Merlin-27

Of course you could say that about ANY manual for any product. BUT as a collectable... it would still have some value. And I'd imagine you'd have some people new to the sim or a specific aircraft even after a year. But at this stage I do agree. That KS money has been spent. Really no way to expect ED to provide anything that is not already in progress. Hard pill to swallow at any rate.

I have it! One free tank of gas for the Mustang per user. :D A generous test drive.

Exactly. I bought the A-10 partially because I had absolutely no desire to fly the SU-25. Giving them the Mustang or other "rockstars" free seems like a mistake if you would hope for encouraging future module revenue. And as we've seen with the P-51D, many people prefer a non-combat experience as DCS aircraft are much more than a flying machinegun. Who knows... it's definitely something to be considered carefully or funding may continue to be an issue and a limiting factor for expansion.

It's probably not on the top of the list of things to do...BUT Can we change/edit this forum title? It stings a little every time I see it. Maybe a DCS WWII section outside of third party?

I'm talking about potential problems going forward. You are right, the complexity of DCS does offer it's own type of deterrence. However, an air start WWII aircraft is fairly easy to fly towards a friendly and inflict damage. It has happend on occasion already and Steam does offer the easiest avenue. Just voicing my personal concerns. I'd also like ED to get paid for their hard work. Giving away a full fledged WWII masterpiece for free never felt right to me anyways.

I would not have "invested" if ED was not involved. They know that their reputation is at least loosly tied to this and I am glad they are taking care of their customers as we knew they would.

There is one MAJOR reason I love this idea, David. This may not concern guys that never venture to the MP side but I believe that one great saving grace so far has been the fact that a person had to own the P-51D to join our combat server and participate in the combat part. And I feel that the steam integration opened the doors to a potential server abuse disaster. Since we all have to administer our public servers on a case by case basis there is a potential problem waiting in the shadows here. Call me jaded in my old age, but people WILL act stupid on servers if they have nothing to lose. Getting banned from a server when you have invested nothing, is a weak deterrant. Unless there is some other plan to prevent this, I predict we will see a huge spike in teamkilling behavior and individuals who simply enjoy annoying and irritating those who have invested a lot of time and energy into this passion. I really want to avoid locking down our server for as long as possible and I hope some serious thought has been put into this before actions are taken.

Sith, This is a pretty interesting discussion. Many angles to consider. My first question is: Do you guys have access to the backer website and are you able to view what people have chosen for their rewards? I'm just curious if you could use that to gauge where peoples interests were along with the feedback here. I think most were so worried this whole thing might just vanish in the night, we'd be happy just to see the sim actually become a reality now. The backer rewards were thrown around like they had unlimited resources and I guess we all wanted to believe they could handle it. I appreciate ED trying to pick up the pieces and honor what was promised...whether they are legally obligated or not. As for me, early development perks were a big selling point and convinced me to pledge what I did. I'll admit I did have high hopes for the printed manuals, I envisioned them being printed on glossy paper, hard bound and taking the form of a true backer reward. Over time, one thing that worried me was that it might be a bad idea to distrubute them prior to ironing out issues and tweaks with each aircraft once they are released. So ultimately, I'd be fine with these being offered later and maybe a package purchase option? Aircraft + manual for people who want them. I really don't have an interest in a printed strategy guide or a t-shirt reward. The signed developer print is a bit bittersweet at this point, but if it was an option it would be very cool to have something from the guys that actually made it become a reality. A custom aircraft skin is not a big deal either. There are plenty of custom skin options out there. Alpha access IS important to me and defintely something I'd like to retain. Having copies of all aircraft plus duplicates to gift out IS important as well. And of course... The Skype development meeting holy grail has been an elusive sucker. When deciding which level to contribute this just really appealed to me and I thought having a behind the scenes peek at the progress and some solid information on how things were going sounded great to me. So this is where it gets tricky, as much as I'd like to say I'm happy the money is going to a good cause, if this specific reward does not become availible there would need to be some sort of equivalent offer to keep me a happy customer. ED partnered with RRG, and it looks like we all got burned by this experience to some degree. To end on a positive note, we have an incredibly helpful and talented community and it is refreshing to hear people focused on the most important things like making sure the sim itself keep moving forward.

Especially when they use it as a single shot sniper rifle... first try headshot from beyond the fence! He MUST be flying those 190s!

For some cool background at the office... CBS complete broadcast day audio - June 6th 1944

My only criticism of the engine damage modeling is the frequency of certain crippling events. The governor damage is so frequent it breaks immersion and becomes very frustrating. I have never read about ANY pilot reporting a battle damaged governor. If it was this common I'm sure it would be discussed in pilot accounts. That being said, this is typically only an issue when fighting AI, which leads me to believe it is their unrealistic accuracy moreso than the engine modelling. How many times have you guys seen a 190 at max range snipe your governor? Countless times for me. It's not hard to avoid when fighting one AI enemy. But when in a swirling dogfight with a group of AI aircraft it is only a matter of time till it happens. These guys are governor seeking maniacs! :D Maybe at least it should be hard to destroy the prop governor from dead astern? Throw us a bone!

I have been meaning to write this up. Here's what I believe is going on... At some point, after an update the specifics/mechanics of starting the DCS Merlin reliably has been altered. I have helped many pilots get past this on our server so I have seen the issue quite a lot and spent a considerable amount of time testing it. According to real world documentation, DCS documentation, P-51 pilot accounts and the actual DCS P-51D startup training mission you are suppossed to advance the throttle 1 inch for startup. This used to work like a charm. Now, to get the same result the throttle needs to be left full back. It is possible to start up the bird in pretty much any throttle position but it takes some creativity with the mixture controls. Try it out. Hopefully the sim will eventually return to the original setup (1") which seemed to be correct or we will get an explaination as to why it has been changed. There may be other things at play... but this is what I have seen.

That's bada$$... Big shoes to fill when all of those guys are gone.

Thanks Shahdoh, I was going to supply the same list. :thumbup: All are worth a visit. Make sure you try to join TS if possible. It really makes a world of difference, as I'm sure you know.

It looks like he spec'd out a drop-in solution for the hall sensor to avoid extra work/cost devising a mounting solution. I used an allegro chip for my throttle but if you want long term reliability you might want to invest the extra money in the complete engineered hall-effect rotary or linear position sensor.

Stop making sense! :) Yes, that is what I imagined from the start. Thus my pledge. The reality has been a little different, unfortunately.

Only 6 or 7? You got lucky. :D It's a balancing act. Most of the time the tide will turn back and forth. Other times you have to pick your battles carefully.

I refuse to accept, at this stage, that it's just not going to happen at all but I'm usually refered to as an optimist. Meeting on skype with nothing to discuss is pointless but if it does not take place within the development period prior to official release, I will be looking for a refund, as this was a factor in pledging that amount.

All in good fun. Please feel free to violently scrutinize my spelling. It can be "creatively inspired" at times. Roisters was just too fun of an alternative to resist...Resistance is futile. I could keep going... Very impressive solution and I'm looking forward to that mod.

Yup, this is very true. It will become second nature and in the end you want to be familiar enough to handle any approach not just the perfect ones. In time you will get to the point where you come in a little fast...jam the rudder, roll her inverted, bleed that speed off with the control surfaces and then set her down exactly where you want smooth as can be every time. You'll be amazed... at least I was. At some point force yourself to climb above the airfield and switch to idle cutoff on the mixture. Dead stick landings are an invaluable training tool.

Ur my hero. Nice work, bud. Dammit, now I have to do this. However, I'm having trouble locating 1 ohm roisters... :lol:

Good story, Whip. Been meaning to read that one. Sounds like the making of a pretty exciting mission.

Jug w/ Jugs.

Good times! Nice write-up, Balto. That Flak was crazy accurate. It made me a little nervous getting close to the bandits. I really wish I had video watching those two 190s explode while in my gunsite. I had a nice view of this kill by DavidRed also...

I totally get what you're saying. (As do many of us) The problem is that there is no good avenue to voice your concerns. This is definitely not the place to show any displeasure with the conduct of RRG. You will get told your expectations are too high. (Even though they were set by RRG without any obligation or pressure to do so) I've given up talking about it and have focused on spending time doing things that produce results. The outward appearance of the situation is that RRG is relying on the performance of the eventual product release to win over customers and hopefully win back people who became disenchanted. I never did see too many people expressing anger towards the devs, just venting extreme displeasure towards the conduct of this venture and promises broken. It's obvious they bit off more than they could chew with this very ambitious effort but no matter how much anyone defends the customer facing behavior (or lack of) it cannot be described as anything but poor. As I've always said, I truly want this to succeed. They have made some exciting progress and I'm very excited to fly these aircraft... some day.