Malefic Rage

I haven't had much success in getting that to work in A-10C however I'll play around further and let you know what happens. As for my request, I was actually refering to remapping all of the Number pad snapviews to my own preferences as discussed here and here.

One subject often brought up in forums is the desire to create custom snapviews. Presently users need to go through the complex process of editing the snapviews.lua file in an very tedious trial-and-error process in order to obtain a view close to that which is desired. I would love custom snapviews to be properly implemented into the sim. If not, at least add readouts of the viewport variables to the Ctrl-Pause rendering info so that we can make changes to the .lua files with accuracy. Thanks.

I'm probably pissing in the wind here, but since its an issue often on my mind I'd like to state my interest in a modern multirole jet such as the Block 50/52 F-16C or an F/A-18E. Basically as long as its a comprehensively multirole aircraft with all-weather & day/night capability, I'm not too concerned whether it is American, Russian, European or Chinese. As for the notion of carrier ops being needed for the F/A-18, as much as I'd be fascinated by the notion I agree that it is not necessary as many nations utilise the aircraft without carriers. Us Australians included.

@Sinky: I noticed in that thread you mentioned high texture detail. Are you still using this because that by far is the limiting factor. Switch to medium and you should notice a huge performance improvement. Also, what resolution do you render your displays at? Anything more than 256 is not really needed unless you have either a large display at a high resolution or dedicated MFD displays. Just some thoughts, admittedly the 8800 is getting a bit long in the tooth.

If you're conserving cash (I know the feeling) then I'd suggest giving your 8800GTS a go before trading, depending on your requirements. If you want to run at max settings, an upgrade will be required. Something like a Radeon 6850 would probably do the trick in the sub $200 price point (I'm saving for a 6950 myself). I am currently running the sim on a Radeon 4850 on fairly high detail settings quite nicely at 1680x1050 with 8xMSAA. Comparisons put the 8800 about 20% slower than the 4850 in real-life performance so I say give it a shot. The most significant performance limiter I've come across with my rig is texture sizes due to my use of Vista 32-bit with a 512MB video card. High quality shadows and water eat the cycles, reducing those doesn't compromise much and I sometimes disable Mirrors and TSAA to keep things smooth. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/177?vs=178 *edit* A very significant factor is whether you are using a 32 or 64 bit OS. From your specs, I assume 64?

I've only begun playing around with the sim myself so I can't add much but speaking from my very limited PPL experience, I'd say cleared visual means that you may approach and perhaps enter the pattern under visual flight rules (as opposed to an instrument approach). Cleared to land means you are permitted to actually plant your wheels on the runway. I haven't looked at how far A10 simulates ATC but after that, at a controlled aerodrome, once you exit the runway you usually have to contact ground control for taxi clearance. When receiving directions from ATC, altitudes are given relative to sea level since not all aircraft (especially in the civilian sector) have radar altimeters. So if the pattern is at 2000 ft AGL and the runway is at 1500 ft MSL, the pattern will be flown at 3500 ft MSL. Unfortunately I can't say much else, I know very little of millitary procedure. One of my main disappointments with the DCS and LOMAC series has been the complete nonexistance of procedural documentation and compliance checking. Not that it was by any means an exemplar but one thing that I liked about Falcon 4 was the list of procedural transgressions I had committed in the end-of-mission report.

Hello. I've come across quite a few bizzaire scenarios from the instant action generator and was wondering what kind of experiences other players have been having. Perhaps the best example was an instant action mission the game generated where each side started off with a dozen helos which all beelined towards the enemy AA and were shot down by SAM within several minutes. My side had an F/A-18 which was tasked with CAP while 'armed' with nothing but three transport pods and subsequently attempted to take down an enemy SAM emplacement with guns. What made me chuckle was the damaged KA-50 where, instead of ejecting, the AI pilot simply spiraled higher and higher into the stratosphere. Perhaps he figured a bit higher and he could dock with the ISS? As for ground units, most of them just sat around doing nothing. Two or three had some seemingly arbitrary nav waypoints but that was all. Regrettably, I didn't record a track.

I wouldn't expect a significant subscription, I was thinking something along the lines of $20-$30 per annum, something that I believe most people can afford in return for continual improvement of the product range and intercompatibility of extensions/modules. Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly; What I mean is that by paying a subscription for continuous maintenance of the core DCS engine, any extension the user has purchased such as aircraft, new terrain/theatres, etc would immediately benefit from the improvements such as new rendering technologies, improved AI routines, flight modelling, multiplayer compatibility, etc. I don't think that is the case. My impression was that the discission was about the hypothetical financial models that a small company serving a niche market such as ED could follow to maximise their success and what would consumers of that product be willing to accept. As the OP already mentioned, it is likely that ED have already investigated the market, considered their options and developed their own plans.

Hello folks, may as well make my first post something to ruminate. :) I've been considering this issue myself recently - what manner of financial model could a small company like Eagle Dynamics utilise to give them both an element of financial security and the motivation to continue development of a niche consumer product like the Digital Combat Simulator series. I actually think a subscription-based model may not be a bad idea. Consider: Currently ED release each product on a self-contained, individual basis as is most traditional entertainment software. An instalment is released, users are given technical support and post-deployment patches are issued to correct bugs and gameplay issues. At some point, resources must be reallocated away from the current release in order to focus development on the next instalment. Given enough time, sales for the release will dwindle to a point where it is no longer financially viable to continue maintaining previous instalments in the series. Given that users are likely to want to combine different aircraft, missions and other functionality in multiplayer and possibly other scenarios in addition to wanting older instalments updated with newer DCS technology as the core engine is developed, this makes it difficult for ED to balance the wishes of the users against the costs of maintaining older instalments and the costs of developing new instalments. Were the core DCS engine released as a standalone, core product with aircraft, theatres and other significant features deployed as extension modules for the DCS engine, then ED could do something along the lines of charge a one-off purchase fee for major modules and an annual maintenance subscription for the core DCS engine. Consumers could then purchase as much or as little of the suite as they wish. With a modular architecture and continuous revenue from the core engine, ED may then have the financial security to continue development of the product suite as a whole, needing to update modules only when necessary to fix issues and maintain compatibility with the core engine. Of course, the possibility of doing so depends very much on the architecture of the software and how much of ED's focus lies on consumer products compared with specialised military and other private projects. Naturally, these are just my own thoughts on the matter. ED may already have very specific plans for the series. Debate is welcome.