Horns

Agreed that we don't know if Razbam will sell any modules to ED, my comment was a response in an ongoing conversation where a hypothetical sale itself was being spoken of.

If ED does purchase the MiG-23, let's hope it does work out that way.

Agree - although we're really talking about math so my saying so is probably redundant - but you'd have to buy it without getting a chance to check out how it's been done and you'd have to take a lot on trust. How would you go about figuring out how much it would save you?

Just shooting my mouth off here: If I was ED there would be no way I would even entertain the idea of buying Razbam's MiG-23 - not because it's not an aircraft worth having in DCS, it certainly is, but because the price worth paying for the mature modules would include the value of the loss of goodwill from existing owners, that wouldn't factor in for the -23. Don't reward Ron for another half-built module, better for ED to wait and build one themselves from scratch.

That's probably a fair analogy. Problem is I don't know which devs started their relationship with ED when so I can't give an answer to that, but it would not cover many of the third-party modules we have now, an extremely quick count leads me to a complete guesstimate of seven. I could be totally wrong and it might be the majority released since 2018. We just don't know.

There was nothing left out of that, 'new third-party agreements' by definition would not include existing third-party agreements. Unless you think the Oxford Dictionary is conspiring with ED. Hey wait a second, Nick Grey is English...

A demand comes from entitlement. Try using the word ‘demand’ with many businesses I know and they’ll inform you they will respond only when and if you establish your basis of entitlement. ‘You’ll lose my custom’ doesn’t cut it. I won’t be engaging further with you.

Demands and requests are very different things. A demand is accompanied by a threat, implicit or explicit. No such thing as a friendly or polite demand.

Lol, just saw the fascist b&d comment... I think I see why NL got us back on track

Adding this because I haven't seen it mentioned in the source code debate, apologies if it has and I missed it. As with all my posts, this is just my understanding: When ED first announced that they would change agreements to require the source code for third-party modules, my understanding was that that requirement was tied to the overall third-party agreement, not the agreement that is signed for a module; if that is true then the third-parties who were already developing for DCS when VEAO went under, Razbam being one, are not obliged to provide the source code for any modules they create in the future, as well as any modules they had created before. If anyone has anything official that contradicts that please post it, the last thing I want to do is inflame the debate with incorrect information. Edit: Please note that this would not prevent a third-party voluntarily submitting the source code or voluntarily signing a new third-party agreement.

I remember that I did a long time ago, I think you could have two versions if they were on different hard drives back then, but maybe that was when OpenBeta and Release were separate streams

To the coders and modders here: Anyone up for speculating whether you could have multiple versions of the DCS engine within the same file structure, and if so, what would be the tradeoffs? I ask because I know with my install most of the space is maps, so it would be a lot easier to carry multiple installs if I only had to have one instance of each map stored...

Cool cool, I’ll sit back and watch silently

Sure, complaining itself does - repeating oneself, complaining or otherwise, serves no purpose. It was a worthwhile question when he first asked it, but it's already been well and truly answered.

So repeating yourself is your chosen form of protest? Go ahead, I can't wait to see this play out.

Maybe you don't expect miracles, but you're expecting a different answer to the same question, it's like watching someone turn the handle of a locked door over and over. Where I come from repeatedly asking the same question is trolling, so I guess this thread continues to get leeway, but IMO that's a good thing - as I say, I get a chuckle out of it

The bold is my formatting. The question was worth asking, there was no point asking it repeatedly. Far from being dodged, it's been directly answered, as you can see.

NL has answered your question over and over. You're wasting your time and theirs, he is not going to give you a different answer just because you repeat yourself. But hey, you do you. Futility is funny AF to me.

Many thanks... And Raven is spot on, that was supposed to be Silver Dragon, I guess I have an answer now so I'll just apologize to Baltic for the wtf moment

If we get the air-to-air only EF next year (and it's as polished as the F-14 was on release) I'll be happy, I figured it was further away than that. @baltic_dragon I noticed your roadmap says 'Eurofighter Tranche 1' - has HB said anything more about which tranche we get, or is this just a 'worst case'?

I hear that wait said they can no longer see a path forward

I am not a coder and I don't run a DCS server so I don't have an understanding of the DCS core on that kind of level, so I'll accept what you say regarding aspects of it being outdated and simply say, for my simple needs, I've always found the core more than sufficient and fit for purpose, but you aren't the only one to express dissatisfaction with elements of it. Your interpretation of EA being used as a marketing term is interesting to me as I always saw the EA label as making a product less attractive rather than more so. Either way, I acknowledge that it's used inconsistently between different devs. Personally, when I rethought my attitude to buying EA (2023) I was still comfortable buying EA from ED because I was comfortable with their standard for a module leaving EA, and the only other risk I saw to an EA purchase was bankruptcy, and ofc if that happened DCS as a whole would be kaput so it was neither here nor there. I know next to nothing about the Yak, what you've spoken of certainly sounds frustrating and such an experience could well have made me more averse to buying EA from ED. I get what you're saying about doing this as a 'thought experiment', and while I restate my belief that the date a product first becomes available is immaterial, I also accept that the date of last significant development isn't readily available so judging according to that wasn't an option. Personally, I could happily live with the F-18, F-16, A-10C and F-5 being my next four modules so I could see a way forward for someone sticking purely to ED modules once they're out of EA. Either way, I'm glad we both want to see DCS succeed for a long time to come.

It would be stating the obvious to point out that if one feels that the core is on the verge of obsolescence, then DCS probably isn't for you, regardless of what's happening with modules. You've listed the dates these modules first became available, while two modules on the list are still receiving new features and three other modules on that list have recently received new iterations so I guess the concern is based on how long customers have been able to fly these, rather than how up-to-date they are. DCS modules have long development times and most become available to people during EA, if someone don't want something that's been available to people for some time then any module that gets released in EA is probably going to be of little interest, but then if the core is borderline busted for you then you probably aren't going to play regardless of the specifics of any modules. Personally, I don't think the length of time a software product has existed has any direct relationship to its inherent worth. I appreciate that DCS has a core that is in constant development and I don't see anything approaching obsolescence or so buggy I'd reconsider playing. I dig the deep modules that contain an enormous amount of work and I've got much more interest in its depth and immersion than how recently it became available. I guess you see something very different, and that's valid, but I wouldn't waste your time arguing the relevance of the date a module first becomes available if the core is so detrimental to your experience.

It’s fair to say one has to choose between buying EA and enduring a long development time, but it’s difficult to argue one has to buy EA modules in order to play DCS given the excellent selection of non-EA (and imminently so) modules available. Apologies to all for the loss of context due to quotes of quotes not coming through.