Hyperion35

I was telling a friend that I was thinking of buying the F-15E module for my birthday tomorrow, as I'd recently got my PC rebuilt and finally running DCS (under Linux, so it took some work). I looked up the release video on Youtube to show her, and comments led to this thread. I've worked in software development and in regulatory law, so I understand the many different reasons why stuff could happen and why some things can't be discussed publicly. But none of this helps me right now. I just wish that whatever issues are involved could remain behind the scenes in ways that don't affect these sorts of decisions, and that what gets communicated to customers is useful information that we can use to make decisions. It looks like I won't be getting the F-15E for my birthday, since I have absolutely no clue what, if anything, I will be buying. I guess I'll look at what's available in the Free Trial group and assume that until I've tried it, I won't buy it. I'm not saying this out of disrespect or to be insulting, but because I want you guys to understand how these issues affect long-time (pre-DCS: World) customers, people whose first thought on their birthday is "oooh, there's this DCS module I'd wanted..."

Tried to pay again, third time was the charm, it worked

Did you also apply the update today? And are you using the Open Beta version?

In fairness, usually I wait until I get home from work to make purchases (so after 5pm Eastern US time), but since I'm working from home, this counts as a "break". But...well, there's only so much time I can really justify as a "break", I was hoping to purchase and start the download now, then hop into the cockpit after work (I will admit that the commute from the couch to the computer desk is much nicer). The question is, do I wait and hope it goes through? Because it should have by now even if servers were slow. Or do I try to push it through Paypal again?

I haven't received a bad gateway error, but the DCS website still refuses to say that the payment went through. Checked paypal as well, and it does not show the transaction. Not sure where the problem is. On my profile orders section, I clicked where it said "Details" under the "Actions" column, it had a button marked "Pay", so I attempted to pay a second time. It still has not gone through. It has been probably 20 minutes now since the first attempt. Obviously I will not attempt to pay again, and I assume that I will not be charged twice since the second payment attempt was on the same order. This has never happened to me before.

Thank you. I know how frustrating it can be with bugs, especially when the problem is the platform and not your own code, or worse when it's unclear which is the problem. And of course, part of why it's frustrating for us is that aside from these bugs, the campaign itself is a lot of fun and we just want to play it all the way through.

I get a message with instructions to refuel, and it says to press spacebar to remove the message. But I jever get a message to press spacebar after I am done refueling. I have done this mission several times, wingman remains with the tanker and does not refuel.

I'm having a similar problem. Several times now I've attenpted to refuel and after a few tries I decide to abort my refueling attempt and hope I have enough fuel for the mission. I have tried contacting my wingman and orderijg him to the tanker, I have tried contacting him and ordering him to return to formation. All that happens is he just flies next to the tanker even as I try to fly off to the next waypoint he keeps following the tanker even after it turns away from WP3. I had assumed that this was not a mission where refueling was necessary, but it sounds as though it must be. I can't skip ahead to mission 3 using the logbook because there are multiple mission 3 files, likely due to the way that the "save" workaround works for that mission. I guess I'll come back to this campaign in a few months when it's less buggy. Can't really recommend it to anyone in the current state.

The problem is that the logbook file changes constantly. I had an old logbook file backed up from 2018, probably a situation where I must have made some sort of logbook change then as well. And yeah, I should have backed up the file before editing it this time too. But I also wasn't expecting something like this to happen, I figured either the changes to the logbook would work or they wouldn't, not that it would erase the entire contents and overwrite it with a new and empty default logbook. But to properly back up a logbook you'd pretty much have to do it each time you fly.

I'm not sure what you mean about the code-page. I didn't do anything that should have changed the file or filetype, and I was able to confirm that this is the original logbook file based on the creation date of the file itself, so DCS didn't go and create a new logbook.lua file. Dunno about taking a break or not. It was nice to fly a different simulator last night where I didn't have to go in and mess with a bunch of files, I could just load it up and fly. I still don't understand how this could happen.

On Friday, after the last of many frustrating attempts to complete a mission in a campaign, I finally decided to go ahead and just edit the logbook.lua file so that I could pass on to the next mission. When I re-opened DCS, it showed all of my campaigns as inactive. I assume that I must have mistyped something during the editing. But now when I go back to the logbook with the intention of editing it to fix my mistake, the entire logbook has been completely reset. No campaigns, no statistics, nothing, just the basic default values for a new pilot. It shows that the file was last modified on July 10th, which sounds about right. This does not seem like it should be the normal behavior. Instead of an error and being unable to load my campaigns, all of my campaign progress from every single campaign is gone. Windows does not show any restore options, unfortunately, and I suppose it is my fault for not backing up the file before editing it, but I had assumed that if I made a mistake I'd be able to go back and fix it. I have an old backup logbook from 2018 that I had saved a while back. Is there any other way to restore my logbook? Or should I jusr take a break from DCS for a while?

Building missions, campaigns, skins, etc is probably one of the best ways that you can support ED. Those things can drive up interest in a given module. Putting up videos on Youtube might also help increase interest and exposure. Kickstarter would probably not be a very good idea, because that can create situations where ED would feel that they have to complete a project because it has a certain number of donors, even though doing so would mean putting more resources into it than would be justified solely by expected sales. It also would create a rather warped sense of customer interest and push ED towards products that might be highlu desired by a small number of customers over ones that might hace a much broader but less dedicated fan base.

No, what he is saying is that ED has looked over the numbers, and they have decided that their current business model probably works better than any proposed changes. One important rule in business is that it is much easier to get sales from existing customers than it is to bring in new ones, and so you need to be careful about anything that might drive off existing customers. Bringing in new customers is important as well, of course, and usually there is no need to choose between the two. So they've probably considered that many customers already own the modules that they really want. Hence frequent sales to tempt customers towards older modules that maybe don't excite them, but they might buy for $25 instead of $50 (for example, people who don't usually fly helicopters), and working on new products that longtime customers will eagerly buy like Supercarrier and the upcoming Syria map. They probably have a better idea of their various business options, sales figures, customer data, etc than we do

Just a quick note: a subscription model is not really a solution. Subscription services find themselves under more pressure to put out frequent updates and upgrades, and they often have to push cosmetic updates like character skins instead of under-the-hood upgrades because people want to feel like their subscription is paying for something. Just look at the complaints about fewer updates to the Viper as ED has shifted focus to bug-fixing and imagine if each of those complaints constituted lost revenue. And then consider what happens if there is a major showstopping bug. People will simply cancel their subscriptions for a month rather than waiting for it to be fixed, so ED will lose revenue at a time when they need to spend more. All in all it is a bad idea. And while people have mentioned other successful subscription services, none of those are for a single product. The only single game subscription that seems to be successful is World of Warcraft. Several other MMOs have tried to replicate that business model, and almost all eventually switched back to a purchase-based model, even Elder Scrolls Online, a game that came with a massive fanbase before it was even launched. Compare sales of Skyrim to DCS, and then tell me that a DCS subscription will succeed where ESO failed. More third-party content in general may be the best solution, they will earn less per sale, but it requires less up-front expenses and in theory could result in more products for sale and a more rapid development cycle. However, the problems with the Hawk are also a cautionary tale, because third-party content has to be maintained through various updates and changes to the base software. There are good reasons why ED is cautious about bringing in third party devs. We often don't see the risks, because we see the successful third-party devs like Belsimtek and Heatblur and such, and we don't realize how absolutely unexpected and uncommon it is for those sort of success stories to happen.

So, ah, depleted uranium isn't used in nuclear weapons. It would actually be counterproductive to use DU in nuclear weapons (although I have heard that U--238 may be used for the outer casing of some high-yield thermonuclear warheads). DU is what is left over after you have extracted the fissile (ie goes boom) uranium isotope U-235 from a sample of uranium. Depleted uranium has been used in the armor-piercing incendiary (API) 30mm rounds used by the A-10C main gun, although my understanding is that they are transitioning to tungsten or some other substance. Some armor-piercing tank rounds have also used DU. No nuclear weapons have been used in combat since 1945. I believe that we can all, regardless of nation or political faction, hope that they will never be used again.