Pitot

Sure mate, but going trough 600 pages of manual, and knowing well the instruments and procedures, and performance limits of detailed modules in DCS is also complicated. Very. What I am saying is that DCS players are mostly intelligent people who wouldn't find it hard even with codes implemented. But yeah, what you have said and comments between the quoted one and this one - I totally agree with them. Multiple coalitions sound good.

First of all, no need to shout. Second of all, I am sorry your tone is hurt, not my intention. Sure, you had positive reactions, colored with emotions or not, that is fine. But also, you should take notice that people said that further you go - tutorials go better. And I didn't say nothing against it. Also I praised the module a lot here, and everywhere before this thread. But put your feelings aside and don't count initial joyful reactions for a minute here. Only if your work is perfect, and nothing is, you have the luxury of ignoring any critique you personally don't like. As you can see, a fine portion of people talking here agree that it should have been done better. Also, you saying "tutorials are not the place to explain..." - I never said it should be explained advanced or in-depth. Just at the level of, let's say A10C or Ka50 where you know pretty much about how those machines work even after the first tutorial mission. You get a good starting point in knowing what to expect. Your claim can directly be interpreted as saying that A10C and Ka50 tutorials are bad (GIVEN that I never said that tutorials should include advanced explanations - which is a fair base of your comment from my point of view). Also, I am very sorry you show so much hurt for me just saying my opinion and I feel obligated to say: YES, we know you spent hundreds of hours, YES we appreciate it far beyond those 50-ish dollars we payed for the module, YES we think it is a good module... BUT: 1. First mission feels like a letdown and it just does not drag you in, but it demotivates - and a fair amount of people agree with that; 2. Too many times triggers don't work properly in training missions, and you encounter them in the very first one (often) with the point where you close the cockpit (one example is enough, this comment is long enough as it is). I understand you are moving forward in developing new modules, and that is GREAT, but even so - you should know that DCS updates brake things sometimes, and instead of showing another repressed emotional outburst - someone could revise the training missions; 3. I never said that training missions should be as detailed as the manual, or replace the manual - I just said that they should be as informative as, again, Ka50 or A10C ones - where you actually learn a LOT about the aircraft and basic purposes of main systems; 4. Saying that "all 3rd party modules are like that" is not of any relevance and it is assuming that 3rd party dev's aren't capable of producing the same level of detail and professionalism as ED in their modules - and that is simply not true. And it is a bad thing to say, and it IS said trough such comments. 5. Again - I am sorry that you are, obviously, hurt by my opinion, but maybe you should respect those people who have an other kind of critique to say too, not just ones who run to praise. Maybe my intentions aren't bad, maybe I am trying to give you an insight into other side of story while you develop yet another module I am already certain to buy... Put your feelings aside, and be professional please, by being kind and civil even to those people who have small objections to your work. Fanboys and blind praising won't help you or anyone to develop as a professional, that I can guarantee to you. First day impressions are never a good anchor point for appraising your own work. Maybe us others have something useful to say to, and if you don't react in such a way, with listing hours and effort that we are all aware of anyway, but stop for a second and think it over - you might see the point. You can make a humorous mission that will still incorporate useful info. Some people buying Mig21 (not me, but it is still true) are new to DCS, new to combat flying sims, and those people will have more use of an A10C kind of tutorial than what you have delivered. Your tutorial is pretty much FINE for us who fly for ages now, because we know what is a radar, what is APU, what is battery doing... but for new players - as it is - these tutorials are almost useless because learning something "to wit" is just learning how to automatically press buttons. And again, it is far better and easier for a lot of people to go trough an informative tutorial before studying the manual in-depth than jumping straight in it. Tutorial gives them basics, manual offers real learning - just like with ED made modules listed many times in this post. You may agree or disagree, but what is important is that a lot of people who buy your products - agree. And that is why my observations are of use to you, and to the community, and are made with best intentions and there is no need to react like you have. But still, thank you for putting out any answer at all. This is exactly why developers don't have insight into the real picture, and should care and be polite to people who aren't into kissing up, but want to point out the things that may be improved. I am grateful when someone points me something he finds to be possible to improve in my line of work. I don't go "but I have spent hours on that, and people told me they like it." I work on being a good deliverer to my customers. My main argument aren't dollars, or hours spent - but well explained things with reasons for it given. I get exclamation marks and sentences that, basically, make me feel like a developer just told me: "We have people who like it, so we don't care about you or your opinion. We will now, and in any point in future ignore anyone who says anything but praise us". That is not what I would call maintaining a good PR.

I once talked about implementing IFF in DCS and people responded with flame: "But the IFF codes are A SECRET!!!" which is so shallow... Why wouldn't ED develop their own IFF codes and implement them in the aircrafts, hide it God knows where and how in the game code and voila - it works. Give us transponders for advanced models, and Mission Editor fields to enter frequencies for FC3 aircrafts. No reason not to do it. Surely, it takes time to be implemented, but hey... We have proven to be a resilient bunch when it comes to waiting for ED to do their work and develop new thingies, so we can wait for that too :D No problem :D Just do it :D

"So go figure" - That is uncalled for and rude, as supposing that I am too shallow to figure it out. I am not. I will kindly suppose that it wasn't your intention to be rude... "Basic function of the tutorial - teaching what to click to make things work" - no, in my opinion, one does not need to learn by checklist what to press, but to actually get a basic insight on what do instruments you're turning on do, and later improve the knowledge and get in depth insight by reading the manual (which is easier to understand and learning is faster if you get that beforehand instructions in the tutorial itself), by training and comparing experiences with other people. "Learning what buttons to press" is not an issue, all of us know how to use mouse and look around the cockpit. We don't need tutorial for that :) EDIT: Who said anything about giving up? Pay closer attention to the point of the OP. :)

That is fine, but a portion of byers find it easier to go over systems and procedures trough training, before going in-depth. And that is not a small portion of them either.

Very nice way to put the problem in words. I hope the same. Cultural differences are okay, but I kind of agree with you: If you are making a product for international target group, it is better to leave it without a "personal touch", than to miss in a way you described. I really appreciate the effort of Leatherneck to "break the everyday way of things", and I believe it was a good idea to do it like this - but realization was... Well, it was (is) like Lebron James going in for a beautiful, glorious dunk - and being blocked by Muggsy Bogues...

Listen, don't get me wrong: OFC I will train with people while I learn a new module, OFC I will study the manual thoroughly, OFC I am amazed with how well the module is made (can see that from other people's gameplay and comments even before learning to fly with it), but none of that reduces the amount of misery in the first training mission. And I also said that I don't mind a good humor, but hey - I bought a DCS Module with training missions. It is not some freeware thingy - so it should be detailed and thorough. Humor is fine when flying with people, humor is fine on forums, training mission should be detailed and informative so you can actually learn from it on a higher level than just completing a check-list. Even if all the aspects (instruments) are covered in further training missions, this is still a letdown in my eyes. It seems like they were bored with making a cold-start tutorial, so they expressed that by making such _insert-adjective_ mission. :) Again - no flame, no hate, no angriness - just a personal opinion and STILL thumbs up for Leatherneck. Yeah, humor is a nice touch. Insert it after giving me useful info which I came to get. :) (in a training mission, that's the context)

As far as I can and do appreciate a good humor, I would like to see tutorials being a little more professional and educative for this module, just like the A10C tutorials/training is. And I don't really care about any argument as "it is realistic, you don't always have polite training instructors". I payed for this, I would like a proper product. Reading the manual is quite more enjoyable after going trough a detailed training in game - than stopping after every button pressed to find and read what is the thing I just turned on and what does it do. And yes, I am writing this after completing only the first mission in the training, but my first impression is so bad that I have to share it, even tho' I KNOW this is a well done module (from what other people say - and I do believe that). Not being angry or flaming, seriously, but this felt like a major letdown. And when your customer has a first feeling that is described by that word - that is bad. Maybe I am just an a******, and nobody else feels like I do about this, and I am sorry if it's like that, but as a customer I use my right to say what I think about the product or some aspect of it - for the sake of mutual well being. Please, don't do this with your next module that you release. :smilewink:

I believe that majority feels the 80's concept more competitive, and that it should be given more love generally.

Let's roll. If no multiple entries, second is to be taken in consideration.

Yeah, I think I've said too that I consider that this project should be done by 3rd party.

I never used it personally, but I hope it was a good example on what we need... (?)

There is a discussion about loading flight plans in the recent threads, so we managed to touch that subject too :)

I know that you can set option for vehicles "pilot can drive", but then there is a dedicated slot for that - Commander slot. But I suppose letting a lot of ground units to be "player can control" could easily affect the stability of the server.

I didn't quite say "easier than radar" - I said it is fairly easy to find him with IRST if you have a good idea where they are. Combining IRST and radar is a base of good sensor employment in Su27, known fact, nothing to add to that. Also, I would like to see some Su25A included in the next what-ever-it-is-based-on campaign. They can be pretty effective against FARPs if pilot is skilled enough. Also, as for SEAD nobody is to blame if Su25T is only on red side, because A10C can kill things with high drag ammo pretty good, it's just that people don't want to learn and perfect it. Tho I admit it is not the same as hitting from 40km... XD Another suggestion - it is not hard to edit the mission every few days, so stingers on farps, or any other units are not 16 days in a same place. It is enough to move them 20, 30 meters away from current position to stop all those pesky people thinking they are excellent pilots because they learn positions of enemy troops. Also, FOR ED - I would like to see either a mission option not to allow clients to save tracks, or a way to password tracks... I am tired of people who open up a track, take notes of where things are, and then act as if good pilots... S! To the buddyspike team.

I have an urge to say my 2 cents: 1. I am one of people being angry AT EXPLOITERS, not at the team that gave us Blue Flag, BUT you need to have measure and reason even when angry!!! 2. The whole thing about "cheaters" is rooted in behaviour of ONE SPECIFIC player in RedFor. I am not going to explain it, because that would be bad mouthing the guy. I am just saying he's highly suspicious and that he is sole reason for this "cheaters alert outbreak". THERE IS NO ARMY OF CHEATERS ON BLUE FLAG, only few individuals at most who exploit the not-yet-good sides of DCS. So no need for flame. And no need to act as if RedFor has 20 exploiters, while Blue are honest and pure. 3. In every game there are exploiters and cheaters. I am not going to let that diminish the effort of people who created Blue Flag, or my personal enjoyment. Yes, I was angry and wrote a flaming message to XCom on one or two occasions about some guy being a too obvious in his exploiting, but that's it. I chilled and continued doing my stuff, realised that there is no need for that. Just went on doing my game, my play. So should you. *all 4. Thank you, team behind Blue Flag, and thank you to few individuals on Blue side who made it fun and rewarding to be one of the pilots flying on the server and campaign. See you all in the next event. P.S. Remember in the old days when people mostly believed that user can't add an airplane, fully created by him/team, to Flaming Cliffs - and the amount of awe when couple of guys added the Mig21? That is the awe the team behind Blue Flag deserves for their innovative way of thinking, for hours of hard work and for breaking the limits - all for our pleasure.

With development of new modules and theaters, we are rapidly approaching the stage where we will need a flight planning software for serious pilots. For example, something like FalconView. This particular piece of software has it's open source version and appropriate SDK. Now, some talented 3rd party developer could be interested in starting works on this little, but important, addition to DCS... While ED has it's non-civilian customers, I believe it is in the best interest of both them and ED, and us, civilian customers, to have this. EDIT: Just to make it clear, the mission planer should incorporate maps, implementation of weather, flight route planner, payload planner/weapon deployment planner etc.

No, my friend, it's different rendering of a same green line. I think you missed the point of my sentence.

The main problem is that hud symbols are rendered blurry, unlike with Su27 for example, where you can't see the hud at all only in extreme conditions. That is where the problem is to be solved.

That seems to be realistic. Take in consideration that the HUD is a kid of a hologram on glass. A light play. If the background is bright - you get bad visibility. Hello, brother. Basically, the main problem is that the HUD in A10C isn't as crisp as in (for example) in russian planes. It looks, to some extent, like having gaussian blur applied (in A10C).

Nice, guys. Let's keep this thread alive and well - and try to make it very busy and interesting to admins/devs. In the following days I might try to gather some data about all the airfields that were operational in the ex-YU and post it here.

Yeah, mate, a lot of us do :)

This post Also, as for realism: This post This could be useful too: "Originally Posted by xxJohnxx View Post BTW: It is possible to increase/decrease the contrast of the HUD during the flight...: --- This post

Well, thought: While user initiative and creativity are great, we need this properly implemented as a built in feature. But, honestly, as long as I consider this to be a must-have, I believe that the issue can easily be considered as a "polishing the sim" and should/will not be addressed before the 2.5. But I am cheering for this to be properly implemented. BTW Kudos for efforts :)

You're welcome, Sir :)