fjacobsen

Flagrum is right, simply "whining" here makes no difference.... Thats why I´m glad to see derelor chime in here - so thx for that :) FinnJ

The problem is not when a beta project is put on hold, or developement gets to a crawl. The problem is when people have paid for a beta version, then I find that steady progress must be expected. Note that I did not say fast progress, but a beta that seemingly hasn´t been touched for month by the developers is not Ok ! FinnJ

I have no problem with buying Beta's, but at least after having paid, we must expect some kind of progress. With IL-2 BOS we get weekly updates, or at least words when there won´t be an update that week. FinnJ

+1 Very frustrating indeed... While most of us knew that we where buying a Beta version, the time needed to see progress is simply not acceptable without further feedback from Belsimtek. Problem is that Belsimtek doesn´t seem to read into this forum, so our pleas seems to be in vain. Don´t get me wrong - all Belsims product are very promising and they surely know how to develope aircraft and helo's for DCS, it´s just the nagging feeling of standing back with a half baked bread. FinnJ

Generally helicopters needs to be flown with smooth but determined control inputs. FinnJ

I guess the question right now is what those numbers in parantesis are. Maybe it´s not number og hits, but damage points achieved. It sounds strange that the 20mm with a slower rate of fire gets more hits than the faster firing and better boresighted 13mm only hits 31 times. I´m sure that the dev´s are looking into this isue, as we allready got more threads reporting poor damage done by gun rounds and cannon shells. FinnJ

Note that the pitch/roll channel isn´t a real autopilot mode, but a stability augmentation system (SAS). While pilots probably are trained to fly without, this is never done in normal flights. Most pilots would sweat doing so for prolonged flights. Regard the SAS like the powersteering of Your car - You can do without, but never would. FinnJ

While most of what You say a makes perfectly sense Flagrum, I don´t think that the "machinery" You need to start for a patch is that heavy. I have been an aircraft addon developer for FSX for some years now and thus knows approximately how addons/modules are developed, tested, released and later (always) patched. For me it was relative simple to find the issue and give a solution. Offcourse a company like Belsimtek needs to alos bring some quality assurance into it. But I disagree that they don´t need to monitor their best input channel - the forum - when a new update has been released, especially when thay have made some changes to thier own modules. Due to QA work, as well as syncronising their work with ED, I still think that for showstopping isues, hotfixes must and can be released within a day or 2. It would also be normal to voice out some official statemet that they are aware of the issue and what people can expect. I also wonder if they make cahnges to a not yet released open beta version. I woudl assume that if they are in the proces of altereing some inner workings, that this is done on an internal beta version, and first when the entire update packeage is ready and has been tested internally, then it will be put into an autoupdater by ED. It has clearly been stated that buyers of an open beta are not to be regarded as betatesters. We get early acces and we can make bug reports in the forum, but the beta testers are a different closed group. Also the term beta should be used with caution. In my opinion a beta version is an almost finsished version. All features has been added. What remeain is tweaking and finding bugs that the developer doesn´t have time to find. If there still are stuff to add or other looses endes, then it´s still in alpha. Beta testing is conducted within a relative short timeframe and will end up with a complete set of files pacjed in an installer and then be called Releasecandidate. Testing the Releasecandidate, means chacken that the right file versiosn are in and that the installer installes them correctly. There fore I think that the open beta rather startet as an early alpha acces, that now has come much closer to the beta state, since some of the announced features still not has been added. There is not alot that is missing, so when BST gets the last few bits dnoen, then the beta run can, and probably will, be very short, since most systems has allready been tested sufficently with positive from the open beta members. Internally I think that ED and BST should find out what role they play. Are they partners or 3rd party developers, since it seems that has an important impact on who is resposible for support or not. It would also be good if BST could find a "spokesman" to give updates, maybe once per week or every 2 weeks. Total silence, or just individual "insiders" from the tester group is not the right way to go. Just my 2 cents... FinnJ

I would expect that also the rotary indicators on the SZ500 should flicker. I doubt that there is 2 seperate inputs on the SZ500, so if the rotarie´s don´t flicker, then the ammocounter won´t count. This is just my personal interpretation. FinnJ

I have looked into the Mi-8 files and found how to fix it (since the dev´s seems a bit slow to respond). It took me less than 15 mins to find the culprit by comparing the files with some old ones I have in my DCS Open Beta install... Find this file: \DCS World\Mods\aircrafts\Mi-8MTV2\Cockpit\Scripts\device_init.lua Open it with Notepad (I prefer Notepad++ for Lua files) and then find this line (line:118 with Notepad++): creators[devices.AUTOPILOT] = { "Mi8::avAutopilot_Mi8", LockOn_Options.script_path.."Devices_specs/autopilot.lua", {{"ElecInterface",devices.ELEC_INTERFACE}, {"GMC", devices.GMK1A}, {"ADI", devices.AGB_3K_RIGHT}, {"LightSystem",devices.LIGHT_SYSTEM}}, LockOn_Options.script_path.."Devices_commands/AUTOPILOT_commands.lua"} And change it to read: creators[devices.AUTOPILOT] = { "Mi8::avAutopilot_Mi8", LockOn_Options.script_path.."Devices_specs/autopilot.lua", {{"ElecInterface",devices.ELEC_INTERFACE}, {"GMC", devices.GMK1A}, {"ADI", devices.AGB_3K_LEFT}, {"LightSystem",devices.LIGHT_SYSTEM}}, LockOn_Options.script_path.."Devices_commands/AUTOPILOT_commands.lua"} Now save the file (better make a backup before changing it). Voila - Pitch & Roll Channel works again !! FinnJ

But still... Look at the number of various hits I got !! 47 hits of 20mm of various types 29 hits of 13mm of various types High explosive weapons, like cannon shells and general purpose bombs and rockets are all very weak. With bombs and rockets You need a direct hit to cause damage even on soft targets like trucks. FinnJ

I have seen this from within the cockpit after I had collided with another aircraft. The engine kept running, or rather sputtering, the entire rotating propdisc was visible, but also the broken prop model beace visible periodically. FinnJ

I´m sure that with the constant feedback from SithSpawn and his connection with the dev´s that this module will grow and eecome even more outstanding. It´s nice to se our posts being answered be some "Officials, somthing we miss in the Belsimtek forums at present, ever since EvilBivol-1 has gone on standby (Due to personla reasons afaik). FinnJ

May I suggest that each of You send a ticket on this. Though ED claim that it´s a 3rd party product, I still think that they will need to act, if a sufficient number of tickets has been raised on this. The lack of feedback and action from Belsim also hurts ED. In the end it´s ED who releases updates, so they must also have som quality control on those. Link to support ticket page: http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/support/ Login with your username/password and click Authorise. Then on the left pane select "New Ticket". Now write about the issue. FinnJ

I just got something looking like a standard answer from ED: From Wags (Matt Wagner) at 11.08.2014 18:47:49 This is a third party product, you will need to ask such questions in the developer's forum: http://forums.eagle.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=279 But what does this help when the developers, seemingly don´t read what is posted here. In the end this is part of the ED DCS Franchise, so I wonder hwy they are so careless. As far as I know is DCS not an open achitecture, like FSX and 3rd party modules needs some kind of approvement by ED to be added to DCS. FinnJ

So... The engine(s) might start to smoke at 50%, but performance only drop when at 100% - thus fully damaged ? FinnJ

I just setup a flight with player in a FW-190 behind a friendly P-51D Looking on the after action events I found the P-51D was hit with these rounds, before it said "Engine shutdown": 22 20mm MGsch 12 20mm HEI 13 20mm API 7 13mm APT 12 13mm HEI 10 13mm API No other failures or damage was reported on teh P-51D. Maybe it comes down to a rather simple damage model. Various hit´s will only make visible damage in terms of new textures with bullet holes - but no degradation of flight performance. 3-7 hitboxes, counting number of hits and will fail at a certain value: 1 for the fuselage/single engine 1 for left wing 1 for right wing 1 for each wingmounted engine (multi engine) Damage is either full functional or fully damaged - so On/Off. The engine(s) might start to smoke at 50%, but performance only drop when at 100% - thus fully damaged. FinnJ

While I like the F-86, I kind of regret that I bought it. It seems that Belsimtek only are interested in a project as long as it earns them money. I guess most modules are sold as pre-sell and afterward sales drops. Thus there is not much motivation to finish their work. While the Huey is declared not to be beta anymore, I still think that some of the features promised are missing in it. The Mi-8 is nice, but we still need to see the rest of the avionics implementet as well as door gunners and slingloads. But progress is really slow. I´m afraid that we will see the same happen now to the F-86. FinnJ

Sithspawn... This makes sense on the P-52D where the guns are mor widely spread on the wings. But on the FW-190 where the guns are on the nose and the cannons very close to wingroot (still withing the propeller disc), convergence has very little impact. While there are some dispersion of the bullets/shells, I have numerous times been so close on the enemy (TU-95 f.ex) that my entire gunsight was filled with target. While dispersion still playes a role, as well as bobbing up and down, firing 20m cannonshells should still have far greater impact. On other occasions I have found that being at a very specific distance can have far greater effect. Maybe damagepoints are calculated to be much higher when the rounds/shells are hitting at a specific distance, simulating the convergence effect. FinnJ

yesteday I send a support ticket on this issue as well as asking for some statement about what the plans for the Mi-8 is, since development seems to have come to a hault. FinnJ

The German ammo counters in IL-2 BOS actually works like they should, for those who want check. FinnJ

+1 FinnJ

I rather think they would have been fluorocent, thus looking greenish, but not green like they are now. Just like on watches from that time. FinnJ

Using Tacview (if that counts) clearly show that I get alot of hits, but they seem to cause very little damage. FinnJ

At least we need seperate triggers for guns and cannons. FinnJ