Buying Beta

Please feel free to move this post if it's in the wrong place.

Quick question...since flying way back in the days when my first flight simulator was Fly! for Mac and the numerous attempts at reviving MSFS through the eons, whenever I saw a model posted as available but still in beta I never bit.

My reasoning was I'd spend more time hair pulling than enjoying the aircraft itself. Quite a few modules listed here are for sale and in beta. Now I know the more people who fly an aircraft in beta gives the devs the upper hand for squashing bugs, etc. so things (supposedly) would move quicker to the final release. How well are all the devs and their certified charges at going from beta to final release? Should I still steer clear of beta releases for the above reasons and just wait for the final product? I'm leaning that way. Typically, what is the average time an aircraft spends in beta on DCS?

Just wondering as I have never purchased a beta before and was wondering what I was in for.

The Beta tag is a bit random, they're not all created equal, especially with 3rd parties getting into the mix. I have most modules and I am/have been pretty satisfied with them.

The FC3 fighters were noticeably Beta at release with strange flight model quirks, like the F-15 liking to randomly trim itself to be nose heavy. At the moment it's working quite well, though there is a bug with fuel tanks with the current patch.

MiG-21 was a little different. At every patch, it's felt like a working product to me, but early on it wasn't really all that reflective of the MiG-21. It was a bit lethargic when it came to flying. It also had the biggest FPS impact of any 3D model. Both of these have been resolved.

The F-86 was a pretty smooth beta module, though I think I may have spent a bit less time with it. I don't really remember any major issues, besides gun smoke FPS drop and that's an engine thing which should be addressed with DCS 2.0.

All in all, from my own experience, if you really like a certain module, getting it in beta shouldn't be an issue. The biggest problems get ironed out within a couple of months. The ever expanding nature of DCS means that a module can't even really be free of bugs, but all the mature modules that I own are easily what I'd call playable on a daily basis.

If you really want to play it safe, the forums for each module will probably have mentions of bugs from users and possibly change logs if they were patched. Read those and assess for yourself.

Thanks for the input! Definitely food for thought! Seems like then even with a module termed "beta" compared to others in sims they seem already one step ahead in ways.

Some obvious things that you might expect to be missing from a beta ...

- a full manual

- a full campaign

- training missions

- non-critical but important functionality (stuff you would definitely want in the release version)

among others

Agree to most of the stuff above.

As mentioned above both Belsimtek and Leatherneck released pretty solid products. I have flown the UH-1H, the Mi-8, the F-86 and the MiG-21 all from day 1. All of the products had some bugs and also all of their flight modells were adjusted (normaly just minor changes though, except the UH-1H, which got improved (more realistic) over time), however I never got the impression: "this is a buggy mess". Yes, some things don't work and there might be a problem here and there, however well within reasonable limits.

And if you don't try to destroy a whole army in your first flight, but instead go ahead and try and learn to properly fly the aircraft, which, if done at least to a somewhat consistent level, takes some couple of evenings worth flying, you probably won't even see those problems anyway.

Also, it depends on the time you buy a beta product. While at the initial stage, you personally might want to wait because of the reasons you mentioned. However after a couple of weeks most of the bugs are fixed and the beta products are at pretty solid level. This is for example true for both the Mi-8c the F-86 and MiG-21 that all have been in beta for some time now.

I would not say "you buy a beta", you pre-purchase a product and get access to the open beta - at the end you have buy the final product.

Yes you don,t have to use it til it's released if you don't want to but buying An open beta very often gives a boost to the income of the dev.

Of course flying it gives you feedback on if you like the module plus if you do bug tracking and feedback helps them to iron out bugs that sometimes only show on 1 or 2 types of comp or GC.

@ Kontiuka, try Where am I, Where is it, Where are they...lol

Some obvious things that you might expect to be missing from a beta ...

 

- a full manual

- a full campaign

- training missions

- non-critical but important functionality (stuff you would definitely want in the release version)

 

among others

Just want to make this clear: This is no standard by any means. Some betas have those things, others don't. Like Exorcet said the beta tag is a bit random but in general the betas are pretty solid. They are certainly more solid than final releases of many other games out there!

^

true. maybe should have bolded might expect.

My take on it has always been if I am going to buy a module eventually, then I always buy the Beta so I can enjoy it sooner and for a longer time... (and this also supports the devs as well by getting cash in their hands sooner) For the record, I have not been disappointed with any of the betas and yes they all have had some issues, but most of them have been small items that I was OK to live with...

As stated I will buy beta for any of the modules I intend to purchase anyway, and if in the future one of them is broken to the point that I don't want to mess with it.. I won't.. I would just stop using it until the issue that was causing me pain is fixed..

In my mind I really can't lose either way and so far I have enjoyed all of them especially the helicopters and the HAWK..

(Sabre kicks ass as well)

:thumbup:

The only thing that is "Beta" is "DCS World". The "A10c" has been around for a long time now. So it is stable and has had the least updates or patches as they are for the most part ironed out already.

If U want stability go for the A10c it has the best and longest track record for DCS.

Remember DCS Worlds sandbox model is the reason for the beta tag. not the modules themself.

I would not say "you buy a beta", you pre-purchase a product and get access to the open beta - at the end you have buy the final product.

True. That was my meaning anyways...I just mistated myself.

Thanks again! Very good points. Agreed, from what I can tell the A-10C seems to be the really has it's act together in terms of being tried and true in all respects.

Thee beta releases seem to be far ahead even though still in beta compared to others in other sims that weren't even half finished resulting in more fun factor than stress factor

The devs seem to follow up pretty closely on reported issues in a timely manner

Able to report issues owning a beta release and helping solve possible issues for devs sooner than waiting for final release

All valid points.

So would you say from beta to final what has been your experience here amongst the developers in terms of time frames? Several months?