Snappy

Hm I still get red/blue dot labels Schmidtfire .Or do you mean something else? Regards, Snappy

Hi Idrisguitar, My take on your questions: 1.) Honestly I think its mainly placebo effect at play here.Yes the A.I. aiming got tuned as well as their aggressiveness in pursuing damaged planes. But for normal bfm, once the opening moves are over and you(the player) get in a semi offensive position its back to countless loop after loop sillyness. Still a long way from being a credible adaptive opponent. Plus,as Kengou said, their flight models/dynamics are badly messed up.How much depends on the aircraft in question, but most are sub-standard. 2.)Setting up simple 1v1 , 1v2 or 1v many dogfights is quite simple & straight forward in the ME.You can also easily do setups for offensive, defensive and neutral start. What you shouldn‘t expect is being able to construct realistic canned bfm setups like butterfly or perches as here the A.I.shortcomings become obvious and hamper things.(if you have no idea what those terms mean, dont worry, you ll probably read about them sometime) 3.)Useful hmm. I personally would say no,at least not in the way of learning bfm.Because you still get to fight only the usual a.i. in prefabricated missions. You can setup the same engagements yourself in the ME for zero dollars. Thats not to say the campaigns are bad or anything . Guess they do add a lot in immersion&atmosphere ,with the voice overs,briefings and radio chatter and so on. Thats just my personal opinion.You will have to decide whether you want that. 4.) Yes there is some use in fighting the a.i. I would say. -You can practice various moves/maneuvres and try to fly them more energy efficient (i.e. conserve more energy) -You can practice aiming and lead with the gunsight of the aircraft of your choice against maneuvering targets of various sizes and at different distances. -You can practice spotting enemy aircraft and keeping them in sight during turnfights which can be very very difficult (this also depends on display setup/monitor/Trackir/VR equipment a lot)this becomes very very important in multiplayer. -You can practice radar operation and BVR intercepts . Give it a try I would say. Try to keep in mind though that being good at fighting the A.I. doesn‘t equate to being good in multiplayer against human opponents.Otherwise you re in for a lot of frustration;-) ( I‘m still in the frustration phase though :)) Hope this helps a bit,wishing you lots of fun with bfm! Kind regards, Snappy

Couldn’t agree more.The last thing they need is another new project. They should finish the ones they already sold. Regards, Snappy

Not sure what you are on about in regards to them being "cheaty". Very interested in your reasons. Because they all have PFM now, so they are not "easier" to fly or anything. Yes, you don't have to click switches in the cockpit , but then again, the most important functions for combat are mapped to HOTAS anyway for the full fidelity 4gen blue fighter modules, so thats not really a factor either. Plus if anything , you are at a disadvantage with the FC3 aircraft, because they are not simulated up to their full capabilities, i.e. broken/incomplete Datalink for the Flanker/Mig-29. Besides they're dragging on with tons of bugs, some smaller or bigger (ok,which module doesn't ) , so really "cheaty"?? don't think so. Regards, Snappy

VAC -Command, ok got it. Understand it better now with your explanation that you have a different target audience for the FWS course, if not for the tournament(s). Thank you very much.Appreciate you replying to each poster. Kind regards, Snappy

With all the issues DCS is facing , honestly I think there are more important things ED should put their developement/fixing focus on, but each to their own. Regards, Snappy

Good question.As well, if you take a look at what the (so far published) FWS course missions entail, me personally I find that a bit frugal.. I mean seriously? Take off and find the 1,2..3 bandits in the area? You can design such a mission in about 10 minutes yourself with the Mission Editor. Unless the accompanying study material is really top notch hot stuff, I really wonder the content vs price / cost relationship. Regards, Snappy

Hey Jojo, thank you very much! That was a good tip! After setting shadows to low , the reflective effect on the canopy is much reduced and keeping a tally on the opponent is easier. Thank you. Kind regards, Snappy

You may also try flying on the ‚Just Dogfight‘ server.It has various areas,( 1v1 ,guns&IR,Guns only) ,plus you get spawned pretty close to the enemy(mostly even in air too,if you like) so if you just want to train its a good place to start. It has optional labels too. Regards , Snappy

Have you sent in a bug report , with the track file? Thats more or less the only way to get things fixed.Discussion posts here are nice but change nothing. If you could report it that would be great, even if the FC3 aircraft seem to receive little attention by ED lately. Regards, Snappy

Sorry but I would take those statements with a giant-sized grain of salt. Go ask the Hornet guys about the „Viper developement totally doesn‘t affect hornet development“ statement by ED for reference. I‘m disappointed too that the Phantom got pushed so far back and instead we now got another complex and development resource-intensive 4th gen blue fbw fighter, but hey, it‘s EDs train set and they get to make the business decisions which makes the most sense to them. Regards, Snappy

Second this. Standing by for the usual „ theres no balance in real war“ -argument from certain people, but then you can skip straight to PvE if you enjoy simple one-sided action. And as Schmidtfire mentioned, if both sides equip with 9x variants its mostly mutual assured destruction at the merge. However its up to Flighter to decide on this, as it is his train so to say. Regards Snappy.

Dear Razbam, with the new cockpit coming up, is it possible to add (at least as an selectable option) a clearer canopy glass,more specifically with less reflections from the inside ? As it is now, if you turn certain canopy parts even into slightly the sun, entire areas of the canopy become totally reflective and you completely lose visual contact with anything in those areas.Not sure whether its supposed to be grime or scratches but it makes it very difficult to keep a tally on an enemy during bfm. Even with lensflare off the effect is very strong. Thank you very much, Snappy

Flighter. one more thing.The red Viggen in the guns only area is not equipped with gun pods, so it can't fight , since it has no internal gun.Can you please 2 gun pods to its loadout? Thank you., Snappy

Hi Flighter, First of all , thank you, enjoying your server very much! I have a small request: Would it be possible to make the AJS-37 Viggen available in the guns only area (with 2 gun pods) and in the 1v1 area (with 2 gun pods and RB-74 a2a missiles) as well ? Right now it is only selectable in the Air and Gnd slots. Thank you , Snappy Edit: Ok I checked again and noticed , its actually selectable for guns only , but only on red side .

Glad you re not in Decoys shoes then.Passion is nice to have, but this is after all still a business with customers paying for their module.Part of the business is providing adequate product support and reacting to bug reports. In both areas , as well as in general communication Razbam is unfortunately well below average for DCS. So yes,it‘s bad that Decoys has to deal with so much negativity , but there is a reason why customers have these tantrums nowadays, if Razbam had gotten their support and customer care on a good level from the get-go, it probably wouldn‘t have never grown to this level of hostility. However it seems they continue their way , largely abandoning the forums here and rarely if ever responding to threads or reports here. I like the Mirage very much and it has huge potential,probably the same as their other products, but if they don‘t seriously change their attitude towards support&customer care, it will be definitely the last product I ever bought from them. Regards, Snappy

I think you should probably stop trolling Zhukov:-) In order not to degenerate this thread into another useless mudslinging match between the supposedly hypercritical overly complaining faction and the hardcore ED fanboys. It was actually going rather well, with people bringing their opinions and suggestions into it in a mostly sensible manner. Of course in the end ED decides what they are going to do or not in order to succeed and keep/expand their customer base. Regards, Snappy.

Couldn't agree more. Of course the customers shouldn't insult the developers, however I do understand why emotions boil over somewhat regularly here in the RAZBAM forums. The way Razbam handles support (if you even want to call it that) and responds (or actually very very often not ) to bug reports by customers is really lacking in comparison to other developers or even ED (who lately seem to get better at it). Its hugely frustrating for the Razbam customers, especially since Razbam now almost completely deserted the forums and show off their progress info only via FB and /or Discord. I can understand that DECOY feels the constant negative feedback is too much , but if you're honest, a lot of that negativity stems from very valid complaints about bugs and lack of response /fixing of those. Won't be buying future Razbam modules unless this significantly improves and actual support is returned to these forums. Regards, Snappy

I find both your ideas great!:-) A bug tracker linked into the forums would be awesome with so many open and long-standing bugs(not only razbam, in general DCS too) its almost impossible to tell what has been reported already month or years ago, wether it was fixed, or got broke again. However from what I gather ED unfortunately is somewhat adverse to a public bugtracker. I don‘t understand their reasoning though.. Regards, Snappy

hi, would wish that providing main customer support and information via the official forums here would be a contractual requirement from ED for any 3rd party module developer. That would prevent the unfortunate issue of having developers (namely Razbam in this case) move their main support and development update information to channels like facebook or discord and all but abandoning customer support/contact in their „support“( really a euphemism) forums here. I have no problems with developers using all channels simultaneously for PR or support,as long as the support/contact here is on an equal or better level than the other venues, but to almost abandon the forums and retreating exclusively to other channels is not appropriate for this business. Regards, Snappy

I really wish ED would make main customer support in/via these forums a contractual requirement for any 3rd party module developer. Regards, Snappy

You‘re quite arrogant, I like that in a fighter pilot...rolleyes, not. Well unless you were personally involved with developement of ED various classes of fm , neither can you know or understand which involves what beyond the surface.Besides you missed my point anyway. Regarding your „pro“ tip:Well you can call other sims‘ fm simplified too all day long if you like , but some of those do a way better job than the current DCS sfm in simulating jetfighter opponents.. While wind tunnel style ( your words, not mine) models may be overkill for A.I.,what is obvious is, the present SFM is severly lacking in many areas. If it can be brought up to an acceptable level, fine, but at least all the aircraft which are flyable modules should have the A.I. use the PFM , since its available already anyway, it would be waste not to apply it. If some Il-76 or Bear Bomber has an SFM I don‘t mind as much. @Exorcet Sorry, you‘re right.Minor issues is a subjective assessment, if you do lots of warbird flying it’s probably a bigger issue.Point taken. Regards, Snappy .

Don‘t agree at all.The SFM in itself is a problem and is lacking in more areas than „minor“/finer things like prop eng torque and departures. Amongst other things,the stellar acceleration from near stall speed to high speed for aircraft which aren‘t capable of that is one huge issue, which makes low speed , high aoa fights completely unrealistic and funless, as the A.I. regains energy absurdly . Besides in my experience, even with the latest update, after their opening moves the AI quickly resorts to their usual unrealistic constant looping, (at least with A.I. in F-5 and later gen aircraft) Yea calculating PFMs for A.I. would certainly put additional strain on the cpu,but then again , if DCS would support multiple cores , the impact would be dampened. Certainly hope the A.I.will eventually be equipped with PFM as it would make the sim hugely more realistic, especially for the users that mostly play single player. Don‘t think that minor tweaks to the present system would have the effect. But still appreciate ED working on this badly overdue overhaul. regards, Snappy.

Easy, MAC 1, 2 or whatever number we‘re at then... Seriously though.I hope things change.Significant improvements to the coresim would benefit all users and make the whole thing a lot more enjoyable. It is already awesome in some areas, however that doesn‘t mean that criticism directed at other areas is undue or that the people voicing it are less important customers than those constantly writing how content they are with DCS. I will keep my money too as of now.Good to hear BigNewy chime in , saying they took the feedback to their Boss and that things are in progress. But until things really change and improve, no more investments.Way too many unfinished modules , long-exisiting bugs and announced things and too little core development for my taste. Kind regards, Snappy

No you are getting the point completely right and I agree with you. But Vatikus (if I understood him correctly) seemed to imply some different philosophy, thats why I asked what he meant by „syncing“. That non-withstanding, I can understand thats its frustrating if someone feels a specific module is overpowered ( not even as a whole, maybe only in a certain part of the envelope) but you can‘t check it ,because there are no real world numbers or diagramms publicly available or published for that specific flight regime. But few things in life are perfect,so.. Kind regards, Snappy