Vertigo72

Well, Im an RC model pilot, so i have a bit of experience with flying third person, but doing AAR with an external camera? That is something I dont even dream of ever accomplishing. edit: maybe Im discounting this too quickly. Moving the viewpoint to the probe may actually help. Not even sure you can though.. Ill give it a try tonight. Yep, and its a big help, Again particularly in the tomcat with its useless airspeed indicator located somewhere between your feet.

It just occurred to me 1.5x SSAA might actually be the worst possible setting for this problem. You are rendering a 50% higher resolution, so if you make small camera movements that shift the viewport by <1 pixel, every other frame that solid object may appear to jump one pixel because it just is or isnt rendered at that location at the higher resolution. Could be wrong, but it just sounds like a "wrong" setting, I would use 2x or none at all. And if you are flying on a relatively high resolution monitor, with a less than uber GPU, not at all is probably your best bet. Just crank up MSAA and forget SSAA. Its primarily useful for low pixel densities, like on VR devices. Shimmering is a price they have to pay anyhow and beats not being able to read instruments.

When I called it autopilot, I meant its how it would appear to work for the pilot, regardless of how its implemented. And about that, I wouldnt assume this can be done without module support. you would basically need to suspend the plane's flight model and probably the flight control systems in the avionics to prevent any fly by wire and other systems from getting a heart attack. May or may not be possible, I have non clue. Anyway, it would be neat to have, but it ends up solving a minor problem for 3 people (who need to AAR but cant), and I would still prefer to have some visual helpers that guide us so we can learn, which probably applies to a lot more people, and may be easier to implement. Particularly for planes with offset probes and poor cockpit visibility like the F14 where you basically have to guess where the probe is and how you must position yourself in relation to the tanker. Just some "flying boxes" or a projected runway in the sky where to point our nose would be a massive help. Or an even simpler cheat, render the tanker and basket (outline) visibly even if its behind the the canopy pillar whatever you call it. Or maybe "shoot a laser beam" from the basket so even when the basket is hidden you still have a reference, though Im not entirely sure how helpful that would be. Wait, not a laser beam, because you cant judge distance to a line, but also flying boxes. You know like in the carrier landing tutorials One last suggestion; auto connect the basket if its within x meter and just make the fuel line unrealistically long/flexible. Wouldnt really work with booms though at least not visually.

Im not going to keep replying to every objection as most of them I already explained. But Ill reply to this: If ED offered a cessna 172 in DSC as free module in stead of the TF51, you think millions would be playing it? If so, I think they missed a trick there. you may be too young to remember how MS single-handedly turned a tiny niche market (PC flight sims) in to market of 10s of millions of copies when they launched the original flight simulator and subsequent MS combat flight simulators. There where others who did it before MS did. Some arguably did it better. I played Falcon 1.0 in EGA graphics. Chuck Yeagers aircombat. Then microsoft came along and steamrolled the market AND, made it 10, 100x larger. Why werent all those people interested in (combat) flight sims playing Chuck Yeagers aircombat before? There are many reasons, like marketing budget and arguably better execution or more user friendly or whatever, but it boils down to being made by microsoft. FS2020 IMO is going to be even bigger event than the original. The original allowed people to fly. cool, they could already do that with other sims if flying on PC is what they wanted. This one will allow them to fly over their own house, their own city, the place they go on holiday, their own school yard in full 3d. See it in detail that even google maps does not offer. In VR. Its going to be every bit as disruptive as the original. And even if only 1% of the people that MS will (re)-introduce to flight sims will have any interest in flying a military jet, and then being able to shoot something or drop some bombs, it will be a bigger market than DCS is or is likely to ever become.

ROFL. And Im the one who knows nothing about software development. https://english.stackexchange.com/a/20456

code. singular. Of course it should be possible to have at least some shared code if you are going to replicate the exact same functionality. If nothing else the logic that determines at what time of day the carrier turns on its lights. Or the scripting engine in the mission editor. Or the math module that calculates the ballistic trajectory of a particular type of bomb based on speed/attitude/air temperature and density/whatever. Why on earth would you ignore having written all those things before? Its amazing how you guys are so intent on proving me wrong. You must feel really threatened by the prospect that one day there may be a military simulation that is based on something other than the current DCSW and that it may even be made by ED. Why? It simply a good idea. For them and for us. usually when businesses transition from one platform to another, this is risky and expensive and quite often involves a painful transition process that risks alienating customers. Like dos to windows. Or every time Apple switched from motorola to powerpc to intel. If ED where to decide to swap out their own graphics and physics engine for, say, Unity, this would also be costly, risky and may not bear fruit for a long time. It may not work. If it does, it wont even directly generate revenue. What I suggest, developing both DCS and a "DCSW-X" FS mod can be profitable and mutually beneficial every step of the way. The two platforms will not meaningfully compete initially so they can happily coexist and serve different markets and both can make money until the point where their functionalities do overlap significantly or entirely and DCS becomes obsolete and can be EOLd. The old one can be EOLs when there is a working new platform that didnt cost ED a penny, it made them lots of pennies. Or, if it turns you nay sayers are right, and it cant be done and the FS mod hits some brick wall and cant support all that is in DCS, then it remains an addon with limited functionality that can do some things, but will never do all that dcs can. Then so be it, DCS lives on and you still lost nothing. A limited mod still has value to FS pilots. A failed unity port does not have value to anyone. So instead of ED investing a fortune and risking failure and having painful transitions, this is a transition that is as risk free as it gets, it can be seamless and profitable from start to finish. They can pull the plug at any time with no significant loss of investment. Thats pretty rare. You guys love to prove me wrong, but it simply is a good idea. And if ED dont do it, someone else will. Someone who doesnt have those code snippets to copy paste and didnt do the fluid dynamics simulation of the amraam yet. Unless that someone of course, designed the amraam Oh and btw, hello "new user".

You mean creating new revenue from new products that can be sold to both existing and (millionsof) new customers, while those products can share code and rely on the same knowledge and same research, is a way to drive your business in the ground? You mean like how microsoft went bankrupt because they stopped only selling Dos but also made windows and then office and a bazillion other apps, even flight simulators and even sold their software to mac users? What where they thinking! They should have stuck with Dos. Yes, you really are clueless.

Dear schmiefel, your reading comprehension skills SUCK. Quote me where I say ED do not have the resources. My point is they have no incentive to focus the resources they have on the base layer. Because it doesnt make them money. So they their developers create more maps and more planes and more carriers, because those do make money. So would a FS mod. And not only does that make them money it also gives them a long term path to no longer have to spend those resources on the base layer, as MS will do that for them.

It doesnt have to be that black and white. Is P3D a mod of FSX or its own flight sim that still shares a little code of FSX? I dont see why it matters, what matters is the end product, is it something you want or not. So I can see this being a gradual process. Initially ED could just create a mod that enables some of the things that make a stock FS unsuitable for combat. Say, just weapons and IFF and whatever else is needed to allow at least PvP air to air combat. Maybe just with guns only. That wont make FS a real alternative to DCS, but I can see that being quite a popular addon that will generate revenue. At the same time ED would be setting a standard and API for third party (FS) plane module makers to enable their planes to do combat. Pretty much like tacpack. More revenue for ED and ensuring no one else gets to set those standards and become a future competitor. But over time ED can add a better carrier to it and ground assets, and targets and a mission editor and AI. If need be, their own system for avionics and flight modelling. They may even make it easier for DCS modules to be ported to their FS mod (or vice versa) by ensuring those APIs are as similar as possible. That may enable module developers to offer combo deals, buy a tomcat in DCS, and you get to fly their tomcat in FS too, even if you can only shoot its guns there initially. And vice versa. Buy the FS tomcat and you get access to the module in DCSW with less eye candy but more combat. With time the FS module would gradually transition from being FS with a little combat addon to being DCSW-X that happens to be based on FS engine. And then maybe 10 years from now, it would make sense to pull the plug on legacy DCSW. If by that time it does everything DCS does, and some things very much better, why would that be a bad thing?

Ok. that I wouldnt mind. Its more like a full autopilot that engages in some (variable) area and speed range. I understood it as something that nudges you in the right direction with a variable force so if you are a little slow it pushes you forward. But that wouldnt work I think

Resolution wont help you much. Its DCS. You either fly over water or sand. ;)

You dont have regular anti aliasing enabled! Turn on MSAA. You can add super sampling (SSAA) on top if you can afford the performance hit. But 1.5 SSAA can not remove the jaggies without MSAA. I would also set anisotropic filtering to max, there is basically no performance hit and it does make textures look better.

Thanks, appreciate it. If its too hard, another change may be much easier to implement and already help a little bit: In the number menu instead of showing 1-7 and then 8,9,0 in a sub group, show 0..6 and then group 7-8-9. The idea being, your frequency is really always going to include 0's at the end. There may or may not be 7s, 8s and 9s but even if there is, probably just one..

Ok, then look at this way; if you buy a TPR you dont get a free printer with it :)

Doesnt need to be offline though. many (most?) servers focus on PvE. So you will be fighting AI anyhow but you can have human wingmen providing a helping hand. And even if you are just doing touch and goes and landing practice, its more fun on any of the training servers. Particularly for carrier landings its a good motivator to see others mess up worse than you :)

Excuse my ignorance, I barely use steam. I do have DCS in there, and after searching a bit, I finally found a "follow" button. It isnt checked. Hovering over it it says that checking it will bring DCS news in to my community feed. But when I go to my community home page, or news, Im getting all the DCS news anyhow. Sure sounds like Im being a "follower" just because I have it in my library?

Im not denying your conclusion based on what you said in the entire post, and on other evidence, as well as on common sense; I fully accept there is a significant portion of offline players and explicitly said I accepted that. So nothing flew by me. I said what I did because the sentence I quoted from you was a logical fallacy. Again, not a valid conclusion. What happened over the past 10 years says nothing about EDs current sustainability. Especially not with their business model that depends on selling new modules to quite often, old loyal customers. When your customers only have 2 planes, it would have been fairly easy to sell them a third and a forth. But when 10 years later most of your old customers already have 10-30 planes, they may no longer be as receptive. Maybe you know more than me, but I have absolutely nothing to go on to conclude ED is either swimming in cash, on the edge of bankruptcy or just having a normal steady sustainable business.

Do you know what that number means exactly ? If I installed the free DCS world 5 years ago, tried it for 10 minutes, uninstalled it and never looked back, would it not by default remain in my library and thus I would "follow" it?

Didnt even know that was a thing, a variable take off assist? what module has that? Im not sure. reminds me of flying in a two seater with a student/instructor and both holding the stick and steering and correcting. Its really a terrible way to learn as you are "fighting" each other and unsure what it is you did, what the other guy did and what the plane is doing by itself. It may also not be easy to implement "tractor beams".

equally valid conclusions derived from the same observation: DCS players are more in to collecting boxes than flying planes DCS has many players who rarely fly it indeed is not enough to sustain the game. combination of above Im not denying that there is a significant portion of offline pilots, but just assuming it, is not evidence for that assumption.

If you dont have access to a 3d printer, maybe your metal working skills are better than mine and this could be for you: https://www.xsimulator.net/community/threads/diy-pendular-rudder-pedals.13130/

I actually think the opposite. The min/recommended/ideal specs that MS have published for MS2020 are arguably lower than what they realistically are for DCS today, especially VR. You can take them with a grain of salt, but Im more confident it will be possible to get good frame rates on FS than DCS. I think you will need to be online realistically yes. They say 5Mbps minimum. not sure if downloading/buffering will be possible as most of us tend to focus on a specific theater, where those 747 pilots cross the planet.

Hi there! Yes that looks much better, but its a static screenshot it doesnt tell me much. I cant see framerates. Is it even volumetric? Are they dynamic? What its like when fly through them. Do they cast shadows on themselves ? Produce rain? How do they interact with mountains? fog? You think it will be anything like this: Im not holding my breath. But I do look forward to seeing anything better than what we have right now.

You missed my point completely. I am saying the exact opposite. There is no point in ED redoing the things MS already provides, FS will already have its own API and tools for airplane creation, and it makes no sense to reinvent that unless there is something horribly missing. So current DCS modules will NOT and can NOT work in a FS based DSCW. those planes will have to be redone. But like I also said a dozen times, they will be redone for FS whether or not ED goes that route. Cant be arsed to quote and reply to 4674 other comments.

FS already has everything needed for a flightsim. It has a graphics engine, terrain, atmospheric model, a generic flightmodel, it already allows plane developers to build their own planes, adjust flight model characteristics, write their own avionics, ... none of that needs to be redone and it wont make sense to do so, certainly not initially. So no, DCS planes will never fly in FS without being redone completely as FS plane. That cant be the goal. But FS wont have sams or tanks or ships or targets or weapons. It wont have AI that can control them or certainly not do combat. It wont have a suitable mission editor. It may not have whats needed for radar, moving tacan stations, IFF. The whole concept of red or blue sides. Objectives. Scoring. It probably wont support AAR. If it has a carrier, it wont be anything like what we expect from it. It wont have much of a damage model. It wont have awacs or datalinks or ECM. Those things can be added. For almost everything I just mentioned, it has already been done before. And for so many critically important elements of that, yes sorry ED should be able to "copy/paste" the logic and algorithms from their existing game rather than having to rewrite from scratch. 3d models of assets can be reused. the AI code that controls them should be able to be reused. The decisions an AI pilot makes based on whatever input you give it, should not be different between one game engine and another. It should be largely if not completely self contained. The kinematics and ballistics and behavior of all our missiles or sams should not be reinvented. ED would not be throwing away 30 years of work, they would be capitalizing on it. Yes its a lot of work. And there are no silver bullets, Vulkan isnt either. May not even solve any of the current problems. Doing state of the art graphics engines is hard. Doing world simulation is even harder. Probably why hardly any game developers still bother trying, instead they focus on the things they do best and just licence engines made by companies who have thousands of employees doing nothing else. Thats why that 1 man indie studio can release stunning looking games with volumetric clouds and smooth VR performance, and ED, well, cant. You havent read any of the links I provided, have you? You might have noticed tacpack clients. Including USAF, Aviasim, and a bunch or professional training centers. There is a reason I wrote what I did, that it doesnt appeal to gamers, because it either looks horrible on FSX or is expensive and still looks meh on P3D. But apparently they are doing something right, if the military are not just looking at it, but actually buying it. But I guess its not professional enough for you? You know what being a GAME means right? Especially a high profile game launch by one of the largest companies on the planet. Millions of users who share the costs of development. And if you make your GAME realistic enough, you get to sell that game and modules based on that game to the pro's too. Like you know, FSX. Or tacpac. Or even DCSW. Now imagine you can offer those pros what they already had, but on top of that, instead of 0.01% of the globe, a highly detailed 3d representation of the entire planet. There isnt even a single multi million dollar full motion simulator that provides that currenty anywhere. And instead of an atmospheric simulation that can basically be only on, off or have 1990 sprites pretending to be clouds, a proper dynamic and realistic atmosphere. What do you think they will say? Naaaah. Its a game. We will stick with the ahm.. games we already have.