HerrKaputt

Of course IFs, WHILEs etc will be involved. But it is MUCH more complex than that.

Campaign flags are a good idea because they are really easy to implement, unless I'm forgetting something: at end of mission: set if (armor formation was obliterated during the mission) ArmorFormationDestroyedFlag = 1 else ArmorFormationDestroyedFlag = 0 end if export ArmorFormationDestroyedFlag to somewhere in the save game file Easy as pie on Christmas.

This would already be quite nice as a first step. It would confer the campaign some "memory" of what happened in the past. However, even this "simple" addition isn't that simple at all. Suppose you have one mission where you have to take out an AA site, and the next mission is to bomb the runway which was being protected by said AA site. What happens if on the first mission you decide to bomb the runway? What happens to the second mission? Stuff like this are what makes a proper DC a non-trivial task.

Link please!

I think it's more than that. I put loads of hours into EECH because I loved how what I did really mattered. If I had a recon mission on an enemy FARP, and on my way back spotted a flight of 4 Ka-50's on their way to one of my own FARPs, I had two options: either engage to try and save my own FARP (not the one I was going to land on, mind you), or nevermind, run away, and realize that my FARP was probably going to be toast as there is no other air support nearby. This type of immersion makes your actions much more important, whereas the ME of DCS, if I understand it correctly, would simply realize that you did make the recon of that enemy FARP. Even if in the current mission your own FARP is obliterated, in the next mission it will be happily there. Of course, in real warfare pilots of recon helicopters don't engage at their discretion (they also don't fly RAH-66 helicopters). But I'm sure some sort of air control communication could be implemented, where you have the option of reporting enemy movement and asking them what your course of action should be. If they tell you to engage, you do it, if not, at least they are now aware of it. As you can see from my very simplistic description, this is not such a small undertaking... But my main point is: this is not just something that gives you an RPG or career feeling. It really makes all your actions matter. When you do something (example: destroy an enemy FARP), the DC engine makes the enemy react to it (example: dispatch a recon mission to assess the damage, and then a supply mission to restore functionality). Simultaneously, the DC engine creates new missions for your side (example: a recon mission to assess the damage, and a capture mission to capture the FARP). With this dynamic situation, anything you do affects the flow of battle.

I think Grimes put it very well. Big undertakings basically work like this: 0. Someone gives some money up-front, because Devs don't live out of thin air 1. Spend lots of man-year resources coding a big project like a fully-fledged aircraft simulator with a great DC, terrain engine, etc 2. Release said project and hope for the best 3. If sales are really good, you made a profit, otherwise, you have so much debt that it won't happen again (either you go bankrupt or your parent company tells you that now you are going to code the next stuff pack for The Sims) This is NOT a wise strategy and two or three big failures like this are enough to throw any but the largest game companies into oblivion, as Razorworks and Microprose unfortunately witnessed. It's not the DC itself that threw them away, it's the approach of wanting to do these big projects upfront instead of in an iterative manner like ED is doing.

What I'm about to say doesn't 100% confirm what GG is saying but it does point in the same direction. I downloaded FreeFalcon, which is a free game based on F4, already with quite a few bugs fixed. Nevertheless, it still crashed a few times until I learned a few things I can't do with it (the most obvious being ALT+TAB). So I fully believe GG when he says that F4 in its original state (i.e. with none of the patches that were released after launch date) was too buggy for anyone to play.

Although our wishes are certainly not limited to US aircraft, you guys should be aware that an ED staff has already confirmed that the next module will be a fixed-wing US aircraft. Can someone fetch that link? I'm at work right now and don't have much time to spare.

(Ethereal, since you are new in this thread I think, my background: I don't own any DCS module, but I own EECH and have briefly looked at the DC code with the goal of improving it, though because of work I dropped that project.) This quote from Ethereal is the main reason I stopped insisting on a DC. I'm pretty sure that, by now, some folks at ED already know that a reasonable portion of the non-military clients would enjoy a DC. It's definitely true that adding a DC would bring additional revenue in the form of more sales. But at what cost? The Dev from Falcon 4 himself admitted that the F4 DC was a huge undertaking and that given the chance to go back he'd do things differently. Let's suppose it takes 10 Dev-years to develop a decent DC (i.e. one Dev working 10 years, or two working 5 years, etc). Assuming a Dev makes, say, $1500 per month, that's $18000 per year, or $180000 total cost for the DC. Unless DCS would sell an additional 4500 copies ($180000 total cost divided by $40, price of each copy), it's not worth it. And I'm assuming that the whole $40 goes to ED for each copy, which is not true even for digital copies. The values I presented might be, and probably are, wrong. But that's not important. What's important is this type of analysis, which we all need to understand. The creators of Falcon 4 either didn't do this analysis, or did it with unrealistic values, and they went bankrupt because of it. ED's decision of relying more on military contracts than consumer sales seems very wise IMO, if for nothing else, then simply because as Ethereal said, they're still here. Of course, us the consumers don't like it. ED's decision of releasing core DCS functionality iteratively with each new aircraft seems like a good compromise between having great ambitions and having your feet on the ground.

Yes, that would already be pretty decent. One thing I love about EECH is that while I'm on a mission, the world is evolving. I can take one hour to go on a recon mission, and when I'm back that all-important airfield has been taken by the enemy. That would be even better.

I'd buy DCS: Warthog if it had a DC! (don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing the product; I simply don't have much extra money so I give very careful consideration to the games I buy) That auxiliary .exe program is also how I'd see a DC most easily implemented, and I think that's how Falcon 4 worked (as opposed for example to EECH where you can jump into a cockpit instantly).

Yeah, I've heard that it's "picky". No hate from me, to each their own. To me the campaign is essential, but the avid followers here show that many others have different tastes :D

Yeah, F4 was quite buggy (or so I'm told). Still, I bought Allied Force and have found no bugs or glitches so far. I play it sparingly (1-2 hours per week), but it's been working well in Windows 7 64 bit so far. You might want to give it a try. DISCLAIMER: I'm not counting the crashes due to ALT+TAB. Those did happen, but once I stopped trying to ALT+TAB everything worked fine.

While Falcon 4 (in its "current version" Allied Force) is a nice sim, you really can't compare the graphical quality (I'm judging from Youtube videos -- I don't own any DCS module). Nevertheless, the campaign in Falcon 4 is top notch. If ED do make a Falcon module I'll be very interested in seeing how the battle F4 (dated graphics, great campaign) vs. DCS (quality graphics, "static" campaign) fares among the sim enthusiasts. Oh, and as mentioned here multiple times, the next plane is not determined by whether us (gamers) are interested in it, it's determined by which plane they are making military simulators for. If it were for gamers you wouldn't have Black Shark but rather Apache, Super Cobra or something of the sort (Comanche? :lol:).

Where did that information come from? Sounds like pure speculation... and outdated too (see the date of the posts).

If it is indeed the F-16 it'll be the first DCS module I might consider buying even if it doesn't have a dynamic campaign. NOTE: Don't flame me, I say "consider buying" because I'm not swimming in money, not to diminish ED's products.

*drools*

Ka-50: would like to buy, but tight budget and lack of DC dictate a "no" (though it was close) A-10: less willing to buy, same tightness of budget, so bigger "no" F-xx: definitely will not buy, don't like fast movers as much; DC would make me wait to see if it's implemented on Ka-50 and A-10, and if affirmative, would buy Ka-50 and perhaps A-10 My opinions are rather one-sided :D

After thinking a bit more about this, I think the only way a DC will exist in DCS is after a long time. Making a DC for the first product (Black Shark) would be a massive undertaking which would probably not be profitable: it's not of use for the military clients, and it's not cost-effective for the entertainment market. It might become cost-effective if they work their way towards a DC through smaller steps: Black Shark has stand-alone missions only, A-10 has dynamic mission generation, etc. But it's not guaranteed: whenever they decide to do a DC (if they decide that), it will still be a considerable undertaking which is costly in terms of person*hours and might not have sufficient return as increased sales.

Excellent read. I found it really interesting that he used three layers for the F4 DC.

+1

I wouldn't like the F-117 but I respect your opinion. However, point 5 is also true for the F-16 (at least).

I've been trying to find studies about this "information overload" (I think that's the common term for this problem). I'm not sure whether a Ka-50 is harder to fly than, say, an F-16 (they are surely very different!), but it's definitely a concern. I mean, even in EECH I sometimes have a hard problem keeping the helo stable while I aim the FLIR to launch a laser-guided missile, and that is not as realistic a sim as DCS. On the other hand, I'm also nowhere near having the skill of a real fighter/helo pilot. And my Saitek Cyborg X doesn't help :D EDIT: great video with interviews of pilots who experienced this in real life: http://www.foxitos.me/video/information-overload-part-1-of-2/T9i4sD3dAFo/

Ah, thanks for clarifying :) So you guys are suggesting that the Ka-52 was developed to fulfill the role that was supposed to be of the Ka-50? Because of that bias against single seat helis (don't really understand the "old" adjective, it's more recent than most if not all helis used throughout the world), and because of the lack of radar?

I didn't understand that GG. Who doesn't want the old single-seat heli, and is that old heli the Ka-50?