71st_AH Rob

If only it were that simple. I guess technically, ED has produced a map that covers 1940-1944, however there is a temporal anomaly mid Channel. If you fly East to West you jump forward in time and if you fly West to East you jump backwards in time. In the UK most of the relevant airfields for the early part of the war are missing and for the late war, say mid 1943 on there are no airfields on the French side of the Channel. Makes it a bit of a conundrum for mission making.

The problem is that the map they released is firmly set in the spring and summer of 1944 and the final release is purported to be around the corner with no indication of how they will remove the airfields built in March/April 1944 or if they will add all of the 1940 airfields.

This is a self licking icecream cone. DCS WWII sales are low so we need to charge for the assets→the assets pack is a barrier to entry to DCS WWII→they have to slow development or increase price of WWII ASSETS PACK→this becomes a barrier to entry to DCS WWII. I hope they abandon the assets pack model and add AI assets to the base game which will increase the player base and therefore making DCS WWII more profitable so they can increase investment in it.

There was a roadmap when the assets pack was first announced that included a Bf-109G and a Lancaster of all things amongst others. The list was in the description on the store page at release and evolved slightly and is now gone. We have a few items that are part of the assets pack now that were never on the roadmap so it was not much use anyway. If you search this forum you should find a few threads documenting it's evolution and find the initial announcement I think by Wags and Nineline from around the time of the release of the assets pack. I think it has been removed so ED is not obligated to follow a roadmap made on the spur of the moment without doing any in depth research to satisfy the rightfully upset RRG Studios Kickstarter backers after sober consideration of what was actually possible and relevant. FFS why do we have a Ferdinand? It never served on the WWII maps we have, only on the Eastern Front with the exception of a handful in Northern Italy late in 1944. Another consideration may be to reduce the pressure on ED to produce assets regularly. Look at the constant questions about the C-47. Granted, it has been four years since we saw the apparently completed model for an AI asset but if there is no roadmap there are no expectations and no pressure to deliver. For my part I hope the lack of a published roadmap indicates that there are no more assets to be added to the pack. I hope they abandon it and add all future WWII assets, AI and static, to the base game as they have started to do with the FLAK 38 and Bofors, just as they continue to do with new modern assets. The WWII Assets Pack is a barrier to getting players in to DCS WWII.

This jives with my memory of my uncle's log book (must follow up on what happened to my promised copy) , he completed three op tours, well two and 21 missions on his third that ended with an eventful jaunt to Berlin on Halifax's. I was going to build a model of "his". Either the one he flew the most or the one he was shot down in and was surprised to find out how many different a/c his crew flew on operations as well as how many personnel changes there were during a tour. My father was on the way to an operational Mosquito squadron, the VE Day arrived before he got to it so can't shed any light on wartime mosquito squadron policy on personal aircraft but common sense would lead me to believe that with more crews than a/c, servicibiliy rate of 75% say, it was not possible or practical to assign an a/c to a crew but you could assign two crews to an a/c.

I really love the potential of DCS and find it frustrating at the same time. The frustration comes not from the software itself, the tweaking and complexity of setup is actually less in DCS, but from inexplicable decisions by ED on things like: a seperate paid assets pack for WWII; not being able to fly online on all maps; not being able to use the editor in a stand alone mode or as part of the DServer so I need to have a full version of DCS on my server anyway to make some mission update without needing to download and upload missions to my gaming PC from the remote server; Having to deal with a half assed DServer instead of the slick DSever that iL2 has; no way to efficiently deal with mods, even ArmA has a decent method dealing with the Steam Workshop; lack of transparency in updates and realistic management of expectations; I was going to say an effective bug tracker, but really any public bug tracker would be a great benefit. These things I feel are strangling DCS WWII at large, not just stifling interest in the P-47. Some of them are certainly keeping about half the active members of my squadron out of DCS and limiting our mission building. Lots of thanks to Storm of War for maintaining a great WWII environment for us to fly online.

I fly both, my squadron is firmly divided and I am now just getting some traction on getting interest growing again in DCS. I find the AI in DCS to be far superior to iL2. En aircraft make relatively realistic decisions on tactics, engagement and disengaging when the odds are bad. Many people conflate the SFM that the AI use with poor AI in DCS while in iL2 they use the same FM as players, which is pretty poor all around compared to DCS. AI fighters in iL2 however seem to have only one defensive/offensive tactic, the Luffberry and once engaged they only disengage when they reach bingo fuel or destroy all en a/c. Hopefully ED can find a way to let the AI use the PFM with minimal impact on performance. I'm not sure what form the endless tweaking is that you are referring to. Control settings do need to be set up for each a/c and this is a simple and refreshing change from iL2. For DCS I find it quick and easy to set up once when I get a new module and forget about it while in iL2 I am constantly remapping control settings whenever I fly a different a/c, it drives me crazy and I can't for the life of me figure out why they abandoned the really slick control settings they had in RoF where each a/c idiosyncrasies could be catered for. Now if I am fly a Spitfire, then next flight our squad is going to fly P-47, I just leave and fly DCS, it's easier. Even worse if I switch to FC, which is where my controls are set now and for the next couple of months at least. As for graphics yes, we are all in a constant pursuit of better frames and spotting, particularly those in VR it seems but I find the same in iL2 where for six months I could not play at all because of the constant screen tearing and artifacts no matter what settings. As for the editor, I am my squadrons primary mission maker and I am constantly tweaking missions and completely frustrated with the need to update missions whenever we have an update to DCS. The situation is much better now with the less frequent updates but still frustrating since we now all play on OB instead of stable so I still have a limited window where a mission may be viable. I can't express how frustrated I was when the first Normandy map update came out a couple of years ago after spending a hundred or more hours of my free time building and testing a mission, scheduling it for a Sunday and to have an update that Friday break it. As for the iL2 mission editor, I don't know, after years of working the RoF editor, when I saw the iL2 one I just said no, not going through any more of that frustration and I only build missions with an external tool. We can only hope to get a 3D mission builder like ArmA III someday for DCS and anything better than the status quo for iL2. So, those three areas I find do take a frustrating amount of tweaking, however I find the same in iL2. That is quite the blanket statement about the "older crowd". Our squad is older and most active online players are in thier 50-60s. Most of the members who are not flying online in MP are also no longer flying SP either due to cataracts, back problems, dementia etc. Here's another blanket statement FWIW, most older players have been flight simming for years and did not come from War Thunder et al. They therefore have an unreasonable expectation that when they purchase a simulation it will be complete with the environment including map, ground assets, OPFOR and friendly a/c that are appropriate for the environment and time frame a la CLoD, iL2, Aces Over Europe etc.

This question come up every time there is a new WWII module on the horizon, yet ED has never had a pre order or pre order discount for any WWII module only for modern jets. I don't think they will start now.

Are you talking about the reflection of the gun sight projector lens in the middle of the glass?

No, this is specifically about the Sabre, the muzzle velocity of the .50 cal was set for the wrong ammunition type and for the earlier version of the M2 machine gun that was used in the Mustang not the M3 used in the Sabre. This results in the rounds having too much drop so you need to lead the target with the Radar ranging gun sight and the AI Sabre mostly missing their targets.

The 400 series were the Article XV Squadrons and the numbers were allocated to the Dominions who signed the BCATP. Specifically, 400 to 449 were RCAF, 450 to 484 were RAAF and 485 to 499 were allocated to RNZAF. Not all numbers were allocated by 1945 and somehow we ended up with two 450 sqns after the war...

I think technically it should be called RNAS Ford/RAF Ford/HMS Peregrine/RAF Ford depending on the year. HMS Peregrine would most suit our timeline for the latter half of 1944 although I suspect that the RAF still referred to it as RAF Ford when they posted units to it. AF is a USAAF term and AB is a USAF term, although the USAAF used codes to refer to airfields in Europe during WWII and Ford would be AAF-362.

Not at my gaming PC right now but mostly high/ultra for textures/clouds, medium and flat for shadows. Water texture low. Visb high. No MSAA since it is not much help at 4k compared to the impact. See this interesting guide: https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/277521-dcs-27-graphics-options-recommendations/?tab=comments#comment-4730169

Odd, Normandy had been good for me since the last update and now is much better after yesterday's. I'm running it in 4k on a GTX 1070 at 60fps in the SoW server.

I found the same with anisotropic filtering, no impact. I also have found, surprisingly, that resolution is min impact. I run in 4K with a GTX 1070 at 50fps normally. I have found that I can leave MSAA off at 4K and it looks as good as at lower resolutions and gain the performance. Also, VSync is a major resource hog, if you have a GSync monitor and NVidia card, I recommend you use that. If you can live without VSync you can increase the eye candy.

Benchboy There is another option in the Gameplay menu in addition to mirrors; Wake Turbulence which can have a significant impact, particularly with propeller driven aircraft.

No HUD gets my vote!

ED has consistently said that Ugra, who apparently do not frequent this forum, are going back to Normandy after Syria is finished. Syria just had a major update and I expect they are understandably working on a hotfix for it now. They also have a huge map due for 1C-777 in the next 12 months and I'm not sure how that fits into their workflow. I also infer that they are a fairly small team. If you have flown in the Syria map you can clearly see that they have not forgotten about Normandy with all the Normandy 44 billboards. I expect that most of the reported bugs and map anomalies will be fixed and some improvements to make it more in line with new maps; I am hopeful that given the addition of Cyprus to the Syria map, that we will get some of the additional features that the community has requested, and I would be ecstatic if they scrubbed the map entirely and started again using all the experience gained from working on Syria.

Or release it first as a static, then maybe some talented skinner might start working on some skins that could be included in the package, while you are working on the animations and AI flight model.

There is a wonderful mod, actually two, one for the Channel Map and one for Normandy, both with templates so you can quickly set them up by SUNSTAG. I wish ED would add this to the WWII Assets Pack, they have added German era appropriate radar.

Thanks for this. Out of curiosity, how long did it take you to make this fix?

Thank you, I did try all three servers, I believe the bug is in the DCE Manager v.3.9.16 as both used Server n°2 and it is likely related to the use of Firefox as the default browser. Thank you for your excellent work and dedication in creating DCE Manager Cheers

BUG REPORT - DCE Manager 3.9.16 When trying to update the Manager on my gaming computer I get an error dialog that there was an error updating the manger and to check the log. I also get the message in the update status that there is no update available. Checking the log I see the following entry: 2021-06-28 2:10:49 PM Download upgrade.txt 2021-06-28 2:10:49 PM 00 found upgrade.txt in F:\Documents\DCE_Managerupgrade.txt 2021-06-28 2:10:49 PM FileServer 3.9.17 2021-06-28 2:10:49 PM FileLocal 3.9.16 2021-06-28 2:10:50 PM Failed server: https://bit.ly/3au28Lq Or local: C:\Users\Rob\Downloads\ at System.Net.WebClient.DownloadFile(Uri address, String fileName) at System.Net.WebClient.DownloadFile(String address, String fileName) at WindowsFormsDCE.Form1.button_UpdateManager_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) No update of DCE_Manager required On my dedicated server, DCE Manager updated correctly. On both computers I have them installed in the same place on the C Drive, I run both as Administrator by default. The only difference that I can see is the location of upgrade.txt. My Documents folder on my gaming PC which has the issue is: F:\Documents\DCE_Managerupgrade.txt vs. C:\Users\Rob\Documents\DCE_Managerupgrade.txt on the Dedicated Server. My default browser on my gaming PC is Firefox and on my Server is Chrome which may also be a factor. Solution I tried to download DCE Manager from the User Files link in the first post, however, it is only 3.9.16. I solved the problem by downloading Iran - Irak war Hind since I knew it was the most recent and would have DCE Manager 3.9.17. The problem is now solved for my this time, however, others may have difficulty updating from 3.9.16 which may make troubleshooting more difficult when problems arise with campaigns. It should be noted that the failed server address is correct and if entered manually in my web browser will download the correct file.

* See Flow Chart. That being said, the billboards in Syria pointed to Ugra remembering their statement that they would return to the Normandy map when they finished Syria. I hope that they will bring the techniques and workflow that they learned developing the Syria map to Normandy and it will rival the Channel Map in beauty and still preform better! But I'm an optimist. Game 4, well not that much of an optimist, Game 5 at HOME!

Practice Riot in Montréal last night, practising for the BIG one in the next couple of weeks. Olé Olé Olé I have all the maps, Normandy is the one I fly most, Channel might look better but performs worse than Syria or any other map. With the last update they addressed many of it's shortcomings but Normandy still is the better WWII map. The decision making flowchart should look like this: Do you want to fly WWII in DCS? Yes => Buy Normandy Map maybe buy Channel Map No => Don't buy Normandy Map. I would trial both in the Free Trial programme and see what you think.