cctoide

Over the course of the thread "ragdoll physics" has been taken to mean everything, from actual ragdoll physics to enemy AI, trucks (!?), DirectX 11 and 64 bit software. I don't think anything can be expected to make sense anymore :huh:.

Uh, what? I really don't see how it would be anywhere near controversial when ragdoll physics has been in widespread use (in the FPS genre and some others that mainly revolve around killing people) for years. Half-Life 2, Battlefield 2, Hitman, Left 4 Dead, Killing Floor and dozens of other titles implement ragdolls, not to mention the ones where they're improved on via inverse kinematics and other techniques. Ragdoll physics is even starting to fall into disfavor now that it's been around for a while - in a lot of cases it looks more comical than realistic, since characters just suddenly go limp and end up in impossible poses. Hence the creation of Euphoria and similar software to better simulate human physics. I'm not saying anything about the merits of ragdolls in DCS, just the notion that they would be controversial. I'm also not saying people can't have moral issues with blasting people apart in a videogame, but they're pretty much the same moral issues as in every other game with a war, ever.

Ah, my bad. I could see it improving animations, though unfortunately I can't really see that being a priority for the DCS series very soon. I also wonder how easy integrating middleware into TFCSE would be, as the engine seems a bit steeped in legacy stuff and home-grown approaches sometimes. I guess only the developers would know the answer to that, though.

I'm not sure what ragdolls would add to the ground crew either unless you intend to murder them and make off with the jet :P. Maybe in Grand Theft Warthog?

I believe it was said the limit on the map size is how much memory the sim process can access. On 64 bit systems bigger maps would be possible, but that would exclude people on 32 bit systems, plus only a 64 bit Warthog has been confirmed (if I'm not mistaken) so far, BS hasn't.

Pretty damn amazing. The pacing and VFX were great. I'd say it's your best one yet, but you probably knew that already ;).

Great news, kicks the anticipation up a couple of notches. edit: By the way, YouTube increased the time limit for videos to 15 minutes some time ago. Also, it is possible to set yourself as a Director under the channel "Settings" tab, removing any kind of limit.

My reasoning (theory) is that anything that isn't exclusively client-side eventually has to be ported to the other DCS titles to keep multiplayer compatibility, and thus will probably find its way into singleplayer too. Granted, AI is server-side (as far as I know), so a BS client flying on an A-10 server might not have the updated code itself, but since AI is (I suppose) a somewhat self-contained module, I'd expect it to be ported over when the BS/A-10C compatibility patch is released.

Really nice overview of the whole product. Looking forward to getting it.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=55619 :)

Also, he's supposed to be Russian, so a Cheburashka hat would be even better. :lol:

No, it doesn't. It's a tongue-in-cheek "wouldn't it be cool if" scenario. ;)

I believe it will be included, according to the audio interview with Wags in the SimHQ DCS: A-10C Hands-on article.

Compatibility with BS is planned, compatibility with FC2 is unknown at this time.

I think he's asking if it will be in the game. I would expect it to since I believe one of the features of the new sound engine was speed of sound simulation.

I hope he recovers well.

One might be more important than the other, but from what I've read it would take a whole lot longer to "sort out" trees than to add vapor FX, as the way trees are currently implemented probably has a lot of strings attached and might require engine modifications, as well as redoing the entire map. I'm not stating an opinion on either, it's just that a dev explained exactly what the problem with trees was some time ago but the explanation didn't seem to get much attention, and the tree issue keeps popping up in discussions. :)

Given they went to the trouble of in several different segments per blade as well as their interaction with wind for BS, I wouldn't be surprised if wing flex was modeled. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't, either, though. :P

That is an intro put together by GlowingAmraam, probably using audio clips from real A-10 videos. There's a screenshot, I forget where, where you can see the FAC dialogue as text. I imagine it'll be madlibs-style radio communications.

I was actually surprised to hear Wags call it an alpha build since in my mind the alpha build of a game was a very unfinished proof-of-concept with blocky stand-ins, missing textures and very few finished features. Then I thought about it and it makes sense considering that, in most of the beta testing I've been in for other games, the beta build often plays like the finished game, only with a lot of bugs, and I'm guessing there's a lot of stuff that's not implemented yet in that alpha build used for the producer's notes. I'm still amazed by the fact that it doesn't take a full three years or longer to create an aircraft with the DCS level of detail, though. I guess ED knows what they're doing.

I do a manual start-up every time since it feels much faster than the automatic start-up (I haven't actually timed it, though). I'm also not completely sure of this but I think it leaves some important stuff switched off (like the datalink system... at least I think it happened to me once, when I used it because the the other guy I was playing with was getting impatient). It does start to grate after the third or fourth time you get shot down out of nowhere in a session, but it's also a pretty good incentive not to airquake it up. Hopefully with the RWR (and other defensive systems) and good piloting in the A-10 you won't need to respawn so often.

I can't recall where I read this, but one of the "cons" of the Ka-50 (when compared to the Mi-28, IIRC) was the lengthy start-up procedure, which limited how fast it could be deployed on short notice. With the A-10C being a more modern(ized) aircraft, I guess it makes sense they tried to make the pilot's life easier - the fact that you start the engines by moving the corresponding throttle out of its lowest detent instead of pressing a button, in particular, stands out to me as a user-friendliness thing (unless there's a technical reason for it, but I wouldn't know).

I'd enjoy seeing the A-10C's damage model in action, though I guess that's unlikely as IIRC it wasn't done in the BS notes either. I think I already know the answer but it'd be great to see if you can indeed lose an entire engine or elevator and keep flying, and how that affects the flight model.

The second one already, excellent! :) Good thing the powers that be have moved mid-July to late June, it made things much more interesting on the DCS front.

Advertising a study sim in a good way seems hard to me. I suppose attention is good no matter who it's coming from, but it feels a bit off to me to advertise complex games through over-the-top action trailers with explosions and Hollywood antics. Obviously people can draw their own opinion as to whether they want to buy the game or not, but doing that feels like conning someone who's expecting HAWX into looking at a game where the "real reason" you're supposed to play it is because of the 200 simulated switches and systems. The problem is that "200 switches" doesn't make for a very good selling point or trailer unless you're pitching it to the kind of audience which probably already knows about your game. (I'm not criticizing GA's videos by the way, they're very well done and not being shoved in anyone's face.) I learned about DCS from playing at an ArmA II community where a bunch of people kept bringing it up (also, using it in comparisons with that game's flight model a lot :)). I looked at YouTube videos of Black Shark and I was blown away that someone had actually managed to get something like this produced and published. I didn't even have much of an interest in combat flight sims before, but the fact that all the systems were simulated so accurately was what sold me instantly. So I agree with the people saying YouTube videos are a good, user-driven means of advertising the game.