Skins Wishlist

[Mike Busutil]

So I am thinking...

 

There are a lot of skins available for all of the different modules and it would be nice if it was possible that the auto update included all available uploaded skins.

 

It pretty much sucks not being able to see the custom skins others are flying unless I also have that same skin downloaded and installed.

 

Some MP servers have custom skins available to fly but unless we have that particular skin already installed the aircraft will not load the custom skin and instead choose a basic default skin...

 

For example: If the auto update included a "Skin package" of all skins available from "User files" from the DCS website, everyone who flies online will be able to see each person's custom skin.

 

If you don't want the extra files you can delete any skins you don't want.

[joey45]

a community livery patch??

[NineLine]

We need something like iRacing has: http://www.tradingpaints.com/page/About

[cichlidfan]

Have you thought about how big that download would be, and that not everyone flies, or uses, every aircraft? I have at least 10GB of non-stock skins for DCS and there are several aircraft that I have no additional skins for.

 

ROF has addtional downloads available just for added skins. They total over 30GB currently.

Edited April 3, 2014 by cichlidfan

[NineLine]

Have you thought about how big that download would be, and that not everyone flies, or uses, every aircraft? I have at least 10GB of non-stock skins for DCS and there are several aircraft that I have no additional skins for.

 

ROF has addtional downloads available just for added skins. They total over 30GB currently.

 

That is what is nice about the iRacing solution, you can download by series or group, you dont have to download 1000 skins just to get the 20 you might be racing against... least that is how it used to be a few years back when I used it.

[SharpeXB]

The system currently used in DCS has many problems. It's time consuming and many of the skin installs have difficult instructions and edits to your configuration files. Many of those instructions are out of date. I've had skin installs cause problems with the game, crashes and even lost control settings. The consequence of this difficult system is that skin making isn't very active, there aren't many available compared to other sims.

 

The biggest drawback of the current system is it won't be able to easily handle the larger number of skins as DCS grows, particularly the addition of WWII 1944. That era is skintastic! I can easily imagine aircraft like the 109 having the potential for hundreds of skins. It will be impossibly difficult to keep current with the ever increasing number and the time it takes to install them.

 

I think an RoF style system would be great for DCS. In RoF the skins are submitted to the developer and then made available in packs. That way all the users easily get a large number of very high quality skins. Everyone has the same so they can appear in multiplayer. They have guaranteed compatability with the game. Part of the submission format is a thumbnail image which appears in the game menu. The skins are sorted into historical and fantasy packs. This system doesn't hamper the effort of skin creation. Actually it encourages it since artists know their work will appear in the game vs being lost on some forum or elsewhere.

 

Absolutely a system like this will be needed to handle the growth coming to DCSW

[Home Fries]

I think a free subscription system like Steam Workshop would be a great compromise. Subscriptions could be tied to your ED account. Skins could be assigned to one or more groups (e.g. by plane, era, nation, service) and people who subscribe to a group could either use an external update app, or the updater could parse for subscription updates on startup. Then mission designers could tell people to subscribe to such and such a skinpack rather than linking each individual custom skin.

 

This way, you would get simplicity along with a 3rd party baseline of skins for use in missions, and people would also get real-time updates courtesy of the updater.

[Panthro]

Would be great to have all these skins but I see it would need to be looked at very closely and perhaps managed in terms of HD space etc.

[SharpeXB]

Yeah, I have 15.7 GB of skins for Rise of Flight and I've only downloaded the historical ones. But the point is there are more than can even be counted and WWI is a niche sim. If DCS: WWII gets rolling I can imagine the load would be more than the current system can handle. There are already over a 100 for the P-51D.

There needs to be an automatic game update to load them and they need to appear on the GUI so you can see what they look like.