311Gryphon

I agree that the Huey is hard to land but saying that you won't play it till it's patched introduces several problems. 1) Is the landing unrealistic? Assuming it must need to be patched because I can't land the bird insinuates that I know what a Huey should land like or that I should be able to land it straight away. I would bet that if I jumped in a real Huey I'd have even more problems landing it (I certainly would have had a harder time getting it off the ground without endangering myself or others). So is the difficult landing even something that should be "fixed"? I don't thinks so. If so, not in a way that suddenly makes it easy. 2) Is DCS supposed to be easy? Not really. I'll admit that I fly the A-10 more than anything just because I can. It's so easy to fly. But I also get more enjoyment out of starting it up, taxiing, and taking off (along with other things like doing mid-air engine restarts) because it's exciting and it's a way to learn and get better. The same can be said for the Huey. The fun part of it is that it ISN'T easy. If I wanted easy I'd be flying any number of other flight sims. But I don't because at a point they are no longer fun, they are just another game. 3) Will the patch it? This is different than "should they". Will they? Maybe. Maybe not. So if they don't, you'll have a game that you never play. As an example, I don't fly the P-51 because I stink at it. But I do NOT want them to "fix" it so it's suddenly easy for me to do. It's frustrating, yes. But don't change it. If it were that easy to fly in real life I'd be doing that along with everyone else in the world. It just takes practice....like it does in real life. The beauty of DCS.

The A model has a gun. I'm assuming the B and C do not to save weight/space. I personally don't think it's wise to get rid of the gun but at the same time I don't know what real world combat is like and maybe they just don't use guns much any more. I don't know. Your reference is valid; however, because often we do get "ahead of ourselves" in regards to technology. It appeared in one of your posts that you said you didn't want the F-35 in DCS. I took that to mean that you thought it shouldn't be there. I know those two statements are not the same, nor is it necessarily relevant (you are able to have that opinion and I certainly don't want to argue your opinion against mine). So I'll just have to leave it at that. I have my own ideas about why the kickstarter hasn't generated more funding (and why I did not chose to contribute to it), but I don't know that it would add to the discussion.

I agree with this. If the problem with developing older air frames is the expense of newer ones, then the perfect solution is for ED to focus on what they want to develop for DCS world and let 3rd parties develop what they want. Then older air frames being developed either don't take away from ED development strategies or are PART OF ED development strategies in the event they are the ones doing the older air frames. 3rd party development is very, very, very beneficial to expanding a game and keeping it relevant for a long period of time. In an age where most highly successful game franchises are coming out with another installment of their game every 1 to 2 years and the players largely migrate to the new iteration and leave the old one in the dust, I find it refreshing to have and play a game for years and years. I still play Oblivion and have for a few years now. I even bust out Morrowind from time to time!

Unless it fulfills the roles it is being designed for. Any potential uselessness of the F-35 depends heavily on the designers and builders being almost entirely incompetent. While I don't like the idea of replacing a low and slow bird like the A-10 completely with the F-35, I have to admit that it looks like it could handle a decent amount of the burden and still have some pretty good air to air capabilities. I don't know, it just seems logical that it can be the case. Aside from that, the designers are all liars and cheats if it's only good quality would be an airshow display. History to me isn't just history. It's the future as well. Besides, what good is studying history if you don't apply it to the future (learn the lessons, change behavior now either in reaction to the lessons learned from history or in pro-action to a perceived outcome, achieve goals in the future)? Therefore the F-35 can't necessarily be ignored simply because it isn't a part of our "history". Has it flown in combat? Not at all. Most modern fighters were in development for quite some time before they ever saw combat. All of that being said, it's all completely irrelevant to whether the F-35 should be in DCS or not. And while I can certainly respect the opinions of folks who don't like the idea, I have to go back to may position of "don't buy it". Surely there will be servers that don't allow it to be flown if it becomes a problem.

I wish I could fly that bird. I can't get it off the ground in sim mode. But then I stopped working with it a while back. I hope to get back into practice at some point and try to tame the beast.

Don't they? I'm kidding, I know they debug a lot but man...what's left is still pretty buggy. Kind of like the RROD they "fixed" on the Xbox...they fixed it by removing the red ring. But yeah, I agree, most devs I think do their best to rid the software from bugs to a point that it is usable and then release it. Or so it seems. Some devs will even push back a release if they don't feel the software is ready. That would be tough to do if you need to see some returns on your work and had people expecting a release, not to mention the competition getting a start on the market before you.

I see what you are saying but I personally disagree. While I don't completely agree with the strategies of Eagle Dynamics I think that this is the correct direction to go in the long run. And I'll try to explain why as quickly as I can. My main issue with DCS World is a distinct lack of air frames I can fly. Add to that the fact that I really don't see myself paying $40 for each module (or $20 for each one on sale) and chances are I'm never going to have a ton of planes or choppers to fly. That's okay, because the modules are highly detailed and require AND allow a large amount of practice time which leads to a large amount of enjoyment and utility. How can we fix the problem of low options for air frames? 3rd party development working in concert with Eagle Dynamics. Most of the video games I've played over the years that I've enjoyed the most allow and encouraged 3rd party development. I'm not talking about other video game developers though, I'm talking about community based mods. Operation Flashpoint, ARMA, and even The Elder Scrolls (I'm busting way into another genre there) are among the best games ever made and were the easiest to mod. This led to large amounts of awesome content (and some bad content as well). The beauty was that it was fan created and free. The answer is slightly different in DCS. It takes a large amount of work to make a high fidelity module and therefore it can't be made free. That's cool. But the 3rd parties can work on modules and release the modules and the more the merrier. I'll buy the ones I want and I'll not buy the ones I don't want. If I want to fly it, I'll buy it (that's my new DCS motto). The more choices I have on the marketplace the more likely I'll find something I'm willing to drop money on and thus the more air frames I'll have to choose from when I fire up the simulation. And I want more because I've dropped over $650 just on human interface devices (most of them used) to make this more enjoyable. In my mind, the more people that make air frames the better. If someone made a Wright Flyer I'd contemplate buying it. I'd think about a Sopwith Camel or a Fokker Dr 1. I'd certainly think about a P-47 Thunderbolt or a de Havilland Mosquito. There are planes I won't buy but if others have a desire to fly them then I hope someone makes them. Well, that's my not so concise 2 cents.

OH MY! That was the dumbest thing I've ever seen! How did that get funded?

+1 It's not too complicated!

I thought you could try to attack the sights but it seems like if that was very likely to work they'd do something about them. But in any case, would that be a mission kill even though the tank could still technically blow stuff up (to use my redneck lingo)? It would certainly be hard for it to engage anything so maybe that's good enough. Thanks.

I agree, that's one of the best looking skins I've seen. He does some really nice work!

From page 388 of the flight manual "Air-to-Air HUD For air-to-air combat in the A-10C you can employ both the 30 mm cannon and the AIM-9M Sidewinder air-to-air missile with unique HUD symbology. Unlike NAV, GUNS, CCIP and CCRP which you access by cycling the Master Mode Button, you hold down the Master Mode Button to bring up the air-to-air HUD. The two primary, unique components of the air-to-air HUD include the gun funnel and the AIM-9 seeker reticle." I'm just a hobbyist but I do think the gun was intended as it is used most...as an air to ground weapon for CAS; however, it can certainly be used for Air to Air and it seems they tried to build the systems to achieve that if necessary.

I just realized I left the skids MultiCam. That's even less realistic. I'll have to update those at some point, and I'll probably take the camo off all the fins and antennae on top. Oh well.

The other skin is almost identical. It has a different tail number, a different emblem on the door, and a couple of tiny details other than that. The pix show the slight variation of the flight suit and my friend's skin. It's not up on the ED/DCS site yet but here is the zip: http://www40.zippyshare.com/v/20216630/file.html Hopefully I didn't transpose the links.

Nice skins guys. Those are very impressive. I hesitate to post my latest collection.....they aren't anything we've discussed here just my personal skin that I've been working on for a few weeks for my friend and I to fly. This first one is my personal skin, it can be downloaded in the user files http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/ although it may not be up yet (my A-10C skins are up but that one isn't up yet) or: http://www40.zippyshare.com/v/47502792/file.html The pix in this post show the top, the gunner skins, and the side of mine.

I've never used any other pedals so I can't compare. I do have issues with my Saitek Combat pedals "shutting down" so to speak. It seems to happen any time I install a game that uses them or any other USB device. They are still powered on but I have to unplug them and then plug them back in again so my PC will detect them. The software doesn't help. Having said that, I really like having the pedals linked properly and the toe brakes are awesome. You can brake one side for some sharp turns and I believe (could be wrong) that the toe brakes can really be helpful when taxiing the P-51. So despite my issue with them I do enjoy flying with them. Since I can't compare to other pedals I would just recommend getting linked pedals and toe brakes in whichever ones you decide to get.

I felt the same way about the Mustang. I REALLY wanted to fly it so I ignored my friend's advice about how cool the A-10 was. I tried and tried and tried and tried to fly the Mustang and it's just really difficult to do anything fun in it for me. :(

I would start with the A-10C. The Mustang is a beast to try in Sim mode. I can't even get the thing off the ground without crashing. Once you can fly the A-10 around (which isn't very difficult) you'll have a lot of fun doing start ups, take offs, and landings. At that point you should be able to pilot the UH-1 although if you're like me your take offs will be hideous and your landings will be bright (except when the smoke drifts between the fire and the camera). I've put the Mustang WAAAAAAY on the back burner. I also don't own the Black Shark so that's easier for me to sort out.

I have to ask...how do you go about engaging a tank with it? I guess I'm asking what part of the tank are you engaging to make it ineffective? I'm seriously curious. I agree on the sound. The M60 is pretty distinctive....you know it's a pretty hefty piece of firepower when it's going off. The in game sound is fairly generic to me.

I personally would prefer many smaller updates so I'm waiting 2 minutes each week rather than 20 minutes to an hour each month. But that's just me. If it's the same total time ate up by updates downloading and installing I'll take the many smaller units of time any day. But again, that's just me. Either way I can deal with it. If I had to I would run the game once a month after the update right before going to bed so it installs when I don't need it. I am certainly glad they keep putting work into these modules though.

I doubt very many, but a semi-automatic or bolt action 7.62 X 51 is still capable of demonstrating the effectiveness of that round. If I'm not mistaken, it's not typically used as an anti-material round in military use although I'm sure I'd open up on a truck if I had to. Having said that, yes it will certainly disable most vehicle with a few shots to the engine compartment. It's going to punch the radiator easily (any rifle bullet will) and probably do some damage to the block if it gets to it. Doors will not stop it unless it's an up armored vehicle. There are some ballistic vests that will stop a 7.62 though so armored vehicles can probably shrug them off pretty easily. Anyway, you're right, most vehicles aren't going to stand up to that.

It would be nice to have better AI and an Operation Flashpoint style waypoint/trigger/synchronization mechanism. It was very easy in that game to have AI load in your helicopter (or in an AI helicopter), move to the LZ, and either you or the AI would land the chopper and the AI would jump out. The beautiful thing was you could then tell the AI where to go through the waypoints, and even how to line up and how to behave. It was very easy for the mission creator but very powerful in terms of mission creation. It could also be used with very simple scripts to do fast rope insertions, low hover insertions, ladder insertions and extractions, and customization extractions (player can click on the map or pop smoke and the script would trigger the helicopter to come to that location and load the units then fly back to a predetermined point or another map click point for unloading). It was great. Hopefully in the future we can have at least some of that type of functionality. It would greatly enhance the mission creation potential and probably some multiplayer potential as well.

I agree with you. This will sound crazy to some people, but I think she's sexier than an F-22. I love this bird.

Nice work! All of those are looking top notch, I just now got to get back on here and look at all the work everyone is doing.

That one would actually be pretty easy I think. I may try it this weekend....