Dangerzone

If we're talking about realism, and variety - one of the things that gets me is that it's the same voice each time for each radio call. Whether female/male/etc, doesn't matter - just having different voices would be great - but while we're doing it - it would make sense to have a mix of options both male and female, so people have a choice of choosing which voice would play for their own radio calls. Currently I hear 3 other planes call inbound for a carrier landing - and each with the exact same voice, the exact same phrase. How good would it be if there were 4 or 5 different variations of the voices where pilots could select which iteration of the voice they want used when they're calling inbound in a setting - including male and female. Or even better, if voices could be done like plane liveries - so we can add them to the saved games directory and choose our own voices for our own calls. Then people who want this feature can share voice 'liveries' like we currently can do with the plane skins. For me - this would be far more immersive changing than changing a pilot model that we rarely would see anyway because we're in the seat when we're flying. I would also think it could be an easier change than doing a bunch of different models with animations for the cockpit. (I'm no animator so I don't know, but I would imagine there's more work than that, than having a setting that determines which version of a sound file is played when triggered?) I know one way to achieve this already is to have all players use VAICOM, and disable the voice in game, and just use your own voice, and have it transmit over SRS at the same time - so we can hear each other's own unique voices for the call. But this does require all players to use VAICOM. Still - maybe this could be a big help for your female friend @buceador if you haven't considered VAICOM and how it could completely change the immersion on that level?

Not true. I get a female voice whenever I'm inbound for carrier landings as well. Want another lady? Fly Navy. I also get a female voice with overlordBot, but I get that's not ED/DCS but 3rd party. I don't have a problem with introducing more variety into the simulator, but I'm also glad that ED doesn't feel the need to raise this item to the top of the pile because of politically correct pressures, etc, and is rather concentrating on more important items first, letting this will come when it comes. As for 'realism', there's plenty of areas where realism can be increased beyond an avatar, so I'd hate to get tunnel visioned with realism just focusing on sex.

That's OK for people who are happy with other games. Personally - I don't play games, and DCS imploding would have me selling my entire gaming rig and peripherals as I don't know any that comes along like DCS, a full fidelity simulator that allows multiplayer in a combat environment with fixed wing, helicopters, ground units, etc together, with Naval / carrier operations that allows me to create scenario's with mission editing and scripting like DCS allows. DCS has a lot of versatility that is unequalled - unless there's something I've missed. Gut feeling leaves me without much hope for the situation with Razbam, and I know it's going to cost some customers, and create ripples, but I'm very much hoping this is a temporary setback and it will be 'upwards and onwards' with DCS and all it's 3rd party content creators as we move into the future.

Indeed. I don't think some of the youtube video's that were first out actually help. All these content creators with 'WOW - right out of the box' I think gave a bit of a bum steer. I also think it's good not to overlook the good, uniqueness that Pimax have as well. I know you're not a fan of the replaceable lenses, but I definitely am a fan. The PCL wasn't supposed to have replaceable lenses like the original Crystal, but they must have decided last minute to do it. This gives me confidence that if every (heaven forbid) I do something dumb and scratch a lens - it's not the end of the headset. Likewise, coming from HP - who was a distant company with zero connection to the community and I was just a number - that didn't back their product after warranty expired, and seemed to short supplied high needed wear and tear items (ie: the cable). In contract, Pimax connects with the community (like they are here), and provides replicable options for the more wearing parts. I'm very keen to see and watch what experience users who buy the Crystal Super have. I think (really hoping) Pimax will get there with their QC, as I think this the biggest issue they have, and if they can overcome this, that will be great. The other issue is their software. There's a lot to be improved on there, but I think that will come in time. The biggest gripe I have (besides still needing 3rd party stuff like Quadviews instead of this all being incorpporated, plus limited tweaking options) is it's reliance to the internet even when in offline mode. But Calvin has acknowledged that too, and is chasing that up with the team, so I'm watching with great interest as to how that pans out. (Because to have graphics need to load from the internet each time almost comes across along the lines of tracking pixels, etc more than providing a useful function to the user). However, if I had to take the option between higher QC (like HP had), but then zero community connection, and basically abandoning their customers once warranty is up, vs hit and miss on the QC - but backing customers when they have issues, good warranty support & returns, community interaction, design to allow for more user-replaceable parts, and making availability of those replaceable parts - I know which one I choose.

VAICOM in multiplayer will depend on what each user has setup. If I mute the outgoing commands my end, but someone else isn't running VAICOM - I'm fairly sure they still hear them come out. On the other hand, if you're all using VAICOM with the same settings, you won't hear the commands - just the person's voice (if you choose to use the same PTT for VAICOM as for SRS) which can be cool. Especially when you add a little more to the message. This request might be good for ED to throw in for consideration with their ATC re-write.

Honestly, I think ED does extremely good with what they already offer. A 2 week trial every 6 months for each of their modules (excluding new releases) is very generous and I would imagine far more effective at encouraging new purchases and customers than this miles reimbursement idea.

While I fully get (and used to want) to see progress video's, etc - I eventually found that they created more disappointment in the end. Extended release dates, etc. I liked how PC did a teaser "2 weekstm" out of the blue, and then proceeded to release it in 2 weeks. That stood out for me as the better way to go about doing these things. A bit of community interaction definitely doesn't hurt - but I'm kinda over the 'hype' of promising, showing cool stuff, and then a seemingly never ending wait for it to arrive. I've kinda adjusted my expectations myself now anyway - but PC's launch still impressed me with the way they handled it.

I get not implementing it at the moment - as I'm guessing it would be a large rewrite to accommodate it considering how VR was currently implemented into DCS. However - I do believe it would be a timely opportunity for it to be seriously considered as part of the Vulkan upgrade. It might save a lot of work down the track if the team are able to consider it and make accommodation for it as they develop for Vulkan.

^^^ This. VAICOM is incredible. Takes a bit to setup and get used to, but once you're there, being able to make calls using your own voice (and not have them repeat) really adds to the immersion. I agree though that it would be good to be able to have a setting to avoid this in game, but not sure if this would be a mission editor setting. Would probably be better being a user preference setting I would suggest.

I'm sorry that you've had such a bad experience with the PCL. The right lens in my situation was not seated correctly either, but i was able to get this resolved. A real shame that yours appears to be out of alignment when seated - as you're right - in this instance there's not much you're going to be able to do. The lenses also had distortions on them (replacement lenses corrected this for me). Regarding performance - I had bad 'out of the box' performance issues too. Quadview's completely changed my Pimax experience from being awful to incredible. Pimax's own software didn't optimize nearly as good as Quadviews for that, so if your friend hasn't installed and configured Quadviews, I highly recommend that he gives that a shot. As someone who came from a narrow FoV headset (HP Reverb), the FoV wasn't a factor for me, although I can only imagine what wide FOW would be like and how much more immersive it must make things. My experience with the PCL has left me satisfied with the product - but cautious about the build quality, etc. I was considering upgrading to the Super when it came out - but I'm going to hold off for now as I believe Pimax has had QC issues, and I want to see proof of concept with a release of a product with these resolved first before I consider committing significant extra cash into a VR headset. I really do hope that they nail it though - Pimax are filling a void in a market that's desperately needed to be filled for a while.

And they probably have just as much fun laughing at our speculation.

Thanks for the correction. I may have misremembered that it would come first, not required. But even so, if it comes first - it would seem then we're still a way from the DCE. As for MT - as I understand it, we don't have full MT yet. We have 'some'. Much of the processing still appears to be on a single thread - which would make sense given the CPU bottlenecking we still still see. I think MT rewrite still has quite a way to go before we see all the benefits (which is a good thing - it means that there should hopefully be more optimizations to come). As I understand it, stand alone servers are still running mostly single thread? It's more some graphic stuff that's been moved to multi-thread for now? I agree - why bother. But this is also why I'm losing enthusiasm. I know my thoughts, foresight and expectation for DCS seems to often be at odd's with ED and the way they do things. Why implement DCS VOIP Radio's without the ability to feed audio in externally (which we've had with SRS for years)? Why implement Dynamic Spawn Slots, and leave out the much needed option to include them with dynamically created FARPS? ED does things that leave me scratching (or banging )my head - so I've learned not to take anything for granted with their plans, until it's actually released. It could be that ED's idea is to repeat what other sim's have done in the past, but the main difference 'never seen before' is that they're planning on using AI to generate the subsequent missions - and maybe they have no desire for a endless ongoing MP mission that never stops? Without them announcing things, we can only speculate, and/or go from experiences of how they've released things in the past.

So we're possibly just looking at a turn-based single player/ co-op player dynamic campaign? I hope you're wrong, but I expect you're already right. This already exists kinda with DCS Liberation. If I recall correctly I thought I read somewhere that Vulkan would need to be released first before the DCE for features planned? Additionally - over 5 years (to-date - let alone how many more years before it's released) to repeat what a few hobbyists have done already would be pretty disappointing - even if it has "AI" as part of the mission generation phase. With the time it's taking to write, I'd be hoping for a real time, ongoing mission that never ceases. To have a save / resume option for single players (or small co-op players), but also to have a continuous play for 24/7 multiplayer servers where things change and progress consistently with different missions. But I fear that you're probably closer to the ball. This was my expectation initially - I have lowered the bar significantly since, to a point where I have lost all enthusiasm for DCE. Really hoping to be wrong and pleasantly surprised. I've been working on a proof-of-concept for DCS, where a multiplayer mission dynamically loads new objects during gameplay as objectives are completed. This allows the mission to feel continuous and dynamic, without the need to stop and start new missions. Over weeks or months, players could end up playing across the entire map. I don't know enough about AI, but could only imagine if I could incorporate AI real-time into this in the back end to control the spawning, and unit engagements, this would be incredible. The concept is that as objectives are met, new units are spawned further back, advancing the front line and using more of the map until the entire map is in play. If objectives are failed, the front line moves against the players, with new units spawning dynamically in a PVE environment. Players can capture or lose airfields along the way. Using some existing scripts, I can save the state of the units and progress, allowing the mission to continue if the server needs to be restarted. Maybe similar to what already exists, but being seamless - no stopping and restarting of missions - just ongoing. The proof-of-concept worked - and shows incredible promise, but it's been stalled due to ongoing bugs in DCS, performance issues with vehicle pathing, events not triggering, memory leaks, and occasional crashes when spawning new units in dynamically (which doesn't provide a crash report or a reliable way to reproduce the issue). I get the impression that ongoing releases will continue to have the same pattern of bugs, instabilities, etc for the fore seeable future. It's frustrating because there's so much potential with DCS, but the frequent bugs and unstable releases are a significant barrier. RJ (the creator of Overlordbot) had great ideas that could have taken DCS in amazing directions, but ED didn't engage and at least from my observations ignored RJ in the end, and now that opportunity is gone. This has made me rethink my own investment in DCS. I've come to realize that the instability and ongoing risk of bugs make it difficult to justify the work required, especially with frequent updates breaking things and needing constant maintenance, and the treatment shown towards RJ indicates a significant level of disinterest towards community developers. Others I've worked with, including developers and server admins, seem to also losing interest, or are burned out trying to keep up with the DCS bugs. This isn't to have a go at DCS dev's. I can only imagine that they're stretched thin with too many things to do at present, especially with resources spread thin with MT and Vulkan rewrites. DCS is unique and I want to see it flourish. Once these rewrites are finished, I really hope we'll see more stability and focus on the community's needs. I foresee DCS has more of a future in supporting the community dev's far more than developing it's own DCE. (Of course it's own DCE will still be nice if they nail it) But the community has already shown that it is more than capable of providing some incredible solutions, and quicker, (and in some cases better than what ED has provided), such as Olympus, Liberation, SRS, OverlordBot, VAICOM, Web Mission Editor, and MOOSE, etc. For now, for sanity reasons though, I've stepped back significantly from DCS to a point where I just tinker from time to time, in the attempt to avoid losing all enthusiasm for DCS completely.

There’s a floating Runway line at Queshm that’s been there for quite some time that indicates otherwise.

Do we even have information on what the Dynamic Campaign Engine is supposed to bring? I'm interested to know if it's going to be SP, or also multiplayer. Whether MP (if available) can be hosted with minimal maintenance, or whether it will require 'hands on' approach to keep things going. I'm also interested to know if it's going to provide 'endless campaigns', like you play one, then get to the end, then go to the briefing, and then start a new mission which progresses (a bit like the 3rd party app we have now), or whether it will provide seamless/endless gameplay without the stopping, so it's like an endless mission where things just keep progressing. (Which would be brilliant for online MP gamplay). And how much control we will have over the content and direction as well. Whether it will be something that can be highly customisable by server admins, etc to add to it - or if it's a stand alone exclusive function. Because honestly, if it's not going to be MP that's endless (without the server having to cycle to another mission), but you have to finish the mission, then cycle to the next - I can't see how ED is going to do it better than an already out there dynamic campaign mission generator that's already available. When I first heard about the DCE - I was excited, but the more time has gone on, the more I'm becoming less optimistic. I was real excited about dynamic spawns as well, but ED have managed to avoid the one thing that I was hoping for the most with them (ability to spawn FARPS dynamically and be able to spawn on those), in order to complete what I (and many others) need and have been asking for years. This, plus what happened with RJ (author of overlordBot), not to mention some others that have dropped out along the way, has given me the impression that whoever's involved with the planning is a little more disconnected from the community and our needs to what I first gave credit, so I'm not as optimistic as I used to be that the DCE will actually fit our needs or expectations. I may be wrong (and I really hope I am) - I'm just lacking the level of confidence I once did that they're going to nail this out of the box, but it'll be more 'Early Access' and along the lines of what's already been made. I'm preparing myself that it is still years away (Vulkan has to come first IIRC??) - and then it may take another 5 years after release before it matures into something solid. ... Or maybe I'm just suffering from the Monday Blues.

I'm incredibly confused now, but OK. Obviously my reply isn't relevant to what you're trying to say, so I'll delete it to try and avoid any further confusion.

Moon is too small for me to tell in VR.

You're thinking of it from an unoccupied aircraft perspective. I wasn't thinking of that. I was more thinking from an occupied one. But cool concept to 'keep' aircraft that players exit from ingame though - that would be cool.

What do you mean by focus issues? As in alignment, or are your lenses actually out of focus? (I ask because mine weren't mounted properly and were significantly out of focus, and even after mounting them correctly I needed replacement lenses sent because my original ones also had warping). As for DCS settings, I use 72hz/fps. Motion smoothing OFF. (I can hit 72fps anway). Quadviews (essential piece of software) set to 160% in foveated, and 5% on the edges which I barely notice. I've avoided the new supersampling function Pimax have due to it causing writing, and labels, etc to be 'soft'.

How do you steal those tracks? Unless the player parks exactly where the AI is set to park - you have to cater for the player being 'out of position' to start with. And that could be anywhere on the ramp, or even the airfield. Then the tracks are going to be completely different. As someone who's been developing software for decades one thing I've learned during this time, plenty of things seem 'simple', until you find out what's actually involved, and how other things are coded - you've often got no idea how simple or difficult something can be or how deep the rabbit hole is. I suspect there's far more to this than meets the eye, or what you're assuming. That's all I'm saying.

It's never that straight forward. The AI planes will be on tracks - the software knows where they'll end up. Human players are... unpredictable , and a lot more needs to be considered and allowed for, just for starters.

Me personally - I'd be happy to pay $15 to get the map upgraded and be more modern - but only on the provision that players with only the existing map can still fly with players on the new map (just with the old textures) for instance. When I fly Caucuses', it's often with people who don't own too many terrains, and would probably not buy Caucuses, or with new players that I'm introducing to DCS, etc. If they were still able to fly on the old map, and I fly on the new map, but both together - that would be fine, and I'd definitely be interested in upgrading. But if the new one was separate and not compatible in MP with people that only had the old one, I'd probably still be flying on the old one for compatibility, so would be less inclined.

Hi Calvin, Thanks for your reply. What data transfers are you referring to in regards to data-transfers failing? I would have thought offline mode means no data transfers occurring. Things I've noticed: Offline mode still attempts to communicate just as much as Online mode. (Including trying to access the Pimax store). The software shouldn't have any need or be attempting any outbound communication at all while in offline mode. Among other things, this raises security concerns. When disconnected from the internet completely, the software doesn't display graphics correctly. It's as though the graphics are being loaded each time from a website. Did you end up having a chat to the team, and get a response back from them? Thanks Adam.

We don't necessarily know how trivial the bug is. Since merging to MT and ongoing development, numerous event bugs have been broken - some well over a year. It may be that fixing these is more complicated than first thought, and that it's affecting/breaking more systems than we're aware of. It would make sense if some of the events are broken, that could potentially break the scoring as well as this could very well be triggered by events. This isn't to say that this shouldn't have been dealt with by now - Bugs should be getting addressed over new features (IMO). There's nothing worse than having a game that used to work now not function, or be able to work because of bugs where focus is on future features without those bugs being seen to promptly, just to address that it may not be as trivial as one first thinks. I'd personally like to see the next patch brought out to be 100% focused on bug fixing and performance building. No new features - just fix the bugs that have been around for too long.

As for having the map show the area with the runway markings, etc - besides a mod, I think this would need to be done by the devs. The good news though is that the Dev's are very active when it comes to updating Syria - it's the best map by far in DCS - so there's hopefully a good chance that they will be able to accommodate this into the map natively. I think it's a great suggestion and hope the Dev's take this on board! As for now - if you place a FARP there (or invisible FARP) along with the 4 units required for a FARP to run, you can land a plane along the road, taxi up to the FARP and you will have the options available to you (rearm, refuel, etc) - so you can have it functional, but the dividers down the road will make things very difficult. Edit: hmm... does scenery remove also remove divides and powerpoles from Roads? If so - a small script could be all that's needed to make this quite usable as is - without the road textures being changed.