if it slips, it slips. Everyone knows going in that it very well might. Nature of the beast. Yes, I would cancel plans to fly a new DCS plane. Most plans, in fact. Don't judge me! P.S. The release date is also the last date any of you will win an MP engagement, because I'm going to go full-max-fanny-wax once we get it.

Won't it be worse to get it for a week and then have to leave it? At least this way you won't know what you're missing. Razbam makes really good stuff, so I'm pretty confident it's going to be an entertaining plane.

In the DCS drawing tool, there is an icon with a box, a curved line, and the letters "SRD". Does anyone know what it stands for? I web-searched it and came up with all kinds of things, none of which I think are correct. The curved-line itself represents Anti-Aircraft units .... I think.

I'd ask you to give it another few hours, because this map is second to none, IMHO. Granted I might be more picky if they made a map covering my hometown, but it's been a huge pleasant surprise for me personally. This may also be because Normandy 1 has been my main map for the last 2-3 months, and Normandy 2.0 has improved the quality of my experience to a huge extent ... perhaps more than the average person's. Remember, DCS maps are their own entities, and they are different from the photorealistic Bing Maps-based stuff from MS. They're a little more conceptual than detailed down to the meter, and they don't attempt to model each individual building. Rather, the they model a handful of well-known buildings and fill in the gaps with generic buildings as most users probably care way more about FPS than whether that building downtown has 8 rows of windows instead of the 6 that were modeled. The buildings also need to be explodable. You're never going to find your house on a DCS map (unless you live in a Vegas hotel), so I wouldn't really expect to find everything in a certain neighborhood where you would find it in meatspace, and if that's what you're looking for, then yeah, I suppose I get it ... I just would never expect that level of Google-map fidelity from a DCS map. With that being said, from the POV of someone who has never even been to France, or England, it's more than convincing enough for me, and just as a general map, it's extraordinary ... a damn-near masterpiece if you ask me. Give it some more time and see if your opinion morphs at all. I think you'll learn to love this one.

Interesting, I also have 64GB of RAM and hardly ever see DCS break ~34GB. I often find myself wishing it *was* harder on RAM, in that it would use more of it. Obviously much depends on how big the mission itself is, but how much RAM do you see being used while you are flying around Syria?

Day #4 and I'm still really enjoying it. I spent the first few days at < 1,000 AGL buzzing everything in sight, and even breaking the "immersion wall" by firing up a Huey for some sightseeing. Not just the cities, but even the rural airfields like Conches is awesome, with rusted farm equipment, grain silos, etc. There's so much to see and there are so many objects and models to discover, it must have been beyond tedious, but the benefit is all ours. After hugging the ground for a couple of days, I finally climbed to FL30 I was just as blown away! It's the most realistic-looking high-altitude landscape I've yet to see in DCS. You can see the relief and large-scale detail that really feels true-to-life. You can see every valley and crevice, and the rivers reflect light like they do in meatspace. It's just incredible. Honestly, I'd call this one a 10/10. I was more or less expecting Normandy 1 with the Northern and Eastern edges of the map filled in (which I would have been happy with), but what we ended up getting has really exceeded my expectations.

I flew in VR for about 2 hours, and the map looked good to me. Keep in mind that I flew with only one unit on the map, the one I was flying, but I didn't notice any stuttering. I predominantly flew through the two big cities, London and Paris, and I shot some stuff as I went along, but the map is smooth in VR on my hardware. At least without a lot of units on it.

Totally exceeded my expectations! London is excellent, and the density of Paris is stunning. Within the first hour I flew through the London Bridge, buzzed Windsor Castle, then went to Paris and did the same with the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triumph. There are so many beautiful, detailed things to destroy! I even learned something ... I had no idea that Paris had a Statue of Liberty-type statue next to a bridge, but I spotted it while flying low over the river. I can't wait to bomb the @#%^ out of it. Just kidding. It's totally a job for rockets. The only things missing to make you feel like you're actually *IN* 1944 Paris, are the white flags and rude waiters. Aside from that, it feels pretty damn close. I'm running a 2080Ti in both VR and on a 5120 x 1440 Ultra-Wide 49" monitor, and the models are sharp with FPS in the range of Normandy 1.0. Anyway, outstanding release. Just superb. And while I really appreciate the discount, It's such a massive upgrade to Normandy 1 that it's an entirely new map altogether, and I would not have balked at paying $60 for it. Anyone griping about paying < $20 for it is nuttier than a squirrel's turd, IMHO. This map was definitely worth the wait. Great job, and thanks for creating it. It has already begun to increase my enjoyment of DCS.

Damn, I almost thought it had been released this weekend. I refresh the DCS News page numerous times/day to see if this has been released yet, and DCS teased me a couple of days ago with a news item saying "Get Ready For Normandy 2!" Well, I am ready, and I'm not rich, but I could not care less how much it costs, because whatever they're charging is too little. I mean London? AND Paris? Holy #@$#$ing #$@$@$! Can you even imagine how time-consuming and tedious that has been. And I still love Normandy 1. Just the other day I found Mont Saint-Michel ... couldn't believe they had it modeled in detail. As for me, I'll re-buy Normandy 1, Re-buy Channel 1, Re-buy Persian Gulf, Re-buy South Atlantic, lose my existing missions, lose my virginity again (yeah ... "again" ... that's my position and I'm sticking with it), dance at your third-cousin's wedding, and eat my own pinky toe if that's what it takes to get this released. Name your price, I'm paying it ... even if I gotta shake my money-maker to do it. Please, take my money. Soon. The sooner the better. Thank you.

From the latest release notes: Ground units. Units dying with agony do not burn after explosion - Fixed. Uh thanks ED for, uh, you know, making the units dying in agony, uh, you know ... burn ... after ... explosions. I was getting rather sick of the units dying with agony, not ... you know ... burning. Glad we put this whole non-burning in agony episode behind us.

Got it .... yeah, I have a DD1 for iRacing (because the DD2 was perpetually sold out for a year). I stepped up from a T300, so I imagine it's like that difference in quality. I smell what you're cooking.

There's still 5 hours and 51 minutes left in April 10th in my timezone. It could still happen!

Nah, this is what they said in the release: "The pre-order [is] currently planned for the 15th of February, 2023. Once the pre-order begins, we anticipate the F-15E to be released into Early Access a few months later and perhaps sooner." I get that it could still slip, study-level mil aircraft have to be mind-bogglingly complex, and are probably never truly "done", but if you pay close attention, I think you'll find that RAZBAM has been telegraphing the release date all along. Check this out ... F15E CFTs can hold 10,400 kg of fuel in total. Get rid of the trailing zeros, flip the numbers before and after the comma, and that makes 4,10, or 4/10 ... April 10th. But wait, there's more. Each PW F100 engine puts out 23,770 lbf in full afterburner. Take the numbers before the comma, and what do we have now? That's right, 4/10/23! BOOYAH! We're almost there, oh ye of little faith!