Dangerzone

@Rakesh01 is the latest contributor. Temu is probably something I would have considered using in the future for some things, but after seeing spam, I'll never use them. No credible company should ever need to resort to spam, and those that do smell of scam than anything else.

Just FYI - I don't have a subscription for my headset. I have switched Pimax play to 'offline mode', and my firewall shows that it still attempts to contact 4 different webservices while in offline mode. I have denied it access on numerous occasions (so it couldn't connect) and the headset still functioned (however certain icons wouldn't show correctly), but I have been able to play it effectively offline of the internet. I haven't however had it offline for an extended period of time though - so don't know if there are any long term issues there. Pimax definitely needs to answer this question about what happens if the verification service is unavailable - both during the subscription period (is there a grace period, like DCS), as well as if purchased outright / after the 24 month period. I'm also not happy with the fact that the software still tries to connect to numerous servers in offline mode, so this trend is concerning - especially if there's no clear clarification and answers to these questions.

I can attest that quality in one part of a company doesn't mean that it's there in another part. I recently purchased another device (not related to Pimax), where the build quality is exceptional from what I can tell, but the companion software that it needs is seriously lacking. Sometimes the problem is from the top right through. Other times, it's just different departments with different cultures.

I completely agree with you. If I spend that much money, I want to know that I'm going to get something reliable, that lasts too, but more importantly - a product that is backed up by the company. And yes - different people can have different experiences. But to be fair, even though my initial experience was rough - they did come to the table. They provided replacement lenses quickly, and I have to give them credit for that. They also have multiple ways of contact for support outside of their ticketing system too, which deserves some credit. Since we live in a fallen world,, we're not going to have a 100% success rate, regardless of how good QC and builds are. That's where warranty and after sales support trumps even quality in my opinion. (Quality comes a close 2nd, but even with the best of the best, you can always luck out and be one of the few - and you want to know that you're going to be looked after and not dismissed in those instances). That's where video's like this one are far more superior than all the other reviews out there. I want to know the experience people have when things go wrong. Not so much what went wrong (although that's still of interest) - but how things were handled. A single video of "I had a problem, but company came through promptly and resolved the issue" is worth more than 100 "Great product - love it. Wow! Look how cool this is" review video's, because it shows you how much the company really cares or not.

I purchased my CL with no membership requirements at all, and I'm definitely not paying a monthly fee, but I see what you're referring to here: https://pimax.com/products/pimax-crystal-light. My guess is that this may just be a way of making it a little more affordable for people on the offset not to have to lay out the full amount so you have options. If so - I don't see this as being the same as Meta, and think it's OK, but I think it could be worded much better. But that's a guess. I'm finding it difficult to compare what the price is now, compared to what I purchased it for at release. They're showing a 'base' price of the unit as $599, but total cost of the unit as $858 outright. I think the total cost works close to what I paid for mine with no contract/obligations/subscription.

Agreed. @Calvin.Pimax - are you able to chase up with your contacts and find out why the extended warranty isn't available and showing as 'out of stock' please?

Almost same experience here. Received headset. Problems with lenses. (First, not connected/mounted correctly, and then one of them was distorted). Contacted Pimax via their help ticket, didn't get a response to start with. Contacted my local supplier who I purchased it off, and that gave it a push. Then Calvin here chimed in and said "Any issues - let me know", so I had external support apart from the ticketing which I was grateful for. Since then, and after getting quadviews working, I've had a great experience. There's a few things in software like offline mode not being respected, but nothing that's breaking the system. Current conclusions are: Quality Control needs a complete overhaul. (Not just a tweak - something is drastically wrong there). It really is a lotto as to whether you have a smooth experience out of the box. If you have issues, don't rely on their help support ticketing system. Submit the support, but be ready to follow it up on discord, in here, or somewhere else publicly. At present while unfortunate, it seems that often that can be what's needed to get the problem initially recognised. Just also grateful that there are public PR people who we can reach out to outside of their ticketing system like Calvin for this exact same reason. My experience with HP was a different story with no one to reach out to. Beggers can't be choosers. While there's a lot of improvement that can be done, Pimax seems to be out on it's own when it comes to providing a HP Reverb 2 replacement/upgrade. I don't trust the quality/build to currently last. I hope it does, but I recognise that Pimax only has 1 year warranty. (The fact that their 1 year extended warranty is 'out of stock' isn't too comforting either. ( https://pimax.com/products/pimax-crystal-1-year-extended-warranty ) I was going to upgrade to the super. But I can't bring myself to invest that much money in a headset where the company hasn't proven themselves yet - especially when it could be a brick after 1 year and that's it. The video seemed well grounded and balanced. Gave what he went through. Didn't say 'never again', or 'don't buy' - but rather just to be aware of the issues that you could face and if so what to likely expect. As for the weight of the cable - I'm grateful for this. I'm hoping it speaks of quality. I do however have a little hook up high that the cable loops over, so that it's holding most of the weight and not my head. I love my headset. Very grateful for it, and don't have any regrets - but I also acknowledge that experience varies more per individual than on other headsets.

I stand corrected. Now that we know it happened - there'll be a new burst of requests for this feature. Fact is though - even if we wanted it, it can't happen. There's no push back feature, so you could drive the plane onto the elevator, but you're facing the wrong way to get it off... if pushback didn't happen with plane directors, then it's probably a reasonable assumption to say it'll never happen for elevators. I've got to admit that me personally, would love a 'walk to plane' feature. For no other reason than the carrier seems small in VR. I think that's because you're up high and in such a big aircraft. Having the ability to walk up to (or around) the aircraft might help to give people the greater impression of how big the whole area is. I'm not advocating for this (as I doubt this would be a thing either), but one can dream.

I'm late to this thread, but my advise is try first. You've got a 2 week trial on most of the helicopters there (except for the Chinook) - give them all a go for yourself, and decide which one scratches your itch the best. You don't need to take the 2 weeks to make up your mind, but it'd make a lot of sense to at least try a few first before committing to one. ...Unless of course, the temptation to buy 2 or 3 or 4 after trying a few different ones might be there.

The best experience I've had on DCS have been with real (people controlled) ATC, iand with real people controlling ground units using Combined Arms. An absolute hoot. Immersion to a new level. Sadly, the effort involved in getting that setup is no small feat (unless you fluke having the right guys on all at the same time one night casually) - but it is fantastic. Honestly - if that's what ED are trying to replicate (I don't think it is, but if it is) - then no wonder it would be taking so long to accomplish. It really spices up things to a whole new level.

I am a programmer, so I can comment with experience. And my comment is thus: I can say with absolute certainty that it might be just a few lines of code or might not be. Truth is - Unless you actually know the code and what's going on behind the scenes, you can't definitely know how easy or difficult it will be. You can guess. I've had functions to develop that initially sound like it's going to take ages to accomplish, and the reality was due to specific circumstances, etc - it was a dead basic 5 min job. Likewise though, I've had some functions that people have requested to be added that sound like they should be a 5 min job, and they're incredibly difficult (if not nigh impossible) to implement. There's so much that comes down do it that just because it seems it should be easy, doesn't always make it so. One can still hypothesize though, that if there are other things that cause the grass to disappear around areas such as FARPS, etc - then the functionality is already in DCS to a certain extent, so it should be simpler to implement - but even then - there can be so many "gotcha's" unless you're the one developing, or have inside knowledge of how things are coded you can never be certain. That being said - do invisible FARPS 'mow the lawns'? If so - is it possible to place invisible farps, make them inactive at that location as a workaround. (I have no idea, just throwing a workaround thought out there)? All that to write - that I +1 the OP's request to have the ability to remove grass from selected areas.

You're never too old to love a ride on an elevator. Or a fork lift, or in an excavator bucket. (I better stop now before OH&S tries to find my contact details). I think the confusion though has come into how the AI aircraft can utilize the lower deck, and how it would be great to be able to utilize additional spawn points. I thought (after looking at AI) that this was normal too, but since have been informed/corrected that the elevators are never used for running or occupied aircraft. Even Mav's lift on the elevator in Topgun2 was unreaslistic. But until people are aware of this - they don't know. (I also don't know if elevators were mentioned originally as part of SC, or if that's just one of those urban legends that have crept in)

This year hasn’t been the easiest for DCS, and I know I’ve been as vocal as anyone when it comes to pointing out areas where I think ED could have done better. But it's great to also reflect on the things that ED has done right too, and I think as we approach the end of another year we've managed to survive, now seems to seem a good time to reflect on the things we appreciate. I’d love to hear what others are thankful for that we've received this year. Here are a few things I’m especially grateful for in 2024 that spring to mind: Performance Optimizations: (Seeing another simulator recent launch with dreadful frame rates even on high-end machines highlights to me how well DCS is performing in this area, and how beautiful it is too. Can't wait to see what Vulkan brings). Dynamic Spawn Slots for Multiplayer: A massive thank you for this feature! Focusing on Bug Fixes (especially the impact in the latest couple of updates). Significant Syria Map Updates: I don’t own all the maps so apologies to other creators and the work they have done too- but I have been wonderfully surprised by the unexpected changes that have come to the Syria map. The Long-Awaited KIOWA: Finally, it’s here, and I love it. Plane Directors and Fog: Yeah, I know they’re not here just yet, but let’s face it—they’re almost within reach and I'm pretty excited about this too. Keeping DCS Cloud-Free: And no, I’m not talking about fluffy white clouds. Despite the space DCS takes up on drives, I’m so glad ED aren't going down the online cloud-based game path that 'another flight sim' has. The ability to play offline is greatly appreciated, and optional not mandatory updates mean I can jump in for a quick flight without being forced to update first. ED really strikes a great balance here, with the way they do their install, and it's a huge contract between it and an unmentionable simulator. Incredible effort of 3rd party voluntary support. From those who host events, work on MOOSE to keep it up todate, provide support, the online map editor, Olympus, VAICOM, SRS, Quadviews/VR supporters, and too many others to mention - so grateful. DCS would not be what it is today for many of us without you lot doing such generous work for the community. (I know there are things people are disappointed with this year too, or things that we're looking forward to but haven't been released yet. I also know there's soon to be a 2025 and beyond, and there will be lots of discussions on what we're looking forward to as well. But for this thread, I would love to see focus on what we’re thankful for for this year. Please feel free to chime in and add to this list or have your say of what you appreciate). Let's keep adding to this list, coz I know there's plenty more that I'm thankful for that I haven't recalled yet.

Authorization failed. Could this be due to a firewall blocking DCS from contacting the authentication servers, or the ISP routing not able to contact the servers or the ISP's routing?

Why did I hear Andre's voice in my head when I read your post. But I think you're right. If it doesn't make it into the initial release - it's probably not going to be touched (except for major bugs) anytime soon. We've seen that with Dynamic spawns.

Well, it hasn't been released this week, so there's still hope that maybe they'll sneak this in before the release.

I'll agree with your points, but with one exception. Your view is from a SP mindset, and doesn't take into account multiplayer 24/7 servers where players land, rearm and then take off again. For that reason I would advocate pushback - but I also understand that it serves fewer players than the rest of the directors functions so thus would again not be as high of a priority to implement. I find there's something satisfying about actually finishing off the parking. I've also been involved with online missions where it's great for everyone to come back to the ship, park, and get a screenshot of all the planes stacked up on the deck at the end of the mission (for those who make it ). I get that many probably won't use this part of the function, but darn glad it's in there for those of us who do.

Agreed. And my guess is ED know this, and probably planned a push back, but after spending 4 times the budget set for this feature to get to where it is, I think they drew a line in the sand and said "that's enough". Given the over budget of it, we're probably lucky to have what we have. I do hope there is more room in the budget sometime in the future for a pushback (even if no tractor/deck crew - just moving the plane backwards on it's own). In the meantime, any requests we have for enhancements to this will have to be on the 'cheap' side - which is why I completely support the idea of just stopping when parked, and allow the user to then C+A+S+T.

We have CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+T to teleport back to a new parking spot. Given this, I think it would be best just to disable auto-rotate. Just leave the plane where it is, facing the direction it's facing and allow the player to use the feature already there to teleport to a new spot. This wouldn't even require any new code. It would just require disabling/commenting out the code that does the 180 degree flip. I mean, yeah - it'd be nice to have the extra feature for the player to decide, popup menu, etc - but if that's going to be months or years away - I'd definitely be advocating for just disabling the 180 degree turn for now and have the player CAS-T it.

That's fair enough. That stuff annoys me to. Unfortunately, it's Youtube and many content creators are going to clickbait. How many thumbnails have I seen where it's bold statements, or a big arrow pointing to something random saying "Never do this!", or "What happens next will shock you". I hate those things too. It's the 'accepted junk' people do for clickbait to grab attention. (For me - if I see a thumbnail that misrepresents content, or shows something that's not in the video - they instantly go on my "Never recommend this channel to me again" list). I prefer the approach Enigma had in his video - it comes across much more honest. First, it started was a question, not a statement. Plus, he made some interesting points. Whether they're true or not, IDK - but definitely worth pursuing. Because if I'm using DCS for intentions on how it isn't supposed to be used (or ED have no intentions of supporting that) - it would have been great to know before I invested so much effort into trying to make these things happen. That's not saying that Enigma's statement that ED has designed DCS is really designed more for a digital museum and not large map covering PvE online MP game is 100% correct (and I don't think he is either)- but he raises some considerations that are definitely worth considering before investing a lot of time, effort and money into goals that DCS (or WD40 ) were not designed for. These things need to be discussed so that we can have more reasonable expectations of what we should and shouldn't expect from DCS. This fits more inline with my 'lowering expectations' of DCS - but he's gives much more - by giving potential reasons for why expectations should be lowered in some areas that actually make sense, instead of just lowering them with no reason given...

But is that what's really happening though? From what I've read through this forum, people are mostly speaking on behalf of themselves, their immediate community, or out of observation of what they have seen here, or in other forums/comment sections - stuff they have personally experienced or observed. While passionate, I think most of the discussions I've seen are fairly fine. (Although I admit I don't know how many have been cleaned up). The only one that I could consider that is really doing that is the original video... which this thread is discussing. As such, I would have thought having a thread like this is actually beneficial to exposing the accuracy of the video's statements - whether they are indeed representative of a number of ED's customers, or a big farphy. Indeed! But I also get some people don't like this stuff - which again, where an 'ignore thread' button could help. It'd be a far better option IMO than censorship and not allowing these types of discussions.

I know statics can be created and destroyed 'on the fly' using lua code. (An example of creation script is further above by Grimes) Not sure whether destroy though would works with smoke/fire effects. (Not the marker smoke, but actual static effect smoke). I've never thought to try it until now to be honest. Obviously activating / deactivating would be far better, but just suggesting this as workaround.

I agree. I would much rather see this. My concern though is the remark that 4 times the amount budgeted for this feature has been spent on it. some decision makers may not be keen to keep investing a lot more time into this feature if they're that much over budget. The temptation/need to just tweak what absolutely must be tweaked, and go no further might by significant. If it has already been planned for and is already sitting in the background just waiting to be tweaked and activated we might be OK, but if the development has been focused up until now to be hard-assigned cats from spawns and that was 4x budget, I doubt we'll see this change. There's obviously a lot more complications involved in getting this to work than was first anticipated by anyone. This is conjecture of course, time will tell. The other thought in the back of my mind is when I first started out, it seemed most people were flying off the carrier. FA18's and F14's were the most popular birds (at least in my circle). Since then, I've seen a significant number of wingmen go to the F16, F15E and F4 as their primary aircraft, and the carrier isn't used nearly as much as before, and wonder whether that could have a bearing on where ED focuses they're attention. (Because it would be understandable if the focus shifted towards more on development that would affect the majority of players and if the carrier is being used less, it may get less attention).

To be fair, there's probably a mixture of both. A few posts isn't enough to discern a persons true character as lots of circumstances can affect someone's posting. But as time goes on and more posts are made - I'd say it gets easier to gauge who the always negative people are, vs the rest. And for the moderators - provided they don't make quick assumptions about people from a handful of posts, they've probably got a better idea than most. (They probably read more than us, including posts that have been removed by them that we may have never seen).

Scroll your axis across to the right and just make sure that the axis aren't bound to any other controllers (real, or virtual). Often when this happens, its because a second set of axis have automatically bound against that module that need to be removed. While erasing the folder is a good idea, if these are 'automatically assigned', then that won't fix the issue. One of my pet hates is that DCS decides what to 'auto bind' with axis. It would be so much better if there was a way to turn this off so that the only axis that would bind are only those that I set.