av8orDave

Just wanted to chime in and say I appreciate your post. I've long thought that the best business model for consumers would be one where multiple developers are effectively competing on a free-market for your business / module sales. This would improve the quality of the modules (wouldn't everyone want to buy from the developer who consistently makes a quality product?), it would improve the development pace (wouldn't the developer who wants to make money want to beat the developer who is competing for limited consumer spending?), it would improve developer communications & customer service, and it would hopefully improve the atrocious launch practices currently prevalent in the community. I assume this isn't how it is working... I assume that ED holds the key to the platform, and gets a cut of every module sale. Having said this, they'd want to maximize sales for every module, and with consumer spending being limited, "allowing" multiple developers to launch modules at the same time could limit total sales potential; this could result in a model where there is an incentive to "coordinate" launch timing across developers. I'll emphasize that I don't know that this is the model or what happens, but it doesn't seem like a major leap. My assumption is that what happened on the F-15E is that it was planned for June, and when it was realized this could limit summer sale orders (by soaking up the limited consumer dollars), they chose to push it out from this timeframe. Again, only speculation. I don't know why some folks (like the guy above who responded to your post) hope a "free-market" could never happen in this community, as I suspect the current competition-limiting model is partly to blame for the sometimes questionable quality, glacial development pace, and wacky launch practices we see. Thesis over! I'm a long-time flight simmer and I want to see ED and the developers succeed!

This thread is the equivalent of a american football "Hail Mary" if I've ever seen one. I got a good laugh.

Hey, to each their own; it is what it is. I really don’t enjoy it. DCS’s physics for formation flying aren’t very good, and being enjoyable or not doesn’t change that the AI aircraft is flying on a proverbial “rail” holding a perfect speed and altitude. Not to mention that when refueling a Navy or Marine bird (F-18, F-14), the basket can magically pass through the aircraft (not an immersion-breaker at all, VR or otherwise).

Air to air refueling in DCS is a level of masochism that shouldn't be purposely sought out by any sane person.

There are a whole host of good books that address this topic for a host of aircraft types, and the F-16 would be no different. Books include: - Strike Eagle: Flying the F-15E in the Gulf War by William Smallwood - Warthog: Flying the A-10 in the Gulf War by William Smallwood - A Nightmare's Prayer by Michael Franzak - Viper's in the Storm by Keith Rosenkranz In short, the jets are flown to the airbase they are deploying to by a handful of pilots from the squadron. The rest arrive either through military transports or commercial flights (or both).

This exactly. On their twitter account, ED posts stuff like "The Strike Eagle is coming in hot and soon you'll be able to fly...!" (that is a direct quote), then will be like "No date is set yet. Everyone just needs to be patient. We'll let you know once there is a date." How is it "coming in hot" if no date has been set? How do they know "soon" when it is all up in the air?

I don't like the fluctuating dates being communicated to me... that is the problem. They said "imminent" when it clearly wasn't. They said "coming in hot" and "soon" when it clearly wasn't. My suggestion is to start communicating stuff like "imminent" when you have a product actually ready for early-access... as in "we could ship today if we had to, but we're going to communicate that it is coming next month and spend that time doing the over-and-above polishing." Instead what was communicated was an "imminent" release, when they clearly had no idea when it would release or even really be ready for release.

I got a chuckle out of that one! I never really understood the "could a Tomcat have stopped Pearl Harbor?" or the "can one F-16 defeat 437 FW-190s?" type thing. Reminds me of an adult version of "Who would win, a Polar Bear or a Siberian Tiger?".

It is always surprising to me how many people seem to say stuff like "I don't understand all the complaining"; It is really very simple: Razbam: "The release is imminent!" Four months later: "We had a miscommunication. Looks like release is in July (maybe)." ED: "The Strike Eagle is coming in hot and soon you'll be able to fly...!" Two weeks later: radio silence. "We'll let you know a date when one has been determined." ^ For those who don't understand the "angst", the above is not a best practice for marketing and communication.

You're right, there is always a big backlash when these developers miss dates. Having said that, that is exactly what is driving this backlash. Saying that the release is "imminent" or "very soon" when it is months away is effectively the same as missing a date. It sets an expectation that is then not met. The alternatives are 1) setting a date and sticking to it or 2) keeping your mouth shut until you actually can see a release date that you can execute (i.e. know as a fact that you can release next month because the product is ready to go today, announce the date, open the "pre-order", and release as communicated). A really good way to do things would be to say "we could release today, and ED agrees, so we'll announce a release date three months from now. We'll spend that 90 days polishing, testing, and adding any "nice to have" features, but ultimately the product is ready to go now, so there can't be any delays."

Agree. The issue (for me at least) has never been about the date, the development timeline, etc; It is about setting expectations. I don't believe it to be a good marketing practice, nor particularly helpful, for a company to say something like "the release is imminent" when it is still six months away. I believe most would find this misleading. As recently as two weeks ago, Eagle Dynamics said on their twitter "the Strike Eagle is coming in hot and soon you'll be able to fly this..." and "we are getting close now"... If one of my employees told me those statements, then said we're a few months off, I'd be pissed. This really isn't a new thing. I'd advocate for pre-orders to only go live with an anticipated early access release date. For those that disagree with me, I appreciate your opinion. I only write this stuff in hopes that maybe Razbam, Heatblur, and particularly ED receive the feedback as constructive and stop saying things like "release is imminent!" when it is still months away. I'm sure they hate seeing all the disgruntled comments on the forums, but I'm not sure they don't feed much of it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... the problem with how so many of these developers handle releases in is mismanaged expectations. Obviously they should take however much time is required to get things right and ensure a good release. Having said that, I believe what causes all of the "angst" as these projects creep toward release is: - Multiple statements saying the release is "imminent" - Statements saying the release is coming "soon" - Statements saying the release is coming "very soon" - Multiple statements saying "a date has been set" without a date ever being provided People buy the preorder under the impression that the release is "imminent", then are annoyed when "imminent" is clearly not the case and the release could still be months away. Anyway, enough said on my part. I keep saying I'm going to learn my lesson on these preorders and quit buying, but here we are.

Fair enough. Curiosity killed the cat, so I hopped into the sim and tried the radar hellfire. You can, indeed, select it by using George from the Pilot's seat. However, assuming I'm doing it right (a big assumption), it doesn't really guide and hit anything. My procedure: 1) Use George to switch to radar hellfire with a "long left" press on the George menu. 2) Slave George to a target. 3) When George says "in range", tell him to launch the missile. It seems to take a few requests as he re-lases, then fires. 4) The missile comes off the rail and veers across the helicopter's flight path, then seems to come back around toward the target, but inevitably misses by a fairly large margin. If I'm doing something wrong, I'm open to feedback. Note that I am not firing from a hover and have tried launching from anywhere from 7k to 3k meters.

Seriously? I haven't had the time to try the new patch yet, but there is no option for the pilot to tell George to use radar Hellfires? What are single player users supposed to do? That's a head-scratcher.

I’m only half-joking when I say that “imminent” in DCS-speak means sometime in the next year or so. Oxford defines imminent as “about to happen; impending”, so I’m not sure Devs in DCS-land know what the word means. As many have already pointed out, they’ve also said multiple times across a few months that they have a date set, but they haven’t shared it. At best, it all amounts to a poor communications strategy. I can’t even imagine telling a boss or customer at work that my completion of a project is “imminent” when completion is months away. That would be a bad scene.

Agreed. DCS WWII isn't my thing. I think the exciting topics are continued core engine upgrades, specifically anything that improves performance in VR, and the F-15E.

Well, in a practical sense, I don't think I agree. Relativism, especially when discussing topics like warfighting, is probably the only place to start. Many would likely argue that in the history of close air support, the A-10C is the best, effectively defining what close air support is (and is not). Close air support is not on-demand firepower with no risk of blue-on-blue, it is a last ditch option when in desperate need of help. If you are redefining close air support as we know it, then you might have the luxury of saying the A-10 isn't very good at it.

Some philosophy: "Good" becomes irrelevant when compared to "best". How? If the A-10 is better than everything else, an outside definition of "good" is meaningless unless used in the context of creating something new better than the current "best." A fun example might be baseball. In baseball batting, success is often defined as getting a hit, and the best players only succeed about 3 out of 10 times. Does failing 7 out of 10 times mean you aren't "good"? Not unless there is someone (or something in this case of CAS) that can do better. A batting average of .300 consistently makes you one of the best players, often to the tune of earning tens of millions of dollars per year, despite failing 7 out of 10 times.

JDAMs are clearly shown in the launch trailer, and they were used on the plane at during the time modeled for initial release. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that they aren’t included, but it would be a weird flex for the launch trailer if they aren’t.

There are a ton of publicly available pics of F-15C’s carrying Sniper pods. A quick search and you’ll find them.

The A-6 is by far the most anticipated module for me. I've been a flight simmer as long as I can remember... Microprose Strike Eagle II is the first I remember playing, followed by Strike Eagle III, Falcon 3.0, Falcon Gold, Fleet Defender Gold, Janes Longbow (1 & 2), Aces over Europe, Aces over the Pacific, Tornado, and on and on... and you never could have dreamed what flight sims could become (with the flight model and systems fidelity of DCS combined with the experience of VR). The thought of a fully modeled, DCS-quality Intruder is over the top. Given the pace at which flight sim development happens these days, and the niche market that the genre occupies, I just hope it progresses to see the light of day.

+1

+1. The flood lights don't work, either.

Well, I answered my own question. When you use the base AGM-65E (lrg warhead) version, it puts you in an endless feedback loop of nonsense. The v2 version of the LMAV seems to work as one would expect. Is this intended behavior or a bug?

Awesome, I appreciate the help. Thanks for the response.