Zimmerdylan

Hmm....Actually, so far the results are exactly what I thought they'd be. And I'm willing to bet that they will not be much different weeks after the release of Normandy. Judging by all that I have heard via TS in the servers, and everything I have read on the forums, NTTR will probably never see the popularity that Causasus enjoys, and the Normandy map (I predicted in my mind) seems to be too specialized to many for their purposes. So from all that I have listened to about it from people who aren't purchasing it, it has already been predetermined by many as a non starter. The results of the pole make perfect sense to me. I agree with another poster that Normandy will be pretty much a WWII map. I probably will never fly anything other than WWII era planes on it. Something about it feels as though I would be tracking mud all over hallowed ground. And that's fine. I'll still most likely will fly it a lot. One thing that I have noticed about a lot of folks is that they expect a lot out of these sims. Sometimes (IMO) unreasonably so. I remember having many expectations of DCS when I first started flying it. And.....I found myself continually unhappy with it more often than not. But then I began to come around to the reality of all of this. It's not real. It's a simulation. By it's very nature it can never replace reality. If we expect it to be as good as reality, then we're just shorting ourselves of a whole lot of enjoyment. So I will accept the Normandy map for what it is. I accept Nevada for what it is. Same for Caucasus. I fly Nevada because I live in this desert. And even though It's not exact, or even close to exact. I cannot expect it to be. And I don't. As a result, I enjoy DCS a whole lot more than a lot of people I see here complaining about details that just don't really matter. Immersion is in the eye of the beholder. As a last thought, I could not afford a computer that could handle any flight sim that was remotely close to reality. As it is always being stated on the forums of another sim that many here fly. When people there get on the forums and cry about their FPS being 12. There isn't a computer built that could handle it on max settings. And in my opinion, that sim isn't half as detailed as DCS. I'm pretty happy with all 3 maps. But then I have no issues with immersion, or not being able to imagine scenarios in my DCS world. For me.....It's what I make of it. Addition: ED has done an outstanding job of creating three worlds for me to play in and fulfill my boyhood dream of being a pilot. I believe that they have done and still do their best to create a detailed, believable platform for me to do this. They do their part in all of this. If I did not think so, I would not be paying for any of this stuff. I think that the rest is on me. So it is up to me to do create the reality. I cannot expect the devs to think for me. My part is using my imagination and letting go of the paradigms that confine their wonderful creation to mediocrity. And I never disappoint myself. Call me crazy...............but it keeps me happy.

OK....I know that this "poll" isn't really fair at this point seeing that Normandy has not been released, but my curiosity doesn't really center around experience as much as interest in one or the other. So my question is: Of the 3 maps now (or shortly) available, which of them do you feel that you will be or are flying the most? If you could please clarify why you prefer it or think that you will prefer your chosen map over the others. I can tell with some degree of certainty that I will probably favor the 1944 map at this point because I fly WWII modules about 60% of the time when flying DCS. I have always had a great fondness for this era of aviation. So whether the Normandy map is perfect or not. I see it being a pretty important part of DCS for me. And then NTTR right after that, and then the 1.5 map last. So what do other people think? I am really interested in how this plays out. I thought that the NTTR map would be much more popular than it seems to be but it doesn't appear to be that way at all. So I'm looking to get a feel of what people are thinking about the newest addition and how it will impact the already existing maps. Thanks guys.

It's always so interesting for me to see the differences between people's perceptions of things. I personally love the Huey much more than the Mi8. I don't really like the way the Mi8 handles all that much. Some guys call me crazy for this. To me, the Huey is a much easier chopper to fly. I cannot see what Mi8 enthusiasts see in that chopper. Quite honestly, I prefer the Gazelle to the Mi8. I'm not particularly a fan of the weapons systems in the Mi8. Due to my lack of practice with them I can never really do anything effective in combat. And because I don't really bother with them I get easily confused by having to go between pods, pylons, and all of that stuff. I do fly the Mi8 from time to time but I certainly prefer the Huey over it. And again, it's a preference thing. It has nothing to do with the module itself. It's funny that what one guy finds great and comfortable, another person finds annoying or uncomfortable. And neither is right or wrong. They just see it from a different angle. It's just how we are put together. That's why I never respond in those "What should I buy" threads. Who am I to say what a total stranger will like or dislike. As it always gets clearly illustrated here in the forums, no two people are alike.

Oh wow! I know a lot of people who are going to be very tired on the 27th if the trend is like the NTTR release.......

I am assuming (probably wrongfully) that ED wants to avoid the insanity that was the release of NTTR by not giving an actual date. There were literally thousands of people sitting by their computer for 2.0 and it was more crazy than a 70% off black Friday sale at Macy's New York. Not knowing exactly when the drop is coming kind of relieves some of that as many people may not want to wait around if they aren't sure of when it's actually going to drop. Who knows??.....May be tomorrow for all we know. This is all just conjecture on my part. So don't go blaming me if I am wrong. :dunno::dunno:

Aren't you the lucky one. My 7 year old just sings Katie Perry and Taylor Swift songs from the time the car doors close till the time we park at our destination. 6 of one....half a dozen of the other I suppose. :doh:

I have learned that proper rudder use can make turning much more natural and you can pull more out of your turns that way. Between rudder and throttle I can do pretty well. For myself, I use to use flaps a lot more for turns in fights but soon learned the lessons of the other posters who are responding. Now, after learning and putting in time against the German AC, I don't really use my flaps at all. I have been known to deploy them while evading an enemy who is right on my a$$ that I cannot shake. Between the rapid speed loss and turn, I can get them to peel away or overshoot me. The problem for me there is that I cannot just catch up to them and shoot at em because speed recovery is relatively slow, and if I do deploy my flaps in that situation, I make sure that I am in a position to go into an instant dive to gain back my energy. If not, the boogie man will be right back on my tail on no time. There are guys here who are much better at this thing than I'll ever be. All I know is that what I have learned works for me most of the time.

You don't have to go to all that trouble my friend. Just paste your input files from 1.5 into your 2.0 install and you won't have to set any control mapping up. Step 1: Go to Local Disk C: / Users / your log in name / Saved Games / DCS or DCS.openbeta / Config / Copy the input folder that's in the config file Step2: Local Disk C: / Users / your log in name / Saved Games / DCS.openalpha / Config / Paste the "input" file from DCS.openbeta into the config folder. Voila!!! All of your controls from DCS 1.5 are now completely assigned to 2.0

When Nevada was released there were a lot of people waiting up all night for it to drop. I remember the forums were buzzing all that Thursday night. I think that I went to bed around 1 A.M. my time that Friday. People literally sat by their computer for 24 hours or more waiting for that map to drop. When it finally came down, it was just insane. 5, 6 hour download times. I got lucky and logged on right when it dropped and was able to get it in the first few seconds. It only took me an hour or so to download it. I think that it didn't drop till mid morning sometime if I remember correctly. The sim gods were smiling on me that day as I had just signed on after getting home from an appointment. I'm not sure if there will be more people waiting on this download than NTTR. Vegas was all anyone talked about for quite a while. Although I think the WWII map has been pretty well received, I have to wonder if it will be more popular than Nevada. I hope so. I am honestly very surprised at the lack of enthusiasm I have encountered over the NTTR map. Not to mention the lack of people flying it on line. Hopefully DCS will set up a dedicated server and remedy all of that in the near future.

AAAhh yes! My calendar likewise has the 30th on a Tuesday. But when I looked at it, it had May and June showing on the same page and I did not see the distinction between the two. So Friday the 30th falls in June :doh: ! OK....so now we're looking at May 26th as the potential release. Only 9 days away. So much the better. But unless ED has actually pinpointed that day, I'm not getting too awefully excited yet. All I have ever seen is "the end of May" as the drop date. So I am assuming that this is a kind of sure deal unless something pops up. As I have learned in the past......that's not at all unusual. :smilewink:

So the Normandy map is suppose to drop at the end of may. Looking at my trusty calendar I see that you cannot get any closer to the end of May than Fri, May 30th. Would I be correct in assuming that this is the target day for release at this point?:smartass:

Yeah....This has been an issue for a while now. It's not just in the F86. The F5 also has this problem but not to the same degree. And the WWII planes have excessive glare also. I imagine it will be fixed with 2.5.

Thanks guys. All very good news. I cannot wait!!! The German bombers will add so much to the emersion factor. I encourage people to get into the WWII stuff if you have not already. Quite honestly, It's all that I really fly seriously these days. I have all but maybe 2 DCS modules but the WWII stuff is what I always end up going back to. Such fun! What I'm really looking forward to is putting vehicles from the assets pack into the deserts surrounding Las Vegas. The terrain is perfect for the African theater of WWII. I know......some of you cannot get into it unless it's really Africa or whatever, but I'm not tainted by reality. I imagine these things quite readily. Only 15 more days and the DCS world is going to get a lot better for me. I am imagining that we may be up to the 2.5 release at that point. If not, it cannot be far behind. None the less, I see a lot of changes coming very quickly in the near future. I know that there will be a lot of bugs and room for improvement, and there will be people bombarding the forums with opinions, complaints, and points of view. All of that is just dandy with me. But (IMO) NTTR was one of the smoothest releases of a major project that I have ever experienced in a sim anywhere. There were issues and problems, but it was never catastrophic to the point that I couldn't deal with it. I have to give ED it's Kudos for that. Problems and obstacles yes. Down times, and persistent issues, a few. But we all knew it was alpha, and the progress was swift much of the time. I say "Welcome Normandy! We're all happy to be part of this awesome release!"

Watch the documentary.......Judge for yourself.

After much deliberation, I finally sprung and purchased the WWII map. I am pretty excited at this point. I was wondering if there are any German AI bombers. I keep seeing all of the hype about the B-17 AI and that's great. But what if I want to intercept missions in the P-51? So are there any German bombers in the assets pack? And if not, are there any in the works? Thanks guys!

Again......I have never purchased anything from Steam. I have never been on Steam. I see no benefit of using Steam. All I have ever heard was complaints about it. I remember when the Battlefield franchise forced everyone to go through that ridiculous Origin to play their games. It took all of about a week before I tossed BF in the trash after that. I never went back to it. Origin added so much more complexity to actually owning the game that just didn't need to be there. And for what? Marketing? No thanks. Steam is just another middle man that doesn't need to be there. I don't need a cheap module if I have to go through Steam for it. I would rather give ED the money and save the hassle. Whether it's just ED that's having Steam issues (I know that this is inaccurate because I have heard complaints from people who have other sims through Steam) or not. I just don't see any sense in adding another link in a chain that's already complex enough. Everyone that I chat with who uses Steam pretty much sums it up the same way when they talk about it. "Steam is friggin great!!!!! When it's not sucking so bad.":music_whistling: I'm not saying that people shouldn't get Steam. Obviously it serves some purpose for some people. But after having been around the block a few times, I compare the whining about it (Not just with ED) and the benefits I hear about it and it's just not for me. Short cuts, fancy bells and whistles, and good deals are not always the best way to go.

I came across this documentary from 1976 about the Spitfire. It is very interesting and telling as it contains in depth stories, interviews, and information told by the actual designers, engineers, and pilots who helped design this plane. They tell how they were able to compare it to the 109 from a German pilot who accidentally landed his 109 at a British airfield. Their stories and accounts are very interesting indeed. What sticks with me are some of the statistics of comparison between the 109, and the spitfire. Although much of our DCS model seems to be on par with the documentary, the engineers state that the Spitfire was actually a little faster than the ME109 at any altitude. This kind of makes me think. I can't catch up with a running 109 in the DCS spitfire. Whether it's climbing, diving, or level flight. If what these guys are saying is just barely true, I should at least be able to keep up with the German planes. Not trying to open up any cans of worms here......Just noticing the comparisons. Anyway.....Very good documentary with great input from people who were there designing the plane. Oh...and another great documentary from the 70's with people who designed and built the Spitfire.

I could never see any sense whatsoever in going through steam for anything. I have heard so many complaints about how it works, that you don't get the full benefits of DCS through steam, you never get early release, there have been verification issues, and the complaints go on and on. To me, using steam is like going to a middle man to buy a used car from a used car dealer. You are adding another element to something that could be simple. People tell me that steam has it's advantages, but I have heard those same people pi$$ and moan about problems with steam. All of the advantages that I am informed of don't come close to all of the whining about steam I hear all of the time. Simple solution: Cut them out of the picture.

If you are deciding whether or not to invest in DCS, then perhaps your best bet is to just hop in a plane and fly around a bit rather than mess with the ME. Go on line and take a peak at what's going on there. I am very loyal to DCS and pretty much have tossed all other flight sims into file 13. I own all but 2 or three of the modules and cannot say enough good things about all of them. But as any other game, sim, or anything else in life, there are some frustrating things about DCS. The Mission Editor is probably the second most frustrating thing about DCS. If you use it as a standard to rate DCS, then you are going to short yourself a lot of enjoyment. The Mission Editor has never worked 100% here. It has many many seemingly unsolvable issues that seem to plague it. And perhaps the most frustrating thing about it is that you never know when one feature will be working and another is not. I get so frustrated with it that I just don't bother any more. It's actually one of the few things that can sway me from flying DCS at times. I sit and think to myself "Lets go create a mission for the P-51" I go and create some super cool, realistic scenario, and it takes me a few hours because of the complexity of the M.E. and when I get into the actual mission, I have to spend two more hours altering this that or the other because those, these, and that doesn't work right. It's a complete shambles at times. Many people just get frustrated and don't bother. The good side to it is that you can create a complete mission from the ground up with no template whatsoever. That's pretty unique and it attracted me to DCS. But what good is that feature if nothing in your mission goes to plan, or if the scenario never plays out right. I have had relatively simple missions involving multiple fighter groups from months ago that I still have yet to complete because I have to keep changing settings and test it. It's a real pain. When it finally does work, it's fantastic. But not worth the frustration to me much of the time. If you are thinking about purchasing, I would say that you will never find a better sim for flight anywhere. It's certainly worth every last penny. But to judge whether your going to buy it on one of it's weakest links is (IMO) a huge mistake. Just my 2 cents.........

I think that the problem may be solved but can't say for sure until I get DCS re-installed. I decided to re download it and start over. But, The new Nvidia drivers seem to work with other flight sims now so I think I fixed the issue. It seems that Windows 10 performed the driver update rather than the Nvidia DM. One of the features I hate about Windows 10. It does all this stuff without telling you. I though I had Windows updater off but I guess not. Anyway. I uninstalled all of my Nvidia related software and reinstalled it via the Nvidia DM and everything seems to work now. I sure wish ED would make a MAC compatible version of DCS because I can't stand Windows. I had no idea that Windows had updated anything.

Yeah, I'm having some serious issues. I keep getting an Nvidia message that there is no disk in the D drive after the driver install. After trying to run IL2 I'm getting the following error: D3D_ERROR DXBufferManII::vb(..) DGX1_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED From everything I'm reading about it, you have to roll back to a previous driver if it happens. If anyone has had this issue in the past please advise thanks.

I am having some serious issues with that driver. DCS won't run at all with it. Everything is OK until I get into an airplane and within a few seconds, DCS has stopped working errors. I am pretty sure it's not DCS because IL2 won't run, and Rise of Flight blinks continually after this driver install. I'm also getting no disk in drive D errors after update. I'm going to roll back and see if it fixes the issue.

I think that in some cases with a question like this, I read it and honestly don't know how to answer it. I mean I know literally nothing about making skins, or even how to insert a livery into my files. So I don't respond because anything I would say is going to be almost counter productive to the topic. I believe that this if fairly common with many of us in the forums.

What I meant about shooting others down with malice and worrying about it was kind of implying that I personally don't do this. And that I would be a bit worried if I started to think this way. I would probably give up playing if that were the case. That's just not healthy in any way as far as I am concerned. I cannot speak for others or their attitude about it. I'm pretty sure I don't fly with anyone who carries that attitude. But if what I said evoked some negative feelings, then it's probably best that you spend your money on something that won't make you feel the way you are feeling. So I guess I'm glad I was able to help you in some small way. As far as you thinking people are laughing at you for your opinion on it. I wouldn't worry too much about that. :thumbup:

You won't be shooting American anything. It's all a computer images created by Russian people. Plus....if you are really that freaked out about it, you can set the 190 as an american plane and make the P-51 a Russian plane. I fly the 109 all of the time against the P-51. I never look at it like I am a real German pilot shooting down a real American pilot. It's just an object in a game. Flying different planes against other planes that you are familiar with is a lot of fun. No one here that I know of is shooting anything in anger or with malice. If that were the case, then I would probably worry a little bit. It's all sport and we all are going home at the end of the day safe and happy. :doh: