EtherealN

I know of one case where a female pilot was ignored by the airbase during desert storm, since they were waiting to hear from a male... The real world isn't always better. :P (There also was some funny stories about what happened when female pilots conducted delivery flight to some places that had an interesting perspective to female pilots. :D ) Agreed though. Its not going to be easy to get women more involved (and thus potentially double the market for DCS modules...) since there sadly are issues with women getting either harassed or just flooded with attention, leading to discouragement. Doesn't have to be with evil intent, though. I think Matt has the same problem - show up on an open server under own name, and suddenly lots of people want to talk to him and he doesn't have a chance to just play the game like anyone else. :P (I would also suspect that half of people would just accuse him of being an impostor, too... :D )

Please try this: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=94531

Yeah, but if choosing between "only" a new Black Sea, or having the old Black Sea plus Korea, or Taiwan, or Afghanistan, or Iceland, or whatever else... The choice becomes rather obvious to my mind. Not to forget as well that the "new Black Sea" would have to pay for itself, so I doubt it could be made free. And imagine the confusion of having both a free and a payware map of the same area... >.<

The key issue is that EDGE requires new tools. Tools that are not compatible with the old tools. This means you are _literally_ starting from scratch to do _anything_ to the old map. And when starting from scratch, might as well pair that up with offering customers a new area to fight in. we've heard enough people saying they're "tired" of the caucasus/Black Sea.

That button installs the training materiel for the selected module in the indicated language.

Have you ensured that you are logged in? You should be able to see your username in the corner of the Module Manager screen.

Personally, I feel it's less of a "hijack" and more an observation of the fact that we are currently undergoing a very radical transformation as far as combat aircarft goes. Trying to predict a 7th gen "fighter" is pointless on that account. :P There were lots of planes launched from B-52's though. Do you mean the X-15?

Well, in the note of a "Forgotten" war: ponder the somewhat amazing fact that the United Nations, South Korea and the USA are actually _technically_ still at war with North Korea. A war that has thereby been ongoing for some 63 years... :P But given the perpetual ceasefire, and being between WW2 and Vietnam, it has gotten "forgotten", so to speak. I think most people (at least those that were of double-digit age at the time) do recall the second Gulf War. (Remember: the First Gulf War was Iraq vs Iran and went on for ten years prior to Desert Storm. ;) A Friend of my father's actually fled Iran back then to escape the draft for that very very brutal war.)

First: F/A-18C Second: Pacific Ocean Could be extremely awesome, imo. :)

I was tempted to ask whether you were in the Korean war, but that would have been cruel I guess... :P

This. :P (I actually wrote a paper on that specific subject in school. :) )

"No manned fighters" is not the same as "no fighters", though. ;) The term "drone" simply means that there's no human in the aircraft. Drones already do a lot of jobs - recon and surveillance was the start, they're already (quite famously) doing strike missions. UCAV development is a highly active area of research, and we'll soon see unmanned aircraft (that is "drones") conduct missions against other aircraft.

I've been in the position of comparing a real plane with a simulator. Know what I cared about in the simulator prior to stepping into the real thing? The flight dynamics. I was using the sim to learn how to fly the aircraft. ;) The thing being missed here is that in modern combat aviation, they actually do not want you to flip switches. They want EVERYTHING on the HOTAS, as far as is possible. In combat - that is, when it matters - you're not pressing any buttons anywhere other than on your HOTAS. And to simulate that, you do not need mouse-clickable anything in the pit. (It's really nice from a study perspective though, I agree.) Nothing is happening in the "world"? What? Which planet are you on? :) Now, as for CPU use, there's a lot of confusion going on. The AFM's themselves aren't that bad - part of the magic (and difficulty) in AFM development is the aerodynamic analysis that takes place in developing the mathematical model that simplifies enough to be easily implemented without taxing resources too much while still getting everything that is important in the dynamics. The "big deal" in AFM development takes place before a single line of DCS-world compatible code is written. Comparing to something like X-Plane for example: that sim is inefficient in flight dynamics modeling since it is effectively doing a runtime wind tunnel, therefore requiring that the computer be able to do all the aerodynamic calculations in real time. AFM development however can use synthetic windtunnels (or real-life wind-tunnel data) towards isolating elements, and then mathematical and physics towards building a model that describes the dynamics without undue computation load. However, there's more to this: how does the "clickable cockpit" actually work? Well, when you flip that APU on, why does X happen? What decides whether it starts or doesn't? Well, an equally dynamic model of the fuel system, including pipe resistances, electrical systems with their firings and resistances and potentials and so on and so forth. In the example of the P-51D, when that engine fires after you press the igniter it is because the dynamic model runs the pistons and fuel injectors and all of that jazz and gives you exactly that readout on our "interactive cockpit" that you really should get. If you are worrying about CPU power, you are on the wrong side of this discussion. ;) EDIT: As an anectode; I'm not sure if you were around back when DCS: BS1 was released. Back then, there was a lot of people reporting perceived bugs in the Shkval, but the testers and devs had issues figuring it out because (as it turned out) there was a bug in the simulator that was very similar to a "bug" (or, rather, correctly simulated design deficiency) in the real thing. You think doing stuff at that detail comes at negligible CPU overhead? ;) Basically, if you are asking for realism in the clickable cockpit - that is, the position where you actually could start the real thing - you're asking for a hell of a lot of CPU cycles there too. Because otherwise, you'll only "start" a real thing if it is in perfect mint condition - which they never ever are. ;) EDIT2: Now, of course, there is a distinction that can be made here. You can do a Falcon-style "if switch 1 is off then turning switch 2 does X", where there is no actual simulation going on. But what you are doing then is just a procedure trainer, and most importnantly for combat flight simulation it does not set you up to handle system failures or battle damage* in a realistic manner. You're not prepared to handle hydraulic leaks realistically insofar as their effect on control authority etcetera. Basically: do not kid yourself that the "CPU hog" in DCS A-10C is "just" the flight model. It's all tied together with a LOT of CPU work happening for the complete package, up-to and including how hydraulic stuff makes the engines work which in turn gives thrust feeding into the flight model... It's more complex than most think, and there most definitely is not a clear distinction to be made between a "DCS level" and an "FC level". It's a fluid spectrum, and what is possible (and at what expense) depends on the specific aircraft and team resources. *Example: "SFM" treats the entire aircraft as one single lift/drag/thrust/etc object. This means battle damage cannot affect flight dynamics unless you hardcode specific cases. Since dev time is limited (and no-one bothered to shoot planes to pieces in controlled conditions and make that data available to ED). Now this is a combat simulator. Battle damage is a big deal to me - one of the best moments was in early A-10C (I think it was when we were getting fammed with pre-beta code) and I lost half a wing after GG launched a mav just as I was buzzing him (and thus ate the mav... ooops). The resulting adventure of getting that badly mangled plane onto a runway was awesome. Also, could not be done without AFM. It would either have been "yay, flying like nothing happened" or "instant KABOOM".

I invite you to check out how I was previously in this thread pointing out speicifcally that you cannot make a dipolar distinction because there are so many in-betweens. As for an in-between: yes, it has been done. Falcon 4: SFM with advanced avionics modeling. Developer is bankrupt and dead. FC1: introduced AFM but (at that time) still simplified avionics modeling. Developer is still alive. ;)

Okey Dr. Yes. Let me put it like this. I fly aircraft IRL. Lock On was fun. FC1 was way cool. How so? Su-25 AFM. That turned it from a wargame to a flight simulation. ;) SFM aircraft are realistic enough to do the war thing. When it comes to planes like A-10C, sorry, the fact that you press the exact right buttons in the exact right order isn't that big a deal. (But it certainly is a lot of fun during the learning experience, sure.) But as far as fighting in the A-10C, assuming you're doing it anywhere close to the correct way, you are barely ever touching that cockpit anyway. You're using the HOTAS. Same as you did after mapping it in FC2. You want a "clickable" cockpit while the armed forces of the entire planet are doing their darndest to make sure their pilots never have to touch a switch? ;) However, in FC2, you did not have that awesome flight model that truly put your flying skills to the test. By instant gratification, you need to understand this: it is a huge difference between getting up in an SFM and getting up in an AFM. You feel it right away. And while the SFM planes weren't bad (their flight models got most things right in pure numbers), they did not capture that flying sensation, which is what INSTANTLY hooked me to ED products after FC1 was released. I flew Lock On on review code way back when, it was good, but it was "another simulator". Then I got FC1 (privately) a while later and the rest is history. ;) (A history largely spent flying Su-25, incidentally... :P ) The key thing however here is that it was stated AS FACT that people don't care about AFM's compared to systems. I challenge this. And as evidence I give you the fact that Eagle Dynamics is spending a lot of money giving AFMs to the FC3 aircraft, in spite of all the trouble it means to have the FC3 product in the first place given the whole Lock On thing. Seriously, think about that. Would ED do that if people didn't care? The one company in this market that actually managed to stay alive goes completely wrong about what people want? oookey. :)

And you mean drones can't attack other drones? That's like saying there won't be any fighters, only bombers...

They made that judgement yes. However, they did not have the factual backing I requested here. Point being: no-one has that. ;) Rather, they made a best informed decision between their resources, their information, and their picture of what people want. The opposite is true. A good AFM gives "instant gratification". Detailed systems modeling takes effort to enjoy. Guess which is the bigger market. ;) Okey, first of all, you are talking about their product here. That's an aircraft that, to start with, few people have ever heard about. They've done an awesome job with it, and for those that _are_ interested in it the systems is what is interesting. Talk to random joe on the streat however, and they'll have no clue what the Hawk is. But speaking as someone that previously worked reviews for PC Gamer magazine, flight simulation products were always judged by giving the sensation of flight. Remember: what you call "simple" avionics used to be above what even the most "advanced" hardcore flight sims did. ;) But, again: you made the statement that people in general, I understand this as "customers", want AFM less and avionics more. ED's sales figures disagree. (Sorry, no, I can't give you specifics. But consider why ED bothered keeping FC alive in spite of all the crap with legal obligations to Ubisoft etcetera. Apparently it was worth it...) What I'm angling for here is that it would be strange if the company that is the one company that stayed alive after the death of simulator developers had no clue about what the market wants. Right? Remember how that happend? Lock On. What happened to the people that made Falcon 4? Bankruptcy. Think about that when you consider what people want. ;)

Remember that different things use different resources. Textures live in your VGA adapter's vRAM. Not the CPU. Terrain lives in both. Lighting lives in your VGA adapter's computer cores. "Objects" is too wide a term to categorize. However, there you are talking about runtime compute resources. Not development. Totally different things. And the graphics live in DCS World, not in the aircraft module. I request a source, in the form of a statistically significant and properly weighted sampling of customers that might purchase this type of product. That is, you will find, hard to come by. Then, after that, you'll find additional obstacles since different things require different resources. In the example of AFM vs SFM, some aircraft it will be easier to get the avionics right than the flight dynamics. Other cases it's the opposite. Nonsense. You know how they spent a lot of time struggling with the "sound barrier"? How pilots died through accidently getting into the transonic? Yeah, SFM can't do that. It's a MAJOR part of what makes a "fast-jet" actually be a "fast-jet"... But it is unimportant? ;) Seriously, increased fidelity has it's place in all aspects of simulation. What the appropriate balance is depends on the aircraft in question, the resources available to the development team, availability of raw data for use etcetera. This means that different aircraft will have different tradeoffs. Which, in turn, means that simple categorization in either-or is completely impossible.

I'll agree to one thing though: It probably would be good if feature descriptions were expanded. That is, that things like the "clickable cockpit" and the underlying modeling in the A-10C is made more explicit, whereby lack of such a feature listed also becomes more descriptive. ...except, this is already done. http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/products/

Okey, but then, what are the TWO (2) categories? Like I said: 1) Aircraft with AFM, advanced hydraulics etcetera, but no "clickable cockpit" and simpler avionics. 2) Aircraft with everything A-10C has, but no AFM. ...where do they fit? Should we force 3rd parties (or ED itself, for that matter) to do only either-or? Either FC, or A-10C. But even that is getting muddied, since the FC aircraft are busy getting AFM's... The problem is that there are no two (2) categories. Different aircraft (ships, tanks, whatever) offer different possiblities for all kinds of reasons, including data availability, means that some things are possible for some, for others there are other things that are possible. The A-10A you are talking about has been given an Advanced Flight Model derived from the one made for the A-10C. I assume you agree the A-10C flight model is "high fidelity"? ;)

Let me turn that around to you a little: Even if you personally don't like the featuresets of FC3 aircraft or Combined Arms, you still benefit from them, because revenue from them goes towards improving the overall platform. Example: AFMs for A2A missiles? Paid for by FC3. Want ultra-real simulation of SAMs, tanks and naval units? CA paid for the requisite netcode reimplementation. Basically, without lower-fidelity products, the high-fidelity products would also suffer; in part because they actually tap different markets. There is a lot of people that are fine with learning "how to fly", but don't have the time or inclination (work, family etcetera etcetera) to put into learning the systems of an "A-10C quality product". (However, here I object to your use of the word "quality" - that's a separate characteristic, you are looking for the word "fidelity" or "realism" or "level of detail". Is War Thunder a low-"quality" product because it doesn't do what DCS P-51D does? No.) Just to point out that in your "perfect world", DCS World and it's "A10C quality product" would have less features than they do now. ;) Now, what would be the measure you would propose? Aside from clearly labeling some as "DCS" and others not? For example, FC3 is not "DCS" - it is "Lock On: Flaming Cliffs 3". The standalones are "A-10A: DCS Flaming Cliffs" (and yeah, perhaps that can add confusion) but the boxart makes a distinction: it's not "DCS Aircraft X", it's just "Aircraft X for DCS World" (which is a factual statement - if that was not there, people would complain (as they do) that they need more than just the aircraft download itself - ie, that they need DCS World. And remember, it's not an either-or. For example, is the A-10A of old "FC" level and not okey, but the A-10A that got an Advanced Flight Model good? What about an aircraft that has "A-10C quality" systems modeling, but no Advanced Flight Model? If you have a suggestion that covers all bases there, I'm sure everyone will be happy. But it isn't really an easy thing. PS. On Steam, the lower-fidelity modules are actually clearly stated as such on the product information page. Perhaps that should be migrated over to the ED site itself, I'll broach the subject.

Very true there. Most of my machine was bought in Feb 2011 (I think it was). Autumn of that year I got an addin sound card. Autumn 2012 I got an SSD and also reworked the cooling a bit. But it's all sitting in a computer chassis I bought in 2009, and the speaker system was purchased in 2006-ish. I've also spent about 400 dollars since 2011 on keyboards and mice...

Usually (all I've checked) this is because they get their speed through having a high-quality RAID controller onboard. So you could theoretically get exactly the same result through getting two SATA SSDs and pairing them up with a good RAID controller. (Which may or may not - usually not - be the software RAID controller available on most motherboards. As I think someone mentioned: wants to be sure the specific RAID controller doesn't end up blocking any of the necessary functions on the SSD.)

I've flown airliner routes that are about that range. They climb to 7000+ meters altitude specifically to - you guessed it - save fuel. ;) Also, don't forget one aspect of "climbing": yes, while climbing you are spending extra stored energy (fuel) to gain potential energy (altitude). But when you later descend, you are at that stage using some of this potential energy. So don't make the mistake of thinking that fuel expended to climb is "lost" as far as forward flight is concerned. Just make sure to make your future descent a well planned and efficient one. Jet fuel is indeed lighter than water. (As is gasoline, diesel, crude oil, petroleum-based lubricant oil etcetera. :) )

Heathen! EDI is the Enhanced Defence Intelligence that oversees and operates the second Normandy's weapons, electronic warfare etcetera in the Mass Effect trilogy. And as the coup de grâce: voiced by Tricia Helfer. "I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees..." Any other EDI is just a pale pretender. :P