Please be more open with information, or about broken code and secretive plans

This is sort of my usual dumb post. I am mainly supportive of DCS, I am working on my J-82 bombing as I write this (autopilot). I have at times been critical and had the occasional post deleted, all my fault. But this has been a good discussion, with give and take but mainly civil discourse. Thanks, I think this has been good for we users and I hope it has been good for DCS.

A little question for you NineLine as i didn't got any answer on facebook. Linked to the very first post subsections, "About comparisons and censorship" and "About an open communication".

Why is there such a massive gap between the aerobatic community and ED ? This community has been there since the very begining of LockOn, and always been very active organizing events and showing of what can be done in your flight sim.

However because some are flying mods aircraft this commnuity seems to be the bad duck of DCS. This is not our fault if those planes are not in the module list, so we just add them. But it doesnt stop us from using the modules too, we are not always just trailing smokes. And during events DCS still highly promoted, we just clearly explain that some planes are tuned but it doesnt stop people from getting interested into joining your DCS.

Many people/compagnies see interest into what this community does. From real air forces, real airshows, to air museums, compagnies that build the flight controls that everybody here use etc ... Even Heatblur were happy to do a solo demo at our main event last year !

In a way, aren't airshow one of the main tools that use air forces to promote the military aviation world ? Why ED is putting a point at not exchanging or sharing anything from our community, this is sad. DCS always been the best flight sim for this communty to perform, but with an old competitor flight sim raising his voice again, and our community still feeling not considered at all, a transition toward other opportunities is highly considered.

Thanks for your time.

Can I just say nice! and this is definitely what more people want vids showing how stuff like this is working and getting tweaked. And with any luck this will make its way towards weapons and visibility.

This video below is a good example of why things "take so long" in DCS in many cases because we try our very best to accurately simulate all aspects of flight, we try not to use scripting or special effects to make these things. It's why saying this or that sim does this, so should DCS, well there is a lot more going on under the hood than most if not all of those other sims.

 

Great, I look forward to the ECM/Radar/Sensor/missile/bomb/etc models with equal fidelity with bated breath.

But really 9L, sometimes I think the community wonders about priorities. Sure now we have a model that makes acrobatic flying more realistic and tanking harder, but I don't think too many people bought "Digital Combat Simulator" for the tanking practice, though I do know at least some guys do acrobatics in it but how long did it take to make that model?

Great, I look forward to the ECM/Radar/Sensor/missile/bomb/etc models with equal fidelity with bated breath.

 

But really 9L, sometimes I think the community wonders about priorities. Sure now we have a model that makes acrobatic flying more realistic and tanking harder, but I don't think too many people bought "Digital Combat Simulator" for the tanking practice, though I do know at least some guys do acrobatics in it but how long did it take to make that model?

Refueling isn't a small part of modern combat. Everyone has their own priorities, but I don't think wake turbulence is something to sweep aside.

Especially interesting for me in the video is that it's not just for the tanker, which for some reason I thought was the case before. If all aircraft are going to experience it, then it can play a part in dogfighting and airport operations.

It is though not really used especially in MP, missiles and visibility though are used far more often and as such imo should be the main focus. Not that this wake turbulence is not nice but still bigger issues that need to be addressed.

It is though not really used especially in MP, missiles and visibility though are used far more often and as such imo should be the main focus. Not that this wake turbulence is not nice but still bigger issues that need to be addressed.

That was kind of my point. You already have AAR in game, and it was reasonably well done prior to the turbulence. You have a mostly joke EW system, issues with spotting, issues with missiles, issues with damage models, problems with sensor modeling etc. And someone makes the call to add wake turbulence? I dunno, I get that everyone has priorities, but really? Maybe it was an easy thing to do.

You people will literally bitch about anything.

You people will literally bitch about anything.

^^^^ this. They said this was done because people begged and begged for it for years and years. Soooooooo.

Yo-Yo should be proud, the wake turbulence is a thing of beauty

@NineLine

I’m sure it’s hard for them to see that hard work being under appreciated. Hopefully they see past that and know there are a vast amount of us that have our minds blown each and every day because of their works of art. I was extremely impressed with that video, and all things DCS really. The vocal minority do not represent the silent majority!

The vocal minority do not represent the silent majority!

I guess we'll never know that for sure.

Maybe a survey implemented in the games UI might help in getting a proper assessment of the playerbase. Their wishes and problems. If a customer oriented approach is wanted that is.

NineLine will you avoid/escape to answer our community forever ?

Side note, those vortex turublences are amazing, would be awesome if the whole atmospheric system could be as developed and multiplayer compatible. Is that in the to do list even for later ?

If all you see here is a little more challenging tanking practices, well then I feel sad for you.

 

Yo-Yo does FMs, and this falls within this realm, he doesn't do sensor modelling (quite the broad term but ok), he doesn't do DM programming(a very advanced and complex DM is being worked on right now). Anyways, you are right, we shared something really cool that is once again pushing the boundaries of the FMs in a flight sim, but there are other issues so we should just not share this kind of stuff.

 

I should add that the passion that everyone on this team has for this work is incredible, Yo-Yo was extremely excited to show this off, anyone that appreciates flight and getting closer to reality would be excited as well.

 

I know I should focus on the positive, but it sucks when I know these guys come and read this, and are totally dismissive of their efforts. Sure, I know, you paid for it, and you want what you want. But its tough to ride along with the "We want progress!!" 'Here you go." "No not that progress, other progress!!".

 

 

 

This is the FM guy, he doesnt do weapons and visibility, should we ask him to go on vacation till other things are where you think they should be?

 

You know you have expressed what you think is wrong, I responded to it many times, now, its time to let it go. At least in this thread.

Don't cry for me 9L :)

And I do appreciate that it goes beyond tanking, like I said the aero guys must be beyond the moon with this, and it does have some impact on dogfights so I'm happy. And since he is an FM guy maybe he can take a look at the missile FM's and all the bitching that's being done about them (not by me incidentally). I just hope you guys have some nerdy glasses wearing dude that's just as passionate about radar and EW techniques. And a different guy that gets excited about diurnal cycles, and germanium lenses.

Also, have you guys considered something like "tiger teams" to more rapidly address some of these player concerns?

Concur!

@NineLine

I’m sure it’s hard for them to see that hard work being under appreciated. Hopefully they see past that and know there are a vast amount of us that have our minds blown each and every day because of their works of art. I was extremely impressed with that video, and all things DCS really. The vocal minority do not represent the silent majority!

Well said. I fully support this and I also think that this video clip is the clear proof that ED strives for the best.

Since the early days of Flanker and then through Lock On and DCS development the teams and people have done a tremendous job in getting us the best flight simulator out there.

I understand that in the era of the Internet and always-on attitude, many people are eager to play multiplayer, and features that not necessarily work for them are something that they don't like or don't appreciate.

To me, simulations were always a single-player thing and I am passionate about this wake turbulence and other features coming to DCS (new or improved) such as AI dogfighting logic and advanced damage model.

Thank you, ED for your effort!

I guess we'll never know that for sure.

Maybe a survey implemented in the games UI might help in getting a proper assessment of the playerbase. Their wishes and problems. If a customer oriented approach is wanted that is.

That's why a good tracking list with limited voting function could really help for the community to express their demand and giving ED a clearer understanding of the community's opinions base on statistics instead of advocators:

Issue tracking list:
Issue ------------ Priority ------------ Upvote (for login user only)
#1, xxxxxx         Low                      3          [button: upvote]
#2, xxxxxx         High                     323        [button: upvote]
#3, xxxxxx         Medium                   67         [button: upvote]
...............

Wishitem tracking list:
Wish item-------- Priority ------------ Upvote (for login user only)
#1, xxxx             Low                      233        [button: upvote]
#2, xxxx             Medium                   455        [button: upvote]
......

And by all means, ED can keep its own secret workitem list for those modules/features that ED and its devs are not comfortable to share with the community.

Recently I started my own server, fly with a great bunch of guys in military jets that we could never fly in real life, and do all this over the net in real time with pilots on both sides of the Atlantic. That alone is enough for me. In other words...THANKYOU Eagle Dynamics, 9-line, wags, and the whole bunch. You guys do great work. I am amazed at what we have every time I fly.

And another thing, I am also amazed at the regularity with which we get updates. I agree with the OP in that I wish we had more info on what's coming. But I think ED is communicating just fine. Keep up the good work.

Recently I started my own server, fly with a great bunch of guys in military jets that we could never fly in real life, and do all this over the net in real time with pilots on both sides of the Atlantic. That alone is enough for me. In other words...THANKYOU Eagle Dynamics, 9-line, wags, and the whole bunch. You guys do great work. I am amazed at what we have every time I fly.

 

And another thing, I am also amazed at the regularity with which we get updates. I agree with the OP in that I wish we had more info on what's coming. But I think ED is communicating just fine. Keep up the good work.

+100

Thank you ED.

You are great.

Almost every night I have fun like crazy, with DCS.

You are at the top, good luck for the rest

One thing people will never understand is that a development team is made of "sub-teams" that work on different stuff.

Flight models team is not going to be pulling resources from damage modeling work, just as well as the damage modeling team is not going to benefit from the graphics team doing or not doing something. Each team has their own resources and each and every one of said resources is most likely 100% focused on something within the respective team.

Great job Yo-Yo, the simulation just got to a whole new level with the wake turbulence simulation. Just taking off from a busy airbase now is challenging and needs you to be on top of your game for the proper procedures and separations. And thanks for the very cool video showing off this feature in a more "easy to understand way".

It's why saying this or that sim does this, so should DCS, well there is a lot more going on under the hood than most if not all of those other sims.

The problem is that this is a fairly one-sided and single-minded way of painting the issue — it only addresses a small portion of where and when people make that kind of comparison. What you may be somewhat true for the simulation part of the game, but that's not all there is to DCS. DCS is also a game and as such it has a ton of gaming elements where such comparisons are not only apt and constructive, but also the best source of inspiration you could possibly get.

It was mentioned earlier that when offering examples to emulate, they should be real or based on real data. That works for things likes physics or flight systems, but what about UI and UX? In those cases other games — not even in the same genre — are those real examples; they provide the real data. ED does not have the huge apparatus for interaction research that behemoths like Valve or Actiblizzard or MS do. As such, it would be rather foolish to just dismiss the research data that comes out of those efforts with the hand-wave “DCS is its own thing” because in many aspects, it simply isn't. Scripting logic, AI behaviour, best practices in UI design, good editor design, remote control features, networked gameplay and the network security that comes with it — they're all areas where the supposed uniqueness of the flight simulation is not a factor because there are universal truths to the matter that have nothing to do with the simulation.

If someone comes along and offers the argument “in game X, missiles Y behaves like Z and it feels much better so you should do that”, then fair enough, you can say that real-world performance data suggests otherwise so no, you won't be doing that (and also please stop bringing up game X). But if someone instead says “in game X, the unit editor for Y behaves like Z and it feels much better so you should do that” then that counter-argument no longer works. Suddenly, that game comparison is real-world data; game X might actually be the gold standard for editor UX to strive for. Not mentioning it would be giving up the best example of and inspiration for what you really want to do.

This will increasingly become an issue as you venture in all the decorative and world-enlivening aspects that surround the simulation part of the sim: things like dynamic campaigns, improved ATC, weather, visibility, and AI behaviours, where there are multiple gold standards that you can't just dismiss. Rather, these are areas where you'll need to figure out a way for people to offer examples and discuss improvements based on existing implementations, where the question is simply one of how (not if) DCS should implement comparable — or even pretty much exactly the same — things without falling afoul of moderation, because if these examples can't be brought up, your efforts and the end result will actually suffer from it.

The argument that game comparison brings out the trolls in people still remains, and that's also fair enough, but it still doesn't disqualify those games or those comparisons as valid and even uniquely valuable sources of data — it just makes the signal-to-noise ratio annoyingly low.

But the point is that with the exception of the UI outside of the simulation, there is no gold standard to be compared to. The other games may mimic things like weather, visibility, spotting, and ATC while DCS is trying to create the AI to actually simulate real life. They aren’t simply writing code that says if you are behind another plane make it bumpy. No, they simulate the actual particle behavior that takes into account all the parameters of the given situation and under human control are not likely able to be reproduced again because it’s dynamic and factors everything that’s happening in the sim at that time. They are trying to simulate weather to real life. Factoring in temp terrain wind humidity etc. Not just mimicking what weather may or may not look like. I don’t know of any game that does this and so how can there be a gold standard? It’s not ever been done before so there is nothing to compare it too.

But the point is that with the exception of the UI outside of the simulation, there is no gold standard to be compared to. The other games may mimic things like weather, visibility, spotting, and ATC while DCS is trying to create the AI to actually simulate real life.

Other games simulate those things to the same standard — in many cases higher — than what's in DCS currently, and even what's on the horizon. AI, in particular, is an area where there are so many good examples of what DCS should (and shouldn't) strive for that it would be completely self-defeating not to discuss and draw on the observations and lessons from those examples.

Also, just to explain why this particular example raises my hackles, you need to be careful with that “simulate real life” goal. There are two meanings to it: one is “simulate real-life conditions and procedures”; another is “simulate real life” — hyphens and intonations make a world of difference. The former is what all simulators strive for; the latter is just a horribly bad idea, and again, there are plenty of examples that would illustrate why. I've seen so many cases where the latter is being demanded or theory-crafted as a solution where the former would be infinitely better that, these days, seeing that particular phrase immediately triggers a Marge Simpson growl-of-disapproval. :D

I don’t know of any game that does this and so how can there be a gold standard?

Another problem is that we don't know well enough what ED are doing to discuss it in any informed manner without resorting to pure theorycrafting. Another comparison would horribly illustrate where this leads… It all comes full circle to that issue of openness with information, code, and plans.

Both issues just leads to exactly this situation: you can throw out any kind of unsourced claim about how DCS is the bestest ever, but no-one is allowed to actually help improve them game by showing that, no, it has some ways to go. This kind of enforced insular blindness and single-mindedness to the conversation is never good. I fully sympathise with the effort of having to moderate the fan-wars that often ensue, but I'm far from convinced that this type of badness is worse than the type of badness that comes from stifled and circumscribed discussions.

The actual problem is of course some people just don't have any respect regarding ED's choice not wanting/allowing to discuss other sims, and/or other choices ED makes or have made in the past.