Rick50
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Posts posted by Rick50
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Please don't be insulted by my suggestions, you probably already know these things, but wanted to ensure you get informed in case these were unknown to you:
Have you been using the aircraft's "Trim" function, to set up for landings? I just ask because if the plane, whether real or virtual, is not trimmed, you'll be fighting the controls when trying to do much of anything, especially landings! You might want to set up one of your joystick hat switches for the trim function if you have the money for a HOTAS.
Also make sure you use the landing flap settings, otherwise you run the risk of doing your landing approach too quick. and use the drogue parachute (in F-5E)
Maybe worth doing short flights, go up, engage one air target, drop a little iron, fire a couple rockets, and land... gain lots of experience in 20-30 minute sorties, get comfortable with the aircraft and the basic maneuvers. And then go from crawl to walking... and before you know it, you'll be ready to run! After that it'll get a bit pricey when you start adding more airframes to your hangar!!
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Then maybe let's use some creativity to 'bump' a topic: put a real nice screenshot of the aircraft into a post... and done!
Next time, the Streak Eagle, NASA's hotrod Eagles, and maybe the ASAT Eagle program!
An F-15C Eagle assigned to Kadena Air Base, Japan, takes off from the flightline at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, Aug. 17, 2021. Fighter jets from the U.S. Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force inventories gathered at the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex, a 77,000-square-mile airspace, Aug. 12-27, to simulate air combat scenarios to refine air tactics and joint operations. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christian Conrad)
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12 hours ago, Comstedt86 said:
Judging by their newsletter charts it's in between AH64 and 15E.
Ok, thanks for the update/clarification!
Edit:
That's especially good news, considering we aren't talking about the first or second patch, nor the multi-thread future!
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I'd suggest maybe just waiting to see the first reviews, see who is running similar hardware to you, and take note of their description of how it's performing. Or take your chances and dive in!
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31 minutes ago, Somu said:
My system consists of a 32 GB RAM and nvidia rtx 3080 graphics card. How does F4 affect the gameplay? I wonder if Heatblur can answer this. Thank you in advance
This isn't my information, but apparently "the Phantom module, in a heavy CPU-heavy combat scenario, performs worse than the Apache or Strike Eagle, but not by a massive margin"
That said, they are working to improve that performance. one way is that they have a fully multi-threading version in development, that significantly boosts performance. (I'm guessing we'll have to wait longer for that, probably for optimising, testing and bug hunting)
Before people start groaning, consider that this is bleeding-edge technology, simulation wise, and progress always demands more hardware performance. Every major leap in simulation has seen a major leap in hardware requirements. 10 years ago DCS didn't need anywhere near the power it needs today.... but look at the difference in modules from then to today! Even maps today require more power than they used to.
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I feel like we have beaten this horse well past expiration, it's now just mush to be washed away in the rain...
But... this is not really like building a house. At all.
99.9999999999999% of houses are built using the same cookie cutter designs, materials and techniques. Sure, European houses are slightly different from those in Japan, slightly different from North America... and African houses and huts are a bit different still. But none of these are unproven bleeding edge tech. It's the same as all the rest in your town or city.
Ok, there are some amazing one-off's being designed for extremely unique experiences, or for brand new-ish sustainable designs, either Net Zero, or Rammed Earth variants, or passive heating/cooling designs. But really, even those could be made by a good competent experienced home builder company, as long as there is solid input from the architect to help ensure the new unique bits are done properly.
Programming a full fidelity module for DCS though... I think it's a dive into the unknown. It certainly seems that way, even for experienced dev teams that have had success in the past, the past success isn't a guarantee of success in future... and it seems to me to not help at all at guessing it's release date. Look at the Phantom... wasn't long ago that people were debating a January or Feb release, but now it's slipping another 2 weeks. Even right at the finish line!
No excuses, I'm just wishing Magnitude 3 the very best at crossing the finish line, whenever that might happen!
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Also this is a recent vid too. Be sure to read the comments!!!
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How the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Works
55 minute run time. Two weeks old. Great explanations easy to follow.
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I don't see a technical reason why this wouldn't be doable, though I'm not in the industry.
However, I suspect that the biggest hurdle might be getting IP permission from Boeing, who may still be the rights holder. But maybe the rights are held by the Pentagon / USAF maybe? Have no idea about that.
I think it's a great idea, much better chance of becoming a module for sale, than say some other heavy bombers like the BUFF, Bone, Spirit, Backfire and whatnot. Even the Super Fort is not as sure as the Flying Fort!
I'm sure it's been proposed many times, but it's a great idea that merits serious consideration! I'm pretty sure that ED would love to tackle this one, if they have time when the time is right!
I also think the same about a potential Lancaster module... though the night flying might not have as much appeal to some players? I am curious about how many Mosquito DCS flyers do so in the dark?
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On 2/5/2024 at 2:07 AM, Nealius said:
There's a lot of nitpicks that take me out of "immersion," so to speak. The AN/M2 Brownings chugging at a Hollywood-slow rate of fire instead of the 850rpm they should be zippering at, ...
....., but the story itself is enjoyable.
True... that took me out of it a bit in the first and third eps. It's odd, because their set props are the aircraft 50's, with the barrel shrouds... but the sound has them using the cadence of an Army ground-use .50cal, which is deliberately much slower than the aircraft variants. Ground use has an extremely heavy steel barrel, to help with barrel stiffness when overheated, and slow to conserve rounds expended. Aircraft types had so much air cooling that the barrels were not in as much danger of overheating even when fired with high rates of fire, but also the air forces always needed high rates of fire for the one second the enemy was actually within distance and position to actually get a hit. This is something that their technical advisers ought to have caught, but ah well, lost information, and so few remaining who were in that era.
Still, the AN/M2 apparently is listed as between 600-800 rpm, which is quite a spread... and a very cold unit, after hours at high altitude, might not cycle as quick as it would at sea level... so maybe these scenes are not as unrealistic as I first imagined them to be?
It's worth noting that by the Korean war, the AN/M3, a close evolution of the AN/M2, upped the rate of fire to around 1100 rpm, apparently partly by adding an electrical motor to help move the belt quick enough to keep up with the Browning. This was needed badly during this time, as the fighter jets meant there was much less exposure time to hit the enemy at such dramatically higher speeds. These are still used today as helicopter armaments on so many different units, mostly those for hauling troops and sailors, SF and Coasties. The latest versions have a soft recoil cradle, that makes it easier for gunners to get effective even during a burst.
As for Masters, it's pretty decent... I was not aware of some of these missions they took on. And Butler has a very different presence in this show compared to Dune -Too: The Harkonen Strikes Back... worth seeing IMO.
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I have no idea why there's such a giant amount of time between the original announcement and today, or whether a release is imminent or another few years away.
And the critics are right, it's not the most friendly of PR to get so little idea of just how far or close a release might be.
In previous posts in this thread I just tried to provide context as to some of the things (not even all of the possibilities) that have caused problems for combat flight sim dev teams in the past. If that makes me a shill, then so be it. I disagree with that characterisation, but everybody''s entitled to their opinion.
The team out of Redmond Washington, flew three prop combat variants. But long, LONG before that, they were apparently working on, for the time (early-mid 1990's I think?), VERY ambitious jet vs jet combat flight sim. It was never announced, because the team didn't think it was anywhere near ready, and were very much not sure when, if ever, it would work on the hardware of the era or even what was in sight in future. The code was there, one description was that they were modelling the actual radar waves and how they interact with fire controls, and missiles and such. It was to be Mig-29 Fulcrum vs...a Viper or Hornet, I can't recall. I've no idea why it never got to the "release to public" stage... I kinda think that the computer hardware never could run the code without crashing or stuttering, or very poor framerates, might have been the problem, but that's just a raw guess.
What's my point about that? Simply that even a company/team with basically UNLIMITED budgets, resources and talent, a true giant in computer world, capable of greatness many times over, couldn't deliver a promising project that might have been phenomenal, if only one or a couple of factors were a bit different. Wisely, they decided to keep that project hush quiet until it looked to be on solid ground... and never achieved it.
As for the Magnitude Corsair module, the screens look amazing! And yes, I think it's still gonna be a wait before it comes to the ED store. When it does, expect a bunch of tweets, posts in forums, vlog reviews and intros on Youtube.
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8 hours ago, Lionel Mandrake said:
I'm under no obligation to buy the thing they are selling either.
It's a fundamental tenet of business to convince your customers to buy your product.
Keep everyone happy, put out an update every week/fortnight ( whatever form that may take). It's not that hard.
If you're not interested in updates then it's no skin off your nose, it takes nothing from anyone and only value adds.
- so very true, no obligation for you to buy. Nor any obligation for you to wait with zero patience in the form forever disapointed. Also no obligation for you to provide marketing advice. Say what are your credentials in marketing?
- maybe "business" is not their focus or goal. Maybe they are artists, hobbyists. But there is no need to convince customers when you don't yet have a product to sell
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“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.”
― John Lydgate - not true in every case. Generally yes I'd agree. But when updates are unnecessary, they can often become monotonous, and start to breed resentment.
Look, if patience is not your thing, or uncertainty as to whether the product will arrive anytime soon, then I suggest other things to occupy your time.
We live in a time of amusement abundance. More movies and TV shows, more books both fiction and non, more sports, more clubs to join, more DCS modules, more DCS maps than at any previous time in history... try a few of those.
Although it's already a bit cringy, "touch grass" might be worthwhile for all of us to do more often!
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13 hours ago, Gunfreak said:
If all developers (ED included ) just followed the example of Grinnelli Designs for the F100 or FlyingIron Simulations A7 there would almost never be a problem. Its amazing how some developers easily mange to make good useful updates every few months. While others can't manage even 5% of that transparency.
Uhm…. , neither are examples. A successful example would be one that didn’t cause upset until release to the public, and as far as I know, neither has become a public available paid module.
This is isn’t any slight or criticism of Grinnelli Designs, but in a way they are in the same boat as Magnitude, in that they have projects in the works. Later, say after a SEA map is being enjoyed, Grinnelli might be facing the same kinds of criticisms.
13 hours ago, Gunfreak said:Transparency is always good.
The "when we have news we will share it" policy just makes things needlessly complicated. Literally 5 minutes of typing every 3 months would make the entire ED forum far less antagonistic.
From the point of view of the masses, yes, transparency always looks good.
But, sometimes I’ve seen transparency go bad. Often, people will look at the transparency… and start to make assumptions. Leaps to conclusions. Misread the situation, often wildly. Then, further updates cause the assumptions people to REALLY lose their minds… then they think people are lying, that they are being gaslit. Then they get upset. Forever. And then the ETA's slip 6 months. Then a year, then 4 years.
That just happened to a couple of people in my own work place.
Sometimes there IS such a thing as "oversharing", to avoid misunderstandings.
13 hours ago, Gunfreak said:And when your products often sell based on word of mouth. Not hiding from you customers is probably good.
There is also a world of difference between a module that has been in development less than 2 years and one that has been in development for 8.
True. But NO ONE cares about word of mouth before a DCS release. It's literally a non-factor.
The brave/rich ones buy the first batch of modules, before the first patch. They make posts and vids about the upsides to the modules, the downsides, the bugs that need fixing, the framerate performance over this map and that map. Multiplayer performance, does something feel “off” about the experience.
Then the second wave buys, based on the views of the first buyers. They continue to talk about hardware and framerate performances, so that the frugal virtual aviators can make a truly informed decision with their limited funds.
And none of them will care that updates were few and far between during it’s development time. They will care if it’s bug free, if framerates are pretty good on their hardware.
Magnitude 3 is not the product, the Corsair module is the product people will be talking about.
It’s the product that matters, and updates aren’t the product.
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5 hours ago, billythebassman said:
I won't reward developers who show this kind of contempt for the community.
Oh, ok.
Yes, that must be it: the people making the thing you so wanted, are just wanting to piss you off and not get any accolades or money for their efforts. It's just about insulting you.
Uh.... not sure how that makes any sense, but you keep it real bro! It couldn't possibly be any of the other reasons projects get stalled and delayed.
I've no idea why it's taking so long. But past experience with combat flight sim industry information releases tells me it's downright amazing the number of things that can go wrong for dev teams in the past. Members get cancer. Members quit in order to try to save their disintegrating marriage. Members get promotions at work, and suddenly find they have much increased workload and responsibilities that just overwhelm them and stop their dev contributions cold.
Internal members sabotage. Hard drives fail. Residence burns down or floods. A key member of the team gets hired by another team and leaves. The team gets a cease and desist order from the legal team of a rights holder, threatening to sue the team right out of existence. A bug in the programming just can't be fully resolved without breaking two more things. That problem might take 9 months to find a work around or solution. A disagreement in the team: absolute perfection above all else, while other team members have a clear and reasonable idea about "good enough, close enough to perfection". They run out of money to keep developing, and need to focus on feeding their families.
Every single one of these situations is one that I read about from combat flight dev teams that shared their experiences, over the last two decades. These aren't hypothetical.
I'm sure this is a labour of love for the team. And it's quite possible that maybe they took on more than they thought they were.
Maybe it'd be better for devs to not even bother informing the public about new projects until they are released. That way you don't get upset. In this case, maybe "ignorance is bliss" might hold true. Not saying you are ignorant, just that maybe you don't have the patience to wait for projects that don't come fast and furiosa?
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On 2/21/2024 at 5:05 PM, Elwood_Blues said:
ITS NEVER OVER!!!
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor??
NO!!
Its not over till WE say its Over!!!
LOL!!
I knew I heard it, but had to giggle search it!
Oh yea, and Go Team Magnitude!!
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YES!!!
Yes there is hUge news for the Euro-Phoon !
Ty-Thousand? Tornado ECR v6.9 ?
Heatblur said that once they "done" with the Phant-gun EF-4e, they will tell us "a lot more about Canard-Scooter!"!!!
Ok, I'm probly paraphrasing a bit too much, but yea, as work in Phantoms slows down, the '2000 will start to really get rolling! Not sure about other projects HB announced, like the AI A-6E, Naval Phantom, A-6 full module, and... uh... I think there was rumor-talk of them having a rotor module some time in future?
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Saw this a few days ago, a lot of info about the Phantom module from Heatblur, just occurred some of you might want to watch it, yes it's the Kiowa Warrior in the thumbnail but trust me there's a lot of Phantom content.
Apparently the Phantom module was 5 times more complex/difficult to do compared to the F-14 module... !!!! (wat teh ?!!)... I wonder if it's because there was less computers to assist the crews?? Dunno.
Oh, and the Kiowa is now in testing with ED's external test team, if that interests you, check out this other thread below and discuss it there (link in the spoilers), not in this thread which is Phabulously Phantom Phreindly!! (And this thread is about Heatblur's product, not flingwings)
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Sorry, forgot to provide a source!
"ED advised that the aircraft from Polychop is now in testing by ED's external testing team"
They also said they fully intend to further update and support the Gazelle, good news for those that bought the earlier product!
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On 2/10/2024 at 3:55 AM, Andrew8604 said:
From the GIB pictures, it's basically just a big-ass, gas-guzzling, faster, F-5E (or F) with a proportional ordnance increase, AIM-7s, and a radar that has a few more modes and longer range...I hope a longer range.
Aint nuthin wrong wit that !!!
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Heard a day ago that Kiowa has just started testing with ED's external test team... a good sign I'd say!!
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On 1/29/2024 at 2:59 PM, Talvid said:
If you're going to make a fictional map. I would suggest a map on the planet Mars, in the future when it has been terra-formed. Imagine the physics differences of lesser gravity. Assume that humans have managed to cultivate an atmosphere of similar composition of gases Nitrogetn Argon and Oxygen like on Earth. While you're at it, please make an underground airbase, where the runway is actually underground and there's only about 1/4 mile of it protruding out into the open air, so we must land on it and coast into the cave that houses hangars, and maintenance stations-all the things you would need at an airbase. The takeoff would be awesome, running up to speed from inside a lamp-lit cave/bunker and rotating up when reaching the open end of the tunnel.
I think both "A-10 Cuba!" and a few iterations of X-plane had Mars flight... In Xplane they even offered custom planes to have fun in flying around Mars! The result was real flight.... but you also saw it was not especially practical for the real world! I think Cuba! might not have had Mars specifically, but a couple of space-themed multiplayer envioronments with asteroids and such.
12 hours ago, One Eyed Ross said:So, with the F-4U in the pipeline, and the WW2 Marianas Map coming....for those of us that love the PTO, could we throw in a Solomon Islands map on the Wish List for "some day"? Would be great to fly the slot from Henderson up to Bouganville, or even New Britain. That whole area was massively important during the war....
Yep, great idea. Actually already suggested!
Two things to consider before holding your breath though:
- that area is WAY larger than any other map in DCS
- huge amount of forests and foliage, thus facing the same rendering bottleneck as a Korea or Vietnam map.
However, Kola map appears to have a large area, and most of it forested heavily... so this might be solvable already
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Mirage III
in RAZBAM
Interest in aircraft for DCS of the Cold War era seems to be accelerating, all the more reason to push harder for SOMEONE, ANYONE to bring us a 60's Mirage !!\
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On 1/11/2024 at 5:57 AM, rkk01 said:
Genuinely don’t understand the desire for a global map…
Sure, fair question!
Ok, how about instead of a somewhat sterile environment... instead you have a dynamic campaign? And/or a "game Dungeon Master" who is manually adding AI units and giving them commands, to an ongoing battlespace. (Sorry, I'm not into D&D myself but thought that was the best descriptor). The extra space allows for special operations sneak attacks on the rear echelon, in regions that simply don't exist in DCS right at this time.
Another reason is that DCS is evolving. Not in a bad way, but there are new types on the near horizon. For a long time, you only had trainers, and "basic" fighters, and a couple of warbirds. Today, there's a whole squadron of warbirds, a whole squadron of Gen 4 fighters, a whole squadron of transport AND attack helicopters, soon many Cold War birds will appear, starting with the Phabulous Phantom ... and soon we'll get logistic units in the forms of Mighty Chinook, C-47 Dakota, and Super Hercules. The Hercules' range and combat radius exceeds all the maps we have. Add in air to air refuel, and it's hobbled massively by the maps.
Similarly, there are many AI aircraft that have radius and range FAR exceeding today's maps. I think of the B-52 and B-2 especially, but the Galaxy, Bear, Bone, the big Antonovs... all have absolutely MASSIVE fuel range. We'll probably need KC-10 and KC-46 at some point.
Future possibilities for DCS flyable modules, featuring longer range aircraft, when DCS gets a global map, could include the A-6 Intruder, F-111 Vaark, SU-24 Fencer, B-17 Flying Fort, Lancaster, C-17 and IL-76, and "maybe" the TU-22M Backfire but that might be too complex and have issues with Russian MOD.
Maybe you want nothing to do with these "boring" aircraft, and rather scream around at Mach 2 with your hair on fire, but I bet there's a lot of potential new customers who would want to fly the interesting but maybe a little more calm missions. Meaning, it'll be good for ED and the 3rd party module makers, but also good for the world environment, the immersion factor... it also gives more missions for the fighter pilots, having to escort the defenceless aircraft, not in single scripted mission, but as a real matter of saving your logistical tail from being wiped out, perhaps leading to a surprise early end to the campaign!!
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So the new Fulcrum.... is that in-house ED project?
And what changed? I mean, there was Russian Ministry of Defense... then Mikoyan IP permissions... curious what happened!
Does this mean an FF Flanker could be developed???
Whats the status?
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I'd completely agree with you for 99% of situations. But programming aircraft flight dynamics for DCS ? Programming radar behaviour for DCS ?? Both those positions require people who not only understand the subject matter to a high degree, but then to know and successfully code it into DCS, and then fix whatever bugs and unintended side issues...
... meaning, sure, out there is surely someone else who can professionally fill those positions... but people with both of those skills and knowledge is going to be exceedingly rare. Also, those that CAN effectively do that work, likely already have jobs in this area (or something similarly complex but in another, higher paying career), with projects/aircraft aleady deep in development.
So while they "could" be replaced, certainly not impossible, but finding the right candidates would maybe be REALLY difficult.