VincentLaw

Given enough time, this will happen.

Or to non-simmers who have no interest in buying it. If you shoot enough bullets you are bound to hit something.

Absolutely no horse armor please. A plague of microtransactions like this would ruin DCS.

Nothing is stopping you from plugging your PC into your TV and sticking a console style gamepad into it. I have even seen a couple of PC games with split screen multiplayer.

Oh yeah, I remember the first time I tried landing in a field, I was kind of nervous, so I set down gently as a feather. The next thing I knew every alarm was going off and the sky was down.

Buddy refueling on a race track "pattern". I can see it now.

Well I can tell you there is a major difference in realism between the SFM and AFM/PMF. I would mostly attribute the low quality of the SFM in DCS to age though. It is passable in the conditions encountered in normal flight, but when you start pushing the flight envelope, going to high angles of attack or sideslip, that is when you get the really jarring effects with simple flight models in any sim. In FSX Acceleration for example, it is possible to circle strafe in the F/A-18 with your nose continuously pointed at the ground. That doesn't make any sense at all. In War Thunder, the flat spin stalls are scripted, which can result in weird sideways flat spins followed by a warp to horizontal, forcing you to crash even when you should have recovered. I have been trying to make a low speed STOL SFM for DCS, but when you get outside the normal operating conditions of a typical fighter/attacker, some really bad things can start to happen, so I have been considering just going straight to an EFM. The main thing about an AFM/PFM is that things happen a certain way because they were simulated to happen that way, not because someone programmed the aircraft to carry out a certain special effect like a cobra or a flat spin. Those things should happen because the aerodynamics simulation resulted in them happening, not because of some special trigger. It gives it a more natural feeling.

You just pointed out game exclusivity. That is almost entirely an artificial construct of the console corporations to lock people into their markets. There is nothing technical preventing awesome console exclusive games from being on PC, but if Microsoft had simultaneously released Halo on PC there wouldn't even be an XBox 360.

Possible but unlikely. On all the computers I have tried, BS1 has much better performance and lower requirements than DCS World. That said, the reduction in performance is balanced by improvements in the quality of certain things and continued dev support. If your computer can handle DCS World, then i do recommend BS2, otherwise BS1 should be sufficient if you just want to do single player with the Shark. Also, last time I checked, the trimmer in BS1 was easier to use than BS2.

I picked option 4 because it has been years and we still don't have the highly requested AT-802U.

New Callsign! I've messed around with it a little in the past, and I would probably make a new pilot if I got into a serious campaign or something, but I mostly do quick missions, free flights, mess around with the editor, and training missions. (training missions also don't count in the logbook)

I might have a new flyable airplane coming soon, but this is DCS, so you never know ;)

Angle of attack is fine. I am just trying to get a shorter takeoff run. I want rotation to occur at a lower speed, which should be related to pitch authority.

Well fluids are a bit more complicated than a ball on a string. If there is motion that is not parallel to the wall, then the fluid exerts a force on the pipe (other than static pressure or shear forces). In the case of the ball on the string, the string will deform too, but that is caused by the momentum of the ball, not from the ball applying a radial force to the string. Edit: Actually, it has been a while since dynamics, but I agree I was wrong there. The ball reacts to the string force, but since it is just a reaction, the force was balanced and immediately disappears if the string is cut so it doesn't move radially. In any case, all the forces are still balanced so you don't get levitating pipe devices.

The best you could do with something like this is create a rolling device. If you pump fluid into one end of a ring, gravity will pull that side more than the other side, causing it to roll. If you spin a ball on a string, there is no centrifugal force pulling the ball upwards radially as you depicted. If there was, then the ball would fly in the opposite direction of the string when released. Instead, the ball simply continues to fly on a line tangential to the circle and perpendicular to the string (in the direction it was going). The forces in your example should actually pointing the opposite direction (centripetal force) and are being exerted by the tube on the fluid, not the other way around, and before you ask, no your design wouldn't work if you flip it upside down because the complete circuit the fluid is taking provides equal force in the opposite direction.

Some things, sure. This is not one of them. It is a very simple concept. The problem is that you are only stating the concept: "One of the best situations for true creativity is a very tight budget." Now justify that. Provide a personal anecdote if you have one, otherwise cite some examples where companies with very tight budgets have done some pretty innovative things in their desperation. I am willing to bet you can find at least one good example of desperation driven creativity. I am also sure that there are good examples where creativity was crushed by tight budgets. Would this mean you are wrong? not completely, but it means your statement is not always right. You can turn that into something better just by rewording it a little: "A tight budget can actually drive more creativity under the right circumstances." Continuing to say that you can't teach people things is not helping anyone.

Yes, I can. As I said, it's not that big of a deal to me, but apparently it is a big deal to you.

If I used that excuse at work, I would get fired. If you can't properly explain something, then you don't really understand either. You are using faith. This is why people say teaching is the best way to learn things. It forces you to evaluate how well you have learned. I'm not a business guy, but I think budget constraints can cut both ways. It can force you to reevaluate what you are doing, and maybe do something more creative, but if there is a safe tried and true way out, it might reduce creativity.

Okay, basically this thread. Has anyone figured out a way to alter pitch authority in the SFM? I can't find a way to specify elevator size or any related coefficients. The Mzalfa coefficients just specify the stabilizers, not the control surfaces. Update: I tried moving the center of mass back and it still rotates for takeoff at the same speed. Strangely enough, increasing the nominal mass reduces the speed required for rotation, but it also messes up the longitudinal stability in flight. That also seems like a really hacky way of doing it.

You can still expect high quality from ED. That is why we don't have an F-18 yet. Of course ED will do some quality control on the third parties, but there is no guarantee that third parties will be the same quality as ED, nor that they will all have PFM/ASM quality work. I don't think anything is stopping a third party from releasing an SFM/SSM module other than the community. Having more third party diversity is not going to change that. Vote for what you like with your wallet.

I'm pretty sure that's what it means. I assume that pilots will only get the laser warning if the CA player attempts to target them with the enter key. That said, the main cannon kills against helicopters I have managed to get were without using the targeting system because the helicopter was evading too much to get a lock in time.

No, the Ka-27 is at least from BS1.

This is basically right. Some of the arguments here are essentially "You shouldn't start mowing the lawn because the other half of the lawn is not mowed yet." If you don't start somewhere, it will never be done, and no matter what side you start on, the other side won't be done yet. That is kind of my fault for bringing up the 787, but look here: Of course there is a difference between being a pure "civilian simulator" and being a simulator with flyable civilian aircraft.

The answer is even more simple than that: You can't. If third parties can't develop what they want to develop, then they go somewhere else. What would you say if PMDG came here and wanted to make DCS 787? "No, you have to make a MiG-31 instead." That's not going to work. They are just going to go back to FSX. Not only do you not get more modules for your pet time period, you don't get more modules period.

Since you obviously didn't get it the first time: If RRG was not allowed to develop DCS: WWII, would they develop an F-16?