VincentLaw

How does this airplane manage to not turn into The Matrix jokes?

DCS has always kind of been riding the edge of indie game. The publisher (TFC) basically only publishes one game: DCS. No giant megacorps like EA are pulling the strings around here. With all of the recent third party developer interaction going on, I was debating whether or not I could still think of DCS as an indie game, and I think maybe the best way to describe it is an indie confederation. A collection of developers who care more about making a product worth playing than the bottom line. If that was not true, then DCS would not exist.

Like this?

The cockpit 3d model is a tiny part of the mammoth task of the F/A-18C. (Did you read the newsletter?) ED is also building a new aircraft carrier, revamping carrier operations, and developing an entire new map for the Hornet. All of those things will be directly beneficial to the Cortex Super Hornet too. Besides, the way they are prioritizing the F-18 map over Normandy, I bet they are closer than you think.

There are so many things, I can't pick which one to be most excited about. Seeing the simulation elements in the mission editor will make it much more enjoyable to play around with stuff. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell exactly how things are layed out when they only have a little icon. Also, I wonder if by "unified" they mean including the multiplayer GUI?

This may be the longest, most detailed, most revealing newsletter ED has ever released and you are disappointed?

Have a formatted version with pictures then. edit: sniped

Check your email! Giant newsletter update. I'll copy it here if no one else has by the time I'm done reading it.

Sukhumi has a dirt parking area that I use sometimes, but the AI won't taxi through it or park there. (That An-2 could use a new model too.)

Yes, basically. I couldn't figure out how to add devices directly to the F-15C, so I added the custom tailhook device to the file that adds kneeboards to airplanes. It brute forces the game to draw the tailhook in the desired position. I also added the tailhook command to the F-15C keyboard input. I attached the mod in my previous post, but here is a link: http://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=103988&d=1409696704 (be aware this mod overwrites some game files, but the download also includes the originals) The PFM collision model doesn't work properly with aircraft carriers right now, so don't expect to land on one even with a working tailhook. You will just fall through the deck.

I disagree. It would not be a catastrophe... It would be exactly what we already have, but with improvements in graphics. To me... any improvement is an improvement. I don't understand how improvements can make things worse for some people? Yes I want line of sight to be fixed, but I don't mind if they improve the game incrementally. I don't need to get all of my favorite features in one big giant mega update. I would rather be playing EDGE right now with the current line of sight implementation than wait X months to play EDGE with improved line of sight. Either way it would have better line of sight in X months, but in one of those I get EDGE sooner.

There are basically three factors that influence vertical climb rate when your nose is pointed straight up: Thrust, weight, and drag. Suppose you have two nearly identical airplanes with the same geometry and the same T/W ratio, let's say 1.2. The difference between these airplanes will be their masses. For our experiment, airplane A will be 500 kg, and airplane B will be 1000 kg. Airplane A: m = 500 kg W = 500*9.81 = 4905 N T = 1.2*4905 = 5886 N Airplane B: m = 1000 kg W = 1000*9.81 = 9801 N T = 1.2*9801 = 11772 N Since these airplanes have the same T/W ratio, then they would have identical climb rates in a vacuum, but once you throw air drag into the mix things change a little. Since the external surfaces of the two airplanes are identical, they will have the same drag at the same speed. Let's say they both flying at the speed necessary to get 1000 N of drag force. F = T - (W+D) Airplane A D = 1000 N F = 5886 - (4905 + 1000) = -19 N a = -19 / 500 = -0.038 m/s^2 Airplane B D = 1000 N F = 11772 - (4905 + 1000) = 971 N a = 0.971 m/s^2 Clearly there is a discrepancy here. Airplane A is losing speed while airplane B is actually getting faster. Airplane B will easily out climb airplane A even though they have the same T/W ratio. The difference is that airplane B is heavier. However... this is just a trick of numbers. Being heavier does not make airplanes better. In fact, quite the opposite. The less excess weight your airplane has, the better off it is. If being heavier really made things go up better, then you would hear about how NASA tries to add as much ballast to their rockets as possible (hint: they don't). So why did the heavier airplane seem better? stronger engines do better against drag. Now imagine if you had the engine from airplane B, with the weight of airplane A.

I think there will be more Airbus fans in DCS's future.

And with a little hackery... F-15C Hook Mod.zip

The aileron trim on the right wing coupled with the dihedral will probably make it stable enough within a certain range of speed. Lift is a function of velocity, but weight is not, so at higher speeds the airplane will tend to roll right, and at lower speed the airplane will tend to roll left. If the glide speed is correct, then it should fly level. Since there is more drag on the right wing, and the rudder is not trimmed properly, the airplane will tend to yaw to the right, but probably not in a "violent" way.

it is probably the depth of field. Short depth of field can give you the impression that something is small since human depth of field is shorter at shorter distances.

I would guess it is similar to what is happening in this picture: It looks like an optical phenomenon, not an aerodynamic one. It is probably from cloud tops blocking some of the sunlight coming over the horizon.

I created a simple digital clock using the MFD technique, and I would definitely recommend this over trying to animate each digit through 3dsMax. I included it in the attached file. It can be rotated and placed anywhere inside the cockpit, and it should be fairly easy to modify for people who want to make their own MFD. Currently it starts at time 00:00 because I don't know how to get the world time. clock.lua sets some cockpit animation arguments to the world time, but I don't think there is an equivalent to get_aircraft_draw_argument_value() for the cockpit. digital_clock.zip

To be pedantic, it does make sense, just not as a speed.So an airplane with an initial speed of 150 kts, traveling at 50 kts/h will be traveling at 200 kts after 1 hour of flight.

That is a nice loophole. The MiG-21 could still technically be released for 1.2.10 even if it is after the 2.0.0 open beta is released. EDGE will be free. NTTR and other new maps will most likely cost money. The advantage of maps costing money is that it gives ED and third parties more incentive to develop more maps faster. The disadvantage is that buying maps will be necessary to play on multiplayer servers that use them. I always liked the everyone-is-compatible-with-everyone-ness of DCS, so that disappoints me a little bit.

Turns out I can't figure out how to use stepped tangents with ArgBased Rotation. If it is not possible then I may need to switch to stepped translation or visibility instead.

Hawk and MiG-21 are supposed to be out before 2.0.0. (subject to change)

It will probably feel like a new game when EDGE comes out, especially if you get other maps like the NTTR. Flying an AFM F-15C over Las Vegas is going to be a radical change from FC2.

I am a little bit more confident in the recent release date estimates. When that statement was made last year, it was just really wishful thinking by ED. Now they actually have a test version that is being used by their external testers and in all of the recent promotional material. We know that NTTR is already in a releasable state, and they have had a bunch of time to work on other secret map projects too. At this point, I think we should be asking what month, not what year. I am fairly skeptical of ED release dates, but I would be willing to bet money on 2014.

Okay, thanks for confirming my original idea wasn't going to work. I'll just do the cylinder or transparencies then.