WytchCrypt

Makes sense. The long term legacy products I worked on got harder and harder to maintain each year as new features were added. The original design of the foundation just wasn't built to handle all the new goodies as we never saw them coming. Sooner or later, we had to tear large chunks of it down to the ground and redesign the foundation. As far as DCS, since the core engine is it's foundation and not an add-on like SC to be charged for, keeping it together and strong enough to handle each new add-on is a thankless job that doesn't generate revenue in and of itself

That's exactly what I thought too. When you rely on new project pre-order funding to pay existing expenses, well...that's just not a long term sustainable business model - unless you have an unlimited quantity of new projects on tap and an unlimited customer base that's always willing to keep buying in (though there's no such thing as unlimited projects or unlimited customers especially in the niche market DCS lives in). Even so, there has to come a point where revenue from the sale of completed (not planned) projects covers expenses - hopefully with some leftover to fund new project development. Otherwise you'll wind up with a constant stream of new projects that never get out of EA because you need more pre-order new projects to fund their development, but then that isn't enough because you have additional labor costs to bring those pre-order projects to EA release. Eventually projects pile up in EA until you reach a tipping point where all the new project funds possible will never catch up and the dog is left chasing it's tail. I seriously hope that's not where ED is heading :(

Unfortunately, as a system evolves and gets more and more complex it's more susceptible to code being tacked on to other code rather than being properly isolated as a separate module/object. Then you have to clearly document how one piece of seemingly unrelated code can break another which can break another unrelated piece and you have a major headache whenever changes are necessary. Hopefully that's not the situation because once on that path, you're building on a broken foundation and sooner or later will have no alternative but a major redesign...

Exactly :thumbup: I wrote C++ & Java for many years, but that was back in the '90's and it was a business not gaming environment so no way I can accurately comment on how ED would approach/structure current development. When we had a large project, everyone was assigned a module to complete and we would write and debug them as standalone functions with their own local variables and libraries. At the end, everyone knew their hooks to tie in to the main codebase and we'd move to system test and recheck the whole thing. The goal was to keep the necessary tie in hook in the main codebase to a single point of contact for each module which returned a simple 'success' or 'fail' code. At least, that was the goal anyway...in real life it didn't always work out so efficiently ;)

I agree about knowingly releasing bad code, but we don't actually know the level of integration of the MP code with the entire SC code base. I'm guessing SC (and all DCS) code is designed in an object oriented approach, as such it could be as simple as not including the MP modules in the final build and locking down any open connections to it in the main modules. That way no suspect code is released and any contact with it is blocked. Conjecture aside, only ED knows how difficult it would be to isolate the MP code :smilewink:

Oh well...I had a strong feeling this was coming so was already prepared. The only thing I don't understand after reading Kate's statement is why they didn't release it anyway for SP? If it was too buggy for MP they could have just included a disclaimer saying that and MP people could have also begun using/training in it in SP now, but whatever...it'll be released when it's released :smilewink:

+1 1986 to 2000 as a software engineer at Sun Microsystems it seemed I only had to debug memory leaks the night before a deadline so I understand the pressure you're all under. SC will be a major achievement whenever it drops, stay safe and keep up the great work :thumbup:

Cool. That's what I thought but have never tried it before...now I have a good reason :thumbup:

Hmmm...sounds like it may be time to download OB and run parallel DCS versions so I can play with SC :smilewink: It is possible to have both the stable release and OB on the same PC, correct?

I just looked at the DCS module page for SC and it said that early access will require OpenBeta 2.5.6 or above. I don't fly open beta but pre-ordered SC. Does this mean I won't be able to use SC until it's released on the stable 2.5 production platform?

This looks incredible, I cannot wait to practice carrier ops at night :thumbup:

Cool...I'll tryout the Mav's and Harpoons and see what happens :pilotfly:

Cool...so you're using the Mav against naval targets as well? Have to give that a try. When would the Harpoon be more appropriate against vessels?

Thanks, just got it working...didn't know about PTRK :smilewink: It is interesting that I can lock a target from out of range with PTRK but need to continue updating the lock until I finally get in range and am ready to fire. Odd is the MAV indicator on the HUD remains crossed out even while in range and able to fire...guess I thought it would change and show on the HUD as active? Still works though which is most important :thumbup:

Just want to verify that this means while the MAV E or LGB is on the way that you have to keep slewing the crosshairs on the FLIR screen to stay on the moving target, correct? I was practicing this yesterday and it was harder than I thought. It really took total concentration to keep those crosshairs on a small moving target like a tank...especially as the HUD wasn't giving me a TTI countdown and I had no idea when I was close to impact :smilewink:

Good point...I'll give it a try with the 65E. I figure as long as I don't outrun the moving target too much I should be able to slew the FLIR accurately :smilewink:

I'm guessing you mean the Maverick AGM-65F with IR not the E with laser targeting? I actually accomplished something cool yesterday with the 65E. While it was en-route to the target I slew the laser to a different target and it followed. I guess an option for moving targets would be to manually keep the laser painted on it on the FLIR screen and hope the 65E would follow?

I'm making my through learning all the A-G ordinance and procedures and am ready to take on a moving ground target So since we've determined the JSOW isn't the weapon against moving ground targets...can someone tell me what is? Thanks!

Thanks EA, I appreciate the detailed update. In the grand scheme of things a 15 day delay in the super carrier release is hardly something to get upset about. Do that software engineer stuff and stay well, I'll be ready when you are :smilewink:

Thanks for your help, it's so much more fun when my AGM-154's actually hit their targets! I woke up this morning with the same idea! Putting something on the color display so I don't have to keep swapping the Left DDI back and forth from HSI to Stores to HSI to Stores etc is a great idea. Great minds think alike :thumbup: I'm going to try the HSI first because once the WYPT's are up I'll just be hitting the next button to point me to the next target area :smilewink:

Absolutely! I was originally setting TOO coordinates with WYPT's but it was so inaccurate as to be pointless. I started using the litening and now my JDAM/JSOW drops are deadly accurate :smilewink:

Thanks! Been flying all morning and this has worked out great! I set FLIR to right DDI, with the left I set the JSOW's to TOO on the ground and once in the air go back to HSI WYPT to get my HUD direction set then jump back into JSOW MSN. Line up with the HUD direction and now it's much easier to locate the target on FLIR and lock those coordinates back to the JSOW MSN page. Luckily jumping between HSI and JSOW MSN on the same DDI hasn't meant they have to warm up all over again. Since I've started using FLIR instead of WYPT to set TOO coordinates, the 154A's & 154C's have been outstanding. I'd say in the past 10 training missions I've dropped 80 of them with only 4 misses (and those were likely because I was super late in the launch range envelope or under 10,000 ft) :smilewink:

This^ I wanted to report back that after spending a few hours yesterday flying my AGM-154A & 154C training missions that I had excellent results when using the litening pod to get my coordinates in TOO mode. I've been testing my training mission with 3 options...TOO mode with mission editor defined WYPT's, TOO mode with litening pod targeting & PP mode punching in the LAT/LON/ELEV before takeoff. Without question, TOO mode in combination with the litening pod is by far the most accurate, followed by PP mode with manual LAT/LON/ELEV entry and in last place and still wildly inaccurate is TOO mode based on WYPT's. In fact, the TOO/WYPT approach is so awful I can't see a reason to ever use it. Thanks to SilverDevil for addressing the biggest problem I had with the litening...locating a small target in a big area. I'll definitely try the WYPT designate to get me close, then the litening to zero in :smilewink:

Thanks for the update Vanguard :smilewink: At first I was flying TOO mode and setting my wypt directly on the target in the mission editor, including the proper target elevation. Flew the simple mission I set up to learn this several times and had wildly inaccurate results with both AGM-154A's and AGM154C's. I vaguely remembered reading in a thread that the problem with using wypt's for JSAM/JSOW targeting was they don't include the final decimal part of the LAT and LON. Confident I'd found the reason for the accuracy problem, I switched over to PP mode. Entered the entire LAT/LON in HMS.ddd including the decimal and was still wildly inaccurate. Flew several times this way and still very hit or miss, usually miss :( Sounds like with the already documented inaccuracy of these that they're a poor choice for taking out a relatively small target like a plane or helo sitting on the tarmac. Guess I'll move on to learning the GBU laser bombs and see if they're more accurate.

Just beginning to play with these and am noticing many more misses than hits. True whether I use TOO defined by a waypoint or PP by entering Lon/Lat/Alt. I'm releasing at least half way through the range circles at a stable altitude of 10,000 - 12,000 ft. My hits are close from a side-to-side target aspect but the near-far distance is almost always off. Am I doing something wrong or are these weapons really that inaccurate?