aaronwhite

That's always going to be a risk with early access, which is why there's also the discount given. If people want to put their money up on the promise of things to come being what they expect, they can, and they get a discount in the process as a trade off. If people want to wait until the thing is feature complete, and just watch the progress from afar, they can do that and then just have a higher price to pay down the road. Without really knowing anything more on what's going on between RAZBAM and ED, it does seem like this is part of the way ED handles 3rd party modules after the mess that was the Hawk forever ago, where ED was left with a module that they apparently couldn't really do anything with because they lacked the source code and were stuck with a module they could no longer properly support after the original developer went away. ED, from what I remember, changed it to where companies have to provide them the source code so that in the event that a developer just collapses or decides they don't want to deal with DCS anymore, the customers who purchased their modules aren't left without a functioning module and ED is left with the choice of having to remove a module people already paid for or try to reverse engineer some module to get to a point where they can update it. Also, I believe ED requires a certain level of development to be achieved before a 3rd party can put their module up for sale.

I always wonder how many projects they had queued up for more modern Russian stuff that had to get axed because of Russia's shift in getting even more tight-lipped and secure than they already had been. Even an older Mi-28 would be a blast, and I'll continue to dream of a day where we get a Ka-52 with multicrew to really give the Redfor a counter to the AH-64.

Just about finished on this one! So much more enjoyable than the AH-64 which just started to feel like a chore towards the end. On this Ka-50, I'm going to play around with chipping and fading the black/green camo a bit around areas that are likely to be heavily worn, like access panels and steps. I don't want it to look too weathered, but given the wear and tear on the skin, I figured some chipping of the paint would be a nice excuse to test out the Wacom tablet I got to save my wrist a bit of pain and discomfort from using a mouse to do it. The pressure sensitivity is a real help for work like this, and it's so much easier to do smooth camo lines with the natural feeling of a pen in your hand. As always, it will have the custom IRIAA pilot to go with the helicopter and I'll probably swap the engine numbers for black ones that stand out a bit less. This scrapes and chipping still aren't finished, since I've reworked it a bit since this picture, but I'll keep messing with it. nullnullnull

In celebration of finishing the nightmare that was doing a 4-tone camo for the AH-64, I figured I would return to a much more sensibly organized template and fun helicopter to skin, while recreating the first DCS skin I ever made over 2 years ago. The file sizes have definitely gone up since then, but the Black Shark 3 shows why it's worth it with all of the details. Hopefully I can wrap it up by next week and then who knows what I'll do next.null

I can finally take a break from coloring in bolts and screwheads! Here's the Apache in the 4-tone camo And here's the plain OD version as well.

Finally! I'm calling these things done. I'm sure there are some small details that could be picked at, but after literally weeks of hunting down individual screws and bolts, I'm going to call it good enough. Hopefully, tonight I'll be uploading the modern Czech Air Force camo version and then a matching OD version for anyone who likes the "Apache Classic" look. The Apaches will come with custom pilots in green flight suits and appropriate patches on their shoulders (the bug where the Army patches appear no matter what appears to be around, but once that is fixed the Czech patches are underneath. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an easy solution to remove them). I'll drop a link here once I get them uploaded. Just need to grab some in-game screens first.

Last update before release. Hopefully I can get this thing out of my life by Monday. I think I've hunted down every damn rivet head I can think of. It was miserable. I just have to finish up the pilot textures, and then find one more part on the tail, and after that, I'm calling it good. I'll probably create a quick olive drab one too, just for fun. Enjoy! null

Another update that feels like...barely anything has changed... I've spent the past week in my free time whenever possible hunting down the various screws and detail parts. The tail is done, now I'm finishing up the bottom and side blisters on the fuselage, before finally finishing up the wings, engine and fuselage itself. As anyone who's done a skin with camo on here can attest, finding all of the various screws takes forever. There has to easily be 500 screws to track down on this model, if not more. It's got to be the most complex model I've ever worked on painting in DCS. But it's looking pretty good so far, if I do say so myself.

From what I remember, the Hind had a similar issue. It was a bit frustrating until it was added, because on multiplayer servers if the server switched to a winter map, you were just kind of SOL because you couldn't do anything about the icing buildup on your engines.

I think this is one of the things I was looking forward to the most with ED talking about all of the improvements they were making to the way they handled animations regarding the Super Carrier deck crews. The possibility for them to implement new animations for troops on the ground, crews around aircraft (I would love for them to be able to add animated maintenance and loaders, just for a little life around airbases). But also having crew in the rear of helicopters and letting you see and pickup downed airmen or drop off soldiers from a fast rope out of the back. There's so much awesome potential there, and I'm looking forward to seeing how they handle it.

Still a ton of work to do, but I figured I would post a small update before I go back to studying. I've got a cert exam in two weeks, and it's been eating most of the free time I would rather spend on finishing this skin up. Camo layout's all pretty much done at this point, just need to go and align things. After that...it's detail hunting season. That's going to take an eternity. In the end I'll probably create an olive drab Czech Air Force version to go with the camo one, for people who like a little variety in life.

That's amazing work! I am definitely jealous of those skills. Now you just need to build yourself a custom cyclic and collective and you're good to go!

It takes some getting used to, but once you're comfortable with it, it gets easier. I tried to disconnect the idea of trim in fixed wing planes entirely in my mind. Instead I think of the trim as a "Hold my joystick and pedals for me". I fly with the "instant trim" selection, so basically what I do is I'll trim a bit of left cyclic at takeoff, and then once I get it up into the air with my feet on the rudders and just flying it manually with the cyclic, I'll start to pitch the nose forward and add whatever collective I need to get some forward airspeed with a gentle altitude increase. Once I start getting close to the stable angle I want to fly at, I'll click the trim and basically center all of my controls right away. Since I've been doing this since the Ka-50, I've gotten used to it. Then you may need to make small adjustments, so you'll notice you're holding a little more left cyclic than before, so you trim again. You'll be constantly adjusting your trim though. It's not quite like a plane, because any increase or decrease in speed, collective, turns, whatever you do, all of it is going to require you to re-trim the thing out. Dropping the collective will move your nose one way with the torque, so you'll need to add a little opposite rudder, maybe some opposite cyclic and trim again. Once you get used to it though, I think you'll be surprised how little you end up thinking about it. And you can always hold the trim, get stabilized then release it to get setup.

My jealousy is immeasurable.

Another thought I had, you might reach out to one of the mods and ask if they can put you in touch with Wags via email or something and he can offer some advise. I believe he's been flying everything in game with a twist rudder stick, and watching some of his videos flying the helicopters, he appears to have become pretty proficient at it. Might be worth something to look into to help you get to continue flying while they work on George.