Aginor

Yeah, of course, especially not later in the flight when the missile has its engine off anyway. Although ... now that I think about it... I am not quite sure, especially for bigger missiles like the SA-10 or something similar that fly very high, in icing conditions. But what about condensation on the wings/fuselage of the missiles? When pulling Gs or something. Or transsonic vapor.

I would also recommend chaffing/flaring like hell and pulling Gs, preferably towards the ground (ground clutter, maybe even terrain masking, depending on your altitude). If it is a radar missile you might be lucky and beam it, or it could lose you in the ground clutter. Your chaff and the Gs will make it harder for it to hit you. If it is an IR missile you should come out of burner, it will improve your chance of evading.

I'd love to hear about the new ATC. IMO that would be a cool thing for a livestream. Just Wags and a few AIs flying around doing stuff. (of course only if it is ready) EDIT: Wouldn't do any harm of course if Wags flies around with some new plane. :D

Those are smoke trails from the motors, not contrails, right? Under the right condition a missile leaves a short vapor trail, I was referring to those. They should look a bit thinner, more like wing tip trails (as far as I remember from descriptions)

@Fri13: An editor like the ones you mentioned would be a dream, but I don't expect something like that to be available soon. :( And I think that's also the reason why many people are so emotional about the map topic: At the moment there are only like... three companies we know of that produce maps for DCSW. And many of the guys here would like them to do realistic maps with high priority. I agree with that. As soon as we have more map developers I would love to see fictional ones as well, with all the advantages y'all mentioned.

I would probably not use them that much compared to "real" ones (especially in SP), but if there were fictional maps they could also have the advantage of being symmetric, and thus suitable for balanced online gameplay, which is what some people like and also the reason why such maps exist in other games.

Inspired by another thread on these forums today I decided to throw another effect into discussion: Missile contrails. Aside from looking cool, especially in humid air, they can have a big impact on gameplay, because they make missiles easier to see. Although I admit: I don't know much about them, when they happen, how easy they can be seen and so on. Any insight/opinions on this?

Hilarious! :D

Yeah, you might watch it using a.... different way. EDIT: Or take this video. [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S11e-c9I9wU[/ame]

Oh, I think I contributed to a misunderstanding again, let me try to clarify what I meant: - gameplay is important - visuals are important - visual effects that affect gameplay (like smoke blocking line of sight and over-wing vapor that shows you your opponent is pulling a lot of Gs right now) are more important than pure visual effects (for example updating a mediocre explosion visual effect to a awesome looking one) And yes, while I think that in a sim visuals take second place behind gameplay (if they are separable from each other ) I think that by no means a study sim isn't allowed to be pretty. Blunt example: A developer says "sorry guys, no improved ATC, we spent all our budget and CPU power for animating pilot's facial hair" he would be doing something wrong. :D If we can have both (and DCSW history says we probably can!) then by all means: go for it! So what I am trying to do is gather some ideas how something beautiful can be achieved without sacrificing performance. EDIT: Also sometimes an 80% solution is better than a 100% one, rain on canopy is one of those I think. With a bit of luck my questions in post #1 of this thread and this discussion will give the devs some ideas they might have overlooked. That would absolutely be worth it. :)

For me that goes without saying. Gameplay before visuals for me any time. I would like to focus on the effects (and their gameplay aspects of course!) here though, because it is the topic of the thread. :)

I am not sure when that was added though, because I am sure I remember checking that at some point and it didn't work.

Yeah, that's a pity. Some guy here on the forums edited a few DCSW screenshots once, to include reflections of all aircraft lights on the surface. It looked awesome! EDIT3: Similar to this: http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1782620&postcount=7577 EDIT: Being more of a gameplay guy I often forget to mention such things. For me working search lights take higher priority.

Yeah, as pretty as it is I think that would look weird in DCSW. I have that impression even when comparing certain pretty WW1 and WW2 flight sims to DCSW. They look... strange to me somehow.

Actually I think many modern game engines kind of "overdo" dynamic lighting. I am also not sure if those techniques are applicable to DCSW, so I guess we have to be a bit careful what we wish for. :D The reasons are: Huge maps with many objects can make lighting very complex. The "bubble" helps a bit with that, but since in DCSW many people are flying (citation needed) we tend to see many objects that possibly have lights and/or shadows at the same time, and that is difficult to render. Especially since lights are visible at huge distances (in real life you can see a burning cigarette for several kilometers with the bare eye) so people quickly notice if you cut them off in the distance. FPS engines often don't have that problem, since the terrain or buildings or other stuff limits your distance anyway. EDIT: For me the most visible issues with lighting now are vehicle lights, for example the landing lights or search lights that do not illuminate water. EDIT2: Actually I was pretty surprised about the changes ED did in 2.0, they reached a new quality concerning lighting that I doubted was possible to do in a flight sim without sacrificing LOADS of performance. They somehow managed to do that, Nevada runs fine, even on my 770

We just discussed that recently in another thread. It is not as easy as it may seem.

Haha, I really missed that second EDIT. :D And thanks, same thought here. :)

I think we all agree about how it will most likely look at high speeds and forward facing windows and/or bubble canopies. No effect at all is the closest to realistic at high speed. But DCSW has WWII planes and helis, and taxiing and planes standing around. So I do think that different rain effects are required to have a more immersive experience. So far so good, because that seems to be EDs opinion as well, that's why they announced such an effect is in the works. EDIT: a few examples from helis for the sake of completeness: [ame] [/ame] [ame] [/ame] And yeah, the technical solution should IMO be (for the reasons you stated) the best-looking one that has a low performance impact. EDIT: Also watch this: see the drops? [ame] [/ame] EDIT: Just one more with snow: [ame] [/ame]

Yeah I know, I just figured that's what he meant. I imagine most WWII ground units would be fine with standard HUDs with a simple gun sight though. ...I admit a "Linealvisier 21" or a "Schwebekreisvisier 30/38" for a FlaK would be awesome, but not really necessary.

Same in FSX by the way. Even the most ridiculously overpowered hardware can't run it really smooth. So yeah, not your fault neither your graphics card's. The only sad thing is that we could have told you before you bought such an expensive thing if you had asked before. :( Switching from anything faster than a 960 to a 10xx isn't worth it for DCSW IMO. EDIT: Also funny that you call your 970 "old". I still call my 770 "the new one" :D

wait, they do? I only know those HUD thingies. I've never seen a "cockpit" for any CA unit. As far as I can tell there is a "eye point" for different positions and that's it. EDIT: LOL, didn't read QuiGon's post, which is identical to mine. :D

Do you have any examples in videos or something? Or a good textual description how it looks? That would be very interesting.

Haha, great! :D

That was indeed expected, for that speed and canopy shape. With helicopters it will look much different.

Das ging mir damals auch so. Ich hab damals auf den Pfeiltasten gespielt und auch noch die Y-Achse der Maus invertiert. Dann irgendwann umgestellt. Zwei Wochen mies gespielt, dann gings plötzlich.