Arsonist

I surely hope, all you "30 % cut" people never buy anything on the ED store on sale or use any bonus points, since it would undermine the only somewhat sensible argument that tries to paint the standalone in a better light. Also, buy your butter directly from the producer, don't support supermarkets, they take a cut! Or cars. Or anything you'll ever buy. And no sales, ever. Furthermore, what to do with the 3rd party developers? ED certainly takes a cut from them to support the development of the DCS environment, which they all use. Buy directly from them? This certainly does not get rid of the cut ED takes. So, force them to build their own flight sim engine, every module as its stand alone simulator? No connected multiplayer? Hm, tricky... It's all about supporting the producer, right? On a more useful note to OP: It is mainly up to you, there are only perceived (!) negative things to Steam, really. If you have a lot of games on Steam and all you friends are there, stick with it. If you only play DCS and all your friends are there, stick with that. All these "later updates" and "later releases" are not really an issue anymore. The F-14 release proved that, if anything, the EA release delays are artificial to begin with. If you look to get a module a few dollars cheaper on Steam and transfer to standalone, do this.

In a similar thread I gave a slightly longer answer to this question: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3691162&postcount=10 In general both are very similar and if you don't need to have a very specific feature you could choose any of them. Ifd you already have games on Steam I suggest you go with it. Note that this is a bit of a loaded question around here and difficult to get useful answers. Specifically, people who strongly like to push the standalone version tend to write false statements about Steam or come up with shaky arguments.

So you are saying you are not able to move the pixel density slider to 1.5, or less, which makes the game unplayable to you? Or does this fix not work for you?

Possible solution I've experianced the same issue: shortly after starting DCS openbeta (2.5.4.25729, via Steam) in the main menu the blob appears, starting red, changind to yellow and then to white. I've tried running SteamVR as most recent stable, as well as SteamVR beta, happens with both. I'm using nvidia 1080 ti (driver: 417.35) and Vive Pro. Possible solution: I've started playing with some graphics settings within DCS. When I increased the pixel density (VR Tab) to al value larger than 1.5 the blob appears, for 1.5 and below this value it seems to be fine.

They create the textures from photographs of planes that are on display in museums, therefore it is highly likely that this will be the main reason why they look so used - they are. This is what the term "photogrammetry" means. This, and the reconstruction of an object. Textures that make the plane look like it comes directly from the factory require certainly much more work, as compared to the texturing from photographs already requires. Therefore, I would expect "factory-new" textures further down the line, if they make them at all. It may, however, help Heatblur to adjust their priorities if more people indicate an interest in "factory-new" textures. I am fine with the "used" textures, but wouldn't mind "factory-new" as well.

Steam and Stand Alone version are very close to each other. I suggest you base your decision on if you already use Steam for other games, if you are into having multiple different versions of the game installed at once (!) and if you are patient with new module releases. The point of having other games via Steam should probably given the highest priority when deciding. If you are into VR and considering to use a HTC VIVE you need Steam anyway. I don't know what your background on playing computer games is. As you are new to this forum you may also be new to DCS (hence your question in the first place) and possibly to video gaming. If that is the case you should not focus on modding directly, also modding is quite possible with Steam as well, as pointed out above. Important to note is, that when people here on these forums are talking about "getting stuff earlier", that usually means "early access" or "beta versions". These are early test versions and are most likely buggy. If you are not absolutely (!) sure playing "broken" games and report issues you encountered is a thing for you (and highly likely it is not), you should stay away from these versions anyway. Most people are surely fine with only the release version of DCS possibly the Open Beta, but I would assume having multiple of each is a rather rare case, when looking at the community as a whole. Therefore, the early-bird argument may not be very important for you. Plus, switching between release or OB versions is easy with Steam, five clicks without bothering the command line at all. And having multiple versions is possible with Steam as well. Also, the point of "earlier updates" mainly refers to the availability of new modules, which are released to Steam a few days/weeks later compared to Stand Alone. However, since Stand Alone users tested the module in the mean time, Steam versions have the respective fixes right from the get go. Updates to the base game seem to run on the same schedule for both versions (Steam - SA). Download speeds are better with Steam, which seems to be an issue when new things are released. Look for threads of when NTTR, DCS 2.5 or Persian Gulf got released. Be very careful when the discussion comes to the cut-the-middle-man argument, since it is built on a rather shaky foundation. While it may seem to be reasonable at first glance, it is really more of a strawman argument. Valve is providing a service (Steam) to game companies and certainly want to get payed for it, in the same way ED certainly wants to get their share for the services (DCS) they provide to the third party developers. It may make sense to think a bit about this argument. At first it means, people who follow it can't buy any of ED's products on any form of discount (including bonus points), or buy modules in any other way as from the (third) developers directly (if this is possible), without being hypocrites. Mainly, because the cut-the-middle-man is portrait as they want to get more money to the respective developer. Also, I'm sure that buying directly from the third party may still end up that ED get a share, because the third party still uses DCS. It would be rather strange from an ED point of view to let others use DCS without paying for using it when selling the modules from the third party directly instead of the e-shop. Meaning, when people would really follow that through, the third parties would actually need to develop their own flight simulation environment, assets and maps to not pay ED. To put this into perspective by a real live example, it would mean that you need to buy your own land, your own cow, milk it and produce butter from the milk, instead of going to the supermarket and simply buy it. Steam provides a good service for games in general, like internal forums, the mentioned overlay (that is also available for non-Steam games) as a hub to access various functions and voice chat. It provides even more functionality, which unfortunately isn't implemented for DCS, yet, like the ability to join your friends game with a couple of clicks.

+1 Would like to see this as well!

Just saw in the recent OB patch (2.5.3.23225, Steam) that the AI Viggen uses the thrust reverser in mid air, well at least the animation. I was under the impression that this was only possible with weight on wheels. Am I misunderstanding this? Also AI Viggen, when flying at about 261 knots IAS starts to pitch up and down in fast succession which seems to be an animation issue and not to influence the flight path.

Maybe the community could help ED a bit, if there are individuals interested in doing so. How about this: Focusing on ground units or static objects, ED could define what the constrains are in terms of poly count, texture maps, moving parts and so on. They could make the models available that are in the sim right now, such that there is a base to start from. Then people from the community could pick them up and refurbish them. ED could perform some final adjustments and put them in the sim. Maybe this could reduce the workload a bit. Furthermore, new objects could be added this way as well. (For instance, I would like to have more shipping container static objects...:smilewink:) However, I'm not sure how to deal with cases where multiple people model the same object. Maybe the models could be put into a git repository or similar, thus changes could be tracked and the work could be coordinated.

Why not use open beta via Steam? On Steam you can switch easily between open beta and stable: In your library, right click on the DCS entry --> "Properties" --> "BETAS" tab --> choose desired version from drop-down menu

Well, definitely needs more cow bell! By doctor's prescription, obviously...

I'll just leave this here, hoping to aid with some peoples text comprehension...

I tested the comms again yesterday. Either I did something wrong earlier, or yesterdays patch fixed it. However, With M and entered frequency I'm now able to contact the tanker just fine.

I've also experienced some issues with contacting the tanker from the hornet. Even when selecting the predefined frequency (251.000) for radio 1 the option for the tanker is greyed out. Using M on the second radio lets me contact the tanker. I was flying with the Vive. When I contacted the tanker, using the mapped comm 2 button on my HOTAS, the rejoin request worked fine. However, when trying to send the "ready pre-contact" I seem to have the radio options, which are floating at the top right corner of the view, in my field of view. Just to be clear. I do not need to click on them or anything, just need to see them while pressing F1. Is this related to the easy comms? Not sure if I have the easy comms activated though.

Just a guess, if you set up the mission yourself with the mission editor, make sure that you select "Player" as pilot. You find it when clicking on the aircraft symbol on the map, within the editor. Then, in the top right of the screen there is a menu apperaing with a bunch of options. One is for the pilot and properbly reads something like "Excellent", or something.

Here is another interview on the Tomcat, published at Aircrew Interview. This time with the Jon Schreiber:

For those of you who might have missed it, there is part 2 of an interview with Dave "Bio" Baranek, on the YouTube channel Aircrew Interview. In case you have missed part 1, here you go: Cheers

I'll just leave this here...

It seems that one is able to change the payment method from Paypal to something else, like a credit card. At least, when hovering the cursor over the symbols on the top right (on the 'Payment Method' tab), it changes indicating some possibility of interaction. However, when clicked, it does not switch to a different method but keeps showing Paypal. Did I miss something, or is Paypal the only method for payments?

@FlyBaby When you've opted into the open alpha via Steam, make sure that the tick is set in the check box, next to where it says 'not installed'. This should trigger the download (maby it is stuck for some reason and you need to cycle it). For reference, look at the attached screenshot in this post: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3365658&postcount=6 Also, be sure that you have no conflicting settings, like not allowing Steam to download programs while you are in game, or something.

Okay, I think I understand now. So when switched to the 1.5.8 it defaults back to the stable, because right now they are basically the same version. Yea, I would expect this to change.

@ aleader I've just checked the behaviour you reported, but am not able to reproduce it. When I change to the 1.5.8, starting from open beta, they get switched. Same thing when I change back to open beta (however, it is still downloading OB). At any one time I have only one version of DCS in the library. Did you maybe follow the description, that is somewhere in this forum, which allows to have multiple DCS versions installed in parallel via Steam? Because usually Steam exchanges one version against the other, normally you should not be able to install multiple at once.

There is some choice on what version of DCS to use via Steam. From the properties tab, you can chose what version you want to install. Even though this post was in reply to a slightly different question, it provides a description on how to change the DCS version: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=3365658#post3365658 Note that by the time the screenshot was taken, there had been different options. Now you have there a 1.5.6 and a 1.5.8. Cheers. Edit: And to answer the question of Eviscerador: Though not 100% sure, I assume the last stable 1.5.x will be kept as a legacy version. Right now you can still use the 1.2.16, wich I would interpret as indicator, that the 1.5.x will be kept. For the forseeable future at least.

Maybe this will help you: First off, DCS 2.5 will be released at the 31st of Janurary, thus it is highly likely that you do not have this version. You may need to switch to the openalpha version on Steam. This can easily be achieved by opening the "Properties" option of the game and select the desired version. Navigate to your game library, on the left side look for "DCS World". Right-click on "DCS World", in the window that opens, click on "Properties" (at the bottom). This will open another window which contains multiple tabs. Navigate here to the "BETAS" tab and select the "openalpha - Public alpha versions (2.x)" option. This will automatically trigger the download of the selected version. Keep in mind that you need either the NTTR map or the Normandy map for now when you want to use DCS 2.x, which you would need to buy. The free Caucasus map is being revamped right now and will (possibly) be available at some point in February, together with DCS 2.5 (on Steam, that is). To install and de-install modules you just need to click on the tick-boxes shown in the center view of the library screen for DCS. By the way, keys of your modules you can find on the right side under the "CD Key" link, when in the library screen. I've also created a picture, which may make it easier to understand what I tried to explain above (see attachment). Happy flying!