dcs of distractions

[naturestrike]

I know this is a shot in the dark and will make 0 difference but I want to get it off my chest anyways. DCS could have been 10 times the sim it is, if it was planned right from the beginning.

 

There is no reason to have 4 trainer aircrafts with such an incomplete sim. Even in real life the point of trainer aircrafts is the price/experience to run a real one. BUT this is a sim! I'd rather have my F-14 right away and crash it a million times as i learn. It makes no sense to have F-15, SU-27 modelled at FC3 levels, and have WW2 aircraft fully clickable. It doesn't even make sense to have WW2 in DCS yet. PERIOD. you really need to establish the infrastructure and modern aircrafts first, YOU are the only ones in the modern fighter jet business. IL-2 is available if people need their WW2 fix, but DCS is the one and only for modern fighters. If anything WW2 aircrafts are all about the dogfights, ballistics etc so it makes sense to have it like IL-2 level inside the cockpit. Fighters on the other hand need a fully clickable cockpit because of the complexity required in dealing with the systems.

 

Also your company has reached a size where it's almost inexcusable the amount of delays(due to stuff mentioned above most likely, and causing community jokes "TWO WEEKS"), the prices, the communication/transparency with customers about how far products are, and lastly the prices. In any product, as you go through many iterations and learning processes the level of complexity/quality increases or the time/price decreases. It saddens me that the A10C was released 5.5 years ago, and it trumps almost everything that has come out since. We expect the quality to go up ( and if that is impossible to do DCS world limitations that is understandable), but at least the price, and time between products should be drastically decreased as you learn the ropes with every new aircraft.

 

So for my wish, i hope you get to work on what i view as the important stuff for a modern combat simulator. Like a dynamic campaign (available in falcon for ages, I'm positive one can be made that is order of magnitudes better than theirs), Modern aircrafts(f16s rafale, f-35 :P or WHATEVER you guys can get your hands on for the public), and finally new MODERN conflict maps to match the aircrafts. Thank you for reading this and I'd love to hear what I'm missing out on or not seeing correctly. Also, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this.

Edited December 4, 2016 by naturestrike

[razo+r]

For modules: Everybody is free to buy his own module, so you don't really have to care about what you don't want to have, DCS is like a sandbox, where 3rd party devs can develop and implement their stuff

 

Delay: I got ya with the delays, but in the end, you shouldn't expect too much with release dates or announces, unless they announce to release a module.ED is maybe a bigger bussiness, but not as big as AAA developers, so they have to hold the release date and give the product out, they don't care about too much bugs, they have to release it then and no but. ED has time, and if they don't feel comfortable with it, they won't release it.

 

For the prize: you should understand, every own module needed it's own technique and development time, so prize will depends on complexity and if there are a lot of infos available, and you can still wait for a sale and don't have to pay the full prize for a module you want, or use their bonus system.

 

Dynamic campaigns are hard to code, so don't expect that too soon

 

modern planes are highly classified, so other than guessing you can't model and simulate them

 

Maps will come, two more weeks :P

[naturestrike]

First thank you a bunch for your reply. The point I'm trying to make is probably ED working on WW2 etc IS one of the huge reasons for all of the mentioned above. Prices, time, content, and not working on the real complex important projects like dynamic campaign for example. But just my two cents :D i'd love to hear other thoughts on this.

[BIGNEWY]

I know this is a shot in the dark and will make 0 difference but I want to get it off my chest anyways. DCS could have been 10 times the sim it is, if it was planned right from the beginning.

 

There is no reason to have 4 trainer aircrafts with such an incomplete sim. Even in real life the point of trainer aircrafts is the price/experience to run a real one. BUT this is a sim! I'd rather have my F-14 right away and crash it a million times as i learn. It makes no sense to have F-15, SU-27 modelled at FC3 levels, and have WW2 aircraft fully clickable. It doesn't even make sense to have WW2 in DCS yet. PERIOD. you really need to establish the infrastructure and modern aircrafts first, YOU are the only ones in the modern fighter jet business. IL-2 is available if people need their WW2 fix, but DCS is the one and only for modern fighters. If anything WW2 aircrafts are all about the dogfights, ballistics etc so it makes sense to have it like IL-2 level inside the cockpit. Fighters on the other hand need a fully clickable cockpit because of the complexity required in dealing with the systems.

 

developing aircraft for DCS takes time, many third parties who were new to DCS created trainers, each trainer has its own role to fill, it also gave the devs the opportunity to learn DCS from the inside. You do not have to own them, so I do not see the problem, same for the WW2 stuff.

 

A different team is working on WW2 and does not effect other aircraft

 

Also your company has reached a size where it's almost inexcusable the amount of delays(due to stuff mentioned above most likely, and causing community jokes "TWO WEEKS"), the prices, the communication/transparency with customers about how far products are, and lastly the prices. In any product, as you go through many iterations and learning processes the level of complexity/quality increases or the time/price decreases. It saddens me that the A10C was released 5.5 years ago, and it trumps almost everything that has come out since. We expect the quality to go up ( and if that is impossible to do DCS world limitations that is understandable), but at least the price, and time between products should be drastically decreased as you learn the ropes with every new aircraft.

 

do you know the size of ED? I read somewhere it was around 55 employees, That may have change since I saw that, the point is it is not a huge company, but they are a dedicated team, developing as close to real life aircraft takes time, it is that simple

 

So for my wish, i hope you get to work on what i view as the important stuff for a modern combat simulator. Like a dynamic campaign (available in falcon for ages, I'm positive one can be made that is order of magnitudes better than theirs), Modern aircrafts(f16s rafale, f-35 :P or WHATEVER you guys can get your hands on for the public), and finally new MODERN conflict maps to match the aircrafts. Thank you for reading this and I'd love to hear what I'm missing out on or not seeing correctly. Also, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this.

 

everybody has a wish list, get in line :)

Edited December 4, 2016 by BIGNEWY

[Ala12Rv-watermanpc]

I think more or less the same as OP about WWII aircrafts and I have already write about it in these forums. I think DCS should be totally focused on "modern" (jet engines) planes or at least no WWII planes as there are other sims out there about them (in fact almost ALL other sims)...but I understand people who like WWII and also understand that ED wants to be present in that product market...but as I said, it would be soooo nice to get "soon" more and more modern combat 60's/70's/80's planes...:music_whistling:

[naturestrike]

"developing aircraft for DCS takes time, many third parties who were new to DCS created trainers, each trainer has its own role to fill, it also gave the devs the opportunity to learn DCS from the inside. You do not have to own them, so I do not see the problem, same for the WW2 stuff." Not sure how you do that quote thing :p But I 100% agree with you, and I made sure to do that myself. Vote with my wallet. I encourage all customers to do so even if it's hard and boring to wait for only a new "legitimate" release. <3 which for me are Razbam Harrier, Leatherneck Viggen and F-14, and lastly if real the VEAO eurofighter

Edited December 4, 2016 by naturestrike

[myHelljumper]

I love to have warbird in DCS. You should take time to read the forum a bit, there are a lot of things that answer you questions.

 

I hope you understand that everyone doesn't agree with you and some are very pleased with the way ED manage DCS(like me :smartass:).

 

Last thing, the game is free and ED provide free updates so I'm very pleased with the module prices.

 

Edit : A lot of people like the trainers for what they are so they are not "illegitimate".

Edited December 4, 2016 by myHelljumper

[Art-J]

To OP - a bit of a beating the dead horse here, with the same arguments being repeated numerous times during last two years, not quite more relevant than before, but if it's for getting things off the chest, well, good for You :D.

 

I'd say ED needs money to develop more stuff, especially more complicated stuff. And for that they need more, new customers. From my perspective, they wouldn't have got my money if it wasn't for WWII and Korean War planes, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who became ED customer because of these (I ended up even purchasing some "modern" stuff like MiG-21, Nevada and L-39). Also, only non-WWII player would say the Il-2 series is enough for "WWII fix". Those who play this stuff will say the series is not even close to being "enough" for obvious (at least to me) reasons.

 

So I'd say that's a good, general, long-term plan on ED part allright. The question whether they have sufficient manpower to pull off the big sandbox-sim idea is another problem altogether, and this is where I can agree with You.

 

As for the trainers, ED made only one and stopped there. The rest are 3rd party projects and 3rd parties can develop whatever they want for whatever reasons they have, no matter if the content is relevant or not. Just like in FSX/P3D addon-makers community. ED itself doesn't loose anything here, but does get some extra profit from licensing.

 

ED's pricing policy has been a bit of a mess for two last years, and I'd say it's a result of three factors: a) we're a only a part of their business, next to commercial software solutions for non-entertainment customers, and we don't even know how important part; b) they're monopolists on modern A/C PC sim market; c) they're a Russian company and anyone who's been playing RU-developed games since late '90s knows devs from there have a rather... let's say peculiar standards of communication and support. Not much we can do about it, though "voting with the wallet" does work a little every now and then (We've got the Mi-8 out of beta after 3 years and two months, haven't we? :D).

[naturestrike]

Awesome! It's great to see these comments and see where people agree and disagree.

[Coxy_99]

ED will never get there hands on an F-35 not in this life time anyway so forget it.................

[naturestrike]

ED will never get there hands on an F-35 not in this life time anyway so forget it.................

 

haha the f-35 was a joke. My actual point is just to scramble after the latest fighters/bombers/transport with enough information available to the public to make an honest study sim of it.

[Coxy_99]

Most of the modules in dcs are de classified anyway so there data is pretty much true to real life.

[Buzzles]

tl;dr:

OP doesn't like trainers or WWII, and wishes to see other aircraft developed along his views instead.

 

Doesn't matter what anyone else wants or likes, or what the developers can provide or why they've chosen to do certain planes first. Also it's not being done fast enough.

 

So, basically it's another one of those posts you see every couple of weeks.

[naturestrike]

None of what i said implies I don't care what people want, I messaged the guy talking about ww2 birds hoping he enjoys them to the max when they're out. I'm talking about priorities here bud.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

What's the 4th trainer? I'm counting L-39, C-101, and Hawk. Or are you counting the L-39C and ZA separately?

[grunf]

What's the 4th trainer? I'm counting L-39, C-101, and Hawk. Or are you counting the L-39C and ZA separately?

He probably meant TF-51.

 

To the OP, I strongly agree with the one thing you said: need for dynamic campaign! As for the rest, the others have said it all. :D

[Yurgon]

I think it's a rather fluid development, and I see this as a very positive thing.

 

Plans don't always work out the way they were laid out. Problems get in the way. A sudden demand arises.

 

E.g., independent modules require a common ground for multiplayer compatibility. Players of the older aircraft want that same MP compatibility as well. Entire cockpits have to be reworked in order to get this done.

 

New projects emerge (DCS WWII, NTTR) that show a huge load of promise, and then for whatever reason are either abandoned or turn out to require many times the work that was previously anticipated.

 

With new terrains arriving, they require a common terrain engine, leading up to even more behind the scenes programming that looks like little progress is made, while the team is actually hard at work.

 

The way DCS has evolved over the past couple of years has actually exceeded my expectations. We got a new graphics engine *for free* that provided a massive performance improvement for modern PCs. The old Caucasus Map is being overhauled as we speak, to my knowledge once again intended as a *free* upgrade.

 

I'll never get why some people focus on what they think doesn't make sense (WWII, NTTR, trainers, you name it) while completely excluding the upside.

 

All that behind-the-scenes stuff doesn't pay itself.

 

Yes, there is a lot of work to be done, and everyone has features they'd prioritize higher than others, but with what we've got and with all the stuff that's coming, I think DCS is totally awesome the way it is, and much of what's in the pipeline sounds incredibly promising. In the meantime, we have to live with some of the shortcomings, but that really is a small price to pay for this fluid development IMO.

 

TL;DR: the old "glass is half empty/glass is half full" story. :noexpression:

[naturestrike]

Oh don't get me wrong Yurgon. I think DCS is AMAZING one of a kind and they have done tremendous stuff like you just stated. The things i said just are merely to accelerate the what I believe to a be a the baseline infrastructure for all these great things. I would LOVE to have ww2, trainers, etc you name it, but after the things i stated. :p I just believe base DCS is "incomplete" without some stuff like dynamic campaign and more modern fighters. Afterwards though, should be expanded for sure.

[BIGNEWY]

None of what i said implies I don't care what people want, I messaged the guy talking about ww2 birds hoping he enjoys them to the max when they're out. I'm talking about priorities here bud.

 

but you are talking about your own priorities, ED have the whole picture to consider, so their priorities will be different from a personal perspective :)

[naturestrike]

but you are talking about your own priorities, ED have the whole picture to consider, so their priorities will be different from a personal perspective :)

 

Agreed, just wish i knew their thought process. Their communication isn't the greatest in the world as stated before.

[Silver_Dragon]

modern fighters require extended develop time, military licences, IP approval and expenses to reach them.

 

A dynamic campaign has only a feature into a gargantuan To-Do list on DCS: World develop, not a "priority". That require a extended research, build appropriate milestones on air, ground and sea environment, appropriate OPFOR units and enemies, testing to build a real battlefield, IA, and big long etc. No only a pseudo-campaign to kill the time (the "old" dynamics campaign has not a reference).

Edited December 4, 2016 by Silver_Dragon

[naturestrike]

Also I wanted to mention, this but it's kinda unrelated. But what is the actual story about the ww2 map? I heard it was started on gofundme by people and it failed, then ED took over (even though it wasn't their responsibility to deal with it). Just wanna know the actual story out of curiosity.

[BIGNEWY]

Agreed, just wish i knew their thought process. Their communication isn't the greatest in the world as stated before.

 

ED know from experience to only give info about the closest to release projects, if they give to much to early and there are delays some members of the community don't handle it well, either way ED can not win, so best to stick to what is working for them.

[Silver_Dragon]

Also I wanted to mention, this but it's kinda unrelated. But what is the actual story about the ww2 map? I heard it was started on gofundme by people and it failed, then ED took over (even though it wasn't their responsibility to deal with it). Just wanna know the actual story out of curiosity.

 

The WW2 Kick-started was a success and founded, but RRG Studios fail to complete the work, ED recovery the work and great part of RRG team (include on ED team) and continue that in honor all KS founders, to complete them (today at 60-75% complete).

 

KickStarted page:

 

ED WW2 Related FAQ:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=126824

[David OC]

Oh don't get me wrong Yurgon. I think DCS is AMAZING one of a kind and they have done tremendous stuff like you just stated. The things i said just are merely to accelerate the what I believe to a be a the baseline infrastructure for all these great things. I would LOVE to have ww2, trainers, etc you name it, but after the things i stated. :p I just believe base DCS is "incomplete" without some stuff like dynamic campaign and more modern fighters. Afterwards though, should be expanded for sure.

 

DCS has only real 3D ballistic battles in real time like steel beasts; DCS is good enough to be on the ground in a tank. This limits the playable area size and unit numbers tho for DCS and has no pretend chess playing war bubble to hide the large battles. The military would need and want to create very specific training and scripting suits that, not pretend behind the scene PC battles.

 

Dynamic campaigns are not easy to do ask MicroProse, you can't because it didn't workout for them to well.

 

Perhaps ED or 3rd party will do a Dynamic campaign for DCS? ED is better structured to potentially cover the cost in building one perhaps?

 

Quote below from the developer of steel Beasts so you get an idea of the work money involved.

 

"BMS, had a head start of more than 11 million USD that Microprose sunk into the engine's development.

 

I'm not the least diminishishing the accomplishment of the people that worked on Falcon after Microprose went bust - the very same people make up for 80% of the current Steel Beasts programmers' team - by saying that they built the BMS pyramid on the top of a very tall mountain that Microprose bulldozed into the landscape."