Rick50

But how would we replicate "Moscow to Minsk" without Moskva?? (jk!) Actually I quite like your map proposal! I think there's a LOT of potential for fictional and historical scenarios... not sure how much actual historical from WW2 but there could be many "semi-fictional what-if WW2" scenarios. Then Cold War scenarios could be very numerous and varied with those locations, with some interesting gameplay, I think. The huge problem is your proposed map size, which today is about 1400km by 1400km, where most DCS maps today are roughly 550km by 550km, that's a MASSIVE jump in data for the map and game engine. But in future this should be doable, not sure how far into future, but maybe 3 to 5 years I think. Might take that long to get such a map in the store anyway.... but I do like your proposal!

I vaguely seem to remember some people saying the TM stick is made of... "zamak" or something? Never heard of it myself before or since. A metal that I think can be injection moulded or die cast without too much trouble. I think it's zinc with some other material, maybe a filler? Injection moulding for low manufacturing expense, but with the feel of a higher quality metal grip. I remember a while ago reading on the board here that real Hornet sticks are made with a high strength (obviously aerospace grade and strength) resin, but that might not have always been the case for "every" Hornet ever put into service. I did get the impression that at least a few real sticks on Hornets did get a paint layer applied, that might start wearing off after many years of use. I believe Canada's earliest Hornets are near 40 years old now! Edit: found "zamak"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamak ZAMAK (or Zamac , formerly trademarked as MAZAK[1]) is a family of alloys with a base metal of zinc and alloying elements of aluminium, magnesium, and copper. The name zamak is an acronym of the German names for the metals of which the alloys are composed: Zink (zinc), Aluminium, Magnesium and Kupfer (copper). The New Jersey Zinc Company developed zamak alloys in 1929. The most common zamak alloy is zamak 3. Besides that, zamak 2, zamak 5 and zamak 7 are also commercially used. These alloys are most commonly die cast. Zamak alloys (particularly #3 and #5) are frequently used in the spin casting industry. A large problem with early zinc die casting materials was zinc pest, owing to impurities in the alloys. Zamak avoided this by the use of 99.99% pure zinc metal, produced by New Jersey Zinc's use of a refluxer as part of the smelting process. Zamak can be electroplated, wet painted, and chromate conversion coated well. Common uses for zamak alloys include appliances, bathroom fixtures, and die cast toys. Zamak alloys are also used in the manufacture of some firearms.

Database. This is too much data, too many options and settings, for our normal brains to figure out. This requires the scientific method, and data collection into a proper database/spreadsheet, with a few experts in the subject to analyse and interpret the collected data into conclusions that can be implemented by both ED and the end users (us). Without a spreadsheet to look at, to compare and contrast... we are in the dark really. I do not know really how to implement this, but I'd start with colaborating on how to measure consistently, so that end users can enter in baseline FPS averages to compare, along with every setting they have turned on or off. It won't be simple, it won't be easy, but there's too many variables to isolate without doing something along these lines. I'd start with making some fairly basic missions, or picking existing SP missions that everyone can easily fly, in the most commonly available aircraft. From that, enter in EVERY single in-game setting for graphics, all hardware specs and drivers. Then replay the same mission, but with a specificly created set of "lower ingame settings", and report your results. Then replay the mission once again, but with a specific created "higher ingame settings" that at least a few users have had fantastic results with, and report the results. From that data, if analysed well, one ought to see that a few settings might have unusually compromised the experience, resulting in a few recommendations for settings changes. Re-run the results in a new round, call it test V2, and see if it results in better results without hardware changes. Or start anew with your new hardware change, say maybe 4x more main board RAM, or a GPU card upgrade, or CPU card upgrade. But the focus ought to be more about software settings, trying to measure stutters and hickups, game/server crashing, framerates and so on. Sorry, I've no real idea how to fully implement. But I'd expect it will involve several high knowledge users on this board and in this thread, colaborating to figure out the baseline tests. These people would figure out all the questions for users to answer, and how to express that data in a form easily entered into a database. Then the database: other (or same) people to help set up a fairly complex online spreadsheet to handle the results, and then for highly knowlegeable about game engines and all the various settings and how they impact the experience, to interpret which settings and changes provide the best improvements, and then share those conclusions in a form easy for the average user to understand and implement. Maybe a PDF with a step by step group of recommendations to optimise. This ought to be a working group primarily made up of DCS users, but open to ED employees and 3rd party dev members to help contribute if they choose to offer their time. I don't think it would be easy or quick, but this would benefit the entire community, and help improve the future of DCS, ED and it's 3rd party devs, because it would make it easier for customers to quickly acheive a positive experience with a minimum of effort on settings, resulting in keeping a new customer, than risking losing that customer after just a few months of frustrations. They say in business that it's FAR cheaper to KEEP an existing customer, than to gain new customers to replace lost customers. If the community can help keep n00bs happy and engaged, then it brightens the future for these niche complex simulations. Maybe with the changes that are ongoing, such as a new major engine upgrade (say when we get DCS V3.0 or implmentation of Vulkan, or maybe a GPU driver upgrade), if the results suggest a significant change in what is recommended, a new pdf version with new recommendations gets published by the group.... this might happen once a year, more likely as needed, after significant changes result in a change to recommended settings, which might be regular or even rarely needed changes. Without such a database, it's just random shots in the dark, an occasional lucky result. And many who don't get a lucky result, and no idea what to try. Then again, I've no clue really, it's just the thought I had when reading this thread a half hour ago.

No one mentioned maps, but just looking at Bing maps, I see the island of Papua/ New Guinea is... larger than I thought! It's too large for the DCS map sizes of today (which seem to be roughly about 550x550 km). On the New Guinea side from the border to the Eastern tip is about 1050km. The whole island, from tip to West Papua is about 2200 km in width. Not that we need the map to be that large to represent a particular battle or two, but a quick check of campaign maps shows that most Allied movments stretched the entire length of the north side of the island. On the other hand, the Solomon Islands are individually much smaller, Guadalcanal being only 130km wide. Now... it might be possible to fit the entire Solomon Islands onto a current DCS map, even if the actual area is much larger than normal, simply because even with each island, probably around 90% of such a DCS map would be water, much like the Mariannas map, but with a lot more and larger islands.

Weather is not the map, but ED's doing. And they gave us a good upgrade with 2.7 Someone created fires with black smoke for a few missions in the Persian Gulf map...

And the Riverine boats and ship:

Thank you Dragon, that's what I was going off memory! Here's a typical VN era B-52D configuration: So these are the earlier "D" variant, compared to the H in the DCS AI. These older units feature a very tall tail, which got clipped shorter in later variants. They also don't have the chin or nose sensors, so the side profile at the front is much more graceful looking. Another feature unique to the era, was the "Big Belly conversion", which enabled more of the smaller conventional bombs, 500lb and 750lb bombs to be carried in large numbers for "carpet bombing" techniques. This added large bomb racks on the two wing pylons, and probably other internal bomb bay modifications too. They also seemed to use a much larger exterior fuel tanks than on newer units... the ones during VN war seemed to almost be the size of an F-104 Starfighter! I'm guessing that was as a result of the need to do round-trips from Guam Andersen AFB to Hanoi and back, without any tanker support needed. It's possible that those larger tanks were replaced possibly due to reduced need, more tanker support, wanting to reduce wing loading and stress over time to save the airframes? I beleive in those days you had a tail gunner actually sitting in the tail, in the window canopy. This was before the Vulcan 6 barrelled units, I think these used four separate guns... the text there says .50cals but I thought they were 20mm, guess my memory isn't so hot anymore! As you can see, even from quite a distance, they have a fairly obvious and different look to these "D's" than the more modern "H" models, which is one reason I'd love to see these older units in-game!

Agreed, it would be good to have a playground for all the cool older toys! As for AI, I do remember they were talking about upgrading AI units some more, some in use today date back to the original "Su-27 Flanker" simulation of the mid-1990's... or maybe it was from the first Lock On from around 2002 or so. But they did talk about how it was a matter of priorities and finding employee time to make those nicer newer models, and that it would take quite some time to upgrade all the older AI units. I personally wonder if it might be good to add upgraded AI models made by DCS user artists... but it takes some knowledge to make AI models that won't choke people's systems... carefully choosing the model LOD's. To me, one of the most glaring AI units, for the 1960's and 70's would be the B-52, because the DCS AI B-52 looks like an H model, while in those days the common one was the tall shark tail D's, some painted with black undersides, some with camoflage up sides, giant wing tanks, no chin sensors. Some were painted white underneath with bare metal for the nuclear SAC role, which means upgraded textures for PBR. Maybe, just maybe, such a model could be "donated" to ED, so that it's incorporated into the sim default units for all to share in missions... rather than "why don't my B-52's show up?" "did you download the mod?" "oh wait, it's not working on mine either" "I can't download the mod, where can I get it?". Other cold war AI units that could use a facelift include the Tupolev Bear, with modern reflective textures for the bare aluminum. Then for VN scenarios, add some of the riverine boats, and floating base platforms, that small boats would go to replenish, and have helis based on them (Monitors?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitor_(Vietnam_War) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Riverine_Force

Sure, I think there was one already, or maybe it's still in development maybe. And it was the Caucasus, same landclass, but new building textures, I think they replaced the trees with palmtrees, added some objects, some billboards of the 1960's VN war era, think they might have changed the general color palete to be brighter, more vivid... I'll have to look in the mods subforum

It is? My interpretation of that post in the screenshot, is that internally they are "talking" about it. . I infer that this means they are talking about if: - it's possible in this current game engine, or maybe wait for the next generation of "DCS engine" - if gaming pc's will be able to handle the whole globe, or even just larger regions - if they have the human and financial resources to actually make such huge maps - what the sales gains might look like, best case worst case, and whether there is significant risk of lack of ROI - Maybe they are running some tests, to see if a global map could run with high FPS and stable for 12+ hours without crashing the server A test might involve a temporary "tying" all the current maps together to make a very large map, then maybe duplicating that a second or third time, to make a single map the size of a continent, and see what it's like with a couple dozen players and lots of AI units battling it out. Confirmation of "early stages" is, IMO, not confirmation that "global" will happen. There's all sorts of reasons why this might not be practical. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see larger maps, regions instead of 'maps'. I'd love to see the whole world modeled. But to me, "early stages" does not mean confirmation of a product that will reach the store, but rather that they are trying to see if it's workable, or laying the early groundwork for a long term project.

One thing to consider is that a Vietnam map may well take far more work hours to complete, given the extremely high object count it would have, the millions of elevation changes and trillions of palm trees, AI boats, riverside hamlets, city buildings that would be unique from the other maps... Not saying impossible or impractical, just being realistic about the workload, which means the development time will likely be either a lot longer, or require a lot more creators/artists to model all these objects and then place them all on the map. How long did the Syria map take to make? About 2 years? I'd expect map of Indochine to take at least a year longer. Unfortunately this object density issue may also apply to other maps, like a Korea map that many of us want to see.

Thank you both for your insights, makes a lot of sense to me.

I like that they want to do Full Fidellity Fulcrum (FFF ? F3 ? Fast Furious Flying?), but I do hope they get permission at some point to make a Full Fidellity Flanker too! I mean, I get that the Russian ministry of defense would want to keep some tactical secrets and all, but... surely 1980's fighter tech ought to be ok to share with the public by now? Or maybe I'm missreading the situation: are 1980's era Flankers, basically unmodified since factory (or near to it with only minor upgrades), still forming the backbone of frontline fighters in Russia in 2021 ? I mean, I would have expected many Flankers still in service, but also just kinda assumed some significant upgrades in radio encryption, EW suite, countermeasures, maybe some datalink retrofit upgrades... but I now wonder if maybe the service and nation maybe just didn't have the money for upgrades like that? And maybe a similar situation for Fulcrums too?

"they promoted me to Captain and two seconds later my ship ran aground! It's a conspiracy I tell you!"

LOL!! "DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!!"

Thank you for the description!

ooooohh... ok I think I get it. Because altghough that's one texture, it's the colors for many different parts, each that is a different shape... so the UV describes that from these pixels to those pixels on the texture, are for this part here that is this shape... the other part is for a different shape. Is this correct?

I dunno... might have something to do with ultra violet colors and reflectivity for PBR textures maybe?! That Bat bomb is... WILD! Had no idea it even existed at all... like a Harpoon missile, but glider form, and double the boom! So I'm guessing the main reason it was put under the Corsair, was the extra ground clearance for such a large piece of ordnance, thanks to the bent-wing configuration?? It's funny how an engineering compromise for a very large propeller and smaller gear, results in a happy marriage with an oversize self-guided glider...

Don't worry about the impatient.... just make the best product you can, and try ensure a minimum of bugs, the rest will sort itself out just fine!

Hmm, maybe the Luftwaffe has lent him a Eurofighter to store in the barn instead!

You are probably correct on all of that. My question is... is it wise? I mean, airline pilots aren't paid for watching the FMS do it's thing. They are paid to notice when things go wrong, horribly wrong, and react well using their knowledge and experience to salvage what they can to save lives. They are paid to deal with high traffic airspaces. Engine failures, fuel loss. Flameouts causing loss of control. Navigational issues. And dealing with such things, I personally would want two brains in the cockpit rather than one. The communication between the two, the unique experiences the two have, make for a wider set of skills. For instance, fuel loss turning an airliner into a larger glider than the Space Shuttle, has happened twice to Canadian airliners. AFAIK, both crews had one pilot who had extensive experience flying gliders... which translated into successful emergency landings, instead of complete loss of life. Sure, I'm no expert and I only provide two examples, but despite the cost, I think two minds are better than just one. When those two pilots' salaries are shared among 200-500 passengers, I dont' think it's rediculous to expect. It just seems to me that the airlines are wanting to cut expenses, with no real benefit to offset this.

A couple of guesses: It won't be on sale for a few years. Look for at least Hornet pricing, maybe even a little higher. If it's less, then be thankful! Early Access may take quite some time to finish.

Ok Fragger, tell THE TRUTH: You have one of these in the barn behind your house, don't you?!? Please tell me I can come visit, I promise not to crash it!

Agreed. Fly to the edges of the PG or Caucasus maps, and you'll find a baren wasteland resembling the arctic circle, north of the tree line... low poly hills, dead flat areas, few if any trees, few roads... Also, with the South Atlantic map... it's not released. We have no idea what framerates will be like in the final product, nor what terrain size will actually feature in the final product. Will it handle many in multiplayer and still give good framerates, with a milion square KM's ?? How about a full muliplayer campaign? Without crashing your computers? I think the jury is still out on that one, at least until RAzbam delivers on that map, whatever year that might be... maybe they are waiting on hardware upgrades too! Also consider that, at least from what I saw in pictures and descriptions from the war, those islands don't have trees, or at least not many trees. And very very few objects or details... maybe less than 1000 houses, the greatest complexity being Port Stanley, which seems to be little more than a sleepy small town in those days. So for pure object details, I'll bet the Falklands map would have roughly the detail that a single square kilometer of city detail from the Syria map, like Damascus or Beirut. I'd expect a Vietnam map would have higher object counts through the entire map, than Damascus or Beirut, which would affect framerates, and the ability to have multiplayer in an enjoyable result. Takes time to develop a map for DCS, I think Mariannas map took 1.5 years from announcment to download, but might have been longer. Thing is, as nice as that map is... 99% of it is water. Not complaining, it's nice and free, just saying that for a Vietnam map that will satisfy, will require a LOT of time and resources to make, and then will take a lot of computer and GPU to render it smoothly in an airland battle... smoke, rockets, miniguns spraying everywhere, jets and Hueys galore! Add in a million trees, rivers, traffic, AAA and SAM nets, thousands of elevation changes. That would likely cripple today's gaming rigs.

Even if your assumptions are correct... so what? Maybe they don't have two pennies to rub together. Maybe they are starving students with none of daddy's money to buy them BMW's... and are trying to start a successful business while also doing school workload. They might not have even had the money to buy computers themselves! They might be using the school's computers. You might think that's "cheap cheap cheap"... but to me that demonstrates perceverence in the face of obstacles and adversity. Businesses don't succeed just because they spend lots of money... spending is not always "investment". But spending might not have even been an available option to this team. To me that makes it more impressive, to accomplish this product! I don't believe ED would care too much about how much or how little Ugra feels about spending or investing, I think both companies ARE focused on a quality product. So with the location of that polytech school being much closer to Kazakstan than to Moscow (Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia)... I'm guessing that some of my assumptions might be correct. They likely don't have much money, which makes their Syria map even more impressive to me! Well, maybe with the success of the Syria map, maybe they do have a bit of money now!