Heli Shed

DCS - Digital Combat Simulator, a series of fantastic high fidelity and accurate advanced flight modelling study simulators, of the KA-50 Blackshark and the A-10C Thunderbolt II Warthog. It is the best there is available right now, of that there is no doubt. It has it's graphical glithces (particualry on the ground) that the community in general put up with because the former outweighs the later by a huge margin; that of the flight modelling to graphical anomolies. Of all the 'games' on the market, none come close. Sadley, the DCS Series commands but a tiny proportion of the market. Tiny proportion = less revenue; it is a specialised area. The reason for this is simply the complexity of the sim and the sheer tenacity required to become 'fairly' good at it all. To become good takes days, to become a master takes weeks, to become a demigod at it all takes months, to become a Tyger at it.....................ok,ok, no hate mails please. Fact of the matter is it requires a certain type of person to take to the DCS Series. The sort of person who isn't after a quick fix before he zipps off out to the youth club to snort bleach and shag his bird under a óne way'sign. It is a 'study sim' and as such commands that time and effort be presented to it, like some form of sacraficial presentation to maya gods on the steps of the Mayan Temple Pyramids! Not that we're complaining. Hell no. I'm over 40 and certainly don't frequent Youth clubs anymore nor snort bleach. As for the shagging, Well, i've been married 20 years so that went out of the window in week 3! This means that the average age of the DCS Series 'pilot' is a 'mature' age. It is also fair to assess that their lifestyle (and in most cases career) is as a professional, and is such that their time at home in the weekends and weekdays, is exactly that; at home, giving them the time they need to master the sims. What does this all mean? It means that a really small community support ED by purchasing their products. It means that the community are mature (although you wouldnt bloody believe it sometimes by our behaviour on ED's forums - posters and moderators alike) and professional. It means that the smallest of errors or instability with the sim is exacerbated into a huge monster by virtue of the small crowd that frequent the metaphorical 'grown up club' and the almost immediate reporting (neigh, whining?) of instability or glitches that we post on ED forums. As a former Tester i can assure you that no sooner have you compartmentalised a problem to find and pinpoint a specific 'trigger' that leads to the bug, then there are 10 more reported. It's a continual battle. When you Consider that a commercial organisation such as ED rely so heavily upon their testers to ensure that each patch released is 'the one' and that 11 patches later we have a product that is álmost' unplayable in MP and randomly CTD's in SP, and that the Testers are unpaid and selected by virtue of their ED Forum presence, content of posts made and their visibility; it is no wonder that the ever elusive stable version eludes us all. That's not to take anything away from the Testers. I'd buy them all a beer as would any of you, they try their utmost best but sadley, and more often than not, their efforts and logical approaches to identifying and compartmentalising the bug's for the attention and subsequent actions by the dev's, are no more founded than the majority of you could do. Some of them are coding and programming experts. some. Most of them are like us. Lovers of the DCS series, who are driven to try and make the whole thing better for all of us. For that, I and you, say fairplay and thanks. But is it enough? Why doesn't ED go extreme left or extreme right? Why not hire a company to bug fix (they do exist) so as to reach 'the one' or release versions on Open Beta to the community? This would raise the profile of the product by virtue of word of mouth, websites, new vfs's, youtube, etc etc and increase sales. Certainly not the case right now. Open up a donations area to help fund finding these bugs. you may well be surprised! Some may argue that it would take far too long to sift through the niff naff and trivia and identify those reports of bugs that demanded further investigation toward resolution, by using an open beta forum system. I suggest that this is the case anyway in the closed Testers forums and on ED's own bug tracking system and was certainly the case during the initial Open Beta phase or 'pre-release' as ED referred to it. Nontheless, valid and vital bugs were identified by the community during this time, reported and then confirmed by Testers and fixed by Dev's, before the RC was released. Where are we now? The bottom i believe. The very Bottom. VFS's and talented pilots are leaving the scene, opting for the reliability and relative stability of CLOD and BMS above and beyond that of the DCS series and it's future offerings. They'll pop back for sure to take a look at DCS Fighter or even the P-51 (what in gods name!), but once óne' bug rears it's ugly head, they'll be off again based on their experiences with FC2 server Hack, BS2 patch cost and the ridiculous 1.1.1.1 A-10C. Whomever was responsible for releasing that should engage more with their testers. They would not have advised against it being released, of that,.......i have no doubt. fact is, if there was somewhere else to go, most of us would. Thankfully for ED, most of us arn't.

I'm off back to Afghanistan on Op Herrick 16 early April now Paul, so I wont be able to provide the Livestream. However, Ells, who is now a full member after passing his Final Assessment this morning, has more than enough experience to carry the 74th Colours by sponsoring the event for Livestream. I will speak to him and get him to engage with you. Essentially, no change to the plan, it's just that it wont be my hardware doing it. I will suggest a time for evaluation of the 'stream' from Ells's system and connection. Regards 'T'

:thumbup:

http://www.freegameempire.com/games/1942-The-Pacific-Air-War

One of my members was the developer and producer of that sim. i'll pass this on to him. Hope all is well yoyo 'T'

Wrong thread ole chap!

gimp - wonderfull

"You must spread some reputation around again beofre giving it to Frostiken"

I'd pay a fortune for a copy that is stable, makes maximum use of cores and doesn't crash in either worldgeneral.dll, effects.dll, transport.dll or async.dll, (which incidentally, were the same problems from beta 1), a riddence of the Master Server list system and reliable and stable mp packets. Infact, i'd bet most of us would pay a fortune for it. keep waiting though. Good luck third party's, just don't get invoved in the back office!

use bullseye

Amazingly enough was a discussion that got rarther heated not so long ago, about the benefits of closed servers. So, i`m assuming that if you close your server and make the password available on Teamspeak, that this scripting hack cannot go on??

couldn't agree more! and I dont even fly FC2 anymore, only A-10C and BS2. fact is, if ED forums is supposed to be a 'formal support arm' of ED, then they better get a grip and start supporting. Fact is, they don't.

I'm just lost for words......truely. I'm assuming this is humour is it? The CBU 97 and 87 are two different beasts when fitted with the WCMD (Wind corrected munitions dispenser), become the 105 and 103 vairants, respectively.

I do and please forgive my flippancy. It was un-neccessary. a little guidance every now n then doesn't harm i suppose and actually avoids ambiguity for others. Regards 'T'

Thats a shame. Hows Panzer of late? Hope all is well. 'T'

Yeah come on matey, calm down. This is an International event for sure and we all are looking forward to it. Don't misconstrude my comment as a formal response but an observation. If your vfs is unable to engage targets using the methods that should be / dictated as per the event SOP, then perhaps reading the manual, researching and practicing should be your first port of call?? 'T'

On a serious note, what is ED's stance on this?

Well ok then. Lets see your wares ole boy..................:joystick: 159th not entering ?? seriously? 'T'

No problem.

yeah........................................ Why not just get them to do it for you too! :thumbup:

;-) Least we could do!

Copy, Thanks 'T'

Not too sure about the polka dot affair, but the remainder are wonderful. Nice work m8. 'T' PS: BTW LcSummers is not 74th vfs 'The Flying Tigers'

turn off HDR

Having seen the Real Horsemen fly at RAF Duxford and your videos i can only be in awe of your performances as i am of anyone who can fly aerobatically like that. Welcome. :thumbup: